test-drb June 2004

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

281 participants
616 discussions

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need schematics for SWTPC function generator

by rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com

Does anyone know where I can find a schematic of other docs for the SWTPC function generator? Mine has problems. Joe

20 years, 2 months

Paging Mike Stein in Toronto

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

Still trying to reach Mike Stein in Toronto. (regarding Cromemco information). Please drop me a line at the address in my sig. 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

20 years, 2 months

Xerox workstation for sale

by yoda＠isr.ist.utl.pt

Hello everyone. Several years ago I got a Xerox workstation from a junkyard. I believe the model is a Daybreak. At that time I got it partially booting, using some homebrew interfacing hardware. At the meantime I got married, and I have to get rid of the thing (lack of space and wife's interest ;). However, I don't want it teared apart for recycling. I want it preserved. Therefore, I'm puting it to sale! I live in Lisbon, Portugal (EU). I have some photos online at the following URL: http://www.isr.ist.utl.pt/library/gallery/Xeroxworkstation I also have three peripherals: two tape streamers and one 5 1/4 floppy drive. Since it has no keyboard, mouse or monitor, I built interfaces to connect it to a VGA monitor, and to a PC. I can include the stuff I did with the machine. Cheers, Rodrigo Ventura -- *** Rodrigo Martins de Matos Ventura <yoda(a)isr.ist.utl.pt> *** Web page: http://www.isr.ist.utl.pt/~yoda *** Teaching Assistant and PhD Student at ISR: *** Instituto de Sistemas e Robotica, Polo de Lisboa *** Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisboa, PORTUGAL *** PGP fingerprint = 0119 AD13 9EEE 264A 3F10 31D3 89B3 C6C4 60C6 4585

20 years, 2 months

Half bad 2716s was:Re: 8" hard sectored floppies

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jun 4, 15:23, Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > No, I was talking about Intel's 2508( maybe 2758 from your later > note ), not the 2708 that was a multi-voltage part. I know; Joe asked about the 2704 and 2708, my note about the 2716 was just a comment. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

20 years, 2 months

486 dies terrible death

by vcf＠siconic.com

My voicemail PC died a pretty terrible death this morning. I was still groggy from a late night of hackering and sitting at my computer (my back is to the voicemail system) and all of a sudden this loud popping begins. At first a wave of terror washed over me as my not quite totally functioning brain was trying to determine just what the hell was going on. At first I didn't want to look but I turned around in time to see some serious arcing going on inside the exposed PC (the case is off). It went on for a good 4-5 seconds (start to finish). It was probably the power supply but I can't tell for sure until I do a post-mortem (right now I'm getting my voicemail back up). Luckily it didn't take out any hardware. The hard drive is fine and as far as I can tell so far so are the voice boards. That was some crazy shit. The power supply fan went bad on it a while ago (over a year, surely longer) and I never bothered replacing it because I always use just whatever hardware I have laying about whenever something goes bad on the box, and those damn power supply fans go out all the time and it's a pain to have to replace them. Anyway, I wonder if it was some critical thermal failure of some sort. The P/S was hot but not abnormally so (abnormal in this case would be scorching but usual temperature is very hot to the touch but not burning). Wacky. -- 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, 2 months

122A scope

by philk1a＠sdccu.net

Noticed an old message concerning you finding a HP 122A Scope with manual. Any chance you still have manual ( I have the scope) if so any chance you would sell a copy of manual ? Thanks Phil

20 years, 2 months

Anyone have a spare PC8300 Arrow triangle key?

by ron.hudson＠sbcglobal.net

I just recovered my PC8300 from my brothers and it is missing one all four are the same, you just orient them differently Before anyone cries "elder laptop abuse" my 83000 was missing the key when I got it. Thanks!

20 years, 2 months

Proposal: Oldware database

by mtapley＠swri.edu

All, I was thinking today about old software (okay, I was playing Master of Orion 1 :-) ) and realized that there may be a service opportunity we have. I don't know if such exists already, please point me there if it does. What I'm thinking of is a central site to point out old software or software for old systems that have been placed in public domain or otherwise made available for nominal charges by their original manufacturers. I'd like to see something like a database containing: Name of package Brief description (maybe two paragraphs) Rating (something like a one-to-five-mice rating, or maybe with valves?) Platform/OS it runs on (database should be sorted on this field) Where to get it Company that made it. Current owner of that company, (includes web-link) Current main product line of that company Person/group responsible for making it available Current business of that person (includes web-link) A couple of examples I know a little about: Lighthouse Design Ltd Office Suite Office Suite, consists of mail, spreadsheet, text, presentation packages vvvv (four tubes out of 5) NeXTStep 3.x http://www.peanuts.org/peanuts/NEXTSTEP/commercial Lighthouse Design Sun workstations/servers ??? ??? OPENVMS 7.3 Operating system, utilities, development tools vvvv VAX, Alpha hardware http://www.montagar.com/hobbyist/mount.html DEC HP printers :-) ???? ???? But even here, I don't really know the right people to credit. This seems like a good way to return a bit of good karma to the folks that support old hardware and software, as well as a valuable resource for those of us trying to do vintage computing on a budget. I guess I have not thought far enough into how to limit the database from becoming enormous. I'd say some necessary criteria are; 1) package runs on a "classic" (that is > 10 years old) platform 2) package was at one time sold in the normal software marketplace (i.e. not shareware/freeware/etc since inception) 3) package can now be downloaded or ordered from somewhere for free/cost-of-media/similarly low cost. Comments or suggestions? Some questions I have: a) should there be a separate category for software for classic systems which is still being sold and supported (a la the older Ambrosia shareware games for Mac, like Escape Velocity, or Create! for NeXTSTep 3.3)? b) should there be an "archive pointer" section that points to existing archives of shareware, such as http://www.peanuts.org/ for NeXT stuff? (I think this would be *far* preferable to trying to catalog every single shareware package on every archive....) I don't have any webhosting skills or abilities, so I can't set this up, but if I can help, let me know. -- - Mark 210-522-6025, page 888-733-0967

20 years, 2 months

What is bigger than a "super Jumbo Colossal" olive? (was: 8" hard sectored floppies

by melamy＠earthlink.net

>from someone who has a hard type forgetting things like that... extended was memory past 1meg and expamded was a memory slot inside the 1meg space sigh best regards, Steve Thatcher >--- Original Message --- >From: Tom Jennings <tomj(a)wps.com> >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech(a)classiccmp.org> >Date: 6/4/04 3:33:57 PM > On Thu, 2004-06-03 at 17:03, Fred Cisin wrote: > >> But, then, when density was finally increased, "quad density" >> and "super density" were already used up as names, so the >> mindless jerks called it "HD"/"High Density". "HD"/"High Density" >> is MFM at 500K bits per second data transfer rate on a 360 >> RPM drive. (Which is exactly what 8" DD was) > >Fred, you should stop remembering these things, it's bad for you. > > >PS: To this day I can't remember which is which, EXTENDED or EXPANDED >memory, thankfully there's no need to any more. >

20 years, 2 months

Computer flooring/flooding/water in computer rooms

by classiccmp.org＠irrelevant.fsnet.co.uk

I was at a customers some years back.. Old building, but it had been totally gutted and all new insides. There was a small cupboard to the side of the computer room (actually more of an office, where the MVME based Motorola unix box and one of the patch panels lived) inside of which was the main fusebox for the floor. 415V three phase splitting off to (our normal) separate 240V circuits.. Anyway, I was sat at a desk with my back to the cupboard, server in front and to my left, and suddenly heard running water... turned around, and the wall behind me was swimming... opened the cupboard and it was pouring down the cables and across the fusebox.. The power went off shortly afterwards.. luckily it missed the server, which was on a UPS, and we did an orderly shutdown. It was Air Conditioning again .... For some reason known only to themselves, the AirCon plant for the floor was situated in the loft (Attic) directly above the computer room. It had a drip tray under it, which wasn't secured, nor drained properly. When it got full, it tilted, and dispensed it's entire load of water onto the floor, and hence us below! It did it again a few weeks later, too.... Not as much fun as the time we got a phonecall from a customer saying "My computer just blew up". We chuckled and said we'd come have a look, expecting a fuse blown or something. Arrived and found a PC clone with all the blanking plates, buttons, and the front of the floppy drive on the floor in front of it, the blanking plates on the expansion slots all bowed outwards, and a nasty smell in the air. We decided the remove the machine from site before opening it ... When we did, found it was a 486 machine where the battery backed CMOS ram was (had been) baked up by an external battery plugged into the board. This had been stuck to the back panel of the box. It had exploded! Possibly connected to the board backwards? The force of the explosion had been enough to fling bits of battery and the plastic box it was encased in /through/ the ribbon cables in the machine, as well as the aforementioned ejection of all loose fittings on the case. Battery acid everywhere, too, eating through tracks on everything. The hard disc survived long enough to get the data off it, but the rest of the machine was pretty much destroyed. And this poor girl had had it under her desk by her feet when it had gone bang! Poor thing must have had the shock of her life! Rob.

20 years, 2 months

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test-drb June 2004