>> A lot of people don't like key clicks. I do. When I worked at IBM I
>> received a lot of dirty looks for typing on a 3279 terminal, in an open
>
> Not half as bad as the looks _I_ got for using a Flexowriter to punch a
> tape in a public terminal room at Cambridge University about 10 years ago
> (everybody else was using _silent_ video terminals, mostly BBC micros).
Was I there? I don't recall the incident.
>> plan office, without turning off the key clicker. Now that really was
>> loud!
>
> I have a keyboard somewhere with a little solenoid in it that hits the
> metal baseplate for a keyclick. Now that is loud!
3278 and 3279 were similar, except that it wasn't the metal base plate. I
never dismantled one, but it sounded like one of those plastic resonators
you get in some toy guns.
Philip.
< know about is the Ithaca Intersystems DPS-1. It's pretty! And it's th
< only one I've seen that had breakpoint capability.
It was a "soft" front pannel where the switches interacted with a limited
amount of rom like the altair 8800B. The Heath H8 and several others did
nearly the same thing but used an octal keypad.
Allison
>One thing I'm a bit surprised by is the speed of the video being much
>faster than I'd imagined it would be. Now to get some software to run
>on it; I've found some stuff already, but can someone point me at some
>share/freeware software to run under DecWindows (besides the DECUS
>archives)? In particular, I remember using an ephemeris program in school
>that I could swear was freely distributed.
A lot of precompiled binaries are available by anonymous ftp
>from ftp.cenaath.cena.dgac.fr - but many (most?) of these
are available more conveniently from one of the DECUS collections.
Just about anything that runs under X-windows on a Unix platform
will run under DECWindows on VMS. Generally the difficulties
in porting are comparable to porting between two different Unix
platforms. (That's what that endless maze of "#ifdef"'s is
in there for in the first place!)
>Does the DECUS hobbyist license cover all versions of VMS/DECWindows?
That's a good question, and I thought the license terms itself
would say. But the copy I have from
http://www.montagar.com/hobbyist/license_terms.html
is silent on the subject! Comments on comp.os.vms tend to indicate
that 6.1 is covered, but that 6.2 isn't (because 6.2 is still
"currently supported" commercially.)
>I'm running 5.2 on this machine; would upgrading to 6.1 noticeably degrade
>performance? Would additional features balance out any slowdowns? Besides
>new features, my entire manual set is for 6.1...
I forget how much RAM you have, but if you have more than 16 Mbytes you won't
have any problems. If you have 16 Mbytes or less, you might be a bit tight
on memory and would incur some paging/swapping, depending on what you're doing.
Tim. (shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com)
I finally got a monitor for my VS3100 m38 and was playing with DecWindows
all night. Really cool.
One thing I'm a bit surprised by is the speed of the video being much
faster than I'd imagined it would be. Now to get some software to run
on it; I've found some stuff already, but can someone point me at some
share/freeware software to run under DecWindows (besides the DECUS
archives)? In particular, I remember using an ephemeris program in school
that I could swear was freely distributed.
And a couple more questions for the experts:
Does the DECUS hobbyist license cover all versions of VMS/DECWindows?
I'm running 5.2 on this machine; would upgrading to 6.1 noticeably degrade
performance? Would additional features balance out any slowdowns? Besides
new features, my entire manual set is for 6.1...
Aaron
Heads up folks! This fellow's got an H11 for sale/trade in the Bay Area.
You want, get in touch with him directly.
-=-=- <snip> -=-=-
On 25 Nov 1998 22:27:15 -0800, in alt.sys.pdp11 you wrote:
>>From: John Mock <kd6pag(a)qsl.net>
>>Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp11
>>Subject: H-11 (LSI-11) for trade or sale (SF Bay Area)
>>Date: 25 Nov 1998 22:27:15 -0800
>>Organization: Spam Haters
>>Lines: 15
>>Message-ID: <87ogpvt1do.fsf(a)mongrel.kd6pag.ampr.org>
>>NNTP-Posting-Host: op204.value.net
>>X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.2
>>Path: blushng.jps.net!news.pbi.net!205.252.116.205!howland.erols.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news1.best.com!vnetnews.value.net!not-for-mail
>>
>>Would like to trade for amateur radio gear (non-HF) or test equipment (non-
>>boat-anchor due to space considerations). I think it includes manuals,
>>drawings, and various paper-tape crud; 'was always too busy to do anything
>>with it. I'm now in much too small of a place to keep it, and it's just
>>occupying space in the van waiting for a new home. Too much stuff to ship
>>but will happily deliver to most parts of the Bay Area (especially Sonoma
>>Co., where someone [whose e-mail address was lost] had expressed interest
>>before). Or perhaps the Sacramento region, as i'd like finally to make it
>>to the snow country this year and the stuff's in the way of that.
>>
>>Please make an offer, including destination, as this time, i need to deal
>>with this quickly.
>>
>> -- KD6PAG (or in UUCP notation, 'qsl.net!kd6pag'
>> to evade the spammers)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Owner and head honcho,
Blue Feather Technologies -- kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech [dot] com
Web: http://www.bluefeathertech.com
"...No matter how we may wish otherwise, our science can only describe an object,
event, or living thing in our own human terms. It cannot possibly define any of them..."
I have what is believed to be a SCSI board from DTC. It is a dual-wide Qbus
module. "DTC" is silk-screened on the component side plus a FAB number,
ASSY number, REV number and S/N. Nothing on the ejector tab. Those numbers
likely do not mean anything to a search of DTC SCSI board info files but
here they are anyway: FAB 007-00003, ASSY 007-00002, REV 02, S/N 3028C2.
No LSI chips on board; only two ROM chips (82S123N's with paper labels "LSH
1" and LSD0" typed on them) plus others are typical 74xxx-series chips (LS,
S and 7400-series) except bus I/F chips are the typical DS8641N's.
It is suspected to be SCSI as there is a 50-pin pin connector on the
ejector end and a tag on the antistatic bag has "Probably SCSI" written on
it by what is apparently a DEC dealer/reseller in Pittsburgh.
Absolutely no part or type number on the component side and nothing on the
solder side. Searching the DTC website was useless as the only thing they
talked about in the Support area was all their PC-type SCSI boards. Nothing
on any web search turned up anything either (figures, it's such a
relatively old thing) unless there's actually a website the search engines
could not see . . .
It could be an earlier SASI type board too as the date codes on the chips
run from mid-1982 to a few from the first weeks of 1983. IIRC, that's
around the tail end of the SASI protocol days and beginning of the SCSI
protocol.
Anyway, I need to get info on this to see if it could be used on either my
MicroVAX II or MicroPDP-11/73.
Anybody have any ideas on this? Any old DTC or independant DEC reseller
catalogs from the early 80's have any info on this?
Thanks in advance.
Happy Thanksgiving to the Stateside gang!! In addition to the good things
we are given in life such as family, friends and the life we have, give
thanks for our ability to keep and study the old computer and electronic
technology: hobbies we are fortunate to enjoy.
Regards, Chris
-- --
Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian
Jamestown, NY USA cfandt(a)netsync.net
Member of Antique Wireless Association
URL: http://www.ggw.org/freenet/a/awa/
Hi all,
More progress on the 4051. I finally tracked down the original manuals
and was able to get them. Man, are they in sorry shape. Not just mold and
mildew but even termites in them! I spent all day cleaning them page by
page. I was able to save most of them. The worst damage is confined to
the outer pages and the edges so most of the real info is intact. Here's
what I ended up with, besides the two books that I mentioned early.
(Book 1) 4051 Service ROM Pack 067-0962-00, 4051R05 Binary Program
Loader, 4051E01 ROM Expander Instruction Manual, 4051 Option 1 Data
Communications Interface 021-0188-00, Data Communications Inteface Unit
Instruction Manual 021-0065-00, 4051 Option 10 RS-232 Printer Interface
021-0189-00.
(Book 2) Graphic System Reference Manual 070-2056-00
(Book 3) 4051 Graphic System Service Manual Vol I 070-2065-00, 4051
Graphic System Service Manual Vol II 070-2086-00, RS 232 Printer Interface
for 4051 (data sheet) 021-0189-00, 4051R01/4051R05/4051R06 data sheet
062-3106-00.
(Book 4) 4907 File Manager Operator's Manual 070-2360-00.
(Book 5) Plot 50 ????? (title page missing), Plot 50 Introduction to
Graphic Programming in BASIC 070-2059-00.
(Book 6) 4051 Editor 4051R06 070-2170-00.
BTW Paxton and Phillip were right, the model of the disk drives is
4907 not 4097.
Happy weekend everybody and happy Thanksgiving to the ones of us here
in the US.
Joe
< If you're suggesting that the breakpoint capability of the DPS-1
< front-panel was merely something that tickled a ROM monitor and told it
< drop a software breakpoint, then BZZZT! That would be cheating.
It was a mix of rom and some hardware but, yes!
< >From the hardware description, it looks like it was a real ICE-like
< hardware breakpoint, and you could break on address, data, or status
< conditions. If I could recognize the part numbers in the schematic, I
< might even be able to pretend I know how it works. :-)
That was the part hardware part. Compared to ICE is was far more crude.
Allison
< The box is a model VS42A and has a 3.5" floppy and 2 X 100Mb internal SC
< hard drives. It has what looks like 8Mb of RAM to me, whatever is on th
< main board plus a 4Mb extension.
Ok you have a 3100, with 12mb ram (VMS runs in 4 or more). This is plenty.
The two RZ23l drives are plenty of space for VMS.
<
< On powering up it says KA 42-A v1.3, does a hex countdown and finishes w
< a ">>>" prompt.
<
< Command "b" causes it to display ESA0 and stop.
< Command "?" gives an error message.
< Command "c" causes a drive to start. It then displays an error message "
< ERR PC=00000000" and then lists a table I can't decipher that seems t
< list drives and includes "VMS/VMB" and "Ultrix" along the top. It then h
< prompt " [ESA0:] >>> ".
< At that point command "b" results in a series of errors:
< 83 BOOT SYS
< ?41 DEVASSIGN,B
< 84 FAIL
ESA0 is the eithernet. So it was trying to NETBOOT!
The boot device is likely DKA300. DKA is disk, scsi bus A X00 is the
device number.
< How can I find out if it has an operating system? or have I already prov
< it hasn't?
Try booting! >>> B DKA000 through 700 see if they all fail.
< It looks like it is at least NEARLY 10 years old.
9 max. depending on model maybe less than 5.
Though KA42A is likely a 3100 M30 nice little box actually.
Allison
< Do you mean if you execute a HALT instruction? If you do that, the Z80
< behaves as if it's continuously executing HALT instructions, performing
< repeated bus cycles, including the RFSH signal part.
No. Halt is a instruction. WAIT/ is a device pin. WAIT/ will hold cpu
operation at the point where a read write or IO( read or write) operation
takes place an freezes it until released. Most hardware front pannels
used wait/ (or ready/) to stop the cpu.
the WAIT/ state on z80 does not generate refresh as it's a extended T2
state and refresh is not output until the cpu proceds to the T3 state.
so for those front pannels operatios were done this way:
read an address;
waiting that that address with data and address leds as the
would be for bus contents. CPU is waiting in M1 state for z80
case (instruction read).
Write data:
Same as read case but the contents of the data switches are
written to the current ram address. the write pulse is from
the front pannel (cpu still waiting).
RUN:
remove wait/, operation procedes from where you are.
STOP:
Assert wait/
LOAD ADDRESS:
JAM jump to address into cpu. the jump instuction is a buffer
with it's imputs hard wired to C3h (JP in z80) and the address
bytes that follow gated off the 16 front pannel switchs. Wait
is re asserted to stop after the jump. LEDs will now contain the
new address and data from the address in the switches.
hardware front pannels are generally a lot of chips but no smarts.
Allison
