Hi. Totally off-topic, but my friends and I are going to be in San
Francisco the first two weeks of October, and I was wondering if
anyone can recommend anything cool to do/see. We're all vegetarians,
so vegetarian/vegan restaurant tips would be welcome. One of us likes
repairing and collecting vintage pocket watches and wristwatches, two
of us like older Irish and classical music, one of us likes aerospace
museums and aerospace/computer surplus stores. We all like plants,
animals, science, art, and computers. We're probably going to be
renting an apartment on the bay near Mariposa street. Is there
anything we need to know about that area of town? Any suggestions or
pointers would be very much appreciated.
Bill Richman
bill_r(a)inetnebr.com
http://incolor.inetnebr.com/bill_r
Home of Fun with Molten Metal, technological
oddities, and the original COSMAC Elf
computer simulator!
On Aug 1, 4:08, Dave McGuire wrote:
> On August 1, Bill Bradford wrote:
> > Anybody ever seen one of these before:
> >
> > http://images.sunhelp.org/rack/rack-hardware/
> Wow...I've only seen one of those once...been looking for one for a
> while. Take good care of that.
I've seen one other, but the owner wanted to re-use the rack for something
else and all I got was some boards.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
On Aug 1, 9:54, Hans Franke wrote:
> > Thanks -- some of that is helpful, even though I did find the data
sheets
> > on the web. Now all I need is some time to play with it...
>
> Well, the question is still if I should send you the data sheets ?
No need, Hans; I downloaded them. Thanks, though.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
At 09:57 AM 8/1/01 -0700, you wrote:
>> > Don't be such a cynical bastard. You'll end up like Wayne Green.
>> >
>> Yick. Now THAT's an insult. :)
>
>to cynical bastards.
And now VCF East has been mentioned on Slashdot... so far, many
of the comments say "Gee, if I'd known about this event,
I would've attended."
My sympathies to Sellam... I know how hard it is to promote
an event like this. Next time, pre-announce on Slashdot, and
encourage friend-to-friend spamming in private e-mail, especially
within big computer companies.
- John
I went to the junk yard today again. They obviously don't like my intrusion
(well, they wouldn't notice mine, since I clean up after going through their
stuff, but some others are not as discrete...), because they had welded a mesh
of iron bars in the opening in the fence. Not that it would stop us, we still
managed to bring a 20", a 17" and a 14" monitor out, along with all sorts of
junk. I didn't catch much this time, though.
The most interesting items were a 9->15 pin VGA cable, and a pretty folder
describing the advanced comfort of the Philips VCR system. =)
Well, you can't be lucky each day, can you? Guess again!
After coming home, I was hungry and thought I'd take a walk to the 7-Eleven,
when I noticed that a skip some blocks from home contained a light table. I
proceeded to investigate, when I found below the table a big box with an
amazing number of TTY ports. After dragging it out, I was in for a surprise -
it was a DIAB DS90-20!
According to my investigations, this should be a VME-based 68020 multiuser
system, running DNIX, a System III or System V version. Its predecessor DS90-
00 was also known as the Luxor ABC-9000, running ABCnix. =)
The forty TTY ports on the back are sealed, so I couldn't find any I/O at all,
until I found the the panel with the TTY ports would swing back to reveal
blanking plates for a number of cards. I think the system has got four TTY
ports, but they're not standard DB25 ports, but D15 ones.
Our Tandberg terminal has got a D15 port in addition to its DB25, could these
be compatible. I think the Tandberg's D15 was listed as being a V.something
port.
In addition to the TTY ports, there's a DIN-4 (?) port and an AC inlet. The
system is turned on, off and reset with a key, which fortunately was still in
the machine's lock. There's also a CEN-50, which leads me to believe that it's
either got SCSI or some queer MFM controller.
I'll have to pay a visit to the company which threw the machine out in order
to see whether they kept any accessories or documentation.
The entire system reminds me of a Stride - big bulking tower, streamer and 5?
FDD, lots of TTYs, VME, m68k, AT&T licence.
More info tomorrow when I'll try to power it on.
UPDATE:
I opened it up today, and could examine it in daylight. It is a SCSI based
system, with a 140 MB full-height Maxtor drive from 1987. Opening it up is a
pleasure. The side panels are removed with some firm force, then you loosen
two screws and swing out panels, one of which contains the motherboard. The
mobo contains a 68450 (some m68k peripheral circuit IIRC), a 68020 CPU, a
68581 MMU and a 68881 FPU. And a whole lot of other things, including some
Zilog chips which I presume contain the SCSI controller. SCSI is good, that
means that it may be easily backed up before I start toying with the OS.
The machine is running right now. The HD is a bit on the noisy side, but I
suppose it could be replaced. The mobo is also fitted with several VME slots,
one of which extends into a cardcage containing three VME slots and four "DB"
slots. The DB slots use a connector similar to the VME, but with only two rows
of pins/sockets, and the cards are only half the height of a Europa card.
Reminds me somewhat of the ABC-bus. There are also two plates for mounting
additional TTYs to the four ones of the motherboard. Don't ask me where they
connect.
Might I add that this looks like an ideal target architecture for NetBSD?
Now, if it only had Ethernet, like later models did...
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
G? med i SUGA, Swedish Usergroup of Amiga!
WWW: http://swedish.usergroup.amiga.tm/
BBS: 08-6582572, telnet://sua.ath.cx:42512
Dear sir/madam, My name is Anthony Couzens. I am the current owner and son
of the original owner of The Computer Junk Shop, Widnes. I have just fallen
over your message posted on the internet regarding a Northstar PC you saw in
our shop some ten years ago. It may (but most likely may not!) surprise you
to find out that we still have this PC, as it was the first PC my father
ever bought and one that he had to travel specially to America to buy a very
long time ago. He has kept it until now as part of a collection of antiques
but if you were especially interested in it perhaps I could put you in touch
with him.
Let me know what you think!
Regards,
Anthony Couzens
THE COMPUTER JUNK SHOP
Tel: 0151 4206671
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
Goto: www.abebooks.com and do a 'search' with Varian 620/L in the Title
field to bring up a copy of the Operation and Information manual for the
computer. This book is from 1971 and there only appears to be one copy.
I thought that there were some folks here who had Varian gear. I found
this while looking for microwave tube info.
Cheers
John
> Ok so I just picked up two very cool things for the House of VAX. They are
> both DSSI to SCSI controllers.
For the House de VAXentoyz, it is always marvelous!
Yeah, very cool. I would almost give me eye teeth, as the ol man was want
to say, for some (or even one) of those dssi-scsi storageworks modules.
> One was made by DEC and plugs into a Storage works storage shelf! That one
> is so cool. Turn a storage shelf into a DSSI shelf. Its very weird to see
> the RZ29's in the shelf with labels DIA240, DIA250, etc.
That is the critter. If you ever want to part with it....holler.
I sense you will use that for 4000/xxx dssi to scsi VAXenspeak?
> I also picked up three storage works shelves, two with redundant supplies
> and one with only one supply. Generally they have 4, 5, and 3, RZ29's in
> them. The one with 4 has the DSSI converter in the other end. I've got to
> get pictures of these up on the web site soon, they are really neat.
I run a few of those storage works shelves on my alphas. It is very nice
to be able to mount up 7 drives on a small machine, externally, for some
nice play space.
Watch the jumpers inside behind the fans. There are several ways to
set them. If you want to use them generically, and as a single bus,
you need to check them. See the ba350ugc.pdf manual.
Watch the internal slide in connectors. I have had one go bad on me,
for no good reason, so have to settle for 6 drives on that one...(:+{{...
Good Luck.
Bob
Anybody ever seen one of these before:
http://images.sunhelp.org/rack/rack-hardware/
ITS SO CUTE. I love it.. had an RX01 and some
other stuff in it (which is now all out in the garage
on the workbench waiting to be cleaned up). Took me
about an hour to clean up the cabinet/enclosure itself,
tighten up the rails, etc.. but it ended up being a
perfectly temporary home for my "home network" gear
until I re-fill it with PDP stuff.
I'd just never seen such a "contemporary office
enviroment"-styled enclosure. The top even matches my desk. 8-)
(label on it says d|i|g|i|t|a|l pdp11 system)
Bill
--
Bill Bradford
mrbill(a)mrbill.net
Austin, TX
