January 2007 - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

by vcf＠siconic.com

I have a monitor for a Stardent workstation. It's a re-badge Sony, model number 130-0001-01. Free for pickup, or 1.2 * cost of shipping to recoup time and trouble if you want it shipped. Please respond soon if you are interested as it will be going off for scrap in a week if there are no takers. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

11 years, 9 months

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Compaq SLT/286

by aw288＠osfn.org

Like the Sanyo just yesterday, I have a Compaq SLT/286 portable computer taking up space. Very nice condition, with power unit, dock, and bag. Any interest CHEAP? I am located in New York, zip 10512. Unlike the Sanyo, if there is no interest, I suppose I will just chop this up. I am desperately trying to clear out a bedroom to work on it - the bedroom that ends up being the junk overflow containment chamber. It would actually be nice to sleep in it sometime. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org

12 years, 8 months

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FDOS for Fluke 1720A

by geoffb＠vigilan.com

Does anyone have the O/S, Applications, and Diagnostice disks for this ancient IEEE 488 bus controller (Fluke 1720A)? It used a TI 9900 processor if I remember correctly. The operating system was called FDOS- a custom effort too I think, distributed on three 5 1/4" floppies. This is no longer available from anywhere or anyone, including Fluke. Thanks for any help and/or leads. Geoff

12 years, 11 months

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Wait! There's more including MS-DOS 1.25!!!! was Sanyo MBC-550 (Yuck!) software available

by rigdonj＠intellistar.net

I'm still digging. I found more 550 stuff. I think this is everything that came with the 550. Here's a chance for you 550 owner's to get the whole set at one shot! Original DS-DOS box and invoice. Original Sanyo Easywriter ver 1.3 disk Original Sanyo disk box with 550 dos ver 2.11 and BASIC 1.25, two original Sanyo disk for InfoStar (set B disk 2 and 3 of 4; disks 1 and 4 are below), original Sanyo disk for DOS 1.25 and BASIC ver 1.1 Original Sanyo disk box with all three original disk of set A, WordStar and CalcStar and a backup copy of DS-DOS. Two card board dummy disks used to protect the floppy drives duing shipment. Joe > >A few weeks ago we were talking about the Sanyo 550 series and someone mentioned one of the alternates operating systems that supported 80 track drives in the 550. I said that was DS-DOS by Michtron. > > Today I found an old Sanyo disk package with four disks for the 550. One of them is DS DOS 2.11, one is InfoStar, one is MailMerge/SpellStar and the other is a disk of misc utilities. The first three are original disks. In additon, the InfoStar, MailMerge/SpellStar are Sanyo labeled disks that came with the 550. If anyone wants them, trade me something I can use and they're all your's. > > Joe

13 years, 4 months

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Texas Instruments 960B

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> does anybody have bits for the TI 960B (not 960A) minicomputer, e.g. > software, schematics etc. ? I have some additional material on the 960 that isn't up yet on bitsavers. The 960 and 980 share some peripheral interfaces. Did you end up with the 990 system as well?

13 years, 7 months

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Has anyone ever heard of theProtec Microsystems PRO-83?

by rdcoll＠hotmail.com

Hello everyone, I just joined this mailing list today on the advice of more than one vintage computing contact. I was wondering if anyone could tell me anything about the Protec Microsystems PRO-83 Z80 Single-Board Computer. I have conducted an exhaustive search of the Internet and found only two sites (one from a surplus store and a picture of it from a museum). I would appreciate any information available, especially information regarding the power supply and peripheral devices. Thank you very much. Rob _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx

13 years, 11 months

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HPIB cables

by donm＠cts.com

I have a couple of HPIB cables available at $15 the pair, shipped. They are: 1 HP10833A ~42" 1 HP92220R ~12" The 92220R has a right-angle connector at one end and the usual straight connector at the other. (I wonder if the 'R' indicates a right hand connector?) First come, first served. - don

13 years, 11 months

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Century Data T2000 exerciser

by nasim786＠earthlink.net

Hi, This is a belated response to a post you made here: http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctech/2003-February/010641.html I happened upon it while doing a 'for fun' search on the net for anything doing with good ol' Century Data, my employer when I was young. Couldn't resist responding to the post, even if it was half a year late! The exerciser that you have is/was for the Trident series of hard disk drives (predecessor to the Marksman). I was the main (in fact, pretty much the ONLY) technician at Century Data/Calcomp, for these exercisers back from the late 1970's to the mid 1980's, when they were phased out. I retired in 1985. Have fun! (BTW, where'd you find one of these dinosaurs??) Take care, Nasim

13 years, 12 months

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VAX/PDP docs. received

by jwillis＠arielusa.com

Received from a former DEC service rep.: If anyone wants scans of a specific piece, I will probably arrange it. This accounts for only the miniscule portion I've managed to sort and catalog in the past 3 hours (about 1/8 of the total number of documentation pieces I received): Communications Options Minireference Manual, vols. 1-7 LSI-11 Systems Service Manual, Vols. 1-3 VAX 8600/8650 System Diagnostics User's Guide Communications Options Minireference Manual VAX/VMS Internals and Data Structures Cartridge Tape Service Documentation TK50 Tape Drive Subsystem Owner's Manual TK50 Tape Drive Subsystem User's Guide TK70 Streaming Tape Drive Owner's Manual TK70 Streaming Tape Drive Subsystem Service Manual (MicroVAX II sys.) ThinWire Ethernet COAXIAL CABLE CONNECTOR INSTALLATION CARD H4000 DIGITAL Ethernet Transceiver Installation Manual Fiber Optic Attenuator Installation/Configuration Reference Card LA120 Series Pocket Service Guide LA10X-EJ/EL Tractor Option Installation Guide DECWRITER III LA120 Operator Reference Card LCG01 Color Printer System Pocket Service Guide MicroVAX 3600/VAXserver 3600/3602 Operation KA650 CPU System Maintenance MicroVAX 3600/VAXserver 3600/3602 Technical Information ULTRIX-32 Guide to the Error Logger System LJ250/LJ252 Companion Color Printer Pocket Service Guide LN03 Pocket Service Guide RF-LN03 Pocket Service Guide VAX 6200 Options and Maintenance VAX 6200/6300, VAXserver 6200/6230 Owner's Manual VAXstation 2000 Workstations and MicroVAX 2000 Network Guide ULTRIX-32 Basic Installation Guide for the VAXserver 2000 DECstation 2100/3100 Maintenance Guide MicroVAX 2000 Installation MicroVAX 2000 Operation Addendum: VAXserver 2000 MicroVAX 2000 Operation MicroVAX 2000 Troubleshooting MicroVAX 2000 Technical Information MicroVAX 2000 Customer Services VAXstation 2000 and MicroVAX 2000 Maintenance Guide VAXstation 3100 Maintenance Information VAXstation 3100 Illustrated Parts Breakdown VAXstation 2000 Hardware Information VAXstation 2000 System Guide VAXstation 2000 Network Guide VAX 6000-400 Options and Maintenance VT100 Series Pocket Service Guide VT180 Series Pocket Service Guide VT320 Pocket Service Guide VT330 Pocket Service Guide VT340 Pocket Service Guide VAXcluster Service Reference Manual VAXcluster Service Reference Set VAX 8530/8550/8700/8800/8820/8830/8840 System Maint. Guide 8800 8700 8550 8500 Console User's Guide B213F Expander Installation R215F Expander Maintenance KA655 CPU System Maintenance VAX Architecture Reference Manual CI750 User's Guide BA11-A Mounting Box and Power System Tech. Manual VAX-11/750 Diag. System Overview Manual VAX-11/750 Level 1 Student Workbook (Digital Internal Use Only) VAX-11/750 UNIBUS Interface Technical Description VAX-11/751 User's Guide DELUA User's Guide MicroVAX 2000 Hardware Information MicroVAX VAX 8200/50, 8500/50 The Digital Dictionary, Second Edition VAX Maintenance Handbook (VAX Systems) VAX Maintenance Handbook (VAX-11/780) VAX Maintenance Handbook (VAX-11/750) VAX-11/750 Mini Diag. Ref. Guide RM05 Disk Subsystem Service Manual RM05 Disk Subsystem Student Guide (Digital Internal Use Only) RM03 Disk Drive Maint. Print Set RP04/05/06 Field Maint. Print Set Symptom Directed Diagnosis Tool Kit Installation Guide VAXsimPLUS Field Service Manual Getting Started with VAXsimPLUS VAXsimPLUS User Guide Model 733 DEC Disk Storage Drive Parts Catalog, Jan. 1976 RP04-TC Part II RP04, RP05, RP06 Field Svc. Handbook HSC50 Service Manual HSC Installation Manual VAX 86XX System Maint. Guide RP05/RP06 Field Handbook -Company Confidential- RP05/06 677-01/51 Disc Drive Illustrated Parts Catalog Model 677-01/51 RP05/06 DEC DISC MAINTENANCE Guide (Educ. Svcs.) Digital Education and Training: UNIX Utils & Cmds. Student Guide

14 years, 6 months

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Looking for : Sharp PC-1405

by mhstein＠canada.com

--------------Original Message------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 16:27:36 -0500 (EST) From: liste(a)artware.qc.ca Subject: Looking for : Sharp PC-1405 Or equiv (Tandy had them as PC-2 or something, iirc). The goal of my classic collection is to get one of every computer I've programmed over the years. One of the first computers I programmed was a PC-1405 (actually, I can't remember the exact model). I found one of these in a pawn shop. By brother "stole" it. I found another. This was my one classic computer that was helluva useful. So useful I took it with my places. And, well, I've just lost it. I've checked eBay and there are a few Sharp Pocket Computers, but W@W L@@K @ T3H PR1C3Z! Buy it now for "only" 300 USD! http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3000156764&category=15030 So, does anyone here have one they don't need and/or would be willing to let go for a reasonable price? -Philip -------------------------------------- I've got a PC-1421 Financial Computer if you (or anybody) are interested: 76 character keyboard 16 character display 40K ROM Basic 4.2 Kb RAM Interface for optional CE-126 Printer/Cassette (don't have) 6 modes: Normal calculator Financial calculator Statistical calculator Basic program mode Basic run mode Almost new, in box with cover & 280P manual. Make me an offer (less than US$ 300, or even CDN$ 300 :). mike

14 years, 7 months

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8/L has been sold. Have ADM-3A for sale.

by charlesmorris＠direcway.com

The 8/L, ASR33, DF32 disk emulator project has been sold. Thanks for all your interest (and offers). Anyone who wants the DF32 emulator schematic and artwork, I can email you a copy. I hope someone can take my "first draft" and make a useful unit for those who are interested. I have a working ADM-3A that I may want to sell also. It has a homebrewed lower-case 2716 ROM (thanks Steve Loboyko for the font files). I installed the "optional" parts for current loop on the main PCB, and used it with the 8/L. The only thing that's missing is the little aluminum panel covering the dip switches. Any interest? Same deal as before, please email offers, "sealed bids". thanks Charles

14 years, 8 months

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Perkin Elmer 7300 Pro System Museum Quality!

by mail.list＠analog-and-digital-solutions.com

Here's one some of you might like. Perkin Elmer 7300 Pro System Museum Quality! http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2738081449 Current bid US $9.99

14 years, 11 months

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Stag PPZ EPROM programmer

by coredump＠gifford.co.uk

I have a fine old Stag PPZ modular EPROM programmer: http://www.gifford.co.uk/~coredump/inst.htm#PPZ It takes plug-in EPROM (model Zm2000) and PAL (Zm2200) modules, called Z-modules by Stag. I've recently acquired a new module, Zm3000, which looks like a more recent EPROM module. The chips in the Zm3000 are date coded in 1993, whereas the Zm2000 is nearer 1988. The PPZ main unit contains a 6809 CPU and a small CRT display. Does anyone know anything about this system? What about other Z-module types? In particular, should the Zm3000 work with the PPZ, because I currently get an error message "Incorrect Mainframe"? Thanks in advance for any clues! (Virtually all I get from Google is a link back to my own web page!) -- John Honniball coredump(a)gifford.co.uk

15 years, 1 month

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IBM PC Convertible Speech Module.

by netsurfer_x1＠fastmailbox.net

Anyone here have the speech module for an IBM PC Convertible they want to get rid of? I just got one of these laptops & was hoping to score one. David M. Vohs Digital Archaeologist & Computer Historian Computer Collection: "Triumph": Commodore 64, 1802, 1541, Indus GT, FDD-1, GeoRAM 512, MPS-801. "Leela": Original Apple Macintosh, Imagewriter II. "Delorean": TI-99/4A, TI Speech Synthesizer. "Spectrum": Tandy Color Computer III. "Monolith": Apple Macintosh Portable. "Boombox": Sharp PC-7000. "Butterfly": Tandy 200, PDD-2. "Shapeshifter": Epson QX-10, Comrex HDD, Titan graphics/MS-DOS board. "Scout": Otrona Attache. (prospective) "Pioneer": Apple LISA II. "TMA-1": Atari Portfolio, Memory Expander + "Centaur": Commodore Amiga 2000. "Neon": Zenith Minisport.

15 years, 2 months

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I'm so stupid...

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

Back in 1998 (actually more like from summer 1997 until summer 1998, i.e., the 1997-98 school year), before I started Quasijarus Project, I was searching the World high and low for a copy of the 4.3BSD tape set. That was before PUPS got its momentum with getting the $100 "Ancient UNIX" license deal from SCO, and more importantly, getting people interested in preserving and working with Original UNIX, and at that time the entire world was basically in a conspiracy of anathema against original Bell/Berkeley UNIX, everyone just wanted it to stay buried in its grave and not come up. Getting a copy of the 4.3BSD tape set seemed next to impossible. www.berkeley.edu was shockingly silent about the fact that Berkeley UNIX aka BSD, UC Berkeley's greatest accomplishment in all of its history, ever existed, much less saying how to order a tape. Finally I found a phone number and a couple of E-mail addresses for some office at UCB that was apparently kept for sending out tapes after CSRG itself was gutted. The office was basically a voice mailbox and a couple of E-mail addresses, with the two people who were actually supposed to get those E-mail and voice messages being away somewhere in San Francisco and taking a few weeks to answer inquiries. Finally they got back to me and told me to send a check for $2400 for 4.4BSD and $1000 for 4.3BSD. Ouch! And of course some murky business about licenses. At that time, however, I attended Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) and had a semi-staff relationship with their computer science department. I realised that the university must have had a UNIX source license from back in The Days, and most probably had the actual 4.3BSD tapes at some point as well, especially given that the old-timers told me that they were indeed running 11/780s before. But again the conspiracy of anathema was working: everyone had completely forgotten about it, and no one on the entire campus even knew that the university had a UNIX source license (and old-timers confirmed that indeed there was one). When spring 1998 came around, PUPS was making its debut with the $100 license deal from SCO. I didn't care so much about license stuff, but it meant a resurgence of interest in Original UNIX and a community of people involved with it, something that was completely lacking only a few months prior. I wanted access to the PUPS archive, and I wanted to use the university's license rather than fork over $100 for a personal one. The only issue was *finding* that license. Then I got a bright idea: since the license agreement was between CWRU and AT&T, there must have been copies of it on both sides. If CWRU had chosen to forget about the license they once paid big money for, how about if I dig up a copy of the license agreement from AT&T side? So I asked SCO's Dion Johnson about it, and lo and behold, a few days later a copy of CWRU's original UNIX license agreement shows up in my box in the computer science department mail room! Warren Toomey got another copy and soon I got an overseas fax from him with passwords for his PUPS Archive! Whoo-hoo! But I still needed 4.3BSD. It wasn't in Warren's archive since they were still PDP-only at that time, and me holding a copy of my school's AT&T UNIX license agreement didn't help convince anyone I knew who might have had 4.3BSD tapes to share them with me. In late 1997 I got myself an office at CWRU, it was the CES department's computer junkyard room. I was quite happy, a room full of classic computers was the best office I could get. It was actually two rooms, 411 and 412. Only 411 was accessible from the hallway, the entrance to 412 was inside 411. Both rooms were filled with classic computer gear, but 411 was a little less full and actually had some room for a desk and was usable as an office. 412, on the other hand, was *completely* filled with classic computer gear (mostly Sun 3) and it was difficult for a person to make it through to the end of the room. At the very end of room 412 (the end opposite the entrance door from 411) there was something that looked like a plastic curtain or plastic window blinds. The architecture of that building was really intriguing, the kind one finds only on good old university campuses, and I couldn't really tell if there was supposed to be a window there or not. I just never gave it much thought, and it was too difficult to climb over all that Sun 3 gear in the way to see exactly what it was. On a shelf in room 411 there were some magtape reels, and I thought that if they ever had 4.3BSD tapes, they ought to be there. But I looked through all the tapes I could see and 4.3BSD wasn't there. Bummer. Then one day in summer 1998 I came to work in the morning, went up the stairs to my beloved Computer Engineering and Science department 4th floor, went to the end of the hallway to my office, and got in. I turned on the lights and per my usual habit, peeked all over the room to make sure all the fun classic computers were still there. And lo and behold, at the very end of room 412, where I previously saw those plastic curtains or window blinds or whatever, I now saw two racks full of magtapes! It turned out that the plastic "curtains" were actually vertically sliding doors (kinda like garage doors) of two huge magtape cabinets! Another staff member must have had a need to get some old magtape and didn't close the cabinet after he was done. With trembling hands, I raced there and started looking through all the tapes. And sure enough, in a few minutes I found all 3 tapes of the 4.3BSD 1600 BPI distribution. I spent pretty much the whole year prior to that moment searching the World high and low for 4.3BSD tapes when they were sitting the whole time in my own office! Now that's a "Duh!" moment. MS

16 years, 7 months

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Where to find memory ICs?

by trixter＠oldskool.org

Have a working Intel Above Board Plus 8 with 2MB RAM and would like to populate it to the full 8MB. It will take 120ns or faster 1mbit chips -- but where can one find that kind of thing nowadays? Are those still commercially available or am I going to have to scavenge them from somewhere else? Manual lists acceptable part numbers like: Fujitsu MB81C1000P-xx Hitachi HM511000P-xxS Mitsubishi M5M41000AP-xx Motorola M5M511000P-xx NEC UPD421000C-xx NMB AAA1M100-xx OKI M511000RS-xx Samsung KM41C1000P-xx TI TMS4C1024-xx Toshiba TC511000P-xx ...etc but google searches haven't been very fruitful (that is, the pages returned when I search for IC part numbers don't return vendors with plain pricing/availability info). I just want a few tubes of these to populate the board, I'm not looking for a box of 'em :-) Any pointers? -- 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/

17 years, 9 months

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Bernoulli/Syquest carts available

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

I've more of these than anyone will need and they're all brand new. 3 packs of Bernoulli 5.25 44meg disks KAO 5.25 88meg syquest disks. The label inside says they are formatted for Macs but includes software for wintel machines also. $1 each plus whatever for shipping and they're yours. Just say how many you want. -- I am not willing to give up my privacy for the false promise of 'security'

17 years, 10 months

2
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2.11BSD Patch 445; FPSIM fixed; 211bsd runs on systems without FPP

by W.F.J.Mueller＠gsi.de

A note to all 2.11bsd users: Some time ago I looked into running 2.11bsd on systems without floating point unit. The release notes state that this is untested and unsupported, and indeed it didn't work. Robin Birch some time ago fixed part of the issues, see patch 434, but still the kernel paniced when the very first program was started. I managed to localize and fix the problem in sys/pdp/mch_fpsim.s. Steven Schultz right away issued 2.11BSD patch #445. All patches up to and including 445 are provided by Steven under ftp://sg-1.ims.ideas.gd-ais.com/pub/2.11BSD A patch level 445 system will now boot on simh for example on a set cpu 11/70 nofpp 4m configuration and work just fine, albeit a little slower. It should thus also work on a real 11/70 without FPP. I heard of some 11/70 with non-working FPP's, so this maybe good news for the owners. With best regards, Walter Mueller -- Dr. Walter F.J. M?ller Mail: W.F.J.Mueller at gsi.de GSI, Abteilung KP3 Phone: +49-6159-71-2766 D-64291 Darmstadt FAX: +49-6159-71-3762 URL: http://www-linux.gsi.de/~mueller/

18 years, 3 months

6
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Mike Quinn Electronics -- one last chance

by brian＠quarterbyte.com

Hi Folks, As many of you know, the venerable Mike Quinn Electronics in San Leandro, CA (down by the Oakland Airport) closed last Saturday with virtually no advance notice. If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area, you know Mike Quinn is the one of the very last of the nitty gritty electronics salvage shops left, with an emphasis on gritty. I stopped by today, and mentioned to Maurice, the owner, that a lot of people would have liked to have had one last shot at a visit. So, he has extented an invitation to y'all to visit next week, Tuesday through Friday February 7-10, 2006, during normal business hours, for one last shopping spree. He is trying to find a buyer for the stock in the store. This is almost certainly the last chance to visit. If you can, it's worth doing whatever you have to do to make the pilgrimage. Buy some stuff to thank Maurice for keeping it going all this time. There are zillions of connectors and components, heaps of transformers and power supplies, scads of cables and keyboards and monitors and other PC junk, a jet fighter console or two, a couple of early 80's HP desktop computers (the ones with built-in BASIC, can't recall the model numbers), lots of relays, and much more, all arranged in an archaeologically interesting and un-seismically-safe way. If you need it, they have it, and they might even be able to find it. Mike Quinn Electronics 401 McCormick Street (at the corner of Adams and McCormick) San Leandro, CA 94577 Brian

18 years, 5 months

15
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Quadram Quadboard

by geoffr＠zipcon.net

Does anyone have docs for this beastie? it's an apple-II on a card that goes into an XT... or does anyone have any interest in it? it's been sitting on my shelf for ~ 12 years now...

18 years, 6 months

8
8
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Olivettie Programma 101

by wmaddox＠pacbell.net

There's what appears to be a very nice Olivetti Programma 101 up on eBay, with a little over a day to go and no bids. It's in the Netherlands. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8801280590&sspagename=AD… The Programma 101 was a very advanced programmable calculator, introduced in 1965. Discrete transistors, delay-line memory, magnetic card I/O. I've exchanged a little bit of email with the seller. He says its been in storage for a long time, and a couple of rubber belts inside have turned gooey, but looks to be complete and in otherwise good shape. If you want a little bit of discrete-transistor goodness, I doubt you can find it in any smaller package than this (Ok, so a 9100A/B has both discrete transistors *and* core memory, but the Programma 101 was earlier.) I don't have any relation to the seller, I just decided that I wasn't going to bid on this, so I'd make sure the list saw the listing -- this is a very desirable machine and I figure someone, maybe one of the UK folks, would go for it. --Bill

18 years, 7 months

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Re-finding more items as I open boxes

by DAW＠yalepress3.unipress.yale.edu

> ---------- > From: John R. Keys Jr. > Reply To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org > Sent: Friday, February 15, 2002 2:54 PM > To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org > Subject: Re-finding more items as I open boxes > > Found the following while unpacking in the warehouse: <<<<<clipped>>>>>> > Took some other goodies home to play with like the 20th Annv. MAC,... > --- 20th Anniversary Mac? You booger... I may have to grab it when you're not looking. ;-) --- David A Woyciesjes --- C & IS Support Specialist --- Yale University Press --- mailto:david.woyciesjes@yale.edu --- (203) 432-0953 --- ICQ # - 90581 Mac OS X 10.1.2 - Darwin Kernel Version 5.2: Fri Dec 7 21:39:35 PST 2001 Running since 01/22/2002 without a crash

18 years, 8 months

4
3
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Apple Disk ][ X-Ray

by grant＠stockly.com

This is my attempt at an "art" x-ray. This image includes the entire range of densities. If I were to penetrate the motor I would blow through the plastic. This is a high resolution x-ray. Zoom into the front label and see if you can read the embossed name plates... What COLOR is this actual drive? The answer is in there! ; ) http://www.stockly.com/images2/061231-Disk_II_Drive-120kv6ma15msDG35SFD.jpg This shot was taken with the drive elevated at an angle by foam so that you would get a 3d feeling and not a flat picture. Let me know if its cool. I may x-ray an entire computer next... : ) Grant

18 years, 10 months

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The Univac III (in trailer) is back

by ssj152＠charter.net

Well, the Univac III is back: UNIVAC III Computer (In Storage since 1975), eBay auction Item # 2733726990. This time the starting price is $7,500 and the buy-it-now is $11,000. The URL is: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2733726990&category=1247 OK, somebody, jump right on it! :-) (Not me, I'm into LITTLE computers like PDP-11's and VAXen, with an occasional side dish of 6502 or 8085) Stuart Johnson

19 years

5
4
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Is MSX on topic?

by cclist＠sydex.com

On 22 Jan 2007 at 16:49, Fred Cisin wrote: > The AT started in 1984. Some areas (both geographic, and social) > immediately went for it, and some put it off as long as they could, since > the IBM/MICROS~1 software didn't provide any real incentive to upgrade > other than high density drives and a little faster; > until Windoze 3.1 and OS/2. More than a little faster, at least to my recollection. Something like 3 times as fast. 16 bit disk I/O and a CPU with nearly 4 times the transistor count of the 8088. A lot of folks who bought the original 6 MHz PC AT discovered overclocking. While you could find 8 and 9 MHz 8088/8086 systems, neither came close to a 6 MHz AT in terms of performance. And if you were adventuresome and clocked that PC AT at 12 or (I've heard it was done) 20 MHz, the gains were breathtaking--and you had a convenient place to cook lunch. One thing that IBM did that really toasted me back then was messing up on the 8237 DMA controller hookup such that memory-to-memory DMA didn't work. It could have made the whole business of extended memory use a lot simpler. Cheers, Chuck

19 years, 1 month

7
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HP 21MX/F and OS choices (was Lookee what I just got!)

by steerex＠mindspring.com

With that work done, it may be practical to boot your HP over a serial port at a reasonable speed, but loading a large ABS file this way can take a very long time (as things are). I generally don't recommend the serial boot method due to its poor performance. Then again, I think its nothing to throw together a PIC and some I2C eeprom and build little paper tape reader and punch emulators, and I can burn copies of any loader rom you wish. I found that serial booting the system to be the easiest way to get started. I don't recall which one but, one of the loader ROMS will work with the "high speed serial" card and read data off a serial link. There's no handshaking or error correction but, with a short RS232 link, passing data is not a problem. The ABS data format does provide checksum error detection so data errors will be detected. On many occasions, I have loaded HPBASIC and other programs over a serial link with absolutely no problem. The advantage to the serial link is that the only hardware required is a RS232 serial cable. Admittedly, it is not as fast as a parallel link but, who cares ;-) I had to write a PERL script to format the data before passing it to the 1000 but, that was fairly trivial. SeeYa, SteveRob

19 years, 2 months

16
33
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eBay idiocy

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

I find it necessary to clear up some misconceptions and outright lies that have been posted here about me, and to respond to some of the attacks on my personal character. This will naturally be unnecessarily wordy, so if you don't have the stomach for it then just move on now. First of all, I'm sorry that so many people seem to have taken my message as a personal assault. In re-reading the message, it seems the primary reason some people got upset is because I expressed my speech freely, and I also expressed some rather unflattering truths. My tone was angry, yes, but my anger was directed at eBay primarily (because I hate them), and secondarily at the same old useless bitching about eBay that seems to never end here. I think it's pretty clear that I was looking for constructive feedback and/or criticism. Well, unfortunately I got mostly criticism, and little constructive feedback (I do appreciate the replies >from Jules and Curt). Since I did not single out any individual, I can only imagine that those that took personal offense may well have a guilty conscience(?) Since many people seemed to have missed the point, it is this: many people just like to bitch and gripe for the sake of bitching and griping, and because it's easier than actually going out and changing what you don't like. This is what Patrick and I did in building the Vintage Computer Marketplace. We did this primarily to create a nice alternative to eBay for the trading of vintage computers. It was designed and built specifically with the computer collector in mind. It was our hope that the site would be embraced and utilized by the community, eventually becoming a thriving trading site, and ideally becoming commercially viable to make the effort worthwhile. I am fully prepared to admit that the promotion of the site can be greatly improved, but there's only so many times I can mention it on the list (which I used to do regularly when I was actively subscribed) and there aren't many other ways to promote it. I did hear one good suggestion actually (from Curt in private e-mail), which is to promote it on mainstream sites like craigslist, etc. I like ideas like that. Now, on to the personal assaults (you know I can't let them pass without a rebuke). Tony Duell: > I was taught it was extremely bad Netiquette to ask for help (or > physical items) on a list (or newsgroup) that you did not also > contribute to, and in particular on a list that you didn't subscribe to. > > Somenbody helps you, you repay the community by helping somebody else. > Seems reasonable to me. Tony, before I unsubscribed, I had been continuously subscribed to the list (with the exception of a brief stint after the first VCF when I decided I needed a break) since the list began in 1997. I was one of the charter members. In the time I was subscribed, I contributed hundreds of thousands of words, most of which I (and I'm sure many others) would consider "useful". I helped countless people with questions, both on and off list (and continue to do so). If you can't recall the thousands of messages that I contributed here in your presence then please have your head checked. In short, I think I've earned the right to continue to both contribute and draw from a mailing list that I helped to build, regardless of your petty concepts of "netiquette". I don't feel it should be necessary to toot my own horn, but I can count the number of people to whom I've provided free hardware, software, manuals, etc., often covering shipping costs as well, in the dozens. I'm not going to bother going into the promotion I've given and attention I've attracted for the hobby (for better or worse), without which we might've still just been a small throng of nerds playing with obsolete computers. I've been out on the front pushing this hobby forward for ten years now, something one can't do from the comfort of their parents' basement. You might also recall the many times I privately responded to your regular public laments about not being able to find a job by trying to encourage you to move out to the US (this was during the dot.com boom) where your considerable talents would've been in high demand (you always found some excuse to stay within your comfortable little bubble). > For that reason, I ignore any messages from Sellam now. Well, as long as we're being petty, I tuned out your incessant (and often off-topic) jabbering long before I unsubscribed. Richard: > Wow. Bitterness. No, bitterness would've been me taking down the VCM right after I posted my rant. I'm not bitter at all. Quite the contrary, I'm proud that I actually put in the effort and succeeded in creating venues and tools to let collectors express their appreciation of vintage computers and facilitate their interest in the hobby. I would like to see more people take advantage of those tools, and not just keep re-hashing the same old tired gripes about eBay. Look, eBay is always going to act in the interest of their sellers and that's it. Like I said, they don't give a shit about the buyers as long as they are buying, because their money goes to the sellers, and a cut of that goes to eBay. That's their business model. It's a great business model. I wish I could have 1% of 1% of eBay's business. Whatever, my point, again, is that the complainers are never going to get the satisfaction out of eBay that they desire, because the complainers are mostly buyers, and buyers on eBay are just so many cattle grazing at the trough. I wasn't content with just venting. I had a vision and I implemented it. Patrick and I built and deployed a free alternative to eBay that caters specifically to this community; buyer and seller; hobbyists. But the last step in that project is one that has to be taken by the community: we can't also be expected to fill the Marketplace with stuff too. If enough people turned their bitching into action and resolved to use the VCM on at least, let's say, a quarter of their transactions rather than eBay then the site might eventually grow to the point where critical mass would be reached. The last step has to be taken by the community. If the community is so truly fed up with eBay, why aren't they using the VCM? Oh, because they're still using eBay. I fully understand that eBay has the most eyeballs and therefore the most stuff, and also gets you the most money for your stuff. So if it's more important for you to get top dollar for your stuff then great, eBay is a natural choice. But it's also possible to do very well on the VCM, with a trading partner that you know appreciates this stuff as much as you do and will treat it with the proper care and reverence when packing and shipping it. That $1,200 IMSAI 8080 was a good deal for the buyer (relative to what one might expect to pay on eBay) and it was still a pretty good deal for the seller (plus he didn't have to pay listing fees or commissions; that was good for around 40 bucks). But again, as critical mass is finally reached, with lots of eyeballs at the VCM (thanks to the efforts of the community), the prices at the VCM would start to rise as competition increases. Sellers would be getting good money, buyers would be getting good selection. It's an obvious win-win for the community, something that the community could have taken credit for helping to create. But the community ignored it and just continued to suffer eBay. Lamentably. Finally, the reason eBay nets you top dollar is because of the tricks eBay pulls, like the very one that started this whole brouhaha rolling. eBay's system works in favor of the seller, and in doing so it encourages artificial price inflation. To deny this is folly: it is in eBay's interest to push prices up because that means more commissions for them. I guarantee you that if eBay didn't become the premier place for buying and selling vintage computers (or vintage anything) we wouldn't be talking about $2,000 Altairs and IMSAI's (I still insist those values are inflated, though not as much as they used to be). That's an argument I don't want to get into yet again. I refer you to the CC archives where many (IMHO well-laid) arguments of mine can be found. So if eBay is supplanted as the premier trading place for vintage computers by a venue that has a much more equitable trading mechanism between buyer and seller (i.e. the VCM) prices might naturally deflate. Is this undesirable? Or perhaps this is desirable? Mike Stein: > A rather naive perspective, I think. Aside from whatever personal > interest he may have in classic computers, he's also in it for the money > and apparently wants to generate enough traffic for VCM to generate > revenue and potentially sell it for some ridiculous (IPO) amount. and Teo Zenios: > Sellam seems to post on the list when he is looking for something to > resell and make some money, I seem to recall he got pissed when I > referred to him as a dealer. If Sellam expects the people here to do all > his advertising and build up users for him so HE can someday cash out he > is dumber then I thought. This is patently ridiculous. First, I'll address your ignorance. I have a 4,500 square foot warehouse filled with around 2,000 computers going back to the 1950s, thousands of peripherals of all kinds, thousands of software packages, thousands of books, tens of thousands of magazines, plus all manner of computer related ephemera and things. This warehouse currently costs me $3,646.20 a month to lease. As you might imagine, I also have other costs, such as insurance, utilities, wages, etc. In short, it costs me a lot of money to store all this stuff. Now, if I was in this for the money, why the hell would I be stupid enough to incur thousands of dollars of expenses every month to store all this stuff for the past 10+ years of my life? Why did I pour all my money into acquiring old computers rather than landscaping my backyard, which to this day I'm embarrased to admit is still a field of weeds? If I was someone only in it for the money, my warehouse would be a rented storage shed and I would've been doing a brisk trade out of it. And if I were so inclined, I'd be driving a Lamborghini by now. But I don't. And do you want to know why? I will tell you. It is the same reason I started the Vintage Computer Festival 10 years ago and have been doing it year after year ever since, in fact growing it to multiple events around the world, with a wash (in terms of cash) to show for it (and that's only if you count expenses and don't take my time into account). It is the same reason I used to charter a bus at my expense at the VCF so that people could take a tour of the nascent Computer Museum History Center (now the Computer History Museum) while they were in town for the VCF and raise its exposure. It's the same reason I actively contributed to this list for nearly nine years, never deleting a single message without first reading it. I do this because I have a passion for vintage computing and a love of computer history. It is what I have done since I was a teenager. It is my life's work. This is why I do it. So hopefully you'll understand why I think your comments are incredibly insulting and demeaning, bordering on libelous, and why I now have nothing but contempt for both of you for ascribing such a shallow motivation to my life's work, especially Teo, who is reading nothing new here. You've questioned my integrity before and I explained to you quite adequately that I am not someone who merely buys low and sells high. If you do this again then you and I will tangle, but in a serious fashion. As for how I am able to afford to keep all this material preserved while earning a living, it's no secret. I've explained it before, and every e-mail message I send out has a link to my business' website which explains my work. Regarding those periodic requests I post to the list? Those are what I call bounties. They are opportunities for hobbyists to make a little money in their hobby, sometimes a lot of money. Among other things, I do consulting for law firms in the field of patent litigation. I perform research to uncover prior art, and then I go out and try to acquire that prior art for my client (the law firm). Am I doing well by it? You bet. And as the many people who've successfully responded to one of my bounties can attest, it can be quite lucrative for them as well. If I was just using the list for my sole personal gain then yeah, I can see how that would be annoying. However, and here I will unashamedly toot my own horn, I'm actually spreading the wealth. Now tell me, what's wrong with that? Now, as for selling computers for profit, I do this very, very rarely. Most of what I provide to my law clients are items on temporary loan from my (or someone else's) collection. In the rare event when I do sell, I only consider profit motives when selling to businesses because I won't feel guilty about adding a considerable mark up. With individuals (i.e. fellow collectors) my primary motivation is doing a fair trade. In many cases I just give stuff away to other collectors for the prospect of a future favor returned (it's a concept I learned from a good friend called "enlightened self-interest"). By the way, the most exotic thing I ever sold from my own collection, an IMSAI 8080 for $3,500 on eBay, was to fund VCF 3.0. The next most exotic thing was an Apple //e. But enough of the self-adulation. I'll be honest and admit that I am exploiting my hobby, which I've managed to make into my work, for money, and as much as I can. It's the only way I can afford to maintain and grow this wonderful archive that I've built. So I do it shamelessly. Al Kossow: > I sent email to Jay asking that Sellam be banned from posting. Wow, Al. If that's how you treat your friends, I'd hate to know what you do to your enemies. Thanks, I'll remember this. Other people posted nasty comments about me, but I'm not responding to you because I consider you irrelevant. I should add that this does not apply to Jay, with whom I am having an off-list conversation. I would like to sincerely thank those that came to my defense. I count all of them as friends. Finally, to respond to Jay's follow-up to my initial posting, nowhere did I insult either Jay or the list, but rather I paraphrased what Patrick Rigney related to me when he decided to leave the list and the computer collecting community altogether. Go back and read my original posting. This thread is representative of the aspects of this community on which Patrick's disgust was rightly founded. Lastly, I am not going to apologize for any particular language that I choose to use. I've addressed this at length before and don't find a need to re-visit the argument, suffice it to say that I believe people who find any kind of words "dirty" because of their sexual connotations suffer from arrested development and need to mature. I'm stating my opinion. If you can't handle it that's your problem. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

19 years, 2 months

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HP 2117f cables needed

by g-wright＠att.net

Hi, All of this HP 1000 talk got me going on mine. I have most of the drives, paper tape punch and tape drives and a real nice 2117F. But thats where it stops. No Cables Does anyone have a stash of these. I have no cables and cant seem to find anyone that does. It seems that most of these are offered with out the cables. I would guess they all go to bulhead connectors and are just easier to slip off the connector on the cards. Need these at minimum - Console 12966a - HPIB disk 12821a - HPIB Mag tape 13183 Also Trying to figure out 2 cards HP 12250 60001 and a FDS n612 4256-001 Thanks, Jerry Jerry Wright JLC inc g-wright at att.net

19 years, 3 months

9
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Arty computers (was: Re: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS)

by mtapley＠swri.edu

At 19:45 -0600 1/30/07, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: >I've often thought that you can see the beauty of machinery (including >computers) on many levels. Most classic computers are not particularly >beautiful to look at, but there can be beauty in how they're assembled (I >personally think the HP9816 is an interesting construction), there can be >beauty in the elkectronic design, or the firmware, or... You just have to >look for it. Agreed, which leads me to NeXT cube as my nomination. Though the mainboard design is not a particular standout, chassis design, appearance, and software all appeal strongly to my aesthetics. I quail at the thought of suggesting a thread on "performance arty" computers... (...or "artless" computers. TRS-80 model 1?) -- Mark Tapley, Dwarf Engineer (I haven't cleared my neighborhood) 210-379-4635 Dwarf Phone, 210-522-6025 Office Phone

19 years, 3 months

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PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS

by bqt＠softjar.se

"William Donzelli" <wdonzelli at gmail.com> wrote: >> What exactly is it about that machine that makes you say that? >> How does it differ from any other (similarly well-preserved) >> PDP-11/70? >> >> (FWIW: I don't know either the seller or Jim Willing; I'm just curious). > > > Jim Willing was one of the pioneers in this computer collecting hobby > (I apply pioneers to those of us that were doing this seriously over > ten years ago - before this list, and before there even was a hobby). Cool! I'm a pioneer, having collected these things for close to 25 years. Well, I'm not sure I would call it collecting in the normal sense of the word. I want to keep these machines running, useable, and in use. Guess that's why Magica exists (even though she's not powered on right now), along with the other machines at the same site. Johnny

19 years, 3 months

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PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS

by wdonzelli＠gmail.com

OK, go to Ebay and look at item #29007747962. A nice machine, centainly. I can not help but think this machine was once Jim Willing's - or he has started selling things off. Does anyone know anything about the seller guardianrob453? If he is in touch with Jim Willing, I centainly need to talk to him. -- Will

19 years, 3 months

6
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Looking for OS/278 to boot up a DECmate I

by djg＠pdp8.net

>the "easiest" way to get OS/278 to a DECmate I >is by copying a boot floppy and putting it in the mail. Can anyone on >the list assist me with this? > I can make them and send them. I have most of the bits for a DECmate I but not enough to be functional. I did make these images for people but never heard back if they worked ok. http://www.pdp8.net/images/images/os8/DECmate_I.shtml They are also RX02 format which is what their machines seemed to be set up for. Is yours set for RX02? I can put these on floppies or if you know of a known good RX01/RX02 image for a DECmate I can use it. >One of my goals, BTW, is to snarfle off images of my PDP-8 >RX01 and RX02 disks for preservation and sharing. I have a few boxes >of disks from the 1978-1985 timeframe, up to the time I stopped using >a PDP-8 on a daily/weekly basis. > If your doing that the disks will be free. If you don't have a program to dump I have one at ftp://ftp.pdp8.net/software/dumprest/ which can dump RX01 and RX02 over the serial port. The code will need to be modified to use the serial port on the DECmate. Kermit source should show that. Mine makes image useable by SIMH which is the same format they are on my website. David Gesswein http://www.pdp8.net/ -- Run an old computer with blinkenlights Have any PDP-8 stuff you're willing to part with?

19 years, 3 months

2
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Are there M4 9914 9-track tape driver users on the list?

by glen.slick＠gmail.com

I acquired a couple of M4 9914 9-track tapes drives a while ago and finally got around to trying to do something useful with them. Never having used one before the first thing I did was just see if it would mount a tape ok. The first brand new tape I tried was sucked into the take-up reel ok and wound a few turns, then sucked all of the way back out, then the drive tried again before giving up with a N T U (No Take Up) error. I then tried a second brand new tape from a different vendor and got the same results. Then I went back into the garage and hefted (it's a workout) the second 9914 drive into my work area and tried both tapes on the second drive with the same result. Then I tried manually threading a tape onto the take-up reel while the drive was powered off and making sure that winding the take-up reel caused the supply reel to turn, then powered on the drive and got the same N T U error again. I looked in the manual and it said something about the N T U error occurring due to a lack of tach pulses. Then I looked at the tape path for what might be the tach sensor and guessed it was probably a metal roller near the take-up reel. I used a marker to put a dot on the top of the reel and noticed that it wasn't rotating when the tape was moving past it. I tried rotating this roller by hand and I could feel detents while rotating it and I assume it is attached to some type of rotary encoder. Now to the point posting this here, my questions are does anyone know if this roller/encoder needs any lubrication? If so, how? It felt somewhat stiff when I first tried rotating it and got a little easier to rotate the more I kept at it. And secondly, this roller did have a thin rubber coating which had turned to goo. I cleaned the goo off of the roller. If anyone else has seen this on a 9914 drive (I assume so, it was goo on both of mine) did they do anything about it? Is there a good way to re-rubber this roller? After cleaning the goo off of the tach roller and getting it to rotate a little more freely I did see it rotate when the tape was moving past it (wasn't sure if it would without the rubber) and now the 9914 will mount a tape most of the time. -Glen

19 years, 3 months

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Foonly

by phil＠ultimate.com

Brad Parker <brad at heeltoe.com> wrote: > ... has anyone written an emulator for a VS60? > would it be hard? Doug Gwyn took my crappy VT11 simulation and extended it to within episilon of passing all the VS60 diagnostics. For a start see: http://www.ultimate.com/phil/xy/ Which shows screen shots of PDP-1 "munching squares" and "spacewar" on a simulated "Type 30" display, one of PDP-11 Lunar Lander... Sources are available thru my CVS server, tho I can't be sure I have checked in Doug's very latest (the vt11.c file in CVS is dated October 2005). We never managed to get it integrated into SIMH distributions, and I don't know off hand the last version of SIMH it did build with. The "display.tar.gz" on the web page is from October 2003(!), and I see there is a source kit named at http://www.ultimate.com/phil/xy/kit2.zip from February 2004. I did a rather "basic" (or "crude" to be less generous) graphics adaptation layer for X11 (polled) and Win32 (starts a seperate thread for message handling). John Dundas contributed an implementation of it for "Carbon" under OSX. There have been several other attempts to add graphics of various sorts to SIMH, including VAXstation style raster display support. John (Dundas) went on to build do PDP-11 front pannel blinklights und switches for SIMH, looks like it's available at: http://dundas-mac.caltech.edu/~dundas/retro/simh/index.html Which says it includes Doug's and my work (in V0.9 or later). But, back to the original topic, I think SUDS needs a PDP-10 (TOPS-20?) system behind it to do the real work. I used to pass the PDP-10 hardware design lab on the way to the Cafeteria at MR-1 (DEC Marlboro(ugh) building one, before the great three letterization that made it into MRO-1). I loved the "rose" program I saw sometimes on the displays, but I don't remember what it looked like anymore... Anyone have the code, or remember what it did? phil

19 years, 3 months

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VS60's

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> Umm, and how rare are VS60s these days? Essentially unobtainium. They were expensive and rare 25 years ago. You'd have better luck finding a VT11 or GT40. At least I KNOW people who have those. I've never known anyone in the 30+ years of dealing with DEC stuff who had a VS60. I've been chasing a copy of SUDS for a while. It existed at Stanford, MIT, and DEC. XKL still uses it. The DEC version will probably be somewhere on the DEC LCG tapes. There are bits of it on the ITS tapes that have been released. I'm sure it's on the ones that haven't.

19 years, 3 months

3
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HP tape drive PCBs

by dm561＠torfree.net

Cleaning out more junk; found some HP boards, probably >from a tape drive; anybody want 'em for parts? Condition unknown, one marked defective: 07970-62140 series 1144 07970-60020 series 1047 07970-60040 C-1024-42 07970-61021 B-1037-42 mike

19 years, 3 months

3
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Foonly

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> Where did the name "Foonly" come from? google "FOO NLI"

19 years, 3 months

8
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MCA RAID card, Vaxstation, Sun SCSI boxes: free to a good London home

by david＠cantrell.org.uk

I'm having a clear-out of a load of old stuff that I'm no longer using (or in some cases acquired and never used). Of interest to this list: * MCA SCSI RAID card, Mylex DAC960M, known working about four years ago. no driver disks, no box, no anti-static bag, no cables, no nothing. * VAXstation 3100, not powered on since I acquired it. external SCSI cable. * miscellaneous Sun external SCSI boxes which might even have working disks in 'em. All free to good homes. New owner to collect in south London, or I can deliver the MCA card in central London. I won't ship anything. If you want any of it, please contact me by private email. Anything not gone by the end of the month will be thrown away. And somewhat off-topic, if anyone knows where I can get a DVI-to-SCART converter so I can attach a Mac Mini to a TV, do please let me know. -- David Cantrell | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david fdisk format reinstall, doo-dah, doo-dah; fdisk format reinstall, it's the Windows way

19 years, 3 months

7
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PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS

by bqt＠softjar.se

ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: >>> "William Donzelli" <wdonzelli at gmail.com> wrote: >>> > Jim Willing was one of the pioneers in this computer collecting hobby >>> > (I apply pioneers to those of us that were doing this seriously over >>> > ten years ago - before this list, and before there even was a hobby). >>> >>> Cool! I'm a pioneer, having collected these things for close to 25 years. > > Even longer than me. I started in May 1986 (yes, it'll soon be 21 years > of computer collecting here ;-)) Started playing with a PDP-11/40 in 1982 or 1983 in a computer club at that time. We also had some other very odd hardware that we tried to get working and had fun with. No software, but we had a few peripherials, so we had to write our own monitor just using the front panel. And of course we had all the drawings for the machine. And we were always trying to get someone to donate more stuff to us. And of course, my school at the time used a PDP-11/70, and at nights I was hanging out at the nearby university, where they had a whole bunch of DEC-10 machines on which I could get guest accounts. By 1986 I got my first two PDP-8 systems home. Almost wish I was back in those days. So much fun. And some really odd hardware was still around and possible to get your hands on... I wonder what happened to the VT05 terminals that we managed to get, and that I hacked to get rid of the margin bell... :-) >>> Well, I'm not sure I would call it collecting in the normal sense of the >>> word. I want to keep these machines running, useable, and in use. > > Just like me again. I keep on saying at HPCC that I am not an HP > calculator collector. Yes, I have old HP calculators (handhelds and > desktops), but I use them. I keep them operational, I do program them, I > do use them for calculators. And I don't try to obtain every cosmetic > version (that is, with differnt position of the serial number label, > etc), but I am interested in at least seeing versions with substantially > different internals (like the 2 very different logic boards that were used in the HP80 financial calculator). Still have my HP-41 around, and it's still my all time favourite. I must admit I have collcted some odd hardware for it over the years that I don't really use much though... But it's a rather hacked CX with modules built into it, and some nice stuff around. :-) > No, I am not intersted in having machines on the shelf in original > condition. I want to be able to sue them, investigate them, and so on. We think alike. :-) Johnny

19 years, 3 months

3
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Looking for Intel SDK-51/MCS-51 System Design Kit User's Guide / Assembly Manual / Monitor Listing

by glen.slick＠gmail.com

Does anyone have hard copies or scans of these Intel SDK-51/MCS-51 manuals? 121588-002 SDK-51/MCS-51 System Design Kit User's Guide 121589-002 SDK-51 MCS-51 System Design Kit Assembly Manual 121590-003 SDK-51 Monitor Listing Manual

19 years, 3 months

2
1
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Book publishers

by rcini＠optonline.net

All: Does anyone know what happened to Hayden Books? I have a robot book that described a robot built with a KIM-1 and I want to scan it and post it to 6502.org. I did some Googling and I can't find any current references for them. Any idea if the imprint was acquired or did they just pass quietly. Thanks. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: <http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/> http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/

19 years, 3 months

11
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XKL and SUDS

by aek＠bitsavers.org

>> Anyone know any of the XKL folks? >> >> -brad >> >That might make a lot of sense, I believe that the main reason for doing the >XKL-1 was so that they could continue to use their existing CAD tools. If >this is the case they likely have it working with the X11 software running >on the XKL-1. Which brings up another problem, I don't believe that X11 >will run on any of the emulators, and I'm not aware of any copies of it in >the wild. > >Here is a question, is any of this on the Panda distribution from Mark >Crispin? I don't believe so, but then I've also not had time to boot it. > >BTW, questions of this level would be better answered on alt.sys.pdp10 XKL is a VERY close-lipped operation. You can try contacting Len Bosack. I doubt anyone lower than that would be willing to commit to releasing it. Also, the machine was the TOAD-1.

19 years, 3 months

1
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Foonly

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> And, if I did have one, has anyone written an emulator for a VS60? > would it be hard? It's essentially a VT11 on steroids. Hardware rotation/scaling/clipping, extended display list structure. http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/graphics/EK-VT48-TM-001_VT48TechRef.pdf VS60 is a VT48 display processor with a display built by Sanders Associates.

19 years, 3 months

1
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xa-2.3.2, dxa-0.1.2 released

by spectre＠floodgap.com

xa-2.3.2, the current version of the xa65 assembler package has been released along with dxa-0.1.2, the current version of its companion disassembler. xa is a 6502/R65C02/65816 crossassembler in portable C featuring a built-in preprocessor, rich instruction and pseudo-op expression syntax, and built-in o65 relocatable object support. 2.3.2 adds: - character set translation for quoted strings (such as ASCII->PETSCII) - proper recursive macro evaluation - groks cpp(1) line tags automatically - multiple bug fixes - updated documentation See the changelog for a complete listing. dxa-0.1.2 is a portable crossassembler based on Marko Makela's d65 package featuring intelligent disassembly and multiple output options, including support for undocumented instructions. 65816 instruction support is pending. 0.1.2 corrects an occasional bug with relative addressing and an output bug with back-to-back label formatting. dxa should still be considered alpha. Suggestions and bug reports always welcome. Both programs are released under the GNU Public License. http://www.floodgap.com/retrotech/xa/ -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Why do we scoff at fortune tellers, yet listen to economists? --------------

19 years, 3 months

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OT: to Marvin only (was RE: speed of vintagecomputermarketplace)

by mtapley＠swri.edu

At 12:01 -0600 1/31/07, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: >First, the obvious - the speed that something sells is a function of >both price >and demand AND visibility ... :-) and other factors... Marvin, I may have dropped into your SPAM-filtering apparatus at some point, or vice versa. Have you gotten more than one email from me in January? I'm hoping there were four. If so, have you sent me more than one? Others, my apologies for the intrusion. -- Mark Tapley, Dwarf Engineer (I haven't cleared my neighborhood) 210-379-4635 Dwarf Phone, 210-522-6025 Office Phone

19 years, 3 months

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RCA 1802CE Chips

by alhartman＠yahoo.com

All.. My partner and I came across a quantity of New, Old Stock RCA 1802CE Chips. I know some people on the list have spoken about them as they were used in a few classic computers like the ELF. If anyone is interested in them, please contact me off list. I'd prefer to get them into the hands of Classic Computer Enthusiasts before putting them on eBay. Thanks! Al Hartman Phila, PA

19 years, 3 months

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Fwd: Re: Selling Intel 8096/196 Emulators,

by a_j_giusti＠yahoo.com

I sent this to your other email address, and haven't heard back from you. Are you still interested in selling the ICE? Please let me know your asking price. Regards, Andrew Giusti ____________________________________________________________________________________ 8:00? 8:25? 8:40? Find a flick in no time with the Yahoo! Search movie showtime shortcut. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/shortcuts/#news

19 years, 3 months

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speed of vintagecomputermarketplace

by marvin＠rain.org

First, the obvious - the speed that something sells is a function of both price and demand AND visibility ... just *had* to get that out of the way :). But what you are asking is not an easy question to answer since there are so many different variables. Visibility I fully agree that VCM makes a really good venue, and Sellam's rant seems to be having the (unintended) effect of more people listing and viewing the site. One of the reasons I *really* would like to see a link to VCM from ClassicCmp.org is that I can easily publicize the ClassicCmp listserver on ebay emails, the "About Me" page (although it hasn't been added yet) without worrying about the two faced retaliation by Ebay. Some of you may recall the Ebay notices to put out the information to all the newsgroups, etc. about Ebay and that helped a LOT to publicize the site; word of mouth about a good thing was *very* prevalent. This is also what needs to be done to help publicize the VCM site. How Long I've had things on VCM for maybe a year or more that 1) haven't sold, 2) finally sold, and 3) sold quickly on Ebay. Things like books are relatively easy to research pricing. There are other research tools to help determine pricing on relatively common stuff, but things that are less common are basically an educated guess and are set by how fast you want something to move. It is also helped/hindered by how well/poorly the listing copy is written. > From: David Griffith <dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu> > > I'm attracted to the idea of listing as much of this as I can at the > vintage computer marketplace because 1) the people who buy stuff there > presumably know what they're buying and 2) I can easily list stuff and let > it be for sale until it's sold. Does anyone here have a ballpark idea of > how long stuff would sit there until it gets sold?

19 years, 3 months

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Null job light patterns?

by bqt＠softjar.se

"J. Peterson" <pdp11 at saccade.com> wrote: >>> I believe some of the -11 operating systems would do "interesting" things >>>with the console lights while they were idle. Could somebody describe the >>>patterns used? > > > I seem to recall RSX had a pattern something like > > 1000000000000001 > 1100000000000011 > 1110000000000111 > 1111000000001111 > 0111100000011110 > 0011110000111100 > 0001111001111000 > 0000111111110000 > ... > with the groups of four "on" lights moving through each other. Correct. > RSTS (c. > 1980) simply rotated half a dozen or so "on" lights. No no no. RSTS/E had a really cool pattern. They had two "snakes" running around across the data and address lights. That was a real trick. Appearantly they pulled that off by having the idle loop actually run in supervisor mode, which wasn't used by RSTS/E at the time, so they could control the address that way. Rumour have it that they had to drop that piece at RSTS/E V9 or if it was V10 when they finally started using supervisor mode more seriously in RSTS/E, but I haven't seen the RSTS/E idle loop since V8 so I couldn't really say. > Others have described > RT11's pattern. I never saw a light pattern on an '11 running Unix - > perhaps they were never idle? Was the concept of the idle-loop lightshow > unique to the PDP-11, or did other systems with data lights implement them? I can't remember any idle pattern when running 2.11BSD on an 11/70 anyway. The machine was idle sometimes, so maybe they just didn't implement anything fun. But I'm not entirely sure my memory is on par here. They might have had a simple rotating pattern on the panel. It's been a few years since I last fired up Unix on a PDP-11. Other machines have probably also done idle patterns, but in the PDP-11 rumour have it that the different OS groups were competing with each other on who could do the coolest idle pattern. I believe most agreed that RSTS/E won. Johnny

19 years, 3 months

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Pertec interface

by kelly＠catcorner.org

What options are there for using a pertec 9-track drive in the PC dos/linux environment? I have a couple available, but no interface cards to speak of. Thanks, Kelly

19 years, 3 months

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test-drb January 2007