Joe <rigdonj(a)cfl.rr.com> wrote:
> The 85F were delivered as part of various HP test systems and AFIK
> they were never listed separately in the HP catalogs. That's probably
> why few people have heard of them and may be confusing their
> capabilities with standard 85Bs. The 85F is a nice catch IMO, you
> gain two ROMs and don't use up any of the ports on the back.
Yes, the 85F was part of the 3056DL data acquisition system. You can find
a brochure with a description of the 85F config at
<http://library.hp41.org/LibView.cfm?Command=Document&ItemID=23075>
On page 21 you find the 85F described as:
Computer with CRT, keyboard, tape drive, graphics, 16K memory, HP-IB
card, I/O ROM and ROM drawer (all that for just $3485).
There is no Mass Storage ROM and the Adv Programming ROM was a $165 option.
Also since they gave you the ROM drawer, the ROMs would not be inside
the 85F, so you do use one port on the back.
Even the 9915A which contains the ROMs inside the cabinet, has only three
slots, so you appear to lose a slot anyway.
Also, Joe, since you have the programmable-rom-module, can you check inside
to see the type of the translator IC (the one closest to the the edge
connector. I would guess that its either a 1MA5-0101 or a 1MB5-0101.
Further down there should be a 8048 (Intel microcontroller) that does
all the funny address decoding and stuff. At least with most HP85
I/O cards, the funny voltages on the I/O bus are hidden by the translator
chip; on the other side you have industry standard TTL.
Because of the "funny" voltages on the I/O bus, contructing a
programmable-rom-module from scratch would be very difficult, but if we
can use the 1MB5-0101 part (which is found in most adapters) we can
convert some of the zillion 82937 HP-IB adaptors that appear constantly
on eBay to programmable-rom-modules. Then we can all have the EMS ROM
and get rid of the ancient (and huge) 9135A hard disks.
BTW The most impressive of these beasts is probably the 9895A dual
8-inch floppy drive, that is so big that the HP85 sitting on top
looks like a toy.
I have a 20 page brochure on the 9915A. I'll try to make it available
on-line soon. This is where I got the keyboard connector info I posted in my
previous email.
gil smith <gil(a)vauxelectronics.com> wrote:
> There are still a few unknown keys in the main
> matrix though. Pin 25 use is unknown (2.5V). Pin 1 is chassis ground.
As I have mentioned in the previous posting, there is also a speaker
signal on the keyboard connector.
gil smith <gil(a)vauxelectronics.com> wrote:
> Since
> there are no lines to enable a specific rom socket, I think the 85 must
> poll for roms using fixed address ranges or something -- this implies
> that the roms contain address qualification circuitry of some sort.
Have a look at page 5-3 of the HP-85 assembler manual (available on
CDROM from the HP calculator museum - www.hpmuseum.org). It describes
the system memory organization of the HP-85. On page 6-17 the manual
explains how to access other ROMs via the bank-switching hooks.
Best regards
**vp
There are two rooms in the ACCRC building that are filled with huge old
(useless) refrigeration systems. Tons of steel. We'd like to get the
rooms cleared out so we can use them.
We've gotten quotes in the past but all of them will end up costing us to
remove the equipment since the rooms are enclosed and one of them is down
a ladder with a narrow door. Everything will need to be cut up and
removed piece-meal. There is also some very large equipment on the roof
that will need a crane to remove.
A while back we had a brief discussion about "clean steel". "Clean steel"
is supposedly steel that was smelted before the first atomic bomb tests,
and therefore contains no radiation. Apparently, air since the first
atomic bomb test is now filled with background radiation, and because so
much air is used in the smelting process, a lot of the radiation gets into
modern steel making it unsuitable for some applications (such as medical
test equipment where radioactive isotopes are used as part of the
operation).
I was thinking that because this building is so old (from the 1930s) that
a lot of the steel in those rooms is "clean".
I called a scrapper yesterday who has been in the business for 30+ years
and is a Harvard graduate, and he said he has never, ever heard of "clean
steel".
So what gives? Is there a government website somewhere that defines
"clean steel"?
I'm hoping that the steel is actually worth enough to make it a wash to
have it removed. As it stands, the quote I have so far is that we have
$25/ton worth of steel and $30/ton to salvage it.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
Can anyone here shed some more light on the sharp PC4500, the IBM basic
question?
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Thank you for your reply. I have a Sharp laptop PC4500 that still works.
I don't have a manual for it, and am curious about the unit. There are
two expansion slots inside the unit. I was wondering if I can use a
mouse with it, but there aren't any ports for a mouse. It has two
parallel port connectors only on the outside of the unit.
Also, I am looking for an IBM unit with the BASIC code in the ROM. I have
a game written in BASIC dating from about 1984 that won't work with
GWBASIC. I am curious whether it actually works on an actual IBM (i.e.
not clone) unit.
I was default sysop of a pair of Sydis voice-phone-data Unix systems
back when I was a product manager at a Large Non-Bell California Phone
Company. I called 'em Godzilla and Rodan. Not uncommon to get a phone
call : "Hey, I think Godzilla just puked.."
Earlier, (speaking of Molecular Computers) we sold two of them to a
company who did insurance back-office processing. Their resident Geeks
named them Pokey and Gumby, and when a user logged into the system, an
ASCII-art graphic of the relevant character was displayed on the
splash-screen.
None of the above machines were made from Pre-Bomb Steel, BTW.
Cheers
John
I deleted the original message that pointed me to this picture:
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~tractorb/editwriter.JPG
...but I would say that these are definitely worth saving.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
Googling doesn't turn up many hits, but I found two (both related to ships):
www.liddiard.demon.co.uk/photoix/brittany/kleber.htm and
www.hazegray.org/faq/smn7.htm
Given so few hits, maybe is is an urban legend. Then again, some
applications might require steel without the slight radiation that
blast-furnace smelting might add. The mixing in of contaminated scrap is a
different (and very real) issue from air-blast introduced low-level
radioactivity.
Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: Kapteyn, Rob [mailto:kapteynr@cboe.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 17, 2002 12:09 PM
To: 'cctalk(a)classiccmp.org'
Subject: RE: Clean steel?
My understanding of this:
"Unclean" steel is not radioactive because of the A-bomb tests (although we
are all being exposed to roughly 3 times "natural" background radiation
because of those tests.
There have been several very expensive mistakes in which highly radioactive
contaminants got mixed in with scrap metal going to smelters. Some of
these were not detected until toys and table legs made from the scrap were
being shipped to consumers.
About 40% of our steel comes from recycled scrap.
This scrap always seems to pick up some radioactive contamination.
The 60% of steel made from virgin ore is "clean".
Your 1930's scrap is still scrap -- not virgin ore.
The EPA has a new program to address this problem:
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/cleanmetals/
-Rob
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-admin(a)classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-admin@classiccmp.org]On
Behalf Of Sellam Ismail
Sent: Thursday, October 17, 2002 10:51 AM
To: Classic Computers Mailing List
Subject: OT: Clean steel?
There are two rooms in the ACCRC building that are filled with huge old
(useless) refrigeration systems. Tons of steel. We'd like to get the
rooms cleared out so we can use them.
We've gotten quotes in the past but all of them will end up costing us to
remove the equipment since the rooms are enclosed and one of them is down
a ladder with a narrow door. Everything will need to be cut up and
removed piece-meal. There is also some very large equipment on the roof
that will need a crane to remove.
A while back we had a brief discussion about "clean steel". "Clean steel"
is supposedly steel that was smelted before the first atomic bomb tests,
and therefore contains no radiation. Apparently, air since the first
atomic bomb test is now filled with background radiation, and because so
much air is used in the smelting process, a lot of the radiation gets into
modern steel making it unsuitable for some applications (such as medical
test equipment where radioactive isotopes are used as part of the
operation).
I was thinking that because this building is so old (from the 1930s) that
a lot of the steel in those rooms is "clean".
I called a scrapper yesterday who has been in the business for 30+ years
and is a Harvard graduate, and he said he has never, ever heard of "clean
steel".
So what gives? Is there a government website somewhere that defines
"clean steel"?
I'm hoping that the steel is actually worth enough to make it a wash to
have it removed. As it stands, the quote I have so far is that we have
$25/ton worth of steel and $30/ton to salvage it.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer
Festival
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
International Man of Intrigue and Danger
http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com
*
After a whole day of finetuning my ASR linefeed pawl stops, I still cannot
get it to produce a reliable linefeed. Most of the time I get nothing ,or a
half line, sometimes it feeds at each character.
Is there any secret to this mechanism ? The ASR manual is not a great help,
as it does not mention anything besides the pawls'and their stops.
Jos Dreesen
Does anyone have any info on this computer? I've found one at a scrap place and they're supposed to be getting a several more of them in. I pulled some of the cards from this one and they're marked Sperry-Rand. I checked the date codes on some of the ICs and they were all dated 1977. I pulled eight large core memory boards out of this one. Any body know what the memory capacity is on these?
Joe
Priority Interrupt chain. Should go from 16FDC OUT to TU-ART IN.
Note that the pins on the 4/16/64FDC are the opposite of all other cards, so
the cable connects to the same side pin on both boards (away from the
edge of the card).
The extra wire is in case you have another board requiring connection to the
interrupt chain, e.g. a PRI printer interface; if all you have is the
TU-ART, just leave it dangling:
__+ +_____________ 16FDC
|
|
__+ +_____________TU-ART
|
|
If you have a WDI type hard disk controller with a connector, do NOT connect
to it; they have a separate interrupt chain.
Good luck; nice to see someone actually bringing a Cromemco back to life.
Which model System 2 BTW? Sounds like a CS-2, dual TM100 floppies,
full width 21 slot backplane, no internal HD?
So, what other cards were in there? Got any software/OS for it?
mike
-------------Original Message-------------
Message: 42
From: "Scarletdown" <SecretaryBird(a)SoftHome.net>
To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2002 22:32:12 -0700
Subject: What Is This Connector?
Reply-To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
Earlier today, I had Mintaka (Cromemco System Two) opened up and had
her cards pulled so I could write down an inventory of what all she
has in her. I noticed that on the FDC16 floppy controller, there is
a wire plugged into a 2 pin connector on the card. The other end of
the wire is not connected to anything. Any idea what it is supposed
to go to?
<snip>
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So what is an Exxon Qyx good for? Other than as a typewriter?
I just found one in my garage (I swear if I dig a bit further, I will
find the Ark of the Covenant in there). I found the manuals and software,
but I can't yet get to them (really REALLY big pile of gondola shelves
are in the way, and I have to move a fridge to get the shelves out...
<sigh>).
I'm trying to decide if I should haul this out for my garage sale this
weekend, or hang on to it. The fact that it is a typewriter with a floppy
drive is interesting enough in its own right that I might keep it... but
that pack rat mentality is what got everything so burried in the first
place (something I am sure just about everyone here is familiar with).
Is this just an old word processor, or can you do something more
interesting with it?
-chris
<http://www.mythtech.net>
