test-drb December 2003

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

252 participants
453 discussions

by jrice54＠charter.net

I seem to remember someone was attempting to gain a non-profit museum status from the IRS for their collection. Were they successful and what was the total out come? Was it worth the effort? Would they recomend the process for others? Was it worth the hassles of filing paperwork regularly? I know it's a lot of questions. My collection is out growing my available space (don't we all have this problem?), so I was wondering about options. James -- http://webpages.charter.net/jrice54/classiccomp2.html

20 years, 7 months

MicroVAX II question

by jwillis＠coherent-logic.com

Rackmount MicroVAX II given to me by a local PCB manufacturer. When I went to pick this machine up, it worked at their location. Booted into VMS and everything. Took it out of rack to transport home (they would not give up the original DEC rack). I marked all cables before disassembling, and put it back together in the same configuration. Got it home and the system would not get past the "3" stage of its self test. Any ideas?

20 years, 7 months

Building a PDP-11 for the first time

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Dec 13, 20:48, J.C. Wren wrote: > Supposing you're one of those people that have always wanted a PDP-11/74, but > know next to nothing about them. Is there a good guide anywhere for "here's > the cards, here's the combinations they'll work in, and here's why mixing > this card with that card will work, but isn't a good idea." > > I'd like to wind up with an 11/74 Why do you think you want a PDP-11/74? That's one of the "never-11s", a machine designed but never sold. It's the biggest -11 ever made. Do you want a Q-Bus machine (typically fairly small in size) or a Unibus machine (typically quite large)? Perhaps you're thinking of an 11/73? -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

20 years, 7 months

Disk hardware emulation, was Re: Grandfather system RTE6/VM?

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Dec 14, 0:02, Tony Duell wrote: > > I have the manual for the ACB4000 series, if you want to borrow it. > > How much useful information does it contain? Anything not obvious about > the board (i.e. anything I'd not fiogure out in 10 minutes given the > board and normal teat gear?) Other than the programming information for the various SCSI commands, no. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

20 years, 7 months

Disk hardware emulation, was Re: Grandfather system RTE6/VM?

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Dec 11, 12:05, Jules Richardson wrote: > On Wed, 2003-12-10 at 23:50, Tony Duell wrote: > > Some controller have links to enable/disable precompensation. The Adaptec > > ACB4000 (I mention that one, since I have an ACW on the bench at the > > moment, so the details are stuck in my brain) > > Oh, that reminds me - I came across another ACW owner last night. > Waiting to hear what (if any) docs / software he has for it. I have the manual for the ACB4000 series, if you want to borrow it. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

20 years, 7 months

Reel-to-Reel care?

by MGemeny＠pgcps.org

Whereas, Al Kossow wrote: >The long term prospects of tape transports with any rubber parts is not good, either. >Almost all of the 1/4" cartridge tape drives I own are inoperable because the drive >pinch rollers have turned to goo. Now therefore: I?m left to wonder of these rubber parts could be recast. I have had success casting rubber using Devcon flexane. It?s a 2 part mix with extremely low shrinkage. The medium ?80? liquid has a companion softener flex-add which allow one to adjust the hardness of the resulting rubber. I have used Freeman machinable wax to make molds with good results. I would think that with reasonable machining practice a run-out of a thousandth or so could be had re-rubberizing a roller spindle. (A human hair being about 3 thousandths of an inch) If greater precision were required a machining allowance could be added to the rubber and it could be frozen and ground after casting. (Not that I would look forward to liquid nitrogen all over my south bend lathe, and it?s not like we?re making disk heads here) The bottom line is that if it was made, it can be made. After all, some telescope hobbyists make their own mirrors! Your thoughts? Mike.

20 years, 7 months

Building a PDP-11 for the first time

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Dec 12, 11:27, John Allain wrote: > >> Jerome Fine replies: > >> > >> First, the M8190-AB is a PDP-11/73 CPU board and > >> usually runs in an ALL Qbus system. Don't forget that > > > Patrick Finnegan answers: > > So can someone fix this in the "FIELD GUIDE TO Q-BUS > > AND UNIBUS MODULES" > > doc? It's got an M8190 listed as an 11/84 CPU. > > In another source > KDJ11-A_UsersManual.pdf. page.73/2-18, > the M8192 is the J11, which is the 11/73 CPU. Not necessariliy, or to put it another way, both are correct. The J11 is a chip , used in several PDP-11 variants. The M8190 is a processor board used in 11/73, 11/83, and 11/84. The difference is (1) the 11/73 originally had a 15MHz clock, and the 11/83 and 11/84 had an 18MHz clock, (2) the 11/73 and 11/8x had different ROMs, and (3) in an 11/73 system the memory is arranged after the CPU in conventional fashion, whereas in an 11/83 the memory is PMI memory and is placed before the CPU. There are several revisions of the ROMs for the 11/8x, and the second letter of the suffix (the first is always 'B') tells you what the original ROM version was. This is a quad-height board with two bootstrap ROMs (actually EPROMs), line time clock, and two SLUs. All M8190s are the same (modulo engineering change orders etc) apart from crystal and ROMs. The M8192 is always an 11/73; it's a dual-height board with no SLus or ROMs, etc. It was usually sold as an OEM item or as an upgrade for 11/23 systems. There ar a few variants of this too, becasue there as a bug in early versions of an ASIC which meant that some early ones would not work with an FPU upgrade. All these boards are Q-Bus boards. There is no Unibus version. The 11/84 used an M8190 in a backplane with a Unibus converter (the CPU and memory were Q-Bus, the rest of the machine was Unibus). The 11/94 worked in a similar way. However, Eric may be right about the 11/84 bus being slightly different from normal Q-Bus, so that the official 11/84 memory may be different. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

20 years, 7 months

Building a PDP-11 for the first time

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Dec 12, 12:57, emanuel stiebler wrote: > John Allain wrote: > > > Wasn't there an 11/93~4 too... > > Was this a J11 with more clock speed again? > > Nope. But all memory (fast !) was on board already, and 8 serial lines. Er, yes it was a J11, but different board. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

20 years, 7 months

Building a PDP-11 for the first time

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Dec 12, 20:08, Jochen Kunz wrote: > AFAIK that M8192 dual /73 CPU board was never used in DEC machines. It > was targeted to the OEM market or to replace the dual /23 board used in > embedded systems. It was also sold in the 11/73S systems (look like an 11/23 but have a KDJ11 processor). -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

20 years, 7 months

WTD: LC1552B, ITT 492-5 and NatSemi NSA298 data

by philpem＠dsl.pipex.com

Hi, Someone's just given me a Commodore Minuteman 3MW (model MM3MW) calculator. The device itself is working fine, but I still need to replace the battery pack and charge connector (the batteries were rechargeable nicad, N size). Anyway, just to satisfy my curiosity, I'd like to get some data on the ICs used inside it - these are: LC1552B / 7438 - looks like the main controller. Has some strange logo I've never seen before - kind of a _/- (a squared off S?) with a circle printed over the top. ITT / 492-5 / 7445 - these appear to be LED drivers. I've never seen a part number like this. BTW, the "7445" is printed vertically, the rest of the p/n is printed horizontally (as normal). NSA298 / NS 436 - the "NS" looks a LOT like one of National Semiconductor's old logos. Did NatSemi ever make LED display panels? Now, to finish satisfying my curiosity, does anyone know anything about the Commodore MM3MW? A schematic diagram or service manual would be nice :) Thanks. -- Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB, philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet, 2-slice, http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI

20 years, 7 months

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test-drb December 2003