test-drb April 2005

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

269 participants
730 discussions

by mouse＠Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA

Back on Wednesday, I (quoted and) wrote >> Can someone recommend a freeware 6802 disassembler. > Well, I have a multi-machine disassembler that supports a half-dozen > CPUs now. The 6800 is not one of them, but it would be fairly easy > to add. If anyone can send me a sufficiently precise description of > the 6800 instruction set, I'll be happy to write the necessary code. Someone was kind enough to send me a description of the 6303, which is supposedly a Hitachi part that runs 6800 code and has some additional instructions. The description I got did not distinguish which instructions are 6800-compatible and which are 6303 extensions, but it was sufficient for me to add the 6303 to my disassembler. Given a description of the differences between the 6800 and the 6303, I could easily make it do the 6800 as well (the infrastructure is all there, but lacking such a description I can't do much with it). To the nice person who sent me that - speak up if you want people to know who you are. *You* know who you are, and thank you in any case. > ftp.rodents.montreal.qc.ca:/mouse/disas/src for those interested. The FTPable copy has been udpated. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

20 years, 1 month

Teletype Troubleshooting

by bkotaska＠charter.net

I am looking for troubleshooting tips for a 33 teletype. I'm testing in local mode and am getting incorrect characters on (almost) every keypress. The characters will change even with repeated pressings of the same key. I am pretty sure the keyboard is outputting the correct codes. I wiped down the distributor surface (it was pretty grimy) and no change. I tried adjusting the range finder but could never find a point where the characters were consistent. Is it possible to disconnect the motor drive belt and rotate the shaft manually to get a closer look at what is happening mechanically? It's very hard to see what is going on in the selector area with the shaft spinning so fast. By the way, my drive belt is somewhat loose. Is there still a source for these? Or maybe an adjustment for tightening? Thanks, Bill

20 years, 1 month

VAX9000 (was: RE: kda50 manual and sdi cables & questions)

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: VAX9000 (was: RE: kda50 manual and sdi cables & questions) > From: Paul Koning <pkoning at equallogic.com> > Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2005 16:50:15 -0400 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >It's a nice powerful machine. One of its problems was that it was >originally planned as a water-cooled machine (code name "aquarius"). >That ended up being impractical, so plan B was to do an air cooled >somewhat slowed down version (code name "aridus" :-) ). > >So a bunch of the technology was done on the assumption that power >density could be very high and speed would be the maximum possible at >that time. Also, I think it was the only VAX ever shipped out of the >"large systems group" which used to be the PDP-10 group before the >last PDP-10 project got nuked halfway through its development. > > paul One of the interesting aspects is the collision of technology at that point in time. People that thought they needed a bigger meaner VAX got it with the 9000. However in the same timeframe there was increased demand for smaller ligher VAXen and use more of them. What was happening in the background was the speed/power product of CMOS was getting better and ECL (ECL100k) was was poor in the density/power product. So while the 9000 was the fastest vax.. for a while the later CMOS versions was very close and a smaller plus cheaper was it. Add to that that a Multiprocessor VAX using chip technology was not only practical and well supported it offered a better bang for the buck. If that weren't enough the same ugly dragon that helped kill Jupiter (PDP-10) was back to haunt VAX. At some point in the near future it was clear that 32bits no matter how fast was going to be inefficient and 64bits was a very viable answer, that begat Alpha. Who'd have though in 1987 that a gigabyte was not enough and terabytes were only a few years away. Maybe I have a different view but, every processor technology did reach a point where speed was not the exclusive issue. At that point addressing (main memory addressability) would force a jump in the word size. If that weren't true we'd be running 3ghz Z80s. Allison

20 years, 1 month

VAX9000 (was: RE: kda50 manual and sdi cables & questions)

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: VAX9000 (was: RE: kda50 manual and sdi cables & questions) > From: Paul Koning <pkoning at equallogic.com> > Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2005 17:13:18 -0400 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >BTW, on the topic of disk drives, I heard about a prototype created by >the disk engineering group for a disk drive (3.5 inch, or maybe >smaller) that was made mostly of plastic. Apparently it was very >cheap, and might have been a big hit but people didn't want to invest >in the new manufacturing line required for it... > > paul Ever look at a RZ23 (and later drives)? The HDA uses less metal than most 3.2" disks even now. Allison

20 years, 1 month

EK-SCB02-UG-001 SBC-11/21 PLUS Single-Board Computer User's Guide.

by cfmd＠bredband.net

Hi! I have been looking for material on my SBC-11/21 PLUS card for quite some time, and just found an 2 year old post of yours stating that you have the User's Guide in scanned format. Would you mind sharing it with me, as you offered it to the poster in this post: http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2003-May/022047.html Actually, anything about the SBC-11/21 FALCON PLUS is of interest. Schematics would be nice. Cheers, Magnus

20 years, 1 month

new scrap dealer found :>

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: new scrap dealer found :> > From: "Jay West" <jwest at classiccmp.org> > Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2005 13:57:23 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >At one of my usual electronics surplus stores the other day, they told me >"If I'm into old computers.... go see this scrap dealer" and gave me the >address. My interest was piqued, as it was not one I was already familiar >with. So, I headed out there today. > >Interesting place... 8 acres... most of the stuff was inside crumbling >warehouses, some was outside in the elements. I believe I saw a deuce and a >half ;) But anyways... on to the computer stuff I noticed... Jay, For curiosity where is that place? If not specifically, then generally. Allison

20 years, 1 month

Found a NEC UltraLite

by jrkeys＠concentric.net

Yesterday at a local thrift I found a NEC UltraLite hidden in bundle of toys. It had a price of $9.59 on it but is missing the power supply for it. Not able to test it until I find a power source for it. Looked on the web for some information it and found a couple of nice sites.

20 years, 1 month

New Books for for Sellam's Database

by jrkeys＠concentric.net

Yesterday DHL dropped off three more cases of books and in one of the boxes were these two books which I found to be great reads and great pictures of classic systems. An Introduction To Microcomputers Volume 0 The Beginner's Book by Adam Osborne ISBN 0-931988-26-8 COMPUTERS by William R. Corliss catalog card number 73-600074 written in 1973

20 years, 1 month

Hacking the DECmate serial port

by waisun.chia＠gmail.com

I'm trying to use the DECmate/VT278 in terminal emulation mode (VT100) via the serial board/DP278, but at this mode all the docs says that it's only restricted 4800. Has anybody done it or is it possible to up the speed to at least 9600? Is this a hardware or firmware limitation? /wai-sun

20 years, 1 month

kda50 manual and sdi cables & questions

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

Antonio Carlini <a.carlini at ntlworld.com> wrote: > The RA7x series all accept some kind of OCP, but they all > (or at least all the ones I have seen) have some way of > configuring them without the need for the OCP. I'm pretty > sure all the manuals I have scanned are available via Manx and > that should cover the RA70,RA72 and RA73. I use RA72 and RA73 drives in all my Q22-bus MicroVAXen. I house them in BA123 cabinets, mount them on the appropriate sleds, and connect them to the KDA50 with the 17-00951-03 cable. It's a black ribbon coax cable consisting of 4 little strips, one per drive. On one end they are all joined together to plug into the controller, on the other end each strip has the connector that plugs into an RA7x series drive. I believe the same cable was used in BA213s except that the ends plugged into a bulkhead instead of RA7x drives. I do not have the OCP. Each RA7x drive has a block of 3 DIP switches on the side which is normally unused but selects the unit number in the absence of the OCP. > The biggest SDI drive I recall (in capacity) was the RA74 which > was a whopping 3.5GB - not a whole lot to shout about! Are you sure there was an RA74? I thought it only existed in the RF version and the biggest SDI drive was RA73. MS

20 years, 1 month

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test-drb April 2005