I was wondering if anyone else collects IBM Manuals.
Since the early IBM XT's I have always been impressed
with the excellent manuals that IBM produced for their
personal computer series computers, and presently have about
20 manuals in my collection..
I have many of these manuals in my family room bookcase
on display..
Excellent Binders in a standard Boxed/Sleeve cover..
Always looking for a DOS's that I don't already have..
I currently have in my collection.
DOS's 2.00, 2.02, 2.10, 3.00, 3.20, 3.30 and 4.00 ..
And even the IBM 3270 Emulator software..
In the early 1980's seem's everyone started making their
manuals in the IBM format binders with Boxed Sleeves..
I also have a nice set of 4 manuals for the Packard Bell XT,
looks like an IBM manual clone and very nicely done..
Most manuals after this era were just cheap paper bound..
Seems any manuals are just history now, with the advent of the
CDROM...
Phil..
Hi all,
Frustration! I just got around to trying to install the OS tapes for my
HP3K...and the drive doesn't want to load anymore. I had originally tested
it after assembling the HP-IB interface boards with a blank tape, and it
loaded and found BOT just fine. Now that I finally get the OS tapes, it's
stopped working...
It's an HP 7974 with the hp-ib interface. I string the tape and push load,
the tension arms engage, it spins, then the lcd reads "*F5" (or "*FS" -
it's an lcd...) and eventually returns to "OK". But of course the tape's
not loaded, and I have to manually push reset to get it to attempt loading
again. Anyone have any ideas?
The Big Question: Does anyone have any docs/printsets for this machine?
I'd like to know more about the self-diagnostic functions and dip switch
settings on the controller board.
Cheers,
Aaron
It's crazy. I can't believe what they are paying on EBay for less than
*incomplete* systems. I could see $1400 with drives, running, tested,
manuals, etc... but a shell??????
-----Original Message-----
From: Chuck McManis <cmcmanis(a)mcmanis.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Tuesday, October 12, 1999 11:30 PM
Subject: Re: pdp8/f
>At 10:50 PM 10/12/99 -0400, it was written wrote:
>>That 8/e chasis went for $1300 this morning!
>
>Youch! Better go hide mine. I sit corrected. Maybe the 8/f is worth what
>they want for it in ebay dollars.
>--Chuck
>
>
>
In a message dated 10/13/99 11:05:47 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
mcquiggi(a)sfu.ca writes:
> There's one in Paul Pierce's collection in Portland Oregon.
> No, he won't part with it, I've already asked!!
>
I learned Fortran on that very machine in Paul Pierce's collection. When
Clatsop Community College surplused it out in 1989 (after having it nearly 20
years) he outbid me in the sealed bid sale.
It is going to be hard to find a 1130. You might try remote, poor community
colleges. It was really designed as an engineering machine and pushed into
business applications.
Good luck.
Paxton
At 00:05 14-10-1999 -0700, you wrote:
>One thing, the drive never really seems to *look* for the BOT marker. I
>mean, pressing load causes the drive to immediately rewind a good 8"-1' of
>tape and then stops there. Nothing else.
Odd...
Without being there, my next guess would be to unseat/reseat all the
connectors, including circuit boards in edge connectors, and to press down
on all chips that are not in high-rel (machined pin or 'Augat' style)
sockets. I had odd problems with a Kennedy drive once that mysteriously
vanished after I did that.
>One thing I was wondering about is the small prism located on the media
>side just above the BOT/EOT sensors...what's it's function? There doesn't
>appear to be anything to it besides a small prism fixed into a metal
>block.
That may not be a prism. As I recall, HP used some sort of mineral blade
as a tape cleaner. I'm thinking that's what you may be looking at.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Owner and head honcho, Blue Feather Technologies
http://www.bluefeathertech.com // E-mail: kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com
Amateur Radio: WD6EOS since Dec. '77
"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..."
I wrote:
> How is it possible that DD media could be of such
> poor quality that it can't (reliably?) do 96 TPI,
> while still being just fine at 48 TPI?
To which Allison replied:
] ???? Nonsense question, no context. I have no difficulty
] nor is there any reason to expect difficulty with 96tpi DD
] ops. I have expereinced using formerly formatted media of
] 96 or 48TPI that REQUIRED bulk erasure to be usable. I believe
] that intertrack noise due to differnt track widths are why.
] I regurally use PC360k, Vt180, RX50 and Visual1050 media and they
] are 48 TS, 48 SS, 96ss, 96ss/TS all running at DD data rates.
...much more, deleted...
Oh yeah, you can't read my mind. Guess I better include some
context.
I'm thinking of the 5.25" DS/DD floppy disks commonly used
in PC's and formatted to hold 360K at 48TPI. I was recently
discussing with someone whether or not they could be used as
RX50's, which as you know have 96 tracks per inch, with each
track having the same number of bits as in the PC 360K DS/DD
format. Both are supposed to be 300 Oerstedts. But I think
I remember hearing complaints that the not-so-high-quality
DS/DD 360K floppy disks would not work okay with the higher
number of tracks per inch. And I am sure I read something
about the importance of these diskettes being "well honed"
to be used as RX50's, with the assertion that not all 360K
DS/DD disks are. (But "well honed" was left undefined, and
I'd love to know what exactly was meant, as well as what
physical property of those not-so-high-quality diskettes
was causing them to fail.)
Now I'm not talking about writing more on any one track. It
might still be just exactly the same as the PC DS/DD format.
And coercivity doesn't come into the picture, because we are
talking about floppy drives that are made to work with 300
Oerstedt media, which those DS/DD disks are.
I'm also not thinking of taking a diskette written by one drive
and trying to read it in another. That can cause problems
because 48TPI tracks might be twice as wide as those written
in a 96TPI drive. Simple enough; no confusion.
The point I'm after is about the limitation on how many
tracks that disk can hold - does that limitation come from
something about the diskette itself, or is it a property
of the disk drive in which it is used? My thinking is that
the media can handle >3000 magnetic transitions (bits) per
inch, because it does that along each track. So that can't
be the limiting factor that prevents you from fitting 96
tracks into one inch. I'm not concerned with the drive in
which it is written; I only care about what the media could
hold if I had a precise enough disk drive.
Assuming that the magnetic granules in the oxide are not
systematically shaped in any odd way, (not generally longer
than they are wide, or wider than long), then the media
itself should in principle be able to handle 3000 tracks
per inch - just as many transitions moving outward from
center as moving along a track. If the diskette itself
was so crappy that it couldn't handle 96 magnetic
transitions radially, then it should have no hope of being
able to handle 3000/inch when writing a track, so it would
also have no hope of being usable in the PC 360K 48TPI format.
Conversely, if it could handle the 3000 transitions per inch
of the PC 360K DS/DD format, then the media itself is already
*much* better than necessary to handle 96TPI.
So the limitation is in the drive, and not the diskette;
and any old never-written (or properly bulk-erased)
"PC 360K" diskette should be perfectly happy as an RX50.
It just occurred to me that the recorded track must be
more or less like a UPC bar code - the width of the track
is very much greater than the length of a bit in the track;
maybe more than 200 times greater. So say the track was a
1 meter wide sidewalk, the bits would each be 1m wide, but
only 5mm long. So even a tiny twist in the read head would
gum it up real good - it should be much more sensitive to
this than to alignment. Move 1cm to the left, and you are
still 99% on the sidewalk - no problem. But twist just one
degree, and when your left side is at one bit, your right
side is three bits ahead or behind - big trouble. Well,
maybe the forces acting on the head are less likely to
twist it than to shift it.
Bill.
I forgot to mention that I also have a Dell docking bar for older Dell
notebooks that is a combination token ring adapter/scsi adapter. Model
number is TR-APR. If anyone is running a token ring network and needs a
docking bar...this is your lucky day. I've tested the SCSI adapter and it
works fine with an external CD drive. I don't have token ring set up
anywhere to test it, sorry.
If possible, I'd like whomever takes it to actually have a Dell laptop,
scsi peripherals, and ideally use it with a token ring network...not just
take it because it's such a bargain...
Cheers,
Aaron
At 22:32 13-10-1999 -0700, you wrote:
<snip>
>I tried removing the interface cable and no-go. I'm not sure if you
>remember, but when we dragged the beastie up to my house and tried to load
>a tape, it took a couple of tries before it worked...ideas?
Possibility: The emitter portion of the BOT/EOT sensor may have failed. I
don't recall what 'F5' on the display means, but I'm pretty sure it's an
error code.
I seem to recall that the sensor on that drive used an infrared LED. There
are two ways you can check if it's actually emitting (besides checking the
voltage across it, of course).
One is to look at it through almost any video camera/camcorder or digital
camera. Such units are sensitive to IR emissions, and will show such as a
bright white light in a monochrome viewfinder (I have no clue what it would
look like with a color viewfinder).
Second option is to pick up one of those little cards at Radio Shack that
glows when exposed to IR emissions. It's billed as being a tester for TV
remotes and such, but hey, IR is IR no matter how you look at it.
Just my $.02 worth. Hi, John. I'm doing digital basics this quarter, and I
think I've survived Boolean and Karnaugh Maps (whew!).
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Owner and head honcho, Blue Feather Technologies
http://www.bluefeathertech.com // E-mail: kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com
Amateur Radio: WD6EOS since Dec. '77
"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..."
Many schools used the IBM 1130 here in Ontario, Canada. I scrapped my IBM
1130 a few years ago as it was taking up too much room. :-(.
Most schools shared one unit.
The standard config in schools was:
IBM 1130
IBM card sorter (really old)
IBM manual card punch
2 automatic card punches (I think 8010s)
1 high speed L shaped card reader
1 band printer
about 40 disk packs
all original schematics and documentation
When I got mine in 1986 it still used light bulbs for the front panel.
Call the Public School Boards in Ontario and inquire about them. They may
still have docs kicking around and possibly there is one in storage
somewhere.
-----Original Message-----
From: Chuck McManis <cmcmanis(a)mcmanis.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Wednesday, October 13, 1999 12:28 PM
Subject: Re: Where and Where to get an IBM 1130
>At , Randy M.Kaplan wrote:
>>1. I have noticed in reading the list that individuals will come upon
>>various machines in various places that are being retired. I also recently
>>purchased a Sun IPC from ebay. When I went to pick it up, the fellow had a
>>yard full of stuff he had apparently scarfed up from various companies.
How
>>does one find out about these sources? Who do you contact?
>
>Well a couple of things, if you start collecting old computers many sources
>will find _you_. Unfortunately many of those sources will want you to take
>75 80386SX computers off their hands not IBM 1130s.
>
>Look up scrap metal recycling in your yellow pages. These guys are sort of
>the "sharks" of computer collecting, they devour things indiscriminately
>but you can be a "trigger fish" and teach them the value of some machines.
>A good relationship with a top tier scrapper is a really good thing to
have.
>
>The scrappers watch the new paper for liquidation bids. Places that are
>scrapping out entire buildings and such. Older and larger computers are
>sometimes found in these liquidations because the buildings are abandoned
>and the "big iron" in the machine room is just left there. (I "found" 1/2
>of a 370 that way once in a building that was for lease.)
>
>>2. I was wondering if anyone had any notion of where I might look for an
IBM
>>1130 or is this a totally ridiculous pursuit. When I started out, this was
>>the first machine I wrote Fortran programs for.
>
>The 1130 is not an easy machine to find. You will have several sources
>(ranked from most likely to least likely):
> 1) Another collector who can't afford the space any more
> and wants to keep the machine in the hands of a caretaker.
> 2) Some place that had to keep software for it running and
> kept one around as a "gold standard."
> 3) A scrapper who hasn't had the heart to crush it yet.
> 4) IBM (who might have one in a warehouse somewhere for
> some reason)
>
>Its certainly a worthwhile pursuit.
>
>--Chuck
>
>
Guys:
This is one of a very small number of SCSI bridge
controllers that can handle 24Mhz ESDI drives.
Does anyone have the docs for this? I need to know
at least what the DIP switches do; I've figured
out the addressing part, but I need to know if the
sectoring can be adjusted, if it needs hard or
soft sectoring, if the SCSI parity can be set, etc.
Any info would be seriously appreciated.
Jeff
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