test-drb June 2006

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

220 participants
447 discussions

Apple PB190 driver for Xircom PCMCIA NIC?

by Arno_1983＠gmx.de

Hello, a Xircom "CreditCard Ethernet 10/100-Ready" (CE3B-100BTX) PCMCIA NIC recently found its way to me, unfortunately without adaptor cable(s). Inserting it in my Apple Powerbook 190 (System 6.something IIRC, my only machine with PCMCIA slot yet) produced a message to the effect that the necessary support software wasn't installed and whether I wanted the card ejected just now or later ;). Anyway a new symbol with the name of the card appeared below that of the harddisk and showed me that it was detected correctly. Some searching of the net didn't turn up anything that looked particularly useful regarding drivers for anything besides Windows - not even at the Xircom (now Intel) product support site - and I'd be grateful to learn whether I have a chance of getting the card to work in the powerbook before I go shelling out money for a replacement cable. Thanks in advance. Yours sincerely, Arno Kletzander BTW: If you have replacement cables/dongles to offer in Europe, then please do it! -- Arno Kletzander Stud. Hilfskraft Informatik Sammlung Erlangen www.iser.uni-erlangen.de Echte DSL-Flatrate dauerhaft f?r 0,- Euro*! "Feel free" mit GMX DSL! http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl

18 years

PCB vs wirewrap, was Re: SBC6120

by allanh-cctalk＠kallisti.com

On Tue, 06 Jun 2006 17:59:53 -0700, "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> wrote: > IIRC, this preceded the Strip-n-Wrap system that was offered with a tool > that cut small slits in the very thin insulated wire, so that it would > contact the corners of a square wirewrap post. This (ostensibly) was > wonderful because you could daisy-chain your wraps without cutting the > wire. It never worked that well for me--the connections weren't really > tight, the wire was expensive, and the insulation was very very thin. I had the opposite experience - I built several quite complex prototypes using the Vector Slit-n-Wrap system, and had excellent results. In fact I still use it; I still have a working electric wrap tool (as far as I can tell they no longer make those, but they do still make manual ones and the tips are the same so I can still get replacement tips when necessary). The only problems I've ever seen are opens when I set the tension too low (which I catch immediately because it doesn't feel right), and breaking the wire when it is set too high. I have never seen a connection fail later. I also like that wire better than standard wirewrap wire; the tefzel insulation seems more forgiving than kynar. In addition to wirewrapping, I use it for soldered jumpers; with kynar, the insulation seems to like to split and come off the wire near the soldered joint. However, to be fair I don't recall having that problem even with kynar wire ten or more years ago; maybe it's just the quality of the kynar wire that has been available to me has dropped, as it comes from a variety of manufacturers competing for price while tefzel insulated wire still all comes through a single source. allan -- Allan N. Hessenflow allanh at kallisti.com

18 years

HP9825

by vp＠drexel.edu

Hi, I am looking for an HP9825 with the 98228A ROM (I guess that means that the 9825 must be a T model or an earlier model upgraded to an 9825T). I am working on a project to allow an HP-85 to read 9825 tapes, and I need to be able use floppies to xfer data between the 9825 and my main (OpenBSD) system. If anyone is willing to sell me an 9825T with the 98228A ROM, or lend me one (for abour 8-10 months) please contact me off list. I already have an 98034A HPIB interface. Thanks **vp http://www.series80.org

18 years

cctalk Digest, Vol 34, Issue 8

by mtapley＠swri.edu

At 20:25 -0500 6/3/06, Chuck wrote: >What was the MO drive on the Next cube--650 MB? Seemed silly to me to >market the thing without a hard drive--and I think Next eventually came >around to that way of thinking. 256 MB. I don't think the cartridges were interchangeable with anything else common. There were reversible cartridges which could hold 256M per side, but only one side was accessible at a time. NeXT did add first a "Swap drive" of 20 MB and later larger hard drives, 105MB in pizza boxes, 330 and 660 MB in cubes, and eventually stopped selling the opticals. There were significant problems with drive dust inhalation in the NeXT implementation. That led to reversal of the fan (by mechanically reversing, *not* by changing around the power connector, in case you want to try it) by many owners, which was eventually approved by NeXT. However, my cube has a fairly unique set-up which meant that fan reversal caused problems with overheating of the SCSI driver chip. There were also long-term problems with either the drives or the media - they seem to be going bad at a fairly regular pace. I don't know that I've heard a good explanation for that. It *might* be some form of connector corrosion; disassembling and cleaning mine has cured it twice, even though it didn't look dirty at all around the lens area. Corrections or clarifications welcome, apologies if this is redundant (getting behind on the digests again). -- - Mark Cell Phone: 210-379-4635 office: 210-522-6025

18 years

cctalk Digest, Vol 34, Issue 8

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

Mark Tapley wrote: There were significant problems with drive dust inhalation in the NeXT implementation. That led to reversal of the fan (by mechanically reversing, *not* by changing around the power connector, in case you want to try it) by many owners, which was eventually approved by NeXT. However, my cube has a fairly unique set-up which meant that fan reversal caused problems with overheating of the SCSI driver chip. There were also long-term problems with either the drives or the media - they seem to be going bad at a fairly regular pace. I don't know that I've heard a good explanation for that. It *might* be some form of connector corrosion; disassembling and cleaning mine has cured it twice, even though it didn't look dirty at all around the lens area. Corrections or clarifications welcome, apologies if this is redundant (getting behind on the digests again). -- - Mark Billy: Dust was a huge problem with most of the earlier CDROMs. And a bigger problem when CD-RW came along. On my first trip to Hasselt, Belgium with Philips I was introduced to the Calibrated Dust Machine. This is no BS. Philips worked with IBM to develop a chamber that was filled with fine dust under slight pressure. The optical drives would be tested to failure. Some of the early drives would only go minutes before failure. Often powering them down and starting up was enough to remove the dust for a short time. Engineering would also test all the competitors to see how they sealed their units and how long they lasted. LG had by far the best seals around the OPU. Philips redesigned all their front doors and bezel seals to improve dust immunity. And sold testing to other companies. One of those memories that lasts a lifetime: the test engineer complaining about how hard it was to buy calibrated dust. Billy

18 years

Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles"

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

Chuck Guzis wrote: I recall an operator starting out with one bad pack, and through swapping packs on drives, killing something like 13 drives and nine packs in the space of an hour. Billy: Once I moved to OKCity and worked on cartridge drives, this was one of our most common failure modes. Some people could never learn. One guy at 4 Phase Systems used to do this at least once a month. And he would lie about the bad pack and hide it. Probably the single most incompetent engineer I ever met. Of course he was later promoted to management and put in charge of their Field Engineers. Actually, I was thinking about him recently. The incoming area was at the back of 4 Phase, where Apple headquarters is now. I visited Infinity Drive and parked in almost the same spot. Deja vu. Chuck: I had a friend who observed the development of the 512. He said initially the thing was supposed to be a chain printer, but apparently they couldn't make a type chain that would hold together for more than a few minutes. Billy: I worked a little with the Development team on the 512. Their story was that they couldn't find a chain design that didn't infringe on IBM patents. This was at the time of the big lawsuit against IBM, so was a big deal. Chuck: The 501 printer was a pretty good workhorse and actually produced pretty decent output if run at the low speed setting--which no one ever did. There was another little drum printer used with the Intercom terminals that wasn't too bad; I don't recall the model number, though. Cheers, Chuck Billy: The 501 was messy to work on. The print drum segments would fill up with ribbon crap, and had to be cleaned with a tooth brush and solvent. The most efficient cleaner was carbon tetrachloride, which cut right through the ink. But left you feeling woozy. It wasn't until years later that I found out how dangerous our recommended process was. Still, even today you come across the occasional drum segment on somebody's desk. They make good pencil holders and seem to be a mark of old-fartness for field engineers. Saw one on eBay last year for some ridiculous price. The first CDC printers were made by Analex. Huge things, almost needed a room by themselves, ran at 1000 lines a minute. Sometimes for 2 or 3 hours straight, before breaking. Used a ribbon 18 inches wide. The PCBs were large horizontal PCBs the size of cookie sheets. You had to troubleshoot to the component level, then disassemble the logic chassis so you could get to the component to replace it. On small systems, a drum printer called the 166 was used; it was a 150 line a minute piece of junk. The sole reason for I remember it, is that is was made by Holly Carburetor. There were some strange bedfellows in the early days of computers. One of the most memorable printers I worked on the was the Page Printer system made in OKCity. Originally GE, then Honeywell. I'm not certain when it died - sometime after I left in 1986. It used paper on large rolls. There was a little dolly you used to move the paper - the rolls looked like newsprint and were too heavy to carry. It would print a page then had a paper knife that would cut the page from the continuous feed of paper, and move it to a bin. If you printed multiple copies, it would print the same page x times, cut them off and stack them in different hoppers. The paper path was 8-10 feet long and took a lot of hard work to thread each new roll. But the thing that sticks in my mind the most is that it also had a hole punch built in. After printing and cutting, it would also punch holes if you wanted, 2 or 3 per page. I've never seen another printer that could punch holes, not even the Seimens that were the major competitor. The chad was always in demand by people wanting it for parties or weddings. Which brings up something I'm certain others on the list have done = used teletype or other paper tape punch chad for pranks. The oiled paper would stick to anything, and vacuum cleaners wouldn't pick it up. I once left a bag of black and yellow chad where the 6 year old son of a co-worker could find it. (The co-worker had stiffed me for $20.) It took him weeks to get it out of his carpets using tweezers, piece by piece. Anyone else have fun and games with chad? Billy

18 years

Reply: A few oddball items for trade....

by ying6926＠ureach.com

HI Gary I am looking for a piece on pdp 11 front panel, it is the one with four control knobs. Any chance I can get a photo? thanks Henry A few oddball items for trade.... Gary E Kaufman gkaufman at the-planet.org Sun Jun 4 14:15:43 CDT 2006 a.. Previous message: 3 pdp8/a chassis free for pickup b.. Next message: ISO: Wide HVD SCSI SBUS c.. Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have a few oddball items I'd be happy to trade away for things I could use. I can email pictures of any of these. PDP 11/04 Front Panel Vector 4607 protoboards (3 each), PDP 11 style edge connectors SWTPC Ascii Keyboard (no case) early version with diodes for encoding LCD Panel (Sharp LQ12S56) and Keyboard from Dell Latitude CP series And free for postage, PCB from an Exidy Starfire game (eproms are gone). I'm interested in S100 stuff, a Decmate I Keyboard, Nixie and Vacuum tubes etc. - Gary <gkaufman at the-planet.org>

18 years

Pinging Peter Hufnagel

by woyciesjes＠sbcglobal.net

Apologies for this, but I sent Peter H. a direct private message on 5/26. I was just wondering if he's off doing something else, or just ignoring me. ;-) -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- ICQ# 905818 --- AIM - woyciesjes

18 years

looking for two Kennedy 9100 tape drive terminator cards

by henk.gooijen＠oce.com

Well, I am still looking for the terminator cards :-) but I can be a little more specific. The "data terminator" card has part number 3860-001, and the "control terminator" card has part number 3841-001. Can somebody who has a Kennedy 9100 confirm that the card cage at the left side of the tape drive indeed has a card in slot #3 and in slot #8? I want to be sure that I need those two terminator cards, before I spend some money (if a brooker has them in stock)! thanks, - Henk. This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation.

18 years

SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and, End ofLife

by doug.jackson＠ewa-australia.com

Chuck said: > So, with the fancy irons with solid-state temperature control > circuitry, is the Weller TC201 now out of fashion? It's been my > faithful compainion for decades--some years ago, I snagged a big batch > of assorted tips from a going-out-of-business sale, so I haven't had > any reason to change just yet. > > But is there something that's tons better? There is no iron better than the TC201!!! None, Not at all, in no way... Had it since I finished my traineeship. The only reason I could imaging is if you are soldering using wierd non-lead solder, then the precise temperature control matters. But there are cases where the TC201 simply doesn't have the thermal mass.... for those cases, never forget the 200W plumbers iron. For all of the electronics I can still see (until my eyesight fails me), my Weller is the answer. Take Care, Doug

18 years

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test-drb June 2006