Can someone educate me as to how the 8800, the 8800A
and the 8800B differ?
I would really like to know about all the differences
in the three.
Thanks very much,
BOB
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Here's my contribution. I must confess to not having read all the
previous ones - traffic on the list has been somewhat high and my boss
has been making noises about my spending so much time reading it :-( I
suppose I'll have to get TCP/IP on my IBM 6150 ...
My name is Philip Belben and I'm an electrical engineer by trade. I
work for PowerGen, one of the electricity generating companies formed
when the UK split up its electricity industry in 1990. I'm 30 years old
(31 next week) and still single. I live alone in a 3-bedroom house full
of computers and other electronic junk, located at Coalville, England.
My introduction to computers was when my school got a Commodore PET in
1979. Suitable pestering of my parents meant that I received a
secondhand, 8K PET for my 13th birthday in 1980. I then caught the
computing bug - I forced the school to let me take exams in computer
science even though they had no-one to teach it.
After leaving school at 18 I did a year with IBM (Marketing - UGH!)
before going to university.
At university in 1987 I met Tony Duell, who had just founded the P850
User Group to preserve old computers. I caught the collecting bug at
about that time, and I now have around 60 of the things.
Old computers is just one hobby among many, though. I also write music;
I play the organ at my local church (yes I am a Christian), and also
sing and play Piano and Bassoon; I have recently taken up photography.
I would add that my computers aren't the only thing that's old - my
camera is a Yashicaflex 635 (late 1960s?) that I bought for 6 UK pounds
(just under $10) at a charity auction. My car is a 1971 Marcos Mantis -
a British kit car of which about 32 were made and 14 are believed to
survive - which I bought two years ago because I wanted something
sportier than my 1965 Ford Anglia (I shall always regret getting rid of
the Anglia). I also have a 1948 Fordson (= UK brand name for Ford
commercial vehicles until 1950s) truck, useful for carting computers
around. When I get the truck back on the road, I intend to join the
Classic Computer Rescue Squad.
Since this is not strictly on topic, I'd better not say any more!
Philip.
<I have a three board set of Q-bus cards plus the boot ROM for a uVAX II,
<dated from 1987, which supposedly turns a VAX server into a workstation f
<DECWindows. I think it was called the GPX II kit? Anyway, the boards wo
<and I have the keyboard, dove bar mouse and cable, but no monitor. I
<believe this board set could drive several types of workstation monitors
<and was programmed for monitor type thru some of the wires in the kbd/mou
I have no clue on the rom as the microvax-II already could run decwindows.
DECwindows is a device and services under VMS. I would not mess with that
rom unless you fully identfy it and its use.
The monitors conformed to the boards not the other way round the cable
carried keyboard data mouse and RGB video for the monitor.
monitors were vr260, 290, 320.
<too? Any specs on it? Will it work in a VAX 3600?
Yes.
<Also, what versions of VMS support the GPX board? Is it still current (V
<I have a VMS 5.5 set of tapes that came with the uVAX, from the old days
<when the VMS license stayed with the CPU and DEC didn't hit you up for
<license transfers.
Most all from v4.2 and later. V5.5 would work well. FYI there is a free
license available for hobby use to US decus members.
Allison
<Can someone educate me as to how the 8800, the 8800A
<and the 8800B differ?
<I would really like to know about all the differences
<in the three.
All three are 8080 and s100.
The 8800 and 8800a are esentially the same save for the A has most
of mods and improvements designed in. The number of mods are in the
dozens but include a powersupply large enough to be useful.
The 8800b is a radically redesigned front panel using proms and more
sequential logic rather that the flaky oneshots used in the earlier
version. There was a front pannel less version with a turnkey boot.
Track down the docs as it's far more to it than this outline.
Allison
On Mon, 2 Mar 1998, Russ Blakeman wrote:
> as the newest addition - a Vector 3 made by Vector Graphics Inc of California
> (I'm guessing by the 213 area code on the label). I also have older Tektronix
Russ, the Vector 3 was manufactured in Santa Barbara, California. Vector
Graphics is an interesting company, in that it was started by two
housewives in the late 70s. One of the ladies was Lore Harp. I forget
the name of the other.
I have two Vector 1's. There was also, of course, a Vector 2.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Coming Soon...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
FYI
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 04 Mar 1998 05:26:24 -0500
From: shewless(a)bestweb.net
To: danjo(a)xnet.com
Subject: Wanting to sell...
I am wanting to sell a Color Computer 2. I have the basic unit, books to
it, the cassette player, the 5 1/4 floppy drive, the dot matrix printer and
all cables in great conditon. Please email me if you or anyone you know
would like to purchase it. Thanks, Ron Roberts
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
BC
<IIRC the Z-80 stacks the PC after the it's been incremented. So it fills
Correct, been looking at to much C code lately.
<were only 7 bits of video RAM on that machine, so 00 displayed as 40 =
<'@'). That was a standard diagnostic test I think.
Yes!
Allison
I just acquired (5 minutes ago) a DEC TU80 open reel tape drive, but no
docs. There is a 3rd party Q-bus card (Distributed Logic Corp) that came
with it, cables seem to line up. Does anyone know anything about this tape
drive, is it a 6250 bpi drive, can it work in a MicroVAX II or VAX 3600
Q-Bus, and is it supported under VMS 5,6, or 7? Is there some kind of SCSI
adapter so I could connect it to an NT machine or an Alpha?
A longtime customer just showed up at my door with it in his pickup, asked
if I wanted it. It's clean and he says it was pulled from a running system,
but no details. It's in a nice DEC rack, like the kind VAX 3600s came in.
Is it treasure or trash?
Jack Peacock
There's a chart at the bottom of the page at:
http://www.geocities.com/~compcloset/MITSAltair8800.htm
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bob Wood [SMTP:altair8800@hotmail.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 1998 6:13 PM
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
> Subject: Altair 8800, 8800A, 8800B??
>
> Can someone educate me as to how the 8800, the 8800A
> and the 8800B differ?
> I would really like to know about all the differences
> in the three.
>
> Thanks very much,
>
> BOB
>
> ______________________________________________________
> Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
