test-drb October 1998

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

175 participants
1141 discussions

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< Ok, I have a few minutes now to play around with the N* Horizon < I've been fixing up. I've tried to power it up and it seems to hit the < disk drive and then nothing. I've plugged some spare terminals into < the port marked "Video Terminal Port" and played with baud rates < and other comm settings but get nothing on any of my terminals. There is no resident monitor or software other than a disk boot in a standard horizon. It will not say anything to a terminal untill it boots (assuming the booted code has something to say). If the boot fails likley the only signals you get is disk activity or the lack of it. Make sure you have at least 32k of ram starting at 0000 for CPM or 16k starting at 2000h for NSdos. < Also tried straight through and flipped comm cables. Can < someone give me some info on these and maybe walk me through < getting it set up and running so I can check and see if I've missed < something? Oh, I'm trying both N*DOS 5.2 and N* CP/M 2.2. Are they personalized for the machine and are all the port headers don on the mother board set up correctly? Are the media the correct density for the controller in use? I have and still run one. it occurs to me, if you have DOCS for it the setup and checkout procedure is in there. Allison

25 years, 9 months

Corrections to trivia

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< >For example why is it that prople are hunting for MARK-8 and Kenbec's < >when the most likely find (greatest quantity) for 8008 machines is a < >MCS-8 from intel?!?! < < I disagree - an even *more* likely find is a 11/34a with an 8008 < running the front panel! Tim, That would be the case if I were looking for anything with an 8008. I was thinking more of a SBC or Evaluation board when I wrote that. Allison

25 years, 9 months

North Star Horizon Help

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< Also, I seem to recall that North Star DOS was generated for a specific < size -- I believe it's top-resident. A DOS set up for 16K would work on < or 48K, but not vice versa. No it isn't. The controller fills the e800h to efffh space but NSdos is ORGed for 2000h and up. CPM is top resident and for the NS* that usually means a 58k maximum system unless there are some tricks appled. Allison

25 years, 9 months

Top 10 Holy Grails of Classic Microcomputer Collecting

by jeff.kaneko＠juno.com

On Tue, 6 Oct 1998 21:12:07 -0500 (CDT) Doug Yowza <yowza(a)yowza.com> writes: >On 7 Oct 1998, Eric Smith wrote: > >> > The Heathkit people have pretty much set a precedence with unbuilt >kits - >> > if you build one, your name turns to mud. Then they kill you. >> >> Why would the Heathkit people care whether I assemble a Cromemco >Dazzler >> kit? :-) > >The Heathkit People can't see very well, they carry hot soldering >irons, >and they kill first and ask questions later. Certain areas near >Benton >Harbor are *very* dangerous at night. Be carefull out there. > >BTW, after getting my H-8 chassis last week, I found a complete H-8 >today. >Yet another data-point supporting Rax's "bait" theory. Damn. I wish I'd known this a zillion years ago when I could have grabbed an H-11 shell I saw in an L.A. scrapyard. I'd be using it for trolling right about now . . . Jeff ___________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]

25 years, 9 months

Partner 128

by oajones＠bright.net

I picked up a cartridge at a flea market. It says PARTNER 128, Cat. No. 7361, (C)1985 TIMEWORKS, INC. What is this thing? --Alan -- Computing since: 1982, VIC-20, CoCo, PC, CP/M Military Computers: COMTRAN 10, Nida 250 Amateur Radio since: 1971, WN8JEF, KA6EXR, N8BGR, AA4ZI BASIC, dBASE, Assembly, C++ mailto: oajones(a)bright.net

25 years, 9 months

Top 10 Holy Grails of Classic Microcomputer Collecting

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< Tony Duell wrote: < > Agreed. If I ever get an unbuilt kit my first reaction is to build the < > thing. Examples of 1970's packaging are not very interesting to me :- < < I disagree. I have three unassembled Cromemco Dazzler kits. I plan to < assemble one. But if I only had one unassembled kit I think I'd leave i < that way. I personally do find the packaging to be of interest. I'm with tony as the early altairs were not packaged other than needed for shipping. Mine was very early and mostly poly bags of stuff like screws, nuts washers wires and non esd sensitive parts, MOS parts in black foam and sockets in pink foam. The PC card were between sheets of cardboard and it was all in a box with a xeroxed 4th generation manual with atleast two erata sheets for each board. Not much to look at. Some of the later 8800a and the 8800b machine had some nice bent corrigated and all. Allison

25 years, 9 months

Rookie PDP help needed again...

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< The only thing on the board is what's on the handle; "M8186". There is < circular sticker on the underside of one handle that says "mpg jun/81" < it. There are four 40-pin sockets (individual pin sockets on the board) < with the following configuration: < < 1) AMI 303D & AMI 302F on 8048 DEC < 2) AMI 303D & AMI 303D on 8117 DEC < 3) Empty < 4) AMI 304E What's th3 point it's a m8186 kdf-11, aka 11/23? the only thing I can add about it is it appears to have the FIS (floating point extended instruction set) that should run most anything in the way of DEC OSs with the only question being is it limited to 18bit or 22bit able. The latter being less of an issue unless your using more than 256k of ram or certaion backplanes/periperals. < One of my problems is that 4 8" drives are my only storage devices. Any < advice on getting RT-11 or RSX on 8" floppies? I have a bunch of disks, < though I have no way of knowing if they're any good, but no way to writ < to them. RT-11 was nominally supplied on rx01 (8" single density) or rx02 (8" double density) floppies. RSX-11 wants a hard disk for swapping and all. < As far as the Multifunction board, I checked the pins of the console < port with a scope but I can't seem to get anything from it at boot. I < checked the scope on another serial output source and it seems to be < working OK, so I'm assuming that the port on the PDP just isn't giving m 1 which port there are two? 2 is one of the ports set up as a console? 3 is the rom on the MXV setup for the correct boot and is the rom installed? 4 can you hit break and get console ODT prompt and actions? There is a good possibility you have a improperly configured MXV-11 and there is a sea of jumpers on it and it must have the correct proms installed as well. < any console messages immediately on power up? Does it display the POST < procedure, like my Vaxstation? One Sun 3/50 I had with 12 megs of ram to No! The BDV11 if you had it does. < around a minute to display a console message; should there be a long del < like that when booting a PDP-11? If there is a few hundred K maybe 10-20 sec. usually you hear some disk activity before that and then it boots. You vax and Sun knowledge is not helping you as this isn't them. Allison

25 years, 9 months

Top 10 Holy Grails of Classic Microcomputer Collecting

by sinasohn＠ricochet.net

At 08:38 PM 10/5/98 -0700, you wrote: >How many people have a Chameleon? A friend of mine gave it to me probably 5 >or so years ago when he was cleaning out his garage. Bzzzt... Got three. Also have some scans (from a former employee of Seequa) of one of the brochures. (Gotta remember to get back to him to get more info.) --------------------------------------------------------------------- O- Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know." Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates San Francisco, California http://www.sinasohn.com/

25 years, 9 months

Top 10 Holy Grails of Classic Microcomputer Collecting

by sinasohn＠ricochet.net

At 08:24 PM 10/5/98 -0500, you wrote: >I've always wanted to know which machines have only a single instance >represented on this list. If I've got any that aren't duplicated, I'd guess them to be: NEC PC-8201 (not the PC-8201A) Datavue 25 Iasis Computer-in-a-Book (I think Hal Layer has one, but I don't think he's on the list) Symbolics 3600 Seequa Chameleon? Sanyo MBC-8000 Zenith ZP-150? --------------------------------------------------------------------- O- Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know." Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates San Francisco, California http://www.sinasohn.com/

25 years, 9 months

Top 10 Holy Grails of Classic Microcomputer Collecting

by sinasohn＠ricochet.net

At 03:44 PM 10/5/98 -0700, you wrote: >Just for the hell of it, I thought I'd make a list of the Top 10 Holy Grails >of classic microcomputer computer collecting. This is the "Rembrandt in the Hmmm... Seems like your list got garbled in transmission... Here's what it should have looked like, I think: Canon FlatCat STM Systems Baby! 1 Teleram Model 4000 and 5000 Atari ST Book and ST Pad Apricot Portable Dynalogic Hyperion Osborne "Encore" and "Vixen" Gavilan GRiD Compass 1100 Toshiba T1100 Unfortunately, I've only got one of those so far. --------------------------------------------------------------------- O- Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know." Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates San Francisco, California http://www.sinasohn.com/

25 years, 9 months

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test-drb October 1998