>This is really nice to know. I tried bringing a few Mac II's to life to
>no avail a few months back. I figured there had to be a trick because
>they could not ALL have been dead.
Many Macs get stuck when the PRAM battery is dead or dying. Some won't do
anything, some will start but not boot (power on, spin up the drives, and
just hang at the grey self test screen), some will boot but you will get
no video... and some will just act plain wonky.
On some Macs, there is a 'CUDA' switch (no idea what CUDA stands for...
anyone know?). Its a little tiny push buttin switch on the logic board.
Pressing that switch will do a deap PRAM reset, which will usually cure
the dead battery issue (although if the battery doesn't get replaced, the
issue will come back eventually). This can be done in place of removing
the battery for 24 hours (but not all Macs have the CUDA switch, so some
you are just stuck pulling the battery).
-chris
<http://www.mythtech.net>
On Apr 21, 16:33, Torquil MacCorkle, III wrote:
> > True, and there's another factor: SGI's licence for the software on
> > those CDs prohibits them being passed on to another person except
when
> > transferred with a machine licensed to use them. SGI have
occasionally
> > been known to get shirty about that.
>
> I thought that since all SGI's originally came with IRIX, all of them
had
> the rights to use IRIX so transfer of media was okay? Seems I have
been
> mistaken, I guess I will keep the CDs afterall.
Not necessarily. Each machine has the right to use the latest version
that was supplied for that individual machine (ie, that serial number).
As far as I understand it, if you had, say, an Indy that originally
came with IRIX 5.3, and had a support contract that entitled you to
upgrades through IRIX 6.2 to IRIX 6.5, you could pass on the 6.5 CDs
you got, along with the Indy. But if you didn't have a support
contract, and SGI didn't supply you with 6.5 specifically for that
Indy, then that Indy would only be entitled to run 5.3. Ditto for an
O2 that originally came with 6.3 and never had a maintenance contract
that entitled it to an upgrade to 6.5. You could buy the upgrade
separately, and that would include a right-to-use, but the cheapest way
to buy 6.5 from SGI is to buy a support contract :-)
At least SGI's licences transfer with the machine, unlike DEC's.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
Hello all !
If anyone needs a VR241-A monitor...I can get one for free.
It's located in Darmstadt (Germany).
The institute will throw it away if nobody is interested.
Unfortunately, I can't test it 'cause I do not have a DEC Rainbow.
Just send me an email: cheri-post at web.de
Cheers
Pierre
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Kostenfrei fuer alle FreeMail Nutzer. http://f.web.de/?mc=021157
At 05:26 21/04/2004 +0100, you wrote:
>> Hi Tony,
>>
>> It would appear that you are correct. Once I removed the cover, I could clearly
>> tell that the "chirp" is coming from the switching power supply. There appears
>> to be no activity from the rest of the monitor, including the fact that even
>> with the lights off, I could not observe filaments lighting. The power LED does
>
>It's not unheard-of for the CRT heater to run off the flyback
>transformer. So if the horizontal output stage is dead, there will be no
>heater glow.
>
>> light, however it's fairly dim - I don't know how brightly it would normally
>> light.
>>
>> The final filter capacitor in the supply is rated at 180v DC. I powered the
>> supply briefly under no-load and the output rose to 140v. With all the
>> connections in place, it is producing about 55v - I have no idea what the
>> normal requirements of the monitor are.
>
>I would guess around twice that voltage at least. Does the PSU have one
>output or seceral ? Have you checked if any of them are stuck at 0V?
Hi Tony,
I've located a set of rather poor schematics (can't really read most of the
component values), but it did include 10 pages of troubleshooting information.
According to this, the filaments do run off a winding on the flyback.
The power supply has three outputs, a main one which is supposed to be 115v,
and two smaller (thin wires/connectors) which are supposed to be 12v and 14v.
Under no load, I'm measuring 140v, 15v and 17v, shich is probably about
right. With the monitor connected, I'm reading about 55v on the main supply,
I have not measured the other two as I'd have to remove the PSU board and
tack on wires, however since it's a single-switcher design, I'd guess that
they were proportinally lower as well.
I do not see any obvious physical signs of failure (discolored parts, smoke
etc). When I get a chance, I'll go thorugh the troubleshooting charts - they
list a number of voltage measurements, waveforms and components to check for
these symptoms.
I'm really hoping I can get it going, as I do not have another color monitor
for the ST's. (When I picked it up I thought it was another mono monitor as
there is no external adjustment/indication of color and it looks exactly like
my SM124 mono monitor - once I opened it I realised it was a color monitor - I
guess "SC" means "Color" (vs "SM"=Mono).
Regards,
--
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
On Apr 19, 23:36, Tony Duell wrote:
> I didn;t say that digital cameras have no uses, just that I have no
use
> for one. I take almost entirely static subjects, and I want high
> resolution (to be honest 3.1 M pixels is worse than 35mm (I estimate
that
> as being about 12M pixles), let alone medium or large format).
Hi-res 35mm is probably better than that. Kodachrome certainly is; it
can resolve a couple of thousand lines per *millimeter* under ideal
conditions. Even fairly conventional fine-grain black-and-white films
have been able to manage 1000 lines per mm since the 1940s. That means
if you take the full height of a 35mm image, and enough of the width to
match the typical aspect ratio of a digital camera (lets say 3:4), the
image could resolve the equivalent of 24000 x 32000 = 768M pixels!
It's not quite as simple or dramatic as that, of course. It's not just
the resolving power of the film that affects the image quality, there
are irradiation and halation effects to consider, as well as
graininess, lens quality ("the diameter of the circle of confusion" is
a phrase I will never forget). On the other hand, there are digital
artefacts like edge effects to think about too.
Even if you take a normal fine-grain silver halide image, under average
conditions, you'd have about 15M pixels (I found that in a few
references on the web). That's about 5 times more than a 3.1M pixel
digital image -- except they're analogue pixels, in a sense; the size
and colour are infinitely variable, not variable in discrete steps.
Moreover, 3.1M pixels in the camera aren't 3.1M pixels in the final
image. It depends how they're used, but in the camera, you typically
need three pixels, one for each of R, G, and B, to get one RGB pixel in
the image. Some techniques use even more (the Bayer algorithm uses 4).
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
Every once in a while you win, though...
I was at a 2-day hamfest last year and ran across
a gentleman selling vacuum tubes, old test gear, etc. for what I
considered outrageous prices. Under the table, he had a complete
PDP-11/05 sitting with some other stuff. I kinda figured it would
be also be overpriced, but when I asked him, his reply
(as well as I can remember it) went like this...
"Oh that? Thats part of an antique computer... If I had
the whole thing, I'd want around $1,200 for it. it's RARE ;-)
At this point, I was kind of curious, so I asked if I could
look inside. It appeared to be a complete 11/05 with core
memory, so I asked what he thought was missing.
"It's just the _control head_", he said, "The REAL computer
computer itself was MUCH larger that that!" At this point
he proceeded to inform me that all computers of this vintage
had to take up at least a full equipment rack. (all his companions
sitting on the tailgate of his truck nodded and mumbled things
like "Trust him, he's an EXPERT").
"Well, how much for just the _control head_?" I asked.
"I'll take $35.00, but understand that all sales are final!
And that's how I got a fully functional 11/05 for $35.00! 8-)
Yep, sometimes the hunt, and the satisfaction of getting
a good deal from a greedy self-appointed clueless expert
can be worth as much as the find itself!
-al-
-----Original Message-----
From: Joe R. [mailto:rigdonj@cfl.rr.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2004 10:46 AM
To: dancohoe(a)oxford.net; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic
Posts
Subject: RE: Ebay Heartbreak (was: ebay shenanigans)
At 08:31 AM 4/21/04 -0400, you wrote:
>Yesterday I ran across three PDP11/84's in parts at a scrappers (one day
too
>late). I sorted through the pile of boards and made up a collection
>including a lot of heavy backplane sections. The chief arrived back from
>lunch and immediately found me to announce that his was prime material and
>I'd have to pay at least $5.00 lb.
>
>I re-organized my collection throwing back what turned out to be PMI memory
>boards :-( and a lot of unidentifiable third party items (made by Megadata,
>Bohemia NY) to reduce the hit but held onto the somewhat strange 11/84
>backplane with the combination Qbus / Unibus sections.
>
>When I got to the scales, he saw the backplanes and said they were full of
>palladium and for a little he'd take $5 lb, but for a larger quantity,
>they'd be more money per lb. I abandoned all of the backplanes at that
>point.
>
>He then pointed out two 11/44's that I'd missed in my search. "What's your
>offer", he said, "I was going to list them on Ebay and I expect $400 each".
>
>I suggested that probably wouldn't happen and offered that I'd bid if he
did
>put them up for auction rather than make an offer here that was far from
his
>dream. His response was that he'd scrap them for not much less than that.
>I'm not sure what will happen because there's clearly some serious
>bargaining going on, however, he's quite adamant about the scrap value and
>prepared to throw stuff in the scrap that I won't pay this price for. His
>claim is that he actually sends stuff out for custom refining and gets the
>recovery value of what he sends.
I found that most scrappers are real BS artists! I recently found a big
stack of Nova core memory boards. The scrapper swore that they were full of
gold and wanted $6/lb for them. The only gold on them was a trace in the
card edge connectors. Needless to say I passed on them. They're still
sitting there two years later (but they've been in the weather so they're
probably ruined by now).
Joe
>
>These valuations really scare me because it'll put the value beyond what
I'm
>interested in except for a few exceptional pieces.
>
>Dan
>
>
>
>
I don't take the opportunity enough to engage in much actual discussion on this list, but I would like to. I also rarely get a chance to actually "play" with my keeper collection of computers, which I have recently narrowed down to just "keepers." Anyway, with a busy job, three kids and a house, time is always short, but I do find time to enjoy a couple of other hobbies. I guess after twelve plus years of ravinously reading everything about computer history, and having owned more or less every important old computer at one time or another, my interests are shifting. This doesn't mean that I won't be playing with the collection, but in a more limited way. Gotta get the garage setup finally with some work areas.
As for other hobbies, I am mostly doing a lot of reading online, and reading physical books as well. I've recently added to my extensive computer history / collecting library some very nice books about Disney Imagineering, Disney history (Walt and the parks, movies, etc.), and some books on toy collecting. I'm also very interested in sceptical research and debunking of psuedoscience, bad MLM and so-called health related products. But toys have always been a soft-spot for me, which my first computer started off as (C64). My daughter has an Easy Bake oven, and I just got my son a Queasy Bake. We also enjoy the number of sets of Creepy Crawler ovens too, remember those anyone? Anyway, I'm intrigued with the history of cooking toys now and have been looking deeper into that, as well as checking out eBay for such items. My family loves to cook and we're big fans of the Food Network. I have started on the path of the history of cooking toys and the collecting of them. There are many interesting types too:
ovens of course (desert baking mostly)pizza oven (Pizza Hut, Dominoes and Chucky Cheese)slushie makersCotten candy makersice cream makersgummy makerschocolate candy makersdrink makers... geez, the journey begins.
So, anyone else like to expose any other collecting and/or strange behavior of their own? Ah, the kicker too . . . have their ever been a microcomputer controlled cooking toy? Could their be? Hmmmmm . . .
Best, David Greelish, classiccomputing.com
Hello all:
Take a moment to visit this place, please:
http://newdos.yginfo.net/msdos71/
I did it, downloaded it, installed it in one Pentium III, one
Pentium IV and under Bochs. Works. In the Pentium IV case,
I can access the NTFS partition.
Cheers
Sergio
> From: "Glen Goodwin" <acme(a)gbronline.com>
> Subject: Anyone have a spare RX23?
>
> A friend called recently and said he was going
> through some computer stuff and found a number of
> drive enclosures -- did I want any? Since I
> never seem to have enough to accomodate all of the\
> small machines I've patched drives into, I
> said "sure." When it arrived I was delighted to
> find thatthe enclosure was a TK50Z-FA with a couple
> of disreputable-looking 5.25" diskette drives in
> it. I yanked the drives and installed two
> known-good 5.25" DSDDs and now it's attached to my
> TS2068 so all is well.
Very cool!
What controller are you using on the TS2068?
Just curious...
- Al
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