Hi Dwight,
I would be very interested in the cassette tape images! In looking through the
file cabinets of information, I did not find any information on the cassette
board, but I did find a copy of the assembly manual and schematics in one of the
Poly procedures books. It has a picture of the cassette board, and I am somewhat
doubtful that I have one. But, from what I could see, it wouldn't be hard to
relayout the board since I can see the traces on the component side. IIRC, I
probably have six - ten of the parallel boards installed in a burnin unit they
had, and those appear to be the same size. There is still one file cabinet I
can't get to right now that has some engineering drawings, ROMs, etc. so I'm
going to make an effort to get to it :),
BTW, I still have two more Poly 88 units, and a couple of chassis. So I am not
by any means leaving the Poly area :).
> From: "dwight elvey" <dkelvey at hotmail.com>
>
> Hi Marvin
> Please note that I have many of the cassette tape copied to image files
> on the PC. I also have a simple way to download them to the Poly88 with
> a serial card. You'd still need to find a cassette board or make one. The
> manchester decoder chip might be hard to find but this could be constructed
> from descreet parts or programmable logic.
> A simple serial card can be easily made.
> Dwight
> -0700
> >
> >
> >I've put a few classic computer related items up on (ugh) ebay since I am
> >rapidly reaching the point where money is more than just a concept :). A
> >seller
> >search for KE6HTS will find me. Of interest to the classic computer
> >community is
> >a SWTPC PR-40 Alphanumeric printer, an incomplete Rockewell R6500 (AIM 65)
> >motherboard, HP Demo Board for the HP 2416 smart displays (used in the AIM
> >65),
> >and a Poly 88. I am also putting stuff up on the VCM at
> >http://www.vintagecomputermarketplace.com/ and probably will be until I run
> >out
> >of stuff in the year 2074 :).
>
>
Looking for thoughts on which machines used parallel ASCII keyboards...
I've got a couple of working machines here that used such a keyboard based
around the AY-3-4592 chip, but only one keyboard to go between them.
The interface between the keyboard and system is just 8 data lines and a
strobe though, all at TTL, so presumably any old keyboard that outputs ASCII
data could be made to work.
Ideally I'd like to find a real basket-case of a system that could provide me
with a donor keyboard. I'm not 100% happy with that, but providing the rest
doesn't go in the bin (such that it might be useful to someone at a later
date) and it's not something that's ultra-rare, it seems a reasonable thing to
do in order to complete an otherwise-pristine system.
Knowing which systems to look out for would be a start. Nascom, maybe? I think
RML 380Z's are probably parallel ASCII too, but their keyboards are already
rare as hen's teeth so I wouldn't be happy with that...
cheers
Jules
--
(\__/)
(='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your
(")_(") signature to help him gain world domination.
>Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 22:20:05 -0500
>From: Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org>
>Doc Shipley wrote:
>> I paid $100 for mine, but it had a 6900 page count. 4000 models go
>> cheaper.
>
>No idea where you got it; ebay shows >$200 for models that have 35K
>pagecount. One 4050 was selling for $79, but it had an 800K (!!!)
>pagecount, is that possible? Can these things last nearly one million
>pages?
It seems to vary a great deal with time. A few months ago there was
a surplus dealer selling LJ4050s with Postscript and after the first
bunch sold at higher prices, the remainder were selling for $40 -
$80, plus shipping.
If the original poster's only requirement is 600 dpi, then consider
the HP LJ 4 Plus or 4M Plus (the M denotes postscript included).
Those did 600 dpi, but are quite old by now. I think they're very
cool though, because they had an optional 500 page paper tray and an
optional duplexer, and these options just made the printer higher,
they didn't increase the small footprint.
<digression> Though for small footprint it's really hard to beat the
TI Microlaser Plus from around 1989 - 1991. Unfortunately, you'd be
hard pressed to find one with working pick-up rollers (not exit
rollers, which are easily replaced) and the pick-up rollers are no
longer available anywhere. But it was 300 dpi, so not really
relevant to this discussion. BTW, does anyone want to come by
Austin, TX and pick two up? One has Postscript and a LocalTalk
port, but has the pickup roller problem. It has new exit rollers and
the maximum RAM installed. The second one I don't know much about as
I picked it up to scavenge the pick up rollers out of. I've got a
couple of new toner cartridges, an OPC drum, and a developer kit too.
Since we bought the LJ2100 keeping the TI ML wheezing along seems
kind of pointless. </digression>
The 4050 does 1200 X 1200 dpi, I believe. The LJ2100 is a nice
little printer and also does 1200 dpi. The Computer Works store in
San Antonio has been selling a couple of pallets of LJ2100s for $80
each (IIRC) and of course they're available on Ebay as well. The
ones in SA have anywere from 10^4 pages to 3 X 10^5 page count,
depending on how busy the office from which they came was.
Jeff Walther
I've put a few classic computer related items up on (ugh) ebay since I am
rapidly reaching the point where money is more than just a concept :). A seller
search for KE6HTS will find me. Of interest to the classic computer community is
a SWTPC PR-40 Alphanumeric printer, an incomplete Rockewell R6500 (AIM 65)
motherboard, HP Demo Board for the HP 2416 smart displays (used in the AIM 65),
and a Poly 88. I am also putting stuff up on the VCM at
http://www.vintagecomputermarketplace.com/ and probably will be until I run out
of stuff in the year 2074 :).
I came in this evening to over 1,500 new messages, the majority of them from cctech.
I'm not sure if the server just sat on them for a while, or something else hiccupped. I do know that I'll need to unsubscribe if it's going to be an ongoing occurrence. I cannot deal with retrieving that big a load when I'm on the road.
Explanations of why this may have happened would be welcome, along with ideas on whether it will happen again.
Thanks much.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
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?"
IMHO, not worth it, but maybe they'll take a decent offer???
=-=-=
MCA-based NCR box w/386SX20... $386.20 (ain't that funny... not!) - but
it's a nice box if yer into that sorta thing - coprocessor & SCSI built-in.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320002549109
Or for you transputer(28each)/i860(24each) and at least 192 Meg RAM
"supercomputer" hunters with $8K burnin' a hole in yer pocket and want to
score the "Mother Lode":
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220007046405
Me? I was just looking for info on EPROM programmers... Too rich for my
blood anyway - I'll stick with my CoCos & Model 200's...
;-)
Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger | Anarchy doesn't scale well. -- Me
zmerch at 30below.com. |
SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers
Well, there's always sell off the extra to someone on the list who'd like an
Alpha.
OpenVMS on Alpha would be kool 8-)
On 7/26/06, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote:
>
> >On 7/26/06, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote:
> >>Someone on comp.os.vms suggested playing with the DIP switches that
> >>control the 500/667Mhz settings on the mainboard and daughterboard.
> >>Guess what, I had a 500Mhz CPU in a 667Mhz system. Obviously someone
> >>swapped the board out prior to my buying it. Another reason screen
> >>shots are good when buying a system on eBay.
> >
> >Is it acceptable if you were to share who this unethical seller is so
> >that we may all avoid him?
>
> I want to see what kind of a response I get from them first. I
> realized this morning I sent the email about the system to the wrong
> address.
>
> Zane
> --
> | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
> | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
> | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
> +----------------------------------+----------------------------+
> | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
> | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
> | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
>
When did keycaps start getting "cheap"? (i.e. crappy
quality).
Is this just a consequence of the lower profile
inherent in laptops, etc.? Or, are other keyboards
no longer molding the legends into the caps (instead
of printing it on)? (i.e. quality keyboards used
to employ two shots of plastic -- one that filled in
the legend and the second that filled in the body).
