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
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
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
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
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
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
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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>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
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
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
