test-drb June 1998

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

158 participants
941 discussions

by fmc＠reanimators.org

jon(a)techniche.com (Jon Healey) wrote: > I went back to the surplus store today and picked up > the old HP system that was there. This was not as simple > as it sounds. The system was wired into a 5 bay 19" rack > assemblage. It reads to me like what you got was the *processor*. And I have to wonder, why did you take it out? OK, I understand for transport but you also wrote that there was an expansion card frame (which might have more I/O cards) and other units in the rack. They may not be essential to operation of the processor but they probably do go together. Processors ain't everything ya know. > The item obtained is an "HP 2100S Microprogrammable Systems Computer". > It looks just like the 2100A shown at: www.trailingedge.com > > The card cage is fully populated but I haven't a clue at this > point with what, with the exception that I already know it does > have an async card (with associated moniter) and a GPIB > card (and cable). OK. If you take the top off, the cards in in the wider cage right behind the front panel are the CPU proper (in slots 1-7 I think, with options in 8 and 9 and maybe 10, though I may be off by one or two here -- it's been a while since I looked) and the I/O interfaces. The cards in the narrower cage about halfway back are memory (core) and drivers for same. The not-card-cage areas contain power supply and fans. There should be part numbers and legends on at least some of the card ears that give some clues what the cards are/do. Also the cards themselves will often have part numbers etched. Of course I don't have my books handy so can't post a handy decoder chart just now (and doubt it would be complete even if I did). Feel free to post a list, then sit back and watch us guess what you've got. Given that this one says "Microprogrammable" on the front panel I wonder if it has the WCS (Writable Control Store) option. All that said...the 2100 is a second-generation HP mini from 1972, the follow-on to the 2116/2115/2114 and predecessor to the 21MX that came later in the 1970s. These processors formed the basis of the HP2000 time-shared BASIC and HP1000 real-time computer lines, as well as many other special-purpose computer systems that HP developed and sold. Overall they are a 16-bit two-accumulator architecture; the 2100 is part hard-wired part microcoded with room for growth in the microcode, while the earlier 2116/2115/2114 were purely hard-wired processors. > Anyone interested in trading something for this beast? > > The biggest problem I see is that this thing weights > about 100 lbs. It would be expensive to ship. I'm interested but am thinking that you're in New Hampshire and I'm in California. Shipping is possible but you're right, you can't just toss this in a cardboard box with some peanuts or bubblewrap, so if someone closer by says the magic words ("I'll come pick it up") or you decide you want to keep it I'd say go for it. Besides, I'd want you to go back for the rest of it. Foo, I want you to go back for the rest of it *anyway*. -Frank McConnell

26 years, 1 month

Couldn't be more OT if it tried! Re: (OT, in a way...)

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

In a message dated 98-06-17 22:37:02 EDT, you write: << I have a model 80 with built in SCSI that won't survive the next trash pick up! My neighbor just pitched his model 70. I didn't bother to take it out of the trash! I have a LOT of PCs that are a lot older than any PS-2 ever made! Altair -1976, IBM 5100 - 1977, HP 9100 - 1968, lots of HP 9815s, HP 9825s and HP 85s from the '70s. You left out the idiotic micro-channel bus! Joe >> well, so you dont like mca. that's fine, but the 8580 didnt come with scsi built in. the hard drive in it was ESDI. the premium series had built in scsi on the planar. let me correct myself in saying that my model 77 will certainly outlast any IBM-PC compatible machine of its era. please note that i am comparing MCA to ISA here. im not disparaging any other type. david

26 years, 1 month

Old Mac OS.... Help PLS!

by yaksaken＠hkstar.com

Hi there... > Actually you can get copies of 6.0.x and 7.0.x from one of their FTP sites > ftp://ftp5.info.apple.com/Apple.Support.Area/Apple_SW_Updates/US/Macintosh/S yste > m/Older_System/ > > Of course you need a functional Mac to make the floppies. If you have both > hard drives, simply make sure the SCSI ID's are set to different numbers, > and either leave both in the machine, or copy the 40Mb drive to the larger > one. Another more expensive alternative would be to get a external CD-ROM > and a copy of MacOS on CD. Umm.... If there has any method to build up the Mac Discs on a PC?? Yours, Ken Yaksa

26 years, 1 month

Quarter classics (was: Big Iron Was:RE: Backwate

by franke＠sbs.de

>> >>Hard, I own 2 Robotron PCs (one Z80 CP/M system and one PC Clone), >>but since I live in Muenchen (:), I'm not in the 'native Environment' > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >>of Robotron clasics. But maybe I could forward your questuons to some >>east German friends. > Well, Hans, I *thought* you had to be Bavarian (Bayerische)!! Either that > or perhaps Austrian because of your signoff ("Servus"). You're the first US citicen to recognize this :) > Will be over again in one year or more. Great - give me a call (or a mail :) and I'll show yo usome of my babys. > Great to have you on the list as I've not seen > postings of yours since the time I had joined last November until recently > I think. I just joined two weeks ago after Sam Ismail pointed me to the list (we had some discusion about VCF - I will come to see it - and other strange things). > Good to have a person in our group who is nearby to the Deutches > Museum who seems to have a very good early computer collection (saw it in > 1994 or 95. Been there four times since '93). You just searched a phon directory ? Didn't you ? Or who told you that I live near the Deutsches Museum ? True, my apartment is just 100m from the (back) entrance. Their _very_ early collection - up to the Zuse - ist quite good, but anything later is crap - or at least the display is crap - I left the museum society because of the computer displays. I'm especialy upset because they have _real_ unique things to show in a _unique_ way, but they just build some junk place. Ok, I have to be fair - the dispaly is quite amazing, but in my opinion they ignored a lot of one-of-a-kind chances just to finish it for the grand opening. Example: they recived a _complete_ SIEMENS 2002, the first fuly transistorized copmuter. Not only the main boxes - they got _everything_ needed to show the machine complete, including _all_ manuals, even spare parts. I think it would have been possible to rebuild this marvelous machine and power it up (ok, once) to show it. Maybe it is still possible, but it has to be done soon - right now several of the old tecnicans are still alive, but in ten years from now noone will be here to tell the story. Oh, next time when you visit the Deutsches Museum, take a look at the Operator desk of the 2002 - you'll find a burned spot, done by a cigarette. I know the guilty one - a friend of mine, now retired, did it while they tried to find a power up problem at the main drum - he acidently left his cigaret at te desk and got so involved that he forgot it - BIG trouble. > Wish I knew enough German to > actually speak it but Bayerische is even harder to understand ;) Amazing - I always had problems the other way. > Gruss! Bis spaeter, Chris Jo bis nacha. Servus Hans -- Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut HRK

26 years, 1 month

Need help with Mac Classic

by mbg＠world.std.com

Thanks VERY much, Bill... I am interested... Megan

26 years, 1 month

What is the first computer?

by franke＠sbs.de

>>I never heard of it, but maybe he thought about some >>machine in his time as Imperial Mathematician in Prag >>(1601..1612 - nice history on >>http://www.kepler.arc.nasa.gov/johannes.html >>) - but afaik the idea of calculating machines >>did recive more attention (althrough more seen >>as scince fiction) after the invention of the >>Taschenuhr by Peter Heinlein (15something). > I've never heard of the Taschenuhr. Can anyone tell me more or direct me to > a source of information? Taschenuhr -> fob watch. Peter Heinlein did the first clock small enough to fit in a pocket. It had the size of a big egg. I don't remember the exactr year, but I think it was in the first half of the 16th century. There are a lot of legendary stories around this device - inclundig the one that his whife had destroyed the first one, since she belived that this thing, going tick-tack must be devils work (remember 16th and 17th century was a or better _the_ high time of witch hunting and dark religous belives - Kepler for example had to defend is mother somewhen in the 1620s agains a triel of witchhood). So she destroyed his masterpice, and he let himself imprisson for the next few month in the city prison, to build a new one without beeing disturbed :) Building small time devices had an impact to trade like calculating machines in the early days of this century. Starting from coach clocks for merchants who lead their 'empire' from their coaches, until fob watches. in the 15th/16th century coach clock was an enormous expensive device - even compared th the expensiv travling coaces, a coach clock could cost up to 5 times the coach ! (Like wehn I put a new Server in my old car :) Servus Hans -- Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut HRK

26 years, 1 month

Website status?

by cfandt＠servtech.com

Hey gang! Several times during the past week or ten days I've tried to connect to the ClassicCmp website http://haliotis.bothell.washington.edu/classiccmp but never seemed to be up. Always got a message after Netscape timed out suggesting the web server is either down or not responding. Anybody know what's happening? Thanks, --Chris -- -- Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian Jamestown, NY USA Member of Antique Wireless Association URL: http://www.ggw.org/freenet/a/awa/

26 years, 1 month

Location, location, location! was Re: More stuff acquired

by jon＠techniche.com

I think the attached was directed at me.....and deservingly so. The HP 2100S is at my offices in Manchester, NH. We're right across the street from the airport. You could just fly in pick it up, carry it on (yea sure) and be gone in a flash. Jon >At 02:24 PM 6/19/98 -0400, you wrote: > > Everything except where it is! > >

26 years, 1 month

What is the first computer?

by Philip.Belben＠powertech.co.uk

>> Ooh! Not so fast! Is it straight, helical, worm or hypoid? Or an >> eliptical gear even? But yes, a gear is easy to rconstruct from its >> wreckage. > > Well, obviously one replaces with the correct type of gear! > >> Some cams and levers, though, have quite tight tolerance >> spikes and notches which it is quite difficult to get right from seeing >> the bent/broken ones. > > Impossible, sometimes. What if a special "hump" on a cam is so worn down > that one cannot reconstruct its shape? Some of the correct "shape" could > exist as aluminum powder. That's what I meant. Tony was saying - and rightly so - that while you can often see what a failed mechanical part was meant to be like by studying the failed component, and can then cut a new gear (the assumption was the gear isn't a standard part) / lever / cam or whatever, you can't possibly tell what a dead chip was meant to do just by looking at it. Likewise you can't tell what the value of that charred resistor used to be... I merely pointed out that with some tight tolerance cams and levers, you have a similar problem - you can't tell by looking. "Difficult" in my line above was a euphemism for "no hope" >> Bearing in mind Tony's, Sam's and others' comments on intermittent >> faults and the like, yes, up to a point. Video is not the only >> exception, though - other things (e.g. disk drives) can suffer >> similarly. > > No, not disk drives. Sure, some analog circuitry in a drive might go sour, > but those faults would result in bad data. With a working drive, you want > correct data, and if you do not get it, something is wrong. There is no > tolerance. With an analog system, you have to expect that the output data > will not be perfect. For example (also a magnetic recording medium), > playing back a signal will never be the same as what was recorded, due to > noise and distortion. True, every word. But if you draw the distinction there - digital vs. analogue circuitry - the comment to which I was replying deserves your reply as well. The previous poster (wasn't you, William, was it?) drew the distinction at a higher level, and said something like "a digital _machine_ either works or it doesn't. Apart from video, the results are either right or wrong. With analogue/mechanical, things can be slightly out but the machine will go on working" Video is another analogue subsystem in a digital machine, just like a disk drive, and all that that implies... BTW, video may not make the change from digital to analogue until actually in the monitor, but the same applies - that which you see on the display is (at the digital level) either right or wrong. It is only when you get to the analogue bit that it is merely fuzzy. Philip.

26 years, 1 month

FS: (cheep!) HP Controller 362

by higginbo＠netpath.net

I've got this Hewlett Packard Controller 362 and have no need for it. Anyone want it for the price of $5+shipping? It's about the size of a "pizza box" workstation, heck, I think it is a workstation. Boots up to something unix-like, has built-in VGA, 2mb memory, and a slot on the front for a 3.5" 1.44mb floppy drive, which I needed to scavenge for another machine. It weighs about 15 lbs. and I live in North Carolina, so shipping might be between $10-$15 depending on where you live. Features: HP-IB Keyboard connector, RJ-45? RS-232 Parallel HP-IB 98624A Card installed in the back, apart from the built-in HP-IB. Powe button on the front. I couldn't test it out too thoroughly, I did have a monitor to boot it up with, but no keyboard. Oh, and there's no HD inside the unit. I guess it takes an external HP-IB drive. If anyone wants it, first private response gets it. - - john higginbotham ____________________________ - webmaster www.pntprinting.com - - limbo limbo.netpath.net -

26 years, 1 month

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test-drb June 1998