test-drb December 2005

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

235 participants
580 discussions

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

> > I have plenty of software that runs directly off CD. I'm not > > making a copy of it to run it. Unless you're implying the > > process of reading it into memory to execute is copying it. IMHO > > that's a mighty fine line. > > Reading it into memory is copying it. Lawyers make a bunch of > their money due to fine lines. > The statement that reading it into memory is copying it is generally correct. Re: Does this imply that software in ROM does not need to be copied (in the legal sense) when it's run, but cashing the ROM would consitute a copy? Or does copying each byte in turn into an internal processor register count as a 'copy'. If it runs from ROM, then it's not considered to be copied, but if ROM is copied ("shadowed") to RAM (as BIOS' and video firmware often are), then it would be considered to be copied.

20 years, 1 month

Funny TTL pinouts (was Deck of IBM PLAYING CARDS)

by shoppa_classiccmp＠trailing-edge.com

"Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> wrote: > On 12/17/2005 at 10:37 PM woodelf wrote: > >I downloaded some motorola application notes from bitsavers. > >Wow they sure had a lot of different types of TTL. I wonder how only > >the 74xx became the only TTL used today? > > I think the short answer is "second sources"--you had at least 4 big > players, TI, National, Moto and Fairchild all producing 7400-series logic. > Some of the earlier TTL (Moto 400/500-series) had mid-line (pins 4 and10) > power supplies, which turned out to be not as convienient for PCB layout. > And, although it's largely forgotten, 7400 TTL shares a fair number of > pinouts with the older DTL circuits. > > By the time LSTTL was out, everyone had pretty much standardized on the > 74xx line. Don't forget, some of the "standard" 74xx line are actually National or Fairchild or Motorola parts that were not originally given 74xx numbers (because they weren't TI parts) but they were eventually second-sourced by TI and given 74xx numbers. "Imitation is the truest form of flattery." The ones that come to my mind most immediately are the Fairchild 9310 and 9316, later known as 74160 and 74161, all massively used synchronous counters. I also seem to recall part numbers like 40160 as Motorola tried to back-incorporate them into their TTL lineup. (Am I confused as usual?) I think the funny Vcc/Gnd pinouts (often 4 and 10) were actually thought to be good for some reason in some specialized PCB designs - I think I see these show up on some early MSI quad latches (7475) and counters (7490, actually pins 5 and 10). I don't know if these were cross-incoprorated >from parts that started out at Motorola or Fairchild or National or what. Tim.

20 years, 1 month

HP 1000

by cc＠corti-net.de

Hi, our museum recently got "some" (a dozen) HP 1000 with "some" spare parts and "some" tapes. Currently we're building up some of the stuff to get a running system. For now, I've put a 2100S, a 2117 (1000F), I/O extender, two 7970B tape drives (one with the 200/556/800 bpi option), one 2748A tape reader, one HP 8100 tape punch (basically a Facit 4070), a HP130C (?) rackmount oscilloscope, and a 7905 disk drive with its 13037C controller into the three racks we have. Included are the original distribution tapes of RTE-II, RTE-III, RTE-IIIM, RTE-4, RTE-4b and RTE-6/VM, DS/1000, Signal/1000, Fortran, etc., a huge pile of paper tapes (original HP), and nearly all paper documents (manuals, schematics). But some parts are missing, so here are my (first) questions: - Does someone have the schematics of the 12555 dual D/A converter card? They are not on bitsavers yet. We've attached the D/A card to the scope and ported the PDP-8 kaleidoscope program to the HP2100. There are a lot of glitches in the analog signals and we want to find out where they come from (it's not a software bug, all test programs on all D/A cards we have show the same symptoms). - My only diagnostic tape (24396-13501 rev. 1926) has read errors in file 7 and in the last files. There is (was) a file in the SIMH package called hp2100_diag.txt that insinuates that there must be a TAP image of the 24396-13601 rev. 2040 diagnostics tape. Is there a chance to find it somewhere? I really need a working diagnostics tape. Christian

20 years, 1 month

Looking for data sheet for Intel N82930A3

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

I'm taking a stab at reverse-engineering a Toshiba "intouch" module DT-1003. It's been brought up here before (I got it from a list member). What is slowing me down a bit is the inability to find any data on the CPU... an Intel N82930A3. If I understand things correctly, it may be a variation of the 8051 microcontroller packaged up with a USB core. >From tracing leads so far, the USB connector does go right into the CPU, supporting the suspicion. If I can't manage to unwind the protocol (it's about 10-11 years old and not supported under any "modern" operating systems), I'm contemplating removing the CPU and building my own thing to drive the T6963-based display and read the buttons/IR port/rotary encoder. Naturally, it makes sense to spend some time just trying to blow packets at it first. Thanks for any pointers. -ethan

20 years, 1 month

NEWS FOR cctech

by lmawtuix＠cybermedmarketing.com

Massive Gains Alert For Monday December 16th The Solvis Group $10.6 Million in Revenues in Fourth Quarter Ended Sept. 30, 2005 OTC: SLVG Price: .07 Huge PR Campaign For Mondays's Trading SLVG Is it Going to Explode Higher From Here? If You Think So, Climb On Board!! RECENT NEWS: Go Read The Full Stories Right Now!! 1)The Solvis Group Announces $10.6 Million in Revenues in Fourth Quarter Ended Sept. 30, 2005 2)The Solvis Group Announces Plans to Distribute Global Food Technologies Stock to Its Shareholders 3)The Solvis Group Strategic Alliance Agreement With SSL Expected to Provide $25 Million in Additional Revenues in 90 Days Watch This One Trade on Friday! Huge Revenues for a Little Stock, Right? Radar it Right Now...... Go SLVG.

20 years, 1 month

Archiving Software

by dm561＠torfree.net

Sorry to drag this out (and interrupt the dialogue between Dave & Tony) but, while I appreciate the replies I have had, I still have some questions. As I said, I'm not too concerned with bootable system disks; in the case of the Vector I'll settle for a disk copy and good old postal service if anyone ever needs one (unless Dave D, who will inherit my Vector anyway, decides to modify his NS* bootstrap program to work on the Vector). Any other system disks I have in a format that the PC can read & write I will image with Dave's program. And thanks to Gord Tulloch, BTW, who sent me the Vector disks in the first place - I haven't forgotten about you (or JP). I'm in the process of getting rid of all 10 of my Cromemcos (except for one, at least for the time being). Before I do (and for some time after), I'm going through several hundred 5" and 8" diskettes and about 200 MB of stuff on HDs to delete or at least remove any confidential data and archive anything useful. Since a lot of this stuff is more or less machine- and disk-size independent (as long as it's a Z80 CP/M or CDOS system - not sure about the 68000/10/20 stuff), it seems to make more sense to archive actual file sets instead of imaging disks; that does indeed seem to be what's been done for most of the CP/M stuff on the Web. Also, it looks like I can dump some of it since most of the common apps like dBase, Wordstar, Visicalc etc. are already available on the Web. On the other hand, although Howard Harte and Herb Johnson have a pretty comprehensive collection of manuals, I can't find the corresponding software anywhere; is there a site somewhere that already has stuff like the Cromemco languages (Fortran, Cobol, PL/I etc.) and OSs archived? There's no problem at my end; the Cromemco can read & write 5" PC format disks, 8" SSSD (at least) CP/M disks, and of course 5" and 8" CDOS and Cromix disks as well as DC600 tapes, and can transfer files via RS-232. But the question I still have is how to specifically (and easily) restore these files to another system running CP/M or CDOS/Cromix without a means of transferring files from the PC. I ran across something called PIPMODEM which seems to be one solution; I wonder if anyone here has ever installed/used it and its companion programs? Another way seems to be to convert binary <> ASCII, PIP to/from the console and convert back; I looked around but couldn't find/figure out what I need at both ends/directions. Also, once you've got a primitive transfer method installed, do you then need a full-blown comm program to routinely transfer files with xmodem/kermit/whatever? The reason I ask is that on the Cromemco there is just a small .bin file (pckt.bin) which is automatically invoked from the terminal (PC) end when transferring files; that is, you can be sitting at a prompt, select up/download [filename] on the PC and away you go (as opposed to opening a comm program on the host and putting it in send/receive mode). Is there anything like that for CP/M? And for the Unix gurus: if, as in Cromix, tar files are not ordinary files (i.e. you ordinarily tar to a device, not a file name), how would one convert a tar tape to a file in order to transfer it? I could of course restore the tar file to the HD and then tar it again to a file but that seems awkward. Could I just pipe the "un"tar back to tar (i.e. tar [device] - | tar - [filename])? How do you folks do this sort of thing? Again, sorry if in my ignorance I'm beating this subject to death. m

20 years, 1 month

Toshiba T3100

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2005 18:16:46 -0800 From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> Subject: Toshiba T3100? >Someone posted a question this past week about a Toshiba T3100. I may be >able to answer--I've discovered that I have the Technical Reference Manual >for the thing (and I can't remember how I came by it). >Cheers, >Chuck ----------------------------------- I was (and still am) that someone; I'll contact you off list. Thanks much, mike

20 years, 1 month

Panasonic toaster oven style word processors

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

what sort of cpus do they have? Some specify ms-dos file copatibility with their built in floppy. Ive been seeing them all around the place at thrift stores and wonder if theyd be the basis for some kind of hack. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

20 years, 1 month

VAX 9000 (was: Re: Sun 386i available)

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: VAX 9000 (was: Re: Sun 386i available) > From: Adrian Graham <witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk> > Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 00:16:54 +0000 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Your mail name reminded me of a conversation I had today with an ex-Digit >with regard to the Vax 9000 and its reliability record which is less than >good. Apologies if this question has been asked before and is in the >archives, but did you work with VAX9000s back in the day? > >My reason for asking is that I believed the VAX9000 would be watercooled >(its codename was Aquarius) but shipped machines were aircooled and I'm >wondering why there was a change in policy? Water was new to DEC required special people to fix it and some sites didn't like the idea or could not support water for the system. NY some of the older buildings took near a year to get adaquate power for smaller machines. Water, forget about that. Reminds me of a site in Salt Lake City, water flooded top floor and sustem on second floor was crushed when the building pancaked from the flood. >All ex-digits can reply of course :) It was a good machine that held up well in use. The bulk of them succumed when installed (phase rotation had the blowers backward!) and the usual field circus tricks. >The person I was talking to today explained that their 9000s were removed >and replaced with 7000s....must've been a hell of a drain on Digit >resources...... Didn't want to support machine that was so unique parts and skills wise. There was (may still be) a PDP1 in Yellowknife doing bookeeping for a mill. Field service offered them all sorts of inducements during the 80s to replace it. I believe they system cost over a half million to replace with software and stuff tossed in. It was just too costly to fix the PDP1 if it broke. Allison >On 15/12/05 23:39, "9000 VAX" <vax9000 at gmail.com> wrote: > >> On 12/15/05, Patrick Finnegan <pat at computer-refuge.org> wrote: >>> On Thursday 15 December 2005 18:08, 9000 VAX wrote: >>>> fedex rate a 30'x25'x25' box >>> >>> I'm assuming that was supposed to be private.. but I must say, that's >>> one huge box! (Or did you mean inches ala " not feet ala '? :) >> >> Yes, private and yes, inches. I was thinking about a program I was >> working on. Actually I thought twice before typed ', and still the >> wrong one is chosen. >> >> vax, 9000 >> >>> >>> Pat >>> -- >>> Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ >>> The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org >>> >> >> > >-- >Adrian/Witchy >Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator >Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer >collection? >

20 years, 1 month

Archiving Software

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Archiving Software > From: Jim Battle <frustum at pacbell.net> > Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2005 21:11:58 -0600 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > I tend to agree with your position Jim. Posturing or it's appearance is a bad place to be. As an aside if you've written any code for 765 then it's easy to understand how image disk works down deep. If you haven't then reading the code is likely only an exercise. There has been enough conversation about the chip and it's heirs to make it clear that the hardware is sometimes more than meets the eye. The ramification of hardware choices in PC implementations be it XT TTL loaded board or chip version of it is compromized and it does affect programming. When you add that lovely 8237 DMA it just gets more fun. My hats off to anyone programming PC hardware and getting good code that runs on all the muck and mire flavors of MS operating systems. Allison

20 years, 1 month

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test-drb December 2005