Message text written by INTERNET:classiccmp@u.washington.edu
>Does anyone have a Commodore Plus/4 video cable for sale or trade?<
The 8-pin cable for the Plus/4 is exactly the same as the 8-pin cable for
the (more common) Commodore 64 or 128. And, a 5-pin cable made for the 64
(the early models had a 5-pin port) will also work on a Plus/4. In fact, I
think most home computer manufacturers (Atari, TI) used 5-pin cables with
the composite, sound and ground on the same pins, so you could try one of
those if you have one sitting around. Finally, if you want to hack one
together, I can provide the pinout.
Gil Parrish
107765.1161(a)compuserve.com
> >On the other hand, I had a garage sale last weekend. Not one person =
> >interested in the piles of Apple, Commodore, Atari stuff. I mean, if you =
> >guys aren't going to garage sales to buy stuff, you're missing a lot of =
> >deals. Most of the stuff at the Goodwill has an old garage sale sticker =
> >on it.<
>
> Heck, if you're dumping stuff at garage sale prices, post the list here
> first! Probably nothing rare or particularly interesting, but you never
> know what somebody might be looking for.
>
> Gil Parrish
> 107765.1161(a)compuserve.com =
I do post lists of the stuff I'm selling on Auctionweb. Some of that stuff does
go really cheap but not all. I do plan to post a big list of the stuff I was
selling at the garage sale and the prices should be very reasonable (cheap).
You are right in that the G sale stuff isn't rare. I had 3 Apple II+, an Apple
IIc, C-64, Piles of C-64 power supplies and cables, joysticks, Atari 2600
consoles and games. Only thing is that they need to be shipped which can be
more than the price sometimes. I did manage to give away 4 dead C-64s and a
1541 to a guy who works on them.
Give me a month or so.
>> 2nd: a number of DECStation 2100 and 3100 series units. (along with
>> various peripherals and expantion boxes.
>>
>> What are they, and what do they run? (and docs?)
>
> I have one, it runs VMS 5.3 (VAXServer 3100)
Sorry; it it runs VMS it's a VAXstation, not a DECstation. The DECstations
are built on MIPS processors.
Roger Ivie
ivie(a)cc.usu.edu
> 1st: (the biggie) VAXStation 3520. 'Cube' configuration, apparently 4
> processors
Four processors would make it a 3540...
> , 64meg of ram, a TK70 and controller, one board that appears to
> be the interface between the processor bus and the three Q-bus slots in
> the chassis,
How much stuff is on the QBus adapter board? There were two versions: FTAM
supports only the TK70 controller (is you TK70 attached to QBus or to SCSI?)
and FQAM supports any random QBus module.
FTAM is a simple module containing only a few chips; FBIC (interface to the
backplane) and CQBIC (CVAX -> QBus adapter) being the only really big ones.
I believe there was also a clock generator chip, but not much else.
FQAM is chuck full o' goodness. It his a prom-based microcode machine to
run the module and lots and lots of PALs.
> and a board on the processor bus marked "I/O Module" with two
> 50 pin headers on it.
The connector which goes out the side of the backplane is SCSI. Although DEC
used the DSSI chip on this module, they only supported SCSI; the DSSI chip is
capable of doing both.
The connector which comes out the front of the backplane goes to a distribution
panel which provides:
- Four serial ports (console/printer, modem, mouse, keyboard)
- Ethernet (AUI and BNC)
- Diagnostic code display (one 7-segment LED)
Unfortunately, I don't know the pinout of the cable; I don't have a printset
for the 3520.
> There also appears to be a space for what looks like it would have been a
> three board video sub-system (which has been removed).
Three boards is correct. For extra fun, it has its own embedded MicroVAX II...
> Aside from the basic power/control cabling, and the cable to the TK-70,
> there are no other cables in the unit at present. (and no place to plug in
> a terminal!)
The terminal plugs into the distribution panel which plugs into the I/O module.
Can any expert out there help me with this? Thanks!
In comp.sys.tandy, bluesky6(a)ix.netcom.com (Benedict Chong) wrote:
%I just got a Model 4. When I turn it on, the disk drive will spin but
%there's no video.
%
%When the video brightness is increased, I can see a large rectangular
%green area where the video would be.
%
%Instead of video characters, there are lots of zigzag lines across
the
%screen, with more on the top of the screen than towards the bottom.
%The entire screen is stable and does not flicker or move around.
%
%It has been a good number of years since I last played with this kind
%of video (built a 6502/6845 terminal in the mid 80s) so I can't
%remember what problem would cause this type of symptoms.
%
%When I remove the video connector (after opening up the machine), the
%screen loses the vertical hold. I guess that would mean that the
%vertical sync and circuitry is working.
%
%Could the problem be due to the monitor circuitry or a problem with
%the Horizontal Sync generation?
%
%Would appreciate all/any pointers.
%
%Ben
%
I must've fell off the list last week when the Internet went haywire and I've just resubscribed. From the tone of this message it would seem that the HHC deal fell thru. Would someone mind bringing me up to date?
Thanks,
Bob
----------
From: Sam Ismail[SMTP:dastar@crl.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 1997 6:15 PM
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
Subject: re: HHCs
On Thu, 24 Jul 1997, Gil Parrish wrote:
> Message text written by Sam:
> >I should have mentioned that in a couple months when the remaining units
> are liberated, they will be up for grabs.<
>
> A suggestion. Why don't you start with the existing list of people who
> were willing to pay for the units, and allocate one to each. If there
> aren't enough to go around, then delete names in some random manner. If
> there are units left over, then take the list of folks who requested more
> than one and allocate them to those folks in some sort of random manner,
> and so on.
This is what I planned to do. I have retained the list. There were a
total of 53 interested persons, so hopefully there will be enough for
everyone. If there are extras then maybe we'll just hold a lottery.
Message text written by "Richard A. Cini, Jr."
> For the last two years, I have been working on making a
recompilable version of the VIC-20 Kernel ROM.<
OK, I'm not afraid to ask the amateur question:
Why?
I'd love to see someone with good programming skills write some
sophisticated software for the VIC-20, likely requiring at least a 16K
expander or something. If your project will help lead to that, I'm all for
it.
Gil Parrish
107765.1161(a)compuserve.com
Message text written by Greg Mast
>On the other hand, I had a garage sale last weekend. Not one person
interested in the piles of Apple, Commodore, Atari stuff. I mean, if you
guys aren't going to garage sales to buy stuff, you're missing a lot of
deals. Most of the stuff at the Goodwill has an old garage sale sticker
on it.<
Heck, if you're dumping stuff at garage sale prices, post the list here
first! Probably nothing rare or particularly interesting, but you never
know what somebody might be looking for.
Gil Parrish
107765.1161(a)compuserve.com
Bruse Lane queried:
<The VS2000 is the little square 'cube,' is it not? If so, I have a pair.
<was planning on using one for a disk formatter.
Yep the 1cuft vax., Has MFM disk interface for hds and 5.25" 1.2meg
floppies and on the mainboard there is a 50 pin connector for SCSI.
Plug a cable with 50pin berg into it and bring it out the bottom. The only
SCSI device it will boot is TZK50 (TK50 with SCSI adaptor). However if you
can get ultrix or VMS on a disk it both can use the SCSI to access otehr
devices other tha boot. Also the printer port(9pin) if you pull pin 9to
ground and boot it becomes the console for a terminal.
FYI the disks that work with the vs2000 are st225/20meg HH, st251/40meg,
RD52(quantum q540 31mb), RD53(micropolus 1325/71meg) and
RD54(maxtor2190/150meg). Other drives with the same geometry can be used
if you want to use it with media the rom knows.
<??? How so? I've not worked enough with the stuff to guess at that one.
Boot the OS, build a single user system on disk and use that to build a
bootable tape.
<A! That's IT!! Yes, I can do this! I can build Ultrix onto one of my
<3100/M38's then, and use it for netbooting the VAXStation!
Yes you can as most of the vaxen will mop boot if the NI is there.
<Allison, if you were within range, you'd get a big hug! I even have an
<honest-to-DEC RRD42 SCSI CD drive just waiting to be used.
<If you could outline the steps for me, so I can have a printout to refer
<to, I'd appreciate it. Thanks again!
Wish I could. I know the outline only and that the capability is there.
<BTW, can I also do the remote boot with OpenVMS? I picked up a Ver. 6.2
<distribution kit while I was in the Bay Area.
Yes, and depending on the license you have with it(must have) you can also
cluster them using NI. The cluster host can be any vaxen, the higest
performing one you have is the logical choice. The alternate is booting
as a diskless workstation or remote boot(localdisk for swapfiles). Vs2000s
were commonly used as workstations with local swapdisks (rd52s or rd31s)
or as decwindows terminals. FYI: vms without the license pak for it is
marginally useful.
Brief explanation of MOP boot. This is a DEC protocal that goes back to
PDP-11s(they used serial lines for this!) and it was Maintenance Operations
Protocal. It allowed one system to push code into another. It's protocal
is fairly simple, the boot requestor puts a message on the NI that says
BOOT ME and it's Eithernet hardware ID. The host is tasked with recognizing
the address and feeding back the correct file usually a boot loader. The
boot loader is more sophisticated and will then respond back saying ok lets
use a better protocal and it then loads the one of three things, another
bigger loader, VMSboot or untrixboot. After that point the protocal is
usually either IP or DECnet though user selected protocals are possible.
The actual application loaded is up the the designer/user and examples I've
worked with were DIAGS, PrintServer (lps40/20/32), DECwindows,
VMSworkstation remote boot and VMS cluster.
Doing this on unix systems means you must have a operating host with
networking running. The boot process from the requestor is the same but
the host must have a daemon to handle the booting process. USually there
are config files to manage this.
Allison