Hello John and others,
> I think I could pay scrap (.gt. free ) value.
The scrap from commercial systems is actually valuable.
Scrappers can get up to $2.00 per pound for it. I had 8
racks of cards ( non-DEC very proprietary stuff ) that
didn't seem to want to sell individually, so I sold to a
scrapper. That batch totaled 880 pounds, and I got $660.00
( $.75 per pound ) and that scrapper wouldn't have been
buying it unless he was making good money on it too. It
just about paid for the 16' beavertail flatbed trailer I
bought from the same fellow.
So when Heinz says ...
> It sucks that these people would rather scrap out a machine
> than let a collector have it for free.
It translates to ...
"it sucks that people won't give away free money"
Bennett
>What's unfortunate, at least from where I sit, is that though some sources give
>you a schematic or an HDL of a CPU, yet they don't tell you WHY the choices made
>in its design were made. Normally such decisions are normally driven by
>requirements, be it for performance, or for specific addressing modes, chip
>size, or whatever. It seems we never see light shed on such matters.
Sometimes you can find this information on the web. Now that many of the
older computers
are of historical value people are writing things down.
>One caution is certainly warranted, however. Fully synchronous design became
>the default method of designing circuits of anysubstance in the mid-late '80's.
>One result, of course, was that signal races were easily avoided, and, with the
>use of pipelining, it allowed for the acceleration of some processes at the cost
>of increased latency. The use of fully sunchronous design drove up CPU cost,
>however, and was not an automatically assumed strategy in the early '70's, so
>you've got to consider WHEN a design was specified before making any assumptions
>about why things were done in a given way.
I thought that that was due more to the fact (core) memory was
asynchronous with a wide
range of cycle times as well as I/O transfers. Only with memory being in
the same box as
the cpu does a more synchronous system make sense.
>Classic CPU's were mostly NOT fully synchronous, as fully synchronous design
>required the use of costlier faster logic families throughout a design when that
>wasn't necessarily warranted. Today's FPGA and CPLD devices, when used to host
>a classic CPU design, eliminate the justifications for asynchronous design
>strategies that were popular in the early '70's - late '80's. Their use
>essentially requires the design be synchronous, not only because signal
>distribution/routing resources are limited, but because propagation delays are
>so different from wht they were in the original discrete version.
What is so different a F/F is still a F/F, a gate is still a gate. It is
only that
routing delays are a unknown so you can't use logic that requires timing
delays or
or oneshots. It is only that the programs can't discover when logic can
or cannot change
like a designer can but must use worse case assumptions .It is only in
the case when you
have a single clock that timing calculations are the most accurate.
How ever I suspect most CPU design starts with a clean sheet of paper
lays out goals and basic
design parameters. A good block diagram often can tell you how complex
your system is.
While gates are important the quantify and packaging of the gates define
just how your system
can be laid out. Only after the instruction set is defined do you look
at the logic need
to produce the Computer System, and once you lay things out you have
good idea of
what instructions are needed. Of course everything gets revised again
and again.
http://www.ulib.org/webRoot/Books/Saving_Bell_Books for some interesting
reading.
Also "CMOS circuit design,layout and simulation" ISBN 0-7803-3416-7 is
very good reading for
CPU design at the real gate level.
Ben Franchuk.
--
Standard Disclaimer : 97% speculation 2% bad grammar 1% facts.
"Pre-historic Cpu's" http://www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk
Now with schematics.
I have just spent the last few weeks living a computer collector's
nightmare.... moving. The entire collection had to be packed up,
loaded, moved and unloaded. The good part is I now have a larger
place and I'm taking the time to organize and get a better, newer
inventory. During which I've decided to pass along some things I
have extras of or will never get around to working with. There is
more to come but I'll start off with some of the larger items.
Item 1 - DEC PDP-8 stuff. Two card cages with various boards (not
sure what all is in there at the moment), power distribution strip,
and two RK05 drives. I think I have a PDP-8A front panel that went
with all of it here too. All is in unknown condition. I thought I'd
have time to try and do something with all this once but I know now
I won't.
Item 2 - Sun 3/50. System plus two 19" monitors, 2 keyboards
and a mouse. Unknown condition.
Item 3 - Box of various Sun OS tapes.
If you have something you'd like to trade me I'll be happy to
consider it but otherwise they're free for pick up in Houston TX. I
often drive up to Austin (doing so this weekend in fact) and might
be convinced to tote them along but can't promise. If nobody
wants them then it's off to the local scrapper I guess.
Other stuff available soon as I sort through all these systems and
boxes.
-----
"What is, is what?"
"When the mind is free of any thought or judgement,
then and only then can we know things as they are."
David Williams - Computer Packrat
dlw(a)trailingedge.com
http://www.trailingedge.com
I recently swapped the MV II CPU and memory in my BA23 with a
PDP-11/73 CPU and memory. I booted RT-11 V5.4D and attempted
to init the RD54, which failed:
.init /segment:5 du0:
DU0:/Initialize; Are you sure? Y
?DUP-F-Directory output error DU0:
.
The drive was working just fine as a ODS-2 volume. I don't have
to low-level format, do I?
--
Eric Dittman
dittman(a)dittman.net
Check out the DEC Enthusiasts Club at http://www.dittman.net/
> >Luckily, some manner of salvation is on its way in the form of a price
> >guide. No, I'm not writing it, but the person who is will make it known
> >very soon.
>
> Maybe it will make some money for the author, but prices are just too
> variable and too fast changing for a printed guide to be of much
practical
> use. What I would rather see is a hunters handbook, say 125 pages with
the
> top 500 things to look for, each item getting an average of a 1/4 page
for
> a photo, or maybe a shared photo, with a description and price range.
Sell
> one to every scrapper in the world, and those 500 things become a LOT
more
> available.
>
> working title, "How much money did you throw away today?"
In any hobby, a price guide is both a blessing and a curse. When I owned a
sports card shop I became aware of the potential effects of price fixing
and other forms of market manipulation. Specifically, if the publisher of
a price guide had a bunch of Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax cards to dump,
those players would book high until he dumped his cards. Additionally,
advertiser pressure influenced prices listed in these books.
For vintage computers, a price guide published 2-4 times yearly, listing
maybe 500 computers, might work. It could be advantageous to only include
photos for 50 of these computers in each issue, rotating through all 500.
This would encourage people to buy the next issue, with photos of 50
*different* machines.
We have Ebay now, and other auction sites, from which to draw data. The
publication might also consider any documentable, verifiable report from
private buyers and sellers when compiling the price guide.
And since when can your average scrapper read, anyway?
Just my two cents . . .
Glen
0/0
Ran across this on Ebay tonight:
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1649083427
This transformer has a 115V primary, and several taps on the secondary
ranging from 5 to 850 volts. What kind of device might require such a wide
range of voltages?
BTW (for those without 'net access) the device sold for USD103.50 and there
were no details as to what this thing was used in. This leads me to
believe that it's a high failure-rate component in a relatively expensive
(and not uncommon) piece of gear.
Any clues?
Glen
0/0
Why would a large computer retailer (CompUSA) stop selling gift
certificates at this time of year? Might CompUSA be going titsup.com?
--- David A Woyciesjes
--- C & IS Support Specialist
--- Yale University Press
--- mailto:david.woyciesjes@yale.edu
--- (203) 432-0953
--- ICQ # - 905818
Redactron dual mag card WP (with one card), schematic, no printer. Can I assume there's no interest and I can finally toss something without feeling guilty?
mike
On Mon, 29 Oct 2001, Jeffrey Sharp wrote:
> I think that what is needed most is an international organization that
> covers *all* vintage computers, software, and docs. We need something
> that's implemented well enough that most of us would be convinced to join.
> The best starting point I can think of is Sellam's VCF organization:
>
> * He already has one of the largest inventories of us all. That's a good
> start towards a "Noah's ark" collection, which I think should be one
> function of the organization.
This is in fact one of my missions. I know I won't be able to get every
single model of every single computer, but I can get close. And this has
applications of both practicality and posterity.
> * He's got www.vintage.org, which would be a primo domain name for the
> organization.
>
> * He's got www.vintagetech.com, which would be the fundraising part of the
> organization. Dues could be another.
Um, for now, the funds that VintageTech generates are intended for the
Sellam Ismail organization of getting by ;)
> * He's got experience running VCFs.
True dat.
> Of course, Sellam would have to be interested in being the organization's
> fearless leader!
I appreciate being nominated for this lofty organization. In fact, what
you've described is what I've been working towards for the past 4-5 years.
It's just gone much slower and taken much longer than anticipated due to
distractions and detours in my life. And this is hard work, especially
for one guy.
> Other things the organiztion could do:
>
> * A central, Yahoo-like web site that would become the world's foremost
> resource for vintage computer information. It would try to replicate
> all available information for preservation. Individual members would
> also be given a mechanism to have their collection hosted on the site
> under a uniform interface. Those who resist assimilation could still
> have their sites linked to. You could get to info either by
> collector name or a category/manufacturer/series/model tree. It would
> be wonderful...
One day the VCF website will be this portal.
> * SIGs would, of course, solidify according to demand. I imagine the VAX
> SIG (VSIG?) would be quite well represented. Each SIG could have its
> own mailing list. The whole thing would be not unlike the FreeBSD
> mailing list system.
One of the next things on the agenda (after finishing the VCF Marketplace)
is a messaging system. Of course, I don't know how useful this will be in
the face of this list and other very active and strong lists. I'll put
the tools out there, it'll be up to folks to put them to good use.
> * Rename itself from VCF to IVCA. "International Vintage Computing
> Association" to outsiders, "International Vintage Computing Asylum"
> for insiders. :-)
The VCF will eventually become an international "society" dedicated to the
preservation of old computers and computer history. The VCF events are to
be yearly gatherings that cap off activities that occur throughout the
year. My desire for the past couple years has been to sponsor local
computer collector clubs throughout the world, to create local interest
that then grows into a connected network of clubs.
>
> * I don't know... other stuff.
>
> As you can see, I'm all about grandiose ideas. Now won't someone rise up
> and implement them? :-)
Me too. If I could get organized enough to create an actual organization
then things would move faster. Of course it would require the sacrifices
of other people interested in seeing this vision implemented.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
> The AHA2842 is a narrow-SCSI card, though it's possibly the best ADAPTEC
ever
> produced. I've been using them for years without a hitch, while their newer
> cards, (2940, 3940, 3985, etc) seem to bring with them both a short life and
> lots of compatibility issues.
>
> Unfortunately, the VLB is alread a "classic" feature, having been "dead" now
for
> over a decade.
While I'm sure they exist (i.e. EISA ones), I don't have any 486 motherboards
that aren't VLB boards, the most recent of which was bought new in 1994.
Still, while not-quite-classic, VLB sure isn't leading the industry...
-dq
