December 2004 - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

Tom Jennings <tomj(a)wps.com> wrote: > Michael S. answered this for you, correct? I did, I guess he didn't like my answer. > 20VAC nominal? Yup. MS

20 years, 7 months

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TI Silent 700 power supplies

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

Vintage Computer Festival <vcf(a)siconic.com> wrote: > Because there are three conductors sockets on the end plug and I don't > know what is supposed to be on each one. Well, 20 VAC between the ends, don't know about the middle. MS

20 years, 7 months

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TI Silent 700 power supplies

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

OK, I've just looked at mine, and all of my terminals and all of my power wallwarts for them are clearly marked 20 VAC (1.8 A, 35 W marking on the terminals, 37 VA marking on the wallwarts). Plugging one of the wallwarts into the wall and measuring with a voltmeter showed 24 VAC under no load. I guess it's supposed to sink a little under load. Since it's so clearly marked, why was this a mystery in the first place? What is a little more of a mystery, however, is that the terminals have compartments that seem like they are for batteries, but upon opening them one sees no place to put in standard batteries, but instead some little wierd connectors on short wire pigtails, obviously for some proprietary battery packs. Does anyone have any info on those battery packs? They were rechargeable and charged when the terminal is plugged into AC power, weren't they? I'm guessing that from the fact that they were special battery packs and not standard batteries one buys replacements for at a supermarket or gas station. MS

20 years, 7 months

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Domain Name Registration

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

I use Network Solutions, because no matter how bad they suck, they still ARE the successor to the original SRI-NIC. (But then I have only one domain, registered in 2000 when you could still register a domain by sending a template to HOSTMASTER(a)INTERNIC.NET, and I will never register other domains because I still believe in the original doctrine of one physical organisation = one domain.) But I miss SRI-NIC soooooo bad! To bring this on topic: does anyone have a copy of the original SRI-NIC software, or at least have any idea about what it was like, what it did it run on, what was it written in, etc? I'm talking about the software that processed templates sent to HOSTMASTER@SRI-NIC, and even to HOSTMASTER(a)INTERNIC.NET as late as 2000, and maintained the original registry database in its original unique super-cool format with those NIC handles (like HARHAN-DOM, IFCTFVAX-HST, MS35906), provided the original WHOIS service, and generated HOSTS.TXT and the TLD zone files. The best hope that I see for Internet is the colonisation of Mars. The good thing about Mars is that the 30 min speed of light delay should prevent any possibility of our present rotten, corrupt, spam,porn-and-Weendoze-filled Internet extending to Mars, and on Mars we'll have a chance to start fresh >from a clean slate. If I get there first I'm going to recreate the good old ARPA Internet there in its full glory, with TENEX and 4BSD hosts, open relays (we'll have to relay because interplanetary communication back to Earth and to elsewhere will have to be all store and forward, like the good old UUCP), SRI-NIC, HOSTS.TXT, no Yahoo, no AOL, no spam, no porn, no Weendoze lusers on DSL with dynamic IPs! A copy of the original SRI-NIC registry software would be very helpful. MS

20 years, 7 months

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Stuff for sale, cheap

by aw288＠osfn.org

I picked up the pile of DECstuff located in White Plains, NY the other night, and most I really don't want. I am keeping the rack, PDP-11/23, RL02s and some packs, and maybe a VT100, but the rest I don't need. So here it goes, cheap: (many) RL02 disk packs (some I think have MUMPS stuff) (2 or 3) LA50 printers (little desktop things) (2 or 3) VT100oid keyboards (may have missing keycaps) Make silly offers for this stuff - just give me something for my time and gas fetching the stuff. Shipping is from 10512. Come to think of it, someone local could probably easily talk me out of the whole pile. I must say it is not too pretty. Unrelated, I also have an ancient video game - one of those analog/digital hybrids (ping/squash/practice/soccer - the ultra cheesy games from the mid 1970s). It is a Bentley Compuvision. The paddles are included, but one is missing the knob (the pot shaft is still there). I was told it still works, but did not try it out. Also accepting silly offers for the thing.). Oh, and I also see I have a tube of Altera EP610SC-15 EPLD chips. These are surface mount - I assume unblown, but can't be sure. 17 chips is all. Same deal. Please reply off list. William Donzelli aw288(a)osfn.org

20 years, 7 months

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Grid 1520 update

by mapleleafman＠gmail.com

Well Dave and all, I figured out the power supply problem only to find that the hard drive is probably shot. The PS contact inside the case had been heat-shrinked to prevent the battery from working. There was no battery with the computer but if there had been, it would have been drained in a short time due to the plasma screen. After removing the heat shrink, the laptop booted but stuck on a drive error/configuration error, 02 to be specific. One other interesting thing that I didn't notice is that there is a shock detector stuck on the side of the PS cage inside the laptop. It states something about it will show red if excessive shock detected. Well, half of it is red, other half is grey so who knows if it's been dropped? Anyway, I will continue to see if I can resurrect the drive. There was no floppy drive with it so I'm stymied there. Lots of config apps are out there for it but I can't use them. FYI, that's all. BM

20 years, 7 months

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More data on dead wall wart

by vcf＠siconic.com

So I double checked the AC voltage output on this TI wall wart for the Silent 700 model 703 and it definitely has no voltage (and correction on my meter settings: it has 200VAC and 600VAC). I also checked and there is infinite resistance between any combination of pins (I checked on all settings from 2 ohms to 20 Mohms). For the hell of it I checked for DC voltage and there also is none. Foo. Next step is to crack it open. Anyone know a good way to open up these permanently sealed transformers? -- 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 ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

20 years, 7 months

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electro-Physics: 17.3409 volts

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "William Donzelli" <aw288(a)osfn.org> > >> Reminds me. The CDC Cyber 960 from http://www.cray-cyber.org/ runs at >> 400 Hz. The higher frequency allows smaller transformers. > >I think the intent was to reduce the ripple, rather than reduce the >weight. CDC wasn't afraid of a few more pounds. > >> The 400 Hz three phase current is generated by a motor-generator. The >> rotating mass of this machine is enough to keep the Cyber running for >> some seconds. (Power consumption of the Cyber at minimal configuration >> is around 20 kW.) Enough to start a big diesel generator in case of a >> power outage. > >I doubt you could start a big diesel that fast, reliably. > >The inertia would, however, protect against little dips and burps in the >power, when the utilities are fooling around with the grid. > Hi William I was right next to a flywheel started no-break diesel. It was running at full load in about one second from a complete stand still. My heart was pounding quite hard >from the adrenaline rush I got. Another way to start a diesel fast is with compressed air. In anycase, "Yes", they can start that fast. Dwight

20 years, 7 months

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Newbie!

by river＠zip.com.au

Hi, I'm a newbie to this forum, though I don't regard my self as a newbie in regards to old computers. I collect the 70's vintage processors and systems and have been playing with them for many years. However, I have hit a bit of a hurdle with a pair of old Intel MDS Systems. Last week I bought a SeriesIV and a Series225 for a few dollars. The Series4 has failed its CPIO PhaseII test with the RAM March error @ location 0000:8001. I have another Series4 that I've had for a while and it works. I swapped over the processor boards and the error followed the board. I don't have a cct diagram so I traced the pins of the RAM chips (32 x 2118chips) and have traced it down to possibly one of 8 chips. However, before I start replacing chips etc, I am hoping that someone here may be able to tell me which chip it is that has failed - assuming you have access to more info on the Series4 than I do. The Series225 was left out under a verandah for 12years with just a plastic tarp covering it and it was covered in mud and dirt. I spent most of the weekend cleaning it up and checking it out. It powers up okay, but I need more info on this box 'cos I have no doco for it whatsoever. I need to know the Monitor commands. I got a few of them out 'cos some are the same as the old Intel SBC monitors, but there are a few extra commands that I'm not sure about. Also, does anyone have a ROM listing for the Series 225 Monitor? I'd like to know its IO addresses for keyboard, CRT, serial port. I can try and hand dissasemble it, but I thought I'd try you guys before I embark on this task. Oh, one other thing... at what stage does the Series225 boot from the floppy? So far I can't get this thing to recognise it's got a floppy. I was assuming it would boot upon power-up/reset, but it doesn't. So, maybe there's a command I need to use or it's just stuffed and I'll have to fix it. seeyuzz river

20 years, 7 months

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Newbie!

by melamy＠earthlink.net

you can find the boot monitor listing for the mds225 (and various other things) at http://bitsavers.org/pdf/intel/MDS2/ The 225 boots up off floppy when you have a single density floppy in the drive and you press reset on the front panel (any floppy in the drive will at least cause it to access the drive whether it can read it or not). Obviously, if the floppy drive was never even selected then you have more problems on the IOC card in back. Keep in mind that the processor board out front does not access the individual items like to the keyboard, display, and IO ports (that is all done by the IOC card) through ports. The main processor sends commands to the back card to access the various pieces of hardware. You can get more info on that by looking at the schematic set at bitsavers also. By the way, welcome to the Intel club. best regards, Steve Thatcher -----Original Message----- From: river <river(a)zip.com.au> The Series225 was left out under a verandah for 12years with just a plastic tarp covering it and it was covered in mud and dirt. I spent most of the weekend cleaning it up and checking it out. It powers up okay, but I need more info on this box 'cos I have no doco for it whatsoever. I need to know the Monitor commands. I got a few of them out 'cos some are the same as the old Intel SBC monitors, but there are a few extra commands that I'm not sure about. Also, does anyone have a ROM listing for the Series 225 Monitor? I'd like to know its IO addresses for keyboard, CRT, serial port. I can try and hand dissasemble it, but I thought I'd try you guys before I embark on this task. Oh, one other thing... at what stage does the Series225 boot from the floppy? So far I can't get this thing to recognise it's got a floppy. I was assuming it would boot upon power-up/reset, but it doesn't. So, maybe there's a command I need to use or it's just stuffed and I'll have to fix it. seeyuzz river

20 years, 7 months

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KM11 clones

by ggs＠shiresoft.com

For those who haven't seen a KM11 in action, I've updated the page to contain a couple of shots of two of my KM11 clones plugged into an 11/40 while I was running some memory diagnostics. The display was quite impressive but I couldn't capture it. :-( You'll just have to get a couple and try it yourself! :-) The link is: http://www.shiresoft.com/pdp-11/boards/index.html -- TTFN - Guy

20 years, 7 months

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value of PDP8e

by Bob.Adamson＠sli-institute.ac.uk

Well I don't know about that!!. One just went on Ebay for ?2,075.00 for a pretty minimal machine!! See http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1247&item=51458233… regards Bob Adamson > -----Original Message----- > From: Jay West [mailto:jwest@classiccmp.org] > Sent: 03 December 2004 20:16 > To: Heinz Wolter; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: value of PDP8e > > Yup, I was going to say roughly $1500, if you're looking for ebay > standards. > > Jay > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Heinz Wolter" <h.wolter(a)sympatico.ca> > To: <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> > Sent: Friday, December 03, 2004 1:39 PM > Subject: value of PDP8e > > > >I acquired a PDP8e (sn M40000521)as part of a trade, which has not yet > been > > completed. > > Anyone know what value such a unit might have? It's got a blue bezel > > instead of the usual orange, but it on a 19 slide enclosure. Does this > > make > > it > > an 'industrial' ? I'm not looking to sell it (maybe after the deal is > > settled) but > > I'd like to know how to valuate it. I did see some pristine, working > units > > on epay - the top one going for 2300$USD in a silly bid war. But a > > realistic > > price may be more like 1500$USD, I'm told. The machine is in 'new' shape > > and working, has the tty interface card and cabling. core ( dunno how > > much). > > Thanks to all who reply, > > Heinz > > > > > > > > >

20 years, 7 months

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Need help with 2 projects. (TI and Xerox)

by nwdigital＠frontiernet.net

I was interested to see someone still interested in the Old TI 990/10 & /12 system. I worked for TI from 1980 to 1986 and worked with the 990/10, 990/12 & Business System 1300 & Business System 1500. I started my company in Austin, Texas, building performance products for the TI Systems. We built memory expansion boards, 8 Port CRU Devices compatible with the CI-402, 8 Port & 16 Port Ti-Line devices compatible with the CI-403. We also built "Turbo" upgrades for the 990/10A as well as the fastest memory controller to ever be used with the TI 990/12 and 990/12A. The Memory Controller could be configured as 512K., 1 Meg., 1.5 Meg. and 2 Meg. It was totally Static Ram, ( no hesitating every 14 to 15.5 microseconds for a refresh cycle.) The static ram on our board ran at 35ns and the fastest boards ran at 25ns. ALL CACHE MEMORY. The controllers sold to dealers for $15,000.00 ea. At the request of John Deere, TI supported our 8 Port Terminal Controller under Maintenance Contract. We also used to do fixed price repair on all TI Computer Boards. We also performed Memory Upgrades to the TI 512K. LR Cache controller boards. We could upgrade them to 1 Meg. and 2 Meg. of Dram. The 990/10A was sold as 512K, 1 Meg. and 1.5 Meg. but we could upgrade them to any of those sizes as well as to 2 Meg. We designed over 20 products to work with the TI Systems. I really enjoyed working with them. Nothing since has interested me as much. Sincerely, Marty

20 years, 7 months

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electro-Physics: 17.3409 volts

by r_a_feldman＠hotmail.com

>From: "Teo Zenios" <teoz(a)neo.rr.com> <snip> >Who would be using DC besides electro-platers? The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) uses 600v DC to power its trains. Bob

20 years, 7 months

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Mathiputer info

by kruzicchris＠hotmail.com

Greetings! I am an IT Director for a central Illinois school district and we recently uncovered a Mathiputer while going through old boxes of electronics equipment from the 70s and 80s. Do you have any info about the Mathiputer or even if the company is still in business? We want to tinker with it and give it to a teacher as a gift... and a joke. Thanks much, Chris Kruzic

20 years, 7 months

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Fwd: Re: Mathiputer info

by jfoust＠threedee.com

>From: Ghena2(a)aol.com >Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 20:08:54 EST >Subject: Re: Mathiputer info >To: jfoust(a)threedee.com > >NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!!! > >You must not tinker with and give away as joke! Please!! > >TERRIBLE IDEA!! JOKE IS NOT WORTH IT! > >AND TINKERING WITH...... I SHUDDER! > >Mathiputers are no longer manufactured, and if memory serves me correctly, the company which did make them has metamorphised, merged, whatever.... In other words, disappeared. > >I am a Special Educator in Salt Lake City, Utah, and I have personally been searching for a working Mathiputer for the past ten years or so.... Perhaps two years of that time online. > >I have a computer programming expert on stand-by, from half way across the country, who has volunteered.... for free!.... to write a program which will run on Windows, which will operate in fashion similar to Mathiputer.... IF I CAN PROVIDE HIM WITH A WORKING MODEL TO GO BY. My special ed kids NEED this! > >Is my opinion, as a special educator of almost 30 years, that none of the new-fangled computer programs can hold a candle to the Mathiputer for teaching kids their number facts.... Especially, those kids who have learning disabilities. > >So, of course, I will like you to sell your most valuable Mathiputer to ME.... At a price I can afford, no less! > >If not, I think your Mathiputer belongs in a computer museum. One of the museums I looked at does have one, but it is not a working model. > >And sorry I cannot help you further with Mathiputer info. > >Most sincerely, > >Ghena Dalby >Salt Lake City, Utah > >

20 years, 7 months

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Altair goes for over $2800

by jrkeys＠concentric.net

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=19198&item=5146452166

20 years, 7 months

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Domain Name Registration

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Tom Jennings" <tomj(a)wps.com> > >On Tue, 14 Dec 2004, Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > >> >that just Wasn't Done then. Some did, I know one person who >> >made millions off nothin' but domregs.) >> >> His name might be Marcelo. > >Jeez that name is familiar... Bay Area? but the person I was >thinking about is/was Stray'n. He at one time (as a small fry >reseller) "pacificbell.com"! With written permission! Really, I >Was There, and his nameserver. Imagine the cluelessness... they >paid some hard cash to get that name back a few years later (if >they had waited a few years more, they coulda had it for free :-) > Hi Tom It was either loan.com or loans.com that he sold. It is probably more interesting to here his story as to how he got the .com name in the first place. You know, failed business plans and then forced on him by the wife of his business partner that felt he was responsible for the business failure. Dwight

20 years, 7 months

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Domain Name Registration

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Tom Jennings" <tomj(a)wps.com> ---snip--- > > >(I might even have copies of the old COM NET ORG etc files >you used to download from rs.internic.net. I shudder at all >the domains we could have reg'ed and sold for hard cash... >that just Wasn't Done then. Some did, I know one person who >made millions off nothin' but domregs.) His name might be Marcelo. Dwight

20 years, 7 months

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electro-Physics: 17.3409 volts

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Teo Zenios" <teoz(a)neo.rr.com> > >Who would be using DC besides electro-platers? > Hi I'm not sure if they had the same reason but today, DC is actually used for long range, high voltage lines in a number of places. DC doesn't require the insulation to hold off quite as much voltage. It doesn't suffer >from inductive losses. It isn't much good for home use. In fact, lamps don't do as well on DC as AC because of the electrical effects of the wire evaporating ( not sure which end goes first ). Dwight

20 years, 7 months

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Zitel card?

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Joe R." <rigdonj(a)cfl.rr.com> > > Does anyone know anything about Zitel? Pr what bus this card uses or >anything about the card? <http://www.classiccmp.org/hp/a4/zitel.jpg>. I >seem to remember that Zitel was a copy cat of Intel. > > Joe It looks like 2 banks of 16 bit RAM with parity. As a RAM board, it shouldn't be too hard to trace out the address selects. What size RAMs are they? Dwight

20 years, 7 months

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Looking for an Intel C4040 processor

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Norm and Beth Anheier" <anheier(a)owt.com> > >Anyone have an Intel C4040 processor that they would be interested in >trade or selling??? > >Thanks Norm > > Hi I don't think I ever saw a ceramic 4040? Dwight

20 years, 7 months

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5-1/4' drive on modern PC

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Dec 13 2004, 6:21, Steve Thatcher wrote: > the one floppy deal is not really a bios issue, it is a hardware > issue. As long as there are two drive select lines coming from the > hardware, then the mb can supprt two drives even if there is not bios > support. My ASUS P4 mb only supports one drive and I suspect that > there is only one drive select. Bios code is meant to support the > hardware that is present. At least that is the way is has been for 23 > years... That's like mine. The motherboard only has one drive select line, so the BIOS normally shows only one entry for a floppy. However, if I disable the on-board FDC and add a normal FDC card, I can use two floppies and the BIOS detects and shows settings for both. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

20 years, 7 months

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HP stuff available

by gdale＠raytheon.com

Hi, Just read your message. Do have any more HP 7906 disc cartridges w/diagnostics available? If so, me e-mail me back. Gdale(a)raytheon.com Thanks.

20 years, 7 months

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Fluke 8506A manual

by fholzw＠rz.fh-aalen.de

Hi, looking in the internet I sow that you need a Fluke 8506A manual. I may send you a copy for a reasonable price. kind regrads Fabian

20 years, 7 months

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Off the wall CGA monitor question

by RCini＠congressfinancial.com

Any of the CGA monitors I have at home have a captive cable with, IIRC, a female DB9. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces(a)classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Eric Smith Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2004 4:39 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Off the wall CGA monitor question Scarletdown wrote: > All of the CGA cards that I can recall seeing had female connectors, so > most likely, the monitors have male connectors. That only implies that the *cable* has a male connector on one end; it doesn't really tell you anything about the monitor. I'd be inclined to expect that most CGI monitors either had a captive cable, or had a female connector on the monitor as well. But it's been so long since I looked at CGI monitors that I don't recall. Eric

20 years, 7 months

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Looking for an Intel C4040 processor

by anheier＠owt.com

Anyone have an Intel C4040 processor that they would be interested in trade or selling??? Thanks Norm

20 years, 7 months

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DEC computer related injury

by mmcfadden＠cmh.edu

Pulled out the drawer in the expansion chassis on our PDP-11/70 and then attempted to squat down behind it. Since I have such great balance I fell forward and leaned into/onto the PDP-11/70 backplane and punctured my palm many times with the nice little wire wrap pins. Interesting pattern, very little blood, I thought of a tattoo. Pins are nicely tipped with pyramid suitable for puncturing skin. No worry in those days about any infections since I was young an invincible. Maybe a slight variation on an old adage: Blood, sweat and tears must be shed for the computer to compute correctly. Mike

20 years, 7 months

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electro-Physics: 17.3409 volts

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

Tore S Bekkedal <toresbe(a)ifi.uio.no> wrote: > Norwegian trains run DC... As do Russian electric trains. 4 kV. > I've seen a tagger actually climb up on the > roof of a train, and before I could run to the veranda of my appartment > to tell him to get the fuck down, the dumb fuck stood up. He illuminated > the entire train exchange for a millisecond, and then all that was left > of him was one of his feet, that apparently hadn't made contact with the > grounded train roof. His charred remains were still burning 20 minutes > later, until the firemen came and cleaned up the mess. Ouch. My dad told me a story of something similar happening in Russia with an unlucky railroad maintenance worker. Apparently the vertical spacing between the roof of a train car and the high voltage wire is high enough for workers to be able to walk on the roof under the wire and not touch it, even though it doesn't seem that high when looking from the ground. But that unlucky worker was carrying a wrench in his hand and had it stuck up in the air... When I was an intern on the Moscow railroad I witnessed another incident, this one fortunately without fatalities or human injuries, but demonstrating the power of that DC supply. On Russian and probably many other railroads the rails carry both the power current (return) and signaling current. The power current is DC, the signaling current is AC (at very low voltage of course, 6V). The track is divided into block-sections, each block-section monitored as a unit and reported as free or occupied to the rail traffic control system. Block-sections are separated by insulated rail joints. Each end of a thus isolated block-section is connected to a transformer whose other (higher voltage) winding is connected to a wire pair going back to the rail traffic control centre. Simple enough on diesel-powered railroads. It was a little more complicated on electrically powered railroads. The thick copper wires from the ends of each insulated joint were connected to transformer windings like before, with a separate transformer for each side of the insulated joint. The high-voltage windings were connected to signaling lines like before. But the low-voltage windings, the ones connected to the rails, were centre-tapped, and the centre tap from the transformer on one side of the insulated joint was connected with a thick copper wire to the centre tap on the other side. This way the DC power current effectively passes right through while the insulated joint acts as a barrier to the signaling AC current. The town where I lived and the railroad station on which I had my internship was on the end of a low-traffic branch of Moscow railroad. The station itself had electric centralisation, the term used in the Russian railroad technical documentation for the rail traffic control system at a station. The track stage between that station and the next, however, was unmonitored. What this means is that at the station the left and right rails had the low signaling AC voltage between them, but out on the stage the two rails were simply connected. Thus the last insulated joint at the station boundary had only one transformer box next to it, the ends of the winding connected to one side and the centre tap connected to the other side. Well, one fine day a track maintenance vehicle knocked that transformer box down, and it fell tumbling down into the ditch. Apparently the track maintenance workers didn't notice it and went on with their business. But the monitoring circuit was broken of course. Rail circuits are normally closed. An open rail circuit corresponds to a track section that is either busy (the train axles short the circuit and all the current goes through them rather than through the relay on the other end, so it reports as open) or broken (a rail broke under load or was removed by terrorists, etc). So when that transformer box got knocked down and the circuit broke, it just lit a red light on the panel in the rail traffic control room indicating a busy track section. We (the traffic controller lady and me-the-intern) noticed it and went to check it out, but the trains still had to go on schedule while a crew was dispatched to mount the transformer box back where it belongs. So we let one or two trains through, using the manual override button to override the track busy status. (The manual override buttons have seals on them that you have to break in cases like this when you have to use them, and LOTS of paperwork must be generated.) So we let those trains through. Now think what happened when the train crossed that insulated joint and continued on our side, our station being the end of the line. From what I understood when I was there, our end was not the one supplying train power, so when a train was on our side, its return current had to go through that insulated joint, i.e., through the transformer centre tap. With the transformer gone, where did the current go? Well, it arced right through the insulated joint and melted the ends of the rails. Pretty impressive. MS

20 years, 7 months

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KM11 Clone

by ggs＠shiresoft.com

> I've been working on creating a clone of DEC's maintenance panel > (KM11) > for some time now. I intended it to be used as my "hello world" board > to get familiar with EagleCAD and the board fab process. > > On Friday my first boards arrived from the fab house. I spent this > weekend building up 2 boards and both worked perfectly the first time. > It was so cool to be able to single step the microcode in an 11/40! > > It's up on my web site > (http://www.shiresoft.com/pdp-11/boards/index.html) for those that > want > to see what it looks like. Sometime this week I'll take a picture of > the 11/40 with 2 KM11's hanging out of it! > > My first batch of boards/parts has already been spoken for. But for > any > who are interested, I'll place another order for parts/boards for > delivery sometime in January. > > Each board will come with complete schematics, parts list and assembly > instructions. I will also have collected drawings for the overlays > and > instructions on use for the various processors (11/20, 11/05, 11/40, > 11/45 and 11/70). > > I'm pricing as follows: > "Bare" Board $75 > "kit" (includes all the parts) $125 > assembled and tested $250 (I really don't want to) > OK, I just got a couple of board quotes with larger quantities. If I can get an order of ~50 boards, I can drop the prices by $40! So the pricing would be: "Bare" Board $35 "kit" (includes all the parts) $85 assembled and tested $250 (I still don't want to) If I can get a preliminary count of folks who want one (or two or ...) I can get the boards and parts ordered. I'd like to place the orders during the first week of January. -- TTFN - Guy

20 years, 7 months

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Stupid TI power supply

by vcf＠siconic.com

So after beating the shit out of this stupid TI power supply (none of your suggestions worked, thanks) I come to find that it does have an internal fuse and that it is complete intact. Wonderful. This thing is shot beyond repair at this point. It wasn't intended to ever be opened apparently. Anyway, hopefully I can figure out what this pile of garbage was supposed to be putting out. Of course, there are no markings on the housing of the transformer. There is an IC in here. It's inline with the hot side of the input voltage. The markings are thusly: UMI EI X25 150(degree symbol)C 2.5A 250V~ A varistor? Anyway, this is a heap of junk now. -- 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 ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

20 years, 7 months

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Cooking, fractions & reply attribution... (was: electro-Physics: 17.3409 volts

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Roger Merchberger" <zmerch(a)30below.com> > >Dyslexia. There are a lot more kinds of it than just writing your letters >backwards (my type) -- I have two friends that *just can't spell*, and my >wife is LD in math; she can't handle decimals or fractions! Oh, guess who >has the most college degrees of the 4 people I just mentioned: my wife. > >Some people's brains are just plain *wired funny* -- sometimes it's a good >thing, sometimes it's not. > >Laterz, >Roger "Merch" Merchberger Hi When I was in grade school, I used to get B+'s on my math test. The teacher told me to write down the intermediate steps so that I could get more credit for partial solutions. Up till then I'd been working the problems out in my head and then just writing out the answer. An interesting result happened. My intermediate work had the same number or percentage of errors as my final results. Of course, I still worked them in my head or the final results would have been worse because of the cumulative effects. This was one of the first indications that I was dyslexic and not just lazy ( I was that as well ). I just made errors in translating what was in my head to the paper. Later, I found simple ways to check my results and got 100% on my test :) Dwight

20 years, 7 months

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5-1/4' drive on modern PC

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Gene Ehrich" <gehrich(a)tampabay.rr.com> > >Is there anyway that it can be attached external to the PC through serial, >parallel or USB ports > > Hi Yes and No. Of course, one can make some hardware to handle the drive and connect it to anything. There are 3-1/2 inch drives for the USB. It might be that the software would see a 5-1/4 drive as it is through one of these interfaces. Remove the 3-1/2 and wire it to the 5-1/4. For the parallel, I have some hardware someplace that can connect an IDE drive to the parallel port. I don't think I've seen anything for a floppy. Although, I've seen tape drives that connect to the parallel port. These normally connect to a floppy port. One might be able to do something with one of these interfaces. One of the catalogs that I've seen recently had a USB experimenters kit. One could most likely use one of these with a PIC and a controller chip to interface to just about any drive. Does anyone recall if the ZIP drives were on the floppy ports? If so, one could take a parallel ZIP dive and remove the drive part to connect a floppy drive. One still needs to create some software. It is still just a problem of hardware and software. A better idea might be to locate an older machine at one of the second hand stores and use that. Dwight

20 years, 7 months

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Zitel card?

by rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com

Does anyone know anything about Zitel? Pr what bus this card uses or anything about the card? <http://www.classiccmp.org/hp/a4/zitel.jpg>. I seem to remember that Zitel was a copy cat of Intel. Joe

20 years, 7 months

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about iSBC 86/30 single board computer

by xiaohancs＠163.com

Dear sir, There is a message on http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctech/2003-January/008285.html I am wondering whether it is still effctive or not.Now I am eager for iSBC 86/30 single board computer hardware reference manual.So can you be so kind to give me a reply? Yours sincerely 　　　　　　 D.P.-Han 　　　　　　 xiaohancs(a)163.com 　　　　　　 2004-12-14

20 years, 7 months

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KM11 clone

by GOOI＠oce.nl

Yep, a PDF file for the overlays would be OK for me. Saves shipping/handling. We can print the file(s) ourselves. What I wanted to say: I hope I will not have to search all documents on bitsavers to get the overlays. The parts list and an assembly instruction would be nice though. I hate to be surprised like "Ahh, I should have soldered that component afterwards...!^#%$ :-) - Henk. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces(a)classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Ethan Dicks > Sent: dinsdag 14 december 2004 11:49 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: KM11 clone > > > On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 09:52:59 +0100, Gooijen H <GOOI(a)oce.nl> wrote: > > Ok Guy, hold your breath ... I want 5 bare boards !! > > I assume that the bare board includes the overlays, > instructions, etc. > > I don't mean to speak for Guy, but all I am expecting is the boards > themselves, plus a parts list, plus a .pdf or something similar to > print my own overlays (on clear laser-printer acetate). > > Guy... are my expectations reasonable? > > -ethan

20 years, 7 months

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KM11 clone

by GOOI＠oce.nl

> OK, I just got a couple of board quotes with larger quantities. If I > can get an order of ~50 boards, I can drop the prices by $40! So the > pricing would be: > "Bare" Board $35 > "kit" (includes all the parts) $85 > assembled and tested $250 (I still don't want to) > > If I can get a preliminary count of folks who one (or two or...) I can > get the boards and parts ordered. I'd like to place the orders during > the first week of January. > -- > > TTFN - Guy Ok Guy, hold your breath ... I want 5 bare boards !! I assume that the bare board includes the overlays, instructions, etc. I am in The Netherlands, and assume that you will ship the boards in a US Priority Mail enveloppe, just as Vince did with the blinkenlight project (Core and I/O Board). You did not yet mention payment instructions; I guess PayPal is fine? - Henk, PA8PDP. www.pdp-11.nl

20 years, 7 months

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KM11 Clone

by GOOI＠oce.nl

> It's the RK11-C... there's a single slot facing the front of the rack > that I expect is where it goes. The RK11-D is a quad backplane > thingie that goes inside a BA-11 or some such (and the RKV11-D is a > version of it that fits in an external 4-slot enclosure with a set of > cables and a paddle card that go to a host's Qbus. > > I'd be interested to know what _other_ peripherals have a KM11 slot. > I personally want one to debug my RK11C (even though I am usually > using my RK05s with the aforementioned RKV11-D) just for the sake of > doing it. I do _have_ at least one RK11D that I could use for "real > work", but I'd like to get the -C working nonetheless. > > -ethan I read that the 11/40 CPU has 2 positions in its backplane for KM11's. In slot 1 (the first), position F the KM11 is used as a monitor for the KD11-A CPU and it allows to microstep the CPU instructions. When the KM11 is installed in slot 1, position E, the KM11 monitors KT11-D (the MMU), KE11-E (EIS optin) and KE11-F (FIS option). So, to go the full stretch you'd need 2 boards to watch everything in a PDP-11/35 (or /40), but I wonder if you'll ever need/do that ... except to see it once in actual operation :-) Note that DIGITAL writes that in normal operation the KM11 is *not* part of the system. - Henk, PA8PDP.

20 years, 7 months

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copyright in US etc.

by Saquinn624＠aol.com

(1) The copyright of a photograph is held by the photographer, hence, in this case, CNN (2) The first amendment ONLY APPLIES TO GOVERNMENT. For private property, trespass laws do apply, and unwanted press can be barred or removed. (3) There is no need to be rude. I fail to see how an attitude like that taken by Even can aid his career. Scott Quinn

20 years, 7 months

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Model 129 Keypunch on eBay with 30 minutes to to!

by wmaddox＠pacbell.net

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=5145489194&ssPageNa… eBay item 5145489194 (Ends Dec-12-04 19:00:00 PST) - IBM 129 keypunch verifier vintage card punch

20 years, 7 months

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HP9845 service toolkit

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

My workbench is currently covered with a 9845 is many bits :-). And I am slowly figuring out just what's inside that darn machine... Anyway, I believe there was an HP service toolkit for it (based on the markings on the PSU cover). Does anyone have it? If so, I have some questions 1) What did said kit contain (other than normal hand tools, which I have anyway). I am almost sure 2 of the items in the kit were a 'Discharge Tool' for the power supply and a 'Turn on fixture' to run the machine without a monitor 2) What does the 'Discharge Tool' consist of? I'll guess it was just a reisstor connected to a couple of isulated probes, or a plug, or something. There are some insulated holes on the SPU cover, under them are bare pads on the PCB connected to the terminals of the mains smoothing capes. The instructions are to insert the tool into 2 of the holes, then into the other pair, then to check the voltage between the holes you put the tool in (basically, check the caps are discharged) before removing the PSU. From the size of those capacitors (1800uF, 200V, small coke-can size), I would agree! 3) More importantly, what does the 'Turn On Fixture' consist of? Again I'll make a gues. It's a little PCB that goes into one of the edge connectors in the monitor pillars. But which connector, and what's on the PCB? Does it just short a couple of pins together to complete some kind of interlock circuit, does it contain load resistors, or worse, does it contain ICs? HAs aonone else been foolish enough to dismantle the printhead? Suffice it to say it consists of a normal PCB that connects to the printer cable, a seramic substrate containing the (thermal) printhead heater elements, 7 seramic hybrid circuits that contain the driver cirucits, and something like 35 of those metal-rings-round-elastomer connectors (like those between an HP41 logic board and keyboard) to link everything up... -tony

20 years, 7 months

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electro-Physics: 17.3409 volts

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Tom Jennings" <tomj(a)wps.com> > >On Mon, 13 Dec 2004, Carlos Murillo wrote: > >> > It isn't much good for home use. In fact, lamps don't >> > do as well on DC as AC because of the electrical effects >> > of the wire evaporating ( not sure which end goes first ). >> >> Ah, the "Edison Effect". > >I'd heard of the effect, but not for a long time, and probably paid little >attention to it :-) > >So, how pronounced is this DC-filament effect? If I collect >dead lightbulbs from my cars, should I see filaments with gaps >burned towards the ground end more often than not? > >(Tapered filaments would fix this.) > > Hi I would think the effect is smaller today since we don't still use high vacuum bulbs. Most have a partial atmosphere of an inert gas. The Edison effect is the same as used in vacuum tubes. You still might see a slight bias towards one or the other end. You have to realize that work hardening and fracturing of the filament in an auto is a large factor in shortening the life of these lamps. Dwight

20 years, 7 months

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NEXT@CNN

by classiccmp＠vintage-computer.com

CNN has a magazine style show called NEXT@CNN that has a gaming theme this week. Included is, of course, a discussion of vintage gaming and what the kids today think of the old stuff. It's funny to see the old Atari X-Wing run side-by-side with the modern version. About 20 minutes into the show is a "bump" for the 30th anniversary of the Altair computer featuring a machine from my collection including a shot from this year's VCF! Erik Klein www.vintage-computer.com www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum The Vintage Computer Forum

20 years, 7 months

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Lisp machine wisdom

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

Makes perfect sense :) A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the power off and on. Knight, seeing what the student was doing spoke sternly: "You can not fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong." Knight turned the machine off and on. The machine worked.

20 years, 7 months

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electro-Physics: 17.3409 volts

by melamy＠earthlink.net

the only sound physical reason for fractions is cooking... the general populace is so technically illiterate that is really doesn't make a difference whether things are in fractions or decimal. They really don't have a clue anyway. When was the last time you heard any clerk actually count change out or someone realize that 1/4 cup is 1/2 of a 1/2 cup... The people that like decimal systems don't understand fractions and the fractional people don't know what to do with a decimal point. As for eight fingers, I like my thumbs... -----Original Message----- From: "Dwight K. Elvey" <dwight.elvey(a)amd.com> Sent: Dec 13, 2004 3:12 PM To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org Subject: Re: electro-Physics: 17.3409 volts >From: "Paul Koning" <pkoning(a)equallogic.com> ---snip--- > >Some of this discussion reminds me of the "arguments" why the metric >system is inferior to the US system of measures. Contrary to what Tom Jennings states in a later post, there are sound physical reasons for using fractional systems when dealing with the physical world.

20 years, 7 months

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Old Dos Programs

by ron.hudson＠sbcglobal.net

anyone have the DOS version of Empire, Nethack (an older version that does not need dpmi), I had a DOS version of tetris too (using regular characters in 40 char mode) so I am looking for that too. Any websites that provide old DOS programs for download? Thanks!

20 years, 7 months

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Older floppies, newer hardware...

by zmerch＠30below.com

All this talk about getting older drives to work on newer hardware got me thinking about a totally different track on how to get this done (not to mention the previous subject was referencing a 5 foot, 3 inch floppy drive... ;-) ) There are VAXen that have SCSI bridgeboards to control 3.5" 1.44Meg floppy drives via the SCSI bus - how "controllable" are those, WRT different drives, data rates & low level programmability? I have one, but other than "it gives my VAX a floppy drive" I know very little about them. (I know I'd been thinking of getting another one so I could use 1.44Meg drives on a CoCo system under OS-9 equipped with a SCSI board... but have yet to get around to it.) Also, would those bridgeboards support 2 drives? Just an "out of box" thought... Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | A new truth in advertising slogan sysadmin, Iceberg Computers | for MicroSoft: "We're not the oxy... zmerch(a)30below.com | ...in oxymoron!"

20 years, 7 months

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Iomega ZIP drives

by Saquinn624＠aol.com

They also made SCSI ZIPs - used on Macs and SGIs, etc. The parallel models used a proprietary SCSI over parallel protocol, at least on the early ones, and were slower than snails. I've never popped one open to see if it is possible to revert to SCSI, though (probably not). I think I heard that later models used an encapsulated IDE protocol. I'm not sure if it is still the case, but I think some of the old (2.2.x) Linux kernels had some documentation about the protocol. It could be possible to hack together a similar interface for floppies, though (encapsulate over parallel port)

20 years, 7 months

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5-1/4' drive on modern PC

by melamy＠earthlink.net

the one floppy deal is not really a bios issue, it is a hardware issue. As long as there are two drive select lines coming from the hardware, then the mb can supprt two drives even if there is not bios support. My ASUS P4 mb only supports one drive and I suspect that there is only one drive select. Bios code is meant to support the hardware that is present. At least that is the way is has been for 23 years... -----Original Message----- From: Robert Feldman <r_a_feldman(a)hotmail.com> Sent: Dec 12, 2004 11:13 PM To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org Subject: Re: 5-1/4' drive on modern PC I've been wading through a lot of digests, catching up with the list, so this post is a bit late in the thread. One thing to watch out with on recent PC's is that the BIOS might not support more than one floppy drive. I found that out on a SOYO motherboard I got last year. The BIOS can handle 360KB and 1.2 MB 5 1/4" drives, as well as 3.5" drives, but you can have only one drive attached at a time. Bob

20 years, 7 months

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8" floppy drive

by Saquinn624＠aol.com

If you can read the disks, this might be of interest http://home.iae.nl/users/pb0aia/cm/8-525.html - cabling to use a 5.25" HD (1.2MB) drive in place of an 8" and http://nemesis.lonestar.org/computers/tandy/hardware/model16_6000/floppyfix… ml hints specific to the TRS80 Found it on the web and have it in the pile of projects to try out on my Z-80 when I get around to it. although I don't know how much longer 5.25 HD diskettes will be easy to get- Scott Quinn P.S. I'm new to Classic Computing, so don't take my word for it-please double check before risking your machine

20 years, 7 months

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test-drb December 2004