>Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 03:55:02 +0000 (GMT)
>From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
>Subject: Re: eBay Item Not Won: Vintage Digital DECWriter IV terminal,
DEC,
>> Does anyone have DEC lineprinters or other printers w/out keyboards in
>> their collections? Pictures?
>I've got at least one LA100 (receive-only) in my collection (and I think
>a KSR one with a keyboard).
>Externally these look like a DECwriter 4, but have redesigned internals,
>with a printhead that's shiffted up and down mechancially to give twice
>the verical resouliton (the NLQ font is printed in 2 passes, one with the
>head in each posuition).
>-tony
---------------------------
Ah yes, that would be the Letterprinter 100 and the Letterwriter 100
respectively; I have a few of those myself awaiting a trip to the dumpster, as
well as some parts & ribbons. Tony, I naturally assume you have the
documentation set?
That reminds me of a little story: when we converted our clients from
Cromemco systems to PCs, we needed to convert the LA100s from
Xon/Xoff to hardware handshaking. After several days of asking techs at
DEC Canada and their reps and just getting unhelpful "can't be done" or
"yeah, I think there's a jumper somewhere (but no one knew where)" replies,
I finally called DEC US; when I asked the receptionist (those were the
days!) for the tech department, she asked me what it was about. Figuring
I was about to waste more time explaining the problem to someone who
wasn't going to be any help, I nearly fell off my chair when she replied,
"no problem, just run a jumper from pin 11 of IC27 to the pad beside pin
such-and-such of IC so-and-so (the actual details are buried in my notes
somewhere)". After I confessed and apologized for my sexist expectations
and told her that she was probably the only person in North America who
knew that, she laughed and admitted that a savvy engineer had happened
to be standing beside her and overheard what she'd repeated.
BTW, Tony, for someone as meticulous as you about some things, I'm
surprised to see so many typos in your messages lately; is this a hardware
or mushware problem, or none of my business?
mike
Does anyone on the list have an Atari ATW800 "Transputer Workstation"?
Just acquired one - am bringing it up, and have a few questions...
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
I am wondering whether it is possible to replace the ailing Sony 3.5"
disc drives in both my HP9122D and HP9133H HP-IB units with PC 3.5"
drives?
These are the older Sony 3/4 height units with separate data & power
connectors, model OA-D32W-10 (double sided). The data connector has 26
pins. The power connector is standard 4 pin.
I located the pin-outs for these drives on a Japanese site, and found
that I could match all but 3 signals to a 'standard' 3.5" disc drive:
SONY OA-D32W-10 STANDARD
1 Motor On -----> 10 /MOTEA - 0=Motor Enable
Drive 0
2 Drive Select 0 -----> 14 /DRVSB - Drive Select 0
3 Disk Change -----> 34 /DSKCHG - 1=Disk Change/0=Ready
4 Drive Select 1 -----> 12 /DRVSB - Drive Select 1
5 Disk Change Reset -----> ????
6 Direction Select -----> 18 /DIR - 0=Direction Select
7 GND -----> GND
8 Step -----> 20 /Step - 0=Head Step
9 GND -----> GND
10 Write Data -----> 22 /WDATE - Write Data
11 GND -----> GND
12 Write Gate -----> 24 /WGATE - Floppy Write Enable,
0=Write Gate
13 GND -----> GND
14 Head Read -----> ????
15 GND -----> GND
16 Head Select -----> 32 /SIDE1 - 0=Head Select
17 GND -----> GND
18 Index -----> 8 /Index - 0=Index
19 GND -----> GND
20 Track 00 -----> 26 /TRK00 - 0=Track 00
21 GND -----> GND
22 Write Protected -----> 28 /WPT - 0=Write Protect
23 GND -----> GND
24 Read Data -----> 30 /RDATA - Read Data
25 GND -----> GND
26 Ready -----> ????
Is such a retro-fitting exercise possible? One possible problem could be
the rotational speed; I know the Sony drives spun at 600rpm as opposed
to the PC standard 300rpm... Any comments and/or suggestions about the
feasibility, as well as matching the signals of pins 5, 14, and 26?
Cheers
Glen.
I want one anyway. I WANT IT I WANT IT! Another
minimum mode 8088 I seem to perceive. Used to think
that amounted to an 8085, but its not limited to 64k.
Chuckie also chose a non-conformist Hitachi crt
controller. I ran across something else that used it
the other day, but I forget what it was.
--- cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org
<ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > what you get someone whos got everything else. Or
at
> > least every other IBM incompatible on the planet
(ok
> > Im not quite there). Also a must for the truly
> > masochistic (gcr floppies). What every guru/sicko
>
> The hardware is a bit odd... It clearly shows the
Chuck Peddle influence,
> it's full of 6522s (3 on the mainboard, 3 on the
disk controller), and
> the disk read/write circuit is very similar to that
in a Commodore PET
> drive...
>
> A couple of odd things. Firstly, the Centronics port
is driven by GPIB
> buffers (75160 and I think 75162). A 'little matter
of programming' and
> the right cable would get you a GPIB port there,
>
> Then there's the user port. A 50 pin header on the
mainboard. It's almost
> a complete 6522 (I think one of the port lines is
used to clock the sound
> circuitry), along with a light pen input and power
lines. Odd....
>
> And the sound iput. THe encoding half of the codec
is wired to the
> receive side of the 6852. The input to that codec
comes from a pin on
> header on the mainbosrd (along with power lines,
ground, etc). It would
> not be hard to feed an audio signal in there, the
hard part would be to
> write/find the necessary software....
>
> -tony
__________________________________________________
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All:
I have an old Compaq 386 that I use for various tasks in the
shop. The Compaq BIOS has a fixed hard drive table and no "type 47 - user"
entry. So, I just used whatever I had for a drive in stock and I picked the
entry closest to the drive size.
This brings up an interesting query. I remember way back when, people sold
BIOS upgrade cards that provided a BIOS extension so that you could use hard
drives not originally designed for the computer. What were these boards
called?
Rich
Rich Cini
Collector of classic computers
Build Master for the Altair32 Emulation Project
Web site: <http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/>
http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/
/************************************************************/
The Museum of Computing is delighted to announce that Sir Clive Sinclair
will be guest of honour at the launch party for the Museums' latest
exhibition.
'CALCULATOR' from the Abacus to the Microchip opens to the public from 7th
March 2006 and will feature over 100 exhibits, tracing the history of the
incredible devices man has built to aid his mathematical manipulations.
The undoubted star of the show is the stunning gold plated Sinclair
Sovereign, once described as the worlds most beautiful calculator.
The exhibition will run for six months, admission is free.
For more information
www.museum-of-computing.org.uk
Simon Webb, Curator
Museum of Computing
My older brother was one of the developers of AOS/VS, the OS this machine ran. I have been looking for such a machine for a long time.
The MV's are early 32bit minis. They were competitive with the PDP's and other minis of the era (1980's).
They communicate with serial terminals mostly, and the terminal is slightly odd in its protocol (Dasher terminals). A DEC terminal will get you started, but will be frustrating.
There's a lot to know about these machines and there is at least one knowledgeable person on this list who has various DG equipment (other lines are the NOVA and ECLIPSE systems). They are one of the rarer minis.
And I apologize in advance for top-posting, and for the stupid little attachment that some users will see. I'm stuck on Outlook Web Access today and it doesn't play nice.
________________________________
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org on behalf of Glen Heiberg
Sent: Wed 2/15/2006 1:54 AM
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Data General MV/1400 info
Saw a Data General MV/1400 machine at a client site yesterday acting as
a coffee stand!
It's about the size of a 6U rack server standing on its side, mounted on
a 'foot'.
Apart from an ON/OFF button and the name badge, the front has a QIC-type
tape drive, and next to it a blanking plate that appears to be able to
house either another QIC drive or a floppy drive. Nothing else
interesting. Unfortunately I wasn't able to peek at the back.
Google didn't yield much on this machine. Anybody know more details?
Glen.
Unfortunately this not possible as the RPM of the drives is different.
Ironically, when I was looking for drives for my HP-85 I selected the
9122 because I thought I would have spares for the floppy drives. This
turned out not to be the case (plus I had to find the super rate EMS
ROM which meant that the 9122 sat on a shelf for about a year).
**vp
I lost yet another bid for the Technical Reference Manual for IBM PC-XT;
is there an online tech ref manual archive somewhere?
I hate to keep bugging you guys with questions; I'd rather consult tech
docs and *then* ask if I'm stumped. But if these things keep going for
$50, $100, or more on ebay I won't ever get a hold of a copy...
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
