test-drb February 2002

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

293 participants
1043 discussions

by dogas＠bellsouth.net

Great fun. Lotsa driving. Lotsa great people, Lotsa classic computer stuff! First, I knew that Joe's CC reentry was being fueled by a *few* cool Intel MDS-800 systems so I brought down an Intel MDS 235 for him (that was originally his to begin with) to add to his growing 'Intel Gravatational Field' Joe and I started early Friday and Saturday and I scored all this real cheap: Technical Careers Instutute, Electrical Department's, X-80 (z-80 sbc) SUN SparcStations 1, 2, 5, 20 (all stripped except the 2,) and 2 keyboards TI-2500 Datamath LED calculator DEC puck mouse, LED Test Light Panel GenRad's/DEC M7516, M3107, M7546, M7608, M7609, ClearPoint, WQESD/04 Commodore VIC-20 ML and Monitor Cart and 3 Slot Expanders Commodore 1571 and 1541, Simon Basic Cart, Infocom's HGTTG (my perile sensitive (driving) sunglasses are wearing out) COCO Basic09, OS9, OS9L2, and Pascal docs (some lamer ebayer borrowed and kept mine) DANA Counter (for the 8 NIXIES) X-10 Telephone remote controller and a few split wall recepts. ARC 40A (rs232) Data Analyzer Books: PN's Inside the IBM PC TRS-80 Sales catalogs RSC-7, CCF-832, 8/24/82 Sale The new RTTY Handbook (Joe's) RTTY A-Z (Joe's) Mags: Rainbow 84, 87-92 Color Computer 3/84 (premier) - 11/84 Creative COmputing 10.11 - 11.4 Byte 3/84 TRS-80 Microcomputer News 4.5 - 5.7 PE Aug/76, Sept/76, Mar/77, Mar/78, 78 Electronics Experimenters Handbook, May/80 At the end, when we were about done, Joe stayed behind to guard our piles while I fetched the car to load up. When I returned, Joe had found *my* RCA VIP. I felt several blood vessels then pop behind my forehead... ;) There were also several classiccmps not picked up because of high prices like: Several TRS-80 100 portables and one with the portable floppy and a Model 4 SGI Indy Timex ZX81 There was also a cool computer (not purchased) from Chrystler that was a old 8080 (embedded maybe) multiboard system in a cardcage. It's 8080 chip was >from '74, and there were a few 2020 Emulator boards (??) in there two... There was even one 'Vintage Computer' table. This guy had CoCo stuff galore. He said that I was his only customer the first day. So I made some ancillary purchases from him for the coco and commie stuff mentioned above. Oh yeah. And I may just score a full rack with a PDP 8M and a few ASR 33 TTs based on a random conversations struck up while there with another shopper (!!!) ;) - Mike: dogas(a)bellsouth.net

22 years, 10 months

32-bit bit slice?

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> Odd questions, perhaps: > Was there ever a commercial 32-bit machine built with 2901s? > Other bit slice devices? > > What is the longest word length machines done in bit-slice? > > Is there a practical limit to the word length of a 2901-based > machine? The Prime 400 was built using the 2901; it was 32-bit and supported a paged, segmented virtual memory space. -dq

22 years, 10 months

Taking control of your collection

by Adrian.Graham＠corporatemicrosystems.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Lawrence Walker [mailto:lgwalker@mts.net] > Sent: 05 February 2002 06:00 > To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org > Subject: Taking control of your collection > > How do YOU limit your collection when you aren't a Sellam, John Keys > and others with warehouse space. Seriously. It must be a problem that > many of you have made a decision on, even when it wasn't your S.O. > giving an ultimatum. Any guidelines ? Be stern. Fortunately for me I've got an understanding gf who also packrats stuff :) I was supposed to be limited to one room in the house, but sharp filled up that, then the room next to it, then a spare room on the ground floor, then the garage, then a small storage room then a much bigger storage room, and now that I've got 500sq ft to play with who knows what's going to happen! I only have 1 rule; since I'm going to be exhibiting I keep the best/cleanest machine and pass on/sell the others. Obviously this gets broken for machines I'm exploring/fixing/hacking, or with stuff I think will be good for trades. Machines I'll collect till I stop are things like Lisas, Enterprise64/128, Memotechs etc - things I really *really* wanted when I was younger and which never quite 'made it' in the real world. a

22 years, 10 months

Keyboard for Cifer T5 terminal.

by timwa＠snowgoons.fsnet.co.uk

Paul Williams wrote: >Pete Turnbull wrote: >>On Feb 9, 13:46, Paul Williams wrote: >>>Is there any form of address for Cifer on the terminal? I don't >>>even know which country they came from. >> >> The UK. A friend of mine went to work for them for a while in the >> late '80s, but I know very little more about them. Except that they >> made some quite cool black terminals, one of which I had until >> recently. > >You actually get rid of stuff occasionally? Shocking behaviour. > >It appears that Cifer made terminals and CP/M boxes. I haven't checked >the termcaps, but it appears that some were VT100-compatible (the ones I >used at Poly) and some weren't. Not adding any useful information, but I remember using a Cifer CP/M box at school (donated by a local major pharmaceuticals company IIRC, who didn't go to any of the trouble of deleting anything :-). Came with a massive 10MB hard disk and a 5.25" floppy, and a little greenscreen all in a single unit. We opened one up (after it had blown the magic blue smoke - the foam 'filter' on the cooling fans at the back had jammed the fan blades and it overheated rather horribly.) At the time I couldn't get over the fact that it had a Z80 for the main processor, but a 68000 (IIRC) driving the display hardware... As a 680x0 bigot, that always seemed the wrong way round :-). Cheers, Tim. -- Tim Walls at home in Croydon - Reply to tim(a)snowgoons.fsnet.co.uk

22 years, 10 months

Classic Comp UUCP network.

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Sellam Ismail [mailto:foo@siconic.com] > start a fire with two sticks. Give me a break. And the only "noise" > there is on the internet is the noise that you decide to tune in to. > The internet is pull, not push. The internet of today is ... but you can only pull in large chunks. :) Perhaps you have no more trouble finding good information than you used to -- but I have to say that everyone else I've spoken to about this has almost given up actually trying to find information. > bigger, faster, > and better than the internet of 10 years ago, infinitely more useable, > infinitely more useful, and I'm sorry but there's no going back. Well, I disagree on all points except "bigger," and "faster." :) Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

22 years, 10 months

Dead CMOS Battery - NEC Powermate portable

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 10, 21:30, Russ Blakeman wrote: > Not sure if there were rechargable litiums but they have had, and still > have, rechargeable alkalin batteries - my son has 2 sets he swaps in/out for > his Handspring Deluxe PDA (AAA). There are rechargeable lithium batteries. One type is lithium - carbon dioxide, and some *specially-made* lithium-manganese dioxide batteries are rechargeable. Don't try to recharge ordinary ones, they *will* exlode. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

22 years, 10 months

Dead CMOS Battery - NEC Powermate portable

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 10, 23:04, Tony Duell wrote: > > Some (mostly non-consumer type) Lithium batteries use sulfur dioxide in > > them. Not the kind of thing that you want to rupture inside your PC (or in > > But presumably in solution, not as a gas... Yes, but I'm not sure what it's dissolved in; it's not very soluble in water. Probably there's something else there to help (like dissolving iodine in potassium iodide solution). > > your house!). For the ones of you that aren't familar with the stuff, > > sulfur dioxide is nuseating and toxic, and it also reacts with moisture to > > form sulfuric acid, INCLUDING the moisture inside your lungs! > > No it doesn't. It forms sulphurous acid (H2SO3), which is a much weaker > acid than sulphuric (which is what you get if you disolve sulphur > trioxide in water). Except that SO3 isn't very water soluble either, commercially it's normally dissolved in concentrated sulphuric acid, to make more sulphuric acid. > I an not suggesting that SO2 is particularly pleasant, but I am sure most > of us here have burnt sulphur as part of a school chemistry experiment > and lived to tell the tale. It's used as a bleach, and as a preservative in foodstuffs (look for sodium metabisulphite on the label -- it releases SO2 in acidic conditions). -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

22 years, 10 months

THE best find of the weekend!

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 10, 21:15, Steve Robertson wrote: > Speaking of Daisy Wheel printers... I prefer to use a daisy wheel for > printing plain text stuff. Currently, I have a DIABLO 630 and am having real > difficulty talking to it. Seems like when I try to print anything, I get > buffer overruns, the wrong chatracters printed, and all kind of other > errors. I have tried every possible combination of comm settings, flow > control, etc... to no avail. Does anyone know where I can find the specs for > setup and handshaking for this printer. Some... this isn't direct from Diablo docs, but from a book I have that lists lots of RS232 setups: Diablo Systems, Inc: RO 630 Pin Function Direction 1 protective ground n/a 2 transmitted data from 630 3 received data to 630 4 request to send from 630 (note 1) 5 clear to send to 630 6 data set ready to 630 (note 2) 7 signal ground n/a 8 rec. line signal detector to 630 11 printer ready from 630 (note 3) 20 data terminal ready from 630 (note 3) Note 1: Pin 4 is always on (high) Note 2: Pin 6 must be on (high) before the 630 can receive data Note 3: Pin 20 can be used instead of pin 11 for hardware flow control -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

22 years, 10 months

This weekends finds

by tothwolf＠concentric.net

This weekend's haul still doesn't top some of the $5 boxes I've bought >from other local spots, but it seemed like a good enough haul to mention. So without further delay... 25 data books and 3 computer books for $5 20 assorted twist-lock plugs and receptacles [many are available for trade, see my earlier email] 2 12ft. mac serial cables 1 'AT&T 353A3' cable with a BNC and a RJ45 connector 1 'modem' cable for a custom application, 25-30ft. 9/25 pin 4 14 pin dip IDC ribbon headers 1 25 pin gender changer 2 pkgs sip resistor networks 1 pkg 6 50 pin IDC ribbon cable connectors 3 assorted pc boards - misc assorted components and parts in the bottom of the box 1 Glenmarc Portion-Aire PV-200VP pneumatic actuated fluid dispenser controller Each of the above items excluding assorted stuff and the books cost me $0.50ea for a grand total of $18 plus $5 for the books. Strangely enough, I purchased the foot switch for the Glenmarc unit from the same shop about 6 months ago for $4 or so. Does anyone know much about that unit? I don't have the handpieces for it, but they seem to still be available from the manufacturer. -Toth

22 years, 10 months

Diablo 630 flow control (was Re: THE best find of the weekend!)

by fmc＠reanimators.org

"Steve Robertson" <steven_j_robertson(a)hotmail.com> wrote: > Speaking of Daisy Wheel printers... I prefer to use a daisy wheel for > printing plain text stuff. Currently, I have a DIABLO 630 and am having real > difficulty talking to it. Seems like when I try to print anything, I get > buffer overruns, the wrong chatracters printed, and all kind of other > errors. I have tried every possible combination of comm settings, flow > control, etc... to no avail. Does anyone know where I can find the specs for > setup and handshaking for this printer. RS-232 interface? I don't recall the details precisely, but I used to be responsible for a bunch of HP 2601As which were badge-engineered Diablo 630s. As shipped by HP they did not do hardware flow control. There was a jumper on the top edge of one of the boards inside the printer that got it to do some sort of hardware flow control though (I think with it driving pin 20 to indicate whether it could accept data, but I may be confusing it with other HP serial printers of the day), and this was described (somewhat oddly) in one of the manuals that came with the printer. If I had that manual in front of me I could look it up -- I can almost see it from 15 years ago, but not quite. -Frank McConnell

22 years, 10 months

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test-drb February 2002