Over the last couple of years my PX-8 has suffered a slow degredation of
its quality of life. Firstly the old batteries gave out, but when these
were replaced with a set from Tauber Electronics of 4901 Morena Blvd,
San Diego, Ca., the replacement set took a looooong time to charge up,
and in the process burnt out a transistor - GRB - R6 in the attached
Multi-unit (64) board. Nothing would work. So I detached the multi unit
and limped on with the original 12kb of memory. However, the tape drive
also stopped writing correctly. If I wrote to it I could no longer
access any thing from it.
But still we limped along for over 2 years, by downloading through the
serial port via a VT200 cable to the Unix system at work using the Term
program, each time we'd written four pages of text.
But finaly the it is also not powering up, and all the advise I read in
the archives of this list - particularly:
To: "Discussion re-collecting of classic computers"
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Epson PX-8, no power up
From: Paul E Coad <pcoad(a)crl.com>
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 00:16:23 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <33DB9664.7DF771DF(a)rain.org>
AND
To: "Discussion re-collecting of classic computers"
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Epson PX-8, no power up
From: Marvin <marvin(a)rain.org>
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 11:41:40 -0700
References: <Pine.SUN.3.91.970727103047.2032L-100000(a)crl3.crl.com>
Etc. has been to no avail. All the ROMS are in, the batteries are
connected, the Power units work etc. etc...
Is it time to turn the unit into a boat anchor? It has served us so
well for so long it seems there should be a more fitting way of saying
goodbye. I'd be willing to mail it anyhere, but it was repairable when
it left Israel, I doubt it would be by the time it got to where it is
going.
Now I'm left with an orphaned P-80X printer - I guess I may as will
ditch it as well.
Pity...
regards,
Bryn Deamer
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Email: bryn(a)bwc.org : Bryn and Sherna Deamer
URL : www.poboxes.com/bryn : P.O. Box 155, 31001
Ph: 972-4-8358457 fx: 8358591 : Haifa, Israel
---------------------------------END--------------------------------
this weekend brought me several interesting items. someone from south carolina
noticed my name was on the classic computer mailing list and emailed me about
some machines he wanted to give me so i met him halfway and picked up a
truckload of items. i got:
2 xycom cpm workstations which are big old one piece units, complete with 8
inch floppy drives.
an external 10 meg hard drive unit.
add on floppy unit for a total of 3 drives
a giant and extremely heavy box full of original documentation and cpm 1.1
system disks/wordstar/spellstar/business software. ~200 disks total, and some
are still blank and never used!
also got a decwriter on casters and all the cables to hook everything up.
i have not powered up the machines yet, as i'm letting them acclimate for 24
hours since they had to ride in the back of the truck in 20 degree weather.
at a radio rally the same day i got:
mac se fdhd
ibm basic primer handbook still in shrinkwrap.
mca modem <?> card
apple //c power supply in original plastic wrap. ( i didnt know it was
supposed to be so white!)
some C= 64 stuff, including some manuals, a print interface and a modem in the
original box with a price tag of over $100. i even got the quantumlink
software in a never opened box.
and my best find, a tandy 102! complete with owner's guide, ps, and matching
battery operated cassette recorder. the guy wanted $30 for it, but my
girlfriend's smile got the computer for $20 lol.
david
On Sat, 6 Dec 1997 11:34:40 +0000 (GMT), Tony Duell
<ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>Well done!!!
Thanks! This has been a long time in coming (since October).
Unfortunately, I have to go down there again because the guy there e-mailed
me and said that he "found the right-hand panel for the rack." Dooooh!
>>If you ever need to change the heads on an RK05 you need to get an
>>alignment disk. I'm rather too far away to pop round with mine.
Is there a way to make a copy of that disk pack, or is it a factory-made
item>
>>Have you clamped the RK05 heads (remove the top covers and there's a 'L'
>>shaped clamp on top of the positioner. Use that to hold the voice coil in
>>the rearmost position)? If not, do it now. There's a battery pack (4 off
>>1/2AA NiCds) on top of the RK05 PSU that's supposed to keep the heads
>>retracted (and to retract them if there's a power failure with a pack
>>mounted), but it's probably decayed by now.
I don't recall seeing a battery pack when I opened the RK05's, but yes,
I did lock the servos before moving the computer.
I also, looked at the specs for the computer -- I definitely have to
drop a new electrical service to my shop. Start-up current on the two RK05's
alone is 20a at 125v.
>>I'd advise you to take all the units out of the rack to move it. With 2
>>people helping, you can carry an RK05 or PDP11/34 CPU box fully
>>assembled, but I'd not want to carry more than 1 at a time. You should be
>>able to move the rack with all the slide rails still in place, I think
The PDP is in my garage right now. What a trip it was trying to tilt it
up while getting it out of the van. It took 3 people to make sure that no
one got crushed!
>>Enjoy your new toy - it's a great machine
I can't wait to get it up and running. Thanks for the tips!
Rich Cini/WUGNET
<nospam_rcini(a)msn.com> (remove nospam_ to use)
ClubWin! Charter Member (6)
MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking
============================================
<A 68040 -based machine is not that old, maybe a bit under 10 years. What I
<was wondering is whether or not there is any objective advantage of old
<machines to new ones. F.E. one could get an old IBM mini (System/3X) for
<little or no money, but is there anything doable on it that is impossible t
<do on a W****** 95 machine?
It would be rare to say that a late W95 box isn't more capable. The only
thing it cant do is support more than one user! Though I've seen PDP-8s
that can. Now a late model PC running something other than w95 like
linux can support multiple users, not that common though. Most older
machines that was an expectation. After all they were expensive. ;-)
There is something that is possible on older machine that is close to
impossible on a win95 box. I can completely document my entire s100
machine right down to sources for CP/M, a significant number of
applications and the circuits for all the cards, backplane and power
supply. Some of my PDP-11 stuff I can do near as well. In other words
I have all the resources to understand it and even copy it or improve it,
something I have done.
Allison
>The military once procured a bunch of XT-like machines that were portable
>and keyboardless. Everything was done thru a touchscreen, including a
>virtual keyboard. About five years ago, there were a bunch floating around
>the hamfests in the Chicago area.
That would be _so_ cool to see.... can anyone tell me what they looked like?
Hi,
I found today a Dyna Micro. This is all I know about the thingy.
It is apparently a learning system or a prototping system. Unfortunately
the board was completely nude (only sockets).
Does anybody have any info on it, is it worth salvaging?
It has a 4x4 keypad on the bottom right corner and a vero style
prototyping area on the left side, the circuitry is above there is a row
of 24 LEDs room for a processor (whaterver it might be) and a couple
ROMS the rest might be RAM and glue.
On the brighter side I also found two Osbone I in perfect condition with
one set of disks for $7 :) :)
------------------------------------------------------------
Francois Auradon
Visit the Sanctuary at: http://home.att.net/~francois.auradon
>But, I'm certainly no expert, so there may very well be some that I'm
>missing that are important. I know I'd like to get a Z88 and a Poquet PC,
>an Original Compaq (I've got a Compac [sic] but that's not the same thing).
>Can anyone else think of some I should be looking for
I forgot one more - the Cambridge Z88. It's not significant because of what
it was (being very similar to the Amstrad Notepad, although I am not sure
just how similar as I failed to pick up the only one I have seen), but for
who made it. Cambridge Computers, I believe, was the computer company set
up by Sir Clive Sinclair after the collapse (and sale to Amstrad) of
Sinclair.
Adam.
>But, I'm certainly no expert, so there may very well be some that I'm
>missing that are important. I know I'd like to get a Z88 and a Poquet PC,
>an Original Compaq (I've got a Compac [sic] but that's not the same thing).
>Can anyone else think of some I should be looking for
I would have to suggest the Commodore SX-64 (I have one, and they are
pretty good) and the TRS-80 Model 4P (also one I have, and certainly worth
having). Also, although extremely unlikly to be found, there was a C64
laptop made that didn't go into production - I doubt there were many
prototypes, but I know they existed.
Someone else mentioned the Apricot Portable _ I am desperatly after one
myself, and figure it would be a wonderful find. Not a great computer, mind
you, but nevertheless a wonderful find. Very stylish.
Adam.
Unfortunatly, my good friend Daniel Seagraves (dseagrav) a
frequent contributer to this list is temporarily out of service due to the
death of his grandmother last night. He is expected back Tuesday. I feel
sorry for him being he is one of my closest friends. I don't reguraly post
to this list and this doesn't really fit in to classic computing other
than the fact that he's a collector and he's out of service for a few
days.
