test-drb February 1998

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

147 participants
783 discussions

by sinasohn＠ricochet.net

Does anyone know of a MS-DOS (pretend it's a 10yr+ old version) compatible backup program that can handle a SCSI DAT drive? I have *not* been able to find one. If you know of one, would you know where to find a copy now? Failing that, how about a windoze 3.11 program? Thanks! --------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.crl.com/~sinasohn/

26 years, 10 months

Slipsticks (was: Re: greetings)

by manney＠nwohio.nwohio.com

> Forgive me, but I've sinned... :) > I had a circular slide rule, but I never learned to use it. > It's buried somewhere in my collection of junk, I think... > I'll go look for it tonight. Anyone have directions for it's une anywhere? If you can't find them, e-mail me and I'll tell you how. It's just like a straight one, but wrapped, with 2 cursors. Clear? <g> manney(a)nwohio.com

26 years, 10 months

CLASSICCMP digest 316

by foxnhare＠goldrush.com

From: Bill Yakowenko <yakowenk(a)cs.unc.edu> Subject: EPROM programming voltages >Can anyone point me to an on-line reference showing the necessary >voltages for programming various EPROMs? I'm especially interested >in the oldies-but-goodies: 2708, 2716, 2732, and 2764's. In >particular, it seems some of them want 25v while others want only >21v, and I suspect that even the same chip number from different >manufacturers may want different voltages. 2708 (looks like 12 volts according to a spec sheet in one of my books.) 2716 25 volts 2732 25 volts 2732A 21 volts 2732B 12.5 volts 2764 21 volts 27C64 21 volts 2764A 12.5 volts Source: EPROM Programmers Handbook for the C64 and C128 by CSM Software. -- -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- Visit our web page at: http://www.goldrush.com/~foxnhare/ Call our Commodore 64 BBS (Silicon Realms 300-2400 baud) at: (209) 754-1363 -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

26 years, 10 months

Does anyone know what power supply the Hanimex Pencil II uses?

by scott＠isd.canberra.edu.au

I have recently bought a second-hand Pencil II computer. This machine was made in the mid-eighties by Soundic Electronics. I have heard it was distributed my Hanimex, although there's no indication of this on the computer itself. Its microprocessor is an NEC Z80 clone, and it appears to have 16Kb RAM. The case is light grey and black, with dark grey alphanumeric keys and light grey cursor and function keys. Its BASIC comes on a cartridge which is inserted in a slot in the top right-hand corner of the unit. You can see a picture of it at http://www.insset.u-picardie.fr/museum/english/pages_museum/hanimex.htm (the only mention of the machine I've found on the Web). Unfortunately I do not have a power supply or any documentation for it. Could anyone tell me what the pinouts for its power supply are (the power socket is a four-pin DIN socket)? Thanks in advance. Regards, | Scott McLauchlan |"Sometimes the need to mess with their heads| |Information Services Division| outweighs the millstone of humiliation." | | University of Canberra |__________Fox_Mulder_"The_X-Files:_Squeeze"_| | scott(a)isd.canberra.edu.au |http://www.canberra.edu.au/~scott/home.html |

26 years, 10 months

Slipsticks and calculators and a clock

by dcoward＠pressstart.com

: ><>My first one was the SR-10...the ><>"wedge". $110, IIRC....Was that TI's first? Allison wrote >Not by a long shot. The first was in late '71 and went for about $140 >(8digit 4banger). I had one going into EE school. Kip wrote: >But that WAS the SR-10. I was reading through this quarter's issue of the International Calculator Collector. (The cover story is about the 30th anniversary of the world's first "pocket" calculator- TI's "Cal-Tech" prototype) They print an excerpt from Electronics magazine dated July 3,1972 that said that TI was test marketing their first calculator - The Datamath in Dallas and Houston, selling for 149.99. Another excerpt from a TI press release dated September 21,1972 states "A line of three new calculators introduced today marks the formal entry of Texas Instruments into the electronic calculator market. The three new calculators are the TI-2500 portable calculator and the TI-3000 and TI-3500 desk models." According to TI's calculator history page (Check out http://www.ti.com/calc/docs/calchist.htm) the TI-2500 DataMath came out in 1972. And the SR-10 came out in 1973. ========================================= Doug Coward dcoward(a)pressstart.com Senior Software Engineer Press Start Inc. Sunnyvale,CA Curator Museum of Personal Computing Machinery http://www.best.com/~dcoward/museum =========================================

26 years, 10 months

IBM Archive

by mallison＠konnections.com

Anyone know where there's a good IBM program and/or doc archive that goes back beyond last month? Really into the 80's Looking for original PC stuff... Thanks, -Mike

26 years, 10 months

9370 is a dog! Was: Re: Re[2]: Firsts

by cfandt＠servtech.com

At 09:48 05-02-98 -0500, William Donzelli <william(a)ans.net> wrote: >> Sounds about right. 11A at 230V is 2.5 kVA, which will do 1.8kW at 0.7 power >> factor (typical for a rectified mains power supply) with ease. >> >>> Still dumped alotta heat! :-) We got cheap electricity in this town.$0.036 >>> per KWH vs. about $0.08 or more per KWH outside of the area. >> >> Even $0.08 is less than we pay (typically $0.11). But we can get dual >> tariff systems which charge us the same peak rate and less than half >> that off-peak for heating etc. But I digress. > >This sounds like a perfect time to get on my soapbox concerning big >computers and electricity! > >Lets say you have this wonderful IBM mainframe and wish to use it. When >you add up all of the DASDs, maybe a terminal or two, perhaps you end up >with a 3 kW system. Now run that value thru your electric bill. I think >that you will find that a night of hacking on your system will cost less >than a ticket to a movie! Certainly more _fun_ than some of the films that have been released for sure! The wife will not agree though. But if one of us had a large old S/360 or S/370 in our basements, the power consumption would financially kill us (because of the water chillers for cooling, current consumption of older technology electronics, etc.) I'd love to even _see_ a large S/360 and all its utilities. > >And I must admit that I am suprised that the CPU sucks so much. I suppose >if some of the memory was taken out, it would be quite a bit less. My >Sun-4/280 draws a hell of a bunch, but it has 32 megs of 41256 DRAMS, >each one sucking a little bit. Just removing 24 megs from it drops the >power consumption greatly. Only one 8 Meg board installed. Maximum, IIRC, was 16 Mb storage. DASD was probably used as workstation storage. Philip, can you confirm any of this >from your sales literature? If you're interested, William, I can give you the lineup of PC board modules in the CPU which I briefly talked about earlier in the thread. - Chris -- -- ======================================================= Christian Fandt Phone: +716-661-1832 -Office ACU-RITE INC. +716-488-1722 -Home One Precision Way Fax: +716-661-1888 -Office fax Jamestown, New York 14701-9699 USA email: cfandt(a)servtech.com

26 years, 10 months

9370 is a dog! Was: Re: Re[2]: Firsts

by Philip.Belben＠powertech.co.uk

I had a trip down memory lane yesterday - I cleared a path to the filing cabinet and got out my old IBM glossy leaflets. As well as things like "IBM 3090 - the Base for Growth into the Nineties" I found a couple of things on the 9370 series. I also found some stuff on PC graphics platforms and 3270PCs (of which more in my next). > At 12:30 03-02-98 -0500, William Donzelli <william(a)ans.net> wrote: >> >>Just because the sticker says 30 amps does not mean it will draw that >>much! In general, those ratings are worst case (a fully blown system), and >>includes some safety factor (as well as some surge). > > Oh I already knew that, William. A 30A breaker works out fine to handle the > six 9332 DASD units (IBM's accronym for these type of hard disks for some > of you other observers), 9345 tape drive, rack power controllers and the > 9370-60 CPU. Ah. A 9375. Despite my joke and William's response, a 9375 model 60 has the highest power consumption of any in my catalogue, at 1.8kW - enough to heat a room, if not a house. (FWIW DASD = Direct Access Storage Device) If you are interested in operating systems, those listed for the model 60 were: VM/SP VSE/SP IX/370 (The AIX you were asking about) MVS (which won't run on the 9373 (model 20) or model 40.) There were also integrated packages carrying their own environment based on VM, which was then called VM/IS > Can't recall exactly, but total draw was about 11 to 12 amps or so when I Sounds about right. 11A at 230V is 2.5 kVA, which will do 1.8kW at 0.7 power factor (typical for a rectified mains power supply) with ease. Still dumped alotta heat! :-) We got cheap electricity in this town. $0.036 per KWH vs. about $0.08 or more per KWH outside of the area. Even $0.08 is less than we pay (typically $0.11). But we can get dual tariff systems which charge us the same peak rate and less than half that off-peak for heating etc. But I digress. Can't wait to work more with the system later this year if the wife has no additional remodeling in the new house for me to do :-( Have fun! Philip.

26 years, 10 months

9370 is a dog! Was: Re: Re[2]: Firsts

by Philip.Belben＠powertech.co.uk

> At 13:15 13-01-98 -0500, William Donzelli <william(a)ans.net> wrote: > >>> Me too! But I think a 4381, say or even a 9370, would be easier to work >>> on. >> >>Getting a 9370 should not be a problem - they are dogs that really were >>not sucessful. I have seen quite a few in the scrap yards (none suitable >>for taking, however). > > I'll agree it's no problem. I got the old 9370 from my company setting at > home. Paid an official $1 to act as a transfer of ownership. It's just > barely a classic now. Obsolete as heck -not too long after we paid $200k+ > for it in '86/'87. Lot of Tylenol used to sooth aching back muscles when I > dragged it home piece-by-piece. (Should have seen the wife look at me...) Strange how people in different (geographical) areas find different machines. In the [year + 2 vacations] I worked for IBM, I never saw a 9370 at all. It was released at about that time - I grabbed some marketing leaflets which I believe I still have - and I thought it looked an interesting system, but I never saw one :-( > It's a dog, but nevertheless, something important in the line of S/370 > lineage which I literally rescued from the dumpster. > > Notably, it is said to be the first actual production unit sold. Don't > exactly recall complete serial number, but it probably is first since it is > something like xxx0001. Will get back to the list later with SN, etc. if > anybody interested in confirming this. Fun if true. Do find out! > I need OS books (VSE, I think) and help in bringing her completely up. > Xerox, I believe, kept the OS manuals since they did all the software > maintenace under contract. IBM did hardware maintenance, of course. We used > the Xerox Business Management System (XBMS) product to run our company. Have > virtually all other hardware books and most periferal books safely at home. > > Heard that AIX could run on the 9370 under (I think) VM or something. Any > AIX and VM OS's around that I could scrounge for this iron?? I'll have a look in my marketing bumf and see what IBM were offering. Alas, I have little of a technical nature. I'd think a 9370 ought to run Phoenix/MVT at least. Do any of our Cambridge (UK) contingent want to have a go? > Have tried to bring it up at home but, apparently, lack of certain > periferals it expects to see hung off the terminal ports causes the IPL to > quit before OS completely loads. Need a guru or present-day user to help > figure this out. You know, that sort of thing _might_ be in the marketing stuff (as in, a complete system need consist only of...) since the main selling point was the small size and no need of special machine room. > Any of you folks willing to help me with this project later in the year??? Yes, but not physically, since I am unlikely to get to travel to the States again in the near future! That said, I do have a voucher to spend with Continental Airlines sometime... > Wife and I just bought another house and will not be settled until > summertime or later. I'm making provisions during my rewiring of the house > to include a 30A double-pole breaker since the 9370 takes 230V, single > phase. Will duct the air coming out of the CPU to heat the house instead of > using the furnace (just kidding, but there's quite a few BTUs dumped outta > the thing and could keep the house above freezing in the winter at least.) 30A at 230V is around 7kW - running continuously, that could keep a small house quite warm. (Typical electrical domestic heating installation in UK, four storage heaters rated at between 2kW and 4kW each, heat up for 7 hours at night, release heat slowly during day - equivalent of 3 to 4 kW continuously) Will tell the list anything more on this machine if any interest. Yes please. Philip.

26 years, 10 months

CGA Modes (Wuz: Win 3.0)

by Philip.Belben＠powertech.co.uk

The only piece of useful information about the 3270PC displays I could find yesterday was the resolution - 720 x 512 x 8 for the small graphics display, which I am now fairly convinced was a 5272. I don't know the scanning rates I'm afraid. Larry, you can get text on it with only one of the 3270PC display cards, which will indeed work in an XT. I'm curious that 720 x 512 (or 800 x 512) was so uncommon - it seems a logical (-ish) step up from 640 x 400. I was going to go on at length here about the PGC (PGA) and its display, since the marketing leaflet surprisingly gives a lot of info, right down to the connector pinout. But Tony got there first. Philip. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Assuming that all this is right (and I have no way of knowing as I'm using the 3270pc), I bet you could find VGA, EGA or CGA cards which could run a 3270 mode or a 5272 mode if told. It's a question of knowing what to ask and the software or firmware knowing. Someone had to be dumb enough to include it. Otherwise, what do you want for the 5272 $$? -Mike Lawrence Walker wrote: > > On 3 Feb 98 at 17:22, Philip.Belben(a)powertech.co.uk wrote: > > snip > > > > > I'm sure my 3270pc handles a "better" quality CGA. It just looks like > > > EGA, thought it was... It was running a version of Norton Utes and it > > > was just beautiful turquoise blue set and clear characters. > > > > > > I'd have to think this was better than CGA, especially since it took two > > > coupled long cards to run the video... > > > > > > -Mike > > > > No, it isn't PGA. (Although most of the chips on the cards are likely > > to be PGAs, in IBM custom metal cans, as I recall...) > > > > The IBM 5272, the 3270PC display, was a very nice monitor. I don't know > > the pixel resolution, but I'd guess at 800 x 400. Unfortunately, AFAIK, > > it only did 8 colours. > > > > The 3270PC display card did TEXT MODES ONLY - it was aimed at emulating > > the 3279 terminal. You could buy two add-on cards for it that went in > > the slots either side in the motherboard. > > > > 1. The PS card. This provided emulation of the Programmed Symbols > > option on the 3279. Very nice graphics, but only as a terminal, not as > > a PC (although presumably you could have written PC drivers for it...) > > > > 2. The APA card. This provided support of the All Points Addressable > > modes of the CGA. These CGA modes were displayed in the top lefthand > > corner of the screen. And the only 8 colours reduced the capability > > somewhat as well. > > > > It looked very good, but AFAIK IBM never supported it properly. Pity. > > > snip > > > But your description of the 3270PC sounds like you've got only one of PS > > and APA, alas. > > > > Hope this helps > > > > Philip. > > > I've had a 5272 -23 monitor stashed for some time. Was never able to > get it working on an XT trying various standard cards and drivers, > altho it did display jumbled-up color lines so I figured it must be > the driver. IBM wouldn't/couldn't offer me any help. > From the above, it appears that I would need a 3270pc display card > and one of two add-on cards. If I was fortunate enough to find these > would it work on an XT ? > > Also I pulled an IBM DM12n501 monitor out of a dumpster. No > power cord , just a 15 pin female connector . I surmise it's some > sort of dumb terminal. So before I dump it any idea on what it is ? > > ciao larry > lwalkerN0spaM(a)interlog.com

26 years, 10 months

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test-drb February 1998