test-drb January 2007

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

238 participants
538 discussions

by tothwolf＠concentric.net

I've been active on classiccmp for a good many years now and up until now have rather enjoyed making custom and hard to find cables for others in the classicmp community. Recently, someone on eBay managed to get their hands on a spool of genuine DEC flat cord, bought a knock-off MMJ type tool (I saw him purchase it) and started selling poor quality MMJ cables. I couldn't compete and quit making standard MMJ cables, but this weekend he started making H8571-J work-alike adapters to undercut me there too. I know this person is active on the classiccmp mailing list. He started listing his cables shortly after my post when I asked which length of MMJ cables would be the most useful to the majority of the list members. His eBay id is currently "cheshire-cat-computers" but he had been going by "ggggmmmm" up until Jan 5th. I've been going in the hole now for 2-3 months with the listings for cables and I think after today I won't be listing any more. I've now run out of 6-conductor flat cable and I'm down to less than 2 dozen loose MMJ plugs and I'm thinking that its just not worth the trouble anymore. I still have some adapter kits that I made up a few weeks ago, but I think I'm just going to toss them in the junk box and forget about them. I just have no desire to compete with someone who wants to undercut me the way he has done as it appears my time is worth a lot more to me than his is to him. It was certainly fun while it lasted, and I shipped cables all over the place, from Australia to Germany to the UK, and of course the USA and got to talk to all kinds of people. I even had a few go to a couple of people in the armed forces, so I guess they are still using DEC gear too :) -Toth

17 years, 5 months

laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives?

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

Re: "would it be possible to get a 5.25 to work in say an older laptop w/an integral 3.5?" Maybe. Quite a few Toshiba laptops have an external floppy drive port. It is a true floppy port, designed to interface to a 34-pin floppy interface. Two different connectors were used, the "standard" Toshiba floppy port connector used in every model computer except the Tecra 8000, and a slightly different connector used in the Tecra 8000 series. These connectors are found in the Satellite 400 series laptops (two distinctly different sets of laptops, the "early" 400 series (400 to 435, Pentium I's) and the "late" 400 series, 440 to 490, Pentium MMX and even a Pentium II). They are also found in the Tecra 8000 (different connector), which used both Pentium II and Pentium III CPU (266MHz to about 500MHz). I think that there are other Toshiba laptops that have a similar connector as well, in the Tecra and Portege line (and also the libretto models). Note, since this port was used for the 3.5" floppy drive, you generally won't be able to have both 3.5" and 5.25" drives installed at the same time (but, on some of these, the very reason for the port was that there was an internal drive bay that could either contain the floppy drive internally, or a CD-ROM drive. Not sure if you could use an internal and an external floppy concurrently in those models). Also, Toshiba assumed that the external drive was 3.5" and there is no provision in the BIOS to configure the bios and software for any other floppy drive format. Finally, the hardware reconfiguration (cable) will be a bitch to figure out, although it is conceptually possible. While the external floppy has the 34-pin electrical interface, mechanically it's not a standard 34-pin IDC connector, it's a flat "flex cable", and reworking the cable to connect to a 34-pin standard interface will take some effort. The good news is that you can buy entire laptops in this series for as little as $15, and you can find the external floppy caddies for $5 (source of the cable and connector that mates with the laptop).

17 years, 5 months

Tandon TM848-2 Floppy drive power

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 04:56:58 -0500 From: "Kelly Leavitt" <kelly at catcorner.org> Subject: RE: Tandon TM848-2 Floppy drive power To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > On Tue, 23 Jan 2007, Kelly Leavitt wrote: > > OK, I'm home looking at the drive. The wiring harness from the power > > supply does connect +5, +12, and +24 to the plug that goes into the > > drive. However the TM848-2 drives have pin 4 vacant on the > connector on > > the drive. That is, there is no pin there. Sounds > dangerous, but that is > > typical of Tandy's shortcuts. > > Tandy and Tandon are not THAT close. > > > The wiring harness is made by Tandy, in the Tandy 6000. That this harness has power going to a drive power plug that isn't used it typical of Tandy's shortcuts. They banked on the fact that Tandon would NEVER put another pin in that socket. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, in all fairness to Tandy... Since the schematic for the TM848 shows what seems to be an option to omit the 12V regulator and supply the 12V through the power plug, perhaps Tandy at one time used (or planned to use) drives requiring 12V and kept the 12V supply on the connector for compatibility. Wouldn't be a problem since that pin is physically missing on "normal" drives. Sorta makes sense; in the S-100 world there generally wasn't a 12V supply and every drive needed its own regulator(s), whereas if a system already had a 12V supply then using the 24V and another regulator on the drive would be redundant and just waste power. And there are certainly numerous custom versions of the TM848 around, so you can't count on any particular drive being plug-compatible anyway. Yes, if you happened to plug a drive with the power off option on pin 4 into your 6000, there probably would be some magic smoke... Things weren't quite as "standard" in those days as they are today, FWTW. m

17 years, 5 months

"Immortal computing" initiative by Microsoft

by toresbe＠ifi.uio.no

I was lazily browsing the 'web when I came across this one - apparently a project to create a storage medium with extremely long life times. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/300636_msftimmortal22.html -Tore :)

17 years, 5 months

cctalk Digest, Vol 41, Issue 69

by mtapley＠swri.edu

At 18:30 -0600 1/23/07, Richard wrote: >Fine. Its shared by two or more people, but its still an opinion and >not an axiomatically derived fact. What's an "axiom"? -- Mark Tapley, Dwarf Engineer (I haven't cleared my neighborhood) 210-379-4635 Dwarf Phone, 210-522-6025 Office Phone

17 years, 6 months

Unibus Analyzer now available

by ggs＠shiresoft.com

I *finally* had enough time to write the manual for the UA11 Unibus Analyzer, so it's now available for sale. Go to http://www.shiresoft.com/products & http://www.shiresoft.com/docs for more information. I now use it almost exclusively for debugging problems and getting systems to work. I only pull out the 'scope or LA if the problem isn't observable on the Unibus. (sorry, hopeless plug.) -- TTFN - Guy

17 years, 6 months

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

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> 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. PLEASE write document the details while this is all fresh in your mind.

17 years, 6 months

Component level repair

by marvin＠rain.org

> From: Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> > too keen to process it on their own soil. Sooner or later there will > (thankfully) be pressure on manufacturers to make their products be more > maintainable and last for longer. The way things are going, being able to maintain a buggy whip won't be economically feasible or an asset to any mainstream company. Technology changes, evolves, and rarely results in something being simpler and easier to fix. I do like repairing at the component level, but just don't have time for it right now. But as Tony mentioned, it is a puzzle, and the MINDSET that allows troubleshooting is just not something everyone has. One of my favorite examples was back when I was doing field maintenance, I got a call from a customer who couldn't get their machine to work. So I flew down to take a look, was picked up by the plant manager, and taken to the machine. While he went to get the tech, I looked at it and had it working in a couple of minutes later when they returned. The problem was strictly mechanical (an air cylinder shaft had come unscrewed from the piston), and they had *assumed* it was an electrical problem. And most of us (at least those of us do/did troubleshooting as a job) have had the experience of troubleshooting equipment where the problem turned out to be the switch needed to be turned on, or the unit plugged in. Developing a mental picture (I think in terms of block diagrams) of how something works is crucial to being able to troubleshoot it.

17 years, 6 months

IBM PS1 available

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

Sounds like it's a 2011-C34. First Generation IBM PS/1. Uses matching VGA monitor with CPU power supply inside and DOS in ROM. Kinda cute, and have heard of some individuals still using them because they're pretty simple. I'd take i t, but I already have one including the 2121 386 series. -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- In a message dated 1/24/2007 12:18:41 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, cclist at sydex.com writes: On 23 Jan 2007 at 17:47, Sellam Ismail wrote: > I'm not sure if this interests anyone. It sure doesn't interest me, but > maybe someone is looking for one to complete their collection. Have at > it! What might make this worth someone's collection is, I seem to recall, that it is unusual in that it has PC-DOS in ROM. Cheers, Chuc

17 years, 6 months

Tandon TM848-2 Floppy drive power

by kelly＠catcorner.org

> -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Fred Cisin > Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 11:22 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: RE: Tandon TM848-2 Floppy drive power > > > On Tue, 23 Jan 2007, Kelly Leavitt wrote: > > OK, I'm home looking at the drive. The wiring harness from the power > > supply does connect +5, +12, and +24 to the plug that goes into the > > drive. However the TM848-2 drives have pin 4 vacant on the > connector on > > the drive. That is, there is no pin there. Sounds > dangerous, but that is > > typical of Tandy's shortcuts. > > Tandy and Tandon are not THAT close. > > > The wiring harness is made by Tandy, in the Tandy 6000. That this harness has power going to a drive power plug that isn't used it typical of Tandy's shortcuts. They banked on the fact that Tandon would NEVER put another pin in that socket.

17 years, 6 months

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test-drb January 2007