Pat has lost interest in DEC collecting. I spoke to him when
I was down there a few months ago. Here is an exerpt from a
mail msg from him.
Since however, one of us, The famous John R. Wisniewski, from
DEC, has passed away, and due to the economics in the present
time following 911, when everyone lost so much money and the
purse strings have become very tight, we are not able to continue
to seek grants or raise funds for a permanent place to store and
show these, so at some time in the future, the entire collection
will probably be liquidated.
--
I will forward his current email adr through private email to
Emanuel.
I always wanted to do this, but now it is too late!
Looks like a nice calendar featuring home computers
>from the 70's and 80's (No PDPs) - $12.99.
I have no affiliation with this website.
http://www.digicraft.com.au/calendars/
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free!
http://my.yahoo.com
Hey guys...
I have a line on a Convex machine. The current owner is a guy
who attends Govt. auctions and buys bulk, then scraps out stuff for
gold/parts/etc... He calls me when he finds anything interesting, so...
He says this is a Convex SPP3. (it's _heavy_... around 400 Lbs.) I
haven't seen it yet, so I don't know anything more right now.
Unfortunately,
I have no knowledge of Convex stuff, and a web search turned up some
Convex SPP stuff, but not much, and _nothing_ on an "SPP3". Can anyone
enlighten me further? (Yep, I know it's an SMP architecture of some sort,
but
little more than that).
A couple of questions...
Is this machine historically significant? (I.e. worth saving?)
Does anyone know of a source for documentation? (I've done a prelim.
web/newsgroup
search, but haven't turned anything up)
Does anyone have (or know where I can find) a copy of an OS for it
(apparently
it's a unix variant. He told me that the disks were missing... not unusual
for an auction item)
400 lbs is a bit large for me, but if there is a remote chance I can bring
this
critter back to life (and it's worth saving) it's probably worth the effort.
I'll going to
try to take a look at it and try to get some sort of model#/ident. Anything
I should
be looking out for or wary of?
-al-
-acorda(a)1bigred.com
I have a few IBM model 5150s that I use to code entries for programming
competitions and I'd like to try to speed up the hard disk in any way possible.
(If you're curious what my last project was, check out
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=13722 to download and try it out -- it
displays full-screen full-motion color video with sync'd sound -- yes, on a
4.77MHz 8088, no fooling). I've been looking for any way to speed up the hard
disk subsystem (currently WD1002 with Seagate ST225) and I simply can't get
more than 130KB/s out of the darn thing... so:
- Is there any MFM/RLL 8-bit ISA controller that can read disks at their full
1:1 interleave? If so, where can I get one? 3:1 is the best I've been able to
get using the above MFM combination. I haven't tried RLL yet because I don't
have any RLL controllers.
- If not, do such things exist as 8-bit ISA IDE controllers? I have lots of
"little" IDE drives (320MB and 540MB models) that I could hook up.
I attempted not one but TWO 8-bit Plus hardcards (both 40MB models), thinking
that the embedded drive/controller combo would be better, but my experience
with Plus Hardcards (even the 16-bit 120MB versions) is that, after about 8
years, the damn EEPROM forgets everything and it doesn't boot (no BIOS, get a
1701 "controller error"). So I couldn't get either of them to work. (As a
result I have 4 Plus hardcards that I am *this close* to throwing away, unless
someone has an idea of reviving them :-)
Any advice? Or should I just try to find an EMS board and cache my data
instead? (Speaking of which, does anyone have a LIM EMS board for sale/trade?
Can't seem to find one of those either.)
--
Jim Leonard (trixter(a)oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
Hi crew. Question about a Gridacase 1520. Is anyone familiar with
these laptops? This is a 286, really good shape. It won't boot, dead
as a doornail. The guy at the thrift shop told me it was working when
it was brought in the day before, now I see that two (or one) chips
are missing from under the flap in the top left right above the
keyboard. I figure they were lifted between dropoff and my buying it.
Any ideas if these chips, which I think are application roms, would
prevent the thing from booting? If so, is there such a thing as a
replacement available from someone here or elsewhere? The thing must
have been the first Toughbook or something, and I'd love to see it
working.
Thanks for any info anyone can share.
(does anyone still need a gmail invite? I have lots. )
Brian Mahoney
>is this the small 50 pin cage thing made by Northern Digital?? or the
>Superpet?
>Mine has a 6502 and 6809 I think - the switch powered
>one cpu or the other...
>h
Hi Heinz,
Yes - this is the little box made by Northern Digital - it was apparently
developed at U or Waterloo. There is only a 6809 inside, and no selection
switch. (My SuperPET does have dual CPUs and a switch to select).
Do you have one with dual CPU's? - Any additional information?
Regards,
Dave
--
dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Collector of vintage computing equipment:
http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html
I've been tinkering with this mutt LSI 11/23 system I've got and am trying
to get it running. It's a custom-built system that has a mix of DEC and
third-party boards. It's configured as follows--my apologies if I'm not
conforming to standard DEC notation here [notes in brackets]:
Cage 1
Slot 1: DEC M8186 | CAMINTONN 504 [1]
Slot 2: Dataram Diceon [2]
Slot 3: Data Systems Design A4432-4 | Grant Continuity [3]
Slot 4: Emulex TU0110401 [4]
Cage 2
Slot 1: Emulex Tu1110406 [5]
Slot 2: Grant Continuity | Digital Pathways TCU-50DYR [6]
Slot 3: MDB DLV-11J | DEC M9400 [7]
Slot 4: Empty [8]
Notes:
1. I believe the Camintonn card is memory
2. This has "RK:" written on the handle...an RK05 disk controller?
3. The Data Systems Design card has "DY:" written on the handle.
4. Tape controller; is connected by 25-conductor ribbon cable to adjoining
Emulex card.
5. See note 4.
6. A real-time clock
7. The M9400 has "HB BOOT" written on the board. Is this the boot ROM
card?
8. Does there need to be a bus terminator here?
The DLV-11J is a 4-port serial card. Thanks to those who provided the
documentation to get it wired. I think I have it correct. I've jumpered
pin 3 to the RxD line and Pin 8 to the TxD line on my RS232 port. I've
also jumpered pin 4 to ground as directed.
The system powers up. There are +5V and +12V LEDs on the front of the
panel that come on, and I've checked these lines at the power supply and
they are good. One oddity: the terminal marked -12V is a perfect -0.00 on
my volt meter. WTF?
Anyway, how can I tell if anything is happening inside this thing? I can
hit the BOOT switch and the RUN light goes on. There's a RUN switch with
a momentary HALT position and an ENABLE position. I can hit the HALT
switch and the RUN light goes off. I put the switch back in the ENABLE
position and then hit the BOOT switch and the RUN light goes back on.
I see nothing on my terminal (a PC running Procomm Plus in DOS so I have
real serial ports instead of the bullshit that Win98 tries to pawn off as
serial ports).
I eventually want to boot RT-11 off floppies on this system. I guess I'll
need a disk controller at some point.
I'm completely lame. This is the first DEC system I've seriously tried to
get running so I'm starting from -1 here.
Any ideas?
--
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 ]
