"Julian Wolfe (FireflyST)" <fireflyst at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Okay, what I immediately noticed is that these machines say "MP" and Don's panel doesn't.
More differences: Don's panel have the location for the key moved to the
other side of the parity lamps. Which is rather weird.
Also, the screenprint of 11/74 looks shadowed, which is weird. And the
right hand side have a different color than the left hand side.
And of course, the 11/74s from Tim don't have any CIS stuff on the front
panel.
(I'm still thinking that Don's panel have never had a matching piece of
real hardware, since I don't think that CPU was ever built.)
Tim's picture however are of a real machine. Don't know which one,
though. If it's just a two CPU machine, it might have been POLLUX::,
since CASTOR:: was four CPUs. However, other machine have existed in the
past.
> Were there non-multiprocessor 11/74s? If so, what would have been the benefits over 11/70s?
Yes there were. And the benifits were none. Actually, they were slightly
worse than normal 11/70s, but the difference were minimal.
After DEC decided to not make the 11/74 into a commercial product, they
used 11/74 parts for 11/70 machines. Atleast inhouse. Not sure if any of
those parts found their way into customers machines.
Used as such, the differences were basically related to cache: The MMU
have the cache bypass bit. The ASRB instruction always bypass the cache,
and you can also order the machine to explicitly bypass the cache
(unless my memory fails me).
But nothing of this was used by any OS normally, so the only thing
noticeable would be the slower ASRB instruction.
Johnny
> -----Original Message-----
>
>>From: Tim Shoppa <tshoppa at wmata.com>
>>Sent: Feb 8, 2006 12:24 PM
>>To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
>>Subject: Re: Original 11/74 front panel
>>
>>Don North wrote
>>
>>>So how many of these panels exist is hard to say. I know only of one.
>>
>>Two more can be seen at
>>
>> http://www.trailing-edge.com/~shoppa/1174Xopen.jpg
>>
>>So that makes three :-).
>>
>>Tim.
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at update.uu.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
a.carlini wrote:
> They musty have been trying it on. There's surely no way they
> can do anything to stop you discussing how to avoid their patent.
> Nothing to stop them trying to scare you off though.
I was actually doing more than just discussing it, I had been
doing it in my basement for a couple of years and even was selling
my product. My mistake was discussing it on Usenet.
"It" in this case is PWM modulation of R, G, and B LED's which
are then mixed together. And that is exactly what their
patent covers, even though it was blatantly obvious long
before they ever existed.
Tim.
I would imagine the only way to get one is to find
another whole system. In the rare event theres any
technical docs out there, those could definately be
useful. I opened the thing up and apparently it uses
an 8042 in a supervisory capacity (like an IBM PC/AT I
guess). It has a second one for I dont know what. The
BYTE article referred to them as auxiliary
coprocessors or some crap. What the vintage computer
community needs is a reconfigurable keyboard thingamabob.
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> Is anyone near Waitsfield, Vermont? I note that Small Dog
> Electronics ( http://www.smalldog.com ) has a website that
> harps on their environmental responsibility, and offers a
> computer recycling service. Not affiliated except as a
> customer, and curious (if you already know them) whether they
> are good folks. If they are, they might be willing to filter
> out interesting stuff from their recycle stream.
> --
Smalldog is near me (1 hour away).
These guys are awesome. Friends and I have done business with them
(friends were by weborder/mailorder). They do recycle, and they use
Wincycle as a recycling partner (www.wincycle.org). And yes, Wincycle
gets rescue-worthy systems frequently, I just don't get out there often
enough. Wincycle will recondition / resell what's useable, mostly to
schools, non profits and low income families.
Smalldog is very active in Apple's refurb program.
Smalldog also lets me bring my small dogs with me to visit (the dog
theme is based in a real life dog story).
Is anyone near Waitsfield, Vermont? I note that Small Dog Electronics
( http://www.smalldog.com ) has a website that harps on their
environmental responsibility, and offers a computer recycling
service. Not affiliated except as a customer, and curious (if you
already know them) whether they are good folks. If they are, they
might be willing to filter out interesting stuff from their recycle
stream.
--
- Mark
NOTE: MOBILE CONTACT NOW 2-WAY PAGER AT: 888-733-0967
office is still: 210-522-6025
> I'm not listing numbers so I don't get sued, but it isn't hard to find.
5863827105
.. and it would have been easier to find if your quotes had not been
paraphrased.
Lee.
ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote:
> When I was at university (both undergrad and grad student), I had
> permission to 'skip dive' (same thing as dumpster diving, I guess).
Over here we still have. If only there was a bit of an announcement
before...would sometimes save dangerous stunts. I once dug back to
the bottom of a nearly half-filled container to rescue a Sun Ultra 1
*and* had it snatched away minutes later while I was getting a cart
to haul away my stuff. Bummer.
> Among the things I recovered were :
>
> An HP2100A minicomputer with 7900 disk (that was in poor condtiion
> as it landed on the front panel) and paper tape reader
Broken trim and bad harddisks are alas common consequences of people
treating as trash what they consider trash. Nearly made me jump down
>from a 2nd floor window when I heard the racket and saw somebody
hurtling a Sun IPX into that same skip so hard it broke open!
I also missed several boxes of VMEbus cards that day.
My best and biggest dumpster pick up to now was a Sun SPARCserver 1000.
It was piled atop a fully loaded skip so I had to stand on the maybe 4"
wide side rail clinging to the rim and carefully balance it on the wall
so I could jump down and get it.
Note on dumpsters on private property:
Over here in Europe you often only have to ring the bell and ask and
you get invited to help yourself to whatever you want from there -
that's how it usually works for me.
Cheers,
--
Arno Kletzander
Stud. Hilfskraft Informatik Sammlung Erlangen
www.iser.uni-erlangen.de
DSL-Aktion wegen gro?er Nachfrage bis 28.2.2006 verl?ngert:
GMX DSL-Flatrate 1 Jahr kostenlos* http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl
> A lawyer asked me if I had any devices made before 1997 that used RGB
> LEDs. I know that RGB LEDs have been around since at least
> 1991, but I
> don't have anything to offer them. If you have a device
> that uses a mux
> and PWM with the LEDs, that would apparently please them very much.
Could this be about the law suit Ford Motor Company settled with a
Brazilian patent holder? It concerned the new "MyColor" color selectable
instrument cluster lighting in the 2005/2006 Mustangs.
On metal cased (7030 and later 7012s) RS6ks the yellow button is push-on to a switch that screws into the front panel. These are easy, just push the button off with two prodding devices (straightened paper clips, old dental picks, small cocktail umbrellas, etc.) As this is completely useless to you, I naturally put it in first.
Older RS6ks are the same setup it appears, but you need to contrive a small hook (again, I commend old dental picks to your attention) that will hook under the rim about 1/2" below the surface of the button. Use two for a balanced pull. Have fun, and long live the classic 6K!
P.S. - does anyone here have an idea why I.B.M. used Medeco locks on the system unit, when plenty of mischief can be made anyway? Fortunately, both mine came with keys.
There is a picture of one on page 46 of the RSTS Professional
v4n4 (Aug 82) taken before an internal DECUS meeting.
I'm pretty sure there is a plex at CHM as well. They have a
collection of several dozen unusual DEC front panel plastics,
including one for a 32 bit machine that looks like it would
be for a 360 architecture.
No one has ever been able to identify what THAT was for.
