I just made contact with Don's wife, Bristol. They're not sure what Don
died of, but he'd had cancer for 18 years and he died a couple days after
entering the hospital after falling ill.
Understandably, she has no idea what Don has in his garage. I offered to
help her sort things out and to get money for whatever computers are in
his collection that are worth anything, and of course I informed her of
the importance of Don's disk archive. She's very nice and willing to pass
the collection along but she first wants to run everything by her nephew
who knows about computers before anything happens, which is
understandable.
This process will take some time. Bristol has many other things to deal
with of course, but she informed me that she will make sure none of the
computers or software will be discarded until they can get a full idea of
what they have. She said they already took 5 computers to recycling but
she didn't think they were anything of concern as her computer savvy
nephew was the one who chose them and felt they weren't old or valuable or
anything. At any rate, she assured me that nothing will be taken for
recycling until we figure out what's all there.
I'd like to enlist the help of some local San Diegans to assist with the
inventory of Don's collection. I will probably end up making a trip down
there in the future to either help with the dispersal of his collection
and/or retrieve the disk archive. It would be a great help to Bristol if
someone with knowledge of vintage computers can help her nephew identify
the valuable machines so she can decide what she wants to do with them.
And of course, to help identify the disk archive. I would imagine (or
hope at least) Don had it pretty well organized and labelled, but we need
someone to identify and separate it from the rest of his collection.
Also, I want to give Don a tribute at the upcoming VCF 7.0. I'd like to
talk a bit about Don's life and what he did for a career and all that.
His wife didn't know much about Don's computing career and so I'm hoping
that some people on the list who got to know Don and his history can
share it with me.
I'll keep the list updated as the process moves along.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
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Has anyone got any useful tips for tracing out schematics? The SMPSU in
this 'ere NCR Tower is toast, but it's a complex beastie as it's pretty
huge and spread over two large boards.
Is copying down component locations (but in their schematic form) to a
sheet of paper the same sort of size as the PCB a good place to start?
(Which can then be tweaked into a more sensible-looking schematic later)
What about making a list of every component on the board and how many
tracks leave it at each terminal, which can then be used for sanity
checking?
I'm not used to drawing out schematics for something this complex, so on
smaller items I normally just muddle through somehow :) At least this
one's only 2 layer...
Aside: the PSU doesn't blow fuses, but is totally dead and doesn't even
attempt to start. I found a dead 5W 10 ohm resistor (open circuit, no
discolouration) in the live feed upstream of the bridge, which seemed
like an odd component failure. I had a spare in the junk pile so
replaced it, and that one immediately went the same way.
The diodes in the bridge check out OK, the main filter caps aren't
shorted, and the large chopper transistors (all 8 of them) seem healthy
enough tested on a meter. Whether the filter caps are on the way out is
another matter - no bulging/leakage though (I've got a homebrew ESR
meter, but it's at the museum at the moment not at home)
Startup for the machine is on the surface pretty complex; the switch on
the front goes into the main backplane (multibus) and from there to who
knows where. Then there are 12 low-power wires going between the
backplane and the PSU (in addition to the main power lines) presumably
for status monitoring / startup signal. Then there's going to be a lot
of charging circuitry in the PSU for the system battery that keeps the
memory alive when the mains power goes out...
Hence the reason having done some obvious checks I really need to trace
out the whole darn lot so I can see how the thing's even supposed to
start up... :)
cheers
Jules
--
PERSON 1: That's an awful gash on your forehead! How did you get it?
PERSON 2: I bit myself.
PERSON 1: How the hell did you manage to bite yourself on the forehead?
PERSON 2: I stood on a chair.
> Still can't imagine a SYM-1 being worth $900. From $75 to maybe
>$150 someplace is more like it. It has little to be note worthy
>of that I know of. The KIM is more recognized as a historic
>board. I doubt if that person though it was actually worth something
>that they'd have thrown it away, regardless of what they said.
> Still, for one rounding out their 6502 collection, the SYM-1
>is a nice item to have.
>Dwight
I sold a couple of Rockwell AIM-65's for about $100 each at VCF,
though I didn't really test or know the condition of them.
I've seen some of these board computers go for as high as $300 on Ebay,
although Ebay prices tend to be higher because of the bidding wars...
>Hi Dave.
Hi Sellam,
>You make good points overall, but I don't think it takes very much effort
>to contact the authors/producers of each contribution on the CD. It's
>just a matter of basic courtesy. This would take maybe an hour or two of
>e-mail. They're charging $50 per CD. That's about a dollar in production
>costs and $49 of profit. Assuming they sell even 5, that's still a good
>return for material to which they didn't contribute.
The auction I looked at (briefly) showed $10 - if he is charging $50, then
this is out of the "reasonable return for the convienence" catagory, and I
would agree that he should be putting a bit more effort into how he acuuires
the material.
My point would more apply to thing like the SIMTEL collection - the CD set
has a HUGE directloty listing which is "single line per item" - adding even
one line of acknowlegement would double this size, and would be negative in
effect (IMO) - And most people don't look at or care about each package on
the set - they read the desciptions and unpack the stuff they are interested
in, at which point they get exposed to all of the authors original material,
promotional or otherwise - It these cases, the CD really is not much different
>from an internet connection - its just a means of delivery. I looked at the
listing at $10 and placed it in this catagory...
I am also assuming that Rich's material is included on the CD in it's original
form, as he prepared it - if not, then that would also cause me to have a
problem with the CD.
>You're referring to Al.
I specifcally avoided mentining names, because I do not recall all of the
details - this was intended as an example of how the "don't use my stuff"
attitude has prevented me from obtaining some material, NOT as a flame on
any particular person(s).
>>Really annoying, considering that he doesn't have permission
>> from most of the original authors, and claims to be preserving them and
>> "making them available" ... but apparently only to the "high-speed"
>> elite (but again I rant :-)
>
>He doesn't "claim" to be preserving them. He *IS* preserving them!
>I'm sorry, but have some fucking respect.
As noted above, this is not directed to a particular person ... And I DO have
a great deal of respect for Al and others like him. And no dispute that these
people are preserving important documents. But, anyone who takes the attitude
"only to be distributed by download from my site" is NOT making them available
to EVERYONE - it prevents me from obtaining much of the larger material (and
doc scans tend to be large :-) No matter how well information is preserved,
it is of no benefit if it is unobtainable.
>> Lets have a show of hands ... anyone participatng in this list ever
>> distrbure any material without obtaining explicit permission from the
>> orignal author?
>
>The question is, do you make a practice of this?
Yes, sometimes - see the "notes on documents and software" on my site for more
information.
Btw: I do have some of Rich's scans in my Altair section, and I *DID* contact
him for permission, and he *IS* listed in my credits. I even gave him some scans
of docs he was missing during our correspondance.
A lot of the documents on my site have been scanned by yours truly, there are
some from other sources, and some I don't even know/recall where they came from.
so far nobody has minded, and as described in my "notes", I will remove any
material if asked to do so by the holder of rights to that material.
Rich's simulator is a bit of a different case than most "vintage material", because
he is still around and supporting it. But he DOES give it away, and hasseling the
creator of a $10 "collectin" CD will probably only result in its being excluded
>from the CD, and I do not see how this benefits anyone.
BUT - the choice as to what to do is ultimately Rich's .. He asked our opinion
and I gave him mine. to quote Spock, he is free to "give it all the consideration
it is due".
For the record: My original material from my site is welcome to be included on
collection CDs and any other reasonable uses. I don't do this for money (in fact
it's quite the opposite :-), I don't do this for fame/recognition ... I do it
because I want people to be able to see and experience something of the era that
we enjoyed, before computers became another appliance (see my FAQ for a better
description of my motives and activities).
Regards,
Dave
--
dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Vintage computing equipment collector.
http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html
;^)
There are a DILOG DQ142 and a DQ142 QBus Pertec controllers on eBay
right now. I have a PDP11/03 in the 18-bit backplane that seriously
needs a storage option. I have a couple of TU80 drives, but only Unibus
controllers for those.
The questions are: either Dilog board is compatible with both the
TU80 and the 18-bit backplane, right? And which is the better choice,
the DQ132 or the DQ142?
Thanks.
Doc
I have an HP48G with serial cable and User's Guide.
I want an HP67 or HP97,
- Preferably with quick ref or manual (or both)
- Would be nice to have one where the magnetic card drive works (ie
de-gummied) but
I would be willing to de-gummie it myself if need be (with
instructions :^)
I don't think I posted this already :)
Does anyone have any info lurking online about the Ferranti Mercury
(specs, what roles the handful of machines that were made took on etc.)?
The chap we got the BeBox, Lisa etc. from has an original programming
manual for one (although nowhere does it say Ferranti - just 'Mercury')
and it'd be nice to give him a bit more info about the machine itself.
Google didn't turn up much when I tried, other than the single picture
of the machine which seems to be common to a lot of sites.
cheers
J.
Finally got my Facit 4070 Paper Tape Punch that I purchased last year home
last night. I got the punch and a HP 9884A Tape Punch Operating and Service
Manual and nothing else. Anyone have the adapter with cable for this and
some HP paper tapes (#9280-0229)?
At 04:25 PM 11/23/2004, Gary Fisher wrote:
>Kind of a round about way to do credit card fraud, but on the other hand it puts the trail onto the hapless guys who paid for the items on eBay.
As I pointed out in my first message, the credit-card-stealing seller
hadn't even received payment from the eBay buyers in three of the
four cases I found. So he's playing a game - hoping someone will pay
faster than the time he needs to grab the money and run and before
the credit card owner figures it out.
>I hope you went to the eBay forums with your info, I suppose eBay will do nothing to warn anybody (scams never happen on eBay!).
I'm looking forward to filing a complaint with local law enforcement,
which will allow them to kick out a few subpoenas to request records
that eBay / eGold / Yahoo / BestBuy / Staples won't release. It would
give IP addresses, maybe other account info, maybe a trail to where
the money went. I'm hoping the police will share the details with
me, so I can assist in the investigation.
>Any idea how your credit card info got to the scammer?
No idea. This card was generally used only for business, about
half-and-half in-person and online.
- John
