test-drb October 2004

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

245 participants
540 discussions

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Philip Pemberton" <philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com> > >In message <200410082218.PAA18131(a)clulw009.amd.com> > "Dwight K. Elvey" <dwight.elvey(a)amd.com> wrote: > >> This is really bad stuff. One of the things I've seen with mouse >> piss is that the legs of many IC's are steel cores with tin plating. > >Steel? Are you sure? >Most of the manufacturers' datasheets I've seen say something along the lines >of "Pin material: Copper with [x]um tin-lead plating"... > >> I've seen where the IC leg will look fiine but the entire insides >> are rotted out from mouse piss. > >Chinchilla urine seems to do the same sort of thing - had a steel cage that >was rendered unsafe in a year or so by a family of three chinchillas. > >Later. Hi Phil Check for your self. Use a magnet. If it sticks, it is steel inside, if not, it is copper. At a previous company I worked at, we always trimmed the leads of IC's and passives. I would say that about 75% of the IC leads would stick to a magnet and some 20% of the passive leads would also stick. Dwight

20 years, 2 months

Cromemco software question

by RCini＠congressfinancial.com

Hello, all: Here's another stumper. I was able to get copies of some of the Cromemco paper tape software, particularly Space War, so I can test it with a Dazzler add-on for the Altair32 emulator. Can anyone with Cromemco experience tell me what loader should be used to load this software into a machine? I don't recall seeing anything in the manual that revealed this secret. Thanks. Rich

20 years, 2 months

Storage Hazards

by GOOI＠oce.nl

Jules wrote: Toner consists of hars, pigment and iron particles. In a photocopier the combination of temperature and pressure "prints" the toner onto the (paper) sheet. Your copies get a little sticky at warmer days, and the pressure inside the binder is doing the rest. I guess that you are right when you say that *any* batteries cause corrosion over time. I never saw batteries made of *one* piece of metal enclosure. There must be some opening in that case to get the two poles (as wires) to the outside world. Et voil?: there you have the weak spot that eventually will cause a leak! BTW an other place toi check for leaky batteries are DECstations and VAXstations (or ...servers). They also have a NiCad (!!!!) "on board". - Henk, PA8PDP ; Be careful with laser-printed documentation in ring binders too; the ; text has a habit of sticking to the underside of the binder's cover for ; some reason - stick a blank sheet of paper in there to protect it. ; ; > * Leaky nicad batteries that will "eat" the circuit board traces ; > The early computers that come quickly to mind are the TRS-100, Lobo ; > Drives Max 80, NEC 8201A, 286 and later motherboards, and S-100 ; > CompuWatch Clock/Calendar boards. Any others that should be added to ; > this list? ; ; Won't *any* batteries cause corrosion over time? E.g. anything in ; pocket calculators etc.

20 years, 2 months

Storage Hazards

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Computer Collector E-Mail Newsletter" <news(a)computercollector.com> >>>>>> Won't *any* batteries cause corrosion over time? E.g. anything in pocket >calculators etc. > >I agree. Recently I went to use my Palm III, and it wouldn't turn on. So I >opened the battery cover to change them, and to my surprise, the dual AAAs were >badly melted. > >Speaking of which... LOL, can someone suggest a way to CLEAN battery acid? Is >my PDA salvageable? > ---snip--- Pinball machines often have this problem. Cleaning with just soap and water is not enough. Most current day batteries use an alkaline electrolyte. This will continue to do damage unless neutralized. On boards for pinball machine, using vinegar seems to do the trick. We first soak the board in a bath of 50% white distilled vinegar for several hours and then use a stiff brush to remove as much of the corrosion deposits as one can. Do note that you may need to remove things like dip switches, relays and keypad covers ( think in terms of where water can hide ). Also, any socket that is even slightly suspect will need to be replaced. After the soak, use a water hose and spray rinse the board well. Shake of excess water and rinse again. Dry quickly in a warm place. I often set them in the sun but for winter drying, an oven set to about 140-150F works well. Use a cookie pan or piece of foil to block direct heat radiation >from the heating elements ( not a problem in convection ovens. Also don't even think of using a microwave! ). Any trace that is rotted through will need to be replaced. Dwight

20 years, 2 months

Storage Hazards

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Vintage Computer Festival" <vcf(a)siconic.com> > >Pests of any kind should be watched for, including rodents that will pee >all over your circuit boards like little bastard teenage vandals! > ---snip--- Hi This is really bad stuff. One of the things I've seen with mouse piss is that the legs of many IC's are steel cores with tin plating. I've seen where the IC leg will look fiine but the entire insides are rotted out from mouse piss. The lead would just crumble when squeezed with needle nose pliers. I have in the past assumed this was acid damage and use baking soda solution and rinse. It seems to help but usually by the time I notice it, the damage is already done. I live in the mountains and critters are just part of living here. Still, I wouldn't trade it for living in any city I know of. Dwight

20 years, 2 months

Texas Harris county auctions

by Ladyelec＠aol.com

I saw this in the peper and it might be a good site to check upon occasion. It is in Houston, Texas. <A HREF="http://www.purchasing.co.harris.tx.us/auction/directio.htm">601 Lockwood, Houston, Texas</A> http://www.purchasing.co.harris.tx.us/auction/directio.htm <A HREF="http://www.pur.hctx.net/">Harris County Purchasing Agent</A> http://www.pur.hctx.net/ Click auctions on the left hand side. Harris County sells surplus and confiscated property through the Online Auction. Read the rules for bidding! Isa

20 years, 2 months

Storage Hazards

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Oct 8 2004, 19:39, Jules Richardson wrote: > Some plastics react badly with each other when left for extended periods > of time too and can stick together. Unfortunately there seems to be no > way of knowing which types (power cables and polystyrene don't seem to > do very well; we've also had an Amstrad PDA at the museum that had > welded itself into its protective wallet...) It's now my habit to clean all such cables with white spirit (light kerosene) or turpentine substitute to remove the icky remains. > Be careful with laser-printed documentation in ring binders too; the > text has a habit of sticking to the underside of the binder's cover for > some reason - stick a blank sheet of paper in there to protect it. Ditto for photocopies. It's the same problem as the power cable vs expanded polystyrene, actually. Plasticisers in the PVC migrate into the polystyrene or toner (which is plastic). A sheet of acetate film, such as is used to make overhead projector transparencies (viewgraphs) makes a moderately effective barrier. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

20 years, 2 months

OT: Good Windows FTP Servers

by RCini＠congressfinancial.com

Hello, all: Putting any Windows jokes aside, I'm looking for a decent Win32-based FTP server program to use at home to move files from my weather station computer to an Apache Web server which is also at home. The goal here is to open a single port in the firewall so I can log in and see the weather at my house. Not being familiar with Apache, maybe there's a way to do this without an FTP server, but I need to move a text-based data file every 5 minutes from the weather station program to the http server, both of which presently will reside on the same PC. The weather program handles all aspects of creating the data file periodically and will upload the data using ftp -- it does not provide for direct copying of files, the assumption being that this data is being uploaded to a server that's not on the same physical machine. I wanted to get some recommendations/user's favorites before I start Googling. Thanks. Rich

20 years, 2 months

Ethan in Userfriendly Cartoon

by cthilo＠unix-ag.org

Looks like Ethan has a guest appearance in todays userfriendly cartoon... ;-) http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20041008 bye Thilo

20 years, 2 months

URGENT - DEC 11/83 (?) needs to be picked up this weekend (10 /9)

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Oct 8 2004, 16:44, Gooijen H wrote: > Correct. > I have an 11/84 in 10.5" box (console at the right-hand side) > and one 11/83 in 5.25" box (console in the middle of the front). > The original poster is maybe not so "DEC-aware", but then again, > I often doubt my DEC knowledge too. > How much difference is obvious in just a glance at an 11/73 and > an 11/83? Without looking at the boards, it's impossible to tell for certain. Some 11/73s were upgraded without changing the badges on the front. *Usually* a microPDP-11/73 is in a BA23 and a microPDP-11/83 is in a BA123, but not always. The real difference is in the use of normal QBus versus PMI memory; that makes more difference to the speed than just about anything else. Originally, an 11/73 would have had a 15MHz KDJ11 and an 11/83 would have been 18MHz, so they'd have had slightly different suffixes on the M-numbers, and they'd have slightly different boot ROMs, but any of these things may have been changed. What an OS goes by is whether the memory is PMI or not. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

20 years, 2 months

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test-drb October 2004