test-drb July 2001

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

301 participants
824 discussions

by Robert_Feldman＠jdedwards.com

I have an Osborne I Technical Reference manual, ut it is a bit skimpy on the video (no circuit diagrams, for example). It does provide a pinout for the video connector. The signals come from the bottom and the shunt carries them to the top, where they go to a single inline connector that connects to the monitor. Looking at the edge connector from the front (numbered right to left, odd on top, even on the bottom), the signals are: 2 Ground 4 Brightness High 6 Brightness Low 8 Brightness Arm 10 Ground 12 Horizontal sync 14 +12V 16 Video out 18 Vertical sync 20 Ground The shunt just connects the top contact to its mate on the bottom: 1 to 2, 3 to 4, etc. The inline connector pinout is 1 Horizontal Ground 2 Brightness High 3 Brightness Low 4 Brightness Arm 5 Ground 6 Horizontal sync 7 +12V 8 Video out 9 Vertical sync 10 Video Ground First thing to check is to make sure that you are getting +12V on contac1 14 of the circuit board and pin 7 of the inline connector. The Brightness High, low and arm go to a 100K pot (arm to the wiper). Line 8 (video goes to a 500K pot connected to 10 (video ground). The manual notes: "Warning: The video connectors contain TTL-level signals along with +12 Volts, and are quite vulnerable to damage by accidental misconnections." As to the RCA socket, I had a Tan case Osborne I, and I do not remember that it had a composite video connector. You needed an adaptor (about 1.5"x1.5"x0.75" that plugged on the edge connector in place of the shunt. One brand was Exmon (sp?), as another poster mentioned. I saw something that looked like one at a surplus electronics website a few months ago. I don't recall which, but I will try to find it again. You should see the big Osborne "O" logo and ROM version info when you turn the computer on. There was no special keystroke combination to switch to external monitor. I forget what the 52/80/102 character display switch was, but I think that was through software. The higher video resolutions required a daughter board, which was a later addition on my tan-case O1. -----Original Message----- From: Rich Beaudry [mailto:r_beaudry@hotmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2001 7:59 AM To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org Subject: RE: Osborne One -- No video. Hello all, To answer the replies so far.... 1) There is a small black connector labeled "Do no remove when power is on" or something to that effect. I does indeed cover a card-edge style connector. I did remove it, power OFF, and I didn't recall it had anything conductive inside. It just looked like a plastic plug. I'll have to look again, when I go home this evening... 2) I did try the composite video output. Nothing there, either. 3) As I stated before, there was no light from the CRT at all, after taking the cover off and powering up. I will perform the ohmmeter test suggested by Dave McGuire tonight. - As for the composite video connector... Does anyone know if there is any magic keystroke or other setting to enable this? Perhaps if the internal monitor is dead, I can still use an external one...

23 years, 5 months

Macintosh Quadra

by vance＠ikickass.org

Hi. I'm not sure if it's ten years old yet, but here goes. I was wondering if it were possible to upgrade my Macintosh Quadra 800 to 68060? What are my options? I really don't want to go PowerPC. Peace... Sridhar

23 years, 5 months

vintage sdk-85 microcomputer trainer for sale

by optiplex＠larose.com

Hi, I have a sdk-85 trainer for sale at ebay. Please check it:(item number#1255923691) http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1255923691 thanks, optiplex(a)larose.com Ya Who?? Be Some Body Free Web Based Email at LAROSE.COM

23 years, 5 months

Kennedy 9100 tape drive info?

by brian＠quarterbyte.com

I have the opportunity to pick up a Kennedy 9100 tape drive -- a vac column start/stop drive. (No, I don't NEED another tape drive, but.) Condition unknown. This is definitely not a Pertec-interface drive. Has two what looked like 36-conductor edge connectors, plus or minus. Not 50. Stuff I was able to find online said it emulates the TE-10 drive and uses a TC-11 Unibus controller. Is that correct? Are Unibus controllers plentiful? Does anyone know if there is a q-bus interface for this drive? If so, is it reasonably available? Could you cc me directly in any replies (brian(a)quarterbyte.com) if you know, as I will have to decide whether or not to take this before I'll see the digest. Thanks so much, Brian

23 years, 5 months

parcel post from U.K. to U.S.A. ?

by Antonio.Carlini＠riverstonenet.com

> Kevin Murrell wrote: > >Parcelforce using airmail from the UK to the US is very quick - nearly >always less than one week. The cheaper alternative has taken over 7 weeks >the last two times I have used it. >1.0Kg Datapost 32.85 Standard 15.60 Economy 13.20 >8.0Kg 69.10 55.75 38.15 >Economy up to 20 days UK to US (I suspect a lot longer!) Given that the estimate is 15lbs, it might come in under 8kg. A six week slow boat saves 30UKP (about 45USD). I was willing to wait when my manual was shipped .... and it did indeed take the whole of the estimated six weeks! I suppose it depends how desperate you are to get the manuals and disks! Antonio

23 years, 5 months

[win2x@hotmail.com: Vax 11/780 - Sun 3/470 w/ Mass storage]

by msell＠ontimesupport.com

Richard, Forgot about that transformer.... I removed two of the three fuses that feed power to the other phases of the transformer and checked the voltage of the power supply that operates the interlock system and also monitored the temperature of the components on the board as well as the transformer. After running it for about an hour with the main relay pulled in, it seemed that the transformer and power supply were handling the single phase feed okay. For everyone on the list: please keep in mind that these checks were not comprehensive and were just a simple test to see if a easy conversion from phase to single phase could be made with no internal modifications to the VAX. I intend to make a conversion box that the stock power plug mates with, with integral voltage and ammeters in the box to monitor the power supply to the VAX. If these conversions are successful, I'll make my notes, observations, and schematics available to all. I can't wait to get it all running....... : ) - Matt At 12:52 PM 7/17/01 -0500, you wrote: >On Tue, 17 Jul 2001, Matthew Sell wrote: > > > As far as power goes for the 11/780, it looks like it may be possible to > > feed one with standard 115V, with three separate feeds. > >Yes it is, with one exception that I think you've found, from your >description. There is a 3-phase transformer and power supply that runs >the power distribution box relays and such. But the actual meat of the >thing is run off 115 (all phase-to-neutral when run on 120/208 Y). I was >planning to run mine from split-phase residential 240v, with maybe 4 >supplies on one side, 2 on the other, and the Unibus expansion cabinet and >some drives on the side with 2. > >Good luck in getting it running. > >Richard Schauer >rws(a)enteract.com "One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer" - Adolf Hitler Many thanks for this tagline to a fellow RGVAC'er...

23 years, 5 months

pathways for vms setup

by cureau＠lycos.com

I'm trying to find some information on configuring pathways tcpip for my vaxserver. Might anyone out there be able to help me? Cheers, Chris --- I for one, was glad when Congressman John Glenn went back into space. I was a bit disappointed when he returned, however. Get 250 color business cards for FREE! http://businesscards.lycos.com/vp/fastpath/

23 years, 5 months

Light Pens ...

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jul 16, 18:39, Tony Duell wrote: > > So here's a trick question .. what happens when a person holds > > a lightpen to a dark section of the screen. Is the lightpen > > Nothing happens (literally). The light pen never sees any light, so it > can't send a signal to the video card, so the CRT controller can never > report the position. > > > completely blind unless come pixel is lit up? > > Yes. That's not necessarily *quite* true. I built a lightpen for my Beeb years and years ago, based on an article in a magazine. It used one of the RS "Sweet Spot" devices and at first I had some trouble making it work. The following month the magazine published a followup indicating that not all Sweet Spot devices worked, and suggesting alternatives, but by then I'd figured out that there was a speed-of-response problem and also a sensitivity issue and had played with other detectors. I found that if the brightness was set so that black was *just* not visible, a suitably adjusted lightpen on a short-persistence monitor could detect dark pixels. It was, however, *much* easier with lit pixels. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 5 months

BBC Micro (was: Re: Apple II for into to microprocessors

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jul 16, 18:35, Tony Duell wrote: > > Yes, I they do (mine has it, and it's shown on all the diagrams) and now > > you mention it, it sounds familiar. Or more accurately, I remember seeing > > soething about converting US machines back to UK spec (or UK-usable spec, > > Preumably that involves moving the link, replacing the colour subcarrier > crystal amd replacing the BASIC (and MOS?) ROM? Yes, and changing the link in the PSU. > > at least). One Acorn dealer re-imported a lot of unsold US and German > > Beebs some years ago. > > What's a German Beeb? Does it have the QWERTZ keyboard layout and German > messages in the ROM ? Is that the only difference? I never actually saw one, but as far as I know, the differences -- if any -- were very small. I'm not even sure they translated all the messages. There was a problem with selling Beebs in Germany -- the safety and emissions regs were tighter at the time than in the UK, and at one point Acorn wouldn't sanction sales to Germany. > One thing to emphasise here is that the A and B machines both used the > same PCB, so upgrading was a matter of adding the extra chips and moving > various links (for example to enable the ROM select circuitry rather than > always having the BASIC ROM selected). Absolutely. And as you point out, you only had to add the things you wanted, though if you added all the "missing" chips, sockets, and set the links, there was no way to tell (other than the serial number) that the machine had started as an "A". > Real hackers just got the circuit diagram and went off to buy the chips :-) Yup. Which is how I discovered that Watfraud's "A to B Upgrade Kit" was incomplete -- it looked cheaper than the sum of the parts, and when I looked at the contents I realised why. They had started from the premise of adding a printer, serial port, RAM, etc; and hadn't realised they needed little things like the 74LS161 that latches the ROM bank select. I suspect they'd never looked at the diagram and certainly not been on any of the Acorn courses, but merely copied parts lists from some other vendors individual upgrades. > > Then came the B+. This looked similar from the outside, but had a > > redesigned PCB with 64K of RAM, some of which was used to "shadow" the > > The circuitry was very different in some places, with more ULAs > (Uncommitted Logic Array chips, basically mask-programmed ASICs). The > original BBC micro had 2 ULAs, one for the serial/cassette ports > (included the baud rate generator, cassette modulator/demodulator, etc) > and one for video (colour lookup table, etc). The B+ had at least one for > memory control as well. Actually, that one is a PAL. > I thought the B+ schematic showed an 8271 disk controller. Or are you > saying that all B+'s shipped with a 1770 kludgeboard in them. Not a board; the main PCB has places to fit either a 1770 or an 8271. Both upgrades (you could buy a B+ without the interface) included a few extra chips (buffers, etc) but there were a couple in the 8271 kit not required in the 1770 kit (74LS123, IIRC, and I think one other). The service manual lists the whys and wherefores; I'll dig it out if you're interested. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 5 months

VAXserver 3100 question

by vance＠ikickass.org

Hi. I seem to find this connector with 50 pins in three rows in a D-shell on my VAXservers and VAXstations. I even have one or two on my DECsystem 5840. Could someone tell me what they are? Three rows. 17 - 16 - 17. Peace... Sridhar

23 years, 5 months

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test-drb July 2001