Thanks for the post on VCF - unfortunately I couldn't make it this year.
It's hard to believe that you can't get a thread going about VCF on this
list. Don't know if that says something about the show, the list or
both. In the old days there was a lot of excitement - daily reports,
links to pictures, etc. Now, almost nothing.
-W
> Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2006 07:57:44 -0800
> From: Marvin Johnston <marvin at rain.org>
> Subject: VCF 9.0
> To: ClassicCmp <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
> Message-ID: <4551FE78.E95A88B2 at rain.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
>
> I haven't seen anything about VCF yet, so thought I would put
> down a few comments.
>
> It was a fun time as usual at VCF, and I met a lot of
> interesting people there. I got a chance to put some faces
> with names, and that is always a lot of fun. The majority of
> my time was spent taking care of my vendor booth, and so I
> didn't take a lot of time to spend in other areas.
>
> One of the neat additions was the kit building workshops.
> Several people got their Apple I replica kits signed by Woz.
>
> It seemed like the number of vendors and exhibitors were
> down, but the number of people attending were up. One of the
> exhibits I liked was the Apple Lisa. The exhibitor, who goes
> by Lisa :), was very knowledgeable and I learned a number of
> things from her regarding collecting Lisas.
>
> For those that don't know me, I do have a perverted sense of
> humor. I had brought a Chisholm computer that I think might
> be a prototype of the first IBM battery operated portable
> (later licensed to Olivetti) to see if anyone knew anything
> about it. Evan will hopefully be doing an interview with the
> company president, and I mainly brought it for him to see.
> But after watching people ignore it, I put a $2000 price tag
> on it ... and that got it a little more attention :). But
> people still didn't ask about it though they took more notice
> of it. And no, I don't think it is worth anywhere near that
> much money.
>
> I was talking to Sellam, and it would have been a good place
> to at least mention the Vintage Market Place for
> selling/trading/buying/etc. vintage computer stuff. And I
> also think this and Eric's listservers should also have been
> mentioned. If we are to help build this hobby, it might be a
> good idea to let people know where to get more information :).
>
If anyone is interested, I have a boatload of Gould logic analyzers; I've photographed
the innards of the K-450 and have it displayed on my forsale page:
www.parse.com/testeq
I'm selling them for $5-$15 (other models too) local pickup in Kanata/Ontario/Canada.
I might be convinced to ship them if you want them in quantity and you arrange
for a truck...
The "classic computer" part of the story is that they are 8086 based, with
192kB of EPROM (27128s) and 512kB of RAM (41256 chips). :-)
The photos are fun, at the very least.
Cheers,
-RK
--
Robert Krten, PARSE Software Devices
Realtime Systems Architecture, Consulting, Books and Training at www.parse.com
Looking for Digital Equipment Corp. PDP-1 through PDP-15 minicomputers!
that f/h card being an IDE or MFM? Did IbM even make
an IDE card? I really should know the answer to that...
____________________________________________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.
http://new.mail.yahoo.com
" If I had to make the statement, I would say that today's code is a lot
more like the Lisa's than the Mac's."
--
We are living in a very different world. No one but embedded systems people
(and very few of them..) code the way it was done on the original Mac.
Today, you have a product that often has a sub-year lifetime. You put things
out that are just good enough to sell, and move on to the next generation.
No one would buy a PC with the features that could be built with a team the
size of the original Mac team today, using their methodology. The only way
to get a competitive product is to use a lot of other people's code, because
no one is willing to pay for foundation development, only product
differentiation.
I'm not saying this is a GOOD thing (this is one of the reasons I'm at the
Museum and not a start-up) it is just the way products are built today.
> For example, does anyone have/know about a MVME360 SMD disk controller.
> Motorola docs and OS's (System V/68) support it.
> Never seen one though.
>From memory, they are OEMed cards from Interphase. I have a bunch in
storage.
Probably time to start selling off the VME stuff. Someone has been bugging
me about buying the PPC 750 system I have.
I would like to write about the show, it can also serve as a good prep for
my next podcast where I will be talking about it. So, you asked for it!
This was my first time at the original VCF, and I have only been to one
other, the VCFe 1.0 in 2001. This was also my first time to the Computer
History Museum. My wife was able to go with me, which made the whole thing
so much more enjoyable. She not only supports my hobby, but actually
really enjoyed herself in the participation. Living in Florida, the
flights / layovers were a bit on the extended side - not so bad getting
there, but coming back. We left at 7pm Friday the 3rd, got to Dallas about
9:20pm with a 30-minute layover, then arrived in San Francisco at 2:30am
(our time, 11:30pm PST). Not too bad, but as our original flight was
delayed an hour and a half, we had to fly into San Francisco instead of
San Jose. We were able to stick to the same schedule times pretty much,
but the cab ride to the hotel turned into $100 for 25 miles. 150% of the
meter because of going outside the 15 miles of that airport! But we made
it and the Marriott was a nice little hotel with excellent rooms. And an
excellent free breakfast buffet! Kudos to Continental for getting us there
on American Airlines too.
On the first day, Saturday the 4th, my wife and I were in the Replica 1
workshop at 10am and that was a lot of fun. Vince Briel was great, very
helpful and good company; a funny guy too. Some guys in there were done in
like 40 minutes I think! By noon, we hadn?t finished, but Vince said that
we could come by his exhibit and / or he would be back at the room Sunday
at 10am. At Noon, Bob Armstrong began his workshop building the VCF COSMAC
Elf 2000 kit. Both of these kits are very well made and just were so fun
to work on. It was so much like stepping back in time 30 years and being a
hobbyist computer kit builder. Unfortunately, the Apple @ 30 / The Garage
Years panel with Steve Wozniak and three other early Apple employees
started at 1pm (Randy Wigginton, Daniel Kottke and Chris Espinosa), so we
had to leave the Elf workshop early. I really didn?t want to seem rude to
Bob and hoped we could be back in there after an hour at most. That would
not happen, I think the entire panel discussion was about an hour and a
half. My wife went back to work on the Elf after about an hour. The
discussion was very lively and good. The stories were fun and I heard
about a few things that I?d never heard before. Jef Raskin?s Apple 1 was
there in a case, as well as at least two other Apple 1?s. Sellam was part
host, but Bruce Draper of DigiBarn headed it up. Also ?Captain Crunch? was
in one of the front rows (John Draper). He spoke a little too. Sellam gave
away a Replica 1 (per Vince) based on a puzzle at the end. It was Steve
Wozniak?s name with the letters jumbled (I forget what this type of puzzle
is called, it was stated). I learned why at the bottom of e-mails I have
received from Steve Wozniak, it says, ?TV is wake zone.? He likes these
sort of puzzles. An aside, before I knew I would be able to go, I wrote
Steve and asked if I could send my copy of ?iWoz? in a return postage paid
package for him to sign, and he agreed. He?s a nice guy. Instead of
course, I was able to get him to sign it in person, as well as the Replica
1 (I got Vince to sign it too) and I got a picture with him. I?m not a
touchy-feely person, but he would stand up, and put his arm around you for
the picture. This was pretty cool.
Also in attendance was Andy Hertzfield, one of the members of the original
Macintosh team (see folklore.org). Being a big Mac fan as well, that was
pretty cool, but what struck me was that he was also sitting in one of the
front rows and listening intently to the stories, especially to Steve. He
was just having such a great time and you could see the admiration he had.
No big surprise, but this was one of his heroes! Even though he has worked
with him at times, probably even heard this stuff before, he was a big fan
too. Anyway, what really struck me was that Steve Wozniak also greatly
influenced the Mac! He didn?t work on it directly a lot perhaps, but his
earlier examples of engineering and his methods and standards were
embraced by these later guys. Steve Jobs absolutely pushed his own will on
the aesthetics of the box and much of the user experience, but Steve
Wozniak deserves more credit than perhaps I had given him before. He
didn?t just design the Apple 1, Apple ][ and Disk ][, but influenced so
much more. That insight just sparked in me during the discussion anyway. I
was able to catch Andy at the door before he left and get a picture with
him and tell him what a fan I was.
By about 3pm, Steve began signing stuff, probably for almost an hour. I
finally made it back to the workshop room where my wife was still working
on the Elf. Most had left or finished, but Bob was still there and had
helped Tamara quite a bit. She really enjoyed the workshops and soldering,
etc. We didn?t finish the Elf until we got back home.
We were able to check out the VCF exhibit and market place floor for an
hour or so, then left with a friend we had met for dinner. We had a nice
dinner and discussion with him into the evening.
On Sunday, we met Vince back in the room at 10am and stayed there until
about noon. Andre' LaMothe started his workshop building the XGameStation
Pico Edition (didn?t have enough money to build all three!). We had lunch
at the Museum where Sellam?s wife was selling snacks and wraps and
sandwiches. At 1pm started the discussion group featuring Lee Felsenstein
about the Processor Technology Sol-20 30th celebration. The panel also
included Processor Technology employees Aram Attarian, Diane Ascher and
Drew Rogge. Again, this was a lively and interesting discussion of story
telling and Q & A. A Sol-20 provided by Stan Sieler of Allegro Consulting.
was given away with a drawing at the end. This meeting was perhaps a third
of the size of the Apple one. Sunday all around was much slower than
Saturday. A few exhibitors and sellers had left after Saturday too.
My wife and I didn?t get to go to the DigiBarn, but we spent a good hour
or so checking out the visible storage. It was especially neat for me to
see some classics ?big iron? up close like the IBM 360, Sage, CDC super
computers and Cray?s.
Let?s see, as far as exhibits go, pictures are better of course. I will
have mine soon. The sellers had some good deals with better than eBay
prices for a Z-100, a couple of Lisa?s with profiles, and common Atari?s
and Commodores. There was much more to see and do than we did, but we had
a great time. With three kids, just time alone with my wife for a weekend
was nice, so we weren?t sweatin? it.
Sorry for the little book, I hope this conveys a little bit more to some
about the show.
Best, David
David Greelish
classiccomputing.com
The Classic Computing Podcast
Home of Computer History Nostalgia
Stan Veit's History of the Personal Computer
Audio Book Podcast
So, Jay's talk about RA81's spurred me on to work on testing out my RA82
disks. I've got an SA482 which has 4 RA82's, and drive 0 seems to work
just fine, after I unlocked the disk heads. :)
The other three aren't working as well though, it seems.
One seems to give a fault when it spins up, but after it spins up, runs
the on-board diagnostics ok.
The relevent log of the on-board diagnostics session are below (starting
>from when I pressed the "RUN" button to spin it up):
-------------------------------------------------------------
RA82> FRONT PANEL FUNCTION IN PROGRESS
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST: SUBTEST:1B
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST: SUBTEST:1C
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST: SUBTEST:1D
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST: SUBTEST:1E
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST: SUBTEST:20
%RA82-TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:20 ERROR:4B UNIT:001
REFER TO SERVICE MANUAL
RA82>
%RA82-TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:20 ERROR:FE UNIT:001
REFER TO SERVICE MANUAL
RA82> RUN DIAG
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:02
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:01
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:04
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:05
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:06
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:07
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:08
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:0B
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:03
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:1A
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:1B
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:1C
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:1D
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:1E
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:20
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:21
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:22
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:25
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:26
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:27
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:28
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:29
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:2A
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:0A
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:0F
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:10
%RA82-COMPLETED TEST:DIAG SUBTEST:0E
----------------------------------------------------------------
Looking at the manual, error 4B is "index pulse error" and FE is "Slave
speed check timeout". Considering that they only occur when the disk is
first spun up, is it maybe really ok, but the disk doesn't spin up as
fast as the logic wants it to? The errors seem to be consistent (they
happen each time I power up the drive).
Has anyone seen something like this before, and is it something that I
should be worried about?
The service manual seems to suggest that the servo module or
microprocessor module could be bad.
Thanks,
Pat
--
Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org
With apologies to Bob Hope's estate, here is a list of the rest of the DEC
memory:
24 MS16-BA 54-21245-BA 2Mx36 70ns 72-pin parity for 3000/300
22 54-21246-BA 2Mx32 60ns EDO 72-pin
8 54-19465-02
6 MS44-AA 54-19103-AA 4MB parity
13 54-21277-01 4Mx36 70ns 72-in parity
2 54-24683 EBV14 cache
2 MSP01 54-23170-EA 4Mx33 70ns 72-pin
4 MSP01-FB 54-24340-01 16MB EDO DIMM AlphaStation 500
2 54-23170-FA 2Mx33 70ns 72-pin
5 MS44L-BA 54-19145-BA VAXstation 4000/60
4 MSP01-FA 54-24329-01 8MB EDO DIMM AlphaStation 500
4 30-46506-06 texture memory DIMM for PowerStorm
2 54-23627-JA 2Mx32 60ns
30 MS40-WA 1MB SIMM
5 MS40-WB 4MB SIMM
3 20-45790-D7 64MB EDO DIMM
5 54-21250 16MB 72-pin SIMM
4 MS16-DA 54-21277 8Mx36 70ns 72-pin
17 MSP01-AC 54-23170-EA 4Mx33 70ns 72-pin
5 ME534-DE 54-21246 8MB parity 72-pin
20 MS44L-AA 54-19145-AA 4MB VS4000/60
5 54-23170-AA 4Mx36 70ns 72-pin
MANY 54-21225-BA 4Mx36 70ns 72-pin
MANY 54-21225-JA 1Mx32 60ns EDO 72-pin
Quite a grab bag. Let me know what interests you. Thanks again... Ben Myers
On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 23:40:30 -0500, Ben Myers
<ben_myers_spam_me_not at charter.net> wrote:
>Well, Bing Crosby is a lot better than "Memories may be beautiful and then..."
>by Barbra. Gets your attention, too.
>
>I recently acquired a carton of memory for older DEC computers. The part
>numbers are below. I know this is not the usual place to sell stuff, but this
>is all now pretty unusual in today's world of computers. I am not looking to
>make a killing, either.
>
>QTY-PART#-DESCRIPTION
>4 54-21215-01 MS01-CA
>18 54-19813-AE MS02L-AB 8MB DECStation 5000
>~200 54-19145-01 MS44L-BC 4MB for 3100
>12 54-19103-AA MS44-AA 16MB for 3100
>24 54-21139-CP MS15-CA 4MB
>39 54-21139-DP MS15-DA 8MB
>
>Let me know if there is any you can use and give me a fair offer, more than
>scrap value which is around $5/lb. Shipping is from Harvard, MA, USA. Thanks
>much... Ben
>
>ben_myers AT charter.net
I have a load of these chips from NEC... Can anyone help me identify them?
NEC D8041C
It's a 40-Pin DIP Chip. And I've been unable to find any information
on-line about it.
We've come into a whole load of 74 and 75 series TTL chips as well as
load of Relays and Power Transistors and other assorted parts.
Once I get them all inventoried, I'll make a website.
Hopefully listmembers looking for classic IC's will find this to be a
useful cache of parts...
Al
Phila, PA
