> On Tue, 3 Aug 2004, Bill Sudbrink wrote:
>
> > Well, I have a pretty big stack of Ohio Scientific... hardware,
> > software, documentation and advertising. I never thought it was
> > that rare, but then Sellam told me that he has a very hard time
> > turning up OSI stuff, so maybe it's a little rare.
>
> To which Sellam Ismail replied:
>
> OSI stuff has traditionally been hard to turn up (for me at least). It
> took several years of collecting before I got my first OSI system. Now I
> have a few various models, all given to me by various people ironically.
>
> Bob Maxwell had the coolest and rarest OSI computer at VCF East: a model
> 300 (OSI's first kit?)
>
Alas, it's not mine. Jim Kearney brought it VCF East to supplement my OSI
Superboard display. The 300 is a sobering reminder of how a computer
company could start in those early days with hobbyist-grade products. I
don't think Michael Dell could have ever sold any PCs with hand-taped
circuit board artwork...
Bob
It's piling up faster than I can get rid of it but I finally got
around to putting some more stuff on E-bay. There is a Motorola MVME 167
Single Board Computer card, a Diamond Systems PC/104 Single Board Computer
card with DAQ and some DEC cards including a GPIB interface, 11/23+ CPU and
a DSD disk drive interface on See
<http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&userid=rigdonj>.
Joe
A little clarification of Dwight's comment on EPROM life expectancy:
The 10-year spec is for the half-life of the charge on the floating gate
of the EPROM. In other words, after 10 years, you can expect half a
programmed gate's charge to have dissipated. This, by no means, renders the
data unreadable: a smaller fraction of the charge is sufficient for the
EPROM circuitry to read a programmed cell (most algorithms do a 2x to 4x
overprogrammming once a cell reads back programmed). The
programmed/unprogrammed read threshold is also temperature sensitive, so
cooling off a warm part may allow data recovery from an EPROM that's fading
away.
Also, bear in mind the specifications are for worst case: the charge leaks
away fastest as the device sits near its maximum rated temperature (people
have erased EPROMs by heating them over a light bulb!). The cooler the
chip, the less leakage. The relationship between temperature and leakage is
exponential, too: a few degrees make a lot of difference. If Ed's 2764As
were running hot, the gates might have lost enough charge in 15-20 years to
forget a few bits...
This helps explain why all the EPROMs I programmed in 1985 are still
intact. They're backed up on floppy... which decays faster?
Bob
> -----Original Message-----
>
> Ed>The set of MXV11-B2 boot ROMs I have are 2764A's.
> Ed>Do these die after awhile?
> Ed>Just sitting here scratching my head.
>
Dwight> Most EPROMs are rated for 10 years. That doesn't mean that
Dwight> every one will last that long. Also, many of these types
Dwight> of systems were all made with EPROMs from the same lot.
Dwight> If there was a long term issue, they'd all fail.
cctech-request(a)classiccmp.org schrieb am 04.08.2004:
>Message: 17
>Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2004 10:53:15 -0700 (PDT)
>From: "Dwight K. Elvey" <dwight.elvey(a)amd.com>
>Subject: rarest computers. was: RE: Xerox Alto Restoration + Emulation
>
>
>Hi
> I was just wondering. What people on this list consider their
>rarest computers in their collections.
>
>Dwight
Hi,
My rarest computer is a Nokia Mikko-1. Made by Nokia of Finland in the
second half of the seventies. (The g.o.days N. still was a decent company).
This computer was build as a 4 bit slice on one 4" x 9" pcb, so there were
8, 12, 16 and even 20 bit versions of it. The instructionset was
microprogrammed on another control-pcb, and since different departments at
Nokia had different opinions on what was a suitable instructionset, there
were at least 4 different instructionsets simultanousley in continuous
devellopment. It was programmed in assembler only, whith some
cross-compiler running on a PDP8-E with a RF32 attached. It was using Intel
1103 RAM and 1602 ROM or 1702 Eprom. Several thousands were manufactured
and used in many different industrial aplications, and as embedded systems
in the NOP30 time-shareing terminal or LP4900 multi-channel analyser.
I have no idea how many there are still alive, I have 2 systems, and will
put some photo's on-line sometime next week. Anyone else has such a beast
or its successor Mikko-2? (mainley used in banking applications).
Frank
Saw one today. They ask $69 plus tax.
vax, 3900
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> Al Kossow might want
> it for bitsavers.
Oh, There is an Al_Kossow on the list. He must hate me
because I snapshot his ebay bid of an 80186 emulator.
He got the manual though.
--
Would be interested to know when you get it if it was the
complete boxed unit. The listing was ambiguous. If it
wasn't complete, the manual will be up on bitsavers/microtek
in the next week or two.
Later, Tek developed a microprocessor development system that utilized
an LSI-11 core.
It was called the 8250.
--
8550 and 8560
It was an evolultion of the systems that started with the 8002
8550s have an 11/02 in them and ran an OS called DOS-50, which
I would REALLY like to find. The 8560s are UTEK machines starting
with 11/23s and 8" drives and evolving through 11/73s and 5" drives.
I have an 8560 with an 8" drive and would like to find the service
manual for it (I have the svc docs for the 5" version).
There is a fair amt of scanned documentation on the 8002->8560 up
now on bitsavers.
And dovetailing into Hans' comments, it is VERY difficult to find
the documentation and software for these systems, while the hardware
shows up at hamfests and on eBay frequently.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: cctalk-bounces(a)classiccmp.org
> [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Vintage
> Computer Festival
> Sent: 05 August 2004 10:55
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> Subject: RE: rarest computers
>
> I wasn't allowed to take photos, but it looks pretty much
> like it did in the late 1960s (with a few scuffs here and
> there perhaps).
Not allowed to take pictures? Swines. I'd love to see that up close and
personal!
Cheers
w
> -----Original Message-----
> From: cctalk-bounces(a)classiccmp.org
> [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dave Brown
> Sent: 05 August 2004 10:51
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> Subject: Re: Sord M5
>
> Whether the 'briefcase' held an audio cassette as well I'm
> not sure-it would have been a tight squeeze. Be interested in
> tracking down samples of software for it. A single basic cart
> is rather boring!
You haven't seen the rest of the software yet :) Lack of software is one
of the things that killed off the M5's chances, along with the Texet
TX8000 (amongst other names) and Mattel Aquarius, though let's be honest
the Aquarius was never going to set the world on fire was it :)
Cheers
--
adrian/witchy
owner & curator, Binary Dinosaurs - the UK's biggest online home
computer collection?
www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the Museum
www.snakebiteandblack.co.uk - former gothic shenanigans
www.aaghverts.co.uk - the place to whinge at adverts!
