test-drb June 2003

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

275 participants
520 discussions

by classiccmp＠crash.com

J.C. Wren wrote: . > What kind of machine could one possibly not admit to owning? That's > seems pretty wierd. I can imagine such a circumstance. Wasn't an Enigma device stolen >from a museum or collection not too long ago? Weren't the US$10,000+ sales of some Apple I's widely publicized? Some folks might not want to play the odds when publishing their holdings, if they're lucky enough to have some truly rare objects. --Steve. smj(at)spamfree.crash.com (lose spamfree to get through, m'kay?)

21 years, 6 months

Curt Vendel needs RK05 drive on east coast

by aek＠spies.com

Knowing Atari, there tapes were most definitely written on a PDP-11 system. == They are discs, not tapes. Atari switched from development on PDP-11's (an 11/60 that actually was at Weird Stuff when they were next door..) to a VAX in the early 80's. They are probably the RM05 packs from KIM:: -- I don't know about you, but I would be pretty surprised if Curt is going to find someone willing to put an unknown 12 platter pack in their RM05. I dont think Scopus or any of the disc inspection companies are even around any more. I have several dozen of those same vintage packs that I'm terrified to even try to put in a drive (not for a VAX..)

21 years, 6 months

Collectors worldwide, UNITE!

by dwightk.elvey＠amd.com

How about a Video Brain Really form someone other than Dwight >To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org > > > What kind of machine could one possibly not admit to owning? > > >a PC ? > > > > ---snip---

21 years, 6 months

Curt Vendel needs RK05 drive on east coast

by aek＠spies.com

RM05 packs are 300mb cake platters... Quite different from 2.5mb RK05's

21 years, 6 months

Collectors worldwide, UNITE!

by CyndeM＠vulcan.com

This does sound good. Design the database using ISO/IEC 11179, Metadata Standard. Then the records can be exchanged & understood by many systems. Then the records can either be entered by one/one group of people. Or people can self-register their computers, pictures, etc. Problem with having one person do it: time and money. Problem with self-registration : how to motivate collectors to register their stuff? Why bother? The one Internet tool that I've seen that really has people using, strategizing, and making complete registrations on is eBay. Sellers are motivated to have their things well-placed and carefully indexed so that they can be found by prospective buyers. Well, that's not entirely true. Computer collector websites are often very very cool; full of photos, scanned documents, lists of possessions, tips, stories, and other exotica. And to find those, I don't need a database, I need Google. Cynde Moya, MLIS -----Original Message----- From: Tore Sinding Bekkedal [mailto:toresbe@ifi.uio.no] Sent: Monday, June 02, 2003 2:20 PM To: cctech(a)classiccmp.org Subject: Collectors worldwide, UNITE! Over the weekend, a thought has been taking shape inside my head: What if we made a Grand Unified Union of Computing Collectors? Okay, GUUCC doesn't pronounce well. "Geeewkhkh". (shudder) How about Collector's International Association... Erm, nope. ;) International Computer Artifact Preservation Society! ICAPS sounds good. Or, if you totally disagree with it all, send a suggestion. OK, www.ipacs.org. What should it contain? -A member's directory with all the computers he/she owns -A directory of computers -A knowledge base revolving around all of the computers. For example, a user should be able to: Search for "6-611" 1 Machine found. Siemens 6-611 (198?) 1 Owner found. Tore S Bekkedal One would then click the entry link, and open up a window with pictures and specs etc, and there would be interesting links regarding that machine, downloadable boot images, etc, etc. If one clicked the owner, one would see other machines in his collection. There should also be a "Market" where people could exchange spares, and machines etc. Also an "Opportunities" "Map" where you could see pickup opportunities? Companies should be able to "Donate" to the organization whereupon an entry would appear on the "map". IPACS would also allow for sharing of storage space, people splitting the bill for major warehouses? Any suggestions, alterations, criticism, etc, etc, most welcome! -Tore "Why O why must I always write an interesting quote below my name? Can't I write something about toenails? Or are they interesting as well?"

21 years, 6 months

HP 80 Series Software

by peterbrown10＠hotmail.com

Hi All, > Yes a FEW of the HP-IB hard drives. The only drives that would work >without specail support were the HP 9133/9134 that had a apecial option >that made the disk look like three HP 9895 8" floppy dirves. There is a... Sounds like it is a bit of a non-starter... > I replied to you several times but my messages don't appear to be >getting through. I haven't had time to set up a machine with the HP-IB card >and install your SW. Let me know when you get things going, the software has gone through a number of revisions since the version I sent you. I'm now looking at an application that first strips all the data from an HPIB disk drive dumping it onto a PC. A second application on the PC then emulates an HPIB drive using groups of files stored in a simple directory system on the PC. >I've been spending a lot of time with the HP 1000s and >with a HP-IB interfaced Speech Synthesizer that I found. (It's COOL!) Sounds like a pretty rare piece of kit - is it a commercial Speech Synthesizer or home-brew? >That's taken me deeper into the HP-IB bus operation and I've had to repair >a couple of HP 59401 HP-IB Bus Analyzers for use with that. (Anybody got a >manual for these?) I certainly have an operations manual, it may include some service bits and pieces. I'll take a look when I get home to the UK. I have a couple of these bus analysers at home, I used them in the initial investigations for the CS80 reader. You can use them to slow down the bus traffic on an HPIB system either to 2 transactions a second or single step. I tried using one to investigate the traffic between a 9000 300 machine and a disk drive but as soon as you slow the bus down the 300 series machine complains that the disk has timess out. Luckily I have an old HP 3562 spectrum analyser than interfaces to CS80 / AMIGO disks. You can single step though commands with no timeout problems using it as the disk controller. In the end though useful the 59401 is somewhat limited in what it can do. With the long command sequences that I was examining I ended up having to write down each octal (Yes, OCTAL - the I lost count of the number of times that I accidentally read the numbers as hex....) data packet as it appeared on the bus and then go back and try to decode what it all meant. The bus analyser also occasionally dropped the first byte of information being sent back by the HPIB disk drive. I'm currently investigating another option. NI make a GPIB+ card (ISA or PCI) that acts as both a GPIB controller and a GPIB analyser. In theory this can be set up to 'sniff' the GPIB bus and generate a log file of each GPIB bus event (with a 50 ns time resolution). The log can be as long as you want so no more laboriously copying down octal codes. I'll let you know how I get on. > I'm still looking for those blankity-blank manuals! Don't know where I >put them. I found a set of paper back manauls of the same thing. I don't need the manuals straight away. I'm hoping they contain some info about HP-UX file formats (and general HP-UX stuff - I have no experience with HP-UX systems) >Did the other manuals arrive yet? I haven't seen them yet but it's a few days since anyone checked my mail for me. Cheers Peter Brown _________________________________________________________________ Tired of 56k? Get a FREE BT Broadband connection http://www.msn.co.uk/specials/btbroadband

21 years, 6 months

Where have all the Selectrics gone?

by mross666＠hotmail.com

IBM made a bunch of printer terminals based around the Selectric typewriter - 1052, 2740, 2970 etc. Look in any old copy of BYTE, and you'll also find several vendors were selling 3rd party terminals based around IBM Selectrics, often converted for ASCII/RS-232c operation, as teletype alternatives. Where have they all gone? (I appreciate, from what I've heard, that many folks who used them in anger would reply 'I don't know, I don't care, good riddance!') Early DECwriters are not uncommon. Teletypes are (almost) ten a penny, ASR33s show up frequently enough on ebay, I have several. But the only Selectric based unit I've *seen* in over ten years of collecting is a 2970 Reservation Termainal (see http://www.corestore.org/2970-1.jpg ) which I was offered a year or so ago. It needs a fair bit of TLC, and it's a print-only device; it can receive data from a host and print it, but not send anything back from the keyboard. I'd love to get a bidirectional equivalent to use as an 'authentic' terminal for a 360 emulator I work with... any clues? Can anyone recommend a Selectric repair shop? No way I want to try to fettle something THIS mechanically-intimidating myself! Mike http://www.corestore.org

21 years, 6 months

Display of first networked personal computer game returning

by alhartman＠yahoo.com

Oh Man!!! I thought I was the only one who remembered this book fondly! I used to have this book and pour through it. Wishing I had the money to build a replica of the Enterprise bridge and make each station a Computer like this book outlined. Alas, I've lost my copy of this book. I hope I can find another some day... (Can you send me ISBN Information?) Thanks for the title and author, that should help a lot... I think something like this would make a WONDERFUL type of attraction. Where people would pay to spend a day in the Simulator and go "Exploring". What's missing in a lot of the Computer Games today, is just the fun of exploring... Not just blowing up Borg or Klingons and the like... Like Starflight I or II... Even Escape Velocity on the Mac is fun, because you don't have to go battling, you can just go around trading and building up your ship... Regards, Al From: Alan Greenstreet <aeg(a)paradise.net.nz> > > A slightly older networked "game" I know of was > written by Roger Garrett and published in > "Interface Age" magazine in the August / > September / October 1977 issues. It was then > followed by a comprehensive book in 1978 (which I > have). There is a complete programme structure for > a networked game - rather ambitiously titled > "Star Ship Simulation" and based on the previous > 1975 books detailing the Star Trek Enterprise > design blueprints and Star Fleet Technical > Manual. Each computer is one of the main bridge > stations; Science, Engineering, Weapons, Navigation, > Communications etc. > > I have read through most of the book and it is > suggested that the programme could be written in > Fortran, Basic or Machine Code - depending on the > choice of the programmer. I have never seen or > heard of this programme running. Has anyone else > come across it? > > Alan

21 years, 6 months

That pesky Jupiter Ace *still* won't work...

by philpem＠dsl.pipex.com

Hi, I've just finished fixing the Ace's PCB using wire-wrap wire. All the broken tracks I've managed to find have been fixed and all the damaged through-hole plating has been repaired. Except there's one problem. The Ace *still* won't boot to the FORTH interpreter. There is a load of garbage on the display - this seems to change while the machine is running. The power consumption of the board - CPU and all - is around 800mA (according to the crappy meter on my Farnell 1A bench PSU). I've got the output on the PSU set to 9V, no current limit. Does anyone here have a logic analyser or microprocessor debugger that I could borrow for a few days? I've got two scopes (a Tek 466 and a Gould OS1100) and a Fluke 25 multimeter, but that's about it in terms of test equipment. Alternatively, does anyone know if a diagnostic ROM exists for the Ace? Something that would replace ROM A and just load the video/font RAM with the usual Ace character set would be very handy. The 2114Ls I'm using appear to be OK, but they draw a lot of current - in the region of 75 to 100mA each. Thanks. -- Phil. philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/

21 years, 6 months

Jupiter Ace

by alhartman＠yahoo.com

I'm finding all this discussion about debugging the Jupiter Ace Fascinating, if a bit over my head.

21 years, 6 months

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test-drb June 2003