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

For HP fans: HP 85 + HP 7970 + HP 2631 demo

by curiousmarc3＠gmail.com

In case you had not seen it already. I finally managed to control my big HP 7970E 9-track tape and my HP 2631G dot matrix from the little HP 85 that could. Hey, they all talk the same HP-IB after all (well, not really but close enough). Here is the resulting demo of this odd 1970's trio: https://youtu.be/YS9dGYUbNd0 Marc

10 years, 3 months

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Programming

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Ian S. King > so much for running that on my PDP-11/20 If you have an actual 11/20, you should be ecstatic! ;-) Noel

10 years, 3 months

8
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11/73 into 11/03 chassis?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Jacob Ritorto > Can I tear apart my little BA23 .. and put the Micro/PDP-11 backplane > .. into the spot that my 11/03 backplane currently occupies and run it > via the (working) stock 11/03 power supply? > ... > Specifically, would I have to butcher power and clock lines to do this, > or is it all plug compatible? I'm not absolutely sure exactly what you have that's holding the '11/03 backplane'; if it's a standard BA11-M enclosure, the answer, sadly, is 'no'. The BA-23 uses the H9278-A backplane and H7864 power supply; the BA11-M uses the H9270-A and H780 backplane. The power connections between the first two are completely different from the latter pair; the first uses a long, single-width Molex-type connector, the latter uses bare wire ends to a terminal block on the backplane. Also, the H9270-A is a four-slot backplane, and the H9278-A (an eight-slot) almost certainly will not physically fit into the space for the former. If your '11/03 backplane' is a different kind of backplane, in some other kind of box (e.g. BA11-N or BA11-S), the answer, sadly, is still 'no', because they both also use terminal blocks for power. (Although if you have a BA11-S, you'd already be set, those are Q22 native.) Really, it's not that hard to upgrade an H9270-A (or the H9273-A in a BA11-N) to Q22 (I have done several of the latter); the transplant you speak of (were it possible) is on the same order of magnitude of work. Noel PS: In dragging my BA23 out to look at it, it dawned on me that I will probably never, ever use it - I now have several BA11-N/S boxes, and prefer them. (I don't need to run the later disks that need the BA23.) So if someone is interested in the either the BA23, or the spare H7864 I have for it, please let me know. I'll let either go for my original cost plus shipping.

10 years, 3 months

4
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Good memory board for Heath H-11?

by rich.cini＠verizon.net

All ? I picked-up a Heath H-11 machine the other day and it has a single 4kw memory board. From my prior experiences with DEC (an 11/34a many years ago; now at the RI Computer Museum), I know my way around the field guide?but I?m having trouble trying to identify the correct module number suitable for the LSI-11 CPU. Even though it?s a Heath machine, I assume it?s module compatible with DEC. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks! Rich -- Rich Cini Collector of Classic Computers Build Master and lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator http://www.classiccmp.org/cini http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32

10 years, 3 months

2
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11/73 into 11/03 chassis?

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

I have an 11/73 card in one of my video editing systems... does this mean I can give my H-11 more balls? In a message dated 2/9/2016 11:36:30 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, jacob.ritorto at gmail.com writes: On Tue, Feb 9, 2016 at 11:27 AM, Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote: > > > I'm not absolutely sure exactly what you have that's holding the '11/03 > backplane'; if it's a standard BA11-M enclosure, the answer, sadly, is > 'no'. > [...] > If your '11/03 backplane' is a different kind of backplane, in some other > kind > of box (e.g. BA11-N or BA11-S), the answer, sadly, is still 'no', because > they > both also use terminal blocks for power. (Although if you have a BA11-S, > you'd > already be set, those are Q22 native.) > > OK, now that I know what I'm looking for, my target options here are: Chassis: BA11-N and "OBA11-R" (an expansion box) Backplanes currently in these chassis are: H9273 and H9273-A Power supplies are all H786. > Really, it's not that hard to upgrade an H9270-A (or the H9273-A in a > BA11-N) > to Q22 (I have done several of the latter); the transplant you speak of > (were > it possible) is on the same order of magnitude of work. > > Noel > So, since grafting in the Micro backplane would involve butcher work, I'm now wholeheartedly convinced that I should be moving to your setup with the BA11-N/S boxes, Noel. And I'm sold on the Q-22 backplane conversion (despite failing the first time I tried it years ago). Going to study what prints I have, review previous advice and go for it. Thank you for all the tips and hand-holding! --jake

10 years, 3 months

1
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6502 CPUs

by allanh-cctalk3＠kallisti.com

On Mon, 08 Feb 2016 at 18:46:13 +0000, Adrian Graham wrote: > Having had another bit of CBM kit with a failed CPU I'm wondering where you > lovely US folk get your spares from since ebay seems a bit ridiculous for > replacements at ukp8 a pop being the lowest price. They're surely not THAT > valuable? The first place I always check for things like that is Anchor Electronics (anchor-electronics.com). I see that they don't list the 6502, but they do have the 6502B for $4.95. I have no idea whether they ship outside the US or not. The second place I check is Jameco, and someone else already posted that they have them. allan -- Allan N. Hessenflow allanh at kallisti.com

10 years, 3 months

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The PDP11/04 has landed..

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Henk Gooijen > you need some some components to generate the AC LO and DC LO signals. > The 11/04 needs them. You could also do what I did on an off-brand LSI-11 chassis I had, whose power supply was working (producing good +5V/+12V), but whose power control board (to generate AC/DC OK signals) wasn't working - and I didn't have a circuit diagram for it. So I was lazy, and cheated: I disconnected the control board connection to the backplane, and the pull-up termination resistors brought the AC/DC lines up to their 'OK' state! :-) I don't _recommend_ this, but it does work! If you do this, probably best to power on the machine with the HALT switch asserted, so it doesn't try to run while the power is still coming on! :-) Noel

10 years, 3 months

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The PDP11/04 has landed..

by jdr_use＠bluewin.ch

Yesterday I picked up the PDP11/04 that Jay mentioned a few days ago. Less than 15 miles from home ! The machine spend its early days as a processor in chemical analysis apparatus, and was subsequently bought by the employee using it. Before he could make use of it better, more powerful, easier to use machines came along and the -11 spend the next 30 years in a garage. The -04 is an entry level machine, and the cards inside match this : M7263 KD11 CPU 2 x M7264 16K DRAM cards M7856 DL11 SLU/RTC M7846 RX01 controller 2 x M7814 DZ11-F and of course the M9301, M9302 and M9202. Alas it has just the simple 2-switch frontpanel. The machine also had the battery backup option, and the lead/acid batteries will celebrate their 40th birthday next year ! Better not try to charge them.... Overall the machine is in very good condition, both CPU and RX01, and it is packed in a very nice half-height rack with the red PDP11 bezel at the top. Pictures next week when the machine is cleaned and reassembled, restoration is to start next winter, after a house move which will nearly double working area for the hobby. Many thanks to Roland for preserving the machine, and to Jay for acting as an interface ! Jos

10 years, 3 months

13
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2.9.1 BSD on 11/34 + sc21-bm + fujitsu m2333k

by jacob.ritorto＠gmail.com

Exciting stuff for a Friday night, right? Here's a visual aid in case you're needing further inspiration: https://www.instagram.com/p/_K-zHhHvLn78Qu5ijWqMf-HBem1LKMLaEdI1c0/ The M2333K is the smaller one on the left with the green and yellow lights on. I'm booting from rl0, which contains the tuhs 2.9.1 rl02 image I wrote with vtserver earlier. I want to use my nice, roomy smd disk so I can pull in all the sources and recompile stuff and I've managed to get this *so* close to working but I'm getting xp0a: hard error bn xxxx cs2=1100 <MXF, IR> er1=0 on every single block when I try to mkfs /dev/xp0a 4800 This disk was working fine years ago via MSCP attached to the 11/73 (before I lost the Micro/11 power supply). Anyway, I referred to http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/emulex/SC2151001-CC_SC21tech_Jan87.p… to set the emulation on the Emulex card for two rm03s and they're showing up in xxdp's zrmlb1 formatter, though they won't format there, screensful of errors. I think I set the m2333k to 32 sectors, per this manual: http://manx.classiccmp.org/collections/antonio/chrisq/B03P-4760-0101A_-_M23… Because XXDP is reputed to be really strict, I figured that was normal and then tried the Emulex on-board formatting procedure against both xp0 and xp4 and they formatted perfectly without error. Guess the Emulex on-board stuff doesn't bother verifying much? So I think that maybe I've misunderstood the hard sectoring / sector sizing thing. Does anyone remember the gist of it and would you be able to describe? Do you see any other mistakes? thx jake

10 years, 3 months

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6502 CPUs

by witchy＠binarydinosaurs.co.uk

2nd go, apologies if another version of this arrives but I sent it from a non-list address so it might not get through with the emergency moderation going on. Hi folks, Having had another bit of CBM kit with a failed CPU I'm wondering where you lovely US folk get your spares from since ebay seems a bit ridiculous for replacements at ukp8 a pop being the lowest price. They're surely not THAT valuable? I know Mouser have got the 're-released' WDC 65C02 which I may end up going for since for 10 they're as low as ukp4.37, but don't us collectors have bundles of spares? Funny when I think of the number of BBC Micros that have been tossed over the years.... -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection?

10 years, 3 months

4
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AIX 4.1-capable box

by BHuntsman＠mail2.cu-portland.edu

Hi there! Does anyone on here do much with RS/6000 boxes? I'm looking for a 7009-C10, 7011-250, or (mostly) PCI-based 7012 system capable of running AIX 4.1. By any chance, anyone have such a system that they'd be willing to sell? Thanks much!! -Ben

10 years, 3 months

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PRM-85 board case?

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

Rumor has it that one or more people have designed and 3d-printed cases for their HP-85 PRM-85 boards. Anyone have any of those cases available? I'd like to get my PRM-85 a proper case :) Best, J

10 years, 3 months

3
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Free TK50 Tapes for Postage and Handling

by leec2124＠gmail.com

Five untested TK50 tapes available for postage and from 94025. Two have no labels, the remainder have the following: VMS 5.1-1 Maintenance Update OD/OT Drivers for VMS 4.x 20-MAR-89 CZTK1D0 MICRO-11 CUST TK50 Please reply off-list if you'd like. -- Lee Courtney

10 years, 3 months

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Solid state recommendations

by bryan＠bceassociates.com

Hi all I have the following gear in my stable: - Sun Blade 100 - SGI O2 - VAXstation 3100 - AlphaStation 500 - HP C3700 I would like to start eliminating spinning SCSI drives from these boxes for noise, heat and capacity reasons. Could you kind folks recommend a solution? I've seen SCSI to CF converters advertised but I didn't know if there was one kind over another that people have been successful with or if there is a totally different approach I should be considering. Thanks, Bryan

10 years, 3 months

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MEM11 update

by ggs＠shiresoft.com

Just wanted to let folks know where I am with respect to the MEM11 project. I had decided to take a break from writing J1 code and updating the simulator to actually work on the hardware. To make things easy for myself, I decided to use my FPGA eval board and build a daughter board with CPLDs and other parts (FRAMs, etc) so that I could have another vehicle for validating the J1 code. This should also be a fairly simple board to build and I could focus on functionality (and test points) rather than trying to make it fit into an SPC form factor. I wrote a lot of the Verilog code for the CPLDs and quickly found out that my partitioning wouldn?t fit in any reasonably sized CPLDs. Even with some additional re-partitioning, it was touchy as to if it would fit (changing a couple of lines of Verilog code caused the design to no longer fit). I went back and thought about the problem and decided that the easiest thing to do would be to create a non-SPC formfactor board that was SW & HW functionally correct. So, I?ve been working on writing all of the code to fit in an FPGA. One advantage is that I could re-use a lot of the code that I wrote for the CPLDs. Last night I managed to get a reasonably clean synthesis of the design. The only thing missing is the UNIBUS code (which I hadn?t written yet). It fits easily into the FPGA that I?ve chosen (a Xilinx Spartan 3-E 500). By going this route, I?ve discovered some incorrect assumptions that I?ve made in terms of how the HW will appear to the J1 code. So I have to update the simulator to match this and the relevant J1 code. So, things are moving forward. I also wanted to get folk's opinion on the need to actually produce an SBC form factor board. In other words (and sort of in line with how peripherals were done on the original 11/20) is it OK to have the MEM11 be outside of the 11/20 chassis and connect via BC11A (my replica) cables? I wanted to put that out, because it may require a fair amount of work to make everything fit into an SPC form factor. That?s assuming of course that the power requirements for the MEM11 can be fulfilled by a single SPC slot. One of the things that I can do with the ?prototype? is actually measure the incoming power. I?m hoping that it will but in the worst case, it may require splitting the MEM11 functionality across multiple boards. TTFN - Guy

10 years, 3 months

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MEM11 update

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Guy Sotomayor > I also wanted to get folk's opinion on the need to actually produce an > S[P]C form factor board. ... is it OK to have the MEM11 be outside of > the 11/20 chassis and connect via BC11A (my replica) cables? Well, that's going to up the cost; for some people, that might be an issue. Also, I dunno if there are people out there with table-top 11/15's-20's (they did exist BITD, I worked with a table-top one), but for them, an additional box might be a hassle too. > That's assuming of course that the power requirements for the MEM11 > can be fulfilled by a single SPC slot. ... in the worst case, it may > require splitting the MEM11 functionality across multiple boards. I guess I don't see the harm in making it two SPC (quad) boards? A flat cable or two to connect across (I dunno how extensive the interconnect requirements between the halves would be, and I have forgotten what the inter-slot interconnect capabilities of an SPC backplane are - ISTR that it has some bussing on the F section pins) would be easy and cheap. Noel

10 years, 3 months

3
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Programming

by c.murray.mccullough＠gmail.com

There is the software side to classic computing: Back in the early days we wrote/coded in BASIC-TinyBASIC running in 2K(talk about writing efficient code!); EASY and SmallFORTRAN. What apps/programs are written in today I don?t know. They certainly can?t run in 2 or 4 K but is the outcome the same ? make a computer or computer-like machine do what we want it to. On the lighter side: ?Computers can never completely replace humans. They may become capable of artificial intelligence(much in the news today), but they will never master real stupidity.? Happy computing all. Murray :)

10 years, 3 months

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386 upgrade board

by starbase89＠gmail.com

Greetings! I have a Televideo luggable that I have been playing with. Its a 10MHz 286 with a meg of RAM, 2 360k drives and four expansion slots. I've been trying to figure out how capable I can make this machine for the hell of it. Did anyone make an upgrade kit to go from a 286 to a 386? It would be interesting to get this thing going with that, a Hard Card and an ethernet card, somewhat capable of doing some modern tasks. Thanks! Joe <https://www.avast.com/sig-email> This email has been sent from a virus-free computer protected by Avast. www.avast.com <https://www.avast.com/sig-email> <#DDB4FAA8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>

10 years, 3 months

3
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NiCd battery replacement in vintage computers

by nf6x＠nf6x.net

Today I discovered that I hadn't replaced the NiCd battery in time in my Amiga 3000. Pictures: https://twitter.com/nf6x/status/696042894939979776 https://twitter.com/nf6x/status/696050264306921472 https://twitter.com/nf6x/status/696065578977472512 It's a fairly typical 3.6V 60mAH 3-cell NiCd pack, 16mm diameter x 18mm long, polarized with 2 pins on the positive end and 1 pin on the negative end. In the past I have usually replaced these sorts of batteries with new ones of the same type. This time, I'm thinking of at least installing a remote holder. Not only to prevent further PCB damage in the future, but also to make the battery easier to replace. Lots of screws need to come out to extract an A3000 motherboard: https://twitter.com/nf6x/status/696047816938946560 While I begin to figure out how I'd like to perform this repair, I'm curious about what others have decided to do in similar circumstances. Many options come to mind: * Solder in the same kind of NiCd pack to keep things original. * Solder in a supercap instead. * Reconfigure the circuit to use a non-rechargeable lithium coin cell in a holder instead. I don't think I've seen one of those leak before. * Yet some other remote battery option. -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net> http://www.nf6x.net/

10 years, 3 months

10
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6502 CPUs

by witchy＠binarydinosaurs.co.uk

Hi folks, Having had another bit of CBM kit with a failed CPU I'm wondering where you lovely US folk get your spares from since ebay seems a bit ridiculous for replacements at ukp8 a pop being the lowest price. They're surely not THAT valuable? I know Mouser have got the 're-released' WDC 65C02 which I may end up going for since for 10 they're as low as ukp4.37, but don't us collectors have bundles of spares? Funny when I think of the number of BBC Micros that have been tossed over the years.... -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection?

10 years, 3 months

1
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Master index of ICL / 3R PERQ software?

by nw＠retrocomputingtasmania.com

Has anyone made a list of all the known software for the PERQ? I'm on the hunt for a rumoured port of VAX ML (written in Pascal) to the PERQ at Edinburgh. thanks.

10 years, 3 months

2
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Tired of EVERYTHING with a gear being called STEAMPUNK? Yikes I am...

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

Tired of EVERYTHING with a gear being called STEAMPUNK? Yikes I am... This fun and creative video pretty much sums things up! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFCuE5rHbPA Enjoy - Ed#

10 years, 3 months

3
2
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Help with getting an original Altai running: 8080A clock circuitry and MITS88 2-SIO board

by robo58＠optonline.net

Hi Folks, I'm looking for some insights in getting an original Altair running again. My buddy asked for my help getting his Altair running again. He went through and replaced all the electrolytic caps, cleaned up everything and then tried to get the MITS 88 2-SIO board to run a simple echo program. It wouldn't work and now I have the Altair, I've been looking it over for about a week and I've noticed the following. 1). The 2Mhz base oscillator circuit will not reliably start up when it's hot. It's perfect when cool. 2). The original MITS 2-phase clock circuit was modified. The 74123 was replaced with a 74221 along with RC changes. 3). The MITS 2-SIO card has two Motorola 6850 ACIA's that don't seem to do what their data sheets say they should be doing. Some questions for you. (I've searched for insights on these topics and information is scarce). a). Was the Altair known for hot start issue(s) ? If so are their tried and true fixes? b). Going to a 74221 appears to be an excellent move. The RC changes were prompted by that move. There is no longer an RC delay circuit from phase 0 to phase 1, which appears to make sense. I don't see one-shots as a wise clocking design choice but my buddy wants to stay with it. Are their tried and true fixes here? c). I hand assembled some code to exercise the 6850. I know it has a software reset and then you set attributes. I tried my buddies echo program. It looks for a received character and then echo's it. I'm using a laptop and PuTTy along with an RS-232 breakout box. I can see characters going in but nothing coming out. The 6850 appears to drive the bus for a finite amount of time and then turn off its drivers. I don't have any experience with the part and I don't know if that's the way it's supposed to work or that the Altair has a bus timing issue. Any thoughts on what I'm seeing and suggestions/fixes ? Thanks Robo

10 years, 3 months

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Tired of EVERYTHING with a gear being called STEAMPUNK? Yikes I am...

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

I am very envious of the animators skills on those singing people in the still portraits.. Heh is there any easy way to do this? Ed# In a message dated 2/7/2016 1:13:03 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, pete at dunnington.plus.com writes: On 07/02/2016 17:50, COURYHOUSE at aol.com wrote: > > Tired of EVERYTHING with a gear being called STEAMPUNK? Yikes I am... > This fun and creative video pretty much sums things up! > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFCuE5rHbPA Epic! -- Pete

10 years, 3 months

1
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Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS

by bqt＠softjar.se

Well, about two weeks since my last announcement, but I figured I should do another one. I've cut a new release of TCP/IP for RSX, and I encourage everyone to update to this latest release. A short list of changes since my last release: Documentation: . I've worked some on the documentation, and filled out some parts that were previously TBD. TCP: . Performance improvements. In general, I've improved file transfer performance by about 20% by tuning when TCP ACK messages as well as window updates are sent. On links where packets are dropped from time to time, the performance improvements can be significantly higher. . Bugfix. Retry counter were incorrectly reset under some circumstances. . Bugfix. TCP did not resend an ACK if the same data was received twice. . Bugfix. TCP sockets could erronously be left in a closed state with no task. However, looking at the socket, it looked like a task was associated. FTP: . Size calculation for stream type files in RSX mode was done incorrectly. Applications: . I've included a precompiled version of PCL.TSK As usual, the distribution is available from: ftp://mim.update.uu.se/bqtcp.dsk ftp://mim.update.uu.se/bqtcp.tap ftp://ftp.update.uu.se/pub/pdp11/rsx/tcpip/tcpip.dsk The documentation is also available through ftp on Mim, or also at http://mim.update.uu.se/tcpipdoc Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

10 years, 3 months

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Oddball floppies for trade - 8", HS (outer edge), weird cutout

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

I have two "flippy organizers" (that's around 20 floppies each) full of these oddball floppies. Picture at https://www.flickr.com/photos/131070638 at N02/22020178558/in/dateposted/ They are 8", hard sectored, and the sectors are on the outer edge rather than the hub, and there is an odd cutout on one edge that goes inside the drive. I know I don't have a machine that uses these, so they are available for trade. J

10 years, 3 months

9
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Calibration of 8" floppy drive?

by james＠attfield.co.uk

> Date: Sat, 6 Feb 2016 00:46:33 -0500 > From: Dan K <100dashsix at gmail.com> > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Subject: Re: Calibration of 8" floppy drive? > Message-ID: > <CAAQ+N0XNG=NnWGRnt8oxN4WeXTuoLCXPO9BQRn9oaSjZfVNW > 5A at mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 > > Are there any good alternative solutions I can do to replace it? I'm > sure I don't want the plastic touching the disk media. > > -Dan Seems like eons since I learned to align PerSci 299B's with Dysan alignment disks and 'cat's eyes' on a 'scope :) I echo the other sentiments here - do NOT undo or unscrew anything relating to head positions especially involving allen (hex) screws unless you have a 'scope, an alignment disk, a very good quality set of hex screwdrivers (keys will normally NOT suffice) and a modicum of experience. Granted, lead screw single-headers are a little easier to do than voice-coil double-headers but if you don't have to get into it then don't - explore all other options first. I'm afraid my TM-848's are double headers so the top head provides the pressure but back when the drives were single headed felt pads did the job of the second head. The tension was provided by the spring, the pad just prevented scoring. I do NOT speak from experience BUT if I had to use anything the kind of small felt pads you can get from hardware stores (e.g. B&Q in the UK) seem remarkably similar in composition and would be worth a try especially if you have one original to compare. Cut to shape, most are self-adhesive too - bonus. HTH James

10 years, 3 months

2
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Farewell and thanks!

by snhirsch＠gmail.com

I've finally had my fill of the general grumpiness and bluntly worded interactions on this list. Over the years I have learned a lot and would like to particularly express my thanks to Tony Duell, Fred Cisin and Chuck Guzis for being unfailingly polite and very forthcoming with technical advice. --

10 years, 3 months

10
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Mosaic 4.0 for openVMS

by rlloken＠telus.net

Gentlemen, I stumbled across a reference to Mosaic 4.0 for VMS dated 2006. I ran Mosaic on my VMS workstation around 1994 and had abandoned it long ago first for Netscape 3.0.3 and later for Seamonkey. I did not know that there was any development on Mosaic in recent decades I found Seamonkey to be glacially slow on AlphaServer 4100 "desktop" and so I have not attempted to do much web browsing on VMS in recent years. So... Is Mosaic 4.0 useful in 2016? Is it more useful than Seamonkey? Netscape? AFAIR, HP had a port of Firefox to IA64 VMS but not to Alpha, has anybody been so burdened with spare time that they have attempted to port firefox to Alpha or VAX VMS? Or any other web browser? I hope to attempt a port of the heritage version of nroff/troff to VMS some time in the next couple years (I think groff would be much more difficult). But that is a differant subject. -- Richard Loken VE6BSV, Systems Programmer - VMS : "...underneath those Athabasca University : tuques we wear, our Athabasca, Alberta Canada : heads are naked!" ** rlloken at telus.net ** : - Arthur Black

10 years, 3 months

3
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Calibration of 8" floppy drive?

by 100dashsix＠gmail.com

I have two intermittently functional 8" floppy drives that I debugged to the best of my ability, and as far as I've been able to tell their problems must be limited to the circuitry that deals with the actual magnetic interface with the disk. The intercommunication seems normal and the head load solenoids fire, but after that the drive often aborts the process, presumably because it wasn't able to read data properly. I think the signal for reading the disk-rotation hole even fires correctly. The drives are Siemens FDD 100-8 drives used in an S-100 bus system, and controlled by a Jade "Double D" disk controller. The machine was in a functional state when stored, and I have known-good copies of disks that I've been able to boot from at least a few times. (Unless the drives somehow damaged them.) Can someone knowledgeable about 8" floppy drives share information about how these things were serviced and maintained, and what sort of procedures were required to test and calibrate them? Information I've picked up through osmosis leads me to believe that there's a floppy disk with a special pattern on it, and you use specialized test equipment to check the flux off the head and dial it into proper settings. I suspect there the drive has trim pots or similar that allow for this. So, how do you deal with your 8" drives, and what do you do when they don't work? Thanks, Dan

10 years, 3 months

8
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emergency moderation mode RE: Virtualizing AIX 1.3 - WAS::::Re: AIX for IBM PS/2

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

I had already turned on emergency moderation mode to try and stem the tide of this escalating further. I had also already emailed a few people off-list about this, which is primarily how it should be handled. Those who should have been corrected... were. Quietly. I'm rather tired of (a very few) people commenting "oh, this list is so much smaller than other forums" or "there's such a low SNRatio here" or "Everyone here is unfriendly (or things like that)". Screw all of that. I submit that while this list may be small, it has the best content and expertise, far better than others (I've looked). I submit that while the SNRatio gets off track once in a great while, I've seen that happen elsewhere, and at least as often if not more. Perhaps some should use their technical expertise to study the function of the "delete" key. Quite frankly I don't think it happens here all that often. Unfriendly? Perhaps there are a few that are brisque at times. On the one hand - Guess what... that's life. In any crowd there's always a few grumpy old men (of which I am one - especially at the moment), and socially well-adjusted people should learn how to deal with it and get along. On the other hand - That doesn't mean I don't correct those that need correcting (and I did) .. but I really don't need to hear the whining. It seems that there are one or two people that state they don't want to participate because of one or more of the above... yet they stay here solely to voice that opinion. Odd. J

10 years, 3 months

5
4
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IBM 5100 - APL Only Version on Ebay

by wayne.smith＠charter.net

There is an APL-only IBM 5100 up on Ebay. Had known that these were supposedly made, but have never seen one before. Looks a bit rough, but based on the pictures boots to the "CLEAR WS" screen. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-IBM-5100-Portable-Computer-Powers-On-/ 321999141713

10 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

VCF West is BACK ... woohoo!

by barythrin＠gmail.com

Great to hear! EK2 should make it a successfully revival.? Sellam, you helping for fun too or happily still basking in the glory of making your goal of VCF X? Glad its back though. The more the merrier for all regions to enjoy. - John <div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: Evan Koblentz <cctalk at snarc.net> </div><div>Date:02/05/2016 4:21 PM (GMT-06:00) </div><div>To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> </div><div>Subject: VCF West is BACK ... woohoo! </div><div> </div>Mark your calendars: Vintage Computer Festival West is back! August 6-7 this year at the Computer History Museum (Mountain View, Calif., just like before). We * just * signed the contract today. I'll email again when we have the web site ready and stuff. Primary organizer out there will be Erik Klein.

10 years, 3 months

1
0
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VCF West is BACK ... woohoo!

by cctalk＠snarc.net

Mark your calendars: Vintage Computer Festival West is back! August 6-7 this year at the Computer History Museum (Mountain View, Calif., just like before). We * just * signed the contract today. I'll email again when we have the web site ready and stuff. Primary organizer out there will be Erik Klein.

10 years, 3 months

5
4
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New Scans: HP Micro-Computer Interest Group

by silent700＠gmail.com

Hello all - I have uploaded some new documents related to an employee club at Hewlett Packard that sought to explore these new "micro-computers" and, given the evidence at hand, design their own (apparently a Z80-based CPU card of their own design, an S-100 backplane and an HP case.) The story as I know it is incomplete and I'm sure more details will be filled in soon by those who were there. The documents were lent to me for scanning by the daughter of an HP employee. I'll be returning them to her soon; I believe she will be offering them to CHM as a donation. http://chiclassiccomp.org/docs/index.php?dir=%2Fcomputing%2FHP/HPMCIG The docs are divided into directories as follows: Micro Minutes: 30 issues of the newsletter of the Hewlett-Packard Micro-Computer Interest Group, various dates between 1979 and 1983. Some issues undated. Non-HP_Docs: Documents from other vendors that were likely used by the club. I'll place them in their own vendor directories also but I thought leaving copies here help give us an idea of what the club was working with or discussing at the time Club_Notes: Emails, memos, handwritten notes, receipts and other club-related ephemera I thought it spoke well of HP as a company at that time that they supported an employee hobbyist organization. Enjoy digging through a unique bit of early Silicon Valley history. -j -- silent700.blogspot.com Retrocomputing and collecting in the Chicago area: http://chiclassiccomp.org

10 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

Looking for a file

by bryan＠bceassociates.com

Does anyone out there have access to an HP-UX 11.x system? I am looking for a ROM image file for the FX-e video card to help me write an OpenBSD frame buffer driver for this platform. Thanks, Bryan

10 years, 3 months

1
0
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Looking for Heathkit H11 manuals

by rich.cini＠verizon.net

All ? Does anyone know of an on-line archive of Heathkit manuals pertaining to the H11 (LSI-11) Heathkit computer? I haven?t been able to produce much that?s useful from Googling, so I thought I?d ask. Let me know. Thanks! Rich -- Rich Cini Collector of Classic Computers Build Master and lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator http://www.classiccmp.org/cini http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32

10 years, 3 months

4
7
0 0

Bull DPX/2 and B.O.S. help wanted.

by pontus＠Update.UU.SE

Hi I'm trying to boot a Bull DPX/2 and got stuck waiting for NFS to do something, at least that is what I believe. Is there anyone on the list with B.O.S experience that could help me bring the sytem up under some kind of single user environment without network. I have a OS install kit with bootable floppies and I managed to get a prompt using the "boot_unix" floppy and following the manuals that I have. However, not even "ls" would work from this prompt, only "cat". (You are supposed to enter "os_install", but I don't want to mess up the existing installtion. /P

10 years, 3 months

6
8
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Virtualizing AIX 1.3 - WAS::::Re: AIX for IBM PS/2

by cruff＠ruffspot.net

>> https://sites.google.com/site/rhdisk0/unix/aix/aixps2 <https://sites.google.com/site/rhdisk0/unix/aix/aixps2> > > Is anyone else having issues with that URL? I get a quick flash of a > legitimate web page before the browser fills up with ASCII garbage. No, it loaded fine on my browser.

10 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

Mystery system

by mloewen＠cpumagic.scol.pa.us

I'm trying to identify a system which appeared in "The Killer Elite" (1975), with a room full of tape drives and a couple of terminals: http://q7.neurotica.com/killer-1.png http://q7.neurotica.com/killer-2.png http://q7.neurotica.com/killer-6.png http://q7.neurotica.com/killer-9.png The drives appear to be IBM 3420s, but with an additional box on top, labeled "SMS". The system itself doesn't appear in any of the shots. Some sort of IBM 370, perhaps? Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/

10 years, 3 months

8
13
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pdp 11/04 and dual pdp 11/73

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

The "PDP-11/04 and floppy disk" I posted already was claimed by a listmember. But after the fact, the owner sent me a picture. The listmember who is getting it is getting a pretty nice system. One of the dec mid-height cabinets that has the sloped front at the top. RX02 at the top, 11/04 under that, and dec filler panels. Nice DEC magenta insignia on the slope at the top front. Very nice. Also - the dual 11/73 rack system has been claimed by another list member. Best, J

10 years, 3 months

1
0
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DEC Dual 1173 cpu with rack available

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

I received the following this morning.... ------ I recently acquired a pdp11/73 with dual CPUs and am looking to sell it. Would you know anyone interested. I would like this to survive and wish to find it a good home. I live In Massachusetts. ------ The person also gave me a picture, which I posted (temporarily) at http://www.ezwind.net/pdp1173/ This particular machine is too new for my tastes, but the dual cpu (and status panel) is rather unusual. If anyone is interested, please email me off-list and I'll forward the contact details. Best, J

10 years, 3 months

4
3
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StackExchange retrocomputing forum

by lproven＠gmail.com

This now has enough followers to move on to the next stage of the approvals process -- gathering enough example questions... http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/94441/ -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R)

10 years, 3 months

1
0
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HP 9815

by pdaguytom＠gmail.com

I recently picked up an HP 9815s ( was originally an 'a' model but was upgraded with an 's' cpu board and the option 002 i/o long before me), that displays the "---------------" when turned on. I've scrounged through Google and learned that this particular display is generated by the display board when it has nothing else better to do to direct its attention. After checking that the power supply was putting out the recommended voltages and chasing the +5v around the cpu board and puzzling that for a bit, I've checked for activity at the cpu and found no voltage at all being applied at Vcc the cpu. I've been studying Tony Duell's schematic for the 9815(thank you Mr. Duell), but have not found a reason why this voltage might not be present. Is Vcc switched somewhere? I done some meager sleuthing of the traces around the 6800 and think I chased Vcc to a transistor close by, but need to investigate further this weekend. Anyone chased this type of failure on the 9815 or traced out wether this Vcc is applied at power on or switched by some logic at the power supply board? Puzzled, but determined, Tom

10 years, 3 months

2
2
0 0

Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?

by radiotest＠juno.com

At 09:25 AM 2/4/2016, Liam Proven wrote: >A fair point, but then, one is not going to use MS-DOS to browse the Web in 2016, right? In my world it is impossible for any one computer to do everything that I need to do with a computer, thus my five active PCs and many spares, plus old stuff like my CP/M machines in my personal museum. I don't use an MS-DOS machine to browse, and I don't use an NT-series-OS machine to run MS-DOS programs that need UART register access that NT does not allow. Dale H. Cook, Roanoke/Lynchburg, VA Osborne 1 / Kaypro 4-84 / Kaypro 1 / Amstrad PPC-640 http://plymouthcolony.net/starcity/radios/index.html

10 years, 3 months

2
1
0 0

.IMD diskette image file recovery

by james.h.simpson＠gmail.com

Is there a utility that will read .IMD diskette archive files and recover the data? I've found a wealth of BigBoard & BigBoard II data (and lots of other stuff too) on many different sites, all saved in .IMD format. Is it possible to read these files and recover the data instead of writing a floppy disk with DiskImage? Thanks, Jim Simpson

10 years, 3 months

7
8
0 0

Fw: new important message

by julian＠twinax.org

Hello! New message, please read <http://haruncetin.com/there.php?qcgav> julian at twinax.org

10 years, 3 months

3
2
0 0

NeXTstation booting, NetInfo, and NTP

by pete＠dunnington.plus.com

Yesterday I dug out my NexTstation (68040 25MHz slab with 32MB of 100ns SIMMs) which has OpenStep 4.2 for Mach installed. The lithium battery was flat and it wouldn't boot so I've ordered a replacement and temporarily kludged a pair of alkaline AAs to get it going. So far, so good, though it thinks today is September 6 2001 :-) Then I used SimpleNetworkStarter, set to "Use the network, but don't share administrative data". I've also edited /etc/hostconfig and reslv.conf to sensible values (eg TIME=-NO-) so it now boots quite quickly. Is there a way to disable NetInfo completely, and if so will things like DNS lookups still work? Is there an easy way to make it get its time/date settings from my NTP server? During startup it does claim to start netinfo, lookupd, ntpd (see below), then inetd, I have an SGI running IRIX which is my DHCP, DNS, and NTP server, and I plan to set up the NexT to use DHCP to get its IP address etc (it's static ATM). -- Pete

10 years, 3 months

2
1
0 0

that pdp-11/04 with floppy disks...

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

Delayed response, work has been busy. That deal was passed off to the first responder so it has likely been claimed. If that deal doesn't work out, I'll email the next person on the list :) But do not fret... I just see another user sent me an email today about wanting to get rid of a machine... will post that one shortly ;) J

10 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

OS help needed please

by trash80＠internode.on.net

Seems Windows 98 has got a few mentions on the list of late - must have just come into the "classic era". A while ago a good friend approached me as he wanted to get an old game up and running that he really likes - Recoil (might ring a bell with a few list folk) - wants the real experience, not the VM experience. I'd be happy to help him out anyway but he has thrown a few old machines at me from time to time rather than see them go to the tip so he definitely gets help. The game is quite particular and will only run on Win 98. I've resurrected a HP e-Vectra that I have (very nice little machine by the way) that has a serial on it for Win 98 SE but I really need the "actual" HP Recovery media for it as I'm having some dramas getting the right video and sound drivers for it. I've struck out at HP and have tried a few vendors that still list parts for this machine but no joy. Be most grateful if someone can help me out or point me somewhere please. Thank you!!! ++++++++++ Kevin Parker ++++++++++

10 years, 3 months

4
4
0 0

.IMD diskette image file recovery

by tony.nicholson＠computer.org

[Please excuse the lack of threading - I read cctalk in digest form.] On Wed, 3 Feb 2016, Jim Simpson wrote: > Is there a utility that will read .IMD diskette archive files and recover > the data? I've found a wealth of BigBoard & BigBoard II data (and lots of > other stuff too) on many different sites, all saved in .IMD format. Is it > possible to read these files and recover the data instead of writing a > floppy disk with DiskImage? Jim (and other cctalkers), Grab a copy of the SIMH Altairz80 simulator from http://schorn.ch/altair.html and the zip file of my cpmplus for the CompuPro Disk1 controller from the Other Operating systems link at http://schorn.ch/altair_5.php This supports IMD disks in BB II 1.4Mb (1024byte x 9 sector) format. You can attach the IMD file and use the "W" command to extract files to the host operating system - mini:cpmplus tony$ altairz80 cpm3bk Altair 8800 (Z80) simulator V4.0-0 Beta git commit id: 4ff1e317 LDRBIOS for SIMH System - V3.2-Y2K 01-AUG-2008 DISK1 8" boot floppy CPMLDR3 - CP/M V3.0 Loader Copyright (C) 1982, Digital Research BNKBIOS3 SPR FA00 0600 BNKBIOS3 SPR C600 1A00 RESBDOS3 SPR F400 0600 BNKBDOS3 SPR 9800 2E00 61K TPA CP/M Plus for SIMH System - V3.2-Y2K 06-AUG-2008 Banked memory CCP loads from A: and reloads from bank 0 DISK2 dual 20Mb M20 winchesters (A-F) DISK1 8" (I-L) [BB-II] floppies A>SETDEF * A: [ORDER=(COM,SUB) DISPLAY UK] Drive Search Path: 1st Drive - Default 2nd Drive - A: Search Order - COM, SUB Program Name Display - On Date format used - UK A> <CTRL-E> Simulation stopped, PC: 0FE8F (AND 02h) sim> att disk1a3 ../s100/BB2-011.IMD sim> go A>l: %FDDISK1 unit 3 is type BigBoard-II 1024x9 Read-Only L>dir L: BULLETIN : BYE COM : CALL-JAN PQN : COMMANDS HLP : DIR COM L: ELAPSED COM : HELP COM : HELP HLP : INFO : MAGAZINE HLP L: MBOOT ASM : NEWS : PAMSFEB1 0Q6 : PASSWORD COM : RBBS COM L: TYPE COM : USERDISK CQT : WHATSNEW HLP : XYAM COM : XYAMHELP T SYSTEM FILE(S) EXIST L>w A:W COM WRITE V-1.17 (01-Mar-08) SIMH Interface V004 Usage: WRITE <file name> [B|T] Copy <file name> to host environment. Default is text, B for binary, T for Text Examples WRITE BDOS.MAC copy BDOS.MAC as text file WRITE PIP.COM B copy PIP.COM as binary file WRITE PIP.COM copy PIP.COM as binary file [.COM .REL .DAT imply B] WRITE TEST.DAT T copy TEST.DAT as text file WRITE *.COM copy all files matching *.COM as binary files WRITE SRC/BDOS.MAC copy BDOS.MAC to directory SRC as a text file WRITE COM/*.COM B copy *.COM to directory COM as binary files L>w type.com b A:W COM WRITE V-1.17 (01-Mar-08) SIMH Interface V004 Write "TYPE.COM" to "TYPE.COM". 3.5kB written (Binary). If you need to support other CP/M disk formats, the BIOS source files and submit files to put them together are in the A1: directory on the hard disk image. There's also CP/M program to make IMD disk images natively under CP/M-Plus in A3: (it will span the IMD file across multiple floppies if the image file is too large). I used this to copy all my 8" floppies (including BB II ones) to IMD images. Tony -- Tony Nicholson <tony.nicholson at computer.org>

10 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

just for grins I took on of the SMECC e-machines out of back room and fired it up... yea Win 98 SE running just great! last time I used this particular old office system was '07! heh it has a 4 gig hardrive Ed# _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org) In a message dated 2/4/2016 11:53:40 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, radiotest at juno.com writes: At 11:08 AM 2/4/2016, Ethan O'Toole wrote: >If you're trying to bitbang the RS232 port to decode POCSAG or something perhaps. Not quite - this is not an asynchronous protocol, this is single-purpose software written decades ago to communicate with highly specialized hardware that is still in use. >If you're trying to use old Windows software in more modern versions of Windows ... Nope, these are MS-DOS apps that require access to the UART registers. Anyone who thinks that MS-DOS is dead and buried doesn't have to work with some of the vintage (but still in use) technology that I sometimes deal with at work. I am certain that there are many on this list whose vocations involve decades-old hardware that is still in use. Dale H. Cook, Roanoke/Lynchburg, VA Osborne 1 / Kaypro 4-84 / Kaypro 1 / Amstrad PPC-640 http://plymouthcolony.net/starcity/radios/index.html

10 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

Mentec manuals

by Paul_Koning＠Dell.com

I was looking back at the discussion on what Mentec actually owned, back when it existed. The discussion on the list suggested that Mentec had a license but did not actually own the IP. It seems an odd arrangement that doesn't say much for the business skills of those making it, but I suppose it's posssible. I found that there are some RSTS manuals at www.computinghistory.co.uk with Mentec cover pages. Among other things, a free for the download RSTS 10.1 internals manual, over 600 pages of good stuff. The cover has a Mentec logo but no other ownership clues. I was hoping to see the copyright page to find out whose name appears there. Unfortunately, the scan omits the copyright page. Does anyone have any manuals from Mentec? If yes, does it say "Copyright ... Mentec"? Or "Copyright ... someone else"? paul

10 years, 3 months

5
4
0 0

Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?

by radiotest＠juno.com

At 08:08 AM 2/4/2016, Liam Proven wrote: >But NT is a better OS in every important or material way. It is unusable in one important way. This thread began as a discussion of running serial port terminal emulators on a PC. At work I still use some MS-DOS programs (admittedly not terminal emulators) over serial ports. For my purposes (setting up a variety of vintage specialized hardware over RS-232) NT-based operating systems are sometimes unusable because they present the application program with a virtual serial port, and MS-DOS programs running under those operating systems cannot read from or write to the UART registers. Some of the setup programs for that vintage hardware were written before the mid-1990s and access the UART registers, so I have to run those under Win98 or earlier. I have a portable MS-DOS 3.3 machine that I use to set up that vintage hardware. Dale H. Cook, Roanoke/Lynchburg, VA Osborne 1 / Kaypro 4-84 / Kaypro 1 / Amstrad PPC-640 http://plymouthcolony.net/starcity/radios/index.html

10 years, 3 months

3
3
0 0

Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: CuriousMarc > Needless to say, you'd only boot to this Windows 98 for retro-computing > purposes. BTW, are you indicating that Win 98SE _in general_ should only be used for retro-computing, or only Win 98SE _in the particular configration you described_ should only be used that way? Because, if the latter, I happily use Win 98SE on most of my machines, for the vast majority of my work! Of course, I don't need to run the latest and greatest uSloth bloatware^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H applications, so they fact that they probably won't run on the older Windows (What a shock! You don't think they would by any chance want to encourage people to pay them a large pile of dineros for the latest and 'greatest' version of their OS, do you?) is not a problem for me. The biggest issue, actually, for me, is that the latest Adobe Reader which will run under Win 98SE is 6.0, and that doesn't support some of the latest PDF's (in particular, encrypted ones). Noel

10 years, 3 months

8
11
0 0

BC11A Cable ends

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Guy Sotomayor > When I have some time .. I'll fire up my 11/40 .. and then re-cable it > using cables with a pair of BC11A-T ends and some ribbon cable. I'll > run memory diagnostics on it for a while (I have 128KW of memory on it > split between two racks, so this should be a good test) and see how it > does Might be interesting to throw a 'scope on a line on each end of the cable, and see how things look after making it through the cable. Noel

10 years, 3 months

2
1
0 0

ISO: VAX-11/750

by derschjo＠gmail.com

So, I figure it's unlikely, but I've been jonesing for a "larger" VAX and I'd like to track down an 11/750 (or an 11/730). If anyone out there has one for sale trade (in any condition apart from "pile of slag"), let me know. I have DEC and various other gear for trade. Thanks as always! - Josh

10 years, 3 months

5
5
0 0

ISO: VAX-11/750

by jim＠deitygraveyard.com

On Feb 4, 2016 01:30, "Mark J. Blair" <nf6x at nf6x.net> wrote: > > > > On Feb 3, 2016, at 20:37, Lee Courtney <leec2124 at gmail.com> wrote: > > > > Date on the 730 notice is Aug 2009 - I suspect it is long gone by now. :-( > > Where do you see that? The listing states: > > "Status: Open 2/1/16 - 02/07/16 23:59:00" > Lee must have quickly glanced at the message and seen the join date of the author and thought it was the date of the message. I've done that a few times on vintage-computer.com. Jim

10 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

BC11A Cable ends

by ggs＠shiresoft.com

I just received the BC11A-T variant boards (the ribbon cables come out the ?top??yea not imaginative naming) this afternoon. I inserted a couple of the ribbon cable connectors on the board and everything looks great! When I have some time (probably in a couple of weeks) I?ll fire up my 11/40 (to make sure it?s still working after all of this time) and then re-cable it using cables with a pair of BC11A-T ends and some ribbon cable. I?ll run memory diagnostics on it for a while (I have 128KW of memory on it split between two racks, so this should be a good test) and see how it does vs with the ?standard? BC11A cables. TTFN - Guy

10 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

AIX for IBM system 370

by lyokoboy0＠gmail.com

I have been messing with the Hercules emulator, and have really been wanting to take a look at ibm AIX, and get a working install on an emulated system 370. I have found no mention of install media or disk images of a working system for download online. Is there a good place to get the install media?

10 years, 3 months

13
23
0 0

Tymnet Node processor

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

McDonnell Douglas dec 10 SPACELAB list? In a message dated 2/2/2016 10:47:44 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, jws at jwsss.com writes: I was talking to a former co-worker who worked for McDonnell Douglas Network Systems Company who owned Tymshare at one point, and he had a picture of a 1mb memory from one of the nodes. He passed along this link to the manual for the node processor. http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/tymshare/tymnet/NPD-604_Engine_Family _Maintainence_Print_Manual_Apr85.pdf Wondering if any survive and are working. It was a 64 bit microword, 32 bit data path TTL logic type machine, similar to one of the ones I worked on pre-bitslice days. Also wonder if the microcode survived. Date on the drawings was 1978 though this manual set is coded as April 1985. thanks Jim

10 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

Tymnet Node processor

by jws＠jwsss.com

I was talking to a former co-worker who worked for McDonnell Douglas Network Systems Company who owned Tymshare at one point, and he had a picture of a 1mb memory from one of the nodes. He passed along this link to the manual for the node processor. http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/tymshare/tymnet/NPD-604_Engine_Famil… Wondering if any survive and are working. It was a 64 bit microword, 32 bit data path TTL logic type machine, similar to one of the ones I worked on pre-bitslice days. Also wonder if the microcode survived. Date on the drawings was 1978 though this manual set is coded as April 1985. thanks Jim

10 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

PDP-8 chase the lights

by cctalk＠snarc.net

Our group here in NJ + surroundings now has monthly-ish repair workshops (vs. a few times per year before). At the workshop this past weekend, David Gesswein continued restoring our PDP-8. David summarized: "I fixed the known fault of accumulator bit going to zero when it was rotated left. This was a bad diode on one of the accumulator boards. I also replaced two bad bulbs and a third that died during the repair. Since one that died was one I previously replaced I'm going to use the not quite matching bulbs with heavier wires for future repairs. The wires are just too thinn on the 1762 bulbs and now that they have aged they break too easy. I then found that the teletype interface wasn't working and replaced a diode on a R220 to fix output. Input is not working properly. I have traced it to a particular flip flop on a R220 where when the data changes it feeds through to the output without the clock active. I ran out of time to identify the component that needs replacing." Here's a little video of the computer chasing its lights. :) http://www.vcfed.org/evan/pdp8lights.mp4

10 years, 3 months

2
2
0 0

Lot of 34 Transputers sold on ebay

by toby＠telegraphics.com.au

http://www.ebay.com/itm/151966095000 Did anyone we know buy them? Would be good to know they went to a good home. --Toby

10 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

PDP-11/84 (KDJ11-B) and Error 61

by jhfinedp3k＠compsys.to

>Ulrich Tagge wrote:Hi Glen, > [Snip] > > List/change parameters in the Setup table > > A - ANSI Video terminal (1) 0=No, 1=Yes = 1 > B - Power up 0=Dialog, (1)=Automatic, 2=ODT, 3=24 = 1 > C - Restart 0=Dialog, (1)=Automatic, 2=ODT, 3=24 = 1 > D - Ignore battery 0=No, 1=Yes = 0 > E - PMG 0-(7) 1=.4us, 2=.8, 3=1.6, 4=3.2,...7=25.6 = 7 > F - Disable clock CSR 0=No, 1=Yes = 0 > G - Force clock interrupts 0=No, 1=Yes = 0 > H - Clock 0=Power supply, 1=50Hz, 2=60Hz, 3=800Hz = 1 Does anyone have an idea as to how the choice of the 800Hz option was made? I could understand 1000Hz or perhaps 1200Hz which allows division by both 50 and 60. But 800Hz seems like such an unlikely value. On the other hand, on the PRO350, the clock rate was 64Hz and every 16 ticks, I assume that one tick was discarded so as to support the appearance of a 60 Hz clock. Jerome Fine

10 years, 3 months

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Pascal Microengine software images

by aek＠bitsavers.org

I successfully imaged OS revs E0, F0, F1, G0 and H0 of the Pascal Microengine from the original distribution media this morning with the application of cyclomethicone as Chuck suggested. I was worried since they were 79'ish vintage BASF media, but the lubrication did the trick and they read without errors. http://bitsavers.org/bits/WesternDigital/microengine_distributions_E0-H0.zip

10 years, 3 months

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PDP-8 chase the lights

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

THAT IS WHAT WE USED TO CALL THE CYLON EYE PROGRAM! eD# _WWW.SMECC.ORG_ (http://www.SMECC.ORG) In a message dated 2/2/2016 1:27:02 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at snarc.net writes: Our group here in NJ + surroundings now has monthly-ish repair workshops (vs. a few times per year before). At the workshop this past weekend, David Gesswein continued restoring our PDP-8. David summarized: "I fixed the known fault of accumulator bit going to zero when it was rotated left. This was a bad diode on one of the accumulator boards. I also replaced two bad bulbs and a third that died during the repair. Since one that died was one I previously replaced I'm going to use the not quite matching bulbs with heavier wires for future repairs. The wires are just too thinn on the 1762 bulbs and now that they have aged they break too easy. I then found that the teletype interface wasn't working and replaced a diode on a R220 to fix output. Input is not working properly. I have traced it to a particular flip flop on a R220 where when the data changes it feeds through to the output without the clock active. I ran out of time to identify the component that needs replacing." Here's a little video of the computer chasing its lights. :) http://www.vcfed.org/evan/pdp8lights.mp4

10 years, 3 months

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PDP-11/84 (KDJ11-B) and Error 61

by u.tagge＠gmx.de

Hi List, I have a working 11/84, and I have decidec, to test some of my spare cards, starting with: KDJ11-B. I see the following error, when powering up the system, which points me to the Clock. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Error 61 M8190 clock Error See troubleshooting documentation Command Description 1 Rerun test 2 Loop on test Type a command then press the RETURN key: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Any hints, what the problem could be? Is the clock in this new PDP's still generated out of the line frequency? Could it by, that the KDJ11-B is configured to a wrong HZ value? Many Greetings Ulrich

10 years, 3 months

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ISIS-II disks with PLM80 and ICE80 software.

by mattislind＠gmail.com

While browsing various 8 inch floppies I have found a couple of disks that seems to contain ISIS-II stuff. I discovered a document specifying the format of the disk and managed to extract the contents: Disk1: arbetsrumsdatorn:ISIS mattis_lind$ ls UNKN2 ATTRIB DSPERR ICE80.OV1 ISIS.LAB PLM80.OV0 PLMCOD.CSD COPY EDIT ICE80.OV2 ISIS.MAP PLM80.OV1 PLMNOC.CSD DELETE FORMAT ISIS.BIN ISIS.T0 PLM80.OV2 RENAME DIR ICE80 ISIS.CLI PLM80 PLM80.OV3 SUBMIT DSP ICE80.OV0 ISIS.DIR PLM80.LIB PLM80.OV4 SYSTEM.LIB Disk2: arbetsrumsdatorn:ISIS mattis_lind$ ls DISK2 ALIAS DEBUG EXEC LINK RELEAS TTY ALLOC DELETE FORMAT MDUP REMAP TXT ANALYZ DGEN FRAPP MEMDMP RENAME TXW ASM DIR HEXBIN MOVE RESCUE XREF ASSIGN DIRPAC INIT MYLOAD SEDIT ATTRIB DROP ISIS.DIR O SYS DCONVA DRSTC ISIS.ERR PAGE SYSTEM DCOPY EDIT ISIS.LAB PROM T2 DDUMC ETX ISIS.MAP RASM TPGEN If someone is interested in these I put them here: http://www.datormuseum.se/documentation-software/isis-ii-floppy-disks There were also a DSDD format on some disks which seemed a little bit different. The ISIS.DIR used 32 byte entries rather than 16 byte entries and the directory linkage block structure seemed to be different. I didn't spend any time other than recognize the difference. Is there any documentation that specify the various ISIS disk formats there is? /Mattis

10 years, 3 months

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Win98SE Update/Patches WAS: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Dale H. Cook > I have spare IDE drives for my 98SE laptops. Might want to drag them out once a year and run them, to prevent anything sticking over time. (I should take my own advice, here.... :-) Noel

10 years, 3 months

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USPS: Re: PDP-11/03, LSI-11 KEV11-C CIS option

by seefriek＠gmail.com

On Sun, 31 Jan 2016, Pete Lancashire wrote: >> On Sun, Jan 31, 2016 at 1:24 AM, Henk Gooijen <henk.gooijen at hotmail.com> wrote: >> >> Spend the extra few dollars (or what your currency is) and pack it in a >> very strong box. I've actually had EPROMs show up cracked in half > >Seconded. The machines the USPS uses for automated sorting of mail are not >gentle on parcels. > I'd rather strongly suggest you not us the USPS period. In the last 6 months or so they've flat out lost 4 items either destined to or shipped by me, and one item apparently (according to the tracking web site) sat in a sorting facility in Utah for nearly a month before magically showing up. Glad it wasn't perishable. KJ

10 years, 3 months

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HP Manuals - where's your sense of humor?

by Martin.Hepperle＠MH-AeroTools.de

While I was reading through the HP 200/300 BASIC Manual I came across some interesting points I hadn't considered in the past. I thought HP manuals were dry and hard to read, but I was wrong. See for yourself... Installing, Using, and Maintaining the BASIC 5.0 System ============================================= Loading BASIC, page 1-16 ------------------------------- If You See Nothing on the Monitor Screen Here are some possible explanations: - The monitor's brightness is not turned all the way up. - The monitor is not plugged in. - The computer is not plugged in. - Your eyes are not pointed in the right direction, or are obscured by your eyelids. Other Maintenance Tasks, page 17-1 -------------------------------------------- The following list mentions some things users take for granted or tend to forget. ... - ... - ... - Rotate your tires and otherwise examine your system to see that it is performing nicely. Maybe the author had a good friend in final quality control of the manuals. Martin

10 years, 3 months

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Last call: free machines in Sweden

by pontus＠Update.UU.SE

Hi My employer is moving house and need to clear out some old stuff. We have ported to many, many Unix systems over the years and have kept some of the machines. Available is: 1x IBM RS/6000 big and beige 1x Bull DPX/2 1x Concurrent Computer Corporation in rack 1x Sperry unix machine 1x NCR (same as above, other label) Possibly 1 VAX 4000 and possibly one Alphaserver 2000. Pickup only. We will remove hard drives since they contain source code. In a few weeks, this will be gone. A few pictures here: http://www.update.uu.se/~pontus/slask/jobb_vind/ Items are in Uppsala, Sweden. /P

10 years, 3 months

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Still wanted: Symbolics Gear

by lists＠loomcom.com

Hi folks, This is as always a tremendous long shot, but I figured I would put it out there anyway. I am still eagerly looking for any and all Symbolics systems. I know very well how rare these things are, and how much money they are worth. If you have any systems you would be willing to let go of, let's talk. I'm happy to entertain trades if that's something you're interested in, but I'm also happy just to pay fair market prices. For reference, I am located near Seattle, WA. Best Wishes, -Seth P.S.: I also know how difficult they are to care for and keep running! I'm all too familiar with dying ESDI drives and bad power supplies.

10 years, 3 months

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OT: Come watch me install Linux on the IBM z890 Mainframe!

by connork＠connorsdomain.com

Come one come all! Its the day of reckoning. I finally have some storage on loan from a company called Funsoft! Hopefully by the end of the night I will have Linux installed and a portal to the internet to which people can connect and play on it! http://www.twitch.tv/conmega -Connor Krukosky

10 years, 3 months

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Equipment Available, DEC

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

Just received an email from someone who has a PDP-11/04 with "Floppy Disk" looking for a good home. The machine is located in Switzerland. Please email me off-list if interested. J

10 years, 3 months

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Circuit Design Aids / Unix Circuit Design System

by mark.kahrs＠gmail.com

In the original Unix BSTJ of 1978 Sandy Fraser described a system he called "Circuit Design Aids". Schematic capture was done on a 4014 and conversion went all the way to wire wrap. CDA was rehabbed and rewritten by many people over the years. It became known as the Unix Circuit Design System (UCDS) and it was available from Bell Labs under a separate license as I recall. UCDS was used to design many projects including the 5620, Belle and others. When Plan9 arrived, UCDS was converted to Plan9 (not too hard...) and renamed back to CDA. The code was released in the first Plan9 CDROM. So. It occurred to me that I could back port it to Linux. I did so with help from H. Trickey and the Plan9 compatibility library. I put all of this code on https://github.com/kahrs/cda. The interested and curious can find it there. I make no promises about full functionality, however, it is available for those who want to tinker.

10 years, 3 months

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BA23 fan noise

by Mark＠Misty.com

Hi, I've been messing around with my PDP11/83 and a Microvax, both in BA23 boxes here. These fans make too much noise for my home office area, and I cannot possibly need the original airflow. Even with the internal jumper set for 10V to power the 12V rated fan motor, these are still noisy. It's not even just the noise of the air moving, but largely a whine from the fan motors. One box is worse than the other with the wine. I've unplugged the front fan, since instead of spinning drives I have solid state CF cards and SCSI converters -- no heat in the front of the box at all. I have some 24V fans in my junk box that fit and make almost no sound at 12V, but at half voltage might not move enough air to keep the power supply, CPU, memory, SCSI, and ethernet boards happy. My guess is so long as there is some air movement over the boards, the biggest issue of concern is cooling the power supply. Does anyone have any suggestions for figuring out how much airflow I actually need, and achieving it with either stock fans at further reduced voltage, or some kind of replacements? I don't need an accurate solution, or something with complicated compensation for varying temperature, just something quieter, moving less air, but still enough air. Mark -- Mark G. Thomas (Mark at Misty.com), KC3DRE

10 years, 3 months

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Vintage Computer Collectors - TV Special Inquiry (fwd)

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

Does anyone want to have their children exploited for profit and entertainment? "I'm currently Producing a show for TLC that features children who have a passion for collecting. I was wondering if you know any kids who have a sizable collection of vintage computers? If you can think of anyone who would be interested in appearing on our show, I would greatly appreciate it if you could connect me with their parents to discuss the show further." If anyone is interested e-mail me privately and I'll give you all the contact details for this producer. -- Sellam Abraham VintageTech ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintagetech.com Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. The truth is always simple. * * * NOTICE * * * Due to the insecure nature of the medium over which this message has been transmitted, no statement made in this writing may be considered reliable for any purpose either express or implied. The contents of this message are appropriate for entertainment and/or informational purposes only. The right of the people to be secure in their papers against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated.

10 years, 3 months

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PDP-11/03, LSI-11 KEV11-C CIS option

by spacewar＠gmail.com

Does anyone have a PDP-11/03 or LSI-11 with the KEV11-C CIS (Commercial Instruction Set) option? It may have also been known as DIS (Dibol Instruction Set). It apparently consists of two microcode ROM chips (MICROMs), 23-004B5 and 23-005B5. Last month I posted here about building a circuit to dump the contents of MICROMs: https://www.flickr.com/photos/22368471 at N04/albums/72157662054690240 I've dumped the base LSI-11 instruction set chips and the EIS/FIS chip. I've partially disassembled the former: https://github.com/brouhaha/lsi11uc and verified that the latter matches the EIS/FIS microcode source code provided with the KUV11 writable control store support software. I'd like to dump the CIS microcode ROMs as well. The resulting dump would be usable by anyone with a KUV11. I'm contemplating developing a MICROM replacement board, which would be useful for those without a KUV11. I've made more progress with the WD9000 Pascal Microengine microcode than the LSI-11 microcode because someone provided a photomicrograph of the CP2161 control chip and I was able to dump the PLAs. I should be getting a photomicrograph of the CP1621 control chip of the LSI-11 soon, and will be able to do the same for it.

10 years, 3 months

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Looking for Solaris 8 patches

by nf6x＠nf6x.net

I'm looking for a bunch of OS patches necessary to get Firefox 2 running under Solaris 8 on my Sun Ultra 60. The patch mirror I used previously appears to have dumped the Sun patches in 2014, and the only up to date references I've seen to Sun patches now appear to be locked behind an Oracle cu$tomer $upport login. Perhaps Oracle bludgeoned any open mirrors to death with stacks of C&D letters? Are there any open mirrors of old Solaris patches lurking out there? Or maybe somebody has a private stash of patches? The ones I need are these ones (or later versions): 108434-17 108435-17 108652-79 108773-18 109704-03 111721-04 114542-01 I have older versions of all but the last one already, which I fetched a few years ago. But the older versions won't allow Firefox 2 (which is the latest browser I've found for Solaris 8 so far) to run. I have Netscape 4.76 on the machine, which is too old to deal well with the modern web. I'm not sure how much better Firefox 2 will be, but I'd like to find out! -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net> http://www.nf6x.net/

10 years, 3 months

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Non-baking cure for sticky shed?

by mattislind＠gmail.com

I was trying to archive a bunch of 8 inch floppy disks. Everything was well until I tried an Inmac brand disk. It had severe sticky shed problems. Since it was a non-important disk it wasn't that bad. Baking might solve the problem so before continuing with the rest of the Inmac branded disks with more valuable content I searched internet for knowhow on baking. Then I found this article https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-359998950/the-new-non-baking-cu… on a cure for the sticky shed without baking the tape. I haven't read the article in ARSC since I am not a member. But maybe someone knows what this is about? /Mattis

10 years, 3 months

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PDP-11/03, LSI-11 KEV11-C CIS option

by spacewar＠gmail.com

On Sun, Jan 31, 2016 at 12:51 PM, Brian L. Stuart <blstuart at bellsouth.net> wrote: > I'll be glad to loan them to you for the good of the community and history. That would be great, thanks! I'll email you my contact information. Could you please post the markings of the other 40-pin chips as well, and/or a photograph? Best regards, Eric

10 years, 3 months

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PDP-11/03, LSI-11 KEV11-C CIS option

by blstuart＠bellsouth.net

On Sat, 1/30/16, Eric Smith <spacewar at gmail.com> wrote: > Does anyone have a PDP-11/03 or LSI-11 with the KEV11-C CIS > (Commercial Instruction Set) option? It may have also been known as > DIS (Dibol Instruction Set).? It apparently consists of two microcode > ROM chips (MICROMs), 23-004B5 and 23-005B5. Eric, It turns out my quad height LSI-11 card has the 23-004B5 and 23-005B5 chips on it. The full markings are: DEC 3025D 23-004B5 8030 B and DEC 3026 D (or maybe B) 23-005B5 8015 C I'll be glad to loan them to you for the good of the community and history. BLS

10 years, 3 months

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Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?

by mark＠markesystems.com

From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) > > Win-98 SE ... it would have been nice if it recognized USB storage > > devices natively. > > There is that package you can add (my copy is in a self-extracting > archive, > called "nusb23e.exe") that recognizes USB drives, etc. I run a number of > USB > devices (memory sticks, mice, etc) on my 98SE's and they all work fine. Thanks for the tip - I wish I'd known about that 15 years ago! From: "Jerome H. Fine" <jhfinedp3k at compsys.to> >> >mark at markesystems.com wrote: >> >>> QUESTION: Is it even possible to run Win98SE on a current >>> Intel I7 CPU with SATA hard disk drives? I realize that it might >> >> Almost certainly not, at least practically. Even if you can get it to >> boot and install, it will have no idea how to handle any of the modern > > Then I am really confused. I have two older systems that > are able to run 64-bit Windows 7, an E8400 and a Q9550. > Both take SATA drives which are still available. The mother > > I can also still boot from both system using an old DOS 3.5" > floppy media and run Ghost 7.0 with these old SATA drives, > but as far as I can understand, using the device drivers on the > floppy drive. I believe that Win98 tries to use its own drivers for disk, but if it can't find any that work it just uses the ones built into the BIOS. Performance suffers, because all disk I/O becomes blocking, but it still works. With a modern disk with built-in cache, one probably wouldn't even notice the difference (except for the floppy). > Is it likely that either of these two systems be able to run > Win98SE with the SATA hard drives, in one case 500 GB > each and the other system has 1 TB drives. In that case, it I would expect that you could successfully boot and install Win98, although you couldn't use all the drive in one volume (FAT32 is good for a little over 100 gig); I've never tried partitioning up a terabyte drive and running Win98 on a appropriately-sized partition, but it seems like it might work OK. As above, the BIOS will take care of the fact that Win98 never heard of SATA, and also abstract the USB keyboard and I think the mouse to look like AT-type devices. As I mentioned, though, it won't know about the video adapter, so that will run in VGA 640x480 16-color mode; the sound card won't be available either, nor the network interface. VirtualBox simulates all nice period-style hardware for those things. > As I mentioned, the only two applications I would run would > be the DOS variant of Ersatz-11 and Netscape 7.2 for e-mail > and newsgroups. I suspect that both of those would run on Windows XP, and VirtualBox handles that extremely well. From: Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> > I didn't mention that I've got 98SE running on an 820 chipset > (RIMM/RDRAM is silly cheap now) with a Tuallie 1.4GHz in a Powerleap > slocket. It doesn't much agree with the Crystal CS4622 audio, but > perhaps that's just a matter of finding the right driver. As I predicted... :-) >> Windows 98 was supposed to support a maximum of 2GB of memory, however >> it has a bug in the Vcache driver which causes problems unless you limit > Exactly what I've done with 440GX system. Using a different XMS driver, > I keep a 1GB RAMdisk there. But it runs quite nicely in just 64 or 128 meg, which was much more typical of a machine of that period. > On faster, more modern systems, I use VirtualBox. Just not worth the > extra trouble finding drivers--but I suspect 98SE will run on P4 systems Yup, that's what seems to work best for me. From: "js at cimmeri.com" <js at cimmeri.com> > The one thing I'm not seeing mentioned > in re VirtualBox is that what if you > have a legacy Win 98SE system with > hardware in it, like a GPIB card or > sound card? Or if you have software > that talks to hardware via serial or > parallel ports eg. eprom burners, Zector > ZVG vector graphic driver for MAME, etc. Yup, that's true. VirtualBox will provide one or two com ports (optionally mapped to the real host ports, or just pipes to other virtual machines), but it doesn't support the parallel port. And as you've pointed out, any specialized hardware won't work at all (because the backplane doesn't really exist). > The other hassle is having to > essentially rebuild an Win98 (or any > other) machine from scratch in order to > try to replicate an existing setup. I Also true... From: Josh Dersch <derschjo at gmail.com> > everything else, you're SOL. I could see it being possible to modify > VirtualBox to support parallel port forwarding or other exotic hardware Wow! I guess it is open source, but that would be quite a bit of work, I expect. If you do it, let me know - I've got an old Needham's PROM programmer that would be nice to have working again. From: John Foust <jfoust at threedee.com> > No one has mentioned the Windows Virtual PC, a Microsoft product, > that lets you run Windows XP apps in a virtual environment under > Windows 7 Pro, letting XP apps run in their natural window on > the 7 desktop, or you can run the virtual XP machine desktop > in its own window. I used an earlier version of Virtual PC on XP, and found that it worked fairly well, although it was very resource intensive. So many applications failed to run correctly on Win7 that Microsoft felt compelled to make a very tightly integrated version for that operating system (Pro or greater only); it was pretty neat how tightly integrated it was. That's how I ran QuickBooks and a couple of other recalcitrant programs, but it wasn't a panacea. In particular, applications that had several programs running simultaneously, especially if they communicated via DDE (DDEML) were still broken, and the tight integration was always a little scary to me. (If I fired up a "stand-alone" XP machine, it would always want to log off or shut down the one that had been running some other application, and because of the Draconian security, I was never sure that I'd be able to get it back...) > It will also run Windows 98, with a few gotchas: This is what I did with the earlier Virtual PC on top of XP, and it worked fairly well. Like VirtualBox, it's free, but I find that VirtualBox tries to do less integration "magic", and therefore feels like a more stable and clearly delineated product. I've seen no mention of Virtual PC on Win8 / 8.1 / 10 - does it still exist, and is that "XP-mode" feature still available? ~~ Mark Moulding

10 years, 3 months

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Preferred way of substituting TFT for CRT Monitor?

by Martin.Hepperle＠dlr.de

I have got a HP 9000/217 machine with a standard video card. This card has a monochrome composite output (resolution is as low as about 512x400, but I might replace it with a higher resolution card). A small 9" HP monitor that I used for testing only shows me 2 or 3 bands of the image and cannot capture the signal properly. All I have are modern TFT monitors which usually have VGA and/or DVI inputs, no separate R-G-B or monochrome jacks. What is the preferred way to connect "old" composite video signals to a modern TFT monitor without losing too much sharpness? I understand that interpolation is an unavoidable problem. Searching the internet did not give me a clear answer. Do you have any recommendations? Thank you, Martin

10 years, 3 months

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Any hope for CBM VIC-1525 Printers & ribbons?

by drlegendre＠gmail.com

Has anyone found a source for replacement ribbons, or even re-inking supplies, for the Commodore VIC-1525 printer? This printer was manufactured in Japan by Seikosha for CBM, and was also sold in the USA by Radio Shack, re-badged under the Tandy / TRS-80 brand. For reference - The VIC-1525 employs an odd two-cassette ribbon system, that uses a continuous-loop ribbon only about 24" in total length. One cassette contains a spring tensioner mechanism, with the second cassette holding the inking roller and (friction?) gear. The ribbon loop is strung side-to-side between the two cartridges, with the front strand passing in front of the print head, and the rear strand passing through the ribbon advance clutch. Google turns up nothing, except for some homebrew recipes for making new ink.. and one site offering exorbitantly priced NOS ribbons that are just as likely dried up. Thanks for any & all input..

10 years, 3 months

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Substituting DSHD for DSDD disks (or DS2D if you prefer)

by echristopherson＠gmail.com

I know Chuck Guzis has written about this, but I don't see that he's done so publicly in the last few years, so I thought I'd ask here about his and others' views on the perennial question of whether (some) 3.5" DSHD disks can be reliably used in DSDD-only drives. The oft-repeated claim is that writing can appear to work just fine, but that even a few months later read errors will occur. On <http://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/guzis.html> Chuck was quoted as (actually, correct me if I'm wrong -- it's a little hard to be sure this was Chuck's words) as saying "Usually, they're just fine, with the error rate approximately the same, whether or not 2D or HD media was used." Just before that, he said "I think that the overall quality of DSHD 3.5" media isn't what it used to be, so that might contribute to the general impression that 3.5" HD diskettes used as 2D aren't reliable. I have problems enough finding reliable 3.5" DSHD floppies used as such." Chuck et al., what's your feeling now, both on the overall reliability of HD disks in DD drives, and on whether it depends on how recently the disks were produced? Elsewhere on the page (I don't recall now if it was Herb or Chuck that said it) it was conjectured that HD disks that have never been formatted as HD, -OR- disks that have gone through a good degaussing, will have better luck retaining data. What does everyone think about this? And would an electromagnetic library security system (the kind that's like a tube through which checked-out materials are put; often with a caution not to put tapes or floppies through it) be a suitable degausser? -- Eric Christopherson

10 years, 3 months

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Big-Board II & Micro Cornucopia User Group Disks?

by james.h.simpson＠gmail.com

I'm a retired software engineer. My first home computer was a Z80 CP/M system built on the Big-Board II back in the mid '80s. I bought a bare board kit and went from there. It took me several months to collect all the parts before I had a running system. After discovering some very old M80 assembler listings while rummaging in my basement, I've been bit by the "nostalgia bug" so I dug out my old system and powered it on. It still runs after all of these years. The problem is that I've lost most of my old 5.25 media and therefore the system utilities . I'm looking for any Big-Board II system disk images/files I can find. I'm also trying to recover all of the Micro Cornucopia UG diskette data. Ultimately I want to put all of that old data on optical media for safe keeping. I'm looking for any BB-II stuff or Micro-C user group disk stuff. Help here will be much appreciated! Thanks, Jim Simpson

10 years, 3 months

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Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: CuriousMarc > I could run Explorer 5.5, but never 6.0. ?? 6.0 runs fine on all my 98SE machines. If you need to get to a later Web site (many don't work with older IE's now), there is a version of Opera (9.80, Version/10.63) which works under 98SE and makes most sites accessible. There are only a _very_ few where I have to use another browser running under a later Windows. Noel

10 years, 3 months

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What to Do with a PS/2?

by nf6x＠nf6x.net

To my surprise, I found something just barely old enough to interest me on the e-waste pile at work: An IBM PS/2 85 from around 1993 or so. The hard drive is long gone and it didn't include a keyboard, but it did come with a model 8516 touch screen display and original mouse. I already had a nice Model M to plug into it, plus some scsi2sd adapters sitting around waiting for projects like this one. I'm new to the PS/2 line, but after some poking around I found images of the reference and diagnostic disks necessary to set this machine up. I also found the ADF file needed for the Cabletron ethernet card in it. The machine has 12M of parity RAM, with one SIMM slot pair still open. It has a 2.88M 3.5" floppy and a 1.2M 5.25" floppy. The 5.25" floppy is a motor-eject style which I haven't encountered before. This model has a 486SX 33MHz CPU, and the math coprocessor socket is empty. Aside from a bunch of dust that I cleaned out, it's in pretty nice cosmetic shape. This particular model was intended for duty as a server. I've been posting pictures of the machine on Twitter over the last few days, starting on 1/21/2016: https://twitter.com/nf6x/media I replaced the CMOS battery (conveniently, a CR2032 coin cell, available at the local supermarket), reconfigured the CMOS settings, set up a scsi2sd as four emulated 512M SCSI hard drives, milled a pair of generic PC hard drive mounting rails to length for use in a PS/2, and installed MS-DOS 6.22 on it. OS/2 2.0 would probably be more appropriate for this machine, but I don't have it. I see original OS/2 2.0 boxes in the shrink wrap on eBay, but eBay and I are seeing other people at this time. Well, I seem to have it fully working aside from not having suitable software installed to test out the touch screen and networking card. The monitor sometimes makes a bit of high-pitch whine which by some miracle I can still hear. Younger folks might find it objectionable. I wonder if it would be effective as a child repellant? :) Thankfully, it doesn't seem to set my dogs to howling. And now that it is cleaned up and working, I have no clue about what to do with it! I just didn't want to see it go to the landfill or end up as toxic dust in some poor guy's lungs in India, so I got permission and then carted it home. I am not normally interested in PC-family machines, but actual IBM ones interest me a bit. And the countless ways IBM found to make the PS/2 line incompatible with regular PC lines give me things to bitch about, and that in turn gives my life purpose. :) So, would any of y'all like to help me brainstorm about interesting applications for this vintage heap, or maybe point me towards non-eBay sources of software that it would like to run? -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net> http://www.nf6x.net/

10 years, 3 months

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IBM 3101-12 ASCII terminal - need fuse holder

by seefriek＠gmail.com

Wow...that fired some old brain cells. I saved one of these around 86-87 and had it hooked to a VAX/BSD4 system for a while. All I really remember about it was that it was pretty well made but after wasting too much time mucking about I could never finesse a termcap entry for it that didn't have some more or less annoying corner-case breakage. I suspected that even though it had a serial port and "VT compatibility", IBM didn't much want to encourage anyone hooking one up to a non-IBM system. KJ

10 years, 3 months

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Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?

by jhfinedp3k＠compsys.to

I run Windows 98SE on a 14 year old Pentium III. I have replaced the power supply twice and all three hard disk drives. It is a really good system to run the Ersatz-11 emulator for the PDP-11, specifically RT-11. Since Ersatz-11 has built-in VT100 emulation, I don't need a separate terminal emulator. I also run Netscape 7.2 for e-mail and newsgroups. And that is all - no surfing the internet or google of any sort. Incidentally, I use Ghost 7.0 for backups to DVDs. Aside from the daylight savings time changing 3 weeks too late in the spring and a week early in the fall, I really like the system and I would like to use it for another 20 years. Since I am 77 years old now, I figure that will be just about satisfactory. The Pentium III hardware is more than a bit of a concern. I would be very pleased to upgrade to 64-bit Windows 10, but the DOS variant of Ersatz-11 is not supported and I really would prefer to keep using Netscape 7.2 since I have over 100,000 e-mails and posts to newsgroups that it is important to be able to keep. QUESTION: Is it even possible to run Win98SE on a current Intel I7 CPU with SATA hard disk drives? I realize that it might be possible under a virtual machine, but I really want all of the advantages that Win98SE provides. One problem, of course, is that there must be a patch to Win98SE when more than 1 GB of actual physical RAM is present. But I can't seem to find out anything else. What leads me to believe that there is a reasonable chance is that the IDENTICAL 3.5" floppy media is able to boot DOS >from drive A: and run on both the Pentium III (with a 3.5" HD floppy drive, of course) AND on a Q9550 Core 2 quad CPU which also has a 3.5" HD floppy drive which currently runs 64-bit Windows 7 from the C: drive, of course, using three SATA hard drives where the C: drive has an NTFS file structure and all the other partitions on all of the SATA drives have a FAT32 file structure. So without really understanding the details of the device drivers and the BIOS, it would seem that the SATA drive hardware and software is compatible. Ghost 7.0 is a file on the F: drive of the Q9550 CPU (first extended partition of the 1st physical SATA hard drive). Ghost is able to take a file produced as a backup image on the Pentium III system (and copied over the router connecting the Pentium III and the Q9500 systems - that also provides internet access for both systems) and re-create the same files on a specified partition on the Q9550 via the Ghost 7.0 program while the Q9550 is booted from the 3.5" floppy media. Since the SATA hard drives on the Q9550 system don't seem to have a problem with DOS on the floppy, then I have some hope that Win98SE could manage them as well. Has anyone experience or knowledge about being able to run Win98SE using an Intel I7 CPU with SATA hard drives all of them using a FAT32 file structure? Alternatively, does it seem reasonable to attempt to keep a system with a Pentium III CPU and associated hardware running for another 20 years? Jerome Fine

10 years, 3 months

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VCF East exhibit registration is open

by evan＠snarc.net

VCF East is April 15-17; the exhibit halls are open April 16-17 (April 15 is all tech repair classes -- to be announced soon). Click here to register an exhibit: http://tinyurl.com/htlfsmh

10 years, 3 months

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CDC Sabre 8" SMD blues

by ian.finder＠gmail.com

Hi folks, I recently picked up a Symbolics system built around an 8" Control Data Corp. Sabre hard drive. Some files read when I show the FEP directory listing but many show as "Error reading file header, wrong pkid read" which I assume is some sort of FEP FS integrity check. In short, the drive becomes ready and much of the data appears still there, but I have some brand of consistent read errors that preclude the machine from booting. It's not a software issue as the machine was deinstalled in a working condition. Anyone familiar with these terrible drives? Am I totally up the creek? I tried a couple different orientations. Thanks, - Ian Sent from Outlook Mobile

10 years, 3 months

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What to Do with a PS/2?

by john.h.blake＠gmail.com

Vetusware is highly unreliable and tries to charge for accounts, which isn't worth it at all because most of the things I've gotten from there haven't worked. Try: https://winworldpc.com/library Their images are tested, I've used the OS/2 Warp 4 images to install on an old thinkpad 760. I'd also suggest you try some other OSes, Nextstep 3.3 should work (and may have network drivers), as well as Unixware, GEM (on top of DOS), and possibly even AT&T SVR4 or one of the later Xenix variants. If you do decide to go with OS/2, you should also be able to find native applications and development tools there too. --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

10 years, 3 months

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Decimal Adjust Accumulator on the 4004

by kylevowen＠gmail.com

I'm currently writing a bit of code for the 4004 at the moment, and playing with it in the online Javascript emulator found here: http://e4004.szyc.org/emu/ According to http://e4004.szyc.org/iset.html (which I believe is copied straight from the MCS-4 Users Manual), the DAA instruction should increment the accumulator by 6 if carry is set or if the accumulator is greater than 9. Carry should be set following the instruction if the resulting addition generated a carry; otherwise it's unaffected. Let's say the accumulator is currently 9, carry is not set. I add another 9. Accumulator is now 2 with a carry. Running DAA should turn this into 8 with carry set, indicating that 9+9=(1)8. Am I thinking through this correctly? I ask, because according to the simulator's source code, DAA won't do that, if I'm following it correctly: function opDAA() { //DAA Decimal Adjust Accumulator if(A_reg > 9) A_reg += 6; C_flag=0; if (A_reg & 0xf0) {A_reg&=0xf; C_flag=1;} incPC(); } It says that it'll only add 6 if the accumulator is greater than 9, not if a carry is already set. It will then reset carry and set it if and only if there was a carry. Have I found a bug in the simulator? Am I misreading the MCS-4 Users Manual? In any event, this is my proposed fix to better match what the instruction description says: function opDAA() { //DAA Decimal Adjust Accumulator if((A_reg > 9) | (C_flag)) A_reg += 6; if (A_reg & 0xf0) {A_reg&=0xf; C_flag=1;} incPC(); } Seems to work as I would expect it to. Thanks, Kyle

10 years, 3 months

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Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA gard drives?

by jhfinedp3k＠compsys.to

>mark at markesystems.com wrote: >> Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2016 11:44:44 -0500 >> From: "Jerome H. Fine" <jhfinedp3k at compsys.to> >> Subject: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA gard drives? >> >> I run Windows 98SE on a 14 year old Pentium III. I have >> replaced the power supply twice and all three hard disk drives. > >> QUESTION: Is it even possible to run Win98SE on a current >> Intel I7 CPU with SATA hard disk drives? I realize that it might >> be possible under a virtual machine, but I really want all of the >> advantages that Win98SE provides. One problem, of course, > > > Almost certainly not, at least practically. Even if you can get it to > boot and install, it will have no idea how to handle any of the modern > peripherals, and drivers certainly won't be available. So sound won't > work, the screen will be limited to VGA-16, and I'm not sure about the > keyboard and mouse (there's a reasonable chance that the BIOS will > emulate the legacy PS-2 devices, just as it's abstracting the details > of the SATA disks). Then I am really confused. I have two older systems that are able to run 64-bit Windows 7, an E8400 and a Q9550. Both take SATA drives which are still available. The mother boards are ASUS5B. I would guess they are both about 7 years old and I would hope that some of that old hardware might be a bit easier to find. I can also still boot from both system using an old DOS 3.5" floppy media and run Ghost 7.0 with these old SATA drives, but as far as I can understand, using the device drivers on the floppy drive. Is it likely that either of these two systems be able to run Win98SE with the SATA hard drives, in one case 500 GB each and the other system has 1 TB drives. In that case, it would still be possible to use current SATA drives, but the 1 GB limit on physical memory for Win98SE would need to be patched. By the way, the Pentium III that is 12 years old has 768 MB of memory, so it is possible to run Win98SE with more than 500 MB of physical memory. As I mentioned, the only two applications I would run would be the DOS variant of Ersatz-11 and Netscape 7.2 for e-mail and newsgroups. Jerome Fine

10 years, 3 months

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[SPAM key] - Re: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA gard drives?

by jhfinedp3k＠compsys.to

>mark at markesystems.com wrote: >> Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2016 11:44:44 -0500 >> From: "Jerome H. Fine" <jhfinedp3k at compsys.to> >> Subject: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA gard drives? >> >> I run Windows 98SE on a 14 year old Pentium III. I have >> replaced the power supply twice and all three hard disk drives. > >> QUESTION: Is it even possible to run Win98SE on a current >> Intel I7 CPU with SATA hard disk drives? I realize that it might >> be possible under a virtual machine, but I really want all of the >> advantages that Win98SE provides. One problem, of course, > > Almost certainly not, at least practically. Even if you can get it to > boot and install, it will have no idea how to handle any of the modern > peripherals, and drivers certainly won't be available. So sound won't > work, the screen will be limited to VGA-16, and I'm not sure about the > keyboard and mouse (there's a reasonable chance that the BIOS will > emulate the legacy PS-2 devices, just as it's abstracting the details > of the SATA disks). Then I am really confused. I have two older systems that are able to run 64-bit Windows 7, an E8400 and a Q9550. Both take SATA drives which are still available. The mother boards are ASUS5B. I would guess they are both about 7 years old and I would hope that some of that old hardware might be a bit easier to find. I can also still boot from both system using an old DOS 3.5" floppy media and run Ghost 7.0 with these old SATA drives, but as far as I can understand, using the device drivers on the floppy drive. Is it likely that either of these two systems be able to run Win98SE with the SATA hard drives, in one case 500 GB each and the other system has 1 TB drives. In that case, it would still be possible to use current SATA drives, but the 1 GB limit on physical memory for Win98SE would need to be patched. By the way, the Pentium III that is 12 years old has 768 MB of memory, so it is possible to run Win98SE with more than 500 MB of physical memory. As I mentioned, the only two applications I would run would be the DOS variant of Ersatz-11 and Netscape 7.2 for e-mail and newsgroups. Jerome Fine

10 years, 3 months

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Front Panels

by rodsmallwood52＠btinternet.com

Hi Guys What a week! First I had to reject a batch of panels because some text was not centered right. Then whilst the matt black on the front gave a really nice finish I felt the resistance to abrasion could be better. So I've switched to a silk textured surface base material. It mimics the diffuse layer on the front side of the original board really well. But of course it resists abrasion better (because its the surface of the actual material and not just a coating) and also it provides a better key for the inks to adhere to. It gives the same effect of there being a front matt black layer as did the original. It looked good on the sample. It still leaves me the option to put black on the front if needed. I took the opportunity to add rounded corners and have them drill the big hole for the key lock Next the great US snow storm stopped shipments to the US (they are still not caught up) and then my email stated acting up. Some emails came through and some didn't. Any way it looks like I am just about back on track.: The first batch of predrilled silk textured front panel blanks are due now and the silk screen shop will run them when they arrive. The new packaging has arrived. The shippers will start to accept new parcels for the US on Monday or Tuesday. Finally they fixed my email late yesterday and its still OK. Rod

10 years, 3 months

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Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA gard drives?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Mark Moulding > Win-98 SE ... it would have been nice if it recognized USB storage > devices natively. There is that package you can add (my copy is in a self-extracting archive, called "nusb23e.exe") that recognizes USB drives, etc. I run a number of USB devices (memory sticks, mice, etc) on my 98SE's and they all work fine. My approach to keeping my 98SE machines running is _lots_ of spares of all kinds. They were easy and cheap to acquire a while back - they're a lot harder to find now, those machines are all totally obsolete. Noel

10 years, 3 months

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Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA gard drives?

by mark＠markesystems.com

> Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2016 11:44:44 -0500 > From: "Jerome H. Fine" <jhfinedp3k at compsys.to> > Subject: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA gard drives? > > I run Windows 98SE on a 14 year old Pentium III. I have > replaced the power supply twice and all three hard disk drives. <...> > Aside from the daylight savings time changing 3 weeks too late > in the spring and a week early in the fall, I really like the system > and I would like to use it for another 20 years. Since I am > 77 years old now, I figure that will be just about satisfactory. Win-98 SE was definitely one of the higher points of the Windows lineage. For most of what I did (and do, for that matter), it worked very well; it would have been nice if it recognized USB storage devices natively. > The Pentium III hardware is more than a bit of a concern. I would > be very pleased to upgrade to 64-bit Windows 10, but the DOS > variant of Ersatz-11 is not supported and I really would prefer to > keep using Netscape 7.2 since I have over 100,000 e-mails > and posts to newsgroups that it is important to be able to keep. The hardware is worth worrying about. Replacement power supplies will probably continue to be available, but those disks are likely to be unobtanium, and are practically guaranteed to fail at some point. My personal "sweet spot" for operating systems was Windows XP, and it was with with quite a bit of trepidation that I eventually moved on to Win7-32. Eventually, I needed a new laptop, and moved to Win8.1-64, which took a great deal of massaging to make comfortable (the "Classic Shell" product is very nicely-done, and free, and went a long way towards making things usable). However, there were still a lot of problems: - 64 bits absolutely breaks any 16-bit code, whether it be a DOS program or a Windows 3.1 application. Unfortunately, I have a large industrial application that I've maintained for the last 20 years (things last a long time in industry), written in Visual Basic 3. Maintaining it under XP was easy, because XP would just magically fire up ntvdm (NT Virtual DOS Machine), then run a Windows compatibility layer (wowexec) on top of that; this all made everything work just fine, and with almost complete transparency. For DOS programs, it would capture any physical I/O calls (for example, to the com port addresses) and do a fantastic job of emulating them - again, completely transparent to the application program. Win7 (Vista, actually, but nobody cares about that) broke all of that. - I have an application that I like and use a lot (CircuitMaker-2000) which runs fine on every version of Windows from 98SE on up to at least Win8.1-64 bit, and presumably Win10, though I haven't tried it. However, printing has been broken on everything since Win98SE. - The versions of Office and QuickBooks I was using started exhibiting numerous problems; Word continued to work "OK", sort of, but QB was completely unstable, and I depend upon it to run my business. - The security implementation of pretty much everything, starting with Win7, makes a lot of things difficult; registry writes are now tightly controlled, registering DLLs and OCXs requires elevated privileges, network firewall functions are highly complex, convoluted, and depending upon the version (Premium, Pro, Ultimate, etc.) the tools may not even be provided to completely manage all of this. My solution to most of this (except some of the network issues) has been to use VirtualBox. It's free, and does a great job of handling XP as a guest operating system. With XP, mouse movements, virtual disks, networking, and even the clipboard are all nicely integrated into the host operating system, so my XP machine is always just a keyboard shortcut away. I also have a virtual Win98SE machine, to handle the printing issues with CircuitMaker. This is less well integrated, in that the mouse capture is clumsy, and the file system integration features aren't there, but that was easy enough to get around by just creating shared folders on the host, and setting them up as network drives on the Win98 VM. It took a solid week of tinkering to get everything set up to my satisfaction (I have a lot of disparate interests, and their associated applications), but now I have a setup that I'm very happy with. (I broke down and advanced a single version - to 2003 - for both Office and Quickbooks, so those both run happily in native mode now.) > QUESTION: Is it even possible to run Win98SE on a current > Intel I7 CPU with SATA hard disk drives? I realize that it might > be possible under a virtual machine, but I really want all of the > advantages that Win98SE provides. One problem, of course, Almost certainly not, at least practically. Even if you can get it to boot and install, it will have no idea how to handle any of the modern peripherals, and drivers certainly won't be available. So sound won't work, the screen will be limited to VGA-16, and I'm not sure about the keyboard and mouse (there's a reasonable chance that the BIOS will emulate the legacy PS-2 devices, just as it's abstracting the details of the SATA disks). I really think that your best solution would be to go the virtual route. Get a huge monitor (mine's 28" 2560 x 1440 - I would have preferred an even larger curved 4k unit, but HDMI wouldn't support it at full resolution, and that's all my laptop has) - or even a dual monitor setup, a terabyte or two of hard disk, and plan to spend that week tinkering. As much as you like Win98SE (and I completely understand why!), you might find that XP will still run everything you're interested in, and VirtualBox handles that very well. There's every reason to expect that the virtual machine will continue to be stable and supported for the foreseeable future (like 20+ years), regardless what the host Microsoft operating system evolves to be. Of course there's no reason not to have both XP and Win98SE VMs, as I do - I even have a Win3.1 machine, just for the fun of it. For backup, I stubbornly store everything in two large directory trees: C:\Library and C:\Data (actually, I have a C:\Music as well). The C:\Data tree has absolutely everything that I've ever worked on: source, designs, correspondence, pictures, taxes, email store, and the VM disks. It takes a bit of persuading for the modern versions of Windows to accept C:\Data as the "My Documents" folder, but it can be done. The C:\Library tree has all kinds of documentation (PDFs of manuals and data sheets, and lots of just plain reading material), as well as a large sub-tree called Distrib that has the installation sources for all my software applications. In some cases, this is in the form of ISO CD-ROM images, but mostly it's sub-directories with the contents of all those. Everything is there: all the Visual Basic/Studio versions, all the Office versions, compilers, Adobe, Photoshop, PLC and other development systems, SolidWorks and AutoCAD, and even the installation media (in both ISO and file formats) of the Microsoft OSes as well (DOS through Win-7). All of this fits comfortably on the single terabyte drive that came with the laptop, and backing up is a simple matter of either just copying the two (three) large trees, or using some difference software (I use a free program called TreeComp, but there are many others too) to sync everything to an external USB (3.0 strongly preferred) drive, which I keep in the fire safe. Moving to a new computer is simply (if time-consumingly) a matter of copying those trees to the new machine, then installing the software directly from the \Library tree - no other CDs required. > Alternatively, does it seem reasonable to attempt to keep a > system with a Pentium III CPU and associated hardware > running for another 20 years? It's probably possible (although the weak link would probably be the disks), but if it were me, I'd treat that more as a hobby project than as a machine I depended upon. So far, I've successfully avoided giving up the applications and "way of doing things" that I like and am comfortable with, while still migrating to current hardware and software. I have to admit, effectively unlimited speed and space are quite nice... ~~ Mark Moulding

10 years, 3 months

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M. Minsky - AI & Classic Computing

by c.murray.mccullough＠gmail.com

I learned today of the passing of a true computing visionary, Marvin Minsky He of artificial intelligence fame. We in the classic computing fraternity, and computing in general, can enjoy our ?hobby? because of his work. Happy computing Murray :)

10 years, 3 months

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What to Do with a PS/2?

by johnwallace4＠yahoo.co.uk

[massive snippage, sorry] Several folks have mentioned Dave Cutler. There's a book called "Inside Windows NT", by Helen Custer at Microsoft Press. The aforementioned Dave Cutler (architect of software including RSX11, VAX/VMS, VAXELN, and WNT) wrote a foreword for it. There, he says the goals of NT were "portability, security, POSIX compliance, compatibility, scalable performance, multiprocessor support, extensibility, and ease of internationalisation" (p xviii in my copy). Obviously some of that list has fallen away during the NT/Gates years (portability? security? POSIX?) WNT's kernel stuff, process architecture, etc has some VAXELN heritage. VAXELN was a not particularly well known (even inside DEC) Cutler project for a distributable realtime OS which would feel comfortable for VMS programmers without being VMS, and allow distributed RT applications to be developed without need to understand low level hardware specifics and OS kernel interface details. VAXELN incorporated early examples of a process model which also incorporated threads, and a nice approach to interprocess data sharing (a distributed naming service, transparent messaging between apps whether on the same node or separate, etc). Marvellous stuff, some of which duly made its way into NT, though many writers understandably missed the VAXELN connection (it is briefly mentioned in Custer's book). Those who are moderately familiar with the internals of NT, VMS, and VAXELN (which probably isn't that many people) will recognise some of the VMSisms that VAXELN didn't have and which are also not present in NT. At a detail level, where are WNT's ASTs, where are logical names? And at a big-picture level - VMS is a mostly monolithic setup (one single kernel address space), WNT originally wasn't, though over time Gates forced changes towards the monolithic approach, e.g. moving assorted drivers and subsystems into the kernel for performance reasons that for security and robustness reasons should have been isolated from each other. Neither VAXELN nor NT have quotas or privileges as such. There is no meaningful security architecture on WNT; on VMS there is. And so on. But fewer people will know VAXELN, and so the Cutler project that gets the publicity in the "where does WNT come from" context is VMS (it is, after all, still pretty close even if VAXELN is closer). And the WNT name? Who knows. The magic words PRISM and MICA perhaps come into this discussion somewhere too, but I know nothing about them. Have a lot of fun. John Wallace (not to be confused with John Willis!) [Repurposed with minor edits from some of my occasional WNT/VAXELN/VMS ramblings on comp.os.vms]

10 years, 3 months

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C-64 Time delay code?

by tulsamike3434＠gmail.com

I am still working on the Choose your own adventure game and I was wondering it there a code line to let the player have a few minuets to read the text before the "make your choice " pops up under the opening text. I know to most of you think this is a dumb question but I just can nopt find the correct dose for this?

10 years, 3 months

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Jacques Laporte's HP-35 webpage

by kylevowen＠gmail.com

Does anyone have the full webpage from here? http://home.citycable.ch/pierrefleur/Jacques-Laporte/index.html Lots of broken links, missing images, etc. His former site was at http://www.jacques-laporte.org as far as I know. Here's a page that is particularly broken: http://home.citycable.ch/pierrefleur/Jacques-Laporte/HP%2035%20Display.htm I'm mostly interested in his work on reverse engineering the HP-35 hardware. I know I used his site a couple of years ago, and it was very helpful in understanding the 35. Very sad to hear of his passing. The Wayback Machine doesn't have it apparently, thanks to robots.txt. Thanks, Kyle

10 years, 3 months

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Free Apple ImageWriter I (A9M0303)

by paul＠mcjones.org

I bought it new in 1984 or 1985, and used it for six or seven years until I bought a laser printer. It?s been in its original packing box ever since. I just powered it up and verified that the line feed and form feed buttons seem to trigger appropriate movements, and the print head seeks over to the left margin. First priority to someone who will pick it up in Mountain View, California; otherwise to someone who will pay for shipping. Paul McJones

10 years, 3 months

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Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA gard drives?

by jhfinedp3k＠compsys.to

I run Windows 98SE on a 14 year old Pentium III. I have replaced the power supply twice and all three hard disk drives. It is a really good system to run the Ersatz-11 emulator for the PDP-11, specifically RT-11. Since Ersatz-11 has built-in VT100 emulation, I don't need a separate terminal emulator. I also run Netscape 7.2 for e-mail and newsgroups. And that is all - no surfing the internet or google of any sort. Incidentally, I use Ghost 7.0 for backups to DVDs. Aside from the daylight savings time changing 3 weeks too late in the spring and a week early in the fall, I really like the system and I would like to use it for another 20 years. Since I am 77 years old now, I figure that will be just about satisfactory. The Pentium III hardware is more than a bit of a concern. I would be very pleased to upgrade to 64-bit Windows 10, but the DOS variant of Ersatz-11 is not supported and I really would prefer to keep using Netscape 7.2 since I have over 100,000 e-mails and posts to newsgroups that it is important to be able to keep. QUESTION: Is it even possible to run Win98SE on a current Intel I7 CPU with SATA hard disk drives? I realize that it might be possible under a virtual machine, but I really want all of the advantages that Win98SE provides. One problem, of course, is that there must be a patch to Win98SE when more than 1 GB of actual physical RAM is present. But I can't seem to find out anything else. What leads me to believe that there is a reasonable chance is that the IDENTICAL 3.5" floppy media is able to boot DOS >from drive A: and run on both the Pentium III (with a 3.5" HD floppy drive, of course) AND on a Q9550 Core 2 quad CPU which also has a 3.5" HD floppy drive which currently runs 64-bit Windows 7 from the C: drive, of course, using three SATA hard drives where the C: drive has an NTFS file structure and all the other partitions on all of the SATA drives have a FAT32 file structure. So without really understanding the details of the device drivers and the BIOS, it would seem that the SATA drive hardware and software is compatible. Ghost 7.0 is a file on the F: drive of the Q9550 CPU (first extended partition of the 1st physical SATA hard drive). Ghost is able to take a file produced as a backup image on the Pentium III system (and copied over the router connecting the Pentium III and the Q9500 systems - that also provides internet access for both systems) and re-create the same files on a specified partition on the Q9550 via the Ghost 7.0 program while the Q9550 is booted from the 3.5" floppy media. Since the SATA hard drives on the Q9550 system don't seem to have a problem with DOS on the floppy, then I have some hope that Win98SE could manage them as well. Has anyone experience or knowledge about being able to run Win98SE using an Intel I7 CPU with SATA hard drives all of them using a FAT32 file structure? Alternatively, does it seem reasonable to attempt to keep a system with a Pentium III CPU and associated hardware running for another 20 years? Jerome Fine

10 years, 3 months

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MU-BASIC V2 and RT-11 V03B distribution disks.

by mattislind＠gmail.com

I found some 8 inch floppies with distribution kits for MU-BASIC V2 and RT-11 V03B. I imaged those and put them here http://www.datormuseum.se/documentation-software/rx01-and-rx02-floppy-disks if anyone is interested in playing with MU-BASIC. There are both RAW disk images and to be used in SimH and like and also DMK/IMD files. The system that floppies came with is this little ( http://www.datormuseum.se/computers/digital-equipment-corporation/pdp1103-l) system once used at Scania in S?dert?lje.

10 years, 3 months

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HP 9845 Option ROMs

by ball.of.john＠gmail.com

So in the past few weeks I've been playing with my latest aquisition, an HP 9845A that's been upgraded at some point to a 9845B. The filter caps for the PSU are in the mail still and I have yet to actually see the system turn on so I've been working on other projects in the meantime like cleaning the machine, troubleshooting faults in the floppy drives it came with and sourcing a food dehydrator to bake the tapes it unexpectedly came with. It's a fairly basic machine without the internal printer or second tape drive. Only the I/O, graphics and Mass Storage ROMs are installed and there's at least one other option ROM module not accounted for according to one of the manuals that came with. In fact it seems the option ROMs aren't common to begin with or at least they are not cheap on ebay. I seem to remember a few years ago someone out further West than I am who also had a 45 discussed some sort of ROM board that acted like the PRM-85 ROM board for the HP 85 and let you load whatever ROMs you wanted onto a modern EPROM and do away with HP's silly modules completely however my memory is fuzzy and I can't seem to find any mention of such a device on the internet. What I did find was the System ROM replacement board on hp9845.net but it doesn't mention the ability to add in images of the option ROMs he has available on his site. Anyone else heard of this mysterious adapter? -John

10 years, 3 months

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HP 9000/380 console? software? (was Re: HP 9000/382 Questions)

by spacewar＠gmail.com

I've borrowed an HP 9000/380 from a friend, along with a 9122D floppy drive, but no software. It has an A1416A Color VRX DIO-II "Kathmandu" video interface, but I'm hoping that I can just use the serial port as a console. Does the DE9 serial console use the IBM pinout? Do I have to pull the A1416A to get it to use the serial port as the console? Is there any software that can be booted on it from the floppy, such as perhaps non-HP-UX BASIC?

10 years, 3 months

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BC11A paddle boards

by ggs＠shiresoft.com

I just received the first of the BC11A paddle boards (so that I can now create my own BC11A cables). I made two variants of the boards. One where the cables come out the ?top? and another where the cables come out the ?side? (so you don?t have to ?fold? the cable in a number of different applications such as RK05s). The ones that arrived today are the S or ?side? variation (as opposed to the T or ?top? variation). I immediately noticed (why I didn?t see this when I was reviewing the board layout previously I?ll never know) is that one of the cable connectors is too close to the edge. It wouldn?t be a problem except that I chose to use connectors that have cable retention latches. The latches protrude from the board edge by ~0.02?. So once I verify that these work, I?ll move the one connector inward ~0.5?. I have plenty of space, I just don?t know why I put the connector that close to the edge. *sigh*. For these boards, I?ll probably just file the latch down a bit to get the appropriate clearance. BTW, trying to get the connectors onto the board (I haven?t soldered them in yet) was tight. That?s the problem with trying to get 60 pins to all line up correctly. But they fit and are *snug*. I probably won?t go and do any testing until I get the other boards in so it may be a couple more weeks (the boards weren?t supposed to *ship* before 2/8). For those who?d like to know, I probably will not be making a production run of these boards unless I get a *lot* of interest (100 boards or so). If you want some, let me know and if I get enough interest, I?ll do a production run. TTFN - Guy

10 years, 3 months

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BC11A paddle boards

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Guy Sotomayor > I was originally thinking twisted pair ribbon cable until I saw what > 100' spool of that would run and decided to try just the straight > "grey" ribbon cable for now. That should be fine; the DEC M9042 board (basically equivalent) used three H854 flat cables, see: http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/XD149.80 The DEC board makes every other conductor in the flat cable a ground; not quite as good as twisted pair, but close. > I probably will not be making a production run of these boards unless I > get a *lot* of interest (100 boards or so). If you want some, let me > know I would definitely be interested in some (how many exactly would depend on the price). Noel

10 years, 3 months

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email problems

by rodsmallwood＠btinternet.com

Hi If you have sent me an off list email in the last couple of days and have not got a response. - Apologies It seems I am loosing some but not all inbound email - ISP trying to fix it Rod Smallwood

10 years, 3 months

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Mitsubishi Apricot

by pchatt30＠gmail.com

Hi all, Dose anybody know about Mitsubishi Apricots (1990ish)? They are of interest to me as they were the first PC I used and I now have a few. I'm having issues with getting them to boot from a floppy. Iv done some reading around the subject and from what I understand I need a secure boot floppy. Can anybody help? Thanks Peter

10 years, 3 months

3
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Terminal Emulation for Windows - supporting Kermit File Transfer

by cctalk＠beyondthepale.ie

> I'm using extensivly C-Kermit on my FreeBSD host to connect to > various serial-line-only Systems. They also have a kermit executable > so I'm using kermit -s to send data from those systems to my FreeBSD > system and also getting files from my FreeBSD host to the other > systems is working fine. > > I'm now looking for a way to get this "kermit file transfer" > functionality from Windows but had no luck so far. > > Is there free-for-use Kermit alternative arround to be used for > Windows or an other Terminal Emulation which supportes Kermit > File Transfers "out of the box"? > > Yes - I know Kermit 95, but this is not free. > It appears that (most of) the source code for Kermit 95 has been released now but there is more work to done on it to make this useful. http://www.kermitproject.org/k95sourcecode.html Regards, Peter Coghlan

10 years, 3 months

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DEC TS05 mains switch

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

As I mentioned some time back, I am currently restoring a VAX 11/730 system. It is the version with the TS05 on the top, I currently have the TS05 in many bits while I sort out at least 4 faults with it (No, I've not sorted out the TU58 console tape drive yet, I needed something else to get on with while I was thinking about that). One problem with the TS05 (Rebadged Cipher F880E, of course) is the mains switch. Only one pole (double pole switch) opens, and it gave quite a nasty spark when I put mans on the unit. So I want to replace it. The problem is that I have never seen one like it before. It has _5_ terminals. Four of them are what you'd expect for a double pole on/off switch, The other is for the built-in neon indicator. Rather than just wiring it across the output side of the switch (as most do), this unit has a neon with the correct series resistor for 115V operation wired between one of the output side terminals and the fifth terminal. The TS05 puts the neon in parallel with the supply for the 115V blower unit. Thus the power on indicator gets 115V no matter how the voltage selector is set. The switch is the stadard size for double pole rocker switches (30mm * 22mm panel cutout, isn't it?). If I can't get the right replacement I have several options : 1) Fit a normal 230V illuminated rocker swtich, and asssume I will never change the voltage selector setting (but I am trying to keep this machine electrically original). 2) Fit a normal non-illuminated rocker switch. It will then be OK on any mains voltage, but no power-on indicator, and it's not electrically original 3) Fit a non-illuminated rocker switch and find a place to fit a separate neon indicator. It is then electrically original, but won't look right 4) Try to mend the original switch 5) Try to make an equivalent using bits of switches I can get. Does anyone have any ideas where to get the original switch from? -tony

10 years, 3 months

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V05.06 RT-11 DOC Set - Pickup Required in Los Angeles to Help Jay West

by jhfinedp3k＠compsys.to

V05.06 RT-11 DOC Set - Pickup Required in Los Angeles to Help Jay West An old RT-11 fellow tried to sell his V05..06 RT-11 DOC set on eBay, but no one bid. Jay West has expressed a desire to have the hard copy set of manuals. Is there anyone in the Los Angeles area who would be willing to pickup the manuals (there are 14 in all) and either keep them until there is a pickup of else ship them? I hope we can help out Jay for all the effort over the many years!!!!!!!!!! Jerome Fine

10 years, 3 months

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Terminal Emulation for Windows - supporting Kermit File Transfer

by radiotest＠juno.com

I still use a computer with Windows 98 SE and a native serial port for terminal emulation. The program that I use is not free but it does more varieties of terminal emulation, and does them better than any other emulator that I have used - ProComm Plus. I have owned it for about twenty years. Dale H. Cook, Roanoke/Lynchburg, VA Osborne 1 / Kaypro 4-84 / Kaypro 1 / Amstrad PPC-640 http://plymouthcolony.net/starcity/radios/index.html

10 years, 3 months

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Terminal Emulation for Windows - supporting Kermit File

by Martin.Hepperle＠MH-AeroTools.de

> Is there free-for-use Kermit alternative around to be used for > Windows or another Terminal Emulation which supports Kermit > File Transfers "out of the box"? > > Yes - I know Kermit 95, but this is not free. > As Rik said, TeraTerm is very useful and also offers Tektronix emulation, ASCII up- and download and much more. If you search for k95.exe you fill find some ftp and web sites which also have executables of Kermit 95. You can also run MSDOS-Kermit in a Virtual Machine if you like. Finally, I think you can also use the HyperTerm program from Windows XP on later Windows versions. Nartin

10 years, 3 months

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Free (for pickup): RX02 external enclosure (Seattle, WA)

by derschjo＠gmail.com

I just rack-mounted my RX02 and I have no need for the "table-top" enclosure it came in any longer (as nice as it is). It's in good shape, but it's missing one rubber foot. Free to a good home. I'm near Seattle, WA. - Josh

10 years, 3 months

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ISO: Outer rails for RK05

by derschjo＠gmail.com

Anyone happen to have a spare set of outer rackmount rails for an RK05? I have the inner rails that attach to the drive, and I'm trying to track down the outer parts that attach to the rack, with the inner slide. Getting very close to having a semi-respectable PDP-8/m system put together, just need to get the hardware mounted. (And track down the impossible RK05 cabling. And debug the controller. And probably a dozen other things...) Thanks, Josh

10 years, 3 months

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HP 700lx

by r_a_feldman＠hotmail.com

>Message: 6 >Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2016 21:42:59 +0000 >From: Benjamin Huntsman <BHuntsman at mail2.cu-portland.edu> >To: "cctalk at classiccmp.org" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> >Subject: HP 700lx > >Hi! > Maybe a long shot, but does anyone on here have an HP OmniGo 700LX? And further, might anyone be willing to sell one? > >Thanks! > >-Ben You might try asking Michel Bel at michel at belconsult.net. He repairs HPLX palmtops and is in Belgium. Also try posting a request to the HPLX mailing list at hplx at mail.eberl.com. Bob

10 years, 3 months

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HP 700lx

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

and after ben gets his we would buy one for SMECC also... see _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org) I have an omni whatever that looks like the computer part of this but never saw it with a phone on top! here is a video I found of this thing on the net... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1UtCJ84Ris weird... I must have been asleep when this came out... If I had seen it I would have lusted after it! Ed Sharpe Archivist for SMECC _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org/) In a message dated 1/24/2016 2:43:14 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, BHuntsman at mail2.cu-portland.edu writes: Hi! Maybe a long shot, but does anyone on here have an HP OmniGo 700LX? And further, might anyone be willing to sell one? Thanks! -Ben

10 years, 3 months

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Terminal Emulation for Windows - supporting Kermit File Transfer

by lehmann＠ans-netz.de

Hi, I'm using extensivly C-Kermit on my FreeBSD host to connect to various serial-line-only Systems. They also have a kermit executable so I'm using kermit -s to send data from those systems to my FreeBSD system and also getting files from my FreeBSD host to the other systems is working fine. I'm now looking for a way to get this "kermit file transfer" functionality from Windows but had no luck so far. Is there free-for-use Kermit alternative arround to be used for Windows or an other Terminal Emulation which supportes Kermit File Transfers "out of the box"? Yes - I know Kermit 95, but this is not free. Regards, Oliver

10 years, 3 months

2
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HP 700lx

by BHuntsman＠mail2.cu-portland.edu

Hi! Maybe a long shot, but does anyone on here have an HP OmniGo 700LX? And further, might anyone be willing to sell one? Thanks! -Ben

10 years, 3 months

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PC fonts...

by geneb＠deltasoft.com

This site has a lot of interesting info on a number of fonts used in PCs and compatibles. It looks like there was quite a bit of research involved. http://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/fontlist/ g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

10 years, 3 months

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Introduction and RK05J Drive cabling

by saburwulf＠gmail.com

Hi there, long time viewer, first time poster. First an introduction: My name is Joshua Stetson and I'm a software engineer by trade. My earliest memories have always involved computers starting with a DOS based Zenith 8088 where I played some of my first games. My first foray into "classic" computing was on a Commodore 64 which my Uncle gave me while I was still in Jr. High. I'd already been introduced to programming at an early age, so this machine was an absolute treat to me at the time as it was my first step into assembly language. As time progressed, my interests turned older and I began a collection of S-100 gear including an IMSAI 8080 and a SOL-20. Over the past couple of years, I've managed to work back even further, piecing together a PDP-8/e system from various parts collected over the past 4 years and now I have a fully working 8/e including 32kw of core and an RK05E card set. I've been running the system using Kyle Owen's os8diskserver and David Gesswein's sendtape utilities which both work absolutely wonderfully. It was amazing to be able to run Adventure on a native system! I'd like to send a shout out to Kyle for the os8diskserver, that is some pretty awesome work there. David for his software and archive of DEC documentation which was indispensable for helping me debug a few boards and get everything running and tested. I also want to thank Vincent Slyngstad for his help and support on some questions. Now to my ask: Recently I've found a pair of RK05J drives and a few disk packs. One of my drives seems to be in fully working order, the other the blower is not working, so I'm working on fixing that right now. I'm currently missing cabling for connect these drives to the RK05E board set. If anyone happens to have an extra cable set they'd be willing to part with so I can bring these beasts back to life, I'd appreciate it! Ideally I would like to find the following: 7009026 Cable which is two ribbon cables with a M933B or C flip chip on the other end The interface cable between the two drives: BC11A The terminator card M930 At minimum, I'm pretty sure I'd only need the first cable to run one of the drives, but I'd appreciate any help from those who have more experience. Also, I don't have a rack for this equipment yet, so I'm running it all tabletop, but I'm in the market for a rack + rails (I only have the rails for the equipment, but not the ones that mount to the rack itself. Any leads on more 16-sector packs would also be appreciated! Also, still hoping to get the extended arithmetic boards, RTC, and possibly a TSC8 Timesharing option as I have 4 SLUs and would love to try out some timesharing. On a side note, I'm looking to perhaps sell or trade my SOL-20 sometime soon. It's 100% working as I restored it about 3 years ago. It works great, but I'm looking to part with all of my S-100 equipment to focus more on DEC. Thanks!

10 years, 3 months

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SO BEFORE i DO ANYTHING!!!!!

by tulsamike3434＠gmail.com

Should I just plug in my floppy drive without the sd card and change it to ,9 than plug in the sd card witch is set at 8 ?

10 years, 3 months

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SD Card disk drive for C-64?

by tulsamike3434＠gmail.com

Have any of you bought this item here is a link to the one I bought I have a few questions on disk swapping. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Beige-SD2IEC-Commodore-1541-Disk-Drive-Emulation-SD… Also having rtouble hooking up my original floppy drive as " LOAD "$" ,9,1 AKA disk drive 9"

10 years, 3 months

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opening the drive door/lid of an RM03 ?

by henk.gooijen＠hotmail.com

Hello readers, I cleaned the first of my RM03 drives today. The drive is quite clean even after several years of no attention. Just a few spiders webs and tiny dead spiders, and little dust. I picked up this drive in Turin Italy, together with Edward several years ago. I cannot remember doing it, but the head lock pin was in the lock position. After cleaning and a good inspection (I found a small metal bracket piece next to the PSU output plugs, and have not found where it came from!), I mounted a mains power plug to the drive cable. Massbus cable is attached to the drive, the other end is not connected to anything. After setting all circuit breakers ON (two inside the drive, two at the rear side next to the running hours counter), I plugged the mains in and switched mains on. I hear humming of the fans, so it seems OK. However, this is my problem: the door latch stays locked, I cannot open the lid. I want to open the lid to clean the inside of the drive bay. After some reading (EK-RM023-TD-001_RM02_03_Tech_May78.pdf), I found this in chapter 4.4 (page 4-7): The initialize sequence starts with the receipt of a Massbus INIT signal from either port A or B. This sequence is used to condition both the adapter and drive circuits to a known reset state. The functional block diagram for the initialize command is shown in Figure 4-5. The Massbus INIT signal (whether coming from port A or B) clears the AT A bit in the attention summary register in the IF module. In the CS module, it is converted to the MBA clear signal which performs the following: 1. Clears the enable search latch 2. Sets the on latch 3. etc. So, do I understand this correctly that without an initial Massbus INIT signal the lid remains locked? Or has this RM03 drive a "lock issue"? If somebody has an RM03 drive, is it possible to open the lid without Massbus cables hooked to the RH70 or RH11 controller? Is that Massbus connection required + INIT command to unlock the lid? I have not yet cleaned the other two RM03 drives, and I do not want to apply power without cleaning and inspection! So, I cannot check whether all 3 drives keep the lid locked. I forgot to take the camera with me, but I will take pictures! Thanks, - Henk

10 years, 3 months

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VAXELN Datagram Service

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

I am doing a bit of VAXELN programming and I am trying to get the Datagram Service to only read packets of a certain EtherType, but unless I use promiscuous mode, nothing is read. Here is the relevant code: form.format = ELN$K_NI_PTT; form.mux.ptt = 0x0360; mode = 0; pad = 0; eln$ni_connect(&status, &portalId, config.clist.list[i].control_port, &dispatchPort, &form, NULL, &mode, NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL, &pad); Anyone know why this might not return any packets at all when I wait on the port? Regards Rob

10 years, 3 months

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ESR meter recommendations.

by mattislind＠gmail.com

2016-01-23 13:54 GMT+01:00 Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu>: > > From: Mattis Lind > > > I don't have an capacitance / ESR meter so I cannot check it. > > If you do a lot of work with analog components (and it sounds like you do), > it's probably worth getting capacitance and ESR meters, they can be > obtained > (new) on eBay for not that much. I have one of each that I got that way; > their quality is pretty good, considering how little I paid for them (I > didn't think I'd be using them enough to make it worth paying out a lot for > really good ones). I haven't used the ESR meter much, but the capacitance > meter works quite well, and has been very helpful. Of course, it can't be > used in-circuit, but... > > Yes. agree with you.I really should get one. I have been thinking I need to get one every time I get my head into anther PSU and then everything is sorted out and the PSU seems to work fine and I forget about it. I have been looking at the DerEE DE-5000 which looks nice and has got good reviews as far as I can tell. What meter do you have and recommend? > Alas, I can't (easily) help with the VT100 question! :-) > That's a pity! > > Noel > /Mattis

10 years, 3 months

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C64 system cost?

by starbase89＠gmail.com

Hey, I've been looking into getting a C64 system to play with. I'm looking for not just the computer, but a 1541, a datasette, color monitor, printer, joystick and modem, and some software. Eventually I'd like to get an SD card adapter, too. Can someone give me an idea as to how much I might end up spending on all of this? Thanks! Joe <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campai…> This email has been sent from a virus-free computer protected by Avast. www.avast.com <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campai…> <#DDB4FAA8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>

10 years, 3 months

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IDE knowledge anyone?

by lehmann＠ans-netz.de

Hi, I've built a Harddisk-Controller-Emulator for my system which accesses a IDE (PATA) harddisk with an ATMega in PIO mode. It works like a charm except for one WD harddisk. The harddisk itself works fine with MS-DOS 6.22 and FreeBSD but refuses to work with my ATMega. On reading or writing a sector, right after the command is issued, the error bit is set in the status register, and the error register indicates an ABRT. # ABRT: # indicates the requested command has been aborted due to a # drive status error (such as not ready or write fault) or because # the command is invalid. Right after power up and after the disk got ready, I issue the IDENTIFY command and read the data back which works perfectly. After that I read sector 0 and this fails. I use LBA since the harddisk states that is supportes LBA. Nevertheless I also tried accessing the harddisk with CHS mode and got the same error. I tested other harddisks which support either CHS+LBA or CHS only. All of them work perfectly. What happens after powerup to read block 0 of the disk in LBA mode: - Setup AVR ports and so on - wait until RDY gets high - wait until BSY gets low - issue a Drive/Head register Command with value 0 - wait until BSY gets low - issue a Command Register Command with value 0xEC (identify device) - *read data* - process and print out data - wait until BSY gets low - issue a Sector Count register Command with value 0 - issue a Sector Number register Command with value 0 - issue a Cylinder Low register Command with value 0 - issue a Cylinder High register Command with value 0 - issue a Drive/Head register Command with 0 + 0xE0 (LBA, Drive 0) - issue a Command Register Command with value 0x20 (Read Sector) - *read data* *read data*: - wait until BSY gets low - check ERR bit in the Status register <- set on cmd 0x20 here - wait until DRQ gets high - issue a Data register Command with no data - put /RD on low - read 512 bytes of data - put /RD on high - check ERR bit in the Status register Issuing a Command works always like setting /CS0, /CS1, /DA0, /DA1, /DA2 to low, and then set the needed signals to high so the desired command is indicated. When data has to be transfered with this command, the lower 8 bits are put then onto the port, /WR is set to low afterwards, 3 nop() are done and /WR is set back to high. Does anyone see an error what could make the drive behave like I said? - ATA IDENTIFY works, and the drives data can be read - after a read or write sector command is issued, the status register directly goes 0xd0 (busy) and with the 2nd fetch 0x59 (not busy, drq set, err set) Regards, Oliver

10 years, 3 months

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VT100 PSU smelling.

by mattislind＠gmail.com

Short: R27 in my VT100 PSU is hot and smelling. Why? Long: I think it has been 20 years since I powered up this VT100 so I did it carefully. Used a Variac and a bench supply. It switched just fine and delivered the steady 5V out when the input was at approx 50V (115V input). All the other voltages looked fine at full AC input. But there was this little smell from R27. Then I plugged everything in and fired it up. Now there were considerable more heat generated in R27 which is a 13W / 1kOhm power resistor. But I still had 4.99V over a random TTL gate on the logic board so the PSU seemed to operate just fine. R27 is part of the snubber network on the primary side of this forward-type SMPS PSU. But why it it getting so hot. Is it normal? I have completely forgotten how a VT100 smell when running... Anyone out there with a VT100 that can put his or her nose above R27 and tell me the temperature? One interesting thing is that DEC apparently did some kind of ECO since my resistor is 1k while the schematic tell me 500 ohm. It doesn't seems to have been replaced. I checked D27 and that one looked fine. Could there be some marginal problem in the circuit somewhere that cause excessive hearing of R27? The primary side looks fairly simple so there are not many components that could fail completely which wouldn't cause complete death of the PSU. C19 is part of the snubber network and is a 0.0033uF 1600VDC film capacitor. Can these go marginal somehow? I never heard of that but maybe? /Mattis

10 years, 3 months

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SD Card disk drive for C-64?

by tulsamike3434＠gmail.com

On 01/23/2016 07:48 PM, Mike Boyle wrote: > > > On Sat, Jan 23, 2016 at 7:28 PM, Eric Christopherson > <echristopherson at gmail.com <mailto:echristopherson at gmail.com>> wrote: > > On Sat, Jan 23, 2016, Jim Brain wrote: > > On 1/23/2016 2:18 PM, drlegendre . wrote: > > >First off, my bad - I thought the OP was wanting to change the > device ID > > >(which is not the drive number, btw**) on a genuine 1541. I'd > have no idea > > >how it's done with one of the SD-based drive emulators. > > Google is still a friend: > > > > > https://www.google.com/search?q=sd2iec+change+device+numbers&ie=utf-8&oe=ut… > > > > There are no external switches on some of these drives. > > > > But, the BASIC commands used to switch device numbers on the > 1541 also work > > on these units, and putting an extra char at the end of the > command will > > make the changes permanent, as I recall. > > > > Jim > > Jim, don't you sell a device that's useful for temporarily > switching off > specific drives so the device numbers can be changed more easily? > > -- > Eric Christopherson > > > > > -- So I guess the question now is should I change the sd drive or the original floppy? Thank you all for all the wonderful help god bless you all! > * > Mike's ? > Honda ATC 3wheeler > ? Shop? > for LIFE!!!* > * > Have a blessed day!*

10 years, 3 months

1
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Character ROMs for HP 2631G printer / 264x terminals

by curiousmarc3＠gmail.com

I just resurrected a nice HP 2631G dot matrix line printer: Like here: http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=316 It has 3 empty slots for extra character ROMs, so I am itching to install some... Anyone has ever made a dump of these character ROMs? Apparently these are the same as the extra character sets ROMs used in the 264x terminal. Math, Line Draw and Japanese would be particularly fun... And French too as a nod to my roots. Marc

10 years, 3 months

5
10
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ESR meter recommendations.

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Mattis Lind > What meter do you have and recommend? My capacitance meter is a Uyigao UA6013L, and I'm quite happy with it; it seems pretty reasonable build-quality. A number of people on eBay are selling them, IIRC. My ESR meter is, alas, literall nameless - I looked on both the meter, and the (single-sheet) documentation, and there's no name anywhere. (Yes, yes, I know, I got what I paid for - which was not much! :-) Noel

10 years, 3 months

1
0
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Introduction and RK05J Drive cabling

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Guy Sotomayor > To that end, I've made new "paddle" board that take 2 60pin ribbon > cables. Guy, this is fantastic news! I have previously speculated about doing this, but it's still on the 'someday' list. > I'll let folks know how they turn out (ie do they actually work!). They should. DEC made the same basic part, but using 3x40-pin cables: M9042 (half-length, knuckle-buster) and M9014 (full-length). Apparently the characteristic impedance of N-pin flat cable is close enough to the BC11 cable that it works. Speaking of M9014's, though, the board list describes them as "UNIBUS to 3 H854s", and also lists an M9015, described as "3 H854s to UNIBUS". Does anyone know what the difference is between the two? Unlike the QBUS, the UNIBUS shouldn't need two different kinds of board, since the 'grant in' pin on one end of a UNIBUS cable is the same as the 'grant out' pin on the other end (unlike the QBUS, where the pinout is designed to support plugging in boards, so there are separate 'grant in' and 'grant out' pins). I can't for the life of me think of anything about the UNIBUS that a straight through-connect wouldn't handle - i.e. a pair of M9014's, on each end of the cable set. Certainly, BC11 cables ends aren't marked 'in' and 'out'! ;-) So does anyone know why the M9015 exists - what it different about it, etc, etc? Or was someone at DEC just not thinking hard enough when they spec'd it? > The downside is that they were somewhat expensive Heh, they'll still be cheaper than actual BC11's! :-) Noel

10 years, 3 months

1
0
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Introduction and RK05J Drive cabling

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Joshua Stetson > Ideally I would like to find the following: > ... > The interface cable between the two drives: BC11A > The terminator card M930 The former is going to be a pain. The latter are findable on eBay. If you can't find one, drop me a line - I may have one I can spare. > I know it's common to run these without the top cover on for > calibration purposes. Any tips for that? Maybe a piece of plexiglas > over the heads to avoid any potential dust or should I not worry too much? Don't worry about it; BITD we used to run for short periods with the cover off, to calibrate heads, etc. The air-flow through the pack and out the head entrance hole will keep the heads clear. I wouldn't run them without the cover all the time, but for short periods, it will be fine. > From: Tony Duell > The M930 and BC11 should be easy to find, they are actually the same as > the bits used on PDP11 Unibus connections. The second part is correct, but not the first: BC11 cables are now pretty much unobtainium. Noel

10 years, 3 months

1
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VT100 PSU smelling.

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Mattis Lind > I don't have an capacitance / ESR meter so I cannot check it. If you do a lot of work with analog components (and it sounds like you do), it's probably worth getting capacitance and ESR meters, they can be obtained (new) on eBay for not that much. I have one of each that I got that way; their quality is pretty good, considering how little I paid for them (I didn't think I'd be using them enough to make it worth paying out a lot for really good ones). I haven't used the ESR meter much, but the capacitance meter works quite well, and has been very helpful. Of course, it can't be used in-circuit, but... Alas, I can't (easily) help with the VT100 question! :-) Noel

10 years, 3 months

1
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Software Products International LogiQuest III manual?

by nw＠retrocomputingtasmania.com

The LogiCalc manual is here: http://bitsavers.org/pdf/softwareProductsInternational/ anyone have the LogiQuest III manual to go with it? Here is an advertisement for the SPI application suite that includes Logiquest III: http://i.imgur.com/k0D3wRX.png LogiQuest III was a relational database from circa 1982 and appears to have been written in UCSD Pascal although it was later ported to the CP/M. thanks.

10 years, 3 months

1
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Restoring Old Paper Tape

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

on moldy paper and other items.... generally we will bag it and tag it to isolate it from everything else... check part # or document name ( in the case of printed material) against what already exists. if it exists then the moldy nasty stuff is scrap. If it is something that warrants preservation but not found elsewhere then we consider moving forward on preservation efforts. Ed Sharpe archivist for SMECC _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org) In a message dated 1/21/2016 6:57:02 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, silent700 at gmail.com writes: I'm tossing this out here as a conversation-starter more than a request for help, although I may end up putting the knowledge to use. Today I received a set of original HP paper tapes for the 2115a machine. I don't know if they've been archived or not - there are dozens of HP tapes on bitsavers and I'll have to make a P/N list and compare them. The real problem is they're in horrible shape. Decades of basement moisture and likely a few critters have turned them blackened, moldy and stuck together. So, what to do? How to get to the data without a bio-hazardous payload along for the ride? My thoughts go toward sunlight and/or U/V light (like a hair salon sanitizer,) rubber gloves and a mask, isopropyl alcohol, careful picking apart of layers, etc. I'd think one thing in our favor is that holes in paper are going to be easier to read than ink on paper. So Part 1 is getting them into readable condition, with part 2 being the actual reading. Any experience out there? -j

10 years, 3 months

1
0
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Restoring Old Paper Tape

by silent700＠gmail.com

I'm tossing this out here as a conversation-starter more than a request for help, although I may end up putting the knowledge to use. Today I received a set of original HP paper tapes for the 2115a machine. I don't know if they've been archived or not - there are dozens of HP tapes on bitsavers and I'll have to make a P/N list and compare them. The real problem is they're in horrible shape. Decades of basement moisture and likely a few critters have turned them blackened, moldy and stuck together. So, what to do? How to get to the data without a bio-hazardous payload along for the ride? My thoughts go toward sunlight and/or U/V light (like a hair salon sanitizer,) rubber gloves and a mask, isopropyl alcohol, careful picking apart of layers, etc. I'd think one thing in our favor is that holes in paper are going to be easier to read than ink on paper. So Part 1 is getting them into readable condition, with part 2 being the actual reading. Any experience out there? -j

10 years, 3 months

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Introducing myself and VAXstation 3100 help needed

by bryan＠bceassociates.com

Hi Everyone, Jay West was kind enough to point me to this list and I just wanted to introduce myself before I start begging for help. :-) I started out life coding on a CDC Cyber-170 and from there moved up through the TRS-80 model I before finally taking the plunge and purchasing a very early Apple ][+. After that, I moved up through the Apple //e and finally landed in the 32-bit world with my Amiga 1000. I had an Amiga 2000 and then finally sold out and lived in the WinTel world until being "rescued" by a PPC32 Mac Mini. From there it's been Mac mostly but I've always loved older, less mainstream gear. When I rediscovered OpenBSD and the fact that it has some of these "distaff" architectures as full tier-1 citizens, I started playing around. At this point I have that same MacMini (macppc), a Sun Blade 100 (sparc64), an Alphastation 500/400 (alpha), an SGI O2 (mips64), an HP C3700 (hppa) and a VAXstation 3100 (VAX). Everything except the VAX is running 5.9-current on OpenBSD and doing surprisingly well. I'm trying to bring the VAXstation back to life (picked it up on eBay for less than $30 US) and I'm having a problem (here's where I start begging for help). The diagnostic LEDs on the back (thanks to http://home.claranet.nl/users/pb0aia/vax/3100leds.html for helping me decode them) finally settle at: 1000 1010 Which I'm reading as a failed self-test in the "MM" subsystem. I'm assuming MM=Memory Management Unit. I have also noticed it never spins up the hard drive (that's a working drive I personally installed so I know it's good) or tries to access the floppy. On the advice of some of the folks on the list, I stripped the machine down to the bare board (man there was a lot of dust in there). I found (as I expected to) that the CMOS battery had leaked but there wasn't a lot of corrosion on the board near the connector and the solder pads in that area looked particularly beefy so I don't think I have any board or trace damage >from that. When I powered the box up with everything removed, I got the same MM subsystem failure error so I don't think it's the memory board. I'm still waiting on my final cable to be able to get on the serial console so I can't run TEST 50 yet but I'm hoping someone on here can point me in another diagnostic direction. Or, does a failed "MM" test mean the CPU or main board are done with and I need to replace it? Many thanks in advance for any help you can give me. Thanks, Bryan

10 years, 3 months

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Dec items for sale or trade (winter cleaning), HP

by useddec＠gmail.com

8-A boards- i found more, or most, but no FP8 Quantity of LA34, 38, 50, 100, 120 printers and parts Quantity of DECMATE, Rainbow, and PRO units and parts H7883 ps H7894-MA ps 30-43120-01 ps 30-44712-01 ps DEC PC WXE-A2 (2) DEC PC443 DXLP CELEBRIS 560 830WW VENTURIS 466 854WW (2, one is very rough) VENTURIS 575 821WW VS42S-JC VT1200 VX10A-AA HP 82901M flexible disc drive Shipping from 61853. Feel free to contact me off list with any questions and offers. Paul

10 years, 3 months

1
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UA11 Boards have arrived!!

by ggs＠shiresoft.com

I know some folks sent an email to me indicating their desire for a UA11 board but others may have waited until they arrived. The boards arrived this week (I'm just getting to it because I was out of town on business). They actually got here a week a head of schedule (yea!). The price will be $99/ea + shipping. To make it easy, I'll be using USPS priority with flat rate boxes, so within the USA I'll be charging $15 for packing and shipping, so the total will be $114 (for folks that want more than one board I can probably fit 2-4 boards in the flat rate box so I'll only charge shipping once). I will also be including 1 copy of printed documentation with each order (if you purchase multiple boards in a single order, you'll only get one copy). I accept paypal to ggs at shiresoft.com. If you don't want to use paypal, email me directly and we can figure something out. In any case, please email me to indicate the number of boards that you'd like and where you want them shipped. The folks who have emailed me previously will have priority. TTFN - Guy

10 years, 3 months

1
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Kaypro Motherboard Add-On Question

by brain＠jbrain.com

http://www.ebay.com/itm/USED-KAYPRO-4-COMPUTER-MOTHERBOARD-/331730690952? The non soldermask boad on top of the main unit intrigues me. Does anyone know what it is? Jim -- Jim Brain brain at jbrain.com www.jbrain.com

10 years, 3 months

4
7
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Any Collectors in Italy, near Milan?

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

I am going to be visiting Milan in a few weeks' time. I was wondering if there are any collectors on this list who live in that area, who would like to show off their collection, if I can get a bit of time away from the family? I have a particular interest in DEC machines, but other makes also interest me. If so, please get in touch Regards Rob

10 years, 3 months

4
3
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Looking for an IBM SP/2 (the supercomputer, not a typo)

by jplist2008＠kiwigeek.com

I was contacted by a guy who works for a computing lab at a major US University on the East Coast who is looking for an SP/2 they can display in their lobby. I have one, but it'll be a monumental pain in the <cough> to get out of here. I wanted to drop a line and see if anyone had one they'd be willing to part with in the US, preferably near-ish to the right coast. Thanks all; - JP

10 years, 3 months

1
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Preferred way of substituting TFT for CRT Monitor?

by Martin.Hepperle＠dlr.de

Yesterday I checked the 9000/217 98204B combo with my oscilloscope and I can confirm the 25kHz horz. frequency (1V down to 0.3V pulses every 40 us). I cannot measure the pixel clock as my oscilloscope was too cheap (I had to compromise) and thus cannot sample at higher MHz rates. I only see that it goes from 1V to approx. 2.2V. Just for my understanding: if I do the math: 512 pixels x 400 rows = 204'800 pixels at 50 Hz I end up with 10.2 MHz and at 60 Hz = 12.3 MHz. There is more "room" required for the retrace time, probably another 10% or so? So I understand that the monitor must be capable of ~25 kHz and 10...14 MHz and that I better try before buy. It is difficult to find specs for these HP 9000 video boards. In case it is useful for someone ... my list below is still missing DIO-bus type (1 or 2) and signal frequencies. 98204B Video Board medium resolution (512x390) monochrome for 35721 monitor, DIO-1 98542A Monochrome Video Board medium resolution (512x400) monochrome 98543A Color Video Board medium resolution (512x400) 16 colors 98544B Monochrome Video Board high resolution (1024x768) monochrome 98545A Color Video Board high resolution (1024x768) 16 colors 98546A/B Monochrome Video Board medium resolution (512x390) monochrome alpha/graphics, for 216/217 display compatibility (a pair of cards, compatible with 2136 and 217 displays (512x390, 25x80)) 98547A Color Video Board high resolution (1024x768) 64 colors 98548A Monochrome Video Board high resolution (1280x1024) high performance 98549A Color Video Board high resolution (1280x1024) high performance 98550A Color Video Board high resolution (1280x1024) high performance 98700A Graphics Display Station high resolution (1024x768) 256 colors 98710A Graphics Accelerator optional for 98700A 98720A High Performance Board high resolution (1280x1024) nur HP-UX, requires 98724AA interface and 98784A monitor 98730A High Performance Board high resolution (1280x1024) nur HP-UX 98722 memory upgrade optional for 98720A Martin

10 years, 3 months

3
2
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Data Recovery Services

by jcw1231＠pacbell.net

I need to recover some files from a SCSI drive that failed over a decade ago.? Are there data recovery services that can determine if the files on the drive can be recovered or can actually do such a recovery?? Now that I think about it, I recently also had a fairly new Western Digital drive suddenly no longer be seen by any Windows PC and I really need many of the files on it.? Can anybody here tell me if drive manufacturers offer recovery services? I ask this since I saw a post somewhere that Seagate offers some sort of file recovery via cloud storage. As you can tell, I am by no means super-knowledgeable about modern systems since I am from the WANG 2200 MVP, WANG PC, and WANG Basic 2C era, and still have a few pieces of WANG hardware collecting dust. I apologize if I am posting this to a group where it is inappropriate. Thank You, John

10 years, 3 months

12
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HP 2610A printer

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

Someone asked a question about it privately, I researched today and found the answers so I'll post here as well for posterity. The HP 2610A printer that I have.... 2610A was the HP designation for the Control Data Corporation 9322 Printer. HP sold the printer basically unmodified (as far as I can tell) and slapped their label on it. Mine seems to be in rather good condition so I suspect it will be restorable. In addition, I unearthed a full set of manuals/docs for the thing. Most manuals I have are HP ones, but a few in the binder are CDC manuals for it. At the same time, I also found several binders of docs for the HP 2754 (also have one of those). 2754 is the HP designation for the Teletype model 35KSR. HP sold the printing terminal/reader/punch with minor modifications and slapped their label on it. I have a complete set of docs, mostly HP branded but some (wiring lists, lubrication, disassembly, etc.) are Teletype branded. Various select pictures of the manual pages are at https://www.flickr.com/photos/131070638 at N02 J

10 years, 3 months

1
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DECMate III +

by rodsmallwood＠btinternet.com

Does anybody have any experience with these. This one has the hard disk. You can hear it seek on startup. Setup works but it does not boot from the hard drive and just halts when presented with a system disk on a floppy. Rod

10 years, 3 months

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Preferred way of substituting TFT for CRT Monitor?

by Martin.Hepperle＠dlr.de

> ------------------------------ > Message: 8 > Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2016 15:39:38 -0500 > From: "js at cimmeri.com<mailto:js at cimmeri.com>" <js at cimmeri.com<mailto:js at cimmeri.com>> > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > <cctalk at classiccmp.org<mailto:cctalk at classiccmp.org>> > Subject: Re: Preferred way of substituting TFT for CRT Monitor? > Message-ID: <569D4D8A.4080505 at cimmeri.com<mailto:569D4D8A.4080505 at cimmeri.com>> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > . . . > You need a monitor (or converter) that supports 25khz. Here's the extent of my own research: > > 25khz 640x400 SOG monitors > > LCD > - NEC LCD1510+ (not tested) > > - NEC LCD1810 (LA-1831JMW-1) > Mac + PC -- fair performance, poor scaling. > HP 300/98543 -- works, but banded background cannot be completely > faded to black (I got rid of my 1810's for this reason). > > - Viewsonic Vp150 > HP300/98543 -- works well, great background, colors only fair. > > - Viewsonic VP181 > HP 300/98543 -- not perfect but can be adjusted ok. > banded background *can* be faded to black. > > - J. > ------------------------------ ah, this seems to become difficult... Thanks for the data and recommendations. I will have a look at low H-freq. monitors on ebay, maybe I have to revert to an old, heavy and large CRT. I see that many Viewsonic TFT monitors start at 24kHz. I also found http://www.ebay.de/itm/Gonbes-GBS-8200-CGA-15kHz-EGA-25kHz-Arcade-JAMMA-PCB… The technical data (http://www.extremehardware.webspace.virginmedia.com/ebay_images/GBS-8200.pdf) says: CGA / EGA - Auto Scan: 14.5 kHz - 16.5 kHz 23.5 kHz - 25.5 kHz <<<< this may fit the HP card? 3 0.5 kHz - 32.5 kHz Martin > ------------------------------ > Message: 9 > Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2016 21:07:27 +0000 > From: tony duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk<mailto:ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk>> > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk at classiccmp.org<mailto:cctalk at classiccmp.org>> > Subject: RE: Preferred way of substituting TFT for CRT Monitor? > Message-ID: > <A8192EF71C5C4946A240D25EDC8F9448027E4311 at EXMBX15.thus.cor<mailto:A8192EF71C5C4946A240D25EDC8F9448027E4311 at EXMBX15.thus.corp> > p<mailto:A8192EF71C5C4946A240D25EDC8F9448027E4311 at EXMBX15.thus.corp>> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > > > indeed this machine has a 98204B video board (intended to work with a 35721 > monitor, > > which I don't have). I have not yet found the specs for its composite signal. > > It is normal composite video voltage levels with faster-than-normal horizontal scan rate. > If you have a frequency counter (or something that can be used as one, then put the 98204B > text board in the topmost position of the 9817, leaving out the graphics board > (the machine ill run without it) and take the top casing off the 9817. Take care to avoid the > live mains and worse on the PSU board, power it up, and check the HS and VS pins of the 6845 > (the only 40 pin IC on the board) > > Most, if not all, cheap composite video converters assume US or European TV rates and are > not going to lock to this thing. If anybody knows of an interface that will work, > I'd be interested to know about it too (I have a 9817 with the 98204B card, fortunately > I do have the right montor for it). > > -tony > ------------------------------ Tony, thank you for your explanations. As I understand, the unusual low horizontal frequency is the main problem. I saw that the card has a switch to toggle 50/60Hz vertical frequency (EU/US, original setting was at 60 Hz), but this did not help. I will see whether I can use my oscilloscope to catch the frequencies as I could not find a technical description of the 98204B. ... and I thought today such a simple problem could be easily solved with modern technology... Martin

10 years, 3 months

3
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How to set this drive up?

by tulsamike3434＠gmail.com

On 01/19/2016 03:30 PM, Mike wrote: > Can someone please help me set this drive up and what should the little switched be set to on the back for drive 2 > > Sent from my iPhone. > -- *Mikes ATC Shop A how To Youtube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5OzVS_CmCOLjjztbRiPuKQ?view_as=public 405-481-4715 * OOps I guess some pictures would be nice.. I would like the 3 1/4 drive to be my 2nd drive.* *http://nishtek.com/Ebay/1581_3.jpg What plugs in to what and *here are my questions *1/ there is a serial port next going from right to left there is a interface theb the tohhlr and i am not sure hie ti ser them then rge powre and last but not least the on and off switch.. Can this be use as a 2nd drive if so hoe do zi hook it up the right way? thank you sll in sdvsnce...

10 years, 3 months

3
3
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Retrocomputing on StackExchange...

by geneb＠deltasoft.com

http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/94441/retro-computing I think this is actually a pretty good idea and StackExchange is a great platform. As of right now it needs 11 more people following it (and more questions). tnx. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

10 years, 3 months

9
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vaxstation 3100 boot issue?

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

I am not a vax person, I'm posting this for someone else. Could anyone offer advice for me to relay back to this person (other than reseating boards, cleaning connectors, or other non-vax-specific stuff)? -------------- I was hoping you could help me answer a question. I have a Vaxstation 3100 that, when I power it up, fails the test with the following LED readout: 1000 1010 which indicates the failure is in the memory management test. Any suggestions on further troubleshooting I can do to figure out how to get this machine booting? My plan is to run OpenBSD on it and see if I can revive some of the ports for this platform. I'm doing something similar on my Alphastation 500/400. -------------- Best, J

10 years, 3 months

4
4
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VAXology

by geneb＠deltasoft.com

VAXCINATION A "preventive training" provided to potential users of the VAX system to prevent software foul-ups other than deliberate. VAX-RAY A high-energy screening to determine whether a user is qualified to have a VAX I/O station on his floor. VAXWAGEN What everyone jumps on after the VAX is approved VAXING AND VAXING is the successful use of the VAX during WAILING the full moon. Wailing is the less successful alternative during the other lunar phases. VAXMAS The day the VAX come in. VAXCILLATE To oscillate between possible ways to administer VAX training. VAXCIMILE A German copy of the VAX. VAXECUTION The denial to a user of future access to the VAX. NO VAX TO A put-down administered to those withour a dial-up GRIND line, and hence no acces to the VAX, as in "Infidel! Let that terminal alone! You have no VAX to grind!" VAX AND THE SINGLE GIRL A relationship with much potential. VAXI! VAXI! A cry heard and unheeded by cruising VAX personnel as they go around the corridors, hailed by frantic users-to-be who desire a high-tech ride on the VAX. AVAX A low-flying VAX with radar. VAXTENUATING The generic excuse used to explain delays in the CIRCUMSTANCES delivery of the VAX. VAXCENTUATE To underline the importance of the VAX. VAXTERMINATION The perennial zapping of mysterious files from the VAX. VAXCINE An abbreviation for "I have seen the VAX!" VEDI, VENI, That victory cry - "I saw, I conquered. The VAX VAXI came!" VAXERCISE An early morning workout on the VAX. VAXUUM A computer room without a VAX. Abhorred by nature. VAXIMUM Keeping silent to the max about the startup of the VAX. VAX POPULI The users. VAX BUILDUP The result of not using the file delete command often enough. VAXACHUSETTS DEC country. INCOME VAX What one shouts when the VAX is delivered. VAX-FREE BOND A special relationship with a non-VAX computer on Wall Street. THE BLUE VAX World War I medal honoring high-powered computing. Also (modern): A VAX made by Smurfs. VAXIMA The height of ecstasy reached while computing on VAX. Also (archaic): Mother of VAX. VAXIS What the world of computers rotates on. GRODY TO THE VAX Like, y'know, the VAX in the valley fer shure! VAX-CARS What G.M. doesn't make. VAXICDENT The spilling of coffee on a VAX terminal. VAXONERATED The honor of DEC. VAXLE That to which the wheels of the VAX are attached. VAXIDERMIST One who lives by the dictum "You can take the VAX and stuff it!" THE VAX OF Everything you ever wanted to know about the birds LIFE and the bees (and the bugs in the VAX). VAX Long-haired northern cousins of the buffalo, used as beasts of burden in Tibet. TO VAX ELOQUENT The act of preparing a glossary for the VAX. g.

10 years, 3 months

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MICRO LSI-11 BA23 available

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

Someone would like to move out a Micro LSI-11 in a BA23 pedestal cabinet. Location is Northwest Ohio. Email me off-list if interested. J

10 years, 3 months

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Preferred way of substituting TFT for CRT Monitor?

by Martin.Hepperle＠dlr.de

> What is the exact model number of the video card? > > I am assuming it's an HP98204 of some flavour. The HP98204A uses (US, RS170) TV rates and > can be connected to any composite monitor that expects that. A lot of TVs (rather than monitors) > in Europe can accept that and have composite inputs still, perhaps on a SCART socket. > > However the more normal video card in the 9000/217 (aka HP9817) is the HP98204B. This does > have a composite output but at rather odd rates. There was a specal 'HP' (actually a Samsung > chassis, and it shows!) monitor for this. I thinkl finding somethng that will lock to the video output > of that card is going to be 'interesting' > > Do you have the original HP monitor? If so, what model is it? > > -tony Hi Tony, indeed this machine has a 98204B video board (intended to work with a 35721 monitor, which I don't have). I have not yet found the specs for its composite signal. I find many $20 converters/scalers for composite to VGA on amazon or ebay but I am not sure whether such a thing would work for me. Obviously they seem to work for many computer games (SNES, Nintendo) and for some hobby computers like C64, Amiga etc. (e.g. "RCA Composite AV S-Video to VGA Converter Box"). Next I see $50 devices like "Mini Composite RCA CVBS AV To HDMI Converter (Input: AV; Output: HDMI)" which may also be an option, but only seem to scale to a fixed HDMI resolution, which may be unsuitable for the HP-resolution of 512x400 (or 512x390?). Finally I see $200 converters/scalers which are a bit expensive just for trying to see whether they work (e.g. "Atlona AT-AVS100 Composite/S-Video to Component/VGA Scaler"). I have also contacted Jon from the HP-Museum to see what their solution is. Regards, Martin

10 years, 3 months

3
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DEC Rainbow PC100-A

by shadoooo＠gmail.com

> So if all LEDs remain on, that most likely means the CPU is not able to execute instructions at all. > It might mean a busted CPU, busted ROM or CPU bus, or missing power or clock. Yes, that's exactly my feeling... so a schematic would be very good to try to diagnose an evident problem as missing signals, etc, knowing what they should be from the circuit diagram. I will try to check something easy at first, knowing the pinout of the microprocessors... but after that I suspect it will be harder. Andrea

10 years, 3 months

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cctalk Digest, Vol 19, Issue 18

by shadoooo＠gmail.com

> So if all LEDs remain on, that most likely means the CPU is not able to execute instructions at all. > It might mean a busted CPU, busted ROM or CPU bus, or missing power or clock. Yes, that's exactly my feeling... so a schematic would be very good to try to diagnose an evident problem as missing signals, etc, knowing what they should be from the circuit diagram. I will try to check something easy at first, knowing the pinout of the microprocessors... but after that I suspect it will be harder. Andrea

10 years, 3 months

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Non-baking cure for sticky shed? (being serious for a moment)

by dave.g4ugm＠gmail.com

I know that tapes have different coatings, so some are ferrous and other chrome based, but what about the backing and "glue" that holds the two together? Dave G4UGM > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chuck > Guzis > Sent: 17 January 2016 23:41 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Subject: Re: Non-baking cure for sticky shed? > > On 01/17/2016 02:00 PM, ben wrote: > > > > > Why not just grab a few 8 tracks from the truck out back. > > > > > ...Or fill those old QIC cartridges with some old acetate-base 1/4" > open-reel audio tape? After all, it's all the same... > > --Chuck

10 years, 3 months

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DEC Rainbow PC100-A

by shadoooo＠gmail.com

Hello, I recently took a DEC Rainbow PC100-A. It has been a huge house for a lot of spiders, who deposited eggs and dead insects all around. After full disassembling, cleaning and reassembling, I'm ready to try it! PSU seems to work well, power goes on with almost precise voltages, then all the test leds on the back will lit on... then nothing happens! No video, no sign of life. Clearly there's a problem at the very beginning of the boot phase, that could be caused by a lot of reasons. In the next days I will try to analyze possible causes of the problem with oscilloscope, in the meantime I'm searching a schematic, as board is very complex to follow trace-by-trace. On bitsavers I found a schematic of PC100B, but the main board is not the same as PC100A. Anybody has a schematic for PC100A? I suspect that ROMs could be damaged, anybody has a correct dump to verify the content of the EPROMS? Thanks Andrea

10 years, 3 months

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My TU58 again

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

I think I have had a most instructive day. I did what I should have done a lot earlier and connected a (cheap, built from a Velleman kit) DSO to the output of the read amplifier in my TU58. That's pin 6 of the CA3130 at location E28 if you are trying to follow along in the printset, The printset indicates a wobbly waveform there marked 5Vpp. My little DSO can display the peak-peak measurement of a waveform. I started by cleaning the heads and demagnetising them (with one of those mains-powered electrmomagnet things). Of course I unplugged the drive from the controller before doing that in case the induced voltage was enough to damage things. Remember I have removed the 8155 from the controller board and fitted a socket, I have used jumper wires there to start and stop the tape, change direction, etc without the 8085 part getting in the way. I have what appears to be a new TU58 cartridge. With that in the drive I get a steady (and clean-looking) waveform of about 3.6Vpp. Low, compared to the value in the prints, but I suspect high enough to work. Then I tried my console tape. It goes all over the place. Sometimes 4V. Sometimes under 1V. And it is anything but a clean signal. There were times when it was just a little ripple. As I understand it there are no gaps in the formatting of a TU58. Certainly not ones that last for several seconds at normal tape speed. Worse than that, when I put the new cartrige back in the ampltude was significantly lower, around 2.7V. It came back when I cleaned the head again. My conclusion at this point is that my console tape is suffering from major dropouts and is shedding oxide. So now I need to get a good tape (maybe the new one I have), fix the standalone TU58 and dump the console tape image onto it. Or does anyone have any other ideas or comments? -tony

10 years, 3 months

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TU58 problems

by bob＠jfcl.com

What's the SD card based TU58 emulator that a couple of people mentioned? Is that just a Raspberry PI with linux and the existing TU58 emulator software, or is there something more purpose built? Bob

10 years, 3 months

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TU58 problems

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

I am not sure this fits in with the current topics of this list on the grounds it involves real old hardware, but anyway.. I am currently trying to restore a VAX11/730. I got this about 20 years ago and dismantled it to get it home. For various reasons I never put it back together, I am doing that -- slowly -- now. It's the version in the half-height rack with an R80 at the bottom, then the 11/730 CPU box, and a TS05 on top. I know I am going to have problems with the storage devices, for the moment I am jsut trying to get the CPU running. I've remounted it in the rack, got all the ribbon cables in place, tested the PSU, etc. Minor PSU problems (leaky transistor) but now fine. Powering up gives the expected ROM> prompt on the terminal. Of course all you can do at that prompt is load the microcode from the TU58, so that is what I am trying to get working. And getting nowhere! Firstly the TU58 controller is not passing the self-test. I am pretty sure the 8155 RAM/IO chip is dead. I have removed this and fitted a DIP socket. The rollers were of course dead. I have made hubs and fitted an O-ring of a suitable size. This may not work correctly, but it does seem to move the tape. I have a couple of tape cartridges, the Console microocode tape, and amazingly the belt seems good in them. The motor does get the tape whizzing past the heads. I tried an 8155 borrowed from another device. The controller then passes the self-test (the LED comes on and stays on) but all I get is DD1: Read Error messages and the tape often runs off the spool (rethreading it is something I've got quite good at!). I tried a RS232 analyser between the TU58 and the VAX. Very odd. Either my RS232 anaylser drops 00 bytes or the TU58 sets short result packets. The meaningful bytes (response code, etc) are there, but things like the sequence number are not. Odd... With the 8155 removed, I can pull port pins (on the socket) high and low to start the motor, select drive, track, direction, etc. I've done that and put a LogicDart on the output of the comparator in the read amplifier. According to the manual, the tape is recorded at 800bpi and runs at 30ips. So I get that a bit should take around 41us. And a bit starts with a rising edge, the position of the falling edge (recorded at 1/4 or 3/4 of the bit time) determines whether it's a 0 or 1. Well, sometimes that's what I see on the LogicDart. Sometimes I see a 1:1 square wave with a period of 40-odd us. Does anyone have any sensible ideas as to what to try next. At the moment I have no idea if it's the tape, heads, roller or what.... -tony

10 years, 3 months

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P112 CP/M computer kits still available

by dave＠661.org

FYI, I still have lots of P112 CP/M computer kits for sale. Please buy one or several. See http://661.org/p112/ -- David Griffith dave at 661.org A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

10 years, 3 months

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seeking test program for klh10 and panda display

by dave＠661.org

In order to perfect my new USB-based Panda Display, I'd like to know what to expect on the display. Does anyone here have a pdp-10 program that will put a recognizable pattern on a parallel Panda Display? In particular, I'm looking for whatever is causing the action in this video to happen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_LcQ5apODg -- David Griffith dave at 661.org A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

10 years, 3 months

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PDP-12 restauration in center Germany (J?rg Hoppe)

by michael.99.thompson＠gmail.com

> > Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2016 17:16:17 +0100 > From: J?rg Hoppe <j_hoppe at t-online.de> > Subject: PDP-12 restauration in center Germany > > Hi, > > in case somebody needs companions for cross-tests or likes to exchange > thoughts: > > A few month ago we bought a PDP-12 and are restoring she since then. > > There is no online-diary about progress (the maching is eating up all > time), but see here: > > http://c-c-g.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=311:pdp12-geka… > > The 12 is complete with no visible damages and has some undocumented > add-ons (they always have). > Especially a MOS memory extension was plugged off very soon. > > Luckily we could organize an 95% complete 2nd module set. > > After console exchange (we had indeed a 2nd one!) and much trouble with > cpu logic, > we can now execute opcodes with DO and FILL/EXAM the core memory. > > Contact me if you like to visit us, we're sitting near G?ttingen > (between Kassel and Hannover). > > Joerg > Joerg, Take a look at a picture of our PDP-12. It has a PDP-8/I next to it as in your picture. http://www.ricomputermuseum.org/Home/equipment/dec-pdp-12/dec-pdp-12-restor… We also have MAI and Wang systems. -- Michael Thompson

10 years, 3 months

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TU58 problems

by blstuart＠bellsouth.net

On Sat, 1/16/16, tony duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote: > I tried a RS232 analyser between the TU58 and the VAX. Very odd. Either > my RS232 anaylser drops 00 bytes or the TU58 sets short result packets. The > meaningful bytes (response code, etc) are there, but things like the sequence > number are not. Odd... > > Does anyone have any sensible ideas as to what to try next. At the moment > I have no idea if it's the tape, heads, roller or what.... If it were me, I'd start by setting up some tests to determine what exactly the protocol analyzer is doing. If it really is dropping 0 bytes, then I'd probably hack up a home grown capture using a couple of serial ports. If the controller and the VAX really are speaking the right protocol to each other, then it's time to worry about the correctness of the data. On the other hand, if the controller really is not sending all the bytes it should, I'd check for bit rot in the EPROM. BLS

10 years, 3 months

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Oddball floppies for trade - 8", HS (outer edge), weird cutout

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

first time I have seen such a thing... Ed# In a message dated 1/16/2016 6:46:54 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, michael.99.thompson at gmail.com writes: >From: Jay West jwest at classiccmp.org > >I have two "flippy organizers" (that's around 20 floppies each) full of >these oddball floppies. > >Picture at >https://www.flickr.com/photos/131070638 at N02/22020178558/in/dateposted/ > >They are 8", hard sectored, and the sectors are on the outer edge rather >than the hub, and there is an odd cutout on one edge that goes inside the >drive. > >I know I don't have a machine that uses these, so they are available for >trade. > >J Jay, The RICM just received a PDP-11/05 donation with an attached AED 2500 diskette subsystem. The drives are Memorex 651, and use the oddball diskettes you have. We could really use these diskettes. Is there any chance that you still have them? -- Michael Thompson

10 years, 3 months

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Oddball floppies for trade - 8", HS (outer edge), weird cutout

by michael.99.thompson＠gmail.com

>From: Jay West jwest at classiccmp.org > >I have two "flippy organizers" (that's around 20 floppies each) full of >these oddball floppies. > >Picture at >https://www.flickr.com/photos/131070638 at N02/22020178558/in/dateposted/ > >They are 8", hard sectored, and the sectors are on the outer edge rather >than the hub, and there is an odd cutout on one edge that goes inside the >drive. > >I know I don't have a machine that uses these, so they are available for >trade. > >J Jay, The RICM just received a PDP-11/05 donation with an attached AED 2500 diskette subsystem. The drives are Memorex 651, and use the oddball diskettes you have. We could really use these diskettes. Is there any chance that you still have them? -- Michael Thompson

10 years, 3 months

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ISO: Unibus SCSI disk controller

by derschjo＠gmail.com

(...but then who isn't). I'm looking for a mass-storage device for my PDP-11/44, and I'm having worse and worse luck with my current solution, an Emulex SMD controller -- drives just keep going south on me (the controller works fine, though...) I know how hard these things are to find, but if anyone has a Unibus SCSI controller they're willing to trade for something else, let me know. I have a variety of gear, PDP-11 and otherwise, drop me a line and maybe we can work something out? Thanks as always, Josh

10 years, 3 months

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Need cheap source for anti-static chip tubes

by snhirsch＠gmail.com

Title says it. Perhaps I'm being stupid about search terms, but I'm not finding much of anything on eBay. One seller has TSOP tubes, but I need plain, old 300mm DIP tubes. End plugs and pins for them as well. Plenty of companies offering them on the web, but all are oriented for production quantities. I'd be happy with 20-25. --

10 years, 3 months

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PDP-11/44 w/ 2 RLxx drives for free pickup in San Antonio, TX

by nf6x＠nf6x.net

I got this comment on my blog today: http://www.nf6x.net/2013/11/my-new-dec-pdp-1144-project/#comment-248370 "I have a 11/44. 2xrl drives. And misc extras. It is going in the dump in 2 weeks? do you know anyone who wants it FREE? schematics and rsx 11 mnuals and a few unix things? helotianmoon at gmail.com must pick up san antonio texas pick up by 12-24-2016" I would pick it up myself if I was local. Somebody grab it, please! -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net> http://www.nf6x.net/

10 years, 3 months

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TU58 problems

by shadoooo＠gmail.com

Hello, well, if you see square waves, probably the read path analog circuit could auto-oscillate. This could be because of poorly filtered supply (bad electrolytic capacitors), or possibly some component in the feedback that's not soldered well. I should have a schematic around, I could give a look tomorrow... Andrea

10 years, 3 months

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For you SGI fans...

by geneb＠deltasoft.com

https://archive.org/details/cdromsoftware?&sort=-publicdate&and[]=SGI g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

10 years, 3 months

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My last word on building computers!

by c.murray.mccullough＠gmail.com

I?m not sure to what degree one can/wish to build there own car. If one puts their mind to it; then anything is possible. I?m sure this applies only to die-hard builders and not representative of the ?average? guy/gal. One, and I may be stereotyping here, does not have the time to build much of anything is this hurried world we inhabit. I know this website caters to the experimenter/hobbyist in the computing world but I wonder how many of us have the time/inclination to build an old machine. I recently tried to revive my Coleco ADAM but couldn?t find old capacitors/transformers ? maybe in America they?re available! (I could run an emulator on my PC/Mac but to what end? It?s definitely not the same as running the real thing is it?) As for new machines I guess there are builders /programmers of Raspberry Pi?s but they have a limited use for power users and for ?old? computer aficionados of classic computing era! Do young people want to do this? They may be computer savvy but I don?t think too many have an interest in building anything, particularly from the vintage era. My friend?s grandson, he?s 7, told me the computer is a tool for getting ahead not for looking back. Yikes! Happy computing! Murray :)

10 years, 4 months

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Archiving CP/M 2.2 Source Code Programs to a PC (Fat or NTFS media)

by robo58＠optonline.net

Hi Folks, I have many diskettes worth of CP/M 2.2 assembler source code and programs that I'd like to archive in the PC environment. I'm worried that my media is degrading and I want to move it before it's too late. The media is mostly 8" SD or DD, there are also some 5.25" HD diskettes too. I have the original hardware and can view the media and run the programs. I'm looking for suggestions on how to move it to the PC environment. Thanks Robo

10 years, 4 months

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Archiving CP/M 2.2 Source Code Programs to a PC (Fat or NTFS

by f.heite＠hccnet.nl

>>> From: Robo58 <robo58 at optonline.net> >>> >>> I'm looking for suggestions on how to move it to the PC environment. IF your CP/M machine has a serial interface, I would connect it to a serial interface on your PC. Then use programs/protocols like kermit/xmodem/ymodem/zmodem/procomm/telix/hyperterminal to copy your CP/M files to your PC. Which one to use, depends on what software you have available on your CP/M system. On the PC side, you'll probably always be able to find a corresponding program. Have fun, Freek.

10 years, 4 months

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Building a PC - then & now

by c.murray.mccullough＠gmail.com

I was reading in a dated magazine article on the "freedom to build(a PC)": Well you can't build phone; can't build a car; can't build a refrigerator; can't build a TV. Do we have the freedom to build a computer? We did in the earliest days of the PC- the 8-bit era. Heck, that's all one could do! It was limited and is to this day. AMD vs INTEL control what we can do. Has anything really changed? Happy computing. Murray :)

10 years, 4 months

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USO (Unidentified System Unit)

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Henk Gooijen > I could not find the M5950 nor M3020 in any module list. The M3020 (and M1131) are variants of the M302 (and M113, respectively), so I don't think those are much of a clue. The M5950 I couldn't find anything about at all, but the M595 is a current mode converter for the DF11 - which I can't find much about, although it's in the '73-'74 Peripheral Handbook - but that looks distinctly like a possibility, from the pictures there. Noel

10 years, 4 months

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Archiving CP/M 2.2 Source Code Programs to a PC

by mark＠markesystems.com

From: Jon Elson <elson at pico-systems.com> > Got a console serial port on the CP/M system? You should be > able to use a program like Kermit to suck up the files. Something like this was going to be my suggestion, too. The original request was to archive the source files, not the disks themselves. Virtually every modem-type program (MODEM7, for example) has at least XModem, and of course there are tons of options for the PC end (PuTTY seems to be a popular choice). Hopefully there's some serial port in the system, even if it's not the console. And you do remember how to write 8080 code and make CP/M calls, right? Worst case, since it's "Source" you're trying to archive, would be to write a simple program that just reads a file and blurts it out the serial port, with no handshaking at all. Running a serial capture on the PC would probably have very few, if any, errors. ~~ Mark Moulding

10 years, 4 months

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Alphatronic P2 Manuals

by pieroandreini＠gmail.com

Hello, I scanned several manuals belong the Alphatronic P2 300dpi pdf no compression. How can I upload them for Bitsavers? Thanks, Piero

10 years, 4 months

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DATAIO 201 prom programmer

by chd＠chdickman.com

I have a DATAIO 201 prom programmer that fails the self test with an error 75. The error translates to a pin fault. Any help with schematics or suggested debugging experience appreciated. -chuck

10 years, 4 months

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Front Panels - Scan of finished item available

by rodsmallwood52＠btinternet.com

Hi Guys PDP-8/e types A + B complete. Scan of finished item available. See what you are getting. Packaging due in next day or so. Rod

10 years, 4 months

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Free HP 3000 Equipment for removal (Denver Craigslist)

by curiousmarc3＠gmail.com

Looks like someone beat me to it. Congrats to whomever it is, I hope it's one of us! Marc ----- Original Message ----- From: "CuriousMarc" <curiousmarc3 at gmail.com> To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Tue 05 Jan 2016 03:34 PM Subject: RE: Free HP 3000 Equipment for removal (Denver Craigslist) I'm on it... Marc -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Glen Slick Sent: Monday, January 04, 2016 8:38 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Free HP 3000 Equipment for removal (Denver Craigslist) Someone go get this. posted: 2016-01-04 12:20pm http://denver.craigslist.org/sys/5387506164.html I have the following HP 3000 computer equipment in my basement yours FREE for removal QTY Description ----- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 HP 3000 series 30 Computers 4 HP 7925 disk drives 1 HP 2608A line printer 1 HP 7970E tape drive 2 HP 3000 Console Terminals 3 HP 2645A terminals 2 HP 2631A terminal printers The picture shown is of 3 disk drives and the Tape drive when new (1980). This equipment has been mostly idle for 20+ years. The first 4 line items of equipment above are relatively large and would require at least 2 men to remove each item from my basement.

10 years, 4 months

1
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Building a PC - then & now

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

I think the Pilot brand TV at the museum may be continuous and yes has chan 1 Ed! In a message dated 1/13/2016 5:54:46 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, cclist at sydex.com writes: On 01/13/2016 03:27 PM, William Donzelli wrote: > In the old days, the shitty kit TVs would have continuous tuners. In prewar days, it seems that there more than a couple of offerings. Didn't Meissner(they of the "Signal Shifter" VFO) offer a kit TV in the 30s/early 40s? I do remember the continuous tuners, though--two bands--and one could even tune Channel 1. A large number of Heathkit color TVs were built by vets using funding >from the GI bill. Those were Heath's good days... --Chuck

10 years, 4 months

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Amazing game???

by tulsamike3434＠gmail.com

I have went over and over the code here.... http://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/showpage.php?page=3 but this is what I get??? http://i64.tinypic.com/nci35y.jpg I know all the code is right is there a misprint in the book? I am pulling my hair out...LOL

10 years, 4 months

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Free (pay shipping) Hp DDS-4 40gb tapes (only have two)

by jrr＠flippers.com

I have two sealed C5718A tapes that are free to the first person to ask for them and pay shipping. I hate to throw out something that may still be useful. Can mail them for $5 (I think) to the USA, or local pickup. John :-#)# -- John's Jukes Ltd. 2343 Main St., Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 3C9 Call (604)872-5757 or Fax 872-2010 (Pinballs, Jukes, VideoGames) www.flippers.com "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out"

10 years, 4 months

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Sun SPARC at iBid State of Illinois auction site again

by jzatar2＠illinois.edu

Hey everyone, I was browsing and I noticed that there's another Sun SPARC posted up: https://ibid.illinois.gov/item.php?id=170591 last time, I think there was one that went for a mere $5. Now of course, you gotta move it or pay to have it moved, but if you're interested, act now and start getting an account on the site. When I got my account, I had to wait a few days before they actually got my account set up. Anyway, given that this is the second time I've seen Sun equipment on the site at the same location, I would venture to guess someone over here in IL government is phasing out their sun stuff, so maybe it's worth checking in the future as well for more stuff if anyone's interested. Regards, Joe

10 years, 4 months

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I COULD JUST KICK MYSELF IN THE BUTT!!! commodore pet . . .

by tulsamike3434＠gmail.com

Back in the mid to late 90's I used to go to the Salvation Army store every day before work because I worked night shift and the lady at the counter used to have a crush on me and would set aside all old computer stuff for me. Well one day I went in and I seen her wheeling me out a Commodore PET with the calculator keyboard witch drove me insane trying to program on that lil keyboard lolol. I got it for 10.00 FREAKING BUCKS yes TEN F.R.E.A.K.I.N.G. BUCKKKKKSKSKSKSSKSKS}{PJDGHLGFO GRRRRRRR Sorry about that I almost just broke my keyboard just telling this story lol anyway I played with it and this was just before AOL went from 20.00 for 15 hrs of INTERNET time to 19.99 unlimited net time. I don't know if any of you remember when they switched over to the unlimited monthly plan but as for in Oregon AOL Servers crashed for about 3 months from such a heavy load of members dialing up and connecting quick question here _*<------- Did this happen in your area if so where were you?*_ Anyway back to the commodore PET I snatched that baby up and most of my information I got for older computers back then was the library I used to spend HOURS AND HOURS reading and learning how to program in BASIC I had no idea what all the ports in the back were for I was just happy to have the built-in tape drive. I was programming a " ROCK n ROLL TRIVIA GAME" boy I got in such big trouble because Cd's where the new thing then so I had no blank tapes so I remember I got busted from my mom, She was so mad at me because I use a TAMMY FAY BAKKER from the Jim Bakker PTL show tape in my Commodore PET Computer lol Well just about this time all the "TREE HUGGER'S" Were using the SPOTTED OWL to bring the logging industry to it's knees! so about that time a friend of mine from central America and offered me a job in the Oil industry and I up and left everything behind but I must admit a year before that my Mother bought me my first PC it was a Amega 486 DX66 with 8meg of ram and I was getting very interested in HTML web programming I think my first FREE HOSTING website was on GEOCITYS. ANYway I hate myself for leaving my MINT condition Commodore PET when I moved but I had alot of other life choices to be dealing with at the time...

10 years, 4 months

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TDL 8K Z80 Basic..

by holm＠freibergnet.de

Currently I'm fiddeling around with the old 8 Kbyte Z80 Basic Interpreter >from TDL, found an Paper Tape Image here: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img54306/p/tdlsoft.zip on Dave Dunfields pages. I've used the 12K Version from TDL many years before on my home computer and now we have a project on robotrontechnik.de with an SBC and I've ported the P112 Tiny Basic already to this SBC, now I want to try the 8K TDL Version. ... Has someone still a computer with that 8K TDL Basic in use? In the moment I'm writing a loader that can "autopatch" the relocation Bytes in the TDL HEX file format from the Paper Tapes. Someone used that before? Regards, Holm -- Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583 www.tsht.de, info at tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741

10 years, 4 months

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DEC PDP-11 software manuals available

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> I have a bunch of DEC PDP-11 software manuals which I don't want .. > They are free to a good home They have been claimed. Noel

10 years, 4 months

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DEC PDP-11 software manuals available

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

So I have a bunch of DEC PDP-11 software manuals which I don't want (which I got in a lot with some other manuals I did want). They are free to a good home (US media mail free, anything else we'll have to work out). They are: RT-11 Documentation Directory (AA-5285D-TC, March '79) RT-11 System Release Notes (AA-5286B-TC, March '78) RT-11 System Generation Manual (AA-5283B-TC, March '78) Introduction to RT-11 (DEC-11-ORITA-A-D, August '77) RMS-11 Installation Guide (AA-H235A-TC, June '79) RMS-11 User's Guide (AA-D538A-TC, March '79) RMS-11 MACRO-11 Reference Manual (AA-H683A-TC, March '79) Also, before I send them off, should I scan any/all of them (I'm too lazy to look to see if they already available online :-)? Noel

10 years, 4 months

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Front Panels - Update

by rodsmallwood52＠btinternet.com

Hi Guys I just had an email with some pictures of the panels in. The panels are great but the pictures not. Because you need lots of light to see what you are doing. They have several skylights and the light is all wrong for phone cameras They are adding the final details : A and B customisation and the second white line round the lock area. The front is now matt black. I'm changing to professional packaging as green tape and cardboard works but is not that pretty. So we expect to start shipping when the new packaging arrives. PDP-8/f and /m are waiting to be screen printed next. PDP-11/XX are being drawn now and I'm going to try and have at least a few boards ready with the common features before taking orders. Rod

10 years, 4 months

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Colour composite video for the BBC micro

by terry＠webweavers.co.nz

Sometimes capability is already built in but not widely known or publicized. Sometimes all it needs is a jumper! http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/2016-01-12-composite-video-for-bbc… Terry (Tez)

10 years, 4 months

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