Sridhar wrote...
> S/390 does NOT run on microprocessors of any kind, let alone
> one as slow as PPC.
Don't tell that to the folks at http://www.conmicro.cx/hercules/
(Of course, it depends on what your definition of "on" is).
Brian
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
_| _| _| Brian Knittel / Quarterbyte Systems, Inc.
_| _| _| Tel: 1-510-559-7930 Fax: 1-510-525-6889
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On December 16, Innfogra(a)aol.com wrote:
> Found it. A very interesting issue. There are several other stories I would
> be interested in also. Thank you.
You're very welcome.
Unfortunately these scans aren't from *my* bytes...my collection
doesn't go back that far, as I was 7 years old in 1976...so I can't go
scan more of 'em. :-(
Eventually I'll beef up my BYTE collection, probably via eBay. There
are a LOT of great articles in there. Of course I do have all of the
wonderful Ciarcia books, so my BYTE collecting motivation has been
partially satisfied. :-)
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
St. Petersburg, FL "Less talk. More synthohol." --Lt. Worf
On December 16, ajp166 wrote:
> > I wonder if it would be possible (and practical) to use a
> >microcontroller, perhaps a PIC, to act as a core controller. Use the
> >A/D and D/A hardware to handle the drive and sense stuff, and do all
> >the timing in firmware...making it easily tweakable.
>
> Not likely as the sense voltages are quite small and the slice time
> has to just right.
Well I wouldn't expect to connect it *directly* to the PIC...some
analog jellybeans would seem appropriate.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
St. Petersburg, FL "Less talk. More synthohol." --Lt. Worf
On December 16, Ben Franchuk wrote:
> > > Remember the (iirc) Compaq ad. Thier 286 had a meg of static ram onboard.
> > > The ad depicted an empty desk with two tire tracks burt into it and a
> > > surprised user behind.
> >
> > Static RAM? Are you sure? I've never heard of static RAM in a
> > PeeCee. That's neat.
>
> Yes there is some -- it is called cache.:) I suspect a sever type
> PC is more likely to have static than dynamic. I never did like PC
> marketing -- clock speed -- not memory speed used as a benchmark.
Nonono, I mean *main* memory, not cache. I sincerely doubt there
are any PeeCees in the 486-or-newer arena with static RAM for main
memory.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
St. Petersburg, FL "Less talk. More synthohol." --Lt. Worf
>> I have some scans of an old BYTE Magazine article (July 1976 I
think)
>> that details how to build a common interface for an arbitrary chunk of
>> core. I haven't really read it in-depth but I plan to someday. I can
>> put it online if anyone would like to see it.
I'd love to see scans of this one too. I remember the article but
somehow lost it.
Allison
From: Don Maslin <donm(a)cts.com>
>It should not have a twist like a PC cable, and can be a length of
>34-conductor ribbon cable, Gene, with a 50-pin female header on each
>end. What ever length is needed.
Ah, dont you mean 34 pin? 50 pin would be the SCSI.
Allison
The older large ferrite core is easier to work with though
much slower. The bigger cores produce a larger output
when they switch but the cycle times are in the
3-5uS range. The later is helpful for demos as nothing
is too fast.
Allison
-----Original Message-----
From: Loboyko Steve <sloboyko(a)yahoo.com>
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Date: Saturday, December 15, 2001 11:36 PM
Subject: Re: [PDP8-Lovers] how to clean a PDP8/A, dishwasher?
>I've looked into this too. Problems are many. It's
>definitely not a trivial project, lots of analog and
>electromagnetic voodoo, and the chips that made it
>easier are very hard to find. I've got a small
>capacity large doughnut ca. 1960 core plane from an
>IBM machine and a 4K by 16 plane from the 70's with
>very tiny doughnuts, both unused, and I'd love to
>demonstrate how it worked.
>
>
>--- ajp166 <ajp166(a)bellatlantic.net> wrote:
>> From: John Allain <allain(a)panix.com>
>> >I have a Question for the other core users out
>> there:
>> >How would I test-signal a board, for demos, that is
>> >just a core frame, IE one sacrificed from its stack
>>
>> >and sold at the e- flea market?
>>
>>
>> It's a non trivial thing to do. Core by definition
>> is destructive
>> read out memory. So to demo a core you need to
>> provide
>> the coincident current (x,y) and the
>> inhibit/write/read signals
>> with the associated timing. Both the currents and
>> the
>> timing are critical. takes a lot of stuff to do
>> that.
>>
>> Allison
>>
>>
>
>
>__________________________________________________
>Do You Yahoo!?
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From: Gene Buckle <geneb(a)deltasoft.com>
>I know I can use any length of ribbon I want. What I'd like to know is
>what it was when it was new. (and it's 34 pin card-edge connectors that
>are needed :) )
I take them off old PC floppy cables.
>The drive is a Miniscribe 8425S and AFAIK, it's set to ID 0 with the
>terminating resistors installed. Seagate or Maxtor is not listed as a
>_controller_ choice when HFORMAT is run.
Yep! It's possible to use that drive but the Ampro provided tools only
recognized drives from the era, there were many good choices in
later years.
Allison
On December 15, Ben Franchuk wrote:
> > I have some scans of an old BYTE Magazine article (July 1976 I think)
> > that details how to build a common interface for an arbitrary chunk of
> > core. I haven't really read it in-depth but I plan to someday. I can
> > put it online if anyone would like to see it.
>
> I think that was a design for the 8080 and the S100 bus.
> It was a really nice design too if I remember right. I remember
> somebody doing a core-demo on the web. I think it used a iron washer
> as the core. Since this is not high speed only the current is critical
> here.
It should be pretty easy to interface to other processors, then...
> (Boy do I miss the early Bytes -- ordinary people designing and using
> computers
> -- not multi-billion $$$ bloatware companies -- )
Yup.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
St. Petersburg, FL "Less talk. More synthohol." --Lt. Worf
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jochen Kunz [mailto:jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de]
> On 2001.12.14 18:08 Christopher Smith wrote:
>
> [Sequent Symmetry S81]
> > Drives, but I can probably handle that...
> What interface SMD?
Possibly, it's hard to tell since I'm not sure what an SMD interface looks
like. I could turn it over and check but I don't know what to look for. ;)
> > I believe that the system was board-for-board compatible
> with the S27,
> The Unix-AG once owned a S27 with 8 CPUs, 80MB RAM, 7 SMD disks,
> Exabyte, ... I know where the machine is now, including a complete set
> of OS software. If you get the machine working, ask me for software.
I certainly will.
> Don't expect much of that machine. I could get only 200kB/s via the
> Ethernet, the SMD disk controller could not handle more then 700kB/s.
> (The same disks can deliver more than 2MB/s on a Sun 3/260.) That is
> real poor for such a high end beast. I was really
> disapointed. But it is
Did you get the chance to find out how performance faired when you add more
CPU?
> nice to see an old 4.2BSD UNIX derivate with AT&T universe
> running on 8
> CPUs in a SMP config.
It is amusing for me to see _any_ intel cpu running in an SMP config, and
the fact that from what I've heard, Sequent made them do it fairly well,
intrigues me.
Regards,
Chris
Christopher Smith, Perl Developer
Amdocs - Champaign, IL
/usr/bin/perl -e '
print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n");
'