test-drb April 2006

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

200 participants
412 discussions

by kyrrin＠bluefeathertech.com

My thanks to all who offered assistance on my issues with the 'tech special' Trak Systems 8820 GPS station clock. The unit was successfully repaired, and has been working for nearly a full week without any further signs of problems. For the curious: The problem turned out to be that one of the firmware EPROMs developed a broken internal bond wire on the output-enable lead. This caused the chip to appear completely blank to both the Unisite programmer and the Trak device. My contact at Trak was kind enough to send over image files to do a fresh set of EPROMs. The only other adjustment I found myself making was a fine-tune alignment on the 10MHz ovenized oscillator, to bring its center frequency back to a point where the reference circuitry could discipline it down to full accuracy. That was also accomplished without incident, and I now have a second Stratum-1 level clock and frequency standard for my lab. The moral of the story: EPROMs can fail too! Just not in the way we might expect. ;-) Keep the peace(es). -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy, Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m "If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?"

18 years, 8 months

Tandy Model 16b computers availabe

by cctalk＠catcorner.org

Model 16bs have 8" floppies. Is that what you're asking? The following Tandy/Radio Shack computers have 8" drives standard: Model II Model 12 Model 16 Model 16b Model 6000 Tandy 10 > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of > Alwrcker82 at wmconnect.com > Sent: Saturday, April 15, 2006 7:55 AM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Tandy Model 16b computers availabe > > > Hi Kelly, I got your reply and it is only 127 miles to your > town but are the > TRS-80's with the 8in floppy's or Tandy's Mod 16b's. > Thanks, Al DePermentier >

18 years, 8 months

someone else with an adds mentor 2000

by aek＠bitsavers.org

at least as of 2003.. maybe he turned up some docs http://www.digibarn.com/weblog/blogger1.html From Eddie Thomas (pasnocone at earthlink.net) Gentlemen: I?ve been a hobbyist/engineer of PC systems since I can remember. I was introduced to computers in 1974. I?ve designed one 8086 system for the S-100 during the winter of 81/82 of which never made production. At that time I also laid out the concept of CABLE MODEMS for mass bi-directional public communications. The idea was too far fetched to be seriously taken into production back then. It?s amazing how things change ? 20 years later! I enjoyed your documentation on the ALTAIR 8800. I stumbled upon your site as I searched for S-100 prototyping boards. Although I currently live in PA, I believe I have the original schematics published in Popular Electronics (Jan ?75) for the ALTAIR stashed in the attic in NJ. I also believe I have most of the Popular Electronics issues which addressed the S-100 based systems. I have not found any other rags that have this information available. I?d be happy to forward the articles if you?d like. I will contact P.E. in regards to duplicating this info as to not violate copyright laws. S-100 was onto something before Big Blue stomped S-100 like a New York City roach. Here's a question. I am currently searching for information for the ADDS Mentor 2000. It uses the Zilog 8001 segmented processor under the PICK OS. I have no background in PICK OS. So far the only confirmed operation is the POST. MENTOR 2000 specific manuals would be greatly appreciated. PICK OS manuals or souces to gain some tech knowledge into the workings would also be appreciated. Trying some DOS and CP-M style commands yielded this: The machine attempts and fails to find a TAPE DRIVE and HARD DRIVE. The tape drive interface card is inoperative [installing it stops the POST]. The original 68 Meg H/D (Hitachi 511-8, ST-502 MFM) was reused years ago in a Netware Server. I am looking for hardware manuals specifically detailing hardware interface characteristics and/or this system's bus. I can engineer a compatible ISA interface for bi- directional communications to my Intel 302-25 PC if I can find the BUS pinouts. The Zilog 8000 series is similar to the Z80 in timing characteristics for BUS I/O operations. In the event I can finally gain external I/O to this system I've located several OS's for the Zilog 8000 family, of which some re- writes will be required to gain full system functionality. It's apparent the OS is in two EPROMs, of which will be preserved. It is my intention to engineer an updated I/O card to support Floppy disks, IDE hard drives, newer memory products and Ethernet. AT&T originally supported the ADDS systems. NCR (AT&T?s sellout company) would supply information as would some scarce sources for an exuberant price. ALSO I would like to find information on the WD-1002 HDO hard drive controller card (used in the TANDY PC, I believe) Specifically, I need cable signaling information so possibly to use an IDE translator adaptor. I've found one source but have not heard back from them in about 6 weeks. Here?s a list of what hardware is installed (original): 1: CPU Card Zilog Z8001 w/socket for 2nd processor (4 layer) a) ADMIN Serial Port header b) TWO WD-1002 interface port headers c) Front Panel Control header 2: 16 RS-232 serial / 1 parallel port (4 layer) a) Two 50 pin headers (to 2 banks of 8 9-pin serial ports on rear) b) One parallel port header 3: 256K memory card Parity Checked (4 layer) a) 4 banks of 9 4164?s 4: 3 port QIC-02 tape interface (defective) (2 layer, EZ 2 trace/repair) 5: Hitachi 511-8 68 MB H/D w/WD-1002-1 HDO daughter card 6: Archive 60 MB Tape Drive, Full height (defective) Although the ADDS Mentor BUS is 100 pin, it is quite obvious it is NOT S-100 just by examining the power assignments. I am currently diagnosing the TAPE DRIVE interface card hopefully have it back in operation soon. I have a newer Archive QIC-02 drive that should work. It can read/write 60, 120 and 250 MB tapes. Any information, sites and/or folks wishing to get involved w/my resurrection of the ADDS Mentor 2000 are welcome to contact me at: pasnocone at earthlink.net Please put ?Mentor 2000? in the subject line Best of luck and congratulations on a great start with the Museum! Eddie

18 years, 8 months

Tandy Model 16b computers availabe

by Alwrcker82＠wmconnect.com

Hi Kelly, I got your reply and it is only 127 miles to your town but are the TRS-80's with the 8in floppy's or Tandy's Mod 16b's. Thanks, Al DePermentier

18 years, 8 months

IBM SP-2 Parallel super computer for rescue at Uof W, Seattle, May 6th

by innfoclassics＠gmail.com

Downloaded the latest U of Washington Surplus sale info and they indicate they will be auctioning off a "IBM SP-2" Mainframe. From what I can find out it is a R 6000-39H or such vintage multi processor machine. Sale is May 6th, 10:00 AM, Preview at 8 am and also the day before on Friday May 5 from noon till 7 pm. I guess there will be online bidding via Proxibid (I just found this out myself). I used to travel to the Uof W auction regularly for the wide varietry of stuff. There is a regular Surplus property sale at the same time with a black box that could be a NEXT Cube. www.uwsurplus.com Click on Auction or Public Store. I can't make it so if anyone gets it let the list know -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA

18 years, 8 months

Dayton Hamvention, May 19 - May 21

by marvin＠rain.org

Just curious, is anyone on the list going to the Dayton Hamvention? I bought two selling spots, one to park, the other for "stuff" :). My expectation is that I'll arrive sometime on Thursday, and of course make sure I am there *early* on Friday morning. Since I expect to be driving straight through (about 42 hours >from Santa Barbara, about 22 hours from Denver including gas and short rest breaks), if anyone is interested in sharing the driving and gas, let me know. My interest there is twofold, 1) find classic computer related stuff, and 2) sell ARDF (Amateur Radio Direction Finding) related stuff along with other "stuff" hams might be interested in. I also expect to take a pop-up canapy for *when* it rains. And if anyone going is not aware; the scroungers are out in full force on Sunday since many of the parking lot vendors just leave behind what they don't want. A friend of mine told me the story that he was out scrounging and another person came to the same spot to scrounge. A third person arrived, and looking through the stuff, asked how much a certain item was. The second person immediately started hawking the stuff :). Another story (I believe is true) is that first, parking is hard to find near Hara Arena. One ingenious soul took their car to the gas station across the street and dropped it off for an oil change. After a day at Hamvention, he then picked it up from the gas station for the price of an oil change :). You might have to have been there to realize that parking could be as far as 1/2 mile from the arena, farther if you park someplace where a shuttle would pick you up. Marvin, KE6HTS

18 years, 8 months

IRIX 5.3 system: any access?

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

Linux EFS works fine on SGI disks, as long as you have SGI disklabel support compiled in, but it is read-only. XFS is read-write. The mount device is, as was said, dks[scsi disk](x)d(y)s(z) with x the SCSI bus number, d the SCSI id number, and z the slice number. The PROM is different, with SCSI drives represented as dksc(x,y,z). Other interfaces use diferent identifiers, like dkip. common slices are 0 (root), 7 (option disk, non-bootable second drive, also used for CD-ROMs), 10 (the volume partition), 1 (swap), 8 (volume header) and 4 (usr, not present on modern default disklabels). SASH (the Stand Alone SHell) is in the volume header and is instrumental in booting. The volume header is a small section of the disk that has a filesystem that can be understood by the PROM monitor. It contains the disklabel, symbolic monitor, IDE (interactive diagnostic environment) and SASH. The firmware bootstrap machines load SASH from the volheader (which the ROM understands) and then SASH loads IRIX from the main filesystem (which it understands) Really a cool system, you don't need anything to write a bootblock, and it is possible to load SASH from a CD-ROM and start the disk-resident copy of IRIX if your SASH is corrupted. dvhtool is the IRIX utility provided for writing/reading the volheader. SASH, however, needs to be the correct version to understand the filesystem (a 5.3 EFS SASH can't boot a 6.2 XFS partition) Since SASH understands the filesystem, you can use basic commands (cp, cat, ls, setenv), but no UNIX utilities like vi. If you could create an accessible replacement passwd, it could be copied over on top of the original passwd file [dksc(0,1,0)/etc/passwd]. You need to be very careful, especially with IRIX 5.3, to get a version that runs on your hardware. A big gotcha is with later machines that come with 2MB of cache (IRIX 5.3 base won't run on them) 6.2 is easier, there are only two versions, one for R10k Indigo2s and one for everyone else (the R10k I2 also supports all other I2s). It would be much easier if SGI had made later releases support all earlier machines, but they didn't. The 2MB cache issue can, in rumor, be sidestepped by installing base IRIX 5.3 using a 1MB cache CPU(PM1-PM5), applying all patches, and then plugging in the 2MB PM(6 or 7)

18 years, 8 months

GE Terminet 200 - original Operators Manual available

by dave06a＠dunfield.com

Btw - when I picked up the TRS-80 and ADDS on the weekend, I was asked to browse a box of "stuff" in case I wanted any of it - most of it was older PeeCee stuff not interesting enough to reserve space for (or risk getting stuck with), however one of the items I did grab was an original General Electric TermiNet 200 PRINTER OPERATOR'S MANUAL GEK-49326B In very good shape - I don't have a TermiNet, however I recall that a few people on the list have them ... if you have one and want the original manual to go with it, let me know... Dave -- dave06a (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, 8 months

cctalk Digest, Vol 32, Issue 29

by bobalan＠sbcglobal.net

I measured the ones I have in my garage. The 3420 is 30" wide x 30" deep x 66.5" tall including the casters and control panel on top. The 3803 is 30" wide x 28" deep x 60" tall. The carrier estimated weight for both of mine was 1150 pounds. Bob >------------------------------ > >Message: 3 >Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 15:50:14 -0400 >From: Patrick Finnegan <pat at computer-refuge.org> >Subject: IBM 3420 questions >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> >Message-ID: <200604141550.14982.pat at computer-refuge.org> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > >On Friday 14 April 2006 14:35, Edward wrote: > > >>Hi, >> >>Can someone recommend me a freighter who can pickup a cabinet >>and do all the necessary work including putting in on a pallet, >>wrapping it in plastic etc and ship it? >>Location is Westmont (IL) and is destined for The Netherlands. >> >> > >So, now that I see others might be interested in this stuff. > >Does anyone know how big (dimensions, weight) an IBM 3420, and a 3083 >are? > >Pat > >

18 years, 8 months

Neat score today...

by kyrrin＠bluefeathertech.com

Not at all. The beastie turned up at Alphatronics (formerly Supertronix), in Tukwila, on Andover East. Keep the peace(es). *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** On 14-Apr-06 at 14:21 Glen Slick wrote: >If you don't mind sharing, where did you turn this up? (Assuming this >was in the Seattle area). > >-Glen > >On 4/13/06, Bruce Lane <kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com> wrote: >> While poking around for some batteries and a coax adapter at one >of the local electronics supply places -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy, Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m "If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?"

18 years, 8 months

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test-drb April 2006