test-drb May 2003

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

284 participants
500 discussions

by fmc＠reanimators.org

Submitted for your amusement, something picked up today while out scrounging (really looking for non-classic bits). It's a luggable. Poking out the front: 5" CRT two half-height 5.25" floppy drives (inserted floppies have extra write protect notches cut for use as flippies) 40/80 switch modular jack (6-conductor) brightness and horizontal hold knobs Poking out the back: GAME (DE9P) RS-232C (DB25S) PRINTER ("Centronics" connector) VIDEO (RCA socket) label, handwritten s/n 1193 and checkmarks for 110V 60Hz The detached keyboard has a modular jack too. It's also bit-paired (shift-2 is '"'), in fact it mostly follows the Apple ][ layout (and has <- and -> keys), and it has what look like BASIC keywords on the fronts of many of the keys, including HTAB, VTAB, GR, HGR, and TEXT. No cable between keyboard and luggable. I'm thinking it's an Apple ][ clone of some sort. It doesn't quite power up: no video display on the internal monitor. Pulling the top cover shows the guts. The top floppy drive is a Teac FD55A. The motherboard has five slots that look like Apple ][ slots; the silkscreen on the motherboard labels them S0 S3 S4 S5 S7. Date codes on the visible ICs are 81xx and 84xx so I'm guessing 1984 at the earliest. Someone's been in here before. The 40/80 switch has a lead to a paper clip that ties it (mechanically at least) to an insulated red lead that goes from the motherboard to the display board; this red lead would appear to be the +ve supply for the display. There's also a loose metal cover over the display section; it looks like it may have been held together or insulated by tape or sticky cardboard at some time but this has been removed somewhat. Powering up with the top off makes a red LED on the motherboard light up solid, but the CRT filament doesn't glow. Anyone ever seen one of these before? -Frank McConnell

21 years, 6 months

PDP-11/34A / BA11-K PSU

by jkunz＠unixag-kl.fh-kl.de

Hi. I got some more parts of that disassembled PDP-11/34A yesterday. I think I have now all PSU parts: - power inlet unit with mains cable, circuit breaker ... and a PCB that looks like a small PSU. - one big transformer - one small transformer - one H785 battery backup regulator module - one H745 -15 PSU module - two H7441 +5V PSU modules - a PCB that is labled "BATTERY CHARGER" - a bag full of screws Some time ago I got the front half of the BA11-K, i.e. a card cage with the system units, all UniBus cards, power distribution panel and front panel. Obviously missing: - back of the BA11-K where the PSU bricks, transformers, ... are mounted - fans - bulkheads for the console serial line, the serial multiplexer, RK07, ... - UniBus extender and terminator. [1] I got the card cage, power distribution panel, system units and all UniBus cards in one piece, but disassembled it to clean it. I know how to remount that, but I have no clue how all the PSU parts fit togeter and if there are some parts missing I didn't list above. It would be nice if someone who knows this machine could give me some hints... I was toled that one of the PSU bricks is broken. I found some manuals on http://www.mainecoon.com/classiccmp/PDP-11-34A/ but I can't read those TIFFs. I tried with xv, gimp, tiff2ps, Netscape 4.7x, Mozilla 1.2. I took the CDR with the TIFFs with me to work and tried to view them on a WinXP machine (puke). The machine nearly crashed when I tried to open the files. My SGI Indogo2 is broken so I can not try some IRIX tools. Where else can I get some schematics of the PSU bricks in a readable form? [1] There is an other, smaler BA11 with a custom UniBus interface from Linotype for some photo typesetting machinery... I have the M9312 bootstrap terminator for the "beginning" of the bus where the CPU resides. -- tsch??, Jochen, who is now heating the soldering iron for the Indogo2... Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/

21 years, 6 months

TRS80 mod 4 ver1 video/memory problems

by tothwolf＠concentric.net

On Fri, 30 May 2003, Tony Duell wrote: > When you reseated socketed chips, did you also do the ones on the FDC > board? Have you checked -- carefully -- the ribbon cable between the CPU > and FDC boards? I've had a lot of problems with those cables in M3s and > M4s. Speaking of which, whats best to replace these with? Both my model 3 and model 4 suffer from bad cables. -Toth

21 years, 6 months

Categorization and description was RE: Collection policy was Re: No space for vinatge computers in

by CyndeM＠vulcan.com

I'm finding many aspects of this discussion very compelling. It got me to wonder some things. How would you categorize and describe classic computer items? Is there an accepted descriptive benchmark in the collectors discipline? Or better still, how would you *like* to see it done? What would be an appropriate descriptive level of a flip chip, a unibus terminator, a cable, a power cable, a backplane, a cabinet part? If you had a museum or archival collection of these DEC things, what would you want to know about them that would make them useful to you? Cynde Moya, MLIS -----Original Message----- From: Tony Duell [mailto:ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk] Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2003 3:04 PM To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Collection policy was Re: No space for vinatge computers in > And worse to the categorisation and descritpion. We are in the process > of inventorying our collection, the PDP-9 is described as "a cabinet xx > cm tall, xx cm wide, xx cm deep with orange and black panels and an > operator console". That neatly describes a museums view of a PDP-9 !! > I am currently in a battle royal to get this point of view chamged. Argh!! I knew I disliked most museums for a good reason :-)... This is simply rediculous. A PDP9 is a PDP9 no matter what cabinet it's installed in, of even if it's jsut loose backplanes and PSUs... Mind you, I once saw a list of valves (vacuum tubes) that one museum was offering to another. The list had a column of 'condition'. No, it didn't give the emission and gm figures. It didn't even say if the heater was continous, and the getter silver (not white, which would indicate air had leaked into the valve). No, it described how clean the glass was... > I recently recoverd an entire PDP-9 OS thought long lost from three > DECtapes found in a batch of over 100. Had "policy" been applied at > least 90 of those tapes would have been trashed on the grounds that "we > already have ten of those". The obvious extension of this is that art galleries should throw out all but 10 of their paintains on the ground that they 'already have 10 pieces of canvas with paint on them' :-)... And that libraries only need to keep 10 books ('we already have 10 sets of bound pieces of paper with ink on them'). Somebody is going to have to educate museum curators about the importance and meaning of technical and computer artefacts... -tony

21 years, 6 months

OSX

by Robert_Feldman＠jdedwards.com

And it's anti-Christian evolutionism too! ;) http://crossspot.net/objective/propaganda.html -----Original Message----- From: Jay West [mailto:jwest@classiccmp.org] Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2003 11:46 AM To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org Subject: Re: OSX Odd.... Apple hired Jordan Hubbard (lead developer for FreeBSD) to head up OSX development, and I was quite sure I saw an article where Jordan stated the kernel and underlying OS was in fact FreeBSD. I'll check into this... Jay <snip>

21 years, 6 months

Altair: The saga continues.

by stevenaleach＠mac.com

Just replaced the capacitor on my 8800b front panel only to find that my power supply is defunct. 18 volt lines have output, but that's it. Checked voltage regulator pins on CPU card, 12 volts on the lower regulator, nil on the upper :-(. It should be interesting to watch the 8800 on ebay, it's got 4 days left. For almost two days (long enough to get my hopes up...:-(. ) I was the high bidder but now it's up to $1000. I wonder how sick this one will get? Ahh well, someday I will own an 8800!

21 years, 7 months

TRS80 mod 4 ver1 video/memory problems

by jpdavis＠gorge.net

Hi, I recently picked up a model 4 ver 1 with a problem. The system originally worked and booted, after moving the system it started to display random characters on power up and failed to boot.. I removed socketed ICs and cleaned the connectors. The system now displays a blank screen on power up ( although the drives spin, and it could be booting ). If I disconnect the FD controller from the main board, the system jumps into basic ( with video ) and seems to operate. Print fre(0) returns somthing over 48K with the fd disconnected. Any hints? Jim Davis.

21 years, 7 months

PDP11

by jhfinexgs2＠compsys.to

>Tony Manzo wrote: > Hello, If you have any PDP hardware/software that you wish to sell, > please email me. I have opened a "coffee house" - I hate the term > Cyber Cafe - that cateres to the technical and scientific, mainly > students and computer vets. We put the legacy systems online and > allow/encourage program development on the original equipment. I would > hate for such equipment to go unused, so if you can help, please let > me know. Thanks. Tony Manzo > Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM). Jerome Fine replies: I received the above PRIVATE e-mail from: Tony Manzo <vgo_tony_m(a)yahoo.com> I am attempting to track down just how Tony obtained my e-mail address plus if anyone else received the above e-mail. Also if anyone has heard of Tony and if he is legitimate? And does anyone know where Tony is located - which city? As far as I know, the only possible way Tony could have obtained my e-mail address was through cctalk(a)classiccmp.org since I first started to use this random e-mail address just a week ago. OR someone who is aware of my PDP-11 addiction gave it to him? In either case, I don't have an objection. But if there has been any hacking, then I would like to know about that aspect! In any case, if I am receiving spam via cctalk(a)classiccmp.org, then others need to be warned as well! If not, then I want to reply. Has anyone else received such an e-mail? Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine -- If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the 'at' with the four digits of the current year.

21 years, 7 months

HP 80 Series Software

by classiccmp＠vintage-computer.com

> As you've probably already found out, the HP-85 drives are mostly > in-operable by now. The tapes also have some serious failures with age. > I've managed to fix a few drives and I been able to read SOME of the tapes. > But I found that the tapes usually fail COMPLETELY after a few uses. (Again > see the archives) For several years I tried to get people to send me > whatever tapes they had so that I could copy them to disk and preserve the > SW but no one cooperated so I've given up. I've got an HP 85 with a bad tape drive but with dozens of tapes. I'd be happy to lend those to you for archiving, etc. Right now they are in storage pending me moving into a new home (I hope), but once I recover them I'll get in touch with you if you're willing to set up to copy these. Erik Klein www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum The Vintage Computer Forum

21 years, 7 months

HP 80 Series Software

by rhahm＠nycap.rr.com

Clear DayDoes anyone have any software or "Pacs" for the the HP 85 or 87 they would be willing to share. I could send you either 3.5 or 5.25 floppies if you could copy to discs. Also does anyone have a copy of the HP 85 User's Library? Thanks, Bob [demime 1.01a removed an attachment of type application/octet-stream which had a name of Clear Day Bkgrd.JPG]

21 years, 7 months

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test-drb May 2003