test-drb October 2000

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

184 participants
568 discussions

by ss＠allegro.com

Hi, (sighted elsewhere) There's a couple of HP 9000s (PA-RISC) and one HP 1000/900 available in Minnesota at: http://www.w9fz.com/hp9000/index.html Don't email *me*! Stan Sieler sieler(a)allegro.com www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html www.allegro.com/sieler

24 years, 2 months

Cold storage

by fauradon＠mn.mediaone.net

I'm already up to the ceiling, check out the picture on my home page: http://people.mn.mediaone.net/fauradon/index.html On top of that I have the laundry room wall (the one without the appliances) loaded up from floor to ceiling. At this point I have exhausted all storage solutions for in house storage and I can't even get to the far end of my office without planning the trip at least a week in advance :) Right now the only choice is OUT. That means the shed or a rental space. I would much prefer the shed. Thanks Francois -----Original Message----- From: Claude <claudew(a)sprint.ca> To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> Date: Saturday, October 21, 2000 11:53 AM Subject: Re: Cold storage >Sue & Francois wrote: >> >> Hi all >> I have to refer to the collective wisdom of the list. >> Here's the problem: >> I live in the frozen land of Minnesota, I have a 12'x16' shed full of empty >> cardboard boxes, I have a house full (and I mean full) of computers. > >I would not submit my computer collection to the low low temperatures >you get in Minnesota (like here in Quebec)... > >One answer for more space : SHELVES, SHELVES, SHELVES...I taught I was >running outta space until I installed approx a total of 48 feet (3 times >16 feet of 16" wide shelves seperated by 14") attached to drywall with >metal brackets. About $8-$10 for the 8 foot long white wood shelves and >$1 for each bracket. A good investement... > >Second : do regular clean ups...Yes you might throw away something that >can be used one day...but still...space is space...I rather have less >stuff all clean and neat then a ton of stuff in a mess...but thats me... > >For "home" PC collecting it is great. Most of my collection (Atari, >Apple, Macs, Trs80s...) is there and can be admired and connected and >booted in less then 2-3 minutes...But I don't think the drywall and >shelves could hold up a VAX... > >Claude > >> >> Would it be safe for the computers to spend the winters in the cardboard >> boxes in the shed? >> Should I insulate the shed first? > >I would not let my collection live in sub 0 temperatures. > >> Should I move to the shed and store the computers in the bedroom? >> >> Thanks >> >> Francois

24 years, 2 months

Beginner into Micros, etc.

by Mzthompson＠aol.com

On 19 Oct 2000, Mike Ford <mikeford(a)socal.rr.com> wrote: > Where can I put all this stuff I found. Almost as difficult question as "What is the meaning of life". The answer just came to me: "To be the winner of the contest: He who dies with the most 'puters wins." My latest haul included over 100 machines of the same brand. I had to rent a space at a local U-Store-It place. I must be crazy. More on this haul later. Mike

24 years, 2 months

Insanity (Was: Re: Beginner into Micros, etc.)

by Mzthompson＠aol.com

Eric Smith <eric(a)brouhaha.com> wrote: > I have thousands of square feet of interesting (to me > at least) stuff, mostly DEC minicomputers. Up to now my collecting has been pretty much DEC stuff and a few odd Intel boxes. So I guess you could say we suffer from the same form of insanity. Idea, contest time! We need a name for the form of insanity whereby you continue to haul home DEC. > I find this much more satisfying than having hundreds of units of > the same microcomputer, but I'm not criticizing. It was more of a rescue than looking for satisfaction. I kept them >from the dumpster. I will keep a couple, and am sure homes can be found for the others. Of course there is the testing of all of these which will take a fair amount of time. > In fact, I was basically making that point that I'm completely insane. Point taken, and understood. Mike

24 years, 2 months

classiccmp mailing list service notice

by jwest＠mppw.com

Greetings and salutations; We're in the process of upgrading our mailservers, including the one that hosts the classiccmp mailing list. We're building a new machine with a newer version of the OS (FreeBSD 4.1), and a newer version of majordomo (1.94.5), and then moving the services off the old one and onto the new one. Once done, the hostname, ip address, and all identity of the old machine will be taken over by the new machine (ie. no differences [we hope]). We will do our best to ensure there are no service interruptions, but the following issues are possible: 1) There may be some delays in list traffic during the upgrade 2) Once moved to the new system there may be some "features" that need to be worked out 3) There may be delays in updating the mailing list archives at www.classiccmp.org during the transition Please email me with any problems you may notice to both jlwest(a)tseinc.com and west(a)tseinc.com Thanks! Jay West

24 years, 2 months

Microvax II boards

by ncherry＠home.net

OK, I have my Microvax II KA-630 (thanks Carlos) and I now need to completely understand it. I have discovered the follow boards are in it: KA-630 (CPU w/FPU and 1 Meg RAM) Nemonix NXII-16 (half filled, Meg of RAM) M7608 RAM (4Meg I think) M7516 (DELQA Ethernet adapter) M7555 (2x MFM Disk controller) SI Part # 981-4617 (ESDI board? SCD-RQD11/EC) RCI - Recognition Concepts INC. NO 100220 - Has a TRW 1007J1C3 8451/AP (Analog?) M5976-SA KZQSA (SCSI) Ok this machine has 1 MFM drive (~50M) and another drive (which I haven't kooed up yet). I hope to build the IDE interface in the next few months to save money on the drives. I can get a 760M ESDI drive for ~$300(US). Now the SCSI is borrowed from a BA213 (hence the SA) I intend on knocking out the rivets and making it usable in both machines. I may also upgrade the Nemonix to 15M to get a full 16M. I already have 3 2.5G SCSI (and a 9G SCSI-3 drive, yea I know ...). Does anyone recognize the SI board or the RCI board? What is the minimum size drive for loading VMS 7.2? Any other thoughts? My fingers are itching to learn VMS? One other question, what command do I need to remount the drives on a Microvax II? My machines go off line and I don't know what commands to type to get them back. Thanks. -- Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry ncherry(a)home.net http://members.home.net/ncherry (Text only) http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/lightsey/52 (Graphics) http://linuxha.sourceforge.net/ (SourceForge)

24 years, 2 months

volunteers requested (was Re: Beginner into Micros, etc.)

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> Jerome asks: > > I guess I pay too much attention to details, but which single computer is it > > you are going to pick up. > > A PDP-10 (KL10) system. Oh holy bat guano, Eric... nice rescue! When was the last time it was operational? Somewhere, I may still have the Macro-10 source code for RWATCH, a superuser hack that floated around the University of Louisville for years. -dq

24 years, 2 months

Drop the Microsoft & OS Discussion!

by epgroot＠ucdavis.edu

I vote to drop-kick this weeks discussion/useless rant on Windows and other OS's and other pokes to list members. Get back to you classic computers, VAXen, boxen, whatever-you-have-en, which this list is meant for! Anyone with me on this? Edwin

24 years, 2 months

Beginner into Micros, etc.

by Mzthompson＠aol.com

Eric Smith <eric(a)brouhaha.com> wrote: > Mzthompson(a)aol.com wrote: > > > The answer just came to me: "To be the winner of the contest: He who > > dies with the most 'puters wins." > > > > My latest haul included over 100 machines of the same brand. I had to > > rent a space at a local U-Store-It place. I must be crazy. More on > > this haul later. > > You've got some catching up to do. My 4-bedroom condo, 2-car garage, > and several *thousand* square feet of rental space are filled up with > old computers, documentation, etc. Darn, don't you just hate when we get into a size enumeration contest. Remember what they say "Size doesn't matter." Actually Eric, I had to rent the storage space, the three car garage which also contains two other rooms 8x20 & 8x10, and a good size loft were already full. And although there is still room in the 30x40 barn with its loft, I only use it for the stuff that is probably destined for the recyclers/scrappers. I would like to have had it closer so I could test this stuff easier, but had no choice. And then Gary Hildebrand <ghldbrd(a)ccp.com> wrote: > You very well might be crazy. Not many others have that many computers on > hand, except maybe Best Buy, or Office Depot. > Remember, your addiction could be cars, or ships too, so count your > blessings --- all 100 of them. Thank you, Gary. You need not look farther than Iowa to find words of wisdom and the good side of the situation. If only my SO could see the silver lining. ;-) Mike

24 years, 2 months

MMJ Info

by Mzthompson＠aol.com

Info on the MMJ connector found on various DEC terminals & computers. --------------- --------------- --------------- --------------- --------------- DEC uses an MMJ (Modified Modular Jack) connector on its equipment for serial data communications. DEC calls the mating plug on the cable an MMP (Modified Modular Plug), only the term is not used as often and most of the time is just simply referred to as MMJ. It is like a modular telephone connector, only the key on the connector is offset, not in the center like a standard telco connector. Looking at the back of a VT320 for example the MMJ looks something like this. -------------------- | * * * * * * | -------------- -- |____| 1 2 3 4 5 6 are the pinout numbers --------------- --------------- --------------- --------------- --------------- The signals are: # I/0 Desc 1 > DTR Data Terminal Ready 2 > TXD Transmit Data 3 - TXD- (ie Gnd) 4 - RXD- (ie Gnd) 5 < RXD Receive Data 6 < DSR Data Set Ready > = terminal or computer output signal < = terminal or computer input signal --------------- --------------- --------------- --------------- --------------- DEC's part number for the cable is BC16E-xx, with the xx being the length. The cable is made so that the connector on one end is mounted 'right side up' and the other end 'upside down'. In other words, the key tabs on the connector are on opposite sides of the flat cable. // ---- ---- | |---------------------------------------| | ---- ---- // That is effect causes the signal lines to cross-connect or as I like to say 'turn over' from one end to the other. MMJ port on DEC MMJ port on DEC VT320 terminal computer or DECserver DTR 1 --->-------------->----------------->--- 6 DSR TXD 2 --->-------------->----------------->--- 5 RXD 3 ---------------------------------------- 4 4 ---------------------------------------- 3 RXD 5 ---<--------------<-----------------<--- 2 TXD DSR 6 ---<--------------<-----------------<--- 1 DTR --------------- --------------- --------------- --------------- --------------- I had a DEC MMP cable that someone cut one end off so I wired it to a female 9-pin D connector to use with a PC 9-pin serial port. Wired as follows: MMJ DE9 1 6 2 2 3 5 4 5 5 3 6 4 This was to use a PC as the console on a DECsystem 5500 and/or one of the ports on a DECstation 3100. I actually did not connect DE9-6 to MMJ-1. It worked fine without it. I later made a breakout box with two 9 pin D connectors and an MMJ socket along with the means to disconnect and rewire as needed. I found that it works fine without DE9-4 being wired to MMJ-6. In other words, using only the two data lines and ground. Your mileage may vary, depending on how things are setup. --------------- --------------- --------------- --------------- --------------- DEC makes several adapters to adapt the MMJ to 9/25-pin D connectors. The H8571-A and H8575-A are MMJ to DB25 (female) and are wired as follows: MMJ DB25 1 20 2 2 3 7 4 7 5 3 6 6 & 8 Also pins 4 & 5 of the DB25 are tied together I have used the above using a standard DEC BC16E cable to connect to a PC 25-pin serial port to use the PC as a terminal. --------------- The H8571-C and H8571-F are MMJ to DB25 (male) and are wired as follows: MMJ DB25 1 6 2 3 3 7 4 7 5 2 6 20 --------------- The H8571-B an MMJ to DE9 (female) and is supposedly wired as follows: MMJ DE9 1 5 2 2 3 7 4 7 5 3 6 6 & maybe 8 (depending on which DEC manual you read) I have never seen one, so have not actually checked how it is wired. It should be noted that this is not wired correctly for PC 9-pin serial ports, besides the gender of the 9-pin connector is wrong. DEC says that this is used for connecting to 9-pin printer ports. --------------- --------------- --------------- --------------- --------------- And here is a summary on how the various signal lines match up to each other on the different connectors. Term Term MMJ MMJ port on DEC DB25 DE9 computer or Decserver 20 4 1 --->-------------->----------------->--- 6 2 3 2 --->-------------->----------------->--- 5 7 5 3 ---------------------------------------- 4 7 5 4 ---------------------------------------- 3 3 2 5 ---<--------------<-----------------<--- 2 6 6 6 ---<--------------<-----------------<--- 1 --------------- --------------- --------------- --------------- ---------------

24 years, 2 months

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test-drb October 2000