test-drb July 2002

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

202 participants
380 discussions

by rhudson＠cnonline.net

I am trying to remember the apollo systems I was administrating in about 1984 while I worked for CALMA. They were very large, slightly smaller than a 3 foot cube, They had very large monochrome displays (21") and ran an os known as appollo domian, which was very unix like. They keyboards all had touch pads. The systems were connected via the same type of coax used in cable tv. They were connected in a loop. One system had a open reel tape drive, one of the slide in reel types that threaded itself. There may have been a color version too.

22 years, 5 months

Stuff available: PDP-8 desk, Masscomp

by e_cloud＠yahoo.com

I have to get rid of some of this bulky stuff that I'm not getting much use out of... I have a PDP8 desk (sunken area for console, rack under the left side) that I was using for my PC workstation but have since built another desk that holds more equipment, so this one is now surplus. The power controller that came with it is available depending on how much you want to offer. I never had the computer itself; I found this desk at ASU surplus several years ago. I found a picture of it on the 'net a while ago but have lost the link. I have a Masscomp of some kind. It's dusty now and I haven't tested it, but a friend unloaded it on me a couple years ago and told me it worked the last he knew; it has a hard drive and floppy, and a lot of serial ports. It is mounted in a rack about 4' high, which is half-empty. I have a lot of manuals and disks etc. for it. I was told this is an early real-time Unix system using the 68K processor. I live in Phoenix, AZ and you would need to pick these up. I'm open for offers of any kind on either of them. Please email e_cloud(a)yahoo.com; I will try to check the list but I'm subscribed in digest mode and will be more likely to notice if you email me directly. ===== . _______ Shawn T. Rutledge / KB7PWD ecloud(a)bigfoot.com (_ | |_) http://ecloud.org/ kb7pwd(a)kb7pwd.ampr.org __) | | \______________________________________________ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes http://autos.yahoo.com

22 years, 5 months

help needed: problem with UNIBUS access on my PDP-11/70

by GOOI＠oce.nl

The results of the last tests. I measured the contacts on the G7273: all ok. Next test. Conditions: console in slot 40, G7273 in slot 41, M9302 in last slot. slots 42 till last also have G7273's. Result: hung. I swapped (sorry Tony) the G7273 of slot 42 and slot 41. Again: hung. Last test. Moved G7273 from slot 41 back into slot 42 and put the RX211 in #41. The machine runs fine. PROMs on M9312, console, CPU regs, all are accessed without PAUSE going on. > OK, it appears there are 3 possibilities to check out : > > 1) The G7273 card is faulty and/or not making proper contact, > and is thus not actually completing the NPG chain. > > 2) The device _before_ this slot (possibly the arbiter > itself) can drive the input of the RX211 card, but can't drive the > terminator. I have no idea if the latter is a significantly heavier > load, but it might be!. > > 3) There is a problem before this slot (fault on the arbiter), > which is genuinely asserting a grant signal, but the RX211 is > getting into a state where it doesn't pass on grants, so said > errant grant never gets to the M8302 to cause problems. > > Yet again I have to ask you to stop swapping cards around > essentially at random, and to get out the test gear and make some > measurements. With the G7273 card in, look at the grant lines at > the teminator. Is one high? which one? Is it genuinely high, or > marginal? What are the grant lines doing at the arbiter? All low > as they should be? Can you get continuity along the grant chain > with just G7273 cards in the machine? If not, why not? And so on. > Actually get some evidence before trying to cure the fault. > > -tony Well, I am not swapping at random, but at this point the simple tests are exhausted. With the tests/swapping I established good starting points where to look. I agree it is time to pull out the "heavier" tools. This means more than just a quick glance at the schematics. I will post those results, but that might take a while ... tnx all, - Henk.

22 years, 5 months

Motherlode or scrap ?

by lgwalker＠mts.net

Well I finally got back to the salvage/surplus place to get a list of the HP stuff they had and found they had another big room full of stuff they had removed from a large government installation. This was in the attic of a large building during one of the hottest days we've had up here and my sweat was dripping on my notepad so please excuse my attempts to decipher my notes. You must also realize that I'm a complete mini neophyte. The original HP stuff I saw : HP 12979A I/O expander HP 96MX System controller HP 7970B Tape Unit HP 1000 w/ cybernex 1100 term HP System 2748B There were also several HP 2624 A, B, and Standard K-Bs and some monitors or terminals on the skid. The big room was dominated by about 50-60 Sybernex workstations (which are similar to the Wyse ones so often tossed by thift stores), heavy duty monitor arm stands, and metal desks. But then the goodies. About 20 DEC VT420/320/220 terminals A box of LK402 keyboards (20-30 of them) An IBM 3278 terminal A DEC VAX SA482 rack w/4 populated banks About 10 Decwriter II's and III's A DEC VAX 6310 in rack 2 very impressive-looking 5' MagTape racks Honeywell CPUE 111 Morel DP S6/92 There were many other things. Honeywell equipment, large printers. etc. that I didn't write down. Do you think that the Gods are now demanding that I collect mini's, teasing me first with the Pro 350's I rescued from the town dump recently? And in the wilds of north central Manitoba.(Where in hell is that ?) "Winnipegosis sounds like a disease." Lawrence lgwalker(a)mts.net bigwalk_ca(a)yahoo.com

22 years, 5 months

Tape Drive Questions

by palazzol＠comcast.net

Hello, I've spent some time over the past year or so reverse-engineering the Mattel Intellivision Keyboard Component. This was a prototype computer add-on for the Mattel Intellivision game system, which was test-marketed but never released. I'm basically done figuring almost everything out about it, and working on emulating it. You can read about it here: http://www.intellivisionlives.com/bluesky/hardware/keyboard_tech.ht ml The tape drives in these units were unusually sophisticated. They were essentially random-access 4-track cassette drives. Side A was read-only, and side B was read-write. Also, on each side, the left channel was audio and the right channel was digital data, directly recorded. This would allow for applications to Read/Write digital data and play/record audio simulataneously. They also has the ability to detect the tape leader via an optical sensor. The 2 questions I have are: 1) Does this drive sound like a drive from any other vintage computer system? 2) Anyone know who could tackle repairing such a thing? I've had no trouble fixing electrical problems, but tape drives are a whole different animal... I've basically examined 4 of these units and they all have mechanical problems. Emulating the system may prove to be the only way to ever see the software running. Thanks, Frank P.S. - If I make it to VCF 5.0, I'd like to do a talk about emulating old systems in general, and using this one as an example in particular. It's quite a beast.

22 years, 5 months

Motherlode or scrap ?

by healyzh＠aracnet.com

> --- "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh(a)aracnet.com> wrote: > > Warning, collecting Mini's is a dangerous disease that will seriously > > effect you mentally (what might be even worse is how it effects your > > amount of empty storage space). > > True. I have mine spread amongst 4 locations (several thousand sq ft > total). I'm looking into buying a warehouse between my house and the > airport. The main building (of four) is 100' x 160'. The good news > is that it happens to already *be* one of my four locations (the owner > has been casually looking to sell for a couple of years and recently > asked me if I was interested; I'm crunching numbers ;-). One nice > thing is I'll finally be able to deploy my raised floor (rescued from > a former employer 10 years ago). If this doesn't work, I'll be putting > up a new (much smaller than that) building next to the quonset hut at > the farm. > > > I recommend avoiding it at all costs. > > > > Zane > > Absolutely. In fact, you should call one of us to save you from > the peril. :-) You do realized that you just proved my point (as well as Ben's)? Zane

22 years, 5 months

Motherlode or scrap ?

by xds_sigma7＠hotmail.com

A DPS-6/92 is a 32-bit member of the DPS-6 (formerly known as Level 6) family.. Ran GCOS mod 400 or mod 600, possibly the Ultimate OS as well (a Pick OS for DPS-6s).. Well I'm fairly sure its 32-bit, earlier DPS-6s were 16-bitters but I'm nearly certain that a 6/92 is a 32 bit.. I believe the maximum memory for it is 4 million words.. Fast fast machine, mid to late 1980's vintage.. What peripherals are wih it? Honeywell's line printers were mainly Dataproducts units, the terminals should be VIP7xxx family I believe, could possibly be branded as Bull, since Groupe Bull bought Honeywell's computer division after years of co-development.. Disk drives I believe are OEM'd CDC units, same with mag tape drives... I don't know if anyone else would, but I'd sure pay money for it and all the related bits.. Hope you've gained some info on it from my description.. Will J _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com

22 years, 5 months

IMPORTANT LIST CHANGES

by lists＠subatomix.com

This is your interim list admin speaking. Jay and I have been working together to bring about a major change for the better for the ClassicCmp mailing list system. It is important that you read this entire message. Ever since the two-list system was implemented earlier this year, cctalk and cctech have been somewhat separate communities. Posts from cctech were automagically forwarded to cctalk, but no posts from cctalk were forwarded to cctech. This could result in many on-topic conversations taking place in cctalk but never reaching cctech, which greatly detracted from cctech's value. This is no longer the case. As of a few minutes ago, all posts to cctalk will be forwarded to cctech. Each one will be subject to moderation, where I will weed out any off-topic posts. All posts to cctech are still forwarded to cctalk as they have been. In effect, the list has become a single unified ClassicCmp again, but now with two interfaces. All on-topic posts to either list will be sent to both lists. Off-topic posts will only be sent to cctalk. Subscribers to cctech won't be left out of the conversation. In a related change, posts to cctech will no longer have the "[CCTECH]" string prepended to their subject headers. This change may slightly adversely affect some subscribers. If you are subscribed to both cctalk and cctech, you will need to either unsubscribe >from one of them or set the "no-mail" option on one of them. If you do not do this, you will receive two copies of each on-topic message. If you do stay subscribed to both lists, please exercise extreme caution when posting. Your messages will forward between the two lists without generally being subjected to moderator approval. Do not post off-topic messages when your subscription is configured in this way. Thanks, and enjoy the new ClassicCmp! Look for a new web site and FAQ soon! -- Jeffrey Sharp The email address lists(a)subatomix.com is for mailing list traffic. Please send off-list mail to roach jay ess ess at wasp subatomix beetle dot com. You may need to remove some bugs first.

22 years, 5 months

OT: MS/S.Ballmer fesses up... a little

by dwoycies＠yalepress3.unipress.yale.edu

I just thought everybody here might appreciate this. He's finally admitting something world+dog already knew.

22 years, 5 months

LSI-11/2

by mbg＠TheWorld.com

>I've got an embeded syatem based around an LSI-11/2 processor board, >M8044-BB (8KW?) memory, pair of DRV-11's, a MDB eprom board and ADC >board. What do I need to do to make this into a functional PDP-11? I've >got a DEC MSCP ESDI controller (don't remeber the part #), DLV-11 (8-port >version) serial card, TQK50, and drives from my VAXstation 3200 I can >try to use in it. It's from my DPE 5000, the video part of which let out >a bunch of magic smoke being powered on - can't find any obvious burned >parts, but haven't checked the power supply yet. Still, it's worth more >to me as a LSI(PDP)-11 than a video effects box that I can't fix. You haven't mentioned what kind of backplane it has (Q/Q vs. Q/CD), whether it has 22-bit (I suspect just 18-bit) and how many slots. These will all affect what the suggestions. Going with what you have, I might suggest upping the power from an 11/2 to an 11/73 (KDJ11-A), which takes up no more room in the backplane. >First, however, I'm sure I need DEC boot roms for it, or some other way >to get boot code into it. Does anyone happen to have some laying around >they could maybe send me an image of? Also, I'm on the lookout for a >RLV12 and berg cable to connect to the RL02 I have sitting around here.. I would suggest an MXV11-B, which gives you two serial lines, memory and boot code in one dual-high board. Beyond that, the DEC MSCP board is probably an RQDX(3?) and is not ESDI (I don't think there was an ESDI board made by DEC... all the ones I got while inside DEC were made by Andromeda -- the ESDC board). Finally, a DELQA for network and you're all set. Megan Gentry Former RT-11 Developer +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+ | Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | email: gentry at zk3.dec.com (work) | | Unix Support Engineering Group | mbg at world.std.com (home) | | Hewlett Packard | (s/ at /@/) | | 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43 | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ | | Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler | | (603) 884 1055 (DEC '77-'98) | required." - mbg KB1FCA | +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+

22 years, 5 months

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test-drb July 2002