Ha! Got my first "official" rescue coming up on the 18th. One of the local
colleges (by 'local' I mean Washington state) is disposing of their old
PDP-11/44 and all its peripherals.
Here's the bad news. I don't have the space or the hauling capability to
save the entire system. I'm taking the Fujitsu 'Eagle' they've got, its
Unibus controller (an Emulex SC31 I'm told) plus some RSTS distribution
tapes and a tape drive and -possibly- a rack.
Last call: Is there anyone else in or near WA who would like to help save
the rest of the system? If not, most of it will end up with the scrappers.
Please get in touch with me directly as I will need to get my contact's OK
(he's just expecting me at the moment).
Thanks!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Sysop, The Dragon's Cave BBS (Fidonet 1:343/272)
(Hamateur: WD6EOS) (E-mail: kyrrin(a)jps.net)
"Our science can only describe an object, event, or living thing in our own
human terms. It cannot, in any way, define any of them..."
Hello all...
A couple of weeks ago, I put out an e-mail to the List that mentioned that
a friend had given a DEC PDP-11/70 (or so he thought) to me that had been
'hardened' by Schlumberger for use in the oil patch. The machine supposedly
works and weighs close to 200 lbs. The oldest board claims, I think, to
have been built in late 1978.
I know practically nothing about the PDP series and so don't have the
foggiest as to what I really have.
Finally, over the weekend, I was able to open the box (1/4" armored steel
ugly thing) and take a look at the boards -- there are a total of ten as
follows: (Keep in mind that I don't know what typical DEC parts numbers
look like -- I think that a lot of the numbers that I wrote down are
actually production lots etc):
(1): Obviously a CPU board -- AH13Z-06. Also claims DEC P/N 1216988. Has a
15MHz crystal and is 15.5x8" in size. It has edge connectors (as do all of
the boards).
(2): 'Bootstrap Terminator' - DEC-81. 5013263C-P2. 8x5".
(3): 'Flip Chip" 5008691 PCC-1Vo. 2.5x2". This is some sort of jumper board.
(4): 4MB(?) DRAM. DEC P/N 1216988 (notice that this is the same p/n as the
CPU board -- that is, I suppose?, the system part number), A88D30824
RA1-RA3: RM8-3.3Kx3 (probably a component label for a resistor pack but not
sure); C:TD104/5DX92 AH12Z-12. 15.5x8".
(5-9): H-236341 EXT BRD 10.5x8". These appear to be extendor boards that
bring +15VDC and a few timing signals out to the edge of the cage -- why
there are five, I cannot imagine...
(10): "FLIP CHIP". FEB 78 SCO/R1L OPTION M7856 H236602 -01048. 10.5x8"
This appears(?) to be possibly an I/O controller board of some sort...
Does anyone have any idea of what these things came out of?
They are free to a good home -- preferably someone that can actually use
them and put them back to work (can you imagine how boring it would be to
madly process seismographic data for 20-years -- I bet they would like to
try something different for a change) (postage + packing costs).
Regards
Jack Harper (Friend to all things Symbolics)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Jack Harper Bank Systems 2000, Inc.
303-277-1892 Golden, Colorado USA
"21st Century Financial Applications"
Optical Cards for Bank, EBT, and Medical Applications
Visit our Web Page: http://www.bs2000.com/talos (Last Update: 970902)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Go to:
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=10391784
to get in on the bidding for a 128k TRS-80 Model 4 computer.
CORD
--
___________________________________________________
| Cord G. Coslor : archive(a)navix.net |\
| Deanna S. Wynn : deannasue(a)navix.net | |
|---------------------------------------------------| |
| http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Vista/4395 | |
|---------------------------------------------------| |
| PO Box 308 - Peru, NE - 68421 - (402) 872- 3272 | |
|___________________________________________________| |
\____________________________________________________\|
Saw a post on Usenet answering someone's request for info on a Toshiba
T3100 with the comment that the user manuals are all online. Went to
<http://www.toshiba.com/>, did a search on "t3200 manual" and sure
enough, found this page:
http://www.csd.toshiba.com/tais/csd/support/files/manuals.htm
which has manuals for their laptops going bat to the T1000LE. I'll be
busy downloading tonight...
--------------------------------------------------------------------- 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/
Sent to massyr(a)washpost.com copied to classiccomp:
My cut on a nook in computer history. It's mine as I was only of
those nutty kids hacking a pdp-8 in highschool in 1969 wondering about
31 years lateer and how that would not fit into a 12 bit word used to
express date.
<i'm working on a piece here at the Washington Post about the Year
<2000 bug, and
<although there is plenty of info about what it is and how to combat
<it, there is very little
<history available.
<specifically, i'm trying to find out 1) who were the co-authors of
<the COBOL language
<along with Grace Murray Hopper,
Since she was military (LT at the time if memory serves) her fellows would
be military members as well. That may help you.
2) who decided to use two digits for the year instead of four,
Rather than answer that question directly as I cannot I'll supply resoning
instead. Computers over the years have come down in price, up in speed
and increased greatly in storage and memory. Those last two items are
significant to the discussion.
Starting in the early 50s a computer with 4000 words of memory and sorage
of say several hundred thousand words of data were large and scarce. The
technology for making memory and bulk storage were new. This would remian
true for many years, through the 60s. Because of the cost for even a few
bits of storage it was resonable to not store obvious data like the first
two digits of the date, after all tht was known and the lifetime of the
mache was like five years at best. So programming languages like Cobol
and more importantly the operating systems that managed the machine would
only keep the minimum amount of storage for the variable part of the date
(month, day, year). Memory was a premium for many machines and costly way
waste it on storing things that are assumed.
This habit persisted will into the '80s as while memories got larger and
machines smaller many would be expected to run the same or related
programs from their older parents. the scene is now set. Another thing
was the emergence of standard programming languages where certain aspect
of the language were expected to behave the same on sometimes radically
different machines.
The rest is history as many programming languages like cobol were expected
to be dead. However conservitive users like banking, government insisted
on tried and proven programming tools and languages thus propagating abd
prolonging the life of these burdend items. The burden was they had to
behave like their ancestors right down to little things like the date!
3) who discovered the Y2K problem?
It wasn't "discovered" nor was it a new problem. Some manchines and
operating systems had the equivelent of the Y2k problem several times
over and well before the year 2000. The example I know best is the
Digital Equipment Corp PDP-8, in teh mid to late 60s this machine was
introduced with the following attributes, small, low cost. It would
persist well in to the 1980's in various smaller and more compact forms.
The significance of the machine was it's the first "minicomputer" to be
sold in volume. In it's time thousands was big volumes. Now, it was
also a small machine in memory. The designeers for one of the popular
operating systems for it (known as OS/8) knowing that memory was a
precious commodity used the minimum needed to implment time and date.
The year portion was accorded a platry three bits meaning it could only
count from 0 through 7. Since this was introduced in roughly 1969 their
Y2k problem would occur every 7 years!. This was not the only machine or
company, just an example.
I know I was asking some of my friends what was going to happen as far
back as in the late 60' and early 70s when as high schools and college
students we were asking what happens if this machine should still be
running in the year 2000? Some of us considered that unlikely as the
pace for new machines at the time suggested it's life was maybe five
years and that pace was accelerating. Was was missed was the persistance
of some applications programming languages. While the PDP-8 has been out
of production for over 15 years many are still in use. While Cobol has
dropped as a mainstream language for over 10 years the problems that
are now tried and proven persist. This is true for several other
languages and some operating systems as well.
So no, the year 2000 problem wasn't discovered, save maybe for the media
person to finally put into print what every programmer and systems person
already knew. "We didn't use enough bits and were running out".
Allison
In IBM's description of the PS/2 Model 70, the said that it ran
DOS 3.3 and higher, OS/2 1.0x and higher, and AIX PS/2. Does anyone
have possession/experience with the last item? I guess it's a form
of UNIX.
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
got a card labeled SUPERTALKER II by mountain computer. i've heard of the
company, but not of the card. seems to be speech synthesis or similar. web
search on the company and the card brought up nothing. anyone have more info?
david
It occurs to me that, whilst we have heard several opinions about what to do
with old data, these posts are being achived! If someone who is thinking of
disposing of a machine sees that some on the list appear to have less
respect (IMHO) for the confidentiality of old data than others might this
not put them off giving a machine away.
FWIW I believe that we should make it clear on all 'collection associated'
web sites that any old data, whatever its nature, will be treated in the
strictest of confidence.
Regards
Pete
(Dons asbestos suit and runs for cover ;-)
Sounds like it is meant to go with early multisync monitors like NEC
Multisync I and II which have a 9 pin socket so in reality it is probably
just an EGA card.
-----Original Message-----
From: Aaron Christopher Finney <aaron(a)wfi-inc.com>
The little bit I could find on the video card claims that it uses a
multisync monitor. It has the two rca jacks and a db-9; how do I wire an
adapter for db-9 to hd-15?
The budding started tonight for a TRS-80 Model 3 network computer which
has the serial # of 0000510!! Check out this URL to get in on it if you
wish:
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=10391298
Thanks,
CORD COSLOR
--
___________________________________________________
| Cord G. Coslor : archive(a)navix.net |\
| Deanna S. Wynn : deannasue(a)navix.net | |
|---------------------------------------------------| |
| http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Vista/4395 | |
|---------------------------------------------------| |
| PO Box 308 - Peru, NE - 68421 - (402) 872- 3272 | |
|___________________________________________________| |
\____________________________________________________\|
