Kevin -
I, too, have sufficient Horizons (besides if the shipping didn't kill
me, my wife would). But if you are of a mind to restore them, I can
offer xerox copies of most docs for about a nickel a page, or you can
borrow them and make your own copies. Of course I have boot disks for
N* DOS as well as CP/M, and California Digital still sells hard-sectored
floppies (WWW.CADIGITAL.COM). I'd bet that if you couldn't find a list
member to give them a home, you could sell them on eBay for $100-$200
each in working condition.
Good luck with them. They are still one of my favorite S-100 boxes.
Bob Stek
Saver of Lost Sols
Greetings those who are interested in older DEC PDP-11 systems!
I must clear out excess gear remaining after The Great Haul From Summer '98.
I've separated pretty much what I will keep, a few others have in their
possession some other items. What remains is listed below. It's been
setting in our garage. I must clear it out ASAP as I need to move the items
that I'm storing in a storage unit into its place. I can't justify anymore
spending of the $$ on that storage unit when I can be using it to pay
towards my bills. Plus, I need to have that mostly antique radio-related
stuff home to work on and perhaps sell/swap.
Additionally, and this is important for you to know, if I cannot find a
home for what DEC gear remains I must regrettably SCRAP it. It cannot stay
here.
Here's the list. See notes below list.
1. PDP-11/24 with two RL02s in short rack, same footprint as an 11/750.
Has RK-11 and UDA-50 boardsets.
2. PDP-11/34A -seems to be older model "A" with early Programmer's Panel.
Early, I think, because it's made of boxy-shaped stamped sheetmetal and not
the thermofoam cast bezels like we usually see. Same electronics though. In
short rack.
2. RK07 in short rack.
4. RK07 in short rack.
5. RA81 in short rack.
6. TS03 Tape system in 6' rack with BA-11 controller chassis & boards.
7. RK07 in short rack. Said to possibly not work.
8. RA60-AA in short rack.
9. A couple of BA-11 chassis.
10. 2 units: Decwriter III (LA120)
11. 1-Decwriter II
12. Two or three RL02s, no rack.
13. RL01-A, no rack.
14. Bunches of tapes. Mostly TS-03 7" reels. Take them all.
15. Bunches of RL01 and RL02 disc paks. Several RK07 paks. Take one, then
all will go with it.
16. 7' tall tape storage rack.
17. Maybe a couple of terminals, VT-100, ADM-3
18. Perhaps some other useful stuff that I uncover.
End.
Notes:
* As is, where is. Naturally, for a rescue. I simply do not have any
resources to ship this equipment.
* I refer to a 'short rack' as the one which is about 4' tall and rolls
around. Same styling as VAX 11/750 cabinet, etc. as some of you already may
know. I just can't recall the 'H' -part number of these racks right now nor
see the numbers without pulling big piles of stuff out of the way.
** No documentation available. I've kept all that pertains to the gear I'm
keeping; swapped off other items (and lookin' for a few more bits).
** Unknown what the original 11/24 setup was although the RK-11 boardset
inside belies one or more of the RK07 drives possibly being hung off it. In
fact, only the 11/750, which has since found a new home, had any systemic
configuration history that I could figure out from all the various PDP-11
and VAX gear rescued in the original '98 Great Haul -except of course for
the small 11/53, 11/23 and MVII systems which are in my collection now.
Came out of Bradford, PA -a very much rural city even by Jamestown's standards.
** Plan on taking the gear as soon as you can get one or more "Rescue
Brigades" arranged. Find folks who will divide it up with you.
** It all has to be out of the garage as soon as possible. You really
should bring a truck with a liftgate, truck with ramp and a strong
assistant or two, "lowboy" trailer with ramp -or whatever it takes because
I have no loading dock on my garage, of course.
** Price is cheeeep. Just take it all away. Unless, at your option, in
trade you have some bits for my VAX 11/730 that will yield for me a nicely
runable system (mass storage, boot tape, documentation, etc.) or some SCSI
interface boards (QBUS & UNIBUS) or whatever else you think I can use
(small stuff!).
I'm in Western New York State. Jamestown is on Interstate 86 (old NY State
Route 17 Expressway) about 45-50 miles east of Erie, PA. Interstate 90 is
on the western terminus of I-86, near Erie. Figure around 80 miles to here
>from the Buffalo city center.
Thanks for helping rescue this DEC equipment!
Best regards, Chris
-- --
NNNN
Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian
Jamestown, NY USA cfandt(a)netsync.net
Member of Antique Wireless Association
URL: http://www.antiquewireless.org/
*settles back into the list*
Hello again guys, i've missed you. I've also accumulated a couple of
questions in my absence:
Have any of you heard of an Applix DIY computer? Apparently it's
m68k-based, but I know little more. I've found the manuals online quite
easily, but i'd like to know any experiences with one - what OS and so
on. Actually, if you have any information on 680x0 homebrews, let me
know!
Thanks
Alex
In a message dated 11/25/2001 2:02:51 PM Eastern Standard Time,
gehrich(a)tampabay.rr.com writes:
> Does anybody have any idea of the value of a brand new in boxes Adam
> computer?
>
like the old saying goes, it's worth whatever someone will pay for it.
On Nov 25, 1:28, Tony Duell wrote:
> > What's J5 (3-pin Mate-N-Lok) on the PSU for?
>
> AC output (centre-tapped) to the line time clock board or power-fail
> interrupt board. Watch out, it comes straight from a secondary on the
> mains transformer. There is a fuse, but it's in series with the centre
> tap only. Which means that shorting the outside 2 pins together can burn
> out the transformer.
Ah. That would probably explain why I have a cable with two white wires on
pins 1 and 3, and a red wire on pin 2, connected to a 6-pin single-row
Mate-N-Lok (like the ones used on power regulators).
> > And lastly (for now :-)), which direction should the fans blow?
>
> I am not sure what the offical way is, but if you reverse the fanse
> aren't you going to be blowing hot air (heated by the PSU) over the logic
> cards? Most machines I've got where the fans are between the logic and
> the PSU draw air in over the logic and blow it out over the PSU
heatsinks.
It doesn't get very warm, but then there's not much in the machine at the
moment.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
I've got my PDP-8/E cleaned (no more "small" of cat) and partly
re-assembled. I've successfully toggled in and run Allison's inchworm
program.
I handwashed the plastic front panel. I treated the plastic foam from
under the backplanes to the hottest wash the washing machine can do, and
replaced the rest of the foam (which was crumbly) from the lid. I ran the
cards (not the core matrix, though!), backplanes, and over-the-top
connectors through the dishwasher, along with some of the smaller parts of
the case. I dried the cards with compressed air, and washed out the
backplanes and connectors with IPA before blowing them dry too. I treated
the switches to a little low-residue cleaner/lubricant. I washed the case
with Flash (a proprietary household detergent-type cleaner for floors). I
took the fans and relay out of the PSU and then sprayed the inside with
enzyme/detergent-based stain remover, hosed it off, drained it, rinsed with
about a litre of IPA and then dried it off (compressed air first, then warm
air from the hair drier for a few hours).
It smells fine now, and it's *very* clean :-)
I've almost put everything back together, but I have a few questions before
I finish it off.
The front bezel (frame round the panel) has been repainted white, and the
paint has flaked or chipped off in places, to reveal a chipped coat of
beige paint. I'd like to refinish and respray it. What's the correct
colour?
I'm toying with the idea of replacing the LEDs with bi-pin bulbs, as the
panel was originally a bulb panel. The resistors for the warm-up current
have been clipped out. What value should they be?
What's J5 (3-pin Mate-N-Lok) on the PSU for?
And lastly (for now :-)), which direction should the fans blow? The fans
in this machine are not original, and I suspect they were put in
back-to-front. They were drawing air in from the right (as you look from
the front) of the machine, through the cards, into the PSU, and blowing it
out through the six large heatsinks and out of the left side of the
machine. I think this is the wrong way round, as the laminar flow over the
cards won't be as effective as the turbulent flow in the other direction.
But what's the normal way in an 8/E? And was there supposed to be a
filter anywhere?
On Sunday, November 25, 2001, at 04:43 pm, classiccmp-digest wrote:
> From: Jeff Hellige <jhellige(a)earthlink.net>
> Subject: Lisa Success.....finally...
>
> Well after working on it off and on for over two years I
> finally got my Lisa to actually boot up tonight. I've been trying to
> put it back to Lisa2 specs vice Mac XL and I had swapped a 400k
> floppy back into it in place of the 800k upgrade that had been
> peformed. Unfortunately the machine would never power on properly
> without the XL screenkit installed. Finally tonight I said the heck
> with it and reinstalled all the parts to the XL screenkit and powered
> it on, attempting to boot from Macworks XL 3.0 and the Macworks
> System Disk (Mac Finder 4.1). It worked! Both disks were 400k disks
> and made from images gotten off of the web. I'm tempted to put the
> SCSI card/drive back into it and see what I can do with it, though
> it'd be nice to still figure out what's going on with the
> original-style CPU card and video system and get it working as a Lisa
> again.
I'm looking forward to performing similar surgery on my Lisa 2/5 with
screen mod kit installed. A couple of questions:
1. Did you disconnect the screen transformer that goes between the video
board and yoke cable? An obvious question but thought I'd ask.
2. Did you just swap the cpu board with screen mod ROMs for a standard
Lisa 2 board, or have you tried putting your Lisa 2 ROMs in the board
that you know works?
3. I understand that you need to tweak some of the potentiometers on the
video board and possibly the psu. The Sun Remarketing DIY guide to Lisa
repair has a section on installing the screen mod kit, so removal should
"simply" be the reverse of that procedure... My understanding is that
the Lisa will boot with incorrect voltages but the display will be
distorted.
4. What symptoms were displayed when you tried booting without the
screen mod kit?
Phil
> National made an MM5203 that was also 256-bytes in size and was also
difficult
> to program. It was an even more suitable part for jewelry, as it had a gold
> flash all over its upper surface. It was quite a striking piece of hardware
> with its large gold surface and extra thick quartz window glued to the top.
Ditto the 5204, which PTC used in the first SOL personalty modules...
-dq
Reply to him, not me.
- John
>Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2001 04:59:28 -0500
>From: Homer Seywerd <homers(a)sentex.net>
>To: jfoust(a)threedee.com
>Subject: Computer Rescue needed!
>
>Hello,
>My name is Homer Seywerd and I know of two complete CDC 844 disk
>drives. (sorry no cpu). These weigh about 500 lbs each, but have nice
>rollers underneath, and are easy to push. (This makes them easy to push
>up onto a truck, or more likely in this case, into a skip).
>
>I have been browsing the internet looking for a news group or something
>to advertise their availability, and would appreciate your help in
>locating a home for them. If now one is interested, I guess I'll strip
>them for parts. Size is 4-1/2' x 2-1/2' x 4' approx.
>
>These are located in Hamilton, Ontario CANADA. There shouldn't be any
>problem getting them across the border.
>
>Thanks,
>Homer Seywerd
>Dundas, Ontario
