Here's a repost of some of my stuff that is still available. Please help me
reclaim some space in the basement!
> Hi Group:
>
> Time for mid-summer cleaning. My logjam is getting far too big, and I need
> to get rid of a bunch of stuff.
>
> I am located in Vancouver, BC. Most of this stuff is large and/or heavy,
> and therefore I will insist on pickup, or at least reasonable delivery
> distance, say, within a couple of hundred miles.
>
> Some items/systems, such as the pdp-11/60, are at a friend's house, and
your
> only option in this case, is to pick up. I will not ship 600+ lbs of gear
> anywhere!
>
> Please contact me via email (mcquiggi(a)remove-spamblock.sfu.ca) if you're
> interested. I need to clear some space in the basement!
>
> Here's the list:
>
> 1. Motorola 6800 development system. EXORcisor system unit, EXORdisk,
> non-working SOROC dumb terminal. All manuals, some development boards,
> some wirewrap boards. Circa 1975, a neat machine for those into early-PC.
>
> 2. Terminal, Tektronix 4017A, 16 colors, keyboard with pre-mouse rocker
> pointer. All docs, working. Late 1970s, early 80s vintage.
>
> 3. Sun 3/60 system unit, ~150 MB HD and tape. Mono Sony monitor, keyboard,
> no mouse.
>
> 4. Two Gandalf LDS140 low speed point-to-point modems.
>
> 5. MicroVAX 3100 model 10, 100 MB HD.
>
> 6. Boxes and boxes of 5.25" DSDD floppies.
>
> 7. TK50 tape drives, several, working condition.
>
> 8. Two BA23 MicroVAX/LSI-11 cases, no machine, just the plastic shell that
> the machine fits into.
>
> 9. pdp-11/60 computer system, several terminals, printers, disk drives, many
> disk packs, tape drive (9 track 6250 bpi), software, documentation. Was
> working before being put into dry storage a couple of years ago. This is a
> _large_ system, main cabinet about the size of 2 full-size refrigerators,
> total lot probably 1000 lbs. You'll need a truck!
Kevin
---
Kevin McQuiggin VE7ZD
mcquiggi(a)sfu.ca
Hi all,
Apologies if this is old news to everyone, but the source code for the
original PDP C compiler has been posted by Dennis Ritchie, along with a
little history.
http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/~dmr/primevalC.html
Aaron
Figuring out the test points won't be a problem since they use a '3470,
which is also used in the Siemens drives. I doubt there's much difference
in the circuitry. Oddly enough, I have two of the Tandon drives and no
manuals, and none of the Shugart "half-height" drives and both of their
manuals.
What really troubles me is that after rejumpering the drives to match the
data kindly provided by Don Maslin, the two drives behave somewhat
differently, though they do now read one another's writing. What's more,
the jumpers on the drives, though the drives are the same, don't match Don's
data completely. There are jumpers not on the drives which are on the list,
and jumpers not on the list which are on the drives. Examined in detail,
the drives appear the same, though the boards are of different revision.
Perhaps the code in the on-board processor is different.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Saturday, July 31, 1999 12:38 PM
Subject: Re: floppy disk drive manuals
>>
>> Greetings!
>>
>> I have a couple of Tandon 8" slimline drives (They're in the basement and
>> I'm not so no model number.) They clearly can't read one another's
writing
>> consistently, so I'm interested in alignment data as well as the jumper
>> definitions. Would you have a manual which contains that information? I
>> need to know what the jumpers are and do, and what the factory default
>> settings are. I also need to know where the dif-amp outputs to be used
for
>> alignment are located, (pin numbers) as well as the index sensor pin and
>> other signals used in adjusting these drives for radial head alignment,
>> index alignment, track zero calibration, etc. If you have it and could
>> email me that data, it would help greatly.
>
>I know _I_ don't have that info, but that doesn't mean we can't make some
>sensible attempts to align them. I have the SA800 and SA850 manuals to
>hand, and I may have a couple of obscure 8" drive manuals somewhere.
>Nothing Tandon, though.
>
>You can always use the interface connector as a source of the Index
>signal. And of course to move the head around.
>
>So the only thing you're missing is the output of the read amplifier. If
>the read circuitry is in a custom chip you might be out of luck. But a
>lot of drives use 592 or 733 amplifier chips at the start of the read
>chain, whereupon you look at the outpus (7 and 8) of that chip with a
>'scope. If there's an MC3470 as the only chip in the read chain, look for
>testpoints in the filter network connected to pins 14,15,16,17.
>
>If it's a custom chip, look for 2 testpoints and ground (often, but not
>always TP1-TP3 in some order) connected to a symmetrical filter network
>hung off the chip, Look for read-type waveforms when reading a disk that
>was written in that drive.
>
>-tony
I had the impression that some of the Tektronix systems some of the guys
have on hand use 32-sector hard-secdtored diskettes and TEKDOS, hence, the
assumption (mine and apparently a weak one) that someone would have a system
which could read these.
Under no circumstances would I recommend trying to put together a
controller, as you've clearly stated the case against hard sectored formats.
It's too bad that people who might otherwise have maintained these things
have ditched them just because of the odd media, though. Because this is a
complete dead-end without some form of conversion, there'll be more of these
systems going to the landfill.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Don Maslin <donm(a)cts.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Saturday, July 31, 1999 12:48 PM
Subject: Re: 32 sector 8" floppies
>On Sat, 31 Jul 1999, Richard Erlacher wrote: Actually, I didn't. This
appears to be some of Don M's prose.
>
>It is a tough one, Dick. In dialogue with Chuck Guzis of Sydex some time
>back he observed that there have been so many individual version of hard
>sector formats that it would be quite difficult to make up a controller
>and software that could read many of them. Similarly, making one for each
>case as it came along would also be somewhat prohibitive.
>
>I think, obviously, that if one knew the details of the format the
>challenge would be made less.
> - don
>
>> Oddly enough, I've got nothing (controller) that will read hard sectored
>> diskettes. That's probably your reason as well. With all the other
fellows
>> out there who collect classic hardware, surely there's someone who could
>> read these and reduce the source files to a common distribution medium,
e.g.
>> MSDOS 1.44 MB floppies, for you.
>>
>> Dick
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Joe <rigdonj(a)intellistar.net>
>> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
>> <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
>> Date: Saturday, July 31, 1999 8:27 AM
>> Subject: Re: 32 sector 8" floppies
>>
>>
>> >At 08:41 AM 7/30/99 -0600, Richard wrote:
>> >>
>> >>SInce this stuff is source code, if you have the ability to read it
with
>> one
>> >>or another ancient system, it might be well to look at the source files
to
>> >>see what kind of FDC was supposed to be used.
>> >
>> > I don't have anything that will read them. I tried them on a
Compupro
>> >but it puked bits all over the place! If you want to give it a shot
I'll
>> >send them to you.
>> >
>> > Joe
>> >
>>
>>
>
>
Oddly enough, I've got nothing (controller) that will read hard sectored
diskettes. That's probably your reason as well. With all the other fellows
out there who collect classic hardware, surely there's someone who could
read these and reduce the source files to a common distribution medium, e.g.
MSDOS 1.44 MB floppies, for you.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Joe <rigdonj(a)intellistar.net>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Saturday, July 31, 1999 8:27 AM
Subject: Re: 32 sector 8" floppies
>At 08:41 AM 7/30/99 -0600, Richard wrote:
>>
>>SInce this stuff is source code, if you have the ability to read it with
one
>>or another ancient system, it might be well to look at the source files to
>>see what kind of FDC was supposed to be used.
>
> I don't have anything that will read them. I tried them on a Compupro
>but it puked bits all over the place! If you want to give it a shot I'll
>send them to you.
>
> Joe
>
<3.5" drives and (most) 5.25" drives use the same data rates. Now
<admittedly most 3.5" drives are used at double density, but I really
Wrong. The upper rate for 5.25 drive is 250kbit/S (DD) (1.2mb drives are
special case). The lower limit for 5.25 drives is 125kbits/S (SD). the
8" are 250 (SD) and 500Kbits/S (dd). 3.5" drives accoring to the sony doc
infront of me are 250kbits/S (DD) (720k) and 500kbit/S (1.44) (DD).
The 1771 only does the 250kbits/S rate for 8" SD and the 5.25 floppy
rate is 125kbits/S. I've tried the SD mode to 3.5" floppies and it's
sorta useable but when you figure it out you don't get much for the
effort and most of the 1771 based controllers do not deliver or check two
sided signals. I have two and they don't!
<can't see a good reason why you can't format a 3.5" disk single-density,
<using the same data rate as for 5.25" single density disks, which the
<1771 is quite capable of.
It's half the pulse rate the drive read elctronics are designed to
bandpass.
<The actual pulse rate at the floppy drive interface is not very different
<between single and double density operation. The single-density system
<'wastes' half the pulses on clock pulses. Double density is NOT simply
True but the peak shift is way different.
To get something useful you need to run the 1771 as if it was 8", then
use a format that put the right total number of bits on the media roughly
250kbytes a side. then you have an oddball format that noone wants to
read (PCs will have fits without a tweeked controller) and will be
questionable for the effort. Get a 1793 board and do it right and get
some real storage for the effort. The CCS or Compupro boards (others too)
are very nice and can be setup so the data rates are appropriate for 3.5"
but using the 5.25 connector for the 34pin connector.
Don't forget, the step rates for the 1771 class of controllers and drive
were also slower than 3MS (more like 12-40ms) so if you going to fix that,
the format and what else why not set up a real controller. Either that or
learn to fix 8" drives and use them as media is still plentyful. After all
I still keep an 8" SSSD format as that is the official CP/M standard.
<doubling the read or write clock rate and leaving everything else unchanged
Been there done that and have the NEC Tshirt for the 372 sd controller and
the 765 all mode. Don't go there. I know the parts and the industry for
the time frame very well and have plenty of examples and original docs
here to refer too! this is one area where the archive is unusually deep.
Allison
Here is someone with an old IBM PC and a Mac+ that needs to find a new
home. She is located in California. Please reply directly to the
original sender.
Reply-to: ccevans(a)telis.org
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 11:08:23 -0700
From: Carol Evans <ccevans(a)telis.org>
To: Sam Ismail <siconic(a)jasmine.psyber.com>
Subject: Vintage IBM computer
Hi, I have an original IBM 8086 computer with a lot of software from that
era to go with it. I hate the thought of taking it to the dump or Goodwill,
where it will no doubt also end up there. It works well, but since we
upgraded several times, it is unused except for the rare occurance when I
want to look up something.
I think it should go to a computer museum because it still looks brand new.
Have you any suggestions for me? Also I have a 1987 Mac plus, that my
daughter took to college with her, then brought home when she graduated to
an IBM laptop. I would love to see these go to someone that would
appreciate them.
Carol in the Redwoods
(^..^) purrrrrr...........
ccevans(a)telis.org
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)verio.com
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