Hi,
I just got back.
The Channel F is the first programmable color cartidge based video console.
It predates the Atari 2600 by about 1 year (1976). The controllers have 8
degrees of freedom: normal joystic directions plus twisting plus pushing up
or down.
The ISBN fo the Haddock is: 0-89689-098-8
Copyright 1993
The publisher is:
Books Americana, Inc.
P.O. Box 2326
Florence, Alabama 35630
And I still can't believe that the COCO had a 6899E for a processor :)
Francois
-------------------------------------------------------------
Visit the Sanctuary at: http://www.pclink.com/fauradon
-----Original Message-----
From: Greg Troutman <mor(a)crl.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Monday, April 20, 1998 10:48 AM
Subject: Re: Week-end finds
>Max Eskin wrote:
>>
>> Two questions: a) what is a channel F?
>
>It's a video game console. Older than the Atari 2600, I think it was
>the first programmable home system introduced.
>
>--
>mor(a)crl.com
>http://www.crl.com/~mor/
>
Sorry to post a partially less-than-on-topic message:
Brian, recently you posted concerning a book you were interested
in, and I e-mailed you (privately) concerning it... did you recieve
the e-mail? I only ask this way because my ISP seems to be getting,
shall we say, slightly less 'vigilant' when it comes to %100
delivery rates. Now, spam, on the other hand....... ;}
Anyway, if any interest in Korn and Korn still, write me back. If
not, accept my apologies for this.
ObClassiccmp: Southern Cal collectors... the TRW swap meet is
this Saturday, the 25th, at the TRW plant in El Segundo, CA from 7:00
to 11:30 am. I will have some DEC PDP and Plessey items for sale or
trade... and also I have heard from my spies that Marvin (of this
list) will once again mis-appropriate one of my two precious spaces,
where he will try to foist^H^H^H^H^H sell some of his Very Good Stuff
to any unsuspecti^H^H^H^H^H discriminating buyers. I get first pick.
:)
Further details posted if any interest in the Group, otherwise
e-mail me privately. There *is* some room for a few other items,
should someone wish to also participate; free of charge, you just
have to get your stuff down there. A Note to collectors: there are
frequently some nice finds... Kaypro II, IV, 10... $5, an IBM sys36
complete, $25 *delivered* (!) S100 things, etc, etc. And it's always
fun to meet other folks on this list in person, as well...
Cheers
John
From: Tony Duell [mailto:ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk]
I was once involved with a design when we needed a nasty function of 3
TTL level signals. There wasn't space for a lot of extra gate packages.
I
immediately said that I could do it in one single TTL package. One of
the
other designers (who is very clueful) said 'Oh, I suppose you want a TTL
PROM, or maybe one of those TI PALs with the 74-series numbers'. I said
'No, I can do it with a normal 16 pin TTL chip that doesn't have to go
in
a programmer first'. So, what was the chip ?
74LS138, 1 of 8 decoder, the three inputs go to A, B, C, all 8
possibilities decoded on the outputs.
Jack Peacock
A few hours ago, I rescued from the trash a Data General
commemorative 5-year anniversary serving tray. It is a shallow
wooden box, 1' X 1.25' X 1", with handles on the narrow sides.
The inside bottom of the box, on which you would put the teapot
and so on, it says,"Data General Five Years of Service 1983".
Surrounding that text is a timeline of 1977-1978, with photos.
It starts with, "Corporate Quality Logo Chosen", and ends with
"Data General Weathers the Blizzard -Data General employees in the
northeast, particularly those in Massachusetts, have weathered what
is now being called 'The Blizzard of '78'.
Many Employees were stranded at DG plants that were surrounded by
more than 20 inches of snow. In true DG fashion, everyone joined
together to make the best of it. DG sheltered many motorists who
found themselves stranded." -My abbreviations.
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I got a Data General One laptop that someone was using as a wheel-
chock at a flea market. It has a smashed LCD, and won't start.
Now,
a)Does anyone have an extra LCD that would work?
b)What type of power does it use?
c)Does anyone want any parts? It's in good physical condition.
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<Quite a few. from memory....the S-100, probably the earliest micro bus
<to become popular. A standard business configuration for 8-bit would be
It was preceeded by at least three others. L-bus from Control Systems
of natick MA for 8008. Intel had the MCS bus and later multibus.
<16-bit systems it would be an 80286, 1MB RAM, hard drive in the 40MB
<range, 4 to 16 serial ports to CRT terminals and printers, maybe even a
<modem, running MP/M or Concurrent DOS, again with applications written
More likely 8088 or 8086 with 1meg. The 286 s100 crates could carry at
least 16meg and 4meg would not be out of line.
<in BASIC. A lot of single board Z80, 8086, and 80286 systems (like
<Altos) built this same basic configuration, but without an expansion
<bus.
AmproLB and xerox820 were pretty well known.
<The SS-50, a competitor for the S-100 but using Motorola 6800 CPU, never
<really caught on. VME, an industrial bus still alive today, lots of
IT did but it was exclusively 6800/6809.
<S-100 except it used 86 pin bus, called Exor, something like that, never
<caught on either, though Motorola did their best to promote it for a
It was processor specific, if you weren't using MOTO cpu it was
inappropriate.
<There were some holdovers from the mini makers. Q-bus, DEC's bus for
<the PDP-11 micros and later the MicroVAX. A typical PDP would be a
<PDP-11/03 CPU, 64K RAM, 2.5MB hard drive (RK05), 4 port serial to a
<VT-100 terminal, and a DECwriter II for a printer. Business apps were
Only the very earliest LSI-11 system ised the RK05 series as they were
replaced very quickly by the RL01 and later RL02. An 11V03 was 32kb ram,
two DL serial lines and RX01 floppy in the 30" short cab. The 11T03 added
a pair of RK05 disks.
By the early to mid 80s the 11/23 cpu had replaced the slow 11/03 cpu and
memory was typically 128-256k.
<written in FORTRAN, DIBOL, or BASIC, usually running on the RT-11
RSTS and RSX-11 timesharing and multitasking OSs were available as well
as Ultrix-11(dec unix) by the mid 80s.
<operating system. BTW the Q-bus wasn't strictly DEC proprietary, DEC
<sold PDP-11 CPU chips for a while, Plessey made their own PDP-11 systems
DEC owned the license there were at least three that were licensed for
it, Heath/schulmber/zenith, plessy and one of the military aircraft guys.
DEC also sold raw chips, the T-11 and J-11 being notable.
Most of the volume production of chips was by AMD and Harris to DEC spec.
Also CTbus (pro350/380), UNIBUS 11/24, 11/74, 11/84 are two more examples
of DEC PDP-11 buses used for micros.
<Intersil made the IM6100, a microprocessor version of the 12-bit PDP-8,
<but I don't recall if a bus was ever associated with it. Data General
Omnibus was the real PDP-8(E,F,M,A series) and intersil had a bus that
was also used by harris. The 6120 was supplanted by the faster 6120
that had the EMA integrated into it. The DECMATE-II/III used the 6120.
Harris was the second source. However they out produced intersil on the
raw parts.
DECs first 32bit micro that was complete on one chip was the 78032 (aka
microvax-II). It is still a popular cpu for those that like a good
performing system that runs as DEC would advertize 24x7x365. The ones I
have did and still do exactly that save for power failures.
<had a bus for the NOVA minis and I believe Fairchild made a micro
<version based on the 9440 microprocessor (NOVA instruction set). Texas
Microflame. It was supposed to be a faster version of the micronova. I
have specs in my collection.
TI had no less than many different busses depending on model and the group
that originated the system.
Allison
There's an interesting one. I only have two floppy drives. Where
would the hard drive go? There's an extra ribbon plug on the MB,
same as for the display and keyboard, what's that for?
>
>I'd like the hard drive if it still works.
>
>James L. Rice
>
>Max Eskin wrote:
>>
>> I got a Data General One laptop that someone was using as a wheel-
>> chock at a flea market. It has a smashed LCD, and won't start.
>> Now,
>> a)Does anyone have an extra LCD that would work?
>> b)What type of power does it use?
>> c)Does anyone want any parts? It's in good physical condition.
>>
>> ______________________________________________________
>> Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
>
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I don't have much room, but thankfully, manuals are pretty rare.
But I think I wouldn't be able to tolerate having hundreds of manuals
for incredible machinery and never even seeing the machine.
>I grab any/all manuals (and data books, general computing books) that
are
>being thrown out, of course. I also buy just about any I see in
>second-hand bookshops.
>
>But I also buy a lot new. The IBM Techrefs, for example. I've probably
>spent more on manuals than on hardware over the years. Having complete
>and accurate documentation is very important.
>
The boston public library probably has more books on writing
computer manuals than any other single thing about computers.
>
>Hmm.. I'd rather have a schematic and a ROM listing with a brief
>description, however badly written to a lot of English prose that tells
>me nothing. Alas a lot of manuals and books are in the latter category.
>
>
>> Possibly the rare good ones become Sci-Fi writers :^)
So that's why the stories never make sense and have tiny chapters :)
>> ciao larry
>> lwalker(a)interlog.com
>>
>
>-tony
>
>
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Thanks to everyone that responded about archiving documents. I printed
out all the replies and I'm in the process of experimenting.
IT'S ALIVE
About two months ago I picked up a package deal that included an H-8
computer, H-17 dual (hard sector) floppy drive unit, a couple of boxes
of 5 1/4 diskettes (HDOS), a 4K Altair Basic paper tape and manual, and
a H-10 paper tape reader/punch with all the manuals. I had the boxes sent
to work so as soon as I unpacked everything I connected the H-8 up. I used
my Pentium as the terminal and the H-8 fired right up into HDOS.
Anyway...
The H-10 had been nonfunctioning for years because the owner had
arc tested the electronics board with a screwdriver. Last week I took
a break from scanning manuals to take the H-10 apart on the kitchen
table. It turned out to be 2 1N4002 diodes in the 5 volt supply that had
both shorted. It works. Now I just have to order some new paper tape.
It came with 3 rolls but the tape is so old that it breaks when an entire
row of holes are punched and the sprocket keeps ripping the sprocket
holes even with no tension on the tape.
I'll try to get some pictures of the insides to put up. It's beautiful. Nine
large solenoids connect to the punch head by rods about 6-7 inches long.
The read head uses a lamp that looks like an automobile tail lamp.
The cool part is that the H-10 can copy tapes stand-alone (without being
connected to the computer).
Well, I'm excited.
By the way.
Question:
If I made the claim on my ELF page that the 32 byte prom based monitor
on the SUPER ELF was the "smallest manufacturer installed firmware
operating system for a digital microcomputer" would anyone here
disagree? (I'm trying to add more infomation to this page of my museum)
Later
=========================================
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
=========================================
