test-drb December 2005

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

235 participants
580 discussions

Oldest machine (was: Re: Good haul of old pc stuph)

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Oldest machine (was: Re: Good haul of old pc stuph) > From: Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> > Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2005 11:26:08 +0000 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > PDP-8F manufacture date 1973. Running! However will the owner of that nice looking PB250 step up.. he's back around 1961. Allison

18 years, 9 months

Computer Automation Syfa System

by jwstephens＠msm.umr.edu

Does anyone have the capability or inclination to read 80mb and 300mb system packs >from such a system? I have a friend who has probably got system development packs available from systems he used to service. Jim

18 years, 9 months

6809 stuff - good progress made on FDC 2793 for the Core (Blinkenlight) processor board

by henk.gooijen＠oce.com

Hi all, just wanted to share a "good feeling" for the season holidays. I got the 2793 floppy disk controller working on the 6809 Core Board. Read about it on my website in the folder "my projects -> Floppy disk" or use this direct link if you don't want JavaScript active: www.pdp-11.nl/homebrew/floppy/diskstartpage.html I know that one picture is missing, I need to make that this weekend! enjoy the holidays, - Henk, PA8PDP. This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation.

18 years, 9 months

Old Disk Drives

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

> Somewhere in my storage unit I have service data for one of those, is anybody > interested in that enough to make it worth my while to dig it out? No > promises as to when, but... Of course! Start diggin'... If it is for an IBM 2311 or 3330, dig fast. William Donzelli Do you have a unit to repair or just want an old manual as a collectible? I know that I still my IBM 1311 manuals because they had all my training notes in it. CDC used 1311's until they reverse engineered it and built their 852. (The 852 could plug in as a 1311 replacement. The 853 used CDC's own interface. The 854 was a double density version, an incredible 10 MB stack of disks - sarcasm intended. (The removeable disk stack was numbered 851.) Not certain if the 2311 manual survive the last move. If it did, it goes to Al when I find it. Billy

18 years, 9 months

Seagate to Purchase Maxtor

by cheri-post＠web.de

> As far as drive failures go, I've had one Maxtor 40GB fail and a Seagate 2GB > develop sticktion. Interestingly enough, the Quantum-designed drives (D740X > especially) don't seem to be as failure-prone as the newer "pureblood" Maxtor > drives. DiamondMax 8 slimlines are truly crap as far as reliability goes. > That said, you buy cheap, you get cheap - DM8s are (or at least were) the > absolute cheapest drives Maxtor made. I usually pick drives from somewhere in > the middle of the capacity range, and aim to pay around ?65-?80 per drive. > Maxtor Diamond 9 Plus is the same crap. Not expensive, becomes VERY hot for a desktop drive and is sooo slow.... Died after a year.... > Notice how most of the people whining "XYZ drives are crap" are the > cheapskates that went and bought the ?30 "white box" OEM drives... Cheap > is generally synonymous with "crap" in the world of hard drives, IME. > > On a lighter note, anyone ever had a Conner drive? I've got a CFS425 that I > pulled out of a 1996-model Acorn RiscPC600. It's nearly ten years old and > it's still fully functional. Now *that's* engineering. > Conner engineered good drives but unfortunately, the CFS850A and the CFS1275A series were horrible. LOTS of drives from these series died.... if I'd get one, I'd perform a backup as fast as I could. Regards, Pierre ______________________________________________________________________ XXL-Speicher, PC-Virenschutz, Spartarife & mehr: Nur im WEB.DE Club! Jetzt gratis testen! http://freemail.web.de/home/landingpad/?mc=021130

18 years, 9 months

PDP-10s

by Useddec＠aol.com

When is the last time the abs filter was changed? I have an extra set of heads and some other parts. Paul

18 years, 9 months

Core and ICs

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

Scott Stevens wrote: >I have more machines with core + ICs that core + discretes only.... <snip> >Core is also more 'radiation hardened' for certain applications. >For space or military use, for instance. Not as important now >but it was for a long while. No argument about there being ICs and core. I only pointed out the time frame wasn't long. The first core machine I remember seeing was the 1103 and it used vacuum tubes. (1K by 36 bits). Using it as a reference up to the last Cray designs with core and transistors, there is a long time frame, at least 2 decades . Core and ICs made the transition. But with ICs came the 1101, then the 1103. After that, RAM exploded and it was a rare machine that stayed with core for very long. Core died quickly, relative to it's life span. Core is still used in a few applications, mainly space. But another technology made most of the early trips to the planets, a variation of core called plated wire. Some of those are 30+ years old and still haven't dropped a bit! And then there are the EMP hardened technologies that still can't be discussed, even today. Billy

18 years, 9 months

GRI

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> Singer? ISTR that Singer had a model 40 drive (14 in disk pack) in their > system 10. Possibly using rotary transformer servo like Diablo Systems... No, these were single-platter setups, typically one fixed and one removable. I had one repair to look at that was basically a "Wang Word Processing System" or somesuch, and there was a mini that I tried (not very successfully) to deal with called a "GRI" -- the company was out of business when I came into the picture in 1985, and they had a guy who would come in >from out of state from time to time to tweak things. ----------- The follow-on to the Diablo 31 was the 40. It was 5mb, 5440 style packs. I'm pretty sure the 11x17 docs are on bitsavers (I know that I've scanned it..) Any addtional information on the GRI 909 that isn't up on bitsavers already would be of interest to Bob Supnik, too..

18 years, 9 months

The year in review...

by news＠computercollector.com

Hi all, ...Just published the year's final issue of Computer Collector Newsletter. Not a subscriber? Then read our "Year in review" article at http://www.snarc.net/c-sum2005.php ... over and out. - Evan ----------------------------------------- Evan Koblentz's personal homepage: http://www.snarc.net Computer Collector Newsletter: >> http://news.computercollector.com Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists & Museum: >> http://www.marchclub.org >> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/midatlanticretro/

18 years, 9 months

Atari Mega ST - what exactly have I got?

by gordonjcp＠gjcp.net

Hi all, Through the wonder of Freecycle, I've just picked up an Atari Mega ST. There are some interesting mods inside it, and I'm not sure what some of them are... Everything seems to be liberally hot-melt glued together. I don't want to start picking it all apart. The 4M upgrade I sussed easily - even more than 12 years after I last did one, I recognise the board with the video IC and it doesn't take much to suss the 4 1Mx8 simms. There is a board with two PALs, some small caps and a small electrolytic cap. It seems to be unmarked. The PALs may be something like 16AS255 - there is paint on them. One has one stripe of silver paint, the other has two. A white 10-pin connector goes off to some leads. The ones I've figured out are: Green wire goes to pin 4 of the video socket - mono detect/clock according to the manual Blue wire to /RTS on U15, one of the UARTs Brown to the cathode of D18 (no idea) One red and one black are clearly +5 and ground the other black, along with white, orange and yellow vanish off to below the PSU the remaining red splits into two thin white wires, one going to a pin near OSC1 (may not be connected) and one ending up near the memory. There is also a board marked "Compu Software 1992". There appear to be ROMs soldered to it, it is soldered to the CPU via another socket, and stuck in the top is a board marked C103261, with a 74LS74, a small capacitor, and a row of pins marked 12 - 18 that plug into pins 12-18 if the CPU socket. A red wire runs off to a jumper pad near U39. Don't know if anyone recognises any of this, but any insight would be great. I haven't fired it up yet because I don't have a keyboard cable - trip to Maplin tomorrow... Gordon.

18 years, 9 months

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test-drb December 2005