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

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

As some of you may know, I have Rlee Peters' collection of stuff, which seems to be largely composed of documentation. So far, I've been unloading it on Ebay. The recent discussions about Ebay versus the vintage computer marketplace got me thinking. 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? As I picture in my mind's eye the two storage units of stuff, I think I might have been a little too eager to get it. Oh well. At least I have some vintage items that I wouldn't otherwise have. I'm keeping about four cubic feet of stuff. The rest I need to find a home for. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

19 years, 3 months

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Null job light patterns?

by bob＠jfcl.com

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? Thanks, Bob Armstrong

19 years, 3 months

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PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

Chuck Guzis wrote: On 30 Jan 2007 at 13:59, Zane H. Healy wrote: > Remember, a nice SGI system, isn't simply a computer, it's a work of art. > For the most part the only computers I'd consider to be a work of art are > some Apple and SGI systems. A few Cray systems come to mind as being very artsy. While not in the same league as Apple, I'd call a machine with the innards immersed in fluorinert pretty unusual in apperance. Cheers, Chuck -------------------------------- Agreed - the Crays were definately art. I really like the Cray 1 with the seats above the power busses, and the beautiful logic column. And I also agree on the Apples, especially the models with the clear plastic - lovely machines. Billy

19 years, 3 months

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Wanted : Pinouts of PT1482B and PR1472B ICs

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

Does anyone have pinouts of the following 2 ICs, both of which, I think, were made by Western Digital, and are in 40 pin DIL packages : PT1482B (Async/Sync serial transmitter) PR1472B (Async/Sync serial receiver) Thanks in advance for any help. -tony

19 years, 3 months

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craigslist roundup

by legalize＠xmission.com

Seattle: Free Wyse terminal: <http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/sys/269328883.html> Falco 500e Amber terminal ($75) <http://seattle.craigslist.org/est/sys/269984666.html> -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

19 years, 3 months

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Tandy collectors? 52MB 3.5 "Smart Drive"

by kelly＠catcorner.org

Tried a private reply. Getting a wierd fail message. Can't troubleshoot the server right now. -----Original Message----- From: Kelly Leavitt Sent: Tue 1/30/2007 1:40 PM To: Kelly Leavitt; Chuck Guzis Cc: Subject: RE: Tandy collectors? 52MB 3.5 "Smart Drive" I got a failed message initially... -----Original Message----- From: Kelly Leavitt Sent: Tue 1/30/2007 1:38 PM To: Chuck Guzis Cc: Subject: Tandy collectors? 52MB 3.5 "Smart Drive" > Does anyone want this thing? For shipping and a couple of bucks for > packaging, it's yours. I would be interested if no one else has jumped at it. At your convenience. Shipping would be to NJ... Kelly

19 years, 3 months

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Brochures for classic/antique systems

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> Is there a location on the 'net that is archiving marketing brochures > for antique/classic machines? http://www.computerhistory.org/brochures/index.php

19 years, 3 months

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Tandy collectors? 52MB 3.5 "Smart Drive"

by cclist＠sydex.com

Just discovered a circa-1990 Tandy 52MB (Quantum) 3.5" IDE hard drive and installation manual in my junkpile. The manual refers only to "type A" and "type B" chassis types, not to specific models. Does anyone want this thing? For shipping and a couple of bucks for packaging, it's yours. Cheers, Chuck

19 years, 3 months

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Pertec interface

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> wtf does he need *ANOTHER* one of > those for? 1052's are also used as the tape transport for the tape wizl. Just got the first 1052 back fitted with a 7/9 track inductive head last week.

19 years, 3 months

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Pertec interface

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> This is a Qualstar-developped board, > so there might be some mounting problems etc. Would it be relevant to put > the data/documentation on bitsavers? If I had any data on the bridge boards, I would. I had posted a request for data on the NCR bridge, but didn't hear anything back. There is a setup description for the Qualstar designed one in the back of the 1054 manual. Descriptions of the SCSI command set supported on the 1054 would be handy as well.

19 years, 3 months

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Heathkit 4801 Programmer

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

Has anyone on the list scanned in manuals the Heathkit 4801 EROM Programmer? I just picked one up and need help on the personality plug (it didn't have any.) Would also like to get some documentation on it. Billy

19 years, 3 months

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test - please ignore

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

test, please ignore

19 years, 3 months

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Brochures for classic/antique systems

by iamvirtual＠gmail.com

Is there a location on the 'net that is archiving marketing brochures for antique/classic machines? For example, I have brochures for Apple 2e, Mac and many other personal computers from the early 1980's. I am working my way through scanning the brochures and I would like to make them available to others. Any suggestions? Thanks. --barry

19 years, 3 months

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Pertec interface

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> I've observed that Pertec-to-SCSI adapters are even harder to find > than PC interface cards. The PC cards come up about every 2-3 months > on eBay, but mostly without drivers. I think I've seen exactly one > SCSI-Pertec protocol converter in the last year--and the minimum bid > was about $200. Here's a little secret, since I probably have enough of them now. Every Qualstar 1054 has a pertec-scsi bridge board in it. Early ones used NCR, later ones have their own design. The last couple of 1054's I've picked up on eBay were MUCH less than $200.

19 years, 3 months

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Brochures for classic/antique systems

by Lee.Courtney＠windriver.com

> Is there a location on the 'net that is archiving marketing > brochures for antique/classic machines? http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/readingRoom/ Lee Courtney > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of B M > Sent: Monday, January 29, 2007 7:31 PM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Brochures for classic/antique systems > > Is there a location on the 'net that is archiving marketing > brochures for antique/classic machines? > > For example, I have brochures for Apple 2e, Mac and many > other personal computers from the early 1980's. I am working > my way through scanning the brochures and I would like to > make them available to others. > > Any suggestions? > > Thanks. > > --barry >

19 years, 3 months

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Brochure web site.

by Mark.Brennan＠ie.fujitsu.com

Hi Barry, I to have been scanning and collecting old brochures on various computers and systems I have posted them on the following web site <http://www.1000bit.com/> www.1000bit.com If you would like to help add to the number of brochures etc I will give you Tiziano email details. Regard markb Mark Brennan System Services Engineer. FUJITSU Unit 100,Airside Business Park,Swords,Co. Dublin Tel:`+ 353 (0) 1 8136000 Mob: + 353 (0) 87 2222326 Fax: + 353 (0) 1 8136100 Email: mark.brennan at ie.fujitsu.com Web:http://ie.fujitsu.com Fujitsu Services Limited, Registered in England no 96056, Registered Office 22 Baker Street, London, W1U 3BW This e-mail is only for the use of its intended recipient. Its contents are subject to a duty of confidence and may be privileged. Fujitsu Services does not guarantee that this e-mail has not been intercepted and amended or that it is virus-free -----Original Message----- From: B M [mailto:iamvirtual at gmail.com] Sent: 30 January 2007 03:31 To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Brochures for classic/antique systems Is there a location on the 'net that is archiving marketing brochures for antique/classic machines? For example, I have brochures for Apple 2e, Mac and many other personal computers from the early 1980's. I am working my way through scanning the brochures and I would like to make them available to others. Any suggestions? Thanks. --barry

19 years, 3 months

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Programming the PDP-11/10 Videos on YouTube

by ken＠seefried.com

From: Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel <jos.mar at bluewin.ch> > > Well Jay, since you mention "DECporn": > > http://www.schlabonski.de/zwiebeltuete.html > Wow...that's wrong on so many levels.

19 years, 3 months

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about the Teac FD-55GFR 5 1/4" Drive

by Eddy.Tuytschaever＠just.fgov.be

can i get te manual from the teac FD55GFR 7220 W since it seem to be vannisched from the site? thanks, ed

19 years, 3 months

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VCM - Dec Cards

by marvin＠rain.org

In case anyone is interested, quite a few DEC modules/cards have been listed on VCM (no, they aren't mine.) http://www.vintagecomputermarketplace.com/

19 years, 3 months

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Long shot: Looking for Truvision NuVista-HR nubus card

by derschjo＠msu.edu

I'd like to play around with the Color systems on my MacIvory, which requires either a NuVista or NuVista-HR video card. The Nuvista card is limited to very low resolutions (it's geared to PAL/NTSC output), so I'm looking for a NuVista-HR, which does much higher resolutions. The NuVista card shows up on eBay all the time, but I haven't yet run across the -HR variant. Anyone out there have one to part with? Thanks once again... Josh

19 years, 3 months

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Symbolics XL1200 for sale

by spc＠conman.org

Found the following page: http://accordionguy.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2007/1/27/2687720.html Wherein Joey deVilla is selling a Symbolics XL1200. All the details are in the link, but some overview: The machine has a hardware fault that prevents it from fully booting, but it does display said diagnostic message. The machine itself is in Toronto. I'm not sure if it's sold yet or not, as the message was put up on Saturday (and I'm just noticing it now). I'm not involved with this in any way, other than just passing on the information. I've bought some books from him before (and he's got a ton of books for sale as well) with no complaints. -spc (He also goes into the story of why he's selling the unit, which is amusing ... )

19 years, 3 months

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Re-Introducing the First, and Fully Functional, Lisa Emulator

by ray＠arachelian.com

On January 24th, 1984, the Macintosh announced, but along with that announcement came another that not everyone recalls: The introduction of the Lisa 2. Reflecting the echoes of that date, I'm announcing the availability of The Apple Lisa Emulator. While there are still some flaws and missing features, to address, I've decided that it was more important to honor the Lisa's January introduction. You'll be able to download the emulator from here in a few minutes: http://lisaem.sunder.net/downloads.html Questions about the emulator should be directed here: lisaem at sunder.net Bug reports here: lisaem-bugs at sunder.net To use the emulator you will need a copy of the Lisa Boot ROM (preferably version H) as well as OS software. Please do not ask me to provide these. If you own a Lisa, you already have legal copies of these. The emulator currently runs on the following platforms: * Mac OS X - Intel and G4 PPC. * Linux - since there are too many distros, I'm releasing a statically linked X11 binary for 2.6 kernels, which should run on most distros, but you'll probably want to compile your own version instead. * win32 (w2k and possibly XP) The project will also compile and run wherever wxWidgets runs on a unix like platform (with some tweaks), I'll put up more binaries as time permits. Source code will be released in about a week or two, licensed under the terms of the GNU Public License 2.0. There are parts whose quality of the code isn't as good as I'd want it to be. :-) Known bugs: No documentation, at this time there are hooks in the help menu that point to the website, where I'll fill in documentation. Future releases will have built in docs. The raw keyboard routines aren't quite right. Use the ASCII kb mode for now. Won't run Xenix - it boots but stops before the shell, likely a VIA bug. Printing works, but isn't yet completed (spits out ugly postscript files only at this time, needs wxWidgets integration which I'm currently working on) Win32 LibDC42 routines might not be too stable, may cause trouble with Profiles Sound isn't perfect, although it does beep on most platforms, the "click" is treated incorrectly as a beep. Some of the animation has color issues in some of the BMP's/XPM's - i.e. floppy insertion Mouse movement under certain environments isn't quite right (I've optimized for Lisa Office System.) When the emulator quits, on OS X, it segfaults (crashes.) Won't work with Lisa 1 ROMs as there is little support for Lisa 1 HW emulation at this time. A few tools I intended to write still need to be written. Why a Lisa emulator? There are many reasons to this project, and even more for the decisions that shaped it. The most important goal was to preserve the technology behind the Lisa, and allow future generations to experience a piece of history. If you search the web, you will find lots of articles, pictures, and even videos of Lisa's. But these are second hand information, in that they do not allow you to actually interact with an actual Lisa. Unfortunately it isn't possible to fully emulate the physical aspects of a computer. You cannot experience the almost imperceptible 60Hz flicker of the display, the not-quite paper white, blueish tints of the phosphor, the yellow glow of the power switch, the heat a Lisa computer gives off, nor the feel of its keyboard, mouse, or see the curvature of the CRT on modern LCD and flat CRT displays. But, you can still get close. I hope that long after the last functional Lisa is gone from the face of the earth, that my emulator, as well as the documents that David has collected, would survive and allow future generations to go back in time and experience what it was like, to study it, and understand how and why it was built. In many ways, as I watched Lisa Office System and MacWorks boot up (via trace logs), I saw many glimpses into the software design ideals and practices of the early 80's. I've never been an archaeologist, and don't really know that experience, I can guess at the rush and thrill of discovery. Seeing the machine code of various Lisa OS's fly by has been that experience for me. I could almost understand what the coders that wrote them were thinking, how they designed things, and why. I could easily tell what code was hand written assembly by an expert, or novice, what assembly was generated by compilers. I don't much expect many to spend more than a few hours with the emulator, but perhaps there will be a few like minded folks who remember the Lisa and want more than a stroll down memory lane, or want to learn what it was about and how it worked who will. By releasing this as GPL, I'm guaranteeing its future long after I would loose interest in maintaining it. There are many emulators that are closed source, or shareware, or that are outright sold, and thus locked down. These are less likely to survive the ravages of time, and thus are less valuable in the long view. While I cannot presume that the libraries and API's upon which this emulator was built will still exist, I can at least hope that it will be relatively easy to rewrite or port to future platforms. I purposefully built the emulator on what some would consider exotic hardware. (i.e. DEC Alpha) to force me to write portable code. At various times, I also had it running on the SPARC, PowerPC and Intel chips. (i.e. a range of 32 and 64 bit CPU's with different designs.) Although I cannot vouch for it running on SPARC or Alpha at this moment in time, by building it on varied platforms, I avoided locking myself into a particular CPU with specific endian issues, and thus exposed more bugs. While I've only compiled the emulator under variations of GCC >from 2.x to 4.x, I suspect that it will work with other compilers after some tweaking. There is some history to this emulator. A synopsis for those who aren't yet bored of reading this rant: This project started in February 1998, when one day I attempted to power on one of my two Lisa's, and it no longer turned on. I realized that as with all retro computers, that replacement parts would over time become scarce to obtain and that repairs would be more and more difficult. In the interest of preserving the historical significance of these machines, I thought that an emulator would be one way to preserve them. Having been inspired by projects of the time such as Executor and vMac, I naively assumed that this would be an easy project, taking only perhaps a year or two. The Lisa is a far more complex creature than I imagined. Luckily, I managed to find David Craig's contact information, and obtained a ton of Lisa documentation from him. Most of the Lisa documentation out there on the web exists because David had carefully collected and cataloged it over the years. Without his efforts, neither this emulator, nor any of the spin off emulators would been possible. I would also say that without his efforts a great deal of Apple history would have been lost to the ravages of time. Perhaps a large portion of the remaining Lisas would not be repairable without this type of information information. (This is why I've spent a lot of time distilling David's documentation and the knowledge of LisaList in building the LisaFAQ.) While I was, at best familiar with the C language, and knew some 68000 assembly, there were a lot of things that I had to teach myself. I've learned a lot more than I could possibly list here (C, Unix programming, Xwindows, wxWidgets, deep 68000 coding techniques, low level operating system stuff, postscript, PCL, anti-aliasing, reverse engineering, optimization techniques, and so on.) So there was great benefit to me beyond the emulator itself. There were many wrong turns taken throughout the lifetime of the project. Most notably, I originally wrote my own 68000 CPU core, but scrapped after the generator ( http://squish.net/generator ) core was recommended by Richard Bannister. I originally wrote the emulator directly for the XWindow System. Yes, that's right, raw xlib calls without a toolkit. Writing your own UI in XLib is quite the exercise in masochism. I didn't replace the xlib UI with wxWidgets until late 2006. (In 1998, Motif was the main toolkit out there, but as it was commercial, and since Tk was sort of obsolete, with not too much else was available, or portable to all platforms. Xlib seemed to be the right choice. Over time, I stuck with xlib because I didn't care as much about the UI as much as getting the emulator working.) I must have rewritten the MMU subsystem at least three times. In hind sight, I probably over-engineered the last iteration in an effort to cache the MMU tables, but it works very well. I probably have spent too much time on sysadmin duties (that is setting up environments for myself to develop in.) After all, system administration is my day job. This project was originally born on a DEC Alpha Multia running on OpenBSD 2.3 or such. I moved it to an old SPARC running Solaris 2.5.1, then a sparcbook running 2.6, then Cygwin under w2k, then coLinux under w2k. I now have it running under Ubuntu, coLinux, win32 and OS X. As I'm told, there was talk of a Lisa emulator before 1998, but no actual project had been started. I released my crufty 0.00 version of the source code back in 98, hence "The World's First" is accurate enough. As far as I know, this is the only Lisa emulator that is capable of running the Lisa Office System, hence "fully functional." (Some would argue this because it doesn't yet run Xenix, but that's less important to me.) Of course, all of the documentation I had scanned, and put online attracted others who wanted to build their own emulators. Unsurprisingly, they did have some success, but not with Lisa Office System. I was disappointed with the competing project, but kept quietly on working on my own throughout the years. I hid my actual progress since the emulator wasn't working yet, and besides, it would have only fed the competition valuable information. I thought he had the advantage, since he had the whole of the MESS team and library of code for various devices, while I was writing and rewriting nearly everything from scratch. It surprises me to this day that despite all of my perceived fumbling, that he hasn't overtaken me yet! (I suspect that in a few days, or perhaps weeks, - i.e. sometime after I release my sources, we'll see the other two competing projects gain the capability of running LOS as well.) I intentionally let the website look dead to give the impression of abandonment, while I redoubled my efforts. This became a fun cloak and dagger kind of game: I only decloaked once, when I though that I was very very close. One day in May of 2006, I found the secret magic to make the MMU work. I got the Lisa Office install disk to boot, and everything started falling into place. I then furiously debugged the VIA code, and then the ProFile code, and it started to all work. The SCC came next, along with other fun stuff. I rewrote the imagewriter code twice over. (Once again, this week, for wxWidgets printing/output, which isn't in today's release.) Towards the end of 2006, I purchased the wxWidgets book and reworked the UI. It'll probably be a few more months before the emulator would be perfect in my opinion but that would miss the January 19th announcement anniversary, so early, buggy, release it'll have to be. :-) I would like to thank the following folks for their numerous contributions: David T. Craig for the wealth of Lisa information which he allowed me to scan in, for the many contacts with Lisa developers and faithfully listening to status reports over the ages, James MacPhail for all of the hardware help with the Lisa and many suggestions as to what and how to test, for helping me with the logic analyzer, for the 68000 help, for the schematics help, for helping me repair my dead Lisa, for the help with the ProFile protocol, and many other things I could fill a book with. James Ponder for his wonderful Generator project, one of the better Sega Genesis emulators out there, whose CPU core is the heart of the LisaEm project. Adam Firester for providing the many years of bandwidth for the project website, Steve Hatle for providing Lisa Office documentation, Xenix help, encouragement, and beta testing, Brian Foley for beta testing, profiling, and debugging help with OS X, and fixing nasty display bugs in wxWidgets on OS X, Chris McFall for advice on the Lisa file system, Natalia Portillo whose file system work inspired me to build the Lisa FSH Tool, and later libdc42, Patrick Schaefer for providing the protocol transitions graphs of the Profile, which at a glance proved far clearer to interpret than the official documentation, Andy Hertzfeld for his amazing folklore.org website for the numerous fun stories about the birth of the Lisa and the Mac, The wxWidgets folks, whose project I wish I made use of a lot earlier, who have made my life a lot easier, especially Stefan Csomor who found an early bug in my display routines, Steven Stengel of http://oldcomputers.net for the Lisa image used as the icon in the Mac OS X version. Raphael Nabet, for disassembling and documenting the I/O ROM, which shaved about a month off of reverse engineering on my part, even if he did write a competing emulator. :-) Gilles Fetis for being the third person to use my dc42 routines. :-) (Gilles, If you thought those were cool, wait till you see libdc42!) To all of the folks who have wished for a Lisa emulator, whose requests and encouragement over the years pushed me to complete this project. Most importantly, to all of the people at Apple, who worked on the Lisa over the years, and remember it fondly. Lisa, Lisa Office System, and the Macintosh were trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc, now Apple, Inc. w2k/XP are Microsoft's trademarks, etc. Genesis is trademark of Sega, etc.

19 years, 3 months

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Component level repair

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

--- Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk > wrote: > Bob Bradlee wrote: > > <OT Trivia> > > Douglas Adams day job was working on the DR Who > production staff. > > That's the real Dr. Who, of course... not the > God-awful remake :-) > Hey! I like the remake - I'm a big fan of Rose (Billie Piper) - and there are several things that make it (slightly) on-topic: 1) The computers in the school episode 2) which also happened to have K-9 in it! I was also a fan of Ace from the early 90's when she was Sylvester Mccoys sidekick. Just to make sure this is on-topic though, I just lost my 2nd Amiga 600. I turned it on on Saturday and heard that dreaded click sound I got when i burnt out my 1st A600 :( I can only assume (at present) that the floppy drives are becoming really sensitive. I don't recall hearing it do it's familiar "tick" sound when checking for a disk, but I didn't leave it switched on for more than 2 seconds. I guess I'll get a spare internal A600 floppy drive online somewhere and replace it. I still haven't gotten around to seeing exactly what failed on my 1st A600 yet either.... Been delayed by the arrival of 30 more Amiga CD's - specifically German demo discs and several Aminet discs :) I'll get my CD32 out tomorrow and start going through those discs. Regards, Andrew D. Burton aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

19 years, 3 months

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Limited supply of RCA 1802CE Chips

by alhartman＠yahoo.com

Before I list these on eBay, I wanted to offer them to the list. My partner and I have a limited supply of RCA 1802CE 40 Pin DIP Plastic Package chips. These appear to be New, Old stock chips. Never used. Not pulls. We are looking for $18.95 each + $3.00 shipping (add $1.00 for ea add'l chip for shipping). If you're intested, you can contact me off list at: ALHARTMAN_AT_YAHOO.COM I can take pictures of the chips if wanted. The chip has the following legend on it: CDP1802CE RCA 227 R Thanks! Al Hartman

19 years, 3 months

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Help with classic Apple powerbook/OS

by blstuart＠bellsouth.net

> From: Tom Uban <uban at ubanproductions.com> > LOL! It took me a few reads of that sentence before it > hit me over the head and now I cannot stop laughing... > > Warren Wolfe wrote: > > On Sun, 2007-01-28 at 08:40 -0600, Tom Uban wrote: > > > >> I bought a Powerbook 150 years ago . . . > > > > Holy Lord.... That's an OLD computer! <rimshot> So we're saying that Babbage's last hoorah was the Powerbook??? Is the Woz really Babbage??? Inquiring minds want to know. BLS

19 years, 3 months

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VCF East 4.0 update -- Commodore Pet 30th bday party w/ Chuck Peddle

by evan＠snarc.net

Hi all, Today, Sellam and I confirmed Chuck Peddle as the keynote speaker for VCF East 4.0. There will be other notable early Commodore computer people as well. Just as VCF 9.0 celebrated the 30th anniversary of Apple, at East 4.0 we'll do Commodore! The show is Saturday, June 9, starting at 9:30am. The Commodore panel will be from 10:30-12 followed by Chuck et al signing autographs. We still might expand the show to Sunday, June 10 as well. To be determined. Of course there will be plenty of other cool things and people beside Peddle. For example, we found a guy who worked closely with John Mauchly, and he might be a speaker for us. Talk about being one degree removed from history! - Evan

19 years, 3 months

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Looking for UK ESDI drive >= 300Mb

by andy.piercy＠gmail.com

Folks, Does anyone have a spare 5.25" full height ESDI drive >= 300Mb in the UK that they are willing to part with. All the drives on Ebay are in the USA and the cost of shipping and the chance of the drive making it in one piece would be prohibitive. An old Sun drive like "327M Micropolis ESDI drive 370-1133" would be great. Please contact me off list if you have anything available. Thanks, Andy.

19 years, 3 months

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Machines I posted as avail last night.

by dave06a＠dunfield.com

I guess I should have been more clear - by "details", I ment details on the machines availability - ie: I will put you in contact with the owner. These are machines that have been offered to me recently, but are too far away and not worth shipping for me to acquire them - I don't know anything more about them than the model information I put in the subject line of the original message - I don't know how big they are, or if they work, or what material comes with them (so please stop asking). So far the machines I posted were: Compaq Portable III available in Brewerton NY, USA Televideo CPM machine available in Canberra Australia NEC APC H03 available in Rhode Island, USA I believe all of them were described as "working when put away years ago" - I know nothing more. I will collect the responses for the next couple of days, and then forward them to the current owners of these machines. Regards, Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html

19 years, 3 months

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Web site updates

by ggs＠shiresoft.com

I just wanted to let folks know that I've made a few updates to my website. These include a link to a "downloads" area where among other things are the disk images that I've read in so far. I've also included pages that describe the systems in the collection that I consider "operational". Go see! http://www.shiresoft.com. -- TTFN - Guy

19 years, 3 months

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need insights on finding big cartons

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

If you happen to work in or near any manufacturing facility, get friendly with the person who runs shipping/recieving. All kinds of good packing material gets thrown out daily. At my previous job, I I had access to all the used boxes and packing material I could ever want. The plastic air pillows work good for filling up empty space, and the crimped brown paper that's used is great for padding and seperating items. Most boxes containing computer equipment is double thickness and worth searching out. Amazingly, shipping material is very expensive! Another place to look is near construction areas of strip malls and such. I scored some very large flat cardboard and some large hard foam blocks from behind a fitness center that was opening up. An old nonserrated steak knife cuts hard foam with a minimum of crumbs. In a message dated 1/28/2007 5:38:23 PM Eastern Standard Time, cctech at porky.vax-11.org writes: >Park in front of your local Best Buy/Circuit City today and tommorrow and >grab a big screen TV box from somebody that can't fit TV + box into their >car. You'll have the best luck if you live in the same state as one of the >two superbowl bound teams, but anywhere should work. >Clint >On Sun, 28 Jan 2007, Chris M wrote: >> of course its always preferable to scrounge. I need to >> ship 3 cpus in 1 box. Help. Supermarket aint working... >>

19 years, 3 months

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E2K keyboard and Panda lights box found

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

Bob, Wanted to let you know that once I knew which address the package went to, I was able to track it down. Thanks for looking that up for me. I just need to order some 10 LED bars and I can get the Panda lights put together. I'll probably have enough stuff for a parts order within the next few weeks (thinking of a DigiKey order for some Atmel processors anyway). Cheers, -ethan

19 years, 3 months

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Televideo CPM machine available in Canberra Australia

by dave06a＠dunfield.com

As the subject says - contact me for details. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html

19 years, 3 months

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SGI Challenge XLs up for grabs

by pat＠computer-refuge.org

I have two SGI Challenge XL racks going up for grabs; I really need the space back for other new equipment. Make an offer, mostly just want the space back, and I don't really have a use for another big old Irix box.. One is an R10k system and one is an R4400 system. I don't remember exactly how much memory and procs are in each, but could go look. They both have 10BT ethernet and FDDI connections. Pick-up is preferred, from Lafayette, IN. Zip 47901. If you want me to ship the machine, expect to pay for my time and effort to do so, in addition to freight charges. If I don't get a response by Feb 3rd, I'll be parting the machines out to sell on ebay. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org

19 years, 3 months

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Compaq Portable III available in Brewerton NY, USA

by dave06a＠dunfield.com

As the subject says - contact me for details. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html

19 years, 3 months

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NEC APC H03 available in Rhode Island, USA

by dave06a＠dunfield.com

As the subject says - contact me for details. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html

19 years, 3 months

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need insights on finding big cartons

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

of course its always preferable to scrounge. I need to ship 3 cpus in 1 box. Help. Supermarket aint working... ____________________________________________________________________________________ Any questions? Get answers on any topic at www.Answers.yahoo.com. Try it now.

19 years, 3 months

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Tektronix 422

by spectre＠floodgap.com

I've been offered a Tektronix 422 oscilloscope (price is under negotiation). Is this a decent scope or a piece of junk? I'm not very experienced with oscilloscopes, but I want to get familiar with them and this one was not disastrously large. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- This message will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, Jim. -- M:I ----

19 years, 3 months

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Help with classic Apple powerbook/OS

by technobug＠comcast.net

On Sun, 28 Jan 2007 08:40:42 -0600, Tom Uban <uban at ubanproductions.com> wrote: > I'm looking for a bit of help from someone knowledgeable on > MacOS 7 and/or 8. > > I bought a Powerbook 150 years ago and my brother has been using > it for years in the studio to run the MIDI sequencer FreeStyle. > > The PB 150 recently died and I bought a couple of Powerbook 540c > on eBay to replace it. > > My current problem list: > > 1. My AppleCD 600e (which works fine on the PB 150) does > not show up on either of the PB 540c, so I have no way > to read CDs on the 540c machines. Cameron Kaiser noted: > This sounds like an Extension problem. Do you have all the CD > extensions > installed on the 540c? I don't remember them off the top of my > head, but > they're things like Apple CD, Hi-Sierra, etc. 7.5.2 running on my Powerbook 520 has the following CD related extensions: Apple CD-ROM (5.1.2 - 7.5 update 2.0), High Sierra File Access (5.1 - 7.5 update 2.0), IS) 9660 File Access (5.1 - 7.5 update 2.0), and Foreign File Access (5.1 - 7.5 update 2.0). Without these you will not see the CD. > I assume you are using the same cable (HDI-30 to "Centronics" SCSI). Note that there are two kinds of adaptor cables. From one of Apple's FAQs: "5) Question: I am trying to connect a SCSI device to my PowerBook. However, when I start up the PowerBook, a diamond icon with a number appears on my screen. Answer: You are most likely using the wrong SCSI cable. You should be using the HDI-30 SCSI System Cable (M2538LL/A), which is a light gray color and only has 29 pins (there is a pin missing). You are most likely using the HDI-30 SCSI Disk Adapter cable (M2539LL/A) which is dark gray and has all 30 pins." Tom Uban asked: > And how does an extension affect the ability to boot from the CD? I > would have thought that the boot ROM code would have to know about > the CD without the aid of an extension... First of all is the CD bootable? You might want to load the CD and then look in the startup disk control panel and see if you see the CD as a boot disk - this is independent . If so, choose it and restart - the older systems only boot from the disk designated in the control panel. The 540c existed from May 1994 to August 1995 - almost exactly the same era as the 150 so the CD 600e should work. >>> 3. I thought that updating the version of FreeMidi from 1.3 >>> to the latest 1.48 would be a good idea. The image size >>> is 4Mb, which does not fit onto a floppy. >>> >> (Cameron Kaiser) >> I suspect this problem will be solved when you get the CD working :) >> >> > > How does the working CD solve my problem? I realize that I will be > able to write a large file on my PCs CD-RW, but will the MacOS be > able to read the file structure? And if it does, will it handle > the file type problem correctly? The new FreeMidi version is a .hqx > file. Will the OS know what to do with that or will I have to get > some Stuffit type thing to take it apart? The Mac should handle the PC written CD. IIRC Stuffit expander was include on both the 7.5 and 8 installs. Do a "find" to see if you have it on Alternates: if you have the dark gray SCSI adaptor cable, you can hook the laptop up as a disk to another Mac's SCSI system. The "PowerBook Setup" control panel allows you to choose the ID. Also, if you have an AAUI you can drop the laptop on your LAN and transfer files that way. CRC

19 years, 3 months

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RS366

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

A bit of background : Spread over my bench at the moment are the insides of an HP11284 Data Communication Interface for the HP9830. This is a somewhat nice-for-the-time unit that does async and sync protocols, etc.. Anyway, as well as the RS232 interface to a modem, it also has an 'RS366' interface to an ACU (Automatic Calling Unit?). From what I've managed to discover so far, this is an interface for autodialers, it uses a DB25 connector, 'RS232' voltage levels (in fact the HP11284 uses 1488s and 1489s to talk to the RS366 connector). A goolge search for RS366 provided me with a pinout (which I had anyway) and brief descriptions of the signals. But I'd like more :-). In particular, does anyone know a free (or relatively cheap) more complete spec. I;d like to know the timeing of the various handshake signals, and the encoding of the 4-bit digit-to-dial lines (it's not even obvious that '0' is sent as 0000...). What would be _really_ nice would be the schematic of an old (pre-microcontorller [1]) ACU with an RS366 interface. I don't suppose anyone knows of one. ]1] Since the HP11284 dates from 1974-ish, I would guess the RS366 interface is even older, and that discrete-logic implementations of the ACU must have existed. -tony

19 years, 3 months

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Component level repair

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

* Fred Cisin wrote: > >> If that is the answer, I'm not sure what the question is, because I > >> didn't ask one... > > What is six times seven? > > Oh wait, that is the question for another answer... On Thu, 25 Jan 2007 arcarlini at iee.org <http://www.classiccmp.org/mailman/listinfo/cctalk> wrote: > It's the wrong question too ... WhatdoYOUgetwhenyoumultiplysixbynine? ----------------------------------- Philistines. Are there no Douglas Adams fans here? Life, The Universe and Everything? Billy

19 years, 3 months

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Paradise VGA longshot

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

at least some of the 16 bit Paradise cards could operate in an 8 bit slot. I know this for a fact. I have no fear of endangering a board by just plugging a card --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org <james at attfield.co.uk> wrote: > > Message: 18 > > Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 22:01:13 -0600 > > From: Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> > > Subject: Re: Paradise VGA longshot > > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > > Message-ID: <45BC2009.6070800 at oldskool.org> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > > > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > > Jim, how about this one: > > > > > > http://artofhacking.com/th99/v/U-Z/50102.htm > > > > > > Does it look familiar? The WD90C11 was used on other cards, > > > including some no-name Taiwanese ones... > > > > Although the memory configuration is different, that's pretty much it! > > I didn't realize I could search Total Hardware for things other than > > model numbers... next time I'll be a little smarter. Thanks! > > > > Sadly, it means I can't use this one. And on further inspection, many > > of the 16-bit-part-of-the-card's contacts lead to a Motorola LS245, and > > from there, to RAM, so I guess this one goes in the 286 pile. > > -- > > 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/ > > Well, I would just plug it in and try it. It will either initialise or not. > I have used several of the earlier (i.e. just post AT introduction) 16-bit > cards in an 8-bit slot and they worked just fine, especially the WD & > Paradise ones. Just because it has some traces from the 16-bit extension > part to a buffer chip doesn't mean it won't work. There is no electrical > danger as the 8-bit section has to be compliant with an 8-bit slot, more a > question of if it will fit physically as it will be longer than an > equivalent 8-bit card. In any event there is one 8-bitter on ebaY UK atm if > you are really worried. > > Jim > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ TV dinner still cooling? Check out "Tonight's Picks" on Yahoo! TV. http://tv.yahoo.com/

19 years, 3 months

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Paradise VGA longshot

by james＠attfield.co.uk

> Message: 18 > Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 22:01:13 -0600 > From: Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> > Subject: Re: Paradise VGA longshot > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Message-ID: <45BC2009.6070800 at oldskool.org> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > Jim, how about this one: > > > > http://artofhacking.com/th99/v/U-Z/50102.htm > > > > Does it look familiar? The WD90C11 was used on other cards, > > including some no-name Taiwanese ones... > > Although the memory configuration is different, that's pretty much it! > I didn't realize I could search Total Hardware for things other than > model numbers... next time I'll be a little smarter. Thanks! > > Sadly, it means I can't use this one. And on further inspection, many > of the 16-bit-part-of-the-card's contacts lead to a Motorola LS245, and > from there, to RAM, so I guess this one goes in the 286 pile. > -- > 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/ Well, I would just plug it in and try it. It will either initialise or not. I have used several of the earlier (i.e. just post AT introduction) 16-bit cards in an 8-bit slot and they worked just fine, especially the WD & Paradise ones. Just because it has some traces from the 16-bit extension part to a buffer chip doesn't mean it won't work. There is no electrical danger as the 8-bit section has to be compliant with an 8-bit slot, more a question of if it will fit physically as it will be longer than an equivalent 8-bit card. In any event there is one 8-bitter on ebaY UK atm if you are really worried. Jim

19 years, 3 months

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Archiving workstation hard drives

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> Actually, I've never needed to try this - but is it reasonable to expect a > "modern" system to be able to archive (using dd) a SCSI drive that's been > formatted to something other than a 512 byte block size? I think it is. Modern systems will be the ones that have mass storage systems and networks capable of dealing with disc dumps. When I've done this, though, I've written my own disc dumping code using SCSI command blocks to the low-level interface. This was necessary for archiving TI Explorer discs, which have 256 byte blocks but are SCSI devices (MFM drive and ACB 4000 host adapter).

19 years, 3 months

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Strange drive from MegaTape Corp.

by cheri-post＠web.de

Hello all, two daysw ago, I aquired a microVAX II with a RA81 and a tape drive. At the beginning, I thought that it was a half inch tape drive (toploader stype), but it turned out to be a special thing. Model type is : MT500C, the "C" standing for a cache option (128KB). The drive dates back from 1986, uses 24 tracks and can save 500 MB, which is way more than the 9-track reel tapes can store. It can be connected to a pertec controller. It seems to special because I couldn't find any information for it except for a german site from which obtained the information I provided earlier. Does anybody on the list knows anything about it ? Any experiences ? Documentation would certainly help. I don't even know where to get media for this thing. I got it whitout any media. Regards, Pierre _______________________________________________________________________ Viren-Scan f?r Ihren PC! Jetzt f?r jeden. Sofort, online und kostenlos. Gleich testen! http://www.pc-sicherheit.web.de/freescan/?mc=022222

19 years, 3 months

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DECmate pics for wikipedia

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

Does anyone here have any photographs of DECmate series machines (and VT78) that can be uploaded to Wikipedia? That is, if you own any of these machines, would you please take some pictures? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

19 years, 3 months

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Paradise VGA longshot

by trixter＠oldskool.org

I know this is a longshot, but I'm looking for the settings of all five DIP switches on a Paradise VGA card from 1990. It has two strings on the board, either of which could be the make/model: PWBA 4316 0134-000 or PW800 VGA I'm assuming it's a paradise card, because the actual chip on it is from Western Digital Corp. (a WD90C11-LR) and Paradise used them nearly exclusively. The reason I'm asking is because I'm looking for an 8-bit ISA VGA card, and while this card is 16-bit, some of them could be DIP-switched to run in an 8-bit slot. There are five DIP switches on the backplate. No, I am not going to plug it into my 5160 and power cycle it 32 times to go hunting for something that works :) -- 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/

19 years, 3 months

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Paradise VGA longshot

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

the card that I have (in storage) has a card edge/fingers on top of the card. Mine is a Paradise, bought new. There were at least 2 versions/revisions. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Now that's room service! Choose from over 150,000 hotels in 45,000 destinations on Yahoo! Travel to find your fit. http://farechase.yahoo.com/promo-generic-14795097

19 years, 3 months

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Paradise VGA longshot

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

have you plugged it into an 8-bit slot yet? I was under the impression neither settings nor s/w was required to be used as such. I guess I could be mistaken tho --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org <trixter at oldskool.org> wrote: > I know this is a longshot, but I'm looking for the settings of all five > DIP switches on a Paradise VGA card from 1990. It has two strings on > the board, either of which could be the make/model: > > PWBA 4316 0134-000 > or > PW800 VGA > > I'm assuming it's a paradise card, because the actual chip on it is from > Western Digital Corp. (a WD90C11-LR) and Paradise used them nearly > exclusively. > > The reason I'm asking is because I'm looking for an 8-bit ISA VGA card, > and while this card is 16-bit, some of them could be DIP-switched to run > in an 8-bit slot. > > There are five DIP switches on the backplate. No, I am not going to > plug it into my 5160 and power cycle it 32 times to go hunting for > something that works :) > -- > 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/ ____________________________________________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta. http://new.mail.yahoo.com

19 years, 3 months

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Heathkit-Zenith H/Z-19

by ericj2190＠gmail.com

I have an old Heathkit-Zenith H/Z-19 terminal, and I am trying to use it to connect to a Linux system. I have it set up successfully to connect to the Linux machine, but I have a small problem. The bottom half of the H/Z-19 screen is filled with "p"s in reverse video. When I reach that part of the screen, everything I receive is gibberish. Most of the characters show up as some other character. Once I reach the very bottom of the screen, the "p"s scroll up with the rest of the text, but come back again from the bottom. I believe this is a memory problem, but I do not know if I am correct. Do you know what could be causing this? If so, how could I fix it?

19 years, 3 months

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Any IMP's still around?

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

* Curt at Atari Museum asked: Anyone ever recovered one of the original IMP's and restored it back to a functional state? Curt ----------------------------------- Please define which product you mean by IMP. There was an early microprocessor from National. There was marvelous early bit slice 16 bit machine by that name ( I know where a couple in beautiful shape are, still running.) And finally, there were the early DARPA name servers on the early internet ancestor. Several people on the list are looking for those, but I haven't heard of any surviving. Billy

19 years, 3 months

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test-drb January 2007