That's exactly right. An obscure (by today's standards for sure, but
<don't know about back then...the references in the trade literature of th
<era are scarce) company that made S-100 boxes in the '75-'77(?) timeframe
<The one I have is very small, measuring about 12" wide x 5" high by 18"
<deep. It has a small, 4-slot backplane and a power supply, with not muc
<room left over internally for much else.
Nice boxen, then had others in the line. The small 4-5slot was used for
the POLY-88 a real small s100 system. I wouldn't mind finding a 4-5 slot
box as I could put a fully complete system in that (z80, 64kram, FDC,
4port serial).
Allison
<I am interested in purchasing the North Star Horizon. I am not local
<and don't have a trade so would be a cash deal.
<
<Do you have any info about the machine such as amount of memory, type of
<floppy(ies), last known operating system, hard drive (if any), keyboard,
<monitor, and condition (working/nonworking).
Why?
It interests me why some one wants a particular machine especially since
you do not seem to know much about it.
FYI:
NS* were setup with 16-62k of ram. There were three common OSs run on
them NS*dos(nothing like PC dos), CP/M-80, there was also UCSD pascal
P-system. I believe NS*dos reached at least V5.4. They didn't not use
a monitor or keyboard as a terminal was commonly used.
Allison
<> parallel port. In the 78-81 time frame, most video cards were 64char
<
<Probably 64*16 (exactly 1K characters). Easy to design and not wasteful
<of RAM.
Exactly aslo 64x16 was considered reasonable for TV via video modulator.
<I've got some CCS bits here - Z80 CPU card, disk controller, CP/M master
<disk and one of the boxes. It's about the smallest full S100 box I've
<ever seen.
Yep! I ahve two complete systems one has a Discus(morrow/thinkertoys)
8" 10mb(memorex 101) hard disk. Both are operational, have full docs for
them.
<CASU was a not-too-bad UK S100 manufacturer. The machines were certainly
<stable. But they didn't design all their own cards - standard
<configuration was a Cromemco Z-PU processor board and a Micromation
<Doubler disk controller I think. Oh, with those wonderful
<linear-positioner Persci drivers...
Well the persci drives were uh, uhm interesting but the S100 boards are
considered quite good.
Allison
This is semi-OT, but computers had these too (PDP-11 panel?)
These are composed of a sheet of rubber with buttons stamped into
it. On the other side of the sheet are black pieces of metal. After
a while, these keypads start to wear out, and require more pressure
or multiple tries. How can I fix this?
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Well, certainly the find of the day was the IBM 5100 manuals. I found
them in a crusty used book store in a last-class indoor flea market,
buried amongst old binders.
I got the "APL Introduction" and "APL Reference Manual" and the "BASIC
Introduction" and "BASIC Reference Manual". The BASIC portion is a
photocopy of the original but the APL set is the original. By the way,
there's a reason why you don't see Microsoft Visual APL these days. What
a messed up language!
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ever onward.
September 26 & 27...Vintage Computer Festival 2
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
[Last web page update: 05/11/98]
You should be able to find compatible pens at any drafting supply house
that deals in plotter supplies. There are a couple of mail-order ones as
well -- try looking in the ads in Cadence or Cadalyst magazines.
You should be able to use almost any CAD package -- just contact the
tech folks for the package as to which drivers to use if they don't
specify the 7475.
Paul Braun
NerdWare
"Max Eskin" <maxeskin(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
> Uh-huh. It's time to move out of my apartment. Is the HP 3000 any
> good (in terms of how interesting it is)?
Well, that depends how you define interesting. If you are thinking of
the purported Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times", then
I'd have to say no, they just work and don't try to be interesting at
all. That's why I like 'em.
On the other hand, they run an operating system called MPE that is
interesting in that it's pretty much its own thing, so if you're
thinking of the OS world in terms of "Windows" vs. "Unix" vs. "old
stuff that isn't relevant any more" then this will expand your mind
and maybe introduce you to interesting things like files that aren't
just streams of bytes and pseudo-half-duplexish terminal I/O that is
oriented toward transferring blocks of characters, not just one at a
time.
I looked at the URL that Greg Troutman posted. The description is
about as clear as mud and somewhat less useful, but it does make clear
that what is offered is a fairly large system. It's hard to say what
an HP3000 is beyond "a minicomputer that runs MPE" because there are
several different architectures (two major instruction-set flavors
with several different hardware and I/O schemes) that could be inside
the box. The series number is how you tell them apart; series >= 900
is PA-RISC and <= 70 (or with the name "Micro <mumble>" in place of a
series) is the "classic" 16-bit stack-architecture.
At a guess the system is a late-model "classic" (probably a Series
64/68/70), or an early-model PA-RISC (like a Series 950). If it is
still supported by HP, HP is probably real close to dropping hardware
maintenance on it.
Oh yeah, that some of the classics are called "Micro" is a hint:
they're smaller, lighter, and their Thirst for Power may be satisfied
with residential electrical service.
-Frank McConnell "I want my MPE" (w/apologies to Dire Straits)
Sam Ismail <dastar(a)wco.com> wrote:
> I just picked up an HP 7475A Plotter ($5) and want to get it working.
> Anyone know where I can get a set of pens for it? Also, what software can
> use this thing? It has an RS-232 port.
Hmm, looks like HP discontinued all the pens and stuff in late 1995.
They now suggest calling some other vendors who I guess may still make
the pens. See
http://www.hp.com/cposupport/plotters/support_doc/bpp01965.html for
names and numbers.
Or just go to http://www.hp.com, click on the "search" link,
type in "plotter pens" and click the <mumble> button. That will
get you to a bunch of documents of varying usefulness including
the above.
Sometimes you can turn up new-old-stock fiber-tip pens in the usual
places (swap meet, with other old computer stuff, &c). NOS in this
case means still sealed in a foil bag that has a "use by" date. I've
no idea how well the pens keep past that date, but those are the sorts
of things we used to use with the plotters in an office environment.
What might be better at this point in time is to look for refillable
drafting pens. I don't know, I've never tried to use those.
As for software, the FAQ says that there are Win3.1 and Win95 printer
drivers for these things! Imagine that...no, actually, I think I'd
rather not. What the plotter really wants to see is called HP-GL;
it's pretty much a command language with pen-motion primitives for
drawing lines and text. I can't remember how much you could get it to
do w/r/t shapes and filling or whether you had to do that on the
computer side and turn it into an HP-GL sequence for the plotter.
Check your ObClassic Graphics Package to see if it can spit out HP-GL.
-Frank McConnell
I just picked up an HP 7475A Plotter ($5) and want to get it working.
Anyone know where I can get a set of pens for it? Also, what software can
use this thing? It has an RS-232 port.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ever onward.
September 26 & 27...Vintage Computer Festival 2
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
[Last web page update: 05/11/98]
All,
Got something I can't use and hope one of you can. Available for
cost of shipping (or free for pickup in San Antonio, Texas).
1 ea. Vertical floor pedestal case for Dec Rainbow.
Encloses the Rainbow system unit and holds it vertical so it's a
tower configuration. Has nice vents top and bottom and exits top and bottom
for power and monitor/keyboard cables.
Won't work with *my* Rainbow. Causes the computer to hang, crash,
or otherwise fail either on installation or a few minutes later. My
motherboard is pretty loaded up with daughtercards and I'll bet one of them
is vibrating or jarring loose in the vertical orientation. I decided I can
live with a desktop Rainbow as opposed to a floor tower.
One other quirk, the cooling air flows *down* in this setup. The
fan has to fight gravity to cool the system. On the other hand, at least it
doesn't suck dirt off the floor into the system's innards.
Anyone interested, contact me at mtapley(a)swri.edu
- Mark
