test-drb June 2005

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

221 participants
681 discussions

IMSAI Score update/Spare BYTEs/Got an Altair too

by Richard.Cini＠wachovia.com

Yes, I think I heard this before :-) I'm excited. I opened the IMSAI last night and it's immaculate inside. There's only a slight layer of dust on the power supply section. The buss connectors look like they're in great shape and the switches appear only gently used with a nice "snap" action. I spoke to Todd Fischer and he places the serial number (#3526) in either the second or third quarters of 1976. A Bicentennial IMSAI! I've never seen an IMSAI before in-person. The front panel does not have the white "IMSAI 8080" logo. You can see a silhouette of it under the Plexiglas mask. Does the logo light-up when turned on? Maybe this is a replacement mask (although the screws do not appear to be disturbed)? It hasn't been used in 15 years. I'm going to load the supply this weekend and hook it up to a variac. Does anyone have any recommendations for appropriate supply loading for testing purposes? Rich -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of James Fogg Sent: Thursday, June 02, 2005 9:17 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: RE: IMSAI Score update/Spare BYTEs/Got an Altair too > I received a second set of boxes from my IMSAI donator. > Today, I received the IMSAI itself, a copy box of BYTEs and a > box of S100 cards. This adds to two copy boxes of 8" disks > and another box of S100 boards I got a few weeks ago. Did I mention you suck :-) ---- There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

18 years, 11 months

IBM 8513 monitors

by lproven＠gmail.com

This is the original IBM VGA monitor from 1987. I'm still using one of these alongside my classic Model M keyboards. I'm keeping it to go with my original (but now heavily tricked-out) PS/2 Model 80-A21 (16MB RAM! 1.3GB of SCSI disk! CD! NIC! Windows NT Server 3.51 SP5! (All right, it does also have PC DOS 7 and OS/2 Warp Server 4, but I can't get Warp to talk to the NIC, so that's just a curiosity, whereas NT runs like a dream on it. Rock solid, just sluggish.) However, of the 2 8513s I have, one no longer shows an image. It's just silently died. The power LED comes on but the screen is blank. I have another 8513 in very occasional service at a client of mine's but I plan to rescue it if they ever bin it. Does the list think anyone would want a dead 8513, for repair or whatever, or should I just bin this venerable VDU after 18yr of loyal service? -- Liam Proven Home: http://welcome.to/liamsweb * Blog: http://lproven.livejournal.com AOL, Yahoo UK: liamproven * ICQ: 73187508 * MSN: lproven at hotmail.com

18 years, 11 months

IMSAI Score update/Spare BYTEs/Got an Altair too

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

Hi Rich, >I've never seen an IMSAI before in-person. The front panel does not have the >white "IMSAI 8080" logo. You can see a silhouette of it under the Plexiglas >mask. Does the logo light-up when turned on? Maybe this is a replacement >mask (although the screws do not appear to be disturbed)? The "IMSAI 8080" does not light up and should appear clearly visible in white. Sounds like the logo was removed for some reason ... hopefully it was covered with a bit of black paper and not "backed out with a marker". I have a decent picture of an IMSAI front panel by itself on my website. For now, the easiest way to get to it is to click on "Vector 1+" which will take you to my general S-100 section, and scroll up ... the photo just before the Vector is an IMSAI panel. (at the time I did the last update I only had the panel which is why there is no listing for a machine - I have since acquired a complete IMSAI which will have it's own section at my next major update which should be within the next couple of weeks). The panel is quite easy to take off/apart. First remove the power switch connections from the upper corner of the panel in front of the power supply (live AC - do this unplugged obviously) and umbilical cable from the CPU board. There are 8 small hex screws in the front of the panel - when you remove them, be careful as the spacers from the rear and center boards will drop out (Took me 1/2 hour of searching the floor of my workshop the first time I "discovered" this. After that, the panel should just unplug from the S-100 bus and come out. The various pieces will separate, you should be able to remove the plexiglass front and get at the insert which has the labels and logo - Be VERY careful as the layers can stick together, take them apart slowly to avoid damage. Behind the insert is a "foil" paper which blocks light to all but the desired places. At this point you should be able to determine what was done to the logo, and if it is recoverable. Putting it together is the reverse - Assemble the layers and internal spacers, and insert the hex screws far enough to just stick out the back, then carefully plug the panel into the S-100 bus, making sure not to pull the screws out and' drop the internal spaces. I found it easiest to install the two middle/bottom spaces first, using thin long nose pliers to slide them in place while extracting the screws just enough to let them pass - then put the screws in enough to catch in the threads but leave them out far enough that you can still rock the panel back and forth. After that, it's easy to put in the remaining spaces around the edges, and once all is in place and looking good, you can snug them in. I've had both of my panels apart without too much difficulty. >It hasn't been used in 15 years. I'm going to load the supply this weekend >and hook it up to a variac. > >Does anyone have any recommendations for appropriate supply loading for >testing purposes? As it's a linear supply, you don't really nead to load it initially. I highly recommend powering it through a series light bulb and bring up the line voltage slowly. Monitor the DC levels and you should see +8, +/-16 coming up as the line voltage rises. With something this old, it's a good idea to bring it up in steps allowing plenty of time for the capacitors to reform at each step. With no load on the supply, the light bulb should not glow at all, except briefly during initial charging of the capactors (which you won't see if you are bringing it up slowly). If the light glows as you bring up the supplies, you likely have a shorted filter capactor or failed rectifier diodes. (sometimes the chassis fan draws enough power to cause the lamp to glow dimmly buy it should not glow brightly with an unloaded supply). Once you have it running at operational voltages, it's a good idea to test it under a load and observe the waveform at the filter capacitors with a scope. A 20-40 watt 12v bulb works pretty good for this. Get it up and running and delivering a few amps of power and look for excessive ripple - this would indicate dried out capactiors. Btw, be sure to remove the series light bulb before attempting load tests. Always be careful when working on the IMSAI as it has AC line voltage to the front panel which is unprotected when the cover is off. Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html

18 years, 11 months

IBM 5155 analogue display fault

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

Just picked up an IBM 5155 luggable which was working up until the point the chap switched it on to show me it working, when it promptly broke :-) On switch on it gives a narrow horizontal band of amber about 1.5" high; after a couple of seconds the whole screen changes to flickering amber with brighter zig-zag flyback lines visible. Just thought I'd quickly ask in case there's component foo that's a common failure in these machines (I haven't even pulled the case to look for an obvious failure yet, let alone do anything else) ta Jules

18 years, 11 months

IMSAI Score update/Spare BYTEs/Got an Altair too

by James＠jdfogg.com

> I received a second set of boxes from my IMSAI donator. > Today, I received the IMSAI itself, a copy box of BYTEs and a > box of S100 cards. This adds to two copy boxes of 8" disks > and another box of S100 boards I got a few weeks ago. Did I mention you suck :-) ---- There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

18 years, 11 months

SGI Indigo2 IMPACT questions...

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

Dan Williams chucked us an Indigo2 the other week amongst a load of DEC stuff - I've only just had chance to take a look at it, although I've brought it home for the week to fiddle with :) Initial questions: How to I tell what IMPACT video board it has? (Other than powering it up I suppose, but I'm going to be giving it a good clean inside first...) Anyone have the SCSI connector pinouts? The machine has no drive sleds, so I need to improvise something (I gather it's not compatible with SCA, despite being the same physical connectors). Worst case I could run it >from an external disk I suppose. Any special flavour of memory the machine needs? I've got a bucket of 72 pin SIMMs of various types kicking around, so I'm sure I'll have something that'll work... ... that'll do for now :) Once I've checked the machine over and made sure it looks like it'll work I'll worry about install media (I've got IRIX CDs - just a question whether they support the R8k / R10k CPU in this machine) cheers Jules

18 years, 11 months

HP 9915 system Development Manual wanted

by john.vc＠btinternet.com

Hi, I am looking for a complete copy of the following, if anyone has seen this please get in touch or send a message to cctalk at classiccmp.org: HP 9915 System Development manual 9915 Tape Duplication and EPROM Programming Software I once had these (over 20 years ago), I noted one program included was called SHRINK, which removed all the comments from a Basic program. There is an incomplete copy of the manual here: http://www.series80.org/HP-9915A/HP9915-SysDev.pdf (site or DNS currently down) this should help identify it. Thanks, John

18 years, 11 months

classiccmp question

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

Ok, I noticed that yet another of the password reminder emails went out - just got mine anyways. I was going to apologize about this - because I did get one complaint about a password being sent via email - so I went in months ago and turned off the 'email password reminder' function. I'm at a loss to explain why it went out again. I've checked it twice, once each of the past two months when the email went out. Before I did into this in detail, I thought I'd ask the rest of the list. Who all thinks password reminders should not be sent monthly? On the one hand, I'm not keen about sending passwords in plain text (but I assume people here don't use the same password for all their accounts, right?). On the other hand, the reminders also include information about how to unsubscribe, maintain your settings, etc. Those probably save me some time answering questions. Thoughts? Jay West

18 years, 11 months

C64 ROMs

by dm561＠torfree.net

I seem to recall someone on this list looking for a C64 ROM; I've got a number of scrapped C64s, so if he/she reads this and is still looking, write me off-list and I'll see what I can find. mike

18 years, 11 months

Update on HHC Basics

by dm561＠torfree.net

----------Original Message: Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 22:45:48 -0400 From: David Betz <dbetz at xlisper.mv.com> Subject: Re: Update on HHC Basics Has anyone who ordered one of these ROMs received it yet? I haven't received mine and I've tried to send Roger email on a number of occasions and have gotten no reply. Has anyone else heard from him? Thanks, David ----------Reply: I have no use for the programmed EPROMs but Roger was kind enough to send me some blank ones from that pile, no problem. mike

18 years, 11 months

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test-drb June 2005