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

RSTS/E has just had its 50th Birthday...

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Paul Koning > RSTS/E of course has a bunch of new stuff in it to deal with mapping, > but the bulk of the code carries over from RSTS-11. I was assuming that the basic intermal environment was sufficiently different that not a lot of the OS-level code could carry over, but I guess not. DId you actually work on RSTS-11 internals (I don't know your exact dates at DEC), or did you just read the source? And speaking of which, are any RSTS-11 sources still extant? I found the RSTS directory on BitSavers, but it seems to have only manuals. Noel

5 years, 9 months

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Early 3M Computer Tape Type Numbers

by t.gardner＠computer.org

I'm trying to figure out what were the earliest Type numbers for 3M ?-inch reel-to-reel computer tape As best I can find, 3M began marketing a Type 777 computer tape about 1967. The Type 700 appears to be somewhat later. But 3M sold computer tape directly to at least government customers (e.g. NSA, Social Security) in the 1950s. The also notably OEMed tape to IBM who rebranded it under an IBM label until the late 1960s at which point with the help of Sony IBM began manufacturing its own computer tape. Anyone have any idea of the Type number for 3M computer tapes earlier than Type 777? There might be a place for some of these older Types at the CHM if anyone knows of any still in existence. Tom PS: There is a lot of information on 3M audio tape Type numbers as at http://www.aes.org/aeshc/docs/3mtape/aorprod-cust.pdf but computer tape seems to be an orphan

5 years, 9 months

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FW: RSTS/E has just had its 50th Birthday...

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

Please copy cctalk/cctech on any responses to Peter. J From: Peter Dick <peter at balvine.com> Sent: Saturday, June 27, 2020 4:34 PM To: jwest at classiccmp.org Subject: RSTS/E has just had its 50th Birthday... Hi. I stumbled on your wonderful PDP11.ORG website. As I expect you know, RSTS was ?born? on 11th June 1970 as shown when you print DATE$(1%) with Star Date format selected. This means RSTS/E, the Greatest Operating System ever, has just turned 50 years old. We would like to mark this historic moment by collecting a total of 50 memories from those of us who used RSTS/E at some time, obviously the earlier the better. Or if you are still running old Basic Plus code, then the later the better! I will then collate these memories and email them out to everyone who takes part. What memories? It doesn?t matter. Funny / technical / life changing / surprise / show how times have changed / whatever ? Length? It doesn?t matter. Your name will be included but not your email address unless you specifically want it included. Please email contributions to 50years at silverware.co.uk <mailto:50years at silverware.co.uk> Bye/P Peter Dick, ex Chairman DECUS UK RSTS SIG.

5 years, 9 months

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A tool many of you may make find useful!

by dave.dunfield＠gmail.com

> The file is empty. Not much I go do except stop trying and advise people to ignore all this. I've just downloaded the file from my site, and it is NOT empty and does work. I did notice a small bug, if you specify names not in it's database it doesn't tell you, and produces no output. I have corrected it. Dave -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Personal site: http://dunfield.maknonsolutions.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5 years, 9 months

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Need HP 9114B PROM 09114-15521 Contents

by cruff＠ruffspot.net

FYI: I've received the PROM image, no need for anyone else to go to the trouble to extract it.

5 years, 9 months

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Need HP 9114B PROM 09114-15521 Contents

by cruff＠ruffspot.net

The PROM in my 9114B committed suicide this morning, letting the magic smoke out. It was marked with part number 09114-15521, does anyone happen to have dumped the contents so I can program a new one? Thanks.

5 years, 9 months

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Hp 21mx loader rom set

by grant＠klyball.com

Thanks JayI'm am not trying to use DS/1000 just trying to get the 7974 loader going.Grant -------- Original message --------Grant wrote....------------------------Hi all, i am looking for a loader rom set for my 21mx and does not seem tobe around at the usual places, I am hoping to find a leed.Here is what i am in need of.12992L consisting of12992-8001191740-8007091740-8007191740-80072there is a set of 91740 on bit savers but with a suffix of 67-69 ?------------------------Pretty sure I have a binary copy of all known 12992's, the ones I use I justburn out to a set of blanks. The 7974 loader rom uses the boot loaderextension firmware for DS/1000. Are you actually running ds/1000?? I haven'tseen anyone get that up and running.I'll see if I can dig up the bin (or an already burned chipset).J

5 years, 9 months

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VAX /785 docs

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

This eBait item: https://www.ebay.com/itm/202989416368 has a number of VAX-11/785 manuals, including /785 Hardware User's Guide. A bit outside my scope, but /785 docs are very rare (Bitsvers only has prints) so a VAX person should grab this and then scan them. Noel

5 years, 9 months

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Accuracy of IBM Instructional Logic Diagrams

by cube1＠charter.net

As part of my project to create a Field Programmable Gate Array implementation (FPGA) of the IBM 1410 Data Processing System based on Automated Logic Diagrams (ALDs), I decided to look at using the Instructional Logic Diagrams (ILDs) to guide my testing, rather than using the ALDs directly. The ILDs are written completely in ?positive logic?. Going in, I sort of expected a pretty imperfect match ? that the ILDs would not have all the signals, and be somewhat superficial in their treatment of the logic. For the IBM 1410, the circuits were: AND, OR, Inverter, Indicator (Lamp), Single Shot, Latch (Reset/Set), Trigger (Flip Flop) To my surprise I found that the ILDs are *VERY* accurate, and a great testing guide, providing a second view of the logic ? a kind of redundancy check against my entry of ALD data into my system. They are good enough that they have given me considerable confidence that I can use them to help ?fill in the blanks? related to the handful of ALD pages I am missing, and also for some of the IBM 1414 peripheral controllers for which I do not have ALDs. In 1962 IBM published an article in the IEEE Transactions ?Information Processing ? from Engineering Drawing to Manufacture? by R. K. Grim that describes how the data the ended up generated ALDs was entered and the ALDs produced, but it does not mention where the ILDs come from. They are definitely artwork ? not machine generated per se. The article did not address ILDs. I have corresponded with IBM to see if they might have, in their archives, the data from these 1960s era engineering systems, but it seems that they do not (or have lost the pointers to them.) It seems that the SMS automation was first done using an IBM 709, then they later added IBM 7090 and IBM 1401 systems (which of course could not have been there for the original design of the IBM 7090 and 1401, which used the SMS system), using tape files. The article also describes future plans to use a 1301 disk drive attached to an IBM 1410 for remote (tele-processing) access (which was supported by the IBM 1410-PR155 operating system. The accuracy of the ILDs is such that I expect that they evolved along with the design of the machine and entry of the data used for the ALDs. I?d expect that doing it after the fact, from the ALDs, would be quite error prone ? besides the one difference I have found is in the signal names, which do not always exactly match those used in the ALDs, but are close enough that the intent is obvious. But I don?t know the timing: which came first ? the ILDs or the ALDs, or did they perhaps begin together in some form and co-evolve? In summary, it seems to me that one could do a pretty decent positive logic implementation of IBM machines of that era using these ILDs. This was a real eye-opener. If there are any old-time IBMers that read this, I'd love to hear any enlightening information or stories about this process. JRJ

5 years, 9 months

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On: raising the semantic level of a program

by sieler＠allegro.com

A friend kindly searched and found an interesting paper from 1973, Programming by semantic refinement <https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/390014.808298> JB Morris - ACM SIGPLAN Notices, 1973 - dl.acm.org. https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/390014.808298 While an interesting paper, it's going the opposite direction (essentially, going from an English language description down to a final programming language). But, using the L1 (highest level language), L2, ..., Ln (lowest level language) concept, I can phrase my concept better ... so ... Most programmers write at, say, the level of L3. They might write something like: mem [foo].head = something My "raising the semantic level" would be: #define HEAD(x). mem [x].head ... HEAD (foo) = something With a fair set of macros like that (HEAD, TAIL, etc), the program is now effectively written in a "new" language, L2 (a higher level language than L1). Being written in L2, the resulting code is more readable to everyone, partially because they aren't continually seeing the implementation of how ".head" / "mem" work/interact. In effect, the programmer has added a feature (linked list handling, perhaps) to L3 ... for that particular program, seemingly extending/raising the level of the language. It's that concept that I thought I saw sometime in the early 1970s :) thanks, Stan

5 years, 9 months

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Restarting Old Amiga's

by healyzh＠avanthar.com

I have the urge to get my Amiga?s back up and running. I?m still trying to find my main Amiga A3000, but have found my A500 and my A600. The problem is, I don?t remember the last time I powered these on. It?s been a long time since I?ve had time. In the case of the A3000, I think it?s been about 17 years. My Atari TT030 has been even longer. :-( Any advice about powering them up? Of course another fun challenge will be to figure out where on earth all my Amiga floppies are. Zane

5 years, 9 months

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IDE Hard Drive Question

by w2hx＠w2hx.com

Hi friends, Sorry for the long email that follows: I am working with an old military PC model SAIC V2LC. The PC is a 486 and is from around 1992 give or take a couple of years. Probably 1995 latest. The computer has one 3.5" floppy and a removable IDE hard drive in a removable carrier. It also seems to have a SCSI controller, but I would have to see what that is all about as the BIOS does not show anything about that so it may require a driver that I may be unlikely to find. Some pictures: https://w2hx.com/x/SAIC%20V2LC/1.JPG https://w2hx.com/x/SAIC%20V2LC/7.JPG https://w2hx.com/x/SAIC%20V2LC/9.JPG https://w2hx.com/x/SAIC%20V2LC/10.JPG IDE HD and carrier, the hard drive in the carrier is a Conner CFS540A: https://w2hx.com/x/SAIC%20V2LC/20200124_094111.jpg https://w2hx.com/x/SAIC%20V2LC/20200124_094131.jpg https://w2hx.com/x/SAIC%20V2LC/20200124_094115.jpg https://w2hx.com/x/SAIC%20V2LC/20200124_094118.jpg https://w2hx.com/x/SAIC%20V2LC/20200124_094105.jpg I purchased this SD-IDE converter to replace the failing (failed) hard drive. I got a 40 pin converter because I saw that the conner CFS540A uses 40 pins. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07G29TZPS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00… I received the converter and went to remove the hard drive from the carrier and saw something surprising. It appears that 4 wires from the computer are connected not to the 40 pin IDE connector, but directly to the hard drive in the center piece (is this the motor? Voice coil? I don't know). https://w2hx.com/x/SAIC%20V2LC/0625201552.jpg https://w2hx.com/x/SAIC%20V2LC/0625201605.jpg Does ANYONE have any idea what these 4 wires are connected to and why? And anyone give any odds about whether these 4 wires will prevent this IDE-SD converter from working? Any and all suggestions/advice welcome. 73 Eugene W2HX

5 years, 9 months

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A tool many of you may make find useful!

by dave.dunfield＠gmail.com

>this tool is really similar to "rdfind", which compares file sizes and >content, independently from file name, and is able to create a list of >correspondence, delete duplicate files, and create symbolic links to the >single instance. >This can work on large amounts of files, even on complex directory tree. Sounds good, don't know that I saw that one (tend not to look too hard as I enjoy creating stuff, and what I do is usually smaller, easier to use - at least for me - and more reliable). Didn't want to go into a lot of detail as this isn't exactly classic computer related.. although I expect a lot of classic collectors are like me and have use for it. Couple things I implemented in DFF which I don't know of in other tools: It uses an "index" file - first attempt just used the output of windows: DIR/S but I found it got big and unworkable fast, and changed from one version of windows to another. DFF creates its own which is small and consistent, having only the DIR names, and file sizes + names. This is normally a temp file, but you can Keep it, just Build it without processing, and process it later. You can also have DFF append to it so you can deal with as complex dir structure as you like, by /BAing it in various places. It can deal with files in arbitrary directory trees on multiple drives quite easily. You can also have it place and END marker in the file, which means that anything you append will be treated differently. Anything before the END marker is scanned and reported as you expect. After the END marker, files are considered as possible duplicates, but not checked and reported separately. And since the "index" file is a text file, you can add to it, change it and retrieve it's content very easily - you don't need special programs provided by the tool maker to do unusual things. Same is true for it's output. You can also have it list: - All files (dups have a dup instance number see below) - Only duplicate files - Only single files - Under each directory, you can get it to list where all the duplicates are (full path) This combined with the END marker makes some fairly powerful things possible. (Show me any files occurring here which are not also occurring there). Each instance of duplication is assigned a unique "duplicate instance" number which is shown next to all files which are part of that "duplicate instance". I thought about an automatic "delete duplicates" feature but didn't implement it as I am organizing a lot of data, much is duplicated, it's final resting place may not be one of the original locations and I want control over how the final archive is organized. Dave -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Personal site: http://dunfield.maknonsolutions.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5 years, 9 months

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A tool many of you may make find useful!

by shadoooo＠gmail.com

Hello, this tool is really similar to "rdfind", which compares file sizes and content, independently from file name, and is able to create a list of correspondence, delete duplicate files, and create symbolic links to the single instance. This can work on large amounts of files, even on complex directory tree. Andrea

5 years, 9 months

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A tool many of you may make find useful!

by dave.dunfield＠gmail.com

Sorry, can't respond easily because I read the list on the web, can't deal with the flood of email from it, and can't respond via the web interface. >I'm not clear on what "duplicate" really means. Perhaps you can clarify >things for me. > >Duplicate in name and/or size? >Duplicate in content? > >There are lots of duplicate file finders for Windows and some of them >are quite sophisticated, being able to compare the content of files with >different encodings and provide "almost the same" type of information. Duplicate means exact duplicate size and contect, name does not matter. (I copied lots of stuff around, sometimes renaming it and want to find all the dups). Yeah, lots of nifty tools, but I needed one where I could easily control what it looks and and process it's results (text files). Also had to deal with VERY large sets of data (terabytes) and do it all in a fairly reasonable time. So I just wrote one. I'm a bit unusual that way - tend to write stuff that does exactly what I need instead of trying to use something that sort of comes close but often also does a lot I don't want. >Downloading http://dunfield.maknonsolutions.com/dos/sw/ddw2020.zip >gets flagged by Windows Defender on Windows 10 Pro (1909) >as "Worm:Win32/Spybot". Not for me, it's something I compiled from my own source myself, is packed with UPX - maybe Windows Def doesn't like that but it raises no alarms on the Win7 Pro system I'm testing on. Have no control of Windows Defender .. just one of many reasons I don't use Windows much. Not the first time good clean code of my own has triggered false alarms. FWIW, I just downloaded DDW2020.ZIP from the site, and it exactly matches my original one. Contents also exactly match my original files, here is a DIR listing: Directory of R:\DDW2020 2020-06-24 09:08 PM 3,255 DDW2020.TXT 2020-06-24 09:08 PM 23,584 DFF.EXE 2020-06-24 09:08 PM 23,584 EDT.EXE 2020-06-24 09:08 PM 31,907 EDT.TXT 2020-06-24 09:08 PM 6,688 FDF.EXE 2020-06-24 09:08 PM 9,760 VLT.EXE 6 File(s) 98,778 bytes Note, Windows did warn me that this file is not commonly downloaded and wanted to "discard" it, but I used "Keep" - no defender or antivirus alarms triggered. Dave PS: Noticed and fixed the spelling of "Download" - may need to reload to see due to browser cache. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Personal site: http://dunfield.maknonsolutions.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5 years, 9 months

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Future of cctalk/cctech

by aek＠bitsavers.org

With Jay retiring, what are the hosting plans for these mailing lists?

5 years, 9 months

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Tri-Data Cartrifile parts/interfaces/tapes?

by derschjo＠gmail.com

Hi all -- I picked up a Tri-Data Cartrifile 4096 at VCF West last year and since I'm suddenly going to have more time on my hands, I thought it'd be fun to see if I can get it running again. The Cartrifile is a tape drive that uses cartridges containing continuous-loop 1/4" tape in various lengths, much like 8-track tape though in slightly different packaging and with a fixed head. 10ips, 600bpi. (There's a brochure on Bitsavers at http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/tridata/Tri-Data_4096_Brochure_Feb69.pdf) The unit I have has a PDP-8 compatible interface, though I only have the cabling and rear-bulkhead for posibus systems. (My 8/I is currently negibus, so some work will need to be done there.) It's in pretty decent shape and I think I should be able to get it to work again. I also have a stack of cartridges and it remains to be seen how they hold up. If they're anything like 8-track tapes, the EOT marker will probably fall off and the tape ends will need to be reconnected as well :). At minimum I hope to be able to recover the data off the tapes I have. Curious if anyone out there has one of these, has any spare parts, or interface parts (there was at one point an Omnibus interface available, and having the negibus interface would be extremely handy.) Thanks as always, Josh

5 years, 9 months

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Zaiaz 933 Clipper board

by plamenspam＠afterpeople.com

Hello, Recently acquired such board and would like to ask if someone has any documentation or/and software for it. Regards, Plamen

5 years, 9 months

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A tool many of you may make find useful!

by jfoust＠threedee.com

At 10:41 AM 6/25/2020, Dave Dunfield via cctalk wrote: >I originally wrote it for my own use, but it has proven SO useful that I took >a little time to clean it up and post it at my personal site.: Downloading http://dunfield.maknonsolutions.com/dos/sw/ddw2020.zip gets flagged by Windows Defender on Windows 10 Pro (1909) as "Worm:Win32/Spybot". - John

5 years, 9 months

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A tool many of you may make find useful!

by dave.dunfield＠gmail.com

Hi, Don't know if anyone is interested, but I'd guess that a lot of you like me have collected a big pile of digital "stuff" over the years, and also if like me, it may have gotten away from you a bit with a lot of duplication etc. Having some spare time, I've been organizing my collected documentation, software, drivers and other files. As part of this process I wrote "Duplicate File Finder", a WIn32/64 tool which can look at a VERY large file collection (can even be across many drives etc.) and produce a nice summary of what is duplicated and where all the duplicates are. I originally wrote it for my own use, but it has proven SO useful that I took a little time to clean it up and post it at my personal site.: http://dunfield.maknonsolutions.com If this sounds useful, have a look and grab the program. Hopefully it will be as useful to you as it has to me. Dave -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Personal site: http://dunfield.maknonsolutions.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5 years, 9 months

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The Old Calculator Museum - Oregon

by peter＠vanpeborgh.eu

Guys, I seem to have lost contact with Rick Bensene of that museum for the last 10 days. Can anyone tell me if he is ok? Many thanks, peter

5 years, 9 months

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PDP-11 tape question

by cclist＠sydex.com

I've been processing some PDP-11 9 track (800 NRZI) tapes and run across something that I don't recognize. Every file on the tape consists of a number of 512 byte blocks (okay, that's normal) but at the head of each file, there's a short block of 14 bytes. Usually, a short record like this is discarded as "noise" on many mainframe tape systems, but here it's consistently present. Here's what one of the records looks like: 15 34 fe 51 fe 76 01 01 00 00 01 80 10 00 Doesn't seem like a file name in RAD50 format, so I'm puzzled. Inquiring minds want to know... Thanks, Chuck

5 years, 9 months

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Changing the number of file headers on an RSX volume

by cz＠alembic.crystel.com

So I'm working on this RSX11M+ system here and while working I ran myself out of file headers. Using the HOME /MXF command I was able to increase the number of headers, but only up to 4090. or so. Trying to go to 4100 gave me an error saying there were not enough system blocks or something. Currently I have 830 headers, but that's not enough in the long term. The volume has 541,944 blocks total, with 150655 in use. This is a system I generated on a smaller disk, then copied to the pdp11, then backed up with BRU MU0:=DU0: then restored to a larger blank disk. I guess the question is can I extend the number of blocks without having to re-init the system disk? I suppose I could flatten it by taking the system down to single user (shutdown, then p to start with the volume dismounted, mount the volume /for, then BRU mu0:=du0:), then format the volume with a really big assed MXF value, then restoring the tape, but would that flatten the volume info? Or do I need to just man up, put a second ESDI drive on this monster, copy the files to the second drive then format the first (big) volume right, copy the files with PIP, and do a VMR again to write the boot block? Or is there a better way to backup and restore the volume without doing an image backup using /for? Been a long time since I've done this stuff. Thanks! C

5 years, 9 months

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PDP8 KV graphics PCB design

by roelof_klaas＠yahoo.com

I found somewhat fascinating pictures in a PDP8 small computer handbook. It is a KV graphics system. According to the book it was used to design new computer circuit boards. So I got very curious to that KV system. I found a maintenance manual about the system. It even had a joystick! I wonder if any of that PCB software has been rescued? Regards, Roland https://ibb.co/WVKCfMz https://ibb.co/TvYpP2v https://ibb.co/6mSZkdh

5 years, 9 months

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IBM vacuum tubes

by decguy＠songdog.eskimo.com

While going through my assortment of old vacuum tubes looking for audio treasures, I found a handful of IBM branded ones. Mostly 5965, but there's one 5963 mixed in. These are dual triodes with the same pinout as common small-signal audio tubes such as 12AX7/7025/ECC83, but characteristics closer to 12AT7 or 12AU7. My RCA Receiving Tube Manual says they're designed to withstand being held in cutoff for long periods of time, and mentions digital applications. Anyone know what kind of IBM machine these would have been used in?

5 years, 9 months

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Malfunctioning VT240 - help please

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

On 6/21/20 10:41 AM, Jon Elson wrote: > On 06/20/2020 09:41 PM, Charles wrote: >> On 6/20/20 8:31 PM, Jon Elson wrote: >>> >>>> I confirmed the bad one by removing the piggyback and the failure >>>> returned. Now I need to desolder the bad one without ruining the >>>> board. I may just cut the leads off close to the bad chip, and >>>> solder the replacement to the stumps. (Normally I remove the legs >>>> and install a machine-pin DIP socket). Or just solder the piggyback >>>> and leave it there... thoughts? >>>> >>> Cut the leads close to the body.? Apply a soldering iron to each >>> lead, and pull the lead out with tweezers, >>> simultaneously heating and pulling.? This is very gentle to the >>> board, just doing one at a time.? Then, you can vacuum out the holes >>> and install a new chip or socket. >>> >>> I've done this many times, and never wrecked a board. >>> >>> Jon >>> >> That's how I do it... the vacuuming is the problem. Someday I need to >> get a good vacuum desoldering station. Right now I just have a >> spring-loaded solder sucker (which I can do a pretty decent job with >> on most boards). But this high-density layout (2 traces between DIP >> pads) I'm a bit wary of. >> > Just be gentle, and you should be able to do it.? Also, in some cases, > you might heat from the opposite side from the solder sucker.? That > way, you can keep the soldering iron on the pad until you have > triggered the sucker.? But, yes, the hollow soldering iron with > powered vacuum is amazing the first time you try it.? I got one at an > auction years ago, it is much better than the regular iron and > plunger-sucker. > > Jon The small company I first worked for had a Pace unit. I remember not being impressed with it - frequent clogs, pads lifting, and not getting all the solder out, no matter how we set things. Still beat solder-wick though! I got it done, but pin 16 (which connects directly to the internal-layer ground plane) was a bear. From the feel of it and the heat required, the draftsman didn't bother to make pad reliefs. Anyway it's now socketed, so of course it will never fail again! I also made a small jumper on a 15-pin D-sub to connect Monitor Present L to ground, so that annoying "Monitor Error 9" message stops ;) On to the next project!

5 years, 9 months

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Imsai and others in Montgomery, AL

by sales＠elecplus.com

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/960320167759670/ Guy is cleaning out his shed because he is moving. Not affiliated with seller, etc. Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

5 years, 9 months

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LK201 emulation

by paulkoning＠comcast.net

Gentlepeople, I've been having problems with broken LK201s, so as a workaround I created an adapter that connects to a standard PC USB keyboard and makes it look like an LK201. It's based on an Arduino (specifically, Adafruit Trinket M0, an amazingly tiny yet powerful small microprocessor). It's working at this point, though it needs a few small software tweaks to make it complete. I'm going to turn my breadboard into something slightly more polished. Question to the list: is this something that would be of interest to others? If yes, I can make the design available. Perhaps the PCB layout and parts list. I don't think I want to get into building units for others, though. paul

5 years, 9 months

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New subscribers?

by ccth6600＠gmail.com

Are new subscribers to cctalk still accepted? My subscription request was left unanswered. With all the talk about the future of this list I wonder if I came too late. Thanks Tom Hunter

5 years, 9 months

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Malfunctioning VT240 - help please

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

> On 06/11/2020 02:29 AM, Mattis Lind via cctalk wrote: > >/If that would be the case I think the system would fail />/quite soon rather than on test 5. A guess is that this is />/a memory problem. / That was a good guess, everyone ;) I got some new 4116's and piggybacked (dry, no solder) two of them atop my suspects at E3 & E4. Didn't fix it. Of course :/ In the meantime I've acquired a nice HP 1630G logic analyzer complete with pods and cables. Setting it up was going to take quite a while since I'm not familiar with this model. So I decided to try a simple brute-force approach before the analyzer. I piggybacked another 4116 onto each soldered-in 4116, one at a time. Actually easy to do since with the leads properly formed, I didn't even have to solder it in place, just turn off the power and move it to the next chip. On the 16th, the last one of course, the terminal booted normally and works again. :) I confirmed the bad one by removing the piggyback and the failure returned. Now I need to desolder the bad one without ruining the board. I may just cut the leads off close to the bad chip, and solder the replacement to the stumps. (Normally I remove the legs and install a machine-pin DIP socket). Or just solder the piggyback and leave it there... thoughts?

5 years, 9 months

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Ancient transistor ?computer board (Peter Van Peborgh)

by peter＠vanpeborgh.eu

Guys, I now know it is an early CDC board. IT had C*NT*OLDATA on the reverse - how I missed that must be attributed to old age. (Thanks Doug) Here are shots of the back: https://photos.app.goo.gl/UPozyBB3zp7XYcP79 Any idea what the row of hole opposite the contacts were? Testing points? But then why holes and not short pillars? Some are labelled on both sides. Continuing in hope, peter

5 years, 9 months

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Future of cctalk/cctech

by boris＠summitclinic.com

Agree that current mailing list format is best as simple, low bandwidth and can always post links to images or other large files. I still use Eudora as my email client and have text only emails. Seems to perplex a lot of people I deal with when I can't read their emails, but it seems somewhat wastefull to use 1-2 Mb to send a message that only needs 200 bytes at most (once one strips off all zero-information fluff from the email). Run my own mailserver as well so can email myself massive attachments when email is only way of getting data off a remote machine. Images take up a lot of space and are best dealt with via links. I've run my own webserver/ftpserver since 1999 and find that's the easiest way of sharing large files with people. While it's nice having high resolution photos like those that Samsung phones creat, they're in the 3-5 Mb size range. If I need to put a lot of photos on a web page, I'll use the free Photo Studio program (written by John Hawkins) which creates a web page with a series of thumbnails with full image available by clicking on thumbnail and can set size of thumbnail image. Rather old, but works fine for simple web pages where all one wants to do is serve up a set of images. Remember 15 years ago that online documentation was sparse but have found most DEC manuals are online and C64 stuff a lot easier to find than it used to be. Being rather paranoid, I've downloaded manuals for all machines I have and keep a duplicate copy of everything. Not sure how many people are on cctalk/cctech, but keeping everything text only would be best way of minimizing bandwidth for whoever hosts it, Boris Gimbarzevsky >On Fri, Jun 19, 2020 at 3:31 PM Maciej W. Rozycki via cctalk < >cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > Sure, there's always `uuencode' when you do need to post that non-text > > piece (which I guess will keep the eyes of Luddites away from it too). > > > >Or an http, https, ftp, or gopher url to somewhere else hosting the image. > >Pat

5 years, 9 months

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Someone's confused

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

Love the title on this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/184317705963 eBait auction: "16K Sense Inhibit Board .. VAX 6000, VAX-11/730". Yeah, core on a VAX! And such a deal, a mere US$400! Noel

5 years, 9 months

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Fixing an RK8E ....

by bob＠jfcl.com

It appears that my RK8E has a problem - it fails the diskless control test with .R DHRKAE.DG SR= 0000 COMMAND REGISTER ERROR PC:1160 GD:0000 CM:0001 DHRKAE FAILED PC:6726 AC:0000 MQ:7777 FL:0000 WAITING Ok, maybe a bad bit in the command register so I'll check it out. But then it dawns on me - how do you work on this thing? It's three boards connected with "over the top" connectors - you can't use a module extender on it. Worse, the M7105 Major Registers board is the middle one of the stack! Is there some secret to working on this thing? Has anybody fixed one? Any suggestions? I hadn't thought about it before, but the KK8E CPU would have the same problem. Fingers crossed that one never dies... Bob

5 years, 9 months

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Hercules SDLC/BSC interfacing project - want 3174-x1R

by mattislind＠gmail.com

Hello! I have been working on interfacing the Hercules emulator with various real terminals for some time. First project was an Alfaskop terminal cluster which I connected using a small STM32 controller handling BSC. Next is an Informer 213, portable 3178/3174 compatible terminal. It it using SDLC. A friend has a 3178 and 3279 which would interesting to work with. A 3174-51R/-61R/-81R/-91R would be very suitable for this. It would be very nice to test my BSC and SDLC code with the real IBM stuff. I have put my project here: https://github.com/MattisLind/alfaskop_emu/tree/master/Utils <https://github.com/MattisLind/alfaskop_emu/tree/master/Utils> Still very much Work In Progress. If anyone has a type 1 3174 that does BSC and SDLC so I could test my stuff I would be very interested. No need for fancy features like TCP/IP and/or token ring. I of course pay shipping. But can throw in various DEC QBUS stuff as a trade. /Mattis

5 years, 9 months

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CSPI SC-3XL and SC-4XL documentation?

by cmhanson＠eschatologist.net

I've just come into a couple of CSPI VME cards, an SC-3XL and an SC-4XL (both with attached memory), and I was wondering if anyone has documentation. They're based on the Intel i860 and intended for VME-based array processors. -- Chris

5 years, 9 months

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New drive for my 11/83....

by cz＠alembic.crystel.com

Picked up a CDC 94166 ESDI disk on Ebay last week, arrived and sure enough it works. No errors either, so I can now give my 30+ year old Fujitsu 2322 a rest and load up rsx11m+ instead of 11/m 4.2 After formatting it on the MTI controller (MQD13) I set the first partition to 30mb and loaded up my RT11 5.7 backup from the TK50 onto it with no issues. Productive. If I can find my DEQNA and an AUI to wireless adapter I could get this thing up on the net.....

5 years, 9 months

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Future of cctalk/cctech

by couryhouse＠aol.com

Use modern email program that sees expanded char. Sets and graphics.... it is a brand new world !??? I love old hardware to look at but if communicating? I like? the ability to see graphical? things...? and I think tell majority of people like? images of things......?? Ed# On Wednesday, June 17, 2020 Fred Cisin via cctalk <cisin at xenosoft.com; cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: On Wed, 17 Jun 2020, ED SHARPE @ AOHell.com via cctalk wrote: > These 2 have my vote as well.... > I do not know, anyone using a text only mail reader anymore! > >> The one thing I would change here is removal of the restriction on attachments. >> Well, two things.. Getting rid of the cctalk/cctech split as well. I read this list on PINE, on a shell account at my ISP. In this group, I doubt that I am the only one. Can we restrict to TEXT emails? -- Grumpy Ol' Fred? ? ??? ??? cisin at xenosoft.com

5 years, 9 months

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PLATO V Terminal

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Paul Koning > airfight and any number of other multi-user games -- a thing made > popular by PLATO and possibly originated there. What was the date on that? Multi-player MazeWar on the Imlacs/ITS at MIT was running before 1976 (I played it about then), but I don't recall exactly when it first ran (before my time). Noel

5 years, 9 months

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E-Mail Formats RE: Future of cctalk/cctech

by dave.g4ugm＠gmail.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> On Behalf Of Peter Coghlan > via cctalk > Sent: 18 June 2020 08:22 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Subject: RE: Future of cctalk/cctech > > ED SHARPE wrote: > > Use modern email program that sees expanded char. Sets and > > graphics.... it is a brand new world ! I love old hardware to look > > at but if communicating I like the ability to see graphical > > things... and I think tell majority of people like images of > > things...... Ed# > > > Just beware. Some environments, especially old EBCDIC ones put different currency symbols on the same code points So:- I wrote this as one dollar => $1.00 This as one pound => $1 And this as one euro => ?1 Lastly one cent => ?1 I expect you all get that as sent except for perhaps the Euro which didn't exist when Peters VAX was built.... ... but on an old UK EBCDIC mainframe Dollar becomes Pound and Cent becomes dollar. This was a real pain as a UK user of Bitnet. Dave > Let me get this straight. If I stop using VMS MAIL for this list and use one of > these new fangled things instead, I too will be able to make high quality > postings to the list, just like this one??? > > Regards, > Peter Coghlan > > > > > On Wednesday, June 17, 2020 Fred Cisin via cctalk <cisin at xenosoft.com; > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > > On Wed, 17 Jun 2020, ED SHARPE @ AOHell.com via cctalk wrote: > > > These 2 have my vote as well.... > > > I do not know, anyone using a text only mail reader anymore! > > > > > >> The one thing I would change here is removal of the restriction on > attachments. > > >> Well, two things.. Getting rid of the cctalk/cctech split as well. > > > > I read this list on PINE, on a shell account at my ISP. > > > > In this group, I doubt that I am the only one. > > > > > > Can we restrict to TEXT emails? > > > > -- > > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com > >

5 years, 9 months

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Farewell Etaoin Shrdlu

by lproven＠gmail.com

https://archive.org/details/FarewellEtaoinShrdlu 28min documentary on the last ever edition of the NY Times to be printed using hot metal -- before they switched to what are now a quite choice assortment of late-'70s minicomputers. I think I spotted a PDP, a Data General and some IBM device, but I am no expert in this era. As a veteran reader of Fredric Brown, especially "the Enchanted Linotype", I have been using ETAOIN SHRDLU to win at Hangman for many years... but I'd never seen one working before. It all still seems like magic to me. I've worked in the magazine industry so I should know more about this stuff, but I never worked at the repro end of things... -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven ? Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

5 years, 9 months

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: Unknown Intel blinkenlight panel circa 1973

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Camiel Vanderhoeven > I know Intel made the in-4011 for the PDP-11, but I never saw a picture > of it. Was it UNIBUS memory, or what? It doesn't seem to be in that table of early Intel products. BTW, speaking of Intel PDP-11 memory, I have this: http://gunkies.org/wiki/File:IN-1611.jpg QBUS Intel memory board; hven't tried to get it running, though. Noel

5 years, 9 months

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Future of classiccmp

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

Al wrote: >With Jay retiring, what are the hosting plans for these mailing lists? Well at least for me, there's more to it than that ? I retired from general work on 4/30/20. My consulting firm is going to be kept open on paper for a few years at least but I doubt I will be transacting much business through it. I guess if someone comes by with a short project that I find interesting, I may do it through that company but mostly it's staying open to handle a few germane expenses. All staff and offices are gone and regular payrolls ended 4/30. That leaves the hosting company for me to determine scope/future. Since that company (as long as you are proactive with admin tasks) takes virtually zero work and allows me to have a grossly oversized but paid for full-on high availability virtualization architecture, I was going to keep it going during retirement with just a few very low maintenance customers that cover the costs. I basically can then host any personal/hobby related sites for myself and friends at literally zero cost. In this company I do have one business partner, and that relationship has become quite difficult lately. So much so, that I'm ready to just turn it off and walk away. I'm sorry, but I have reached the point in my life where that stress outweighs the benefits. This infrastructure is of course where I've hosted not only the classiccmp mailing list, but a fair chunk of other classic computing related websites and services at zero cost to their respective owners. Throw in to the mix that for whatever reason - while I have dutifully taken care of this list and a lot of other related websites for probably 15+ years or more - I honestly don't feel that I am doing a good job of it's care & feeding lately. I think it's time for fresh eyes and attitudes to carry it forward. I hope no one begrudges me for after decades finally saying "it's time". I have enjoyed being of service. First and foremost, there is no worry about future hosting plans for above content. I'm not going to just turn it off one day - the grizzled veterans here that know me well know that I would not let that happen. There is no sense of immediate urgency nor any possibility of data just disappearing. That being said, I do wish to move steadily forward with those plans. Second, I do not wish to pass this off to someone who "has a server in their basement" or has spare space on a vps. While I appreciate these offers and the desire to help, I'm not sure you have full knowledge of what all is here. Putting it on a "PC in your basement" is not the environment this stuff requires. At the very least, asymmetric bandwidth (what most people have in their homes) is a non-starter. Sneaking it on to your company infrastructure isn't good either, as there is almost always a builtin "need to move this stuff soon" disruption in store. I've already been working with folks in this community to figure out what to offload, where, how, etc. That work will continue, and I suspect that each separate migration will go off transparently with little or no outward signs of change. Also, I am definitely not leaving the hobby; I just look forward to participating as an end-user instead of host. Just as a heads up at the same time I am looking to thin my herd; not because I've lost interest but because I want to gain focus. That means most likely that I will be moving out a lot of choice DEC, Data General, Heathkit, and related items. I will post separately on that topic, but at the least I am going to keep/focus on HP and a couple others. Will post more info once I have it ? Best, J

5 years, 9 months

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Origin of 3-D printing (again)

by sieler＠allegro.com

Hi, Back in 2017, I posted something about seeing a possible first-ever reference to the idea of 3-D printing in a 1951 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction magazine. I stumbled over an even earlier one tonight... The September, 1941, issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine has a story called "Elsewhere" by Caleb Saunders (a pseudonym of Robert A. Heinlein). On page 118 we see: [They used] a single general type of machine to manufacture almost anything. They fed into it a plan which Igor called, for want of a better term, the blueprints. It was, in fact, a careful scale model of the device to be manufactured; the machine retooled itself and produced the artifact. A three-dimensional pantograph, Igor called the machine, vaguely and inaccurately. One of them was, at that moment, molding the bodies of fighting planes out. of plastic, all in one piece and in one operation. Stan

5 years, 9 months

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PLATO V Terminal

by ccth6600＠gmail.com

I have been "hunting" for a PLATO V terminal for some time. It was made by Regency - Carroll. If there is such a terminal gathering dust in a shed or garage and the owner would like to find a good home for it then please let me know. I have successfully restored a Control Data Corp IST-3 terminal and 721 Viking terminal and have the skills, equipment and passion to restore the terminal to its former beauty and functionality. Tom Hunter

5 years, 9 months

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Future of cctalk/cctech

by couryhouse＠aol.com

These 2 have my vote as well.... I do not know, anyone using a text only mail reader anymore! > The one thing I would change here is removal of the restriction on attachments. > > Well, two things.. Getting rid of the cctalk/cctech split as well. On Wednesday, June 17, 2020 Rob Jarratt via cctalk <rob at jarratt.me.uk; robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com; cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> On Behalf Of Al Kossow via > cctalk > Sent: 17 June 2020 13:55 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Future of cctalk/cctech > > > > > I wonder what you don't like about "groups.io" Its pretty much a pure mailing > list? > > Like all of the webby time-wasters, they don't have easy to mirror zipped > archives, because they want to to spend time hovering around clicking on their > sites. > > > http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/ > > > The one thing I would change here is removal of the restriction on attachments. > > Well, two things.. Getting rid of the cctalk/cctech split as well. I would agree with both of those too. Rob

5 years, 9 months

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Amiga Vendors?

by healyzh＠avanthar.com

I found AmigaKit.com in the UK, are there any Amiga vendors left in the US? I need to order some parts, and not only do I not remember who I used to use in the US, I assume they?re gone. Zane

5 years, 9 months

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Ancient transistor ?computer board (Peter Van Peborgh)

by peter＠vanpeborgh.eu

Sorry guys about the unusable tera-URLs. To reiterate, I have acquired this board and have trouble assigning it to a particular computer manufacturer and type: Try this for the photos: https://tinyurl.com/ydxnzh9g and https://tinyurl.com/yb6z3utv Smells of (early) 1960s transistorized. No helpful marking apart from * "GATE JJ01" on SIDE A. (components). * "C NT OL DATA" on side B (solder traces). Big transistors are Motorola "180376008". Also, any ideas what the "246 636 B" boxes are, they have four legs? Can any of you of mature years suggest anything? Many thanks, ( praise be to TinyURL), peter

5 years, 9 months

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Future of cctalk/cctech

by couryhouse＠aol.com

These 2 have my vote as well.... I do not know, anyone using a text only mail reader anymore! > The one thing I would change here is removal of the restriction on attachments. > > Well, two things.. Getting rid of the cctalk/cctech split as well. On Wednesday, June 17, 2020 Rob Jarratt via cctalk <rob at jarratt.me.uk; robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com; cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> On Behalf Of Al Kossow via > cctalk > Sent: 17 June 2020 13:55 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Future of cctalk/cctech > > > > > I wonder what you don't like about "groups.io" Its pretty much a pure mailing > list? > > Like all of the webby time-wasters, they don't have easy to mirror zipped > archives, because they want to to spend time hovering around clicking on their > sites. > > > http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/ > > > The one thing I would change here is removal of the restriction on attachments. > > Well, two things.. Getting rid of the cctalk/cctech split as well. I would agree with both of those too. Rob

5 years, 9 months

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Was: PDP-8/A transformer hum Is: VXT-2000 stuff.

by joezatarski＠gmail.com

> > > > On 6/9/2020 11:51 AM, Glen Slick via cctalk wrote: >> On Tue, Jun 9, 2020 at 9:04 AM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk >> <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: >> >> For the VXT-2000 with an H7109-B the rated voltage and current values >> are printed right on the power supply label: >> >> +5.1V, 7.81A >> +12.1V, 0.62A >> -12.1V, 0.46A >> -9V, 0.2A >> >> Fixed width character pinout diagram: >> >> +=================+ >> -9V | Yellow | Orange | +12.1V >> +--------+--------+ >> ??? | White | Black | Gnd >> +--------+--------+ >> +5.1V | Red | Blue | -12.1V >> +--------+--------+ >> +5.1V | Red | Black | Gnd >> +--------+--------+ >> Gnd | Black | Black | Gnd >> +=================+ >> >> The mystery is the White wire. The power supply label only lists 4 >> output voltages. The White wire appears to be routed to the Ethernet >> daughter board. The measured voltage appears that it might be floating >> slightly negative, somewhere around -1.5V when the Ethernet daughter >> board is installed and around -5V when it is removed. Maybe it is a >> high impedance earth ground connection? It appears to be connected to >> the shield of the Ethernet BNC, which measures around 1M-Ohm to the >> chassis ground when the power supply is disconnected from the main >> board, and around 0.75M-Ohm when the power supply is connected. >> > As long as we are talking VXT-2000, I have this on file, figure it would > be useful for future googling of the list if > this were here as well.? May be a repeat of info from an earlier post, > or maybe elsewhere. > > I didn't save the source of the info, but looks like someone named Matt > Millman did it. > > The setup is as follows: HP Envy laptop running MOP boot daemon, > connected to Lantronix LTX-C twisted pair > ethernet to AUI converter (not the same as a twisted pair MAU). This is > then connected to a cabletron coax > MAU with a 10BASE5 vampire tap. The coax runs over to another MAU, which > is connected via an AUI cable to > my VXT2000. I didn't think of it, but it would have been nice to have a > real DEC MAU on the VXT2000, I've > got several DEC h4000's I could have used. > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5T2GlAN2N4 > > http://tech.mattmillman.com/projects/10base5/ The first link is mine actually. (Hi, I'm Joe from Joe's Vax Repair and More). I have a VXT-2000 and have had it setup and booting on a few occasions. I also happened into some 10BASE5 equipment a few years back and the VXT2000 was one of the only AUI devices I had at the time. I'm not Matt Millman, but I did reference that site to find the existence of the Lantronix LTX-C and similar devices. Now that I have more AUI gear, I plan to put different gear on the 3-node AUI segment (cisco 2511 router, media converter to 10BASE2, VAXStation 3200) and move the other 10Mb equipment to a 10BASE2 segment. The whole mess will be joined to the main network via T1 on a Kentrox CSU/DSU on the 2511. You can boot the VXT2000 using MOP or BOOTP and TFTP actually. MOP was the first thing I managed to get working, but BOOTP and TFTP worked equally well once I had it set up correctly. Unfortunately my bootptab file is on a roommate's MicroVAX II... Anyway, see the links section here for the software: https://terminals-wiki.org/wiki/index.php/DEC_VXT2000 There's also theoretically OpenBSD and NetBSD support for the VXT2000, but in my experience the netboot stuff is pretty broken on VAX for whatever reason. There's at least one bug for the SGEC ethernet chip driver, and I could only get older versions of the network boot mop file to load. Of course, the older versions wouldn't support the newer kernel format, which apparently changed at some point. Or maybe I'm just doing something wrong. If the machine in question gets repaired, feel free to contact me with any questions. If you're familiar with netbooting VAX systems, it's not too hard to figure out though. I'll add that the note about the 9V supply being isolated sounds reasonable. It could be used as the supply for the built-in 10BASE2 MAU on some units. I can't confirm as my unit has 10BASET instead which has no requirement for an isolated supply.

5 years, 9 months

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Schematic for DEC H7441 (not the H744!)

by bob＠jfcl.com

Is there a schematic for the H7441 regulator anywhere? There are several out there for the H744 but, although they are plug compatible, the H7441 is totally different. The H744 uses an LM723, but in the 7441 DEC appears to have rolled their own regulator using a bunch discrete parts and opamps. Bob

5 years, 9 months

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Future of cctalk/cctech

by couryhouse＠aol.com

We use groups,io for the tom swift discussion group real handy to post photos, files and etc.. On Wednesday, June 17, 2020 Chris Hanson via cctalk <cmhanson at eschatologist.net; cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: On Jun 17, 2020, at 1:50 AM, Tor Arntsen via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > >>>> There is also groups.io, and it has some very nice features compared to > > Please please, no groups of any kinds. They're all horrible to use. Do you mean "web forum" where you say "groups?" > A > genuine mailing list like this is infinitively easier to keep track of > and read at leisure. Can't stand groups.io. I've found the groups.io <http://groups.io/> mailing list mode to be perfectly reasonable for a number of groups I'm a part of. And it has a forum-like front end for people who insist on doing everything through a web page. ? -- Chris

5 years, 9 months

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Ancient transistor ?computer board

by peter＠vanpeborgh.eu

Guys, I have acquired this board and have trouble assigning it to a particular computer manufacturer and type: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/byRPH3wCR2aqxGX9U8BZfFTT_XtF7QCKSyVXoNmGIk UheiJ5BWqxYaCWdEshppLGYkOqUD7fl9XNeVzO_tDRKVOtbC3Js7T-pOvNUHs9MY9A36fc7dU6ro 1i7hx9Uhcfc6ukEGIdC5Ac6aTQhEFFoeWBxiI6Z24hZdvq1r6vRb4o-Lj778Wbo15hwxu0JxMuxE tcopNv0FG0_g6nUv0Eofalqu4TmgPfUWVCd4Y4LdA0pnhDRMYF5c2ASzS00TsyukCVrUyr298tjo vztVzUGEPHNL1beVCriuQIBLITaEMX3N8EBDuxpfav0vHFuyy9yfAgUI4uJB9qT6aFGEk2KplIVt yNWZf9phTdj-jLtqns9WvdA9Ur2klrk4uPzMyWg6SKTKRlpMrvbJuMnqZodzxPFPvWCG5--kVVBD KRAXW8xOTOPyxXx0xrcPifO49ni2SFYIkZgTb9d4gzvJaM8ugEb-jqHlc7uqHz5glwe4PfoN838w zMozr43veZSNHRTm9IMfON-w7xvbVufJpa_MzhuaTlKf9pvVcRIuxfhG4pMeVq7K6phhHpsKPfG5 h4BRgDSimCE8mToI35IWS3Ty8j01-6bibKH_kB-t35aIdkv7JIC-YZ1sDoguSdyk8h1xbM2d9i_U LFQYVC0oCHESgEGdqzGO3ntgwmV4khjgaQkcp2Bk-TuC7Nwrl57JI=w654-h871-no?authuser= 0 https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/HvltevPwIvyJF0qiAJR6wCAkI4lHfFGL2Gos5uoT4a qEJNFBAwJ3m6XX8E6k0m515EYgZJMaCwFGXiGiTCkxDeT396EjsbkukK3_XYqNDjfU8o3Pbtdq8z vm_q7MXShANXVFUL2wjXEbAhvBug1h42tZnxpDaxTCeNIHjqF2bgs6J_S3wCjmx538E4AuHCHxrr CqIr8yvL7AGlZXCWe8u05YNNZbIrUCYHbTtxh15hc0SwfRPzQ2U2v-pPxHs7-rx5mPpwxovbp24a CdwLBf5RRvvEZWZgyDGKG8xdF-al4kQdZMgxrVVXFMse3ee_J-QaYgALUxckGeWp2QxM4wolrd8Q Y1PqaMaTgbws5WSrOeBBBZrhmrUeL4TzZAlCA4-FqtRpoPIA339y9JRixB8Q6LlUeNsWzlqGqkvC JSCHlh_hpCXgwemhOtF4B1CLvNGs-PSZjTsnj_KOeSgeINz5Sc6TCrHmnxCcIY6D42aKMJRHZ9I9 7Z02FLsKwN6IKLxjifZvrkmEX4L8qXLbd8cuF0uf1PMjwC9WNC1_QpOmMiJOrBloG9pdrHRGvmfR RPQE7c6_HxVklEpIbxqkLmQVkKF-oM8VYS3A11tvslxiZUcvQcEhuEYhPLoqTD8PDikYhxKyVLhq S0DC-bIVBDDLeqiegQelHFjhptKwgs-0Q5mMrxvE6rdsd6-ipEf5Q=w654-h871-no?authuser= 0 Smells of (early) 1960s transistorized. No helpful marking apart from * "GATE JJ01" on SIDE A. (components). * "C NT OL DATA" on side B (solder traces). Big transistors are Motorola "180376008". Also, any ideas what the "246 636 B" boxes are, they have four legs? Can any of you of mature years suggest anything? Many thanks, peter || | | | | | | | | Peter Van Peborgh 62 St Mary's Rise Writhlington Radstock Somerset BA3 3PD UK 01761 439 234 "Our times are in God's wise and loving hands" || | | | | | | | |

5 years, 9 months

8
9
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IBM vacuum tubes

by paul＠mcjones.org

Not exactly on subject, but problems designing the IBM 604 Electronic Calculating Punch due to the use of existing vacuum tube designs is discussed in section 2.4 of: Charles J. Bashe, Lyle R. Johnson, John H. Palmer, and Emerson W. Pugh IBM?s Early Computers The MIT Press, 1986 The book says Ralph Palmer set up a vacuum tube laboratory with the ability to manufacture small quantities of tubes. This helped them get credibility when they went to a vacuum tube manufacturer with a request for a design change to achieve the needed reliability for digital applications.

5 years, 9 months

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Duplicate messages

by julf＠julf.com

Hi! Anyone else getting duplicate messages from this list? I get 2 copies of most (but not all) messages, with the second copy often arriving significantly later. Julf

5 years, 9 months

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Unknown Intel blinkenlight panel circa 1973

by Rice43＠btinternet.com

Hi all. I recently bought a mystery blinkenlight panel. Closer inspection reveals it was manufactured by Intel in the early 70?s (1973), and some people on the book of faces suggested it was part of a ?device multiplexer?(?) I?m 95% confident it?s not strictly a ?computer? blinkenlight panel, but rather an attached device, but that still hasn?t helped me narrow down what exactly it was from. I?ve not seen any early Intel stuff as rack-mount, so i?m wondering if it was a prototype, or maybe a piece of internal/non-commercial hardware for Intel's own use. I?m hoping someone here might be able to shed some light on this mystery. Pictures: https://imgur.com/gallery/lD74oSy <https://imgur.com/gallery/lD74oSy> Thanks in advance. Josh Rice

5 years, 9 months

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TU58 dump tool on Linux?

by mattislind＠gmail.com

Is there anyone that has already built a tool to dump TU58-tapes on a Linux machine? I have the drive of course. There is PUTR. But it is DOS only and is written in assembler so it cannot be ported easily. The other option is running RT11 on a PDP-11, but then there is the hassle of getting the dumps off the RT11 file system. It is probably not too difficult to use relevant parts of the various TU58 Unix implementations out there to do something quickly, but if someone has already done it, it would be great to not reinvent the wheel. I have approximately 80 11/730 and 11/750 console and diag tapes that need reading. /Mattis

5 years, 9 months

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IBM 3174 screen controllers UK

by dave.g4ugm＠gmail.com

Folks, I think I now have too many 3174 controllers. I have 1 x Rack Mount - Token Ring Card + MFM Disk Emulator 1 x Large Tabletop - Token Card 1 x Large Tabletop - Ethernet Card <=> I am keeping this. 1 x Small Tabletop - Token Ring card but won't run TCPIP code. If anyone wants one of these I am happy to ship at cost but they are 220/240v and heavy so shipping to USA may be a problem. I have a selection of floppy drives that can be fitted but I recommend using a Gotek with FlashFloppy firmware. I also have the following spares:- 1. working PSU for rack mount 2. non-working PSU for the rackmount systems but I am sure it can be fixed 3. spare motherboard for rackmount 4. spare token ring card (if I can find it) 5. (I may have memory modules but can't remember where I put them 6. I think I have a 3299 multiplexor some where Feel free to e-mail off-list with questions. Dave Wade G4UGM & EA7KAE

5 years, 9 months

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Future of cctalk/cctech

by evanlinwood＠hotmail.com

> With Jay retiring, what are the hosting plans for these mailing lists? Hi Al, I didn't know about Jay retiring or what that means for the list - i.e. does it need to find new infrastructure, new administraton/management, or both? I'm a relatively background person in the vintage computing scheme of things but I do have an involvement in the data centre / hosting area & so if no better options were to come forward would be very happy to pitch in somehow.

5 years, 9 months

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Apple 1

by dj.taylor4＠comcast.net

I got a notice from ebay that an Apple 1 is up for sale: $1.5M plus $1 shipping, yikes! ebay item number: 174195921349 Doug

5 years, 9 months

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OT: Vacuum tubes/Valves/VEDs today

by cclist＠sydex.com

A good article in ED today: https://www.electronicdesign.com/communiqu/article/21133402/tubes-luckily-t… --Chuck

5 years, 9 months

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VHDL / IBM SMS Data gathering and HDL Synthesis Update

by cube1＠charter.net

Don't know if anybody much cares, but: The HDL synthesis aspect of the SMS data gathering / HDL synthesis application is coming along. I can now handle: - Oscillators (using a counter divider) - Delay lines (using a shift register, so limited to a reasonable number of FPGA clock clock cycles, so, say 200 ns is not unreasonable (20 bit shift register at 100 MHz). - Recognition and consolidation of individual signals into a "bus" when generating groups corresponding to a group of individual ALD sheets. (The individual ALD sheets use the individual signal names as they appear on the sheet). A simple database table associates a given individual signal with a bus, and identifies the bit in the bus that corresponds to the individual signal. So, I have not generated the IBM 1410 main oscillator, its main logic clock and its I Ring - used to control instruction decode. I have synthesized the logic clock into an FPGA and run it (with a slowed down 1410 oscillator so I could see what was going on.) Also, a word about VHDL - and the Xilinx Vivado. While GHDL is useful, I have found that Vivado is not slow at editing and *simulation*. Silly me - I got in the habit of synthesizing stuff before I tested it under simulation - partly because I didn't know any better at first. Vivado's waveform viewer has some advantages (and disadvantages) compared to what is available for GHDL. I have also started exploring a piece of "intellectual property" I can use - MicroBlaze - to allow my generated system to talk to my PC, via TCP, for things like lights and switches. (Kind of like how the Amdahl machines used to use first DG Novas, and later little UNIX systems for their consoles, giving them access to the internals of the machine.) I knew MicroBlaze existed, but now I have actually played with it a bit -- still learning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroBlaze

5 years, 9 months

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Malfunctioning VT240 - help please

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

OK. the keyboard is working properly as far as I can tell, data is going in and out, and I even swapped it for the keyboard on my VT220 and the same symptoms persisted. I just verified all four ROMs on the T11, and the ROM for the 8085, against the images I found on the MAME site. So far so good. One interesting finding - two of the lines (DAL3 and DAL1) on the T11 do change states several times, but once the self-test has crashed, they stay high with almost one volt of "wiggle". All the other data/address lines are either high, low or switching between a good 1 and 0. There are several places that the bus connects, including the ROMs, 1-bit dynamic RAMs and various octal latches & bidirectional buffers. I connected a 10 ma VOM between each line and ground (to make sure a low-resistance path (such as in the 'LS245 at E55) wasn't forcing it high somehow. All of the DAL15-0 lines requires more than 1.9 ma to bring it to ground (well, 50 mv burden at 250 mv full scale, anyway). That leaves the unlikely possibility that one of the octal TTL devices, or ROMs. has developed a weird internal pathway that only interferes with DAL3 & 1 on some bit patterns, but not all the time. Seems like a zebra rather than a horse. The only part that drives multiple low-order DAL lines at once besides the E19-22 ROMs is the E55 LS245. The T11 spec sheet says that a good logic 0 (<0.4 volt) should be possible with up to 3.2 ma sink... So I suspect the T11 has a couple of bad output pull-down transistors on those lines. Anyone got a spare T11 chip I can buy or borrow? Or send you mine to plug into your board and see if it fails the same way? :) thanks.

5 years, 9 months

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: Unknown Intel blinkenlight panel circa 1973

by couryhouse＠aol.com

Add on? solid state memory unit? some semi companies made tjem. For add to Dec and dg?? Dunno. A guess ....?? ed smecc On Sunday, June 14, 2020 Joshua Rice via cctalk <Rice43 at btinternet.com; cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: Hi all. I recently bought a mystery blinkenlight panel. Closer inspection reveals it was manufactured by Intel in the early 70?s (1973), and some people on the book of faces suggested it was part of a ?device multiplexer?(?) I?m 95% confident it?s not strictly a ?computer? blinkenlight panel, but rather an attached device, but that still hasn?t helped me narrow down what exactly it was from. I?ve not seen any early Intel stuff as rack-mount, so i?m wondering if it was a prototype, or maybe a piece of internal/non-commercial hardware for Intel's own use. I?m hoping someone here might be able to shed some light on this mystery. Pictures: https://imgur.com/gallery/lD74oSy <https://imgur.com/gallery/lD74oSy> Thanks in advance. Josh Rice

5 years, 9 months

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Thinking of selling my PDP's

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

I am getting closer to retirement (although not close enough) and I'm considering selling off my PDP stuff, especially if I downsize and move. Everything's working, but I just no longer DO anything with either system... the adventure was acquiring all the pieces, fixing them and learning the software :) Anyhow I have an 8/A with cloned Programmer's Panel (Vince Slyngstad and I made it around 2006) and limited function panel, 32K RAM board (also have core), Philipp Hachtmann's USB interface board, RX01 floppy, two RL02's, and a high-speed (optical) reel-to-reel paper tape reader. OS/8 is up and running. Several spare RL02 packs. It's all in a tall DEC rack with an H-(something) power control box. The ASR-33 is not included, I'm keeping that. Also an 11/23+ (11/03 chassis) in a corporate cabinet with two RL02's, a 16-line serial interface, VT-220 terminal. Also an RQDX3 which is connected to a loose 3.5" TEAC floppy drive. Have RT-11XM, RT-11SJ and TSX-Plus 6.50 (all 16 timesharing ports are working too). So, I am wondering if there's any market for them (preferably as complete systems). Shipping would be difficult due to the size/weight (I'm in rural south central Missouri). I'm not looking to give them away, or to part out, but would entertain reasonable package deals rather than deal with the "LQQK! RARE!!" bull on ebay. I can send pics to interested parties. Let me know, thanks! Charles

5 years, 9 months

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Is Power7 a bit too recent?

by dlr＠bungi.com

I have a bunch of Power7 720's I would like to get running, and I'm have a tough time tracking down any VIOS newer than 2.1. Does someone here have some 2.2.6 or later CD's they would like to sell me? Thanks! --

5 years, 9 months

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PDP-8/A transformer hum

by derschjo＠gmail.com

Hi all -- I'm working on a PDP-8/A I picked up at VCF West last summer. After a lot of cleaning and some power supply repair it's showing signs of life (CPU seems to be at least minimally functional, core memory is going to need some debugging.) The transformer in the power supply is humming quite loudly, however, and I'm curious if this is normal for the 8/A (or is typical for an 8/A of this vintage). I'm used to the supplies in various other DEC machines not being exactly silent but this is a rather severe 60Hz buzz that you can clearly hear over the fans when the machine is in operation. Thanks, Josh

5 years, 9 months

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Looking for Cobalt Qube cases

by laurens＠daemon.be

Hello, I'm looking for Cobalt Qube cases, preferably in North America. I would prefer non working Qubes as I don't want to deprive anyone of working ones. Doesn't matter whether it's a 1, 2 or 3. I'm looking to repurpose the cases. Thanks!

5 years, 9 months

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DS10 Alpha question = Sata Drive card?

by bobsmithofd＠gmail.com

Can anyone recommend a SATA card that will work with a DS10 Alpha, and which OS supports that card? thanks bob

5 years, 9 months

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TU58 dump tool on Linux? (Mattis Lind)

by john＠ziaspace.com

> Is there anyone that has already built a tool to dump TU58-tapes on a Linux > machine? I have the drive of course. > > There is PUTR. But it is DOS only and is written in assembler so it cannot > be ported easily. The other option is running RT11 on a PDP-11, but then > there is the hassle of getting the dumps off the RT11 file system. > > > It is probably not too difficult to use relevant parts of the various TU58 > Unix implementations out there to do something quickly, but if someone has > already done it, it would be great to not reinvent the wheel. > > I have approximately 80 11/730 and 11/750 console and diag tapes that > need reading. Just a thought - if the TU58 connects via serial, then what about running SIMH and giving it a serial device which is connected to the TU58? That could fix both problems - how to talk to the device, and how to deal with the data on the tapes. John

5 years, 9 months

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Compusad Compulogical Tutor User Manual Wanted

by billdegnan＠gmail.com

I am looking for a PDF or actual copy of this manual: https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_904547 Thanks Bill Degnan

5 years, 9 months

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Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

by commodorejohn＠gmail.com

Liam Proven wrote: > I don't know. There is a huge amount of tradition and culture in > computing now, and as a result, few people seem to have informed, > relatively unbiased opinions. There hasn't been much real diversity in > decades. > > 25 or 30y ago, people discussed the merits of Smalltalk or Prolog or > Forth; now most people have never seen or heard of them, and it's just > which curly-bracket language you favour, or does your preferred > language run in a VM or is it compiled to a native binary. Agreed. While I'm much more favorably disposed towards C than you are, the increasing homogeneity of almost all modern languages is discouraging and, I think, detrimental to the field as a whole. Forth and Smalltalk alike were eye-openers when I discovered them (and Smalltalk in particular was a breath of fresh air, after I'd spent years failing to ever really grok OOP with the likes of C++ and Java,) because both presented genuinely *different* and beautifully consistent ways to think about structuring and specifying a computer program. These days, though, outside of deliberately jokey ultra-esoteric languages, it's pretty much just a bunch of domain-specific Java/Javascript knockoffs from horizon to horizon. > I am just surprised that this (to me) rather inelegant design survived > and got to market, given what you've said about the same company's > ruthless drive for cost-cutting removed one PCB trace even though it > killed floppy-disk performance, or wouldn't use an extra ROM chip > because it was too expensive. > > It seems inconsistent. It's marketing - consistency there is a non-consideration, if not actively striven against. The whole saga with CP/M on CBM was a boondoggle - the CP/M cart existed because business customers wanted a CP/M add-in to run their spreadsheets and their whatnot, but it didn't end up being a good fit for reasons already stated (slow CPU, slow disk, 40-column only.) The 128 improved on those points, but not nearly enough to become competitive with the advancements CP/M machines had made in that time, and in the process wasted precious man-hours and drove up the cost and complexity of the unit - and all the while CP/M had been losing ground to MS-DOS in the business market for years! But marketing promised it, so it had to happen... :/

5 years, 9 months

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Amiga Joke of the Century

by healyzh＠avanthar.com

Tuesday night I was reading up to see what it might take to revive either of my Amiga 1200?s. As it happens, both appear to have fairly common failure modes. In reading up on the dead video, I learned that it?s often on the Composite Out, but not the monitor. I bought these two systems around ?97/98. I plugged the one with the dead video into the Monitor I?m using, and proceeded to use it for about an hour and a half. It works great with the Gotek floppy emulator. On a whim, earlier today, when I placed the order with AmigaKit for A3000 batteries, I included the hardware needed to put a IDE-to-CF interface in both the A600 & an A1200, PLUS, a second Gotek. :-) It looks like I?m going to need them. :-) Zane

5 years, 9 months

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Ever seen a Cromemco Cyclops in the wild?

by boris＠summitclinic.com

Funny how wetware memory works. I have that issue of Popular Electronics somewhere in my collection and would have seen the article as I would read it cover to cover after it arrived in mail. While looking at the issue again, remembered reading next article on PLL's so probably read the Cyclops article, decided that $25 was way too much for one chip and never bothered. However, I do have a lot of old RAM chips so might give it a try some day. What I do recall about that era that a 1024 bit SRAM cost about $10 in Canada. (That was in days when we made a profit selling beer for $0.25 at TGIF). Boris Gimbarzevsky >I think a Stanford AI lab has one in a display case. Any others out there? > >It was supposedly "commercial" but I don't even remember ever seeing >an ad for the Cyclops from Cromemco and I had a really good stash of >Cromemco literature and hardware. > >I do remember the BYTE article where you pop the top off of a DRAM >chip to make a Camera but that was 1983-ish, nearly a decade after >the Cromemco Cyclops was supposedly "commercial". In the discussions >I had in the 80's none of us seemed to know about the Cromemco >Cyclops having preceded it. > >Tim N3QE

5 years, 9 months

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Ever seen a Cromemco Cyclops in the wild?

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

Bill, thanks in particular for the reference to the August 1976 Cromemco catalog. I definitely remember the Dazzler graphics on the cover but somehow had lost memory of the camera on the second to last page. Tim

5 years, 9 months

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DEC Alphaserver 4100 CPU fans

by rlloken＠telus.net

So gentlemen, my Alphaserver 4100 shut itself down with a sad announcement about a dead CPU fan. I have a parts mule which has donated a CPU fan a couple years ago and I can take the second and last CPU fan from there but then I have no more fans. Can the CPU fan be obtained? Can they be rebuilt? The 4100 has a series of fans between the 3 power supply slots and the main backplane which I found could not be easily obtained so I tore them all apart and replaced the bearings with good results but I suspect that the lttle CPU fans will not respond so well to attempts at repair. -- Richard Loken VE6BSV : "...underneath those tuques we wear, Athabasca, Alberta Canada : our heads are naked!" ** rlloken at telus.net ** : - Arthur Black

5 years, 9 months

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Ever seen a Cromemco Cyclops in the wild?

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

I think a Stanford AI lab has one in a display case. Any others out there? It was supposedly "commercial" but I don't even remember ever seeing an ad for the Cyclops from Cromemco and I had a really good stash of Cromemco literature and hardware. I do remember the BYTE article where you pop the top off of a DRAM chip to make a Camera but that was 1983-ish, nearly a decade after the Cromemco Cyclops was supposedly "commercial". In the discussions I had in the 80's none of us seemed to know about the Cromemco Cyclops having preceded it. Tim N3QE

5 years, 9 months

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Kennett Classic Open / Looking for a Linux/scripting programmer $$

by billdegnan＠gmail.com

The Kennett Classic Gallery of Computing history and shop has re-opened per State of PA and County of Chester guidelines. I am looking for volunteers to help with moving some large DEC racks into the basement area, we decided to expand exhibits to one more room to make space for the bigger iron, printers, VAX systems, etc. We are installing new exhibits this month and any help would be appreciated. I am also looking for a Linux scripting poss. Python programmer for a paid project through my web programming business (degnanco.com) if anyone here is interested in a project. Contact me privately. Kennett Classic 126 S Union St. Kennett Square, PA 19348 484 732 7041 kennettclassic.com -Bill Degnan-

5 years, 9 months

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Old communications software

by sales＠elecplus.com

If any of you are looking for new in box Lantastic or Hayes Smartcom software, I have some for sale. https://elecshopper.com/Communications-Software-c47411005 Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

5 years, 9 months

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WTB: 64K S-100 board, Hard Sectored 5.25" floppies

by ethan＠757.org

Looking for a CompuPro RAM 16 or something similar that will work in an IMSAI 8080. Also looking for a few hard sectored (10 sector) 5.25" floppies Reply off list! Thanks! - Ethan O'Toole

5 years, 9 months

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VAXstation 3100 power supply

by peter.hicks＠poggs.co.uk

Hello I have a couple of VAXstation 3100s - a M38 which boots but has no output on the console port, and another model which has corrosion on the motherboard and a PSU which doesn't power up correctly. The voltage on all of the M38 PSU's pins is OK except for pin 7 (brown) which is +3.5v to +5.25v DC and is floating at about 0.6v with reference to ground. I suspect this is why the console port doesn't work (and the LEDs on the read suggest a RAM problem so I can't tell which chip is faulty), so I've set about troubleshooting. Does anyone have any suggestions above and beyond replacing capacitors? Peter -- OpenTrainTimes Ltd. registered in?England and Wales, company no.? 09504022. Registered office: 13a?Davenant Road, Upper Holloway,?London N19 3NW

5 years, 9 months

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Malfunctioning VT240 - help please

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

Until a few minutes ago, my VT240 was operating normally, but now it's unresponsive (fails during power-on self test). Normal behavior was: display a checkerboard, then two different intensity all-white bands growing slowly up from the bottom of the screen, then a beep and the expected "VT240 Monitor Error 9" (because I'm using an old B&W composite monitor instead of the DEC VR201 with special cable). Thereafter, normal operation. Now, it briefly displays the checkerboard (and all four keyboard lights turn on, then off); then the Lock and Wait lights come on and nothing else happens. Blank screen. Power-OK light on the back is illuminated and 5.19 volts measured on the board. Haven't checked +12 (or the internally derived keyboard +5) yet. Another possibly useful observation: I can press the Setup (or any other) key about four times and hear a keyclick sound each time. But then it stops playing the click sound if I keep pressing keys. This suggests that the interrupt on the CPU (a T11) is not being responded to. The technical manual is very detailed but does not describe the specifics of the POST, which could be useful in locating the failed circuit (or firmware). Can anyone with experience in debugging these terminals lend a hand? Should I even be looking at the main board, or the keyboard which also has an 8051 CPU?? thanks.

5 years, 9 months

2
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Alfaskop terminals and SPL programming language.

by kurtwig11＠gmail.com

S?g ovanst?ende - har du n?gra fr?gor kontakta mig - jag gjorde kompilatorn f?r SPL. Mvh Kurt Svensson

5 years, 9 months

1
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Seiko Epson Robotics Controller Boards

by jon＠jonworld.com

Hi everyone! My wife found some interesting VME-looking boards for sale on a surplus auction website. This is what we scored. Is there any interest for these here? 1x Main CPU SKP-220-3 4x Sub CPU SKP-221-3 (2 look good, one has a battery that exploded all over it, one labelled bad CMOS but had a bent pin.) 3x Servo SKP-222-3 1x IO Board SKP-184-2 I have no card cage, no documentation, and no way to test these. Some are labelled that they tested good in 2008. I'll happily supply pictures for those interested, but they're essentially 2U VME boards with MC68000 chips and the main CPU has an MC68HC000 CPU. They seem to fetch a fair sum on eBay, but just because they're listed at these prices doesn't mean that they actually sell at that price: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Seiko-Epson-Accu-Sembler-Robot-Control-Sub-CPU-B… -- -Jon +44 7792 149029

5 years, 10 months

1
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BYTE Magazines

by trash80＠internode.on.net

I know the response to this might be quite subjective and depends on your particular interests. Do BYTE magazines have any collectability (maybe even from a historical perspective or something else)? I have to make some decisions about space (the perennial problem for a collector of course) and I have quite a few of these taking up a few shelves. Thank you. Kevin Parker

5 years, 10 months

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Compaq Proliant parts

by julf＠julf.com

Anyone in need of a Proliant 6000 / 7000 CPU board (unused), and hotswap hard disk cartridges? https://imgur.com/a/3h9VBmH Julf

5 years, 10 months

1
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BYTE Magazines

by cctalk＠emailtoilet.com

Computer Museum of America might be interested. They have a Byte wall. http://www.myimagecollection.com/webpics/cmoabyte.jpg Contact Lonnie Mimms lonnie at mimms.com to see if he has any interest. Donald

5 years, 10 months

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Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

by rich.cini＠verizon.net

You know, reading about this made me dig out the info I had on the Character Oriented Windows ("COW") library. I was reading some of the docs and it occurred to me that it operated much like Windows (probably Windows 1), but what I couldn't find were any "sample" programs or tools to build a program based on the COW library. Does anyone have/know of a sample program that used the library? Was there an SDK for it or was it used only for Microsoft's products? Just looking for something new/interesting to learn about. Thanks! Rich ?On 5/22/20, 11:35 AM, "cctalk on behalf of Chuck Guzis via cctalk" <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org on behalf of cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: A quick look at the code indicates to me that the Intel translator CONV86 may well have done the translation in "strict" mode. Of course, there were other translators, but some of the stuff rings a bell. For example, the 8080 instruction INX B gets translated to SAHF INC BX LAHF all done because the 8080 16-bit instruction does not affect the zero and carry flags, but the 8086 instruction INC, does. So there's very likely a large amount (my experience was at least >30%) of cruft in the code. --Chuck

5 years, 10 months

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BYTE Magazines

by rshepprd＠gmail.com

That photo is the perfect opportunity to mention the wonderful cover art by Robert Tinney. Richard Sent from Mail for Windows 10

5 years, 10 months

1
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intellec MDS80 on eBay

by couryhouse＠aol.com

I assume this are not the standard Intel floppy drives???? On Sunday, May 31, 2020 Jan-Benedict Glaw via cctech <jbglaw at lug-owl.de; cctech at classiccmp.org> wrote: Hi! I just wanted to drop an email that there's a MDS 80 on eBay: ??? https://www.ebay.de/itm/333612000595 (Please note: The seller, Michael, is a friend of mine, and a former coworker.) Thanks, ? Jan-Benedict --

5 years, 10 months

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The X-Cap-Files

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

Today I was working on a new-to-me VT240 which hadn't been powered up in a long time (possibly 10 years). Hooked it up to an old 9" B&W CCTV monitor and everything was running fine for 20 minutes or so - when suddenly an astonishing amount of acrid whitish-gray smoke started pouring from the vents =8^ O So I yanked the power cord out and took the case off. Sure enough, one if not both of the 0.1 uF X-caps on the line filter had cracked open and my nose confirmed that was the source of the stench. Fortunately there is no damage to the PC board or surrounding components - even the caps don't look toasted, just split. Good thing I was sitting right there when they failed and could turn the power off immediately. I've read here and elsewhere about the spectacular failure modes of these caps, sometimes flames, but this is the first time I ever experienced it first hand. Maybe it's time for a look inside my VT220? ;) -Charles

5 years, 10 months

2
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AlphaMicro CPU Chip

by wmachacek1＠comcast.net

Hi, I've recently come across a CPU chip marked "AlphaMicro" . It has a date stamp of 8531 and appears to be of the 386 variety (1 5/8 x 1 5/8). It doesn't appear to be from Alpha MicroSystems. Anyone know who may be the maker of this chip? I can send a picture for those who'd like to see what it looks like.

5 years, 10 months

1
0
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intellec MDS80 on eBay

by jbglaw＠lug-owl.de

Hi! I just wanted to drop an email that there's a MDS 80 on eBay: https://www.ebay.de/itm/333612000595 (Please note: The seller, Michael, is a friend of mine, and a former coworker.) Thanks, Jan-Benedict --

5 years, 10 months

2
2
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ESDI terminator values

by cz＠alembic.crystel.com

Working on restoring this 11/83, I would like to replace the Fujitsu 2284E drive with a slightly larger capacity CDC/Imprimis WREN VI 94246-383 ESDI. I think I have the jumper configurations, however the problem is the disk does not have a terminator pack. Does anyone know what kind of resistor pack was used for the CDC drives? It's probably something very basic and easy to find at Digikey but what? Thanks! Chris (working away here)

5 years, 10 months

2
1
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Anyone know what an AM000076 (Dip 18) is?

by ian.finder＠gmail.com

Title says all, Backing up all the programmable parts in the Apollo DN100 and the CPU board has a few of these ceramic DIPs with the same Apollo P/N labels as the Am27S29 and similar programmable parts. Thanks

5 years, 10 months

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DtCYBER and/or CYBIS Resources

by Kevin＠rawfeddogs.net

Classic Computer Fans, I tried out the CYBIS release: http://www.Control-Data.info/CybisRelease.html on the DtCYBER emulator when it first came out. I've since forgotten most of what I'd learned. Recently I fired CYBIS back up and started relearning. Does anyone know if any user mailing lists for the DtCYBER emulator and/or the CYBIS release? At the moment I'm trying to find a Linux friendly terminal type that works with NOS's FSE. -- Kevin http://www.RawFedDogs.net http://www.Lassie.xyz http://www.WacoAgilityGroup.org Bruceville, TX What's the definition of a legacy system? One that works! Errare humanum est, ignoscere caninum.

5 years, 10 months

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Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

by cisin＠xenosoft.com

On Fri, 22 May 2020, Boris Gimbarzevsky wrote: > Thanks for posting the timeline of various Basic interpreters. I wasn't > aware that Gates/Allen also wrote Basic for C64. Microsoft did a BASIC for the Commodore PET. I wasn't aware that they did the C64. > Did download the 8080 Basic source code out of interest, but in early > 1980's had very little to do with IBM PC. PC was 8088, NOT 8080. BUT, an original 8080 source code can be run through some algorithmic translation to automagically patch it into something that is close enough to 8088. All of my knowledge of the following is third hand, and probably mostly WRONG. If you are lucky, maybe some of the folk here who actually KNOW this stuff will step in and give the right information. Sequence is only approximate. Well, we can start by considering the 4004. 1971. It was not the "FIRST" microprocessor, although the later chips based on it dominated the market. 4 bit data bus. It was designed to be able to make a whole range of Busicom calculators that could be essentially the same hardware, and changing ROM, or moving a jumper from cheapest model to most expensive model would void the warranty. Then came the 8008, with EIGHT bit data bus, and 14 bit address bus (16K of RAM) Then came the 8080, with 8 bit data bus and 16 bit address bus (64K of RAM) That brought about a giant surge in hobbyists trying to build computers, including the MITS Altair, etc. It is important to note that each Intel chip consisted of "minor" modifications to the previous one. That made it easier to modify a design or software from one to the next one. Minor patches tended to be all that was needed. THAT is important. 'course it means that some aspects are really weird due to being patched on top of patched, on top of patched, instead of redesigned. MEANWHILE, other companies started trying to get into the game. Motorola came out with the 6800, which was pretty cool. But, they were taking a long time to get around to the next ones, so a group of engineers left and started MOS Technology, and came out with the 6500. Motorola's lawyers were not amused. So, the engineers redesigned an all new, "non-infringing" one called the 6502. Motorola eventually got around to trying to design "the best 8 bit microprocessor", and came out with the 6809. They had designed from scratch, to try to make it the best, so it had so much different, that previous machines could not be easily modified for it, and had to be redesigned for it, and software needed to be re-written, not just patched. They had difficulty finding any takers, in spite of obvious design superiority, because most manufaturers were already established with other chips. BUT, Radio Shack built a machine called "the Radio Shack Color Computer" around a Motorola application note. Radio shack didn't want it competing with their other products, and didn't see any reason to include capabilities, so they had horrible constraints, such as chiclet keyboard, unexpandable RF video, cartridge slot instead of expansion bus, etc. A lot of the early machines were intel 8080, which had 8 bit data bus and 16 bit address bus, which meant maximum of 64K of RAM, although it was not very hard to cheat for 128K. Gary Kildall needed an OS for managing his source code on 8 inch disks that he added to his computer. He wrote "Control Program and Monitor", which later became "Control Program for Microcomputers" ("CP/M"). He tried to get Intel to market it, but they didn't think that there would ever be enough market to sell an operating system for a microcomputer. So, he started "Intergalactic Digital Research" Later, when the hobbyists grew up and lost their sense of humor, "Thinker Toys" became "Morrow designs". (they had been having some trademark issues) "Kentucky Fried Computer" became "Northstar" (they had been having some trademark issues) and "Intergalactic Digital Research" bcame "Digital Research Incorporated" Then Zilog came out with the Z80, which had major enhancements. BUT, code using those enhancements would not run on an 8080, so CP/M remained 8080, and many/most? programmers stuck with 8080 for marketable code. Intel came out with the 8085, which had DIFFERENT [incompatible] enhancements, so many/most? continued to stick with 8080 code. I think that the Radio Shack model 100 is 8085. A hobbyist named Steve Wozniak wanted to build a Z80 computer. But it was going to cost too much. At Wescon (trade show), he got a fantastic deal on some 6502 chips. Not what he had been wanting, but he could make it work, and he could afford them! He hooked up with Steve Jobs, who had some marketing ideas. They sold a bunch of "blue boxes", kited some checks, sold Jobs' VW bus and Woz's calculator, and put together a batch of kits. ($666.66; they later said that they had not realized the theological implications of the price) And, hence, we got "Apple Computer". Later, Apple Music (Beatles) talked to them about the name. Apple Music agreed to not get into computers, and Apple Computers agreed to not get into music. Hmmm. Atari and Commodore both ended up also using the 6502. Motorola Then Intel decided to build a "16 bit processor". The 8086 has a 16 bit data bus and a 20 bit address bus, for a maximum of 1M or RAM When the IBM PC wasbeing planned, there was a lot of difference in cost between 8 bit and 16 bit support chips. The 8088 was ALMOST the same as an 8086, but with an 8 bit data bus, which significantly reduced costs! From an engineering perspective, the 8088 is an 8 bit version of the 16 bit 8086. >From a MARKETING perspective, it's 16 bit, or maybe 32 bit, or maybe 64 bit, etc. If a 4 bit machine has a 128 bit Smell-o-vision port, marketing will call the machine "128 bit" The IBM PC was an 8088. IBM went to Microsoft to get BASIC for it. Bill gates put on a suit and met with them. The "Pirates Of The Valley" story of Microsoft cold-calling IBM to sell an operating system PINS THE NEEDLE ON THE BOGUSIMETER. The author of that fiction needs a hot soldering iron shoved 8 inches up his nose. Microsoft was happy to oblige on BASIC. One of the IBM engineers had an Apple2 with a Microsoft "Softcard" (Z80) to run CP/M. So, IBM asked Microsoft to also supply "the CP/M". Bill Gates explained that that was Digital Research. So, IBM went to Digital Research in Pacific grove to get "the CP/M". There was some "culture clash". IBM showed up in blue suits. There is an unconfirmed report that somebody at DR thought that it was a drug raid. I have looked out that upstairs window, and can imagine it. The IBM suits encountered barefoot workers in shorts and not all wearing shirts (both sexes?) female workers without bras. cats and a dog. plants. Surfboards and bicycles in every room. Gary Kildall wasn't even THERE! He had gone to fly his plane up to Oakland to visit Bill Godbout. Official story is that that was an essential errand to deliver some documentation (and no lower employee could have put some shoes on and driven up?). His wife was there, and he had told her, "They're just coming to sign a license agreement. Let them wait in the living room with the rest of the customers." IBM was not amused. IBM went back to Microsoft. I heard that Bill Gates told his people that anybody without a suit should stay home for the day. IBM said that they wante Microsoft to provide the OS. Bill Gates said, "we do BASIC. We don't do operating systems." IBM said that they intended to get the BASIC and the OS from ONE source. Bill Gates said, "Let me tell you about our new OS department!" Then Bill Gates went down the street to Seattle Computer Products and bought 86-DOS/QDOS ("Quick and Dirty OS"), including hardware to run it on, and the contract of Tim Paterson who wrote it. Microsoft had a new OS department. Motorola STARTED work on "The best 16 bit processor". Rather than patching something earlier, and being stuck with legacy oddities, they designed from scratch. So, it took longer. Motorola eventually came out with the 68000, which was the best 16 bit processor. (or 32 bit or 64 bit if you are in marketing) The Apple3 was a major financial setback. Much more money, for very little more. Apple started on a total redesign. It is rumored that for the Lisa, they explicitly avoided anybody with prior experience to avoid repeating previous bad ideas. 'course hiring brilliant folk straight out of college meant that nobody had the prior experience to know the consequences of building a machine for which software could NOT just be patched from previous versions. The Lisa was magnificant! and in a price range (>$20K?) where sales were to overpaid exectuvies wanting to impress other overpaid executives. It actually came close to putting Apple on the rocks. And, it was an ALL-NEW (and improved) machine. Old software couldn't just be patched, it had to be re-written. The brilliant recovery plan was to take the Lisa design and cut every corner that could be cut, to make a machine that could be sold for $500. Once they did, they found that they could still get away with selling it for $2K. it was mandated that the resulting machine would come with four significant pieces of software. By the time it was ready, those had become Mac-Write, Mac-Paint, Mac-Write, and Mac-Paint. But that was enough. The marketing people were smart enough to change the grumbling about building a computer for ignorant masses into "a computer for the rest of US" Later, Commodore (Amiga) and Atari (ST) used the 68000. There are some amazing stories (that i don't know) about that "technology swap" Intel came out with the 80286, 16 bit data bus with 24 bit address bus. with fewer limitations. But still a few significant ones, such as how to switch in and out of "protected mode". "It's like having to turn your engine off to switch gears on the freeway". Bill Gates called the 80286, "Brain dead." In "real mode", which would be limited to 20 bits of address, it is easy to cheat and enable A20, which permits 64K past the 1M boundary. THAT is required for Windoze 3.10 Then came the 80386, which could sorta be called a 32 bit processor. And the 80386-SX, which analogous to the 8088, was a 16 bit version of the 32 bit 30386, permitting building a software compatible machine using cheap 80286 support chips. 80486, which is kinda like a 80386 plus 80387 math chip, and the 80486SX, with is 80486 without the math processor. and Pentium. Intel had been finding out the hard way that it was difficult to maintain trademark of a number (Oldsmobile "442" notwithstanding) Other manufacturers would make a 80386 like chip and call it a 486, or an 80486 like chip and call it a 586, etc. So, they had a naming session. And the other entries were even worse than "Pentium". I'm surprised that that didn't backfire horribly! Consider: In about 1965, Honeywell bought Pentax from Asahi. Honeywell could totally legitimately have come out with a processor (joint venture with AMD/Cyrix/etc.?) and called it the "Pentaxium". Intel wouldn't even be able to object. Yeah, there have been more since then, but new stuff isn't interesting for another ten or twenty years. OR MORE for some of the boring current stuff. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com > As was working with PDP-11's at that time, really disliked 8080 instruction > set and got a C64 instead which was considerably cheaper than IBM PC and much > easier to write assembly code for. C64 basic is fairly ugly but bought a > 6502 assembler and just used Basic to display stuff on screen and call my > work was done in assembly language code. Had no trouble sampling switch data > at 1 KHz using my "toy" computer. A couple of guys from UBC Physiology > decided to build a programmable stimulator based on C64 which they were > trying to sell for $2K, considerably less than the ~$10 K that the dedicated > device that was commonly used then. Even though their timing specifications > matched the expensive device, a lot of researchers back then didn't want a > "toy" to be part of their lab setup so sales were few. > > Recently found a movie Pirates of Silicon Valley which had some of early > Microsoft history and, if depictions of individuals are true to reality, > explains why I far preferred Mac in comparison to ugly early windows. It > also helped that 68000 was a very easy processor to migrate to after 8 years > doing assembler/FORTRAN programming on a PDP-11. Couldn't believe it when I > had a full 512 Kb of RAM to play in.

5 years, 10 months

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history is hard

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Jon Elson > As far as I know, there was no VM/360. There WAS VM/370, which was out > in the early 1970's CP/67, which was a semi-product, and ran only on 360/67's, was basically the same functionality as VM/370. (I get the impression that the code was descended from CP/67, but I can't absolutely confirm that - although see Varian, below.) It was used by many customers who had purchased 360/67's. The 370/67's instruction set didn't need to be tweaked at all to run a virtualization (although it had added hardware to do virtual memory, which CP/67 needed); the '360 Principles of Operation' was defined in such a way that it could be virtualized. (Unlike, say, the PDP-11, where a RESET instruction in User mode is a NOP, and does not trap). All that's needed is the virtual memory hardware, because otherwise the real addresses of the underlying machine have to be exposed to the virtual machines. CP/67 was preceded by two earlier iterations: CP/40, which ran on a special 360/40 which has been hacked to have paging hardware added; it was likewise almost identical to CP/67 (a hacked version of CP/40, with the memory management of the 370/67 substituted for the special 360/40's, was booted on a 360/67). An older system, M44, which was similar in functionality (although not a perfect virtualization of the underlying machine), it ran on a modified 7044. One version of CP/67 provided a /370 virtual machine; it was used extensively by the MVS development team. CP/67 was also brought up on /370 hardware. Full details in "VM and the VM Community: Past, Present and Future", by Melinda Varian. Noel

5 years, 10 months

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is nexgen cpu and motherboard scarce or rare item? Ed#

by couryhouse＠aol.com

is nexgen cpu and motherboard scarce or rare item? Ed#

5 years, 10 months

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intellec MDS80 on eBay

by couryhouse＠aol.com

Still looking for the matching? paper tape reader and punch.? For one of these...Ed# On Sunday, May 31, 2020 Jan-Benedict Glaw via cctech <jbglaw at lug-owl.de; cctech at classiccmp.org> wrote: Hi! I just wanted to drop an email that there's a MDS 80 on eBay: ??? https://www.ebay.de/itm/333612000595 (Please note: The seller, Michael, is a friend of mine, and a former coworker.) Thanks, ? Jan-Benedict --

5 years, 10 months

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FS (a little OT): Telular Phonecell SX5 GSM Fixed Terminals (x2)

by spectre＠floodgap.com

I know that there's a few people on this list who mess around with homebrew GSM networks and OpenBTS, so I'll offer these here first. I am getting rid of my two Telular Phonecell SX5 fixed GSM terminals. These are 2G devices that present a phone line and a serial port. They have dial tone emulation and can allow a regular phone handset to send and receive calls. (There is some fax support but I've never used that functionality.) The serial port is directly connected to the GSM modem so that you can also use it for sending and receiving SMS text messages, which is the primary purpose it served here (so I could ping the house sensor network if the server line was down). The reason I'm getting rid of them is because 2G is being sunsetted in the USA and T-Mobile, the last 2G carrier, will dismantle its nationwide 2G network by the end of this year. DO NOT BUY THIS IF YOU WANT TO USE IT FOR THAT PURPOSE unless you are using a regional carrier you know will support it. On the other hand, if you want a fixed box (or both of them) for your own private GSM network, such as with an OpenBTS base station, then this will serve you hopefully as well as it has served me. Both units were purchased new and I have been their only owner. They include manuals, power supplies, spike antennae and power cords in the original boxes. SIM cards are not included and I have removed their old lead-acid battery backups for weight and because those died long ago. I'm asking $60 each, or $100 if you want them both, plus shipping. I'm open to other offers. Please E-mail me off list. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- FORTUNE: You're wise, but not wise enough not to read this sort of drivel. -

5 years, 10 months

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Mac Performa 6214CD FTGH from San Antonio, TX (re-post; now tested)

by mark.tapley＠swri.org

All, Still trying to find a home for this system (re-post but with more information, testing) For the visually oriented, here are pictures showing the machine running: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11j__mCYOFuBAil58hAdhmSK5GMaqmcUL?us… Things in the pictures but NOT included in the giveaway are: 1) ADB cable (Mini-DIN4) (the one in the photos was borrowed from another system for testing) 2) ?square? ADB mouse (also borrowed) 3) Power strip You get everything else. Mac Performa 6214CD, PowerPC CPU, 3.5? floppy and CD drive on front face Apple Extended Keyboard II (NO ADB CABLE) Apple Apple Desktop Bus Mouse II (round - not working) Apple Multiple Scan 15 Display (matching, includes cable) APS external SCSI hard drive enclosure and cable (Centronix on the hard drive end, DB-25 on the Mac end) Epson Stylus Color 740 ink-jet printer with a spare (unopened) cartridge UMAX Astra 1220S flat-bed SCSI scanner. ZIP drive with SCSI interface Cables Pile of accompanying software including at least: DeltaGraph Now Up-To-Date and Contact Sad Macs, Bombs and disasters Retrospect Backup Astra Scanner Driver All Free to a Good Home. You want this if: a) you can afford shipping or pickup from San Antonio, TX, 78254, and b) 15 years after ?Take this job and shove it? came out you finally acted on it, quit your job and set up your own home office and accounting business, and now you want to relive your glory days. All items tested May 23, 2020. Everything worked, with the following exceptions: 1) The round ADB mouse included does not work. The keyboard does work and the square ADB mouse worked when plugged into it, so the fault is probably in the round mouse. 2) The printer doesn?t move any ink to the page. The ink is dried out, so I?m not at all surprised. I expect it to work with new cartridges, but did not test that. There is an unopened replacement cartridge included, so you can test at least the black printing if you open that. Replacement cartridges available at: https://www.compandsave.com/Epson_Stylus_Color_740_Ink_Cartridges_s/1396.htm under $4 each. Everything else about the printer seems to work. I hooked up to it via USB using my MacBook and software from http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net and it responds as expected for an ink-jet with dried-up ink but otherwise functional. 3) I have no ZIP cartridge to test the ZIP drive. It is recognized on the SCSI bus as a removable-media drive, power light comes on, etc, but I don?t know that it reads or writes. 4) The Mac OS 8.5 on the drive will not allow me to set the year to 2020. 5) Backup battery is dead, so the unit won?t remember dates between shutdown and startup again. 5) The door to the monitor?s controls is broken, and just taped back into place. Things that do work include the floppy drive, the CD drive (plays audio CDs), all other aspects of the computer itself and the external drive, the keyboard, and the monitor. Driver software and media for scanner and printer are included. The scanner works, I scanned an image with it and it came up clear. The glass could use cleaning, though. Please, please, please take this as a group, I really don?t want to split it up. Shipping will be challenging; if you are out of driving range but want it, contact me and we can talk. If you are in driving range and want it, let me know and we can meet half-way. Not looking to make any money, I just don?t want to throw it away and don?t want to lose money giving it away. - Mark 210-522-6025 office 210-379-4635 cell

5 years, 10 months

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Looking for Diablo 44m filters

by cz＠alembic.crystel.com

Hi all! More non-discussion, technical stuff: I'm starting to work on restoring some of the old Evecon-6 servers that I used to lug to conventions 30 years ago. Right now I just dragged out my Plessy 20mb disk drive which is a Diablo 44 Perkin Elmer monster. Yep, the one with the 10mb platter on the bottom and 10mb removable platter on the top that looks like an RL01 pack but of course is not. First up is powerup, oddly enough it is powering up which is good. Second is the filter: If the filter is plugged the heads will crash, and this filter does not look great. It's a Cambridge Filter Corp CFC 1246159GO which maps to a Perkin Elmer part number of 302709-001 Google isn't helping, anyone know where I can get another filter or how I can clean/purge this one (if possible) Thanks! C

5 years, 10 months

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Living Computer Museum

by ggs＠shiresoft.com

I just received an email from the Living Computer Museum that they were suspending operations. It wasn't clear from the email what that actually means. TTFN - Guy

5 years, 10 months

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Living Computer Museum

by c.murray.mccullough＠gmail.com

I was interested in computers from grade 11; that would have been in 1967. I got my first microcomputer in 1978, a Heathkit H8 - terribly priced here in Canada. From there I went to the Coleco ADAM. It was essentially an APPLE II clone, well the OS was. Not sure what has become of ADAM-user groups and whether any computer history museum mentions it or not! Happy computing! Murray ?

5 years, 10 months

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Building an IBM 3270 terminal controller

by lproven＠gmail.com

https://ajk.me/building-an-ibm-3270-terminal-controller -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven ? Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

5 years, 10 months

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Anyone using RK06/07 drives?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Bill Degnan ` >> I think I have a spare set of boards for the controller. > I might be interested if no one else wants this. You'll need a backplane too - and that's non-trivial. (I'm in the process of producing one for a KE11-A.) The RK611 is a 9-slot (although several slots are just SPC, and can be ignored). Hence the plaint on my 'PDP-11 Models' page: http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/pdp11/PDP-11_Models.html "DO NOT just keep the boards, and discard the box, bulkhead panels, cables, etc. Everyone does that, as a result of which we are now over-supplied with boards - but the cables, boxes etc are now rare (un-obtainium in some cases ..) These are all now worth a lot more than the cards are!" Noel

5 years, 10 months

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SAIL (was ALGOL-W)

by mark.kahrs＠gmail.com

As a past occasional maintainer of SAIL, I'll add my version of history: I believe the compiler originated as a class assignment for Jerry Feldman's compiler writing class. As noted, Dan Swinehart was one of the principal contributors. The addition of LEAP to SAIL was a direct result of Feldman's past work at Lincoln Labs. SAIL was used by everyone for everything at the AI Lab because of it's "kitchen sink" philosophy including the link to assembly language inside the language. Eventually, a source language debugger called BAIL was written by John Reiser. With the slow and steady decline of the PDP-10 and the ascent of Unix, SAIL went off into the sunset. [MWK,AIL]

5 years, 10 months

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Anyone using RK06/07 drives?

by cz＠alembic.crystel.com

I think I have a spare set of boards for the controller. C

5 years, 10 months

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CHM software

by rdawson16＠hotmail.com

Follow up to the Living Computer Museum discussion... I can understand why CHM does not allow access to the hardware, But what about the software? It should all be downloadable. Randy

5 years, 10 months

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Early Nubus history

by aek＠bitsavers.org

Did anyone ever do any research into the early history of Nubus, wrt Western Digital, TI or Steve Ward/MIT/Numachine?

5 years, 10 months

3
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Algol W [was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC]

by paul＠mcjones.org

On May 27, 2020, Lars Brinkhoff <lars at nocrew.org> wrote: > Al Kossow wrote: >>> Algol W was from Eroupe? >> Algol W was from Stanford, written by Wirth when he was there > > I wonder if there's any connection to Stanford's SAIL language? Good question. I believe the answer is ?Wirth was initially involved with both?. Here?s a bit of history in the Preface to a SAIL manual: HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGE The GOGOL III compiler, developed principally by Dan Swinehart at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Project, was the basis for the non-LEAP portions of SAIL. Robert Sproull joined Swinehart in incorporating the features of LEAP The first version of the language was released in November, 1969. SAIL's intermediate development was the responsibility of Russell Taylor, Jim Low, and Hanan Samet, who introduced processes, procedure variables, interrupts, contexts, matching procedures, a new macro system, and other features. Most recently John Reiser, Robert Smith, and Russell Taylor maintained and extended SAIL. They added a high-level debugger, conversion to TENEX, a print statement, and records and references. http://pdp-10.trailing-edge.com/decuslib20-01/01/decus/20-0002/sail.man.html And here?s a 1964 Stanford TimeSharing Project Memo by McKeeman and Wirth on Gogol: Gogol is a simple, integer arithmetic language used under the PDP-1 time sharing system at Stanford. This memorandum includes the syntactical definition of the language and a number of sample programs as well as a brief description of the operational characteristics of the compiler. Gogol was designed to permit fast compilation of efficient machine code directly into memory. The speed of compilation together with the accessibility of the text editor make program de- bugging relatively rapid. The examples presented here plus the availability of the compiler should form an adequate basis for learning to use the language. More detailed information depends heavily on a knowledge of PDP-1 hardware. https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:jy391jj5758/jy391jj5758.pdf

5 years, 10 months

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Replacing cables sheaths?

by cruff＠ruffspot.net

Thanks for the suggestions. I currently have Rescue Tape brand self adhesive silicone tape on the cable, but it looks like it is causing corrosion of the spiral-wound metal shield wires. The wrap around heat shrink might cost more than just buying a new adapter! It looks like there is an 1/8" split wire loom that could work, or perhaps Plasti Dip spray would make a reasonable coating.

5 years, 10 months

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Living Computer Museum

by jfoust＠threedee.com

At 09:25 AM 5/28/2020, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: >Nothing like asking people to jump thru hoops before you let them >do you a favor. :-) Much of the effort of running a thrift store is disposal of donated material that has no rapid resale value. - John

5 years, 10 months

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Back to tech: TK50 restoration and thoughts

by cz＠alembic.crystel.com

Ok, so to get back to technology I have been working on fixing the TK50's I have here along with attempting to look at some old tapes from Bob's basement. It's been interesting. So far one of the units works well with one of my tapes (stored indoors for about 20 or so years) after a good cleaning with 95% isopropyl alcohol. From RT11 I was able to initialize the tape, write 40mb of .DSK image files, and consistently read the files back (to a VM: memory drive) and diff/bin them to make sure they are the same. Good. First test: A second TK50 drive I had banging around. This one will read the tape, but fail about half way through. May still be a bit dirty, will clean and check. Second test: Checking some of the tapes from Bob's basement. In addition to getting the PERQ tapes out of there I had a few TK50 tapes mixed in, most with degaussed stickers on them from long ago. These tapes appear to have been Vax 8650 load tapes of some sort, no idea if there is any value to the data but one was labelled Micro-pdp11 diagnostics and since I know those are backed up I started with that one. It loads, but fails with a DUP IO output error. It also messes up the tape head so I have to clean it after testing. Most of the dirt is at the bottom of the head. After cleaning the drive can load and read the "control" tape which has all of those image files on it, so it doesn't damage the drive. Still I see why taking the cage top off the TK50 is a good idea. :-) Took the cartridge apart and here is what I see: https://i.imgur.com/xHhiBAW.jpg This is... not good. Dirt or something on the bottom of the tape. Now these did spend the last 20 years in a pretty dank basement with an oil fired house heater so there is probably that. Still I used a Q tip on the tape with isopropyl alcohol and it came up dirty inside the cart and out: https://i.imgur.com/TB91gGx.jpg Also odd that the tape is wrapped in two different "levels" on the spindle. Maybe that's normal. So a question: Can one clean tape with isopropyl alcohol? In theory if I could get the controller to slowly run the tape onto the take-up real to the EOT marker I could soak some cotton swabs and use them to clean the tape before it hits the heads (to minimize head wear). Or I could just chuck these tapes and see how a couple I am buying from Ebay hold up. This is mostly an academic exercise: It gives me something to do. But I am wondering if the tapes were crudded by the environment or if this is just natural tape degradation. I do have one final tape that was in a closed tape holder so it might be better (it's clean on the outside). Will see.... C

5 years, 10 months

1
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Replacing cables sheaths?

by matti.nummi＠hotmail.fi

You can use cable lacing. It does not make it pretty(er), but usable. If You don't want to remove the connectors or cut the cable You cannot add any new sheath? There may be some fabric/wowen expandable sheaths which have been used on power cables earlier but I have no precise knowledge. Something like when You push it, it bulges. BR Matti

5 years, 10 months

3
2
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Living Computers: Museum + Labs

by RichA＠livingcomputers.org

Hello, everyone, As I'm sure all of you are aware, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a crisis with devastating effects on many cultural organizations, and more especially on those which rely on public gatherings and special events to achieve their mission. Since before we opened to the public in 2012, our philosophy has been a simple one: To understand computing technology of any period, you need to experience that technology at first hand. The current global situation has made it difficult for us to serve our mission, and given so much uncertainty we have made the difficult decision to suspend all operations of LCM+L for now. We will spend the months ahead reassessing if, how, and when to reopen. Because that will not happen in any short time frame, the staff, including me, have been laid off. On a personal note, the last 17 years, since July 2003, have been a time of growth, excitement, and backbreaking labor which I would not trade for anything. The friendships I have formed, in the community at large (and it is international in scope) as well as among my colleagues here, are a comfort to me. I'll be subscribed from a personal address once that is moderator-approved. Thank you all for your interest in and support for Living Computers: Museum + Labs, and our previous incarnations. It means a great deal to us as we wind down the current implementation. Rich Rich Alderson Sr. Systems Engineer/Curator emeritus Living Computers: Museum + Labs 2245 1st Ave S Seattle, WA 98134 Cell: (206) 465-2916 Desk: (206) 342-2239 http://www.LivingComputers.org/

5 years, 10 months

2
1
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In search of Apollo DN100 Technical Reference Manual

by ian.finder＠gmail.com

Hi folks, I've recently acquired an Apollo DN100 I'd like to restore to former glory. Sadly, there are no schematics anywhere that I can find. I have seen this alluded to, but do not have a part number- anyone got a lead? Even better would be to find anything describing the PALs in the system. Separately, there is a 14" Priam DISKOS hard drive in here- not with the Priam interface used by the later SAU2 Apollos (DN300, etc.) but something else- perhaps the early ANSI interface option provided by Priam. If anyone has leads on - 1) The failure modes of these drives and 2) A replacement ? advice would be much appreciated. Thanks, - Ian

5 years, 10 months

1
1
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In search of SGI IRIS 1400 / 2000 era technical reference manuals & schematics

by ian.finder＠gmail.com

Title says all. Thanks, - Ian

5 years, 10 months

1
0
0 0

Replacing cables sheaths?

by cruff＠ruffspot.net

Does anyone know of an effective technique to replace the sheath of a cable without needing to reterminate the ends? On all of the Apple power adapter cables I've used the plastic sheath starts to fall apart, but the adapter itself and the cable conductors are still useable. Something that results in a reasonably flexible coating that doesn't look like a horrible accident happened to the cable? :-)

5 years, 10 months

3
2
0 0

Last MSV11-P question: Using them as Q bus memories

by cz＠alembic.crystel.com

Ok, so we banged the MSV11-P revision B/C memory issues into the ground (looks like the problem is burst mode DMA on Q Bus can cause random failures that corrupt disks) however does anyone know if the bug will affect the board if you use it as a normal Q bus memory board? In other words, if you put the board *below* an 11/73 or 11/83 so it reports as a non-PMI memory will it still have the same problem? I'd like to run my system with a full 4mb of memory, using my normal parity 2mb board and a 2mb MSV11-P board that was from an 11/83? Inquiring minds want to know :-) C

5 years, 10 months

1
0
0 0

Algol W [was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC]

by paul＠mcjones.org

> On May 26, 2020, Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote: > > On 5/26/20 6:39 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: >> >> >>> Algol W was from Eroupe? >> >> Algol W was from Stanford, written by Wirth when he was there > > Actually, by Dick Sites > > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/stanford/cs_techReports/STAN-CS-71-230_Algol_W_Ref… <http://bitsavers.org/pdf/stanford/cs_techReports/STAN-CS-71-230_Algol_W_Ref…> Dick must have done a lot of work on that version, but an earlier manual by Henry R. Bauer, Sheldon Becker, and Susan L . Graham says: The project was initiated and directed by Professor Niklaus Wirth, who proposed many of the ideas incorporated in the compiler and suggested ways to bring them about. Joseph W. Wells, Jr. and Edwin H. Satterthwaite, Jr. wrote the PL/360 System in which the compiler is embedded, the linkages to the compiler, and the loader. Although the authors did the bulk of the programming for the compiler, valuable contributions were made by Larry L, Bumgarner, Jean-Paul Rossiensky, Joyce B. Keckler, Patricia V. Koenig, John Perine, and Elizabeth Fong. http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/cs/tr/68/98/CS-TR-68-98.pdf And Ed Satthertwaite wrote a source-level debugger for the system. More on Algol W here: http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/ALGOL/algol60impl/#ALGOL_W and more on the designs that led up to it here (search for the names Wirth and Hoare): http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/ALGOL/standards/ in particular: N. Wirth and C. A. R. Hoare. A contribution to the development of ALGOL. Communications of the ACM, Volume 9, Number 6 (June 1966), pages 413-432. ACM Digital Library <https://doi.org/10.1145/365696.365702> "Euler caught the attention of the IFIP Working Group that was engaged in planning the future of ALGOL. The language ALGOL 60, designed by and for numerical mathematicians, had a systematic structure and a concise definition that were appreciated by mathematically trained people but lacked compilers and support by industry. To gain acceptance, its range of application had to be widened. The Working Group assumed the task of proposing a successor and soon split into two camps. On one side were the ambitious who wanted to erect another milestone in language design, and, on the other, those who felt that time was pressing and that an adequately extended ALGOL 60 would be a productive endeavor. I belonged to this second party and submitted a proposal that lost the election. Thereafter, the proposal was improved with contributions from Tony Hoare (a member of the same group) and implemented on Stanford University's first IBM 360. The language later became known as ALGOL W and was used in several universities for teaching purposes." [Wirth 1985 <http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/ALGOL/standards/history/#Wirth…>]

5 years, 10 months

1
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history is hard

by sieler＠allegro.com

Fred writes: ..."MS-DOS 3.3 did not even come with a disk cache." and discusses problems with SMARTDRV (in MS DOS 4.01 and later). I'm not sure if it was technically a form of caching, but the AmigaDOS delayed floppy write (well before MS-DOS cache) caused enormous problems for Amiga users. (It may well have contributed significantly to the lack of market success.) Basic problem: you save something to a floppy, and pull it out. You now have a corrupted floppy. You needed to wait a few seconds for the OS to decide "well, looks like I better flush the last few dirty sectors out to that floppy". (I contend it was a form of write caching, designed to speed writing to floppies where writing tended to occur in nearby places.) Stan

5 years, 10 months

4
5
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Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

by jwsmail＠jwsss.com

Seems of interest.? Will be interesting to play with. https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/microsoft-open-sources-gw-basic/

5 years, 10 months

19
36
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Looking for docs, software for Lomac DAVID

by camiel＠camicom.com

I?ve received a Logical Machine Corporation (Lomac) DAVID system, which appears to be successor to the Lomac ADAM. The system consists of the main box with an 8? floppy drive (labeled ?DAVID PROCESSOR?), a keyboard/monitor box (labeled ?DAVID DISPLAY?), and a printer. I am looking for both documentation and software for this system. The first thing I need to sort out is how to connect the display and processor. The display has a single cable with a male DB-25 connector; the processor has a connector labeled ?DISPLAY?, but it?s a female DC-37 connector. If anyone ever had or worked with one of these, perhaps they remember if there was some kind of adapter in between. Camiel

5 years, 10 months

1
0
0 0

Pdp11/05 boot media

by doug＠doughq.com

Hi everybody I'm the proud owner of a PDP11/05 system with a couple of 8" floppy drives. I believe they are likely to be RX01s. Does anybody on the list have some boot media that they could provide. I understand that the controller can't format the disks so I'm in a frustrating state where I don't know where to start. Doug Jackson Canberra Australia.

5 years, 10 months

9
8
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HP 9817 Usage

by Anders.Gustafsson＠pedago.fi

You may want to have a peek at the sync separator I built for my 9000-340. The schematics are available over at VintHp I am also in the process of building a PS/2 and USB to HIL adapter: http://www.dalton.ax/hpkbd/hil/ As for disks. This is one option: http://www.dalton.ax/hpdisk/ Ansgar's HPDrive is another: https://www.hp9845.net/9845/projects/hpdrive/ -- Med v?nlig h?lsning Anders Gustafsson, ingenj?r anders.gustafsson at pedago.fi | Support +358 18 12060 | Direkt +358 9 315 45 121 | Mobil +358 40506 7099 Pedago interaktiv ab, Nygatan 6 (kontor), Nygatan 7 B (kurslokal), AX-22100 MARIEHAMN, ?LAND, FINLAND >>> <cctalk-request at classiccmp.org> 2020-05-26 20:00 >>> Should I look at buying a monitor that can support the composite video sync and get an HIL keyboard (or build an adapter)? Does the machine not support using a terminal over the serial port as a console at boot?

5 years, 10 months

1
0
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HP 9817 Usage

by tangentdelta＠protonmail.com

Hello! I have an HP 9817 and its accompanying 9133D disk drive unit. The disk drive seems like a rather large can of worms, so I've been ignoring it. I re-capped the 9817's power supply. It powers up and it passes all of its diagnostics according to the LEDs on the motherboard. I can see that it is outputting a picture on the composite video connector, but I don't have any displays that will accept the weird sync frequency that it uses. I also do not have an HIL keyboard to use with the machine. I traced out the RS-232 TX and RX on the 50-pin serial connector on the back, and verified that it matched up with the hand-drawn schematics on the HP Museum website. Using that information, I build a serial cable. Unfortunately the machine does not appear to use this serial port as a "console" at power-up. I tried messing around with the DIPS switches according to the manual but none of the settings I tried resulted in the machine using the serial port at boot. I noticed that one of the DIP switches will enable/disable a "remote keyboard" feature. Enabling it causes the machine to fail the power-on test with a "device not found" error code. I didn't write down the exact error code. Should I look at buying a monitor that can support the composite video sync and get an HIL keyboard (or build an adapter)? Does the machine not support using a terminal over the serial port as a console at boot? Thanks

5 years, 10 months

4
4
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History is hard

by sieler＠allegro.com

I accidentally attributed text from Liam as being from Fred C, ""MS-DOS 3.3 did not even come with a disk cache." Sorry Fred! Stan

5 years, 10 months

1
0
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IBM 3178 keyboards available in MN

by chrise＠pobox.com

A friend has unearthed approximately (5) of these IBM keyboards in his dad's shed in MN. These are not PC keyboards but instead likely 3178 terminal keyboards. They probably came out of 3M a very long time ago. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B8kw9xdaeikwzKzyL0ts3HZZg96K7Yov/view?usp=… I have persuaded my friend not to trash them until I see if there is interest in them here. They are dirty and their working status is completely unknown. Contact Gary: w0ghz(-at-)comcast.net if you are interested in them. Reference: IBM 6052101 https://deskthority.net/wiki/IBM_%22Blue_Switch%22_3178-C3_Terminal https://terminals-wiki.org/wiki/index.php/IBM_3178 Chris -- Chris Elmquist

5 years, 10 months

3
2
0 0

Updating the VAX GCC backend from cc0 to MODE_CC

by abs＠absd.org

The gcc VAX backend is in danger of being dropped if it doesn't get converted from the older cc0 to the newer MODE_CC implementation. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz <glaubitz at physik.fu-berlin.de> has started a bountysource entry https://www.bountysource.com/issues/91495157-vax-convert-the-backend-to-mod… and asked for people to post it anywhere it might be found interesting, in case anyone would like to add to the bounty, or collect it :) (I find it quite amusing to it mixed in between entries like "Optimize NumPy SIMD algorithms for Power VSX") You could easily argue that modern gcc is too big to be practical to run on a VAX anyway, but making practical a requirement for classiccmp.org would rule out _so_ much fun stuff :) Thanks David

5 years, 10 months

1
0
0 0

3 stylewriter printers available for pickup only, Fairfield, IA

by billdegnan＠gmail.com

Came in through vintagecomputer.net that I am passing along. Anyone out there near Fairfield, IA and looking for three Apple Stylewriter printers let me know and I will put you in contact with the woman who has them. I was told that there was a few other things, but no computers. They're pick up only. The woman asked that she be told 1) phone number 2) your location Please contact me ONLY through https://www.vintagecomputer.net/contact.cfm because this is the most reliable means of contacting me. I find Gmail sends a lot of group posts and replies straight to the spam folder. I do not know the donor nor do I know about the hardware. I don't know the deadline for retrieving them. I do not know nuthin. I will bundle together the persons who inquire and forward to her to decide whom to contact. Bill

5 years, 10 months

2
1
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Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

by cisin＠xenosoft.com

On Sat, 23 May 2020, Boris Gimbarzevsky wrote: > Thanks for that really detailed review of microprocessor history! A post to > save. But, read carefully the corrections that others made! Such as Noel pointing out that I was mistaken in assuming that there was a direct progression in 4004 -> 8008 -> 8080, and Liam's discussion of the Commodore BASIC. I never had a Commodore 64. But, I had an MSD drive for a C64 connected to an IEEE-488 board in a PC. > After your detailed discussion of the bizarre variety of early Intel > microprocessors I now recall why I refused to have anything to do with PC's > in late 1980's. Well, there were advantages and disadvantages. The Motorola approach produced a better product. BUT, it meant that software was delayed for new products. It took a while before the good third party software showed up for the Mac. OTOH, the Intel processors were a series of little steps, so it was usually almost trivial to upgrade code to a new series of processors. It took Micropro less than a week to port their 8080 CP/M Wordstar to the 8088 PC. It then took them much longer than that to prepare new manuals. Some internal structures had patches on top of patches. Such as Segment:Offset memory addressing, and figuring out that the PC FDC could not do a DMA that straddled a physical (not Segment:Offset) 64K boundary, although Int13h didn't realize it and have a suitable error message - some later versions of DOS had occasional mysterious problems with FORMAT that were easily solved by adding or removing TSRs to move the location of its TPA. > I've never liked M$ software as it seems whenever they produce a good > product, they dump it and come up with something far worse and stop > supporting the old one. "Oh, but it is DANGEROUS to use a product past its [arbitrary, marketing chosen] SELL-BY date." >> All of my knowledge of the following is third hand, and probably mostly >> WRONG. If you are lucky, maybe some of the folk here who actually KNOW >> this stuff will step in and give the right information. >> Sequence is only approximate. And, the REAL history is much more interesting AND WEIRDER than the fictional variants. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

5 years, 10 months

14
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Standard Cocktail Napkin Size [WAS: RE: history is hard (was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC)}

by t.gardner＠computer.org

On Sunday, May 24, 2020 11:23 AM Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote in part: <snip> >> On Sun, 24 May 2020, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote: >>The final media size was determined by Shugart Engineering led by Al >> Chou from the size of the 8-track tape drive that the 5?-inch FDD was >> to replace in Wang and other systems. As near as I can tell it was >> not the same size as a ?standard? cocktail napkin. >"standard"??!? >"I believe in standards. Everyone should have [a unique] one [of their own]." - George Morrow I have seen napkins that are about 5.25". I did attempt to see if there is a "standard" cocktail napkin size and as best I can tell it is today 5-inches square not 5?-inches square. A friend who is a veteran of the paper products industry provided me an actual cocktail napkin circa 1980 (a promotional give away for his business) that he recalls was procured to the then standard size which I measured as 5-inches square. Apparently cocktail napkins have not deflated over the intervening 40 years :-) This supports Adkisson's recollection that the customer wanted something about the size of a cocktail napkin and Chou's description of the development process that tried to maximize the size of the disk that could be received in a drive which in turn was designed to fit into the then existing 8-track tape drive slot. Tom

5 years, 10 months

3
2
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cctalk Digest, Vol 68, Issue 25

by athornton＠gmail.com

> On May 25, 2020, at 10:00 AM, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > > The topic for my talk next week. Unix had virtualization in 74. The second > Unix port ran under OS/360's VM in 78. _Ahem_. It ran under VM/370. Most (all?) models of the IBM 370 had virtual memory, as had the (not widely-available) 360/67. OS/360 is one of several operating systems for the IBM 360 and successors. I grabbed the Princeton v7-to-370 port sources, and I have a VM/370 r6 machine set up on Hercules, but I have not yet made the attempt to combine the two. Many years after that, also at Princeton, I sysadminned PenguinVM, which as far as I know was the first publicly-available Linux/390 machine. Adam

5 years, 10 months

1
0
0 0

DECstation 220 Diagnostic "Test for Shutdown return"

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

According to a manual a friend has, the DECstation 220 outputs a diagnostic code on the parallel port. If I have interpreted it correctly the code being output by my machine is "Test for shutdown return". Does anyone know what that might mean? Regards Rob

5 years, 10 months

1
0
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GWBASIC Source Code

by c.murray.mccullough＠gmail.com

GWBASIC- (Gee-Whiz BASIC) is a Microsoft product, designed much along the line of IBM?s BASICA, that did not need a ROM BASIC and was interpreted. Not necessarily basic in design or purpose as defined by Oxford English Dictionary & Wikipedia and Computer Desktop Encyclopedia, some(purists) say the latter two shouldn?t be used with the former, GWBASIC nevertheless was an important development in the early years of our hobby. Little has been mentioned about the source code: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/microsoft-open-sources-gw-basic/ It?s available on GitHub for download and use in WIN 7 to 10 as far as I know! At that time(1983) in micro-computing history it did what was intended, help microcomputer owners/users with limited processor and memory capabilities. Serving this purpose, was there a better BASIC? No doubt. I used ADAM-BASIC, much like APPLE BASIC, to write silly-little programs or more-sophisticated ones. Hobbyists, experimenters and early microcomputer lovers had another tool to master. It?s success may be attributed more to marketing than anything else but early microcomputer users were happy to get their hands on something new. And, Microsoft knew marketing, not as well as APPLE, but the game was capitalism and getting software out the door! Being first or second was not necessarily the primary reason for rising to the top. And today: Is LOGO or Python any better teaching tools than GWBASIC for beginners? I hardly doubt that. Happy computing. Murray ?

5 years, 10 months

1
0
0 0

13W3 to HDMI/DisplayPort

by aperry＠snowmoose.com

Anyone here know of a SVGA-to-HDMI (or DisplayPort) adapter that a 13W3-to-SVGA adapter so I can connect my Sun frame buffers to a HDMI display? I am hoping someone here has already figured this one out. alan

5 years, 10 months

4
6
0 0

looking for VME board manuals

by rp＠servium.ch

Hi all I acquired a "few" VME boards over the years, and I finally have time to deal with some of the less cooperative ones. I'm looking for the following VME board manuals (any information is welcome, especially pinouts for the front panel or P2 connectors, jumpers, how to re-create the nvram contents etc. ). * Themis Sparc 10MP (not 20MP which is an entirely different board with a different front panel) * Force SPARC CPU 10 * MVME3600 (user's or installation manual, I can only find the programmer's manual) also looking for manuals for some HP VXI boards (more for completeness than because they're necessary, the boards are pretty self-explanatory unless you need to recreate the cables): * HP E1499A (V/382) * HP E1498A (V/743) * HP E1480A (V/362) Also anything about the Mercury RACE MCH6 or MCV6 system that's more than a marketing brochure (actually, I'd even take a marketing brochure). I have some i860 and PowerPC boards but absolutely no idea where to start. And of course I'm also looking for software, but I'm not holding my breath... thanks! Rico

5 years, 10 months

1
0
0 0

The massive effort to rebuild an LK201

by sales＠elecplus.com

Yes, I know this will never again be used on a terminal, but the lengths to which he went are extraordinary to me! https://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?f=7 <https://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=23965> &t=23965 He could have bought several new in box LK201, with terminals, for what he spent on this project! Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

5 years, 10 months

1
0
0 0

DECstation 220/Olivetti M250E Documentation

by rob_j37＠hotmail.com

I have a DECstation 220 (an Olivetti M250E under the covers) that needs repair. I have a pocket service guide, but I have not found any other documentation. Is there any? Thanks Rob

5 years, 10 months

4
3
0 0

Alternative Monitor for VAXmate

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

As it looks like I am not going to be able to repair the monitor board for my VAXmate I am wondering if I can do anything with the outputs from the I/O board to drive an external monitor instead. The connector to the monitor board has RGB+Intensity outputs at TTL levels. The horizontal sync has a frequency of 26.6KHz, active low with the high voltage 3.7V, Vertical sync is 60Hz. I don't believe that corresponds to any known standard, does it? I had a go at building this http://www.dasarodesigns.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/pet-composite-video- adapter.jpg feeding its output to a composite to VGA device to see if it would convert it to VGA, but no luck. Any ideas? Thanks Rob

5 years, 10 months

5
11
0 0

13W3 to HDMI/DisplayPort

by cruff＠ruffspot.net

Just bought an Extron RGB-HDMI 300 (A) that handles VGA and other RGB type signals and has HDMI output. I've connected it to my VAXstation 4000/60 (very successfully), and my IIgs (reasonable but this is at the low end of what the unit can manage). Output on either my Sony 46" TV or Apple 1600x1050 monitor. Found one (pull from service) at surpluscrestron.com for $53 shipped. It didn't come with the power supply (12 V @ 1 A) and needed this connector (https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/molex/0395000002/WM7732-ND/1280583) to attach the power supply.

5 years, 10 months

1
0
0 0

2.11bsd unix resolver

by rshepprd＠gmail.com

On Solaris it?s the ?hosts? line in the /etc/nsswitch.conf/ file. Perhaps something similar in BSD. Sent from Mail for Windows 10

5 years, 10 months

2
1
0 0

Early Nubus history

by michael.99.thompson＠gmail.com

> > Date: Sat, 23 May 2020 07:07:52 -0700 > From: Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> > Subject: Early Nubus history > > Did anyone ever do any research into the early history of Nubus, wrt > Western Digital, TI or Steve Ward/MIT/Numachine? > I was a member of the IEEE-1196 committee that wrote the NuBus standard and IEEE-1101 committee that wrote the mechanical standard for the NuBus. Eike Waltz and I did a lot of the mechanical standards work. The members of the IEEE-1196 committee were George White (Chairman) R. Gordon Cook, Mark Garetz(CompuPro and IEEE-696), Richard Greenblatt(MIT AI Lab, LMI Founder), Ron Hochsprung(Apple), Richard Kalish, Rikki Kirzner( Dataquest), Gerry Laws(TI), Rae Mclellan(Bell Labs), Gregory Papadopoulos(MIT), Dan Schneider, Dave Stewart, Michael Thompson(me), Jim Truchard(Founder National Instruments), Eike Waltz, *Steve Ward*(MIT), and Fritz Whittington. George White went from MIT->Computer Automation->Western Digital->TI->Corollary->Intel. Corollary's cache technology was licensed by DEC and many others. My memories of this committee are a little vague after 40 years, other than being very impressed with the other members. I will see if I kept any notes >from the meetings. -- Michael Thompson

5 years, 10 months

2
3
0 0

H960 repo stabiliser feet redux

by steven＠malikoff.com

Here's my conclusion to the H960 stabiliser feet thread from a while ago where I was after measurements of the originals. And thanks for all the help from cctalk (especially Noel) who supplied dimensions and photos. I finished these last year but moved on to other projects and hadn't returned to the list to discuss them, so I am doing that now. I made a pair each for my two H960's. The feet consist of welded steel load-bearing frames with a C-profile that fits snugly onto the H960 base, a lower leg from a shelf bracket and a support strut. The leg is located by a steel bolt. The bolt has the head machined to a disc, I was going to turn the taper and machine the slot but I lost the photo of the original bolt that a listmember had posted so I left them at that. They could do with nickel electroplating sometime. The frame is super strong, although I have not physically loaded them to any great extent. The outer end has a threaded adjustable pad the same size (AFAIK) as the originals, which are still available. I found some correct size el-cheapo ones at the hardware store that did the job just fine. The frame is threaded for the pad post and a nut on the pad then locks the pad from turning. The outside aesthetics are taken care of with a 3D printed hollow shell modelled from the measurements of the original casting. It slides onto the leg and is secured by the bolt. The shell CAD model still needs some work to get the fit and front holes right, and a few other things but overall they look fine and obey the 6 foot rule. A few coats of satin black enamel helps hide the print layering a bit. Photo showing the frame (spray finished in silver epoxy primer, what I had at hand), the other frame inside a shell, and some of the test shells: http://www.surfacezero.com/g503/data/500/Stabiliser_feet_01.png As attached to one of the H960s. (I have yet to do the kick panel, may laser cut that sometime): http://www.surfacezero.com/g503/data/500/Stabiliser_feet_02.png Steve.

5 years, 10 months

3
2
0 0

TK50 cleaning and unloading issues, new thought:

by cz＠alembic.crystel.com

With the 11/83 running pretty well I decided it was time to derack it and try putting in a TK50 tape drive. I have two and a TQK70 controller (which should work with a TK50) so I popped it in and started to test. On the first unit the tape was already loaded and "stuck". Cleaned the head by lifting it up, cleaning with isopropyl alcohol on clean no-lint swabs and it unloaded properly. Now loads and unloads with no issues on two tapes. Second unit was a bit more interesting, even with a clean head it would not unload. It would spin the tape, get to the point where the leader was on the way through the head system then it would blink endlessly. Took it out and moved the tape with a screwdriver through the hole and found the problem: The leader tongue had bent backwards a bit and as a result it was getting caught in the head slot when rewinding. The TK50 controller must be smart enough to detect the increased torque and stopped before ripping the tongue through. I took it off, bent it back to straight, put it in and now the tape loads and unloads properly. I wonder if later model LTO tape units have the same tongue and leader and can be swapped into a TK50. Another question: Under RT11 what device is a TK50? Is it MQ or something else? And is there a utility to allow a TK50 to be written >from a SIMh image to real tape like PDP11GUI? Thanks! Chris

5 years, 10 months

4
6
0 0

(V)HDL Toolsets

by cube1＠charter.net

As I wrote in my last post, but write here for use as a separate thread: I'd be interesting in hearing from folks what toolsets they have used for HDL (VHDL in particular). I started with Xilinx ISE and then graduated to Vivado for later chipsets - unfortunately, Vivado seems to be something of a dog, in terms of time to compile HDL and synthesize logic. JRJ

5 years, 10 months

14
33
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Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Fred Cisin > we can start by considering the 4004. 1971. ... Then came the 8008, > with EIGHT bit data bus, and 14 bit address bus (16K of RAM) ... It is > important to note that each Intel chip consisted of "minor" modifications to > the previous one. I know you didn't _say_ the 8008 was based on the 4004, but your text can give that impression. "The [8008] was commissioned by Computer Terminal Corporation (CTC) to implement an instruction set of their design for their Datapoint 2200 programmable terminal. As the chip was delayed and did not meet CTC's performance goals, the 2200 ended up using CTC's own TTL-based CPU instead." The 8008 was started before the 4004, but wound up coming out after it. (See Lamont Wood, "Datapoint", pg. 73.) This is confirmed by its original name, 1201 - the 4004 was going to be named the 1202, until Faggin convinced Intel to name it the 4004. Noel

5 years, 10 months

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Looking for old Suns

by silvercreekvalley＠yahoo.com

Hi, Every now and again I have a bit of time to mess with old computers - and usually for whatever reason - its Sun machines for me. I?ve had loads over the years, played with them and passed them on. Does anyone have anything old Sun wise available in the UK? I?d love to find an old VME bus machine but anything old or interesting. I can travel to pick stuff up etc, social distancing observed of course :D Anyway - PM me if you have anything that?s restorable :) Cheers Ian

5 years, 10 months

5
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Keyboard inverters/converters for terminals

by sales＠elecplus.com

https://www.vecmar.com/products/search.asp Type in keyboard The first result allows a terminal keyboard to be used on a PS/2 port. The second result allows a PS/2 keyboard to be used on a terminal. Not affiliated with seller, etc. Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

5 years, 10 months

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Nova BASIC paper tape image

by camiel＠camicom.com

Does anyone have an image of the BASIC interpreter paper tape for the DG Nova?

5 years, 10 months

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3
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SMS Data Gathering App Announcement

by cube1＠charter.net

As some here probably know, I have been working the last couple of years working towards an FGPA gate-authentic replica of the IBM 1410 - the larger cousin to the IBM 1401. In 2018 I developed an application for gathering information of of ALDs and stuffing it into a MySQL database, then spent the rest of the year entering the information from the ALDs into the system, but I did not share that application or the data. Then I took a year off - it had been a grind. This year I took up the torch again. I put the application up on github, gave it the requisite GPL attributions, and started tracking my bugs, fixes and enhancements there, even though I am working alone. I fixed some of the warts, generalized it some, fixed a few bugs, added some database checking reports and data checking reports, and so on. I also spent quite a bit of time generalizing it, so that it will hopefully be usable (perhaps with some more fixes / enhancements / generalizing for most any SMS machine (IBM 1620, IBM 709x, IBM 1401 etc. etc. etc.) The application is available on github at: https://github.com/cube1us/IBM1410SMS The actual "root" source control is on my system at home using subversion. I use "git svn" to keep a git version in sync, and then push that to github. The application was/is developed in C# under Visual Studio 2017 to run under Windows, primarily because I was interested in trying out C#. I would expect it to build in VS 2019 with little or no change, but have not tried it. I could have used a more basic tool setup (say, C or C++ and a non-windows presentation layer), but I figured not all that many people would be interested in the thing, and the VS environment eased development quite a bit. I suspect it would work OK under WINE, but I have not tried doing so. There are also a couple of tools, one in Perl for generating database related classes from the database, and one in Python for checking for database referential integrity. ( was curious about Python, and this seemed a good candidate for an evaluation of it. It did, however reinforce my dislike for many things about Python. The application is comprised of two Visual Studio projects, one for the data gather app itself, the other a very very light weight database interface, that ought to make it not too hard to port it to a different DBMS. github also has a copy of the database, the MySQL Workbench data model (and a PDF print) and documentation in MS Word (and a PDF print). The code is not good. There, I said it. It is not truly OO at all. I didn't do much refactoring even when I saw common code or saw considerable potential to consolidate code. The downside of that is that there is lots of duplicate code. The upside is that you don't have to go umpteen layers deep in OO design to figure out what the darn thing does. Doesn't even use database views, though they probably would have been helpful. Just a bunch of tables. Lots of tables in a close but not fully relational model. The data gathered by the application in the database comprises about: 917 ALD (Automated Logic Diagram) 11" x 17" pages 10596 Logic Blocks on those pages (so average of 11.5 per page) 1281 DOT functions (Wired OR / AND) 14021 Inter-sheet signals (which appear on multiple sheets) 4222 Distinct inter-sheet signals 32746 Connections between the above items That connection number makes me shake my head - I had to enter each and every one of the darn things. Yeesh. Capturing all of that was between something like 600 and 1000 hours, maybe more (but not 2000 hours), after maybe 200 hours on the initial version of the application. My next phase is working hard on the part of the project that generates HDL for FPGA synthesis. I expect that to take many months as I synthesize, simulate with the tool set and figure stuff out. I'd be interesting in hearing from folks what toolsets they have used for HDL (VHDL in particular). I started with Xilinx ISE and then graduated to Vivado for later chipsets - unfortunately, Vivado seems to be something of a dog, in terms of time to compile HDL and synthesize logic. If folks find this interesting, and especially if they want to use it, I'd love to know about it. I intend to keep this a single-person effort, git-wise, but folks can feel free to fork (if anyone wants to bother ;) ), and let me know if they find anything seriously wrong. For what it's worth, my IBM 1410 cycle-level simulator for the IBM 1410 is also available, at: https://github.com/cube1us/1410

5 years, 10 months

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2.11bsd unix resolver

by jacob.ritorto＠gmail.com

Hi, I've installed the recent release of 2.11bsd on my pdp11/73 and recompiled the kernel to fit. But for some reason I can't resolve hosts >from my /etc/hosts file now; only DNS names.. I'm not running BIND. Is there a setting that will allow me to find /etc/hosts entries first and then DNS in this operating system? I can't even resolve localhost! thx jake

5 years, 10 months

1
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ISO: Diablo 30 heads

by derschjo＠gmail.com

Hi all -- I'm restoring a Xerox Alto and I started going over the system's Diablo 30 drive. The heads are in bad shape; the bottom one is actually missing both parts of the erase poles (so the black portion of the head no longer makes a "t", it's just a black line). This means the head (in addition to not being able to erase) also won't float due to the head having small cavities in them. The upper head looks a little better but I'd love to find a set of upper and lower heads if anyone has spares. Then I get to learn how to align these things. Thanks! - Josh

5 years, 10 months

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FTGH - Decstation 5000 plus many extras

by trash80＠internode.on.net

Lets have another go (but this time I have some pictures) Decstation 5000/125 ? also houses a CD drive. Two expansion storage boxes ? one has a tape drive and the other one has a floppy drive. Two very large and heavy RGB Digital monitors ? one has both Digital and Sony branding on the back of it. I haven?t dug the other one out as its in a corner and is dam heavy but it looks the same as the other one. Box of spares (RAM, CPU's, HDDs etc.) I?ve never powered it up ? it was a rescue ? I believe it was a server in a TAFE college in Adelaide. This is all I got from the rescue bar the box of spares. The original owner had tossed all the documentation and software. Please note that the stand is not included in my offer and its located in south western Victoria (Australia). Photos: http://koken.advancedimaging.com.au/index.php?/albums/decstation/ Kevin Parker

5 years, 10 months

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[cctalk] Re: Replacing the Flyback Transformer From My VAXmate

by w9gb＠icloud.com

Tai-Ho (Taiwan) was the OEM supplier for flyback transformers used by Apple in the early Macintosh computers (1984+). Russell Industries (New York, USA) produced replacement flyback transformers for monitors and TVs, these appear on eBay and remaining TV repair supply houses. As noted, while the circular pin-out is often standardized, the voltages need to be double-checked. greg chicago == From: "Rob Jarratt" <robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Subject: Replacing the Flyback Transformer From My VAXmate I am about as certain as I can be that the flyback transformer from my VAXmate monitor board has failed. I know this is probably impossible, but I am wondering if there is a way to find a more modern equivalent? How standardised are these things? I do see a lot that appear to have the same circular arrangement of the pins. The VAXmate one is a Tai-Ho TH-1802B and according the Technical Description has a primary voltage of +28V and produces auxiliary voltages as follows: +13.1kV @85uA max +950V @200uA +45V @75mA max -100V @1.2mA Regards Rob

5 years, 10 months

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LK201 emulation

by amp1ron＠gmail.com

If anyone wants a PS/2 keyboard adapter that emulates an LK201, there's Peter Bosch's Arduino Nano based lk201emu: https://github.com/peterbjornx/lk201emu His writeup on this is still in the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20180703165508/https://peterbjornx.nl/vtkbd/ I can no longer find a copy of Peter's schematic for this online, but at some point I grabbed a copy of it. I've renamed it from schem.pdf to lk201emu-schem.pdf and made it available at: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1XmRClTCoIedfXDcUbcaJi-A9QXr7SCEo -- Ron

5 years, 10 months

1
0
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Evans & Sutherland PS-2?

by brad＠heeltoe.com

Does anyone have, or know of low level documentation for Evans & Sutherland Picture System 2 hardware? I walk past a PS-2 monitor all the time and some of us started talking about bringing it back to life.? I'm not sure if more of the system exists, but it might.? I plan to check. I looked on bitsavers and there's nothing I could find on the picture system.? Other E&S hardware, but not PS. Anyone know if any systems still exist?? I'd have to think the CHM has at least one.?? Back in the day they were sort of required for anyone doing commercial animation (or at least, that's what I could claim/recall but it was a long time ago) Brad

5 years, 10 months

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2
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Looking for IBM OS/VS2 TCAM Programmer's manual.

by mattislind＠gmail.com

Preferably OS/VS2 TCAM System Programmer's Guide TCAM Level 10. GC30-2051 but I think it is similar to OS/VS2 TCAM Programmer's Guide, GC30-2041. I get a hit for the former one: http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/9844/OS-VS-TCAM-Progarmmer-s-Guide-T… But it is not online. Any one has a scanned copy of this document? Anyone that has a copy that they could scan, sell or lend so that I can scan it? /Mattis

5 years, 10 months

2
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Replacing the Flyback Transformer From My VAXmate

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

I am about as certain as I can be that the flyback transformer from my VAXmate monitor board has failed. I know this is probably impossible, but I am wondering if there is a way to find a more modern equivalent? How standardised are these things? I do see a lot that appear to have the same circular arrangement of the pins. The VAXmate one is a Tai-Ho TH-1802B and according the Technical Description has a primary voltage of +28V and produces auxiliary voltages as follows: +13.1kV @85uA max +950V @200uA +45V @75mA max -100V @1.2mA Regards Rob

5 years, 10 months

2
1
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OSI floppy test program

by djg＠pdp8online.com

I and others were having some problems with our floppy drives. Since I couldn't find a diagnostic program for the Ohio Scientific I wrote one. http://www.pdp8online.com/osi/osi-floppy-test.shtml With some floppy testing info here http://www.pdp8online.com/osi/floppy-repair.shtml If you try it let me know how it goes.

5 years, 10 months

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VAXStation 3200 RAM repair video (again)

by joezatarski＠gmail.com

I had to repair the RAM board in my VS3200/KA650 again, so I took video of the whole process (less about a whole day I lost troubleshooting a trace I nicked). Maybe some of you will find it interesting to watch. https://youtu.be/3LxTJIzow2k (tip: get through youtube videos faster by setting to double speed, etc. :)

5 years, 10 months

3
3
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Fixing Dungeon on RSX 4.2

by cz＠alembic.crystel.com

So I'm working on fixing some old code here. Found my balticon gaming system disks from 1990 (yes, I used to drag a pdp11 and 4 terminals to Balticon and other cons for computer gaming) and dungeon works on the 4.0 RSX version I was using but when I try to run it on 4.2 I get an Error 4 at PC 162570. I tried recompiling: RSXCMP works fine and compiles all the modules however when I run TKB with the rsxbld I get a bunch of *DIAG* Segment (root3, rooms, etc) has address overflow: allocation deleted. What am I doing wrong today? The task builder file is: dungeon/cp/fp=d.odl/mp stack=384 libr=fcsres:ro asg=sy:1:2:3:4,TI:5,CO:6 Reading the docs I see: The Fortran-IV-Plus object time library must be merged into the system library (SYSLIB.OLB). Further, the library must be set up to invoke the short error text module ($SHORT) as the default. Task building with a separate object time library produces numerous errors; task building with a resident library or the normal error text module produces an oversize task image. This might be the problem, anyone remember how to put the short error text module into syslib.olb? Hm. Maybe it is. Hm.... C

5 years, 10 months

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DEC TK50 common failures?

by mcr＠martin-reilly.com

I'm trying to bring a pdp-11/83 back to working order. Challenge right now is storage - I have RQDX3 and RD54 but the RD54 appears to be unserviceable (never goes ready) and TQK50 with a TK50 which never gets to a stage of allowing me to operate the handle to load a cartridge - the green LED doesn't come on, the red LED is solid for a short time after power applied but then flashes rapidly. I plan to go with an MFM emulator in place of the disk, but would like to get a TK50 working as I have a lot of old stuff I'd like to try reading off cartridges. I have a spare TK50 drive, which behaves exactly the same. The TQK50 LEDs suggest it passes diagnostics, and the boot menu recognises it and will attempt to boot from it before saying there is no such drive. I don't have a spare controller. There is a lot of very detailed documentation for the TQK50/TK50 as far as the electronics and interfacing is concerned but I haven't found much in the way of information about the mechanical side. Are there common failure modes for these drives when they've been stored for a long time? Last time they were powered up is probably close to 20 years ago. Without much in the way of test kit (I have multimeter but no scope) is there anything I might be able to check easily? Thanks, Martin

5 years, 10 months

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VT52 is back in service!

by cz＠alembic.crystel.com

Well, I put the VT52 back together, tightened all the bolts, plugged it in, turned it on and enjoyed the silence. I can just barely hear the transformer hum but that's about it. Hooked it up to my PDT11/150, booted up RT11 and the display is perfectly crisp and clear. Ran space invaders to check it out, no bugs or errors and the screen updates perfectly. Glad I got this working again. I'll take a look at that transistor, I'm almost 100% positive the switching transistor is either leaking or going bad. Either way I'll order a transistor when I have some time and put it in eventually to see if it works. But to be honest the new regulator is a thousand times better than the original discrete logic system. So moral: If your VT52 goes nutty and the screen becomes a blur try checking all of the voltages. An errant -12v will make the screen unreadable at -15v and I'm guessing oddness on the other voltage levels will do similar things as well. And don't leave it on for days, that's probably what pushed the transistor over the edge, but I'm guessing it has been crummy for awhile which is why I heard all that noise in the high voltage circuit. I feel like I accomplished something today. Thanks everyone for the help and thoughts in getting this old girl to work again... CZ

5 years, 10 months

2
1
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Replacing Power LED on MicroVAX 3100/95 Power Supply

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

In fixing my PSU I managed to break the leads to the LED on the front of the PSU, probably through metal fatigue. I seem to remember people saying it is quite difficult to replace these, mainly because you can't get them out without breaking the holder. Is that right? Has anyone done this successfully and have any tips? Are there any recommendations for a replacement? If I remember correctly the LEDs used in those days were not as bright as modern ones and a modern one would end up being much brighter because of the higher voltage maybe? Thanks Rob

5 years, 10 months

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Monrobot : A trip down memory lane in the world of computers

by cisin＠xenosoft.com

A friend recently reminesced about the Monrobot, which we have discussed a little bit lately, . . . [Note: Unrelated to the Marilyn Monroebot on Futurama] ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 13 May 2020 16:38:22 +0000 (UTC) Subject: A trip down memory lane in the world of computers (I probably have shared this with you in the past) from an email to another friend... My high school... Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn...?? ? listed as THE LARGEST PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL IN THE WESTERN WORLD (I guess they were trying to exclude China and India at the time) was the first in NY City to get its own computer... in 1965.?? ??IT was a Monrobot XI 2000. Regarding that Monrobot XI?? 2000...?? ?? ??made by the Monroe desktop calculator company of that era... Its main memory was a rotating magnetic drum, with 2K?? 16 bit words of fast electronic storage.?? Cycle op time was 11 milliseconds.?? It used 16 bit words, and one wrote its machine language using what was NOT called "Hexadecimal", but instead "Sexadecimal" (Latin, not Greek prefix was used)?? numbers, and NOT 1-9 then A-F, but rather 1-9 and then T-X.?? Storage was on punched paper tape. I learned to program it so that I could optimize access to the rotating drum memory and get three accesses (the max possible) per revolution of the drum, as much as tripling memory access speed. 11 milliseconds means?? 100 cycles per second.?? ??Modern desktop PCs operate at around 3,000,000,000 cycles per second.Compared to the 2,000 words of main system memory of the Monrobot XI, today's desktop PCs have around 8 to 32 billion words of memory. I programmed it?? (at age 14, in 1965) in machine language (the computer teacher didn't know how to do that)?? ... wrote a program for it to allow me to input and it to output to its printer a sequence of 3 strip tease images I got from a printout at Columbia University where I was then going to the Science Honors Program for high school kids, there. on weekends. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- I may be wrong about Erasmus Hall High School of Brooklyn being THE first high school in NY City to get its own computer. There is a reference elsewhere to Bronx High School of Science kids being taught IBM 650 language in 1959 or so. I suppose, if so, I could start splitting hairs and say that, while the Monrobot XI and the IBM 650 were similar in many ways, the Monrobot XI was a much more modern generation in that it used solid state, where the IBM 650 used vacuum tubes. I vaguely recall there may have been a Monrobot XI and a Monrobot XI 2000, the latter having twice the system memory (rotating magnetic drum) as the earlier model. Those were the days. I recall boot-strapping in programs in machine language from the front panel! I loved that machine. I remember the delicious smell of the high quality oiled paper tape! [Some paper tape was oil impregnated, some was not). The thing came with a Fortran compiler. You loaded your source tape on one tape reader, then loaded in part 1 of the compiler, and an intermediate tape was output. Then you loaded that intermediate tape and part 2 of the compiler on the tape reader, and a compiled program paper tape was output. THEN you input the compiled program, and (if you were very very lucky), it ran. Everyone else including the teacher used Fortran ONLY. I did most of my programming on it in machine (not assembly... I hand assembled my programs) ... machine language. 15 years later I programmed a prototype "Bio-medical micro computer" that incorporated the JUST MONTHS EARLIER released Intel 8080 processor to examine electrocardiograms in real time (interrupt driven) and identify abnormal beats. I programmed it in machine language, too. Storing programs in 1702 EPROMs. Input was via 3 buttons cycling 7 segment LEDs, and a LOAD and RUN button. And an analog input for the EKG signal. Output was to EPROM programmer and to EKG strip chart. Damn thing actually worked, pretty much. As well as most other efforts back in 1975, anwyay. ---marty

5 years, 10 months

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Great, my VT52 is shot.

by cz＠alembic.crystel.com

Wonderful: A few weeks ago I forgot to turn off my VT52 and left it running for a day or two. Now the screen is filled with snow and it looks like the text is all over the place horozontally. Any tips or thoughts on where to start looking to fix? The keyboard seems to be working as does the RS232 input (the snow on the screen changes when the pdp11 talks to it) Thanks! Chris

5 years, 10 months

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PDF of FANUC TAPE READER A860-0056-T020 Manual Wtd.

by billdegnan＠gmail.com

Turns out the "The Director" tape reader I purchased last week was defective and I got a refund. So I thought I'd try my hand at the FANUC TAPE READER A860. I may need to make a serial cable (?) to connect from the internal connector don't know yet. Or maybe the internal 50-pin port >from the photos is for the punch. Don't know yet, thus the need for the manual. I checked bitsavers.org but there was no manual there, anyone here have a PDF or URL of the PDF for the FACIT tape reader A860-0056-T020? Thanks in advance. Bill Degnan

5 years, 10 months

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Wanting some help with a PDP-8/a

by michael.99.thompson＠gmail.com

> > From: Bryan Longram <Driverless at protonmail.com> > Subject: Wanting some help with a PDP-8/a > > I acquired a non-functional PDP-8/A several months ago and in that time > I've replaced all the outwardly damaged parts and have gotten the machine > to power on with no issues. However the problem I've been having now that I > can't quite seem to pin down is that every time I power the machine the > address field is displayed as 07777 and the value field is displayed as > 7777. Attempting to change addresses or the value of the address doesn't > work as I can enter the value just fine but upon entering the Load Address > button it defaults back to being all sevens. I am in the process of repairing three 8/a Programmer's Panels. Two panels had bad ribbon cables. A good panel exhibited the same behavior as yours when used with the bad cables. I was able to cut the keying peg off two IDE disk cables to try as replacement cables. They IDE cables don't fit well, but do work. I will make new replacement cables for all three panels. -- Michael Thompson

5 years, 10 months

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Has My VAXmate Flyback Transformer Failed?

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

I have been looking at the flyback transformer from my VAXmate. I think it could have failed but I can't be completely sure. I have posted a description here: https://robs-old-computers.com/2020/05/12/vaxmate-flyback-transformer/ Can anyone offer an opinion? Thanks Rob

5 years, 10 months

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DS20E power supply question

by bob＠jfcl.com

I have a DS20E Alpha machine. It's pretty fully configured, with two 666 MHz CPUs, 4GB RAM and 4x10K SCSI drives. In other words, it's a real power hog. It has three power supply modules installed, and if I understand the configuration rules then at least two should be required to run the machine and the third is a hot spare. But, when do SHOW POWER at the SRM prompt, I get P00>show power Status Power Supply 0 * BAD * Power Supply 1 not present Power Supply 2 not present System Fan 0 good System Fan 1 * BAD * CPU Fans good Temperature good What? If I believe that then I have no functioning power supplies installed?!? At this point I should mention that the machine boots VMS and runs just fine. Obviously something is not telling me the truth. Does anybody know what would cause this? BTW, what do the red LEDs on the front of the power supply modules mean? Is LED ON a good thing (i.e. power OK) or a bad thing (i.e. fault)? FWIW, none of the LEDs on my three power supplies is on. Oh, and it's right about System fan #1 - one of the fans is not running. I don't know if it's seized up, or if it's related to the power supply issue. Thanks, Bob

5 years, 10 months

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unibus scsi board

by aek＠bitsavers.org

mislabeled as qbus https://www.ebay.com/itm/143603725400

5 years, 10 months

1
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Re: Looking for a pair of DEC RL02 drives, working or otherwise

by stephenbuck＠mac.com

Thanks for the lead David, I'll email him to see what he has. Steve

5 years, 10 months

1
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SEL 810A running lunar lander

by mooreericnyc＠gmail.com

https://youtu.be/L743MjJthHY I recently got my SEL 810A working. I hope you guys enjoy the video :). -Eric

5 years, 10 months

4
4
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SEL 810A running lunar lander

by boris＠summitclinic.com

Nice how machines from that era were well made enough to still work. Remember that Lunar Lander game from about 1970. Version I played was written in FOCAL and run on a TSS-8. Should try it out on some kids who think they're great gamers and see how fast they catch on - once we were able to land without crashing we'd see who could come down at lowest speed or have most fuel left over after a successful landing. >https://youtu.be/L743MjJthHY > >I recently got my SEL 810A working. I hope you guys enjoy the video :). > >-Eric

5 years, 10 months

3
2
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Wanting some help with a PDP-8/a

by Driverless＠protonmail.com

I acquired a non-functional PDP-8/A several months ago and in that time I've replaced all the outwardly damaged parts and have gotten the machine to power on with no issues. However the problem I've been having now that I can't quite seem to pin down is that every time I power the machine the address field is displayed as 07777 and the value field is displayed as 7777. Attempting to change addresses or the value of the address doesn't work as I can enter the value just fine but upon entering the Load Address button it defaults back to being all sevens. I've made sure the pins on the CPU board are set so it should start at address 0, the advanced options are also all turned off and as far as I can tell there's nothing out of the ordinary with the pin settings on the IO board. I'm fairly certain at this point that the issue is with the Programmer's Panel but I'm not 100% sure. I've done some further testing using advice I got from users over at the Vintage Computer Forum and SR and LSR work as intended, I can enter a value into SR and then view it at a later time. Something interesting I did find was while checking over the CPU I was looking at the switches on it and while S1-1 was set as expected S1-7 was also on which is the CPU autostart disabled feature. Upon powering the computer back on after turning S1-7 off both the ADDRS and DISP displays show a single 0. I thought I was on the right track though now the panel doesn't work as if the panel lock was toggle even though it's not, not even the read functions and SR are working. Switching S1-7 back on reverts the problem back to what it was before and far as I know all the voltages on the power supply are correct. Any help would be appreciated, even if it's just a push in the right direction.

5 years, 10 months

2
1
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Looking for a pair of DEC RL02 drives, working or otherwise

by stephenbuck＠mac.com

Looking for a pair of DEC RL02 drives, working or otherwise, for a PDP-11 restoration destined for a local computer museum in Boulder, Colorado. It's fine if it's not working - I'm happy to try and get it up and running. Thanks! Here's a link to the restoration blog: http://headspinlabs.wordpress.com

5 years, 10 months

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Compaq opal 15" monitor

by sales＠elecplus.com

Someone asked for one of these a long time ago. I have one tested and working; needs a good cleaning. Make offer; local pickup only. Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

5 years, 10 months

1
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AT&T PC 6300

by bill.gunshannon＠gmail.com

I have never seen one mentioned but is there anyone here with an interest in these? I found a still sealed copy of the Software Development Set Ver. 2.0. What's it worth? bill

5 years, 10 months

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2
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Looking for a pair of DEC RL02 drives, working or otherwise

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Stephen Buck > Looking for a pair of DEC RL02 drives, working or otherwise, for a > PDP-11 restoration destined for a local computer museum Well, there's this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/264277971437 It's an RL01, not an RL02 as you were enquiring after, but RL02's are quite rare now - and the price isn't bad. Noel

5 years, 10 months

4
8
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PDP-6 fan

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

So I guess someone: https://www.ebay.com/itm/324151272982 is a majot PDP-6 fan.... Noel

5 years, 10 months

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Re: Looking for a pair of DEC RL02 drives, working or otherwise

by stephenbuck＠mac.com

Hi Chris, I?m located in Boulder, Colorado. I?m fine with an RL02 that doesn?t work. If it can?t be fixed it can always occupy space in the rack. This is going into a museum and I might end up using an emulated drive behind the scenes for day-to-day use. Steve ?

5 years, 10 months

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DIGI-COMP 1 enhanced (Joerg Hoppe)

by j_hoppe＠t-online.de

/Hi Michael, />>/I added a motor drive to my DIGI-COMP I, and wrote 4 web pages about />>/that device. />>//>>/See http://www.retrocmp.com/articles/digi-comp-1/ />>/or just the video https://youtu.be/D6GgxXRJXnw / > That is very cool! > The RICM has a DIGI-COMP, but we have not done much with it other than put > it on display. > > -- > Michael Thompson I attached the Arduino firmware and the "Bill Of Materials" with all 3D print files to http://www.retrocmp.com/articles/digi-comp-1/305-digi-comp-1-show-case-proj… So if you like ... kind regards, Joerg

5 years, 10 months

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DIGI-COMP 1 enhanced

by j_hoppe＠t-online.de

Hi, > It it possible to get parts for a Digicomp? Mine needs some springs and > the thing that connects the clock to the whatever. I used rubber bands instead of springs. The article about 3D print DIY https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1477209 contains instructions how to bend the wire crank. regards, Joerg ?> >/I added a motor drive to my DIGI-COMP I, and wrote 4 web pages about /> >/that device. /> >//> >/See http://www.retrocmp.com/articles/digi-comp-1/ /> >//> >/or just the video https://youtu.be/D6GgxXRJXnw /> >//

5 years, 10 months

1
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Odd punched cards

by mhs.stein＠gmail.com

If I said 'EPT' anywhere I apologize; I'm talking about PPT (Punched Paper Tape) and EPCs (Edge Punched Cards). Here's a description of a series 'L' system, the successor to the 'E' series, containing "The reader could be used for loading programs faster. It could also be used for accessing user data from punched paper tape or from edge-punched cards." http://www.picklesnet.com/burroughs/descriptions/bltc.htm And pictures of the PPT/EPC perforator and reader (unfortunately the perf picture seems to link to the reader so you don't get a full-sized picture) : http://www.picklesnet.com/burroughs/gallery/bpgltc.htm- A great (downloadable) book full of pictures and specifications of computers of that era is "A Third Survey of Domestic Electronic Digital Computing Systems" (one of a series): https://books.google.ca/books?id=fZg8yAEACAAJ&dq=a+third+survey&hl=en&sa=X&… See P.179 for a well tricked out E101. Unfortunately people tend to dismiss this class of systems as 'only' accounting machines, largely because of their integrated keyboards and printer carriages based on the earlier electro-mechanical machines for operator familiarity, so there's little information and discussion about them. But they are definitely 'true' computers using the same technology as contemporary general-purpose systems, core memory, disk drives, etc., and as technology advanced IC memory, high-speed dot-matrix printers etc., and, in the latest models, multiple high-speed cassette drive systems used the same way as the big brother tape drives and almost as much fun to watch in action. Sorry for going a little OT; I'll do some digging for those cards... mike ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Van Peborgh" <peter at vanpeborgh.eu> To: "'Mike Stein'" <mhs.stein at gmail.com> Sent: Saturday, May 09, 2020 6:27 AM Subject: RE: Odd punched cards > M, > > An intriguing email. Also leaves me with more questions... And longings! > > My [PVP: ] comments are in your email below. > > Vintage computers forever! Many thanks, > > P > > -----Original Message----- > From: Mike Stein <mhs.stein at gmail.com> > Sent: 08 May 2020 16:45 > To: Peter Van Peborgh <peter at vanpeborgh.eu> > Subject: Re: Odd punched cards > > The systems that I'm familiar with that used EPCs were Burroughs 'E' series > accounting computers; the readers and perforators handled both PPT and EPCs > and the cards were a sort of random-access PPT. > > [PVP: ] I am having problems finding info on these two types of cards: EPT > and EPC. Can you point me in the right direction? > > If you were preparing an invoice, for example, you might have a set of cards > for the customer name and address and another (possibly different colour) > set for the line items; you'd enter the quantities and it would be printed > and punched out on PPT for the accounting functions. > > Still have some cards and the perfs and readers somewhere; must play with > them one day... > > [PVP: ] This is cruelty to animals! Is there ANY way you could dig up some > of these EPC and EPT cards for my collection/display? Talk to me about > postage, etc... > > > m > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Peter Van Peborgh" <peter at vanpeborgh.eu> > To: "'Mike Stein'" <mhs.stein at gmail.com> > Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2020 3:45 PM > Subject: RE: Odd punched cards > > >> Mike, >> >> 96-column cards I have, thank you. >> >> I used edge-punched cards to record scientific papers' details when I was >> doing research. Did any get used with computers, do you know? >> >> Many thanks, >> >> peter >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Mike Stein <mhs.stein at gmail.com> >> Sent: 23 April 2020 19:17 >> To: Peter Van Peborgh <peter at vanpeborgh.eu>; General Discussion: On-Topic >> Posts <cctech at classiccmp.org> >> Subject: Re: Odd punched cards >> >> How about 96 column and EPC (Edge Punched) Cards? >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Peter Van Peborgh via cctech" <cctech at classiccmp.org> >> To: <cctech at classiccmp.org> >> Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2020 2:03 PM >> Subject: Odd punched cards >> >> >>> Guys, >>> >>> I got a positive response about the Port-A-Punch cards so no longer any >> need >>> to respond to this one. Very encouraging. >>> >>> Still looking for Jacquard cards and original Hollerith cards. Hope >> springs >>> eternal. >>> >>> peter >>> >>> || | | | | | | | | >>> Peter Van Peborgh >>> 62 St Mary's Rise >>> Writhlington Radstock >>> Somerset BA3 3PD >>> UK >>> 01761 439 234 >>> >>> "Our times are in God's wise and loving hands" >>> >>> || | | | | | | | | >>> >>> >> >

5 years, 10 months

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Odd book

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Dwight Kelvey > There was a fellow that made a relay logic that could play tic tac toe What's with these new-fangled devices using _electricity_ anyway? :-) In high school, my math teacher (I think it was) used a couple of matchboxes and some beads to create a TTT device; he 'programmed' it by playing against it, and when the device lost a game, he pulled out the bead that indicated the device's previous move, so it could never make that losing move again. Pretty impressive, I thought... Noel

5 years, 10 months

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MicroVAX 3100 Model 95 Ripple

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

Hello, I have recently been trying to improve the ripple on the output of my MicroVAX 3100 Model 95 PSU because occasionally it would fry a memory module. I replaced a bunch of capacitors, some of which had started to leak. However, the ripple does not seem much better. There is a scope trace here: https://rjarratt.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/microvax-3100-model-95-psu-ripp le-after-re-capping.png Ch1 is the 12V output and Ch2 is the 5V output. I had an old RD53 connected as a dummy load. It is possible that the memory was breaking because of occasional spikes that are worse, but I don't know. Does that seem OK? Thanks Rob

5 years, 10 months

3
3
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DIGI-COMP 1 enhanced

by j_hoppe＠t-online.de

Guys, I added a motor drive to my DIGI-COMP I, and wrote 4 web pages about that device. See http://www.retrocmp.com/articles/digi-comp-1/ or just the video https://youtu.be/D6GgxXRJXnw best regards, Joerg

5 years, 10 months

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3
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Facit N4000 Schematic

by ard.p850ug1＠gmail.com

>From time to time there are posts here about the Facit N4000 paper tape punch/reader unit. The one that looks like a Facit 4070 with a tape reader on the front (in fact the punch mechanism is much the same as that in the 4070). I have reverse-engineered mine and traced out the schematics. Of course it's one of my hand-drawn ones but I think it's mostly legible. If anyone wants it I am happy to send out a copy (but as ever I'd rather send it out once and have somebody else pass it on) -tony

5 years, 10 months

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Odd book

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

So, I've come across an odd book that might interest some here: "Achieving Accuray: A Legacy of Computers and Missiles", by Marshall William McMurray. The first couple of chapters merely re-tell the story of earliest computers (pre-elecronic and electronic), up through the IBM 701, Elliott 401, NCR 304, SAGE, CDC 6600, IBM 7090, etc. Competent, but nothing special. Then it gets interesting, though. Chapter 4 is "Small Magnetic Drum Computers of the 1950s", and it covers a bunch of machines I'd never heard of: JAINCOMP B-1 (!), MONROBOT III (!!), CADAC 101, 102 (!!!) and on and on. Chapter 5 is "Real-Time Control Computers", and it covers a long group of machines: ALWAC I, II, III; Univac Athena; Autonetics Verdan D9A-L; Librascope C-141 to name but a few. Pure gold, this chapter and the one before - retrieved a lot of machines from the memory hole. Chapter 6 is "NASA Control Computers", and it covers the usual suspects: IBM ASC 15, IBM LVDC, IBM GDC, Librascope Centaur, AGC, IBM 4Pi. Some of these are covered elseshere, but it's nice to have them all in one place. Chapter 7 is "Late-Model High Speed Supercomputers", with quite a range: starting with Cray 1, Sun, SGI, then the various ASCI array multi-processor systems at LLNL, etc. It then moved over to missiles, and goes through a similar progression, starting early, with some details of WWII era stuff (e.g.Hs 293's), then a chapter on V-1's amd V-2's and their derivatives. More chapters on "Early US Missile Programs", NAA's inertialguidance work and its applications up through Polaris, Titans, etc. Then more on later US missiles and their guidance systems, such as Minuteman, Trident and MX. A lengthy Chapter 13 is "Soviet and Russian Land-Based Missile Systems", which doesn't have quite the detail of the US chapters (in which the authot was personally involved), but is still novel. Another chapter then finishes with Soiet/Russian naval missiles. A very unusual and off-beat work. Noel

5 years, 10 months

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DIGI-COMP 1 enhanced (Joerg Hoppe)

by michael.99.thompson＠gmail.com

> > From: Joerg Hoppe <j_hoppe at t-online.de> > Subject: DIGI-COMP 1 enhanced > > Guys, > > I added a motor drive to my DIGI-COMP I, and wrote 4 web pages about > that device. > > See http://www.retrocmp.com/articles/digi-comp-1/ > or just the video https://youtu.be/D6GgxXRJXnw > > best regards, > Joerg > That is very cool! The RICM has a DIGI-COMP, but we have not done much with it other than put it on display. -- Michael Thompson

5 years, 10 months

1
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paper tape reader EECO "The Director"

by billdegnan＠gmail.com

Per my post from last week, after checking out the Decitek readers I ended up getting a used by warrantied EECO "The Director" MT-82 tape reader with a short-height spool for a good price. Here is the manual. http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/eeco/DOC10006_EECO_MT-82_MTS-82_Mar82.pdf Anyone use this unit? I saw some youtube video display how the servos appear to treat the tape kindly, that was a selling point. Not as interested in speed as that's not the point, eh? Bill

5 years, 10 months

3
3
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Odd book

by wkt＠tuhs.org

dwight wrote on Thu May 7 08:45:07 CDT 2020: > There are only a few winning and tying patterns for tic tac toe. There > was a fellow that made a relay logic that could play tic tac toe and > would win against a human of at least tie but never lose. Here's my version of tic tac toe in TTL logic: J/K flip flops and a ROM: https://github.com/DoctorWkt/TTL_TicTacToe Cheers, Warren

5 years, 10 months

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MSV11-R doc needed

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Aaron Taylor > I can confirm that the DEC MSV11-R is a PMI card. I own two and have > used them with my KDJ11-B. ... the board is recognized as PMI by my KDJ11-B. Also, in a fairly amazing bit of sleuthing, Jerry Weiss found (in some of the early PR versions of the -11/84 TM) a diagram which actually shows an MSV11R-R connected to the PMI bus (on pg 3-63, or thereabouts). Thanks, guys! Now, to try and round up enough energy to get my Q/CD machine running, to confirm that I didn't fry mine. (I don't remember any smoke, but I'm pretty sure I tried it, to check it, after I bought it.) Noel

5 years, 10 months

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MSV11-R doc needed

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Chris Zach > http://www.aceware.com.au/acms/images/Invent/GeneralRoboticsMSV_11R.jpg I don't know what that is, but it's not an MSV11-R. Here: https://gunkies.org/wiki/File:MSV11-R.jpg is an MSV11-R. > Maybe it's PMI memory without ECC? I count 18 bits across which seems > like the MSV11-Q parity memory. Alas, there is almost zilch original DEC documentation extant which speaks of it; not even uNote #28: http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/hardwar… which briefly covers all the other late DEC QBUS memories (including the MSV11-M, which ia otherwise _completely_ un-documented) mentions it. But I agree that given the 18 chips, it'a probably parity. Noel

5 years, 10 months

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MSV11-R doc needed

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

Hi, I'm looking for documentation on the MSV11-R; there's next to nothing online. (An -11/84 manual gives config, but that's all I cam find.) There is an 'MSV11-R User Guide' (EK-MSV1R-UG), but it's not online; I don't suppose anyone out there has one? I'm trying to confirm an online report that it's a PMI card; if so, I want to put a warning on the CHWiki page for it, to warn people not to plug it into a Q/Q backplane. (I have one, and did try it back when I first got it, but I don't recall if I knew it might be a PMI card at the time! I'm too lazy/low-energy to get my Q/CD machine running so I can plug it in and see if it still works. :-) Given the size of the card, and the amount of non-memory logic, compared to the MSV11-M and MSV11-Q, I would tend to suspect it is a PMI card, but it would be good to find some DEC docs to confirm it. Noel

5 years, 10 months

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Wanted, Papertape Reader for Archiving Tapes

by billdegnan＠gmail.com

Hi - COVID project.... I have been attempting to read some old Honeywell DDP-516 papertapes using the OP-80A or Teletype reader but it's inefficient and I don't want to damage the tapes. Does anyone have a reliable papertape reader for sale, or recommend one currently out there on Ebay, for the purpose of archiving papertapes of any kind safely and reliably. I have a reasonable budget. I have a lot of tapes that need to be archived, so I'd want one that I can interface with to capture into TAP files or what I would call a raw dump listing of the data in 8-bit Hex. MITS, SWTPc, Z80 stuf, PDP 8, PDP 11, Honeywell, etc. End goal is to load tapes into simH, PDPGUI, Altair/S-100, textfiles to display tapes. I want to be able to view the tape as it would be in Intel or Motorola format, etc. What does everyone else do? For example: S1131C102C20DEBD19217E167DBD185FD6259626A3 S1131C209B27C900D70297037E167DBD1999DE282C S1131C30DF2C9C022742D6029603902DD22C2A1C1C S1131C40D62C962DBD015ADF2CD6029603BD015A1F S1131C509C2C2724A600BD02270820F4D602960354 S1131C60BD015ADF2ED62C962DBD015A9C2E270875 S1131C70A600BD02270820F47E167DDEDBDF027E8F S1071C80167D0000C9 S9030000FC Thanks for any advice. Bill

5 years, 10 months

11
15
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Odd book

by mark＠matlockfamily.com

> From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Cc: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu > Subject: Odd book > Message-ID: <20200506152915.23EA118C0AA at mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > > So, I've come across an odd book that might interest some here: "Achieving > Accuray: A Legacy of Computers and Missiles", by Marshall William McMurray. > > The first couple of chapters merely re-tell the story of earliest computers > (pre-elecronic and electronic), up through the IBM 701, Elliott 401, NCR 304, > SAGE, CDC 6600, IBM 7090, etc. Competent, but nothing special. Then it > gets interesting, though. ?. > A very unusual and off-beat work. > > Noel Noel, Thanks for the book recommendation above. I was happy to see that it was available in a reasonably priced Kindle version. One of my favorite computer history books is Stan Augarten's 1984 book, Bit by Bit: An Illustrated History of Computers. I did manage to find a copy and really enjoyed reading it and looking at the great photos in it. I was curious to know a bit more about the author and in ?DuckDuckGoing? him I ran across an online college course by Haverford University: http://ds-wordpress.haverford.edu/bitbybit/bit-by-bit-contents/front-matter… <http://ds-wordpress.haverford.edu/bitbybit/bit-by-bit-contents/front-matter…> that has the entire text and the photos from Stan Augarten?s book. It is a great way to read an otherwise hard to find book. It also has some .pdfs of the lecture slides from the professors who put this great web site together. Mark

5 years, 11 months

1
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