test-drb December 2001

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

243 participants
1096 discussions

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

From: Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) <cisin(a)xenosoft.com> >There ARE many things that the WD will do that the NEC won't, including >writing much sooner after the index pulse, IGNORING certain fields in the 765A writes or read sonner than base 765 and the 37c65 even shorter. It doesnt ignore fields in a multisector read/write however if the sectors are written with a interleave it will also keep things in numerical order. Add to that a full cylinder read does not bring all the non data crap that formatted media requires to marks all the data spaces. The real beauty of that is if you have real DMA you can fire it up and read a whole cylinder and all your buffer has is neatly ordered data if the read was successful. That latter feature is nice if your doing a caching scheme. >Allison could probably gives us a more comprehensive and authoritative >list. Yes I can. Allison

23 years, 12 months

New Finds

by healyzh＠aracnet.com

> Today I found the following: > > 1) IBM PS/2 P70 Portable with Xenix386 loaded. Does anyone know > how to bypass the root password so I can log in? Is it Xenix or AIX? I know IBM had a version of AIX that ran on these. Or was it just that funky Microkernel OS/2 thing running on one of these with AIX running at the same time? I know I saw that at a trade show once in DC, that was cool! Zane

23 years, 12 months

Kwanzaa... [was: Troll got me (was: Is there no end)]

by DAW＠yalepress3.unipress.yale.edu

! ... whitey's holiday, and crackers are the enemy (their ! terms, not mine... I get "whitey"... I get "white bread"... but ! cracker?!? I would ask when visiting my inlaws... but I would ! just get my ass kicked, or worse, shot). Chris - Now, I'm a honkey (now what's the origin of that?) just like you... (like you couldn't tell by the name! :-) I think the term "cracker" is because, ISTR, crackers and bread made basically the same, except crackers don't have any yeast. Both light colored... ! As to the REAL reason for Kwanzaa, I have no idea, but I do ! know, around here it is entirely a racial thing, and the ! only people that really seem to take it seriously are the ! inner city high crime area Afican-Americans... which ! unfortuantly gives the whole thing a bad notion up here. Its ! a shame really, as I am sure there was a real reason for it, ! but like many other things, it has been badly perverted by a ! very very select group of people who decided to use it for ! their own agenda. What's that cliche saying? "One bad apple to spoil..." --- David A Woyciesjes --- C & IS Support Specialist --- Yale University Press --- mailto:david.woyciesjes@yale.edu --- (203) 432-0953 --- ICQ # - 905818

23 years, 12 months

MITS 2SIO serial chip?

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

From: Ben Franchuk <bfranchuk(a)jetnet.ab.ca> >> that will do 125ns easily. Or you could easily find a d765 >> off an old board or NOS from JDR. >Do you know of a WD37C65 data sheet on the web? Check SMC for it. >> parts and the requisite connections. Of the latter, the fewer the >> better for both buildability and reliability. >Hmm what ever happened to sockets and repairable stuff. I hate sockets and try to avoid them, I've had equipment that didn't use the machined pin sockets and most all had to be rebuilt sans sockets at one point or another. > >> package = $1.35. So instead of Xilinx's $4.40 OTP chip we use a 8 pin PIC >> and the serial EEPROM for a total of $2.29 and get re-programmability... > >A good solution but this is a one-shot project so price is not a major >problem A lousy one if you have a raft of TTL and few FPGAs. ;) I have a few of the Lattice and Xilinx tools, older ones and the synario stuff too. I just dont get all that excited about it. I've designed a cpu and built it years ago, it out of my system and not worth repeating. Any cpu I'd do would need software and that means it would likely be a copy of something... likely something I have. Allison

23 years, 12 months

Fw: Old Atari ?

by curt＠atari-history.com

This gentleman has Atari & Commodore systems in Iowa that are available, someone please give them a good home and not make his equipment into epay.com fodder.... Curt ----- Original Message ----- From: <brodtm(a)msnotes.wustl.edu> To: <curt(a)atari-history.com> Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2001 11:44 AM Subject: Old Atari ? > Curt, > > I have tried searching the web but with no luck. My mother has my old > Atari800 and Comodore systems. They are currently taking up space in her > house, and we do not want them. We would like to either recycle them or > give them to someone who is interested in them. > > She is currently located in NE Iowa. Would you by chance know of > anyone who would be interested in these systems? I hate to just pitch > them. > > Thanks, > > Michael Brodt > St. Louis, MO > brodtm(a)msnotes.wustl.edu >

23 years, 12 months

Hardest to Find Classic Computers

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: William Donzelli [mailto:aw288@osfn.org] > > workstations. Clipper based, and pre-clipper (were they > VAX?) Intergraph > > systems. > The early big servers were VAX based. In fact, they were mostly just > rebadged. RCS/RI has an Intergraph VAX 8550. It has some > really strange > custom hardware in the disk controllers - something about > these things > could do searches thru files on the disks for specific > graphics entities > (for CAD) without bothering the processor. Odd. "Really-strange-custom-hardware" was Intergraph's middle name for the longest time. That's what makes their systems so interesting. > > There's one CDC workstation that was a re-badged Indigo, that's > > relatively common. It's the only CDC system I've seen for sale. > CDC was rebadging IRIS 3000 machines as Cyber 910s. *Really*? What are my chances of finding one? I'd love to have an IRIS 3000, if I found that I could fit it in the house. :) Did they run the early versions of IRIX? Regards, Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

23 years, 12 months

OS/2

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Doc [mailto:doc@mdrconsult.com] > I'm pretty sure I have a copy of Warp 4 Server, if I can find it. I'll > look this weekend. ISTR, though, hearing that the OS/2 CDs don't image > well. Does anybody know whether that's true? I maintain that a > byte-for-byte dd will work on *anything*. Very Slowly. :) Well, I've never met a standard CD that it wouldn't work on. I was told third-hand by somebody who worked for SGI that their media was somehow "copy protected" and couldn't be reproduced well. I've successfully imaged my IRIX 6.2 media and booted/installed my system >from the backup. Works fine. Also have done VMS, Solaris, and one of the "extras" disks that goes with AIX. All of them worked fine. Regards, Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

23 years, 12 months

was "how to clean".. How did they

by gehrich＠tampabay.rr.com

At 04:28 AM 12/18/01 -0500, you wrote: >Actually, for manufacturing operators, in IBM, women on average make more >than men. I don't know if it has changed but when I was with IBM they paid for performance in manufacturing. Those who contributed the most were paid the most. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- gene(a)ehrich.com gehrich(a)tampabay.rr.com P.O. Box 3365 Spring Hill Florida 34611-3365 http://www.voicenet.com/~generic Computer & Video Game Garage Sale I accept PayPal To subscribe to automatic updates send a blank e-mail to: online-garage-sale-subscribe(a)yahoogroups.com

23 years, 12 months

OS/2

by Robert_Feldman＠jdedwards.com

More office cleanout finds: I salvaged a new, shrink-wrapped copy of OS/2 Warp Version 3, Red label (needs a separated copy of DOS/Windows), 3.5" disks. I'm offering it free for postage (5 pounds) or pickup in the Chicago Loop. Email me at robert_feldman(a)jdedwards.com. I will decide among multiple requests next week (after Christmas holidays). Bob

23 years, 12 months

Troll got me (was Re: Is there no end)

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> I based my statement upon information gleaned from conversations with my > customers, 80% of which are black. Most of them think that Kwanzaa was > "made up" by retailers in order to get their money. Some have told me that > they resent the "social engineering" aspect of Kwanzaa. Here in the South, > there seems to be very little support of or identification with this event > among African-Americans. Doubtlessly true; I've heard some people say the same thing about Christmas. > > January 1 was "made up" into New Years Day by an act of > > fiat; New Years Day used to be April 1. > > When and how did this happen? Actually, there was no "act", that was hyperbole. The earliest reference to a Januray 1 New Year I can find is the Roman Civil Year. Later, the Catholic Church, which liked to line up the calendar with its Holy Events, wanted sto see Christmas become the start of the new year. But some later winter/early spring feasts were a popular time for the people, so through much of the dark ages, April 1 was the start of the New year. When the establishment of the Gregorian Calnedar began to take hold (which moved New Year's Day officially to Jan 1), people foolish enought to still celebrate it on April 1 became known as "April's Fools". The Gregorian Calendar was adopted tt different times in different countries; I think Russia held out until the early 20th Centurt. See http://www.genfair.com/dates.htm for more info. Regards, -dq

23 years, 12 months

Paper Tape Fun

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> I recently acquired (out of desperation) a DSI paper > tape punch/reader on ePay (at a reasonable price, but > not guaranteed to work). I cleaned it up, oiled it > here and there, and after puzzling out the RS-232, got > it running punching Mylar fine. To test it, I wrote a > Windows program to test it out with; the program lets > you type in a phrase, looks up the ASCII, and prints > the letters out on the tape in a 7x5 matrix format, > upper and lower case. I'm pretty sure that there were > programs that ran on mainframes to do this sort of > thing. Useless, but kind of fun - I made a banner for > my museum with it. If anyone on this list has a > punch, and admits to using Windows, ha ha, I can make > this available. On the CDC 6600, we had a Model 415 High-Speed Paper Tape Reader/Punch. We had a locally-created control card we'd use to control the disposition of output. In the standard KRONOS system, it was DISPOSE, but we had so many devices spread out over so many campuses that we wrote a card we called ROUTE. Among other tasks, ROUTE provided the banner pages for print jobs. A standard feature of the banner was the job name, usually, your three initials plus a job ordinal. When you'd sent output to the tape punch, it would punch the job name at the start of the tape, in the manner you describe. Regards, -dq

23 years, 12 months

Hardest to Find Classic Computers

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> On another note, CDC hardware that wasn't OEM'd from SGI seems relatively > uncommon. There's one CDC workstation that was a re-badged Indigo, that's > relatively common. It's the only CDC system I've seen for sale. Fascinating... and of the CDC hardware I've seen for sale, I've never seen anything that CDC didn't build themselves. But then, all I've seen was 60s & 70s era stuff... -dq

23 years, 12 months

Flashing Light Indicators un Simple Front Panels

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> Why on earth would Sun put a cool set of leds UNDERNEATH the cover? I mean, > you might as well put it out there. Apollo did this, too, but had cute little hinged doors covering the LEDs' most everyone leaves them open, because one LED is flashed by the system once per second, and is called "The Heartbeat". The Prime 2455 has four LEDs on its virtual control panel board, three red and one green. No one I can find has a clue what they all indicate... -dq

23 years, 12 months

Static was Re: [PDP8-Lovers] Re: how to clean a PDP8/A, dishwasher?

by mranalog＠attbi.com

Matthew Sell <msell(a)ontimesupport.com> wrote: > Vacuum cleaning is much more "dangerous" for a PCB than washing it. > Pete made a very good point, one I had forgotten, the static charge created > by dust moving through an insulated (plastic) pipe can generate some > obscene voltages. This is not a problem with a little bit of planning. One of my other hobbies is woodworking. Breathing in the sawdust from many hardwoods is very unhealthy, so most well financed wood shops have some kind of dust collection systems. With flow rates of 200-1100 cfm and long runs of plastic hose, a dust collector plus sawdust can be an explosive situation. Thats why grounding kit are sold separatly or included with most dust collectors. These kits consist of a lenth of wire that runs down the hose and metal clamps to clamp the wire to the hose at regular intervals. These kits are available in most woodworking stores. Of course my favorite way to protect a circuit board from static is to cover the solder side with aluminum foil, lay it on conductive foam or a conductive plastic bag. On a different subject: I've also used aluminum foil to create a ground plane to cut down on noise on some extender boards. I take two pieces of cardboard the size of the PCB and wrap one with aluminum foil. After making sure that none of the solder joints will poke through the bare piece of cardboard, I make a sandwich of the solder side of the PCB, the bare piece of cardboard, and then the aluminum wrapped cardboard. With this taped to the PCB, I solder a wire >from the aluminum foil to ground on the PCB. Regards, --Doug ========================================= Doug Coward @ home in Poulsbo, WA Analog Computer Online Museum and History Center http://www.best.com/~dcoward/analog =========================================

23 years, 12 months

Hardest to Find Classic Computers

by Adrian.Graham＠corporatemicrosystems.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Sellam Ismail [mailto:foo@siconic.com] > Sent: 17 December 2001 21:43 > To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Hardest to Find Classic Computers > > > The Digital Group systems get my vote. I've only *heard* of about 3, > > since being on this list, which is a while. Maybe because no-one is > > looking? I can't even imagine finding a full-up system, with several > > CPU boards, Phi-deck tape drives, and matching cabinets for the > > monitor, system unit, and tape drives, not to mention all > the OS's and > > other software... well, maybe I can imagine it... > > Yep, I'd agree here too. I have one complete system, and > aside from that, > the only other one I've ever seen was a kit sold at VCF 2.0 (or was it > 3.0)? > Dammit - I was offered a Digital Group machine earlier this year and the only thing that stopped me was the horrendous shipping cost from the US. This thing had the (in)famous tape unit attached that contained either 4 or 6 drives; can't remember. I've still got the pix of it somewhere, and it also spurred me on to do some digging with the result of finding Gus Calabrese who was the founder (or one of them) of TDG in the first place...... -- Adrian Graham, Corporate Microsystems Ltd e: adrian.graham(a)corporatemicrosystems.com w: www.corporatemicrosystems.com w2: www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Online Computer Museum)

23 years, 12 months

Flashing Light Indicators un Simple Front Panels

by Antonio.Carlini＠riverstonenet.com

> My Vaxstation 4000/60 has an 8 (or so) red led that also > posts codes at > power on but nothing else in either vms or in netbsd. A number of years ago, someone wrote a utility for OpenVMS that would display a CPU load on the seven segment LED of a MicroVAX II 9or MicroVAX 3600 series, I forget). Assuming you can find it, hacking it to do the VS4000-60/VS4000-9x LEDs should not be too much of a stretch. Antonio

23 years, 12 months

My Last Day Of Finds in MN

by jrkeys＠concentric.net

I spent most of today checking out most of my favorite places and found few goodies to take back to Texas. A lot of it is too new to list here but at the low prices I could not pass the items up. I picked a April 1985 issue of COMPUTE! with pictures and a article on a Commodore LCD called a second-generation lap portable with 80 x 16 flip-up display, 32K RAM, internal modem, and eight built-in programs for under $600. Has anyone every seen one in real life or better yet does anyone own one? It looks pretty cool in the photo shown in the mag. Some of the other items are listed below. 1. ICD printer connector cable for Atari 850 new in unopened package 2. Tandy cat#26-1398 6' RS232C cable new unopened package 3. Commodore Model 1351 mouse 4. Several Sega Master System cartridges 5. Compute! March 1985 issue some good stuff in it also. 6. Several mousepads for the collection 7. A RAD robot 8. A nice book called Understanding Computers by Grace Murray Hopper 9. Some Apple and Toshiba technical manuals 10. Tele-games Video Arcade (Sears) with 2- controllers and 2- paddles, also came with 3 cartridges 11. A NeXT keyboard (pn 2122) and mouse (pn 193), the mouse was a style I had not seen before. Well that's all I can list as the others are not classic yet. Keep Computing

23 years, 12 months

Shall I open it, or does someone want it....

by rhudson＠cnonline.net

I have December 1967 inCider, still wrapped in it's plastic bag. I wonder if anyone is collecting magazines and would find this more collectable because it still has the plastic. I just want to read inCiders, especially those with articles about the pre-GS apple II machines. Anyone wanna trade me? Anyone got inCider or nibble magazines they want to get rid of? I am in the San Jose, CA area- we can arrange to meet.

23 years, 12 months

MITS 2SIO serial chip?

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

8251 was an OK chip, it had bugs, FYI there are three versions and each has it's oddities! I have tons of them and use them but, you do have to be aware of the oddities. The worst ones are initial programming after reset (buffer clear bug) and the repeats last character on /cts false if TX shifter is not empty (8251A). However the 2SIO didn't use it. NS* did use them as did many others. The worst chip was the 8250. Allison -----Original Message----- From: Gene Buckle <geneb(a)deltasoft.com> To: 'classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org' <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> Date: Friday, December 14, 2001 12:29 PM Subject: RE: MITS 2SIO serial chip? >> > Does anyone know what chip was used for the MITS serial boards? I thought >> > that it was the 6850, but I could be wrong. >> >> Weren't a lot of people using the 8251 back in those days? >> >> I had to play some tricks in getting an interrupt-driver >> written for the 8251... this was for the redoubtable >> Data General One, a sort cool, sorta nasty laptop... >> >> -dq > >I always thought the 8251 was a pretty kick-ass chip. I learned a lot >about it since the Royal Alphatronic PC that I've got (somewhere in this >disaster of mine) uses it. I was pleasantly surprised a number of years >ago when I discovered someone had made a BYE insert for it. :) > >g. > >

23 years, 12 months

MITS 2SIO serial chip?

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

From: Ben Franchuk <bfranchuk(a)jetnet.ab.ca> >> rebuilt sans sockets at one point or another. >In this case I plan to use good sockets. >> A lousy one if you have a raft of TTL and few FPGAs. ;) > >All the TTL is in the FPGA.:) >Most of the TTL used is simple buffering or decoding. Ah, don'tcha think I know that? ;) Then again I have enough loose TTL to make a 24bit stretch PDP-8 with two sets of spares and a full compliment of IO. I've done my stint as a hardware designer analog DC to UHF and digital. >The whole point of the cpu I designed, was because I am not happy >with 8 bit micro's, RISC machines, or INTEL. Now what I wonder about >is people that put a 6502 in a FPGA while you still can buy the real >thing? >I also wonder about FPGA's when you can't fit a 6502 in one! Use a bigger FPGA... Thats why hammers come from small 4oz all the way to to 10 pounds! >I can guarantee you don't have a 12/24 bit cpu like mine. ( Not that you >would want one :) ) Been there done that. Mine was 2901 based Z80 clone with hybrid uCode wide bus and extented instruction set... Still didnt run any thing useful on it, too big, too hot and far to weird. It was a good learning tool depite all that. Allison

23 years, 12 months

DEC Cable?

by DAW＠yalepress3.unipress.yale.edu

I've got two cables here, DEC p/n BCC17-06 and one with out a p/n, but looks like a DEC cable. Any ideas who/what they're for? And can one of them replace the mono video cable on my VAX Station 3100 (BC23K-03)? DEC p/n BCC17-06: 15 pin D-sub connector <--> a box with a DEC keyboard connector (the phone plug looking thing), and/then 3 BNC (r,g,b) Un-marked: 15 pin D-sub connector <--> box with PS-2 keyboard and mouse connectors, then 3 BNC connectors (r,g,b) - this was included in the shopping bag that came with my DEC 3000-400, but this doesn't go with it. The PMAGB-B video adaptor in slot 0 has the 3W3 (?) video connector... --- David A Woyciesjes --- C & IS Support Specialist --- Yale University Press --- mailto:david.woyciesjes@yale.edu --- (203) 432-0953 --- ICQ # - 905818

23 years, 12 months

"Geeks" and licensing

by acme_ent＠bellsouth.net

> From: Christopher Smith <csmith(a)amdocs.com> > I'm not saying that to get an entry level job in the field you should need > to know the machine architecture like the back of your hand, but you should > at least know the basics and be willing to learn the rest. The operative term here being "willing to learn the rest." Too many degree-holders which I've met seem to believe that they "know it all" and don't need to learn any more than they already know. As a consequence, they ask the same questions again and again. I'm of the old school -- don't go to your boss with a problem, go to your boss with a *solution.* I make it a point to learn *something* every day. Keeps my brain from drying out . . . Glen 0/0

23 years, 12 months

TI Calc and PS/1 printer

by mythtech＠Mac.com

I finally got a chance to get to the new thrift store that opened near me (Salvation Army). I got a good deal on a 28.8 external Mac modem (needed one for my nephew, 56k would have been nicer, but for $1 I can't argue). While I was there, I saw two items that might be of interest to some of you. 1: Texas Instruments calculator "Standard Business Analyst" in a wallet case with a small guide book. They want $8 for it. 2: IBM PS/1 printer (dot matrix it looked like, but I didn't crouch down to really check it out). They want $20 IIRC. I will be going back there in a few days to see what the price is on an Apple Thermal Transfer Printer (I have never heard of such a beast, but since it carries a DB25 connector, I assume it is Apple II series stuff, platinum, so it is later II). It didn't have a price tag on it, and it seems they have a policy that when something has no tag, they remove it >from inventory to be retagged and put back out on an unspecified day (I guess to keep people from pulling tags to try to get things cheaper). If anyone has an interest in the calculator or IBM printer (or the Apple one, but specify what your max price for it is... I myself won't pay more than $10), I can pick them up when I go back (and for the apple printer, if they want more than $10 but less than someone else's max, I can pick it up for them). Let me know -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

23 years, 12 months

MITS 2SIO serial chip?

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

From: Richard Erlacher <edick(a)idcomm.com> >won't support, and that's formatting with interleaving. The NEC parts seem to >be unable to format a diskette with other than strict ordinal sector numbering, Obviously you know not how the part works. I used to put sectors down on floppies with physical skew for CPM using 765/9266/37C65. It was dirt simple. When the 765 and clones write they want CHRN, All you need to do is make R the sector number what ever you want it to be then feed it to the FDC when doing a format track. What's difficult about that? Allison

23 years, 12 months

MITS 2SIO serial chip?

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

A newer chip that can still be found is the WD37C65 that will do 125ns easily. Or you could easily find a d765 off an old board or NOS from JDR. Allison -----Original Message----- From: Ben Franchuk <bfranchuk(a)jetnet.ab.ca> To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> Date: Sunday, December 16, 2001 5:55 PM Subject: Re: MITS 2SIO serial chip? >If you must know it is a floppy disk controller I need. Right now >I plan to use WD2797 floppy disk controller. I would love to use >a newer chip,but I can't find any! I want to stay with DIP's and PLCC's >here. This may be the 21 century but my soldering skills are the 19'th. >I still favor the simple dumb uart chip. TR1602?. I like things than >you hit reset, it starts ... not like the classic star-trek computers that >always go down. Usually when you need them. It's an OK part but you could use the 8251 with fewer supporting parts and two less voltages (com2502 is single voltage). I've built enough to enjoy later parts as I'm old enough to want it done in a lifetime and the older parts meant tons more support parts and the requisite connections. Of the latter, the fewer the better for both buildability and reliability. Allison

23 years, 12 months

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test-drb December 2001