[Sorry for the double post...having trouble with my mailer
line-wrapping]
The gods smiled upon me, and I was chosen to rescue the DEC
VAX 11/750 that Richard alerted us too about a month ago.
Yesterday I went up to collect it. I think most of us,
during a pickup, are mindful of just getting the load
onboard and away, and it was the same way for me with
this pickup. Besides, the unit was literally stuffed so
tightly into the front corner of their storage that there
was no way to examine the innards at that location. A few
images can be found at:
http://www.rogerwilco.org/VAX11-750
Once back on homebase, I finally got a chance to open up the
unit. To my horror (it is October, after all), I find just
a single board installed in the CPU backplane, and one loose
q-bus board! The first is a System Industries 9700-6301
with the following significant chips: Signetics N8X60N, AMD
AM9128 (x2), Motorola MCM93L422PC (x4), TI SN74S181N, and
about a dozen TI 82S137s with little numbered stickers on
each. Otherwise it's loaded with TTL logic chips. There
are no headers or other connectors on board, just the
backplane fingers. I have no idea what this board is. I
openly admit that I'm a complete {non-uVAX | massbus |
unibus} novice. The second board is an MCD MLSI PC-11,
which I'm guessing may be some kind of dual parallel
interface. I'll have to do a little scouting on Bitsavers
and Manx to see if I can turn up anything useful.
Anyway, sadly, this box is not much more than an empty
carcass, without any brains. It clearly was sacrificed to
keep other systems alive. Still, I would dearly love to
populate the backplane(s) and light this baby up, but I
guessing I'll be hard pressed to find anyone with a whole
set of spares that I could somehow convince into letting
them go.
I don't want to lose an opportunity here, and I'm not saying
that I have my eye on the local metal recycler just yet, but
what am I going to do with an empty chassis?! Now, I should
say that the donor was extremely nice, and offered to pass
along anything related that eventually turns up as they dig
deeper into their massive pile (12' x 15' x 20', literally
boxes/cartons/PCs upon boxes/cartons/PCs), but I'm not sure
I should hope for much.
Am I foolish to ask? Anyone with a spare set of VAX 11/750
modules?
- Jared
>Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 08:53:06 -0600
>From: "e.stiebler" <emu at e-bbes.com>
>Subject: Re: Taken: AT 286 motherboard with mathco
>I think people worked/played more with the computer more back then.
>Meaning wrote utilities, improved stuff, changed something, and were
>proud if it.
Really??? Have you browsed the Internet lately and seen the amount of
software & mods out there, and the just wild and crazy things that people
are doing with their PCs? Seems to me there are a heck of a lot *more*
people writing utilities, improving stuff etc. today, and far more complex
and sophisticated stuff at that (especially since there's so much more
room for improvement ;-).
Perhaps the *percentage* of computer owners who dug into the hard/software
was higher then, but most of the time you *had to*, whereas today most of
it is done for fun and enjoyment, as well as pride of accomplishment.
And I think you're ignoring the business users of then and now; for them
and probably for most people computers are after all just a tool to do some
specific task(s). Although many of us like Tony are interested in and enjoy
poking around in the innards of cameras, clocks, computers etc., most
"normal" people just want to take pictures, know the time and send an
e-mail or two.
m
Hi
Fear not all is not lost. There's tons of modules around but not that
many cabs.
In the picture of the Qbus board it appears to be sitting on the module
config diagram.
As it is pre printed and not filled in by hand its probably a standard
system.
That will give you a list of the boards.
Note of caution do not try to turn it on. The power supplies will need
some work. You need to reform/replace any electrolytics.
The case will clean up well and you can start off by getting the PSU's
working and getting the list of modules together. Disk drives would have
been in another rack I think.
Rod Smallwood
The DECcollector
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of J Blaser
Sent: 06 October 2007 02:10
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: VAX 11/750 rescued, alas...
[Sorry for the double post...having trouble with my mailer
line-wrapping]
The gods smiled upon me, and I was chosen to rescue the DEC VAX 11/750
that Richard alerted us too about a month ago.
Yesterday I went up to collect it. I think most of us, during a pickup,
are mindful of just getting the load onboard and away, and it was the
same way for me with this pickup. Besides, the unit was literally
stuffed so tightly into the front corner of their storage that there was
no way to examine the innards at that location. A few images can be
found at:
http://www.rogerwilco.org/VAX11-750
Once back on homebase, I finally got a chance to open up the unit. To
my horror (it is October, after all), I find just a single board
installed in the CPU backplane, and one loose q-bus board! The first is
a System Industries 9700-6301 with the following significant chips:
Signetics N8X60N, AMD
AM9128 (x2), Motorola MCM93L422PC (x4), TI SN74S181N, and about a dozen
TI 82S137s with little numbered stickers on each. Otherwise it's loaded
with TTL logic chips. There are no headers or other connectors on
board, just the
backplane fingers. I have no idea what this board is. I
openly admit that I'm a complete {non-uVAX | massbus | unibus} novice.
The second board is an MCD MLSI PC-11, which I'm guessing may be some
kind of dual parallel interface. I'll have to do a little scouting on
Bitsavers and Manx to see if I can turn up anything useful.
Anyway, sadly, this box is not much more than an empty carcass, without
any brains. It clearly was sacrificed to keep other systems alive.
Still, I would dearly love to populate the backplane(s) and light this
baby up, but I guessing I'll be hard pressed to find anyone with a whole
set of spares that I could somehow convince into letting them go.
I don't want to lose an opportunity here, and I'm not saying that I have
my eye on the local metal recycler just yet, but what am I going to do
with an empty chassis?! Now, I should say that the donor was extremely
nice, and offered to pass along anything related that eventually turns
up as they dig deeper into their massive pile (12' x 15' x 20',
literally boxes/cartons/PCs upon boxes/cartons/PCs), but I'm not sure I
should hope for much.
Am I foolish to ask? Anyone with a spare set of VAX 11/750 modules?
- Jared
Roy wrote:
> On Saturday 13 October 2007 17:45, Tony Duell wrote:
>>> This morning my wife complained to me that every time she opened a
>>> door
>>> to a cupboard something with qwerty written on it falls out !!!
>>> oops
>>
>> Oh that's easy to solve. Change all your keyboards to the Dvorak
>> (?spel)
>> layout.
>
> I've seen assorted setups to change one's keyboard layout to that in
> software,
> but darn it, if I'm going there I want the keycaps too! Which I've
> *never*
> seen on anything...
Get a Model M (or other decent keyboard), pop 'em off and reshuffle.
The letter keys are generally interchangeable, the only problem would
be a cheap keyboard that won't let them go gracefully.
Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 21:00:18 -0400
From: "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: Extracting CDOS and CP/M) files
<much snippage>
>That's more than I've got in there. It's a ZPU, 64KB ram card, I *think*
>that 64FDC, and an I/O card, not real sure but I think maybe it's the
>PRI...
Your basic single-user CDOS system, although I suspect that's a 16FDC.
I assume it's a System 3, or perhaps a Z-2? Either way, lots of room in there
for expansion ;-)
<snip>
>No CDOS handy, I'm not even sure what I got for disks with that box, though
>I did get some, the problem with the drive having done some physical damage
>to the one that was in it. Somewhere around here I have a box of 8"
>floppies, but that would include what came with this system and also what
>came with the Imsai, at least, plus probably some stuff that folks have
>sent my way over the years.
Dave D has various images on his excellent site - also see below. If you're
having trouble with the 8" drive(s) and haven't gotten around to making the cable
for a 3 1/2" substitute, add a 7812 or use an old PC supply and temporarily hook
up a 5 1/4" drive; the FDC handles both.
>I'm not sure if I even have CP/M specific to that box.
Several people have configured CP/M for the Cromemco configuration; Barry
Watzman for one, if I'm not mistaken.
>Mostly I was looking for what sort of hardware capabilities would be needed...
You've got the basic hardware except for a 7812 or equivalent for the 5.25
(and 3.5" if 12V - see below) drives; the rest is software ;-)
<snip>
>> Any version of Cromix (Cromemco's early Z80 and 68000 pseudo-UNIX) can
>> read/write any version of CDOS or Cromix disk (floppies, that is; hard
>> disks are a different story).
>I'd love to get some info on that software, particularly if I can ever get my
>hands on a DPU card to stick in there.
If/when you do, it's certainly out there. Several sites have extensive collections
of Cromemco software and manuals; one of the most complete is Marcus' site:
http://maben.homeip.net/static/S100/cromemco
(Also see Herb Johnson's & Howard Harte's sites).
To run Z80 Cromix, all you'd need is another 64K; to run 68K Cromix/+
you'd need at least a 68000 DPU and 256K would be nice.
<snip>
>Around the time I got that box I remember trying for some info and being told
>that the company wasn't doing anything but making 68K boxes for some
>specialized applications any more.
In the last years they'd become part of Dynatech, who had been using Cromemco
boxes for their TV weather systems and didn't seem particularly interested
in the computer business beyond supporting their own applications (they
apparently also owned Fuzz-Buster BTW). The European company that's
still around today is Cromemco in name only, having moved into UNIX
software long ago.
>> Cromix+ and UNIX both read/write UNIX format disks; anything else that
>> Cromix+ could handle was transferred to UNIX via a shared HD partition.
>What's a "unix format disk"?
Actually their name is "Uniform style floppy" and it's a format compatible with
both Cromix and UNIX (and without the pesky SD first track or Disk ID).
>> Anything else would indeed require some custom programming; the FDC
>> controller cards were reasonably well documented.
>That's mostly what I was looking for, if the common FDC chips back in those
>days were likely to be sufficient to handle a wide variety of "stuff" out there.
Well, hard sector disks might still be a problem...
>> If the main CPU was a 680x0 instead of a Z80 then Z80 & CP/M software was
>> run either on a dual (Z80/68000) DPU card or, if there was only a 680x0 CPU
>> then it was run on the Z80 on an I/O card such as the IOP I/O processor or
>> the Octart 8-port RS-232 card, if available.
>I saw the sheet on the IOP in my book just now, but don't know about that
>other one. Why would they stick a processor on an 8-port serial card?
Not relevant or supported in single-user CDOS (which used ordinary TUART
4-port serial and PRI 2-port parallel cards), but running a multi-user sort-of-UNIX
on a 4MHz Z80 wasn't exactly blindingly fast, especially on the slow hard
disks of the day. If the main CPU also had to directly service all those UARTS
it probably would grind to a halt so they handled serial I/O with coprocessors
(IOP & Octart), which later could also run Z80 user software in between I/O
requests when there wasn't a Z80 on the main processor board any longer.
The IOP is only the I/O *processor* BTW; there can be up to 4 installed, and each
can control up to 4 Quadart 4-port serial cards for a maximum of 16 ports;
that'd keep a single Z80 so busy it wouldn't have much time to actually
run those users' programs ;-). The Octart is a coprocessor and 8 ports combined,
and a system could have up to 4 for a total of 32 ports; although in practice
you wouldn't have that many users you could have I/O devices on all of
those ports (I have in fact had Cromemco systems installed with more than
32 terminals, although they were not all unique "users").
>> Their first hard disks were 11MB 8" IMI drives using a WDI controller; they
>> were superseded by 5 & 20 MB 5" IMI drives requiring a WDI-II. Then came
>> MFM disks using an STDC controller and SMD drives & controller, and finally
>> ESDI and SCSI drives using the ESDC controller.
>Rigging up some sort of mounting hardware and finding 12V power for some of
>the 3.5" HDs I have kicking around here should be an interesting
>exercise. :-)
You'd need it for 5.25 drives for sure, but many 3.5" drives actually only require
5V which you already have for the 8" drive.
>I have nothing around for a controller, but given the choice I'd rather go
>with SCSI if possible.
SCSI wasn't supported until pretty late in the game and you'd need fairly
late versions of cards & OS; definitely not an option with your setup.
>> The floppy controller also supported the small tape drives while the larger
>> tapes required the ESDC controller, and there was also a controller and OS
>> support for 9-track mag tape.
>Hmm.
Indeed...
Can't help any with the Bigboard, alas.
Good luck!
mike
I'm wondering about underclocking a pentium. I've read about running
Windows XP on a Pentium Overdrive underclocked to 8MHz with 20MB RAM.
I was curious if anyone in here knew enough about the design of an
early pentium or 486 to say if its possible to go lower, like 2MHz.
For a joke I thought it would be fun to have an intel machine running
XP or Vista at an Altair paced clock speed. XP took 30 minutes to
boot at 8MHz, so I imagine a bare bones Vista would take a few hours
at 2MHz, that is if Vista would even run on a Pentium...
To me this is kind of like the project where someone booted Mac OS X
on a 25MHz Centris 650 using a PPC emulator. Except most likely faster. : )
Maybe I'm just looking for something to carry me through the Alaskan
winter. : )
Any thoughts? My first one is to set the jumpers as low as they
would go and then start changing the onboard
crystals/oscillators. Chances are the BIOS would still report 8MHz
to windows and the screen shot wouldn't look as cool?
I have already overclocked the Kenbak-1 500%, and underclocked it
800%. Time to move on to bigger and better things.
Grant
>
> One of the last part stores in the Seattle area, Alphatronics, has move
> moved a few blocks to 1035 Andover Park East in Tukwila WA.
> http://www.alphatronics-usa.com/
>
>
Glad to hear that- I was a bit in shock when I rolled up about a month
ago and there was a trucking company where they used to be.
For the mail-order set who doesn't have a parts store nearby, how do
you work things out (reference-wise, other than the usual databooks?).
Especially for test equipment and things like that (now that we're
loosing Boeing, there I knew that the equipment was used but reasonably
good quality).
RE: " I doubt that I will use up the spindle at less than a dozen blanks a
year before dual layer media and drives become standard "
Become? Dual layer drives became standard about 2 years ago. I doubt you
can buy a burner which is not dual layer. ALL readers have been dual layer
since day 1, because most commercial DVDs (e.g. movies and TV shows) are
dual layer (but factory pressed media rather than burned media).
On the other hand, I doubt that dual layer DVD will ever outsell single
layer DVD. It is FAR more expensive (almost 10x), it offers LESS THAN twice
the capacity (8GB vs. 4.7GB) and it is very likely to be FAR less reliable.
I use dual layer because I need to for some of my work, but I don't like it.
I have never had a problem, but I know how it works and I don't trust it. I
consider it to be a miracle that it works at all.
The current standard for drives is "burn everything", all formats, both CD &
DVD, + and -, single and dual layer, for about $40. I still believe that
Pioneer makes the best drives, but Pioneer doesn't support "lightscribe"
(the ability to "burn" a graphic label on the label side of the media), so I
have two DVD burner drives in my machine, a Pioneer and a Samsung (which I
think is the second best brand, and which does support Lightscribe).
My next move, probably in about 2 years, will be to Blu-Ray, but right now
it's still [WAY] too expensive.
Hello,
I want to purchase DEC PDP11/93 (1). Can I get a quote from you? If it is in stock, please reply me. What does it include? I mean how is the configuration?
Thank you very much
Regard
Beijing KSD Electron Technical Service Center
_________________________________________________________________
????? MSN ??????????
http://mobile.msn.com.cn/
The company I work for had some stuff to dump.
I'ts from a Kent PLC system and I took the cpu & drive box.
CPU box containd a KDJ11-A, an MXV11-A, a DILOG DQ614, a
8 port serial line interfaxe, and a M7549 DMA interface.
The drive box contained a RD52 & an Ampex disk.
The CPU box also contained 2 Tandon TM-828 slimline 8"
floppy drives.
Eventually there is more PDP stuff to come :)
Ed
