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

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

Hi I'm sure that I heard that some Commodore systems could do TV out and were in fact used to produce CGI stuff for 'Babylon Five" Does anybody know which ones and could they do PAL or just NTSC? Rod Smallwood

17 years, 4 months

12
16
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Vince Briel's Micro-KIM workshop at VCFX

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

Vince Briel's Micro-KIM workshop at VCFX is now open for registration: http://www.vintage.org/2007/main/workshop.php $99 which includes the kit and personal instruction from the man, the myth, the legend himself! Space is limited and Vince's workshops sell out fast, so get in while you can. -- 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 ]

17 years, 4 months

5
5
0 0

Mechanical calculators (was: Re: *updating* 8088's)

by dm561＠torfree.net

-------------Original Message: Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:52:16 +0100 From: "Arno Kletzander" <Arno_1983 at gmx.de> Subject: Mechanical calculators (was: Re: *updating* 8088's) "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at verizon.net> wrote: > On Friday 23 November 2007 22:23, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > There are many kinds of mechanical memory. In particular, I recall > > an early TTY device that used a large rotating drum with cams > > embedded in the surface. One could flip a cam one way or the other > > and then read them out. I'm trying to remember what sort of machine > > this was used on and its application, but my memory sadly fails me. > > This stirs a vague recollection of an old mechanical adding machine I > once had, the kind that had a big rectangular array of buttons instead > of just a "10-key" set of numbers. I have *no* idea how it stored a > number in there, though. Hmm, like, say, an old cash register? This design is called "Volltastaturmaschine" in German (would translate to "complete keyboard machine"). They have a latching mechanism that holds in one button per column of keys (0-9, representing one digit of a number). When a calculation is initiated, the protruding shaft of the latched key acts as a stop for a toothed rack or similar device which is used to advance the wheels of the accumulator register by as many teeth as the corresponding digit says. There are also designs which involve an arrangement of levers positioning an intermediate gear along the axis of a stepped drum, for example the Badenia VA-17/VARE-17. The big advantage is that zeros need not be entered (to enter 100.00, you just press the "1" button in the fifth column from the right) and that operators could learn to "touch-type" on these keyboards, effectively entering all digits of a number in parallel and greatly reducing cycle times. <snip> -- Arno Kletzander www.iser.uni-erlangen.de -----------Reply: The IBM unit record or Tabulating machines that we've been discussing had their roots in the same principles as these calculators, adding machines and cash registers, but instead of a depressed key stopping a moving rack in a certain position (a certain point of time in the machine's "cycle"), a set of wire brushes (later replaced by photocells) would make contact through the holes in the card as it moved vertically through the different digit positions, and pick a relay, latch a rotating selector (and lock a synchronized moving typebar if it was a printer) to represent that digit electrically. Like the manual full keyboards, all 80 digits/characters were processed simultaneously. Timing diagrams looked similar to the modern square waves we're all familiar with (although they were sometimes arranged in a set of concentric circles to represent a complete cycle), but instead of a continuous linear time line they had a definite beginning and end and were divided into equal-length "digit" times. When electronics started to replace more and more of the mechanical gears and relays there was a paradigm shift and everything switched to reading and processing cards "serially" ("parallel" from our modern perspective ;-), i.e. lengthwise by character, instead of all characters in "parallel" by digit. The "Accounting" or "Posting" machines _also_ known as EAMs (Electr(on)ic Accounting Machines) made by Burroughs, NCR etc. and used in almost every bank also used the same basic principle. Because a good operator could enter an entire multi-digit amount in one "keystroke" and data entry speed was more important than processing, they retained full keyboards for quite a while even after the gears and cams had been replaced with electronic equivalents. The moving racks and cams were simply replaced by a set of rotating 10-position selector "switches" and connected to the electronic "adjunct" with thick multi-conductor cables. The processors in turn operated on "words" consisting of 15 or more 10-"bit" "bytes;" guess you could call it parallel processing... m

17 years, 4 months

2
1
0 0

PC3270 Model 5271 BIOS

by jzg22＠drexel.edu

I'm looking for a copy of the BIOS of the IBM PC3270 Model 5271. Does anyone here have one of these machines that is working? If so, the bios can be dumped using MSDOS DEBUG, see http://mess.toseciso.org/dumping:dump_bios_using_debug Bios should be in range E000-FFFF. Jonathan Gevaryahu AKA Lord Nightmare jgevaryahu(@t)hotmail(d0t)com jzg22(@t)drexel(d0t)edu

17 years, 4 months

1
0
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Old laptop hard drive "goo"

by peksado＠Cardiff.ac.uk

--- Michael Lee <mikelee at tdh.com> wrote: > I just received an old-ish (1990) Toshiba T1000LE > laptop and it wouldn't > boot, so I took a look at the hard drive and there > seems to be some type > of goo oozing out of it. It's a Conner hard drive, > nothing too abnormal. > > I didn't think a hard drive contained anything that > could ooze out. Any > idea what it could be and does that mean the drive > is pretty much > toast? Let the magic goo out? ------------- I also have this problem with a Mac Portable also from about 1990. Can't offhand remember the drive model but it's the gasket. I mop it up from time to time. It's still working. Doug

17 years, 4 months

2
1
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IBM mechnical devices

by dm561＠torfree.net

------------Original Message: Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 18:51:17 -0800 (PST) From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> Subject: Re: IBM mechnical devices To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20071129184544.W60333 at shell.lmi.net> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 29 Nov 2007, M H Stein wrote: > LOL! > There were several different models - see: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IBM_products > They were used mainly for utility bills, etc. which were often printed on > punched cards to be returned with your payment for processing. We > didn't do that sort of work very often, and when the cards had to be easily > human-readable (such as your COBOL cards) they'd be punched on a > printing keypunch (026) in the first place. Unfortunately, the card output punches of most of the computers, and the stand-alone duplicator didn't print when it punched. <snip> ------------Reply: Afraid I don't get your point; after all, that was the purpose of interpreters like the 557, to print the data that the computer or EAM had punched (and not printed). The 500 series output & reproducing punches couldn't punch *and* print because AFAIR the print mechanism essentially replaced the punch mechanism (except for the 519 which had a small numeric printer added, mainly for serial-numbering the cards). The keypunch equivalents could, but were much too slow for serious output operations. Not only were they slower to begin with, but they punched 80 columns lengthwise while pretty well all the electro-mechanical EAMs worked on the principle of a 12-phase synchronized cycle across the card, corresponding to the 12 zones of the cards. Your COBOL source cards on the other hand would have been punched on a keypunch and could have been printed as they were punched, no? mike

17 years, 4 months

3
2
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cctalk Digest, Vol 51, Issue 94

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:19:15 -0800 From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> Subject: Re: IBM mechnical devices On 30 Nov 2007 at 5:46, M H Stein wrote: >> The keypunch equivalents could, but were much too slow for serious output >> operations. Not only were they slower to begin with, but they punched 80 >> columns lengthwise while pretty well all the electro-mechanical EAMs worked >> on the principle of a 12-phase synchronized cycle across the card, corresponding >> to the 12 zones of the cards. >...and if you were one of the poor unfortunates to get saddled with >the 024 keypunch in a room of 026s, you needed the 557--the 024 >didn't print on the card--you flew "blind" or you just read the punch >holes visually. When they did it full-time, keypunchers and EAM operators got pretty good at sight-reading cards... >Fortunately, there was a standard IBM card form that numbered the >interpreter print columns on the two top rows as 1-60 and 61-80, so >you could figure out what printed character corresponded to what >punched column. Unless of course, some practical joker decided to >swap a couple of wires on the 557 plugboard... Heh, heh... yes, there was lots of opportunity for practical jokes... >Later, some keypunches could be used as light-duty card punches for >systems. I recall a CDC 1700 mini being hooked to a Univac keypunch. >Tab offered a keypunch that had an RS-232C interface on it and >probably were not the only ones. Both of those, IIRC, had "buffered" >keyboard interfaces--you typed in the card, then the punch punched >the whole thing. So did the later "normal" keypunches from IBM et al. >I preferred the 029 "press a key, get a kerchunk". >Later, I had the same issue with the daisywheel typewriters that >seemed to print asynchronously with one's typing. Cheers, Chuck Yes, they definitely had audible and tactile feedback; in fact you could feel it in your feet ;-) And then there were "light" keypunches. I've got one here by Wright that works like the old Dymo label makers: you dial up your character, press the punch bar and it moves to the next column (and prints BTW). mike

17 years, 4 months

1
0
0 0

Amiga languages

by lee＠geekdot.com

> HeliOS was just an operating system, not a language, no? Not according to the readme .. "HeliOS is an innovative, fast and efficient Amiga programming language which has been developed over many years. It is fully compatible with ALL Amigas running any operating system newer than AmigaDOS 1.1, including AGA and 68060 based machines." .. though I've not used it. Lee.

17 years, 4 months

3
2
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NNC Computers, was Re Vector Graphic restoration progress update

by lynchaj＠yahoo.com

I've known about NNC for quite a while and have at least one of them around here along with documentaion. It is a box with two vertical 8" drives and about the width of a regular S-100 box. I just took a look in the 1983 DATAPRO Small Computers notebook, and didn't see anything about them. That makes me think they had disappeard by then. BTW, I've found the DATAPRO marketing information to be a *great* souce of information on a lot of the companies. I think Sellam might have a more complete set of them. > From: jim s <jwstephens at msm.umr.edu <http://www.classiccmp.org/mailman/listinfo/cctalk> > > > <snip> It has a VG 1 case repainted and > > relabeled as a "No Name Computer" with all VG 5 components inside. > > Seriously, it is called NNC and that is not a joke. It is a very strange > > name. > > > There was a company called NNC located in Huntington Beach Ca in the > late 70's or early 80's that made basic S-100 hardware. I'll ask a > friend to get the names and history, but you may have an actual NNC box > and not a vector graphics system. > > I don't recall VG's history but I think that a flood of their hardware > appeared on the junk market and someone may have built up a box from > parts using an NNC mainframe. > > The NNC company built chassis with a backplane and power supply > initially and tried to do the entire system before collapsing. The > manufacturer was actually a guy who built components from sheet metal, > and found that building computer boxes was more profitable. I don't > know if there was a connection to VG but that would not be impossible. > > Jim > -----REPLY----- Hi Marvin! Wow! You have a NNC machine? Would you mind popping the cover off on it and taking a couple of photos? I am very interested to see what is inside and it may clear up some of the mystery surrounding this machine I am restoring. If the documents mention anything about VG parts, surely that would be interesting as well. Looking at my NNC chassis, if you put two 8" floppy drives in there it would use up nearly all the room inside. I can't see how there would be any left for an S-100 motherboard so maybe it is an external drive enclosure? I am using an old IBM PC chassis as a homebuilt drive enclosure for the floppy drive on the NNC machine here. I had assumed that since the NNC was full of exclusively VG parts and the case is essentially a repainted VG 1 case that NNC was some sort of VG VAR or shell company maybe from the post VG bankruptcy era. If it were a homebuilt machine, I would think there would be a more diverse selection of parts, however, it is just a guess. Thanks! Andrew Lynch PS, is the DATAPRO Small Computers notebook available online anywhere? I can't seem to find it.

17 years, 4 months

1
0
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NNC Computers, was Re: Vector Graphic restoration progress update

by marvin＠west.net

I've known about NNC for quite a while and have at least one of them around here along with documentaion. It is a box with two vertical 8" drives and about the width of a regular S-100 box. I just took a look in the 1983 DATAPRO Small Computers notebook, and didn't see anything about them. That makes me think they had disappeard by then. BTW, I've found the DATAPRO marketing information to be a *great* souce of information on a lot of the companies. I think Sellam might have a more complete set of them. > From: jim s <jwstephens at msm.umr.edu> > > <snip> It has a VG 1 case repainted and > > relabeled as a "No Name Computer" with all VG 5 components inside. > > Seriously, it is called NNC and that is not a joke. It is a very strange > > name. > > > There was a company called NNC located in Huntington Beach Ca in the > late 70's or early 80's that made basic S-100 hardware. I'll ask a > friend to get the names and history, but you may have an actual NNC box > and not a vector graphics system. > > I don't recall VG's history but I think that a flood of their hardware > appeared on the junk market and someone may have built up a box from > parts using an NNC mainframe. > > The NNC company built chassis with a backplane and power supply > initially and tried to do the entire system before collapsing. The > manufacturer was actually a guy who built components from sheet metal, > and found that building computer boxes was more profitable. I don't > know if there was a connection to VG but that would not be impossible. > > Jim >

17 years, 4 months

1
0
0 0

Old laptop hard drive "goo"

by trag＠io.com

> Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:36:23 -0500 > From: M H Stein <dm561 at torfree.net> > --- Michael Lee <mikelee at tdh.com> wrote: > >> so I took a look at the hard drive and there >> seems to be some type >> of goo oozing out of it. It's a Conner hard drive, >> nothing too abnormal. > ------------- > I've had that problem with a Conner drive in an Ogivar laptop; it was > the gasket between the housing and cover decomposing the same > way as drive rollers etc. My drive was still working though and, after > removing the goo and wrapping a layer of tape around the perimeter, > still is (at least so far). I have had the same experience. I collect Conner 60 MB and 80 MB drives (CP2064, CP2084, CP2088)for my old Outbound Model 125 Laptops (ca. 1990). A few of them have goo issues and on those drives the gasket between the metal case halves is missing. Talk about a dust/impurities hazard. I was thinking about putting a silicon seal around there. For some reason I never though of the simple solution of tape. <bangs self in head with hand> I think I've spent too long with aquariums. Every problem can be solved wtih silicon sealant. Jeff Walther

17 years, 4 months

1
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Vector Graphic restoration progress update

by lynchaj＠yahoo.com

Andrew Lynch wrote: > Hi, > > <snip> It has a VG 1 case repainted and > relabeled as a "No Name Computer" with all VG 5 components inside. > Seriously, it is called NNC and that is not a joke. It is a very strange > name. > There was a company called NNC located in Huntington Beach Ca in the late 70's or early 80's that made basic S-100 hardware. I'll ask a friend to get the names and history, but you may have an actual NNC box and not a vector graphics system. I don't recall VG's history but I think that a flood of their hardware appeared on the junk market and someone may have built up a box from parts using an NNC mainframe. The NNC company built chassis with a backplane and power supply initially and tried to do the entire system before collapsing. The manufacturer was actually a guy who built components from sheet metal, and found that building computer boxes was more profitable. I don't know if there was a connection to VG but that would not be impossible. Jim -----REPLY----- Hi Jim, Wow, that is interesting. I thought with a name like NNC it had to be a joke. Apparently someone had a sense of humor "back in the day"! If you look at this set of photos of a Vector 1+ on Dave Dunfield's page: http://classiccmp.org/dunfield/s100/index.htm#v1p The case is almost exactly like the Vector 1 case with very minor exceptions and a beige paint job. It could be that NNC resold an S-100 box full of VG parts. I have heard that VG did sell their boards as a set for VARs. Maybe it is a custom job too, I don't know. It could go either way but I think of the machine as a Vector Graphic. Technically you are correct and I agree with you. It is not a real VG machine like an MZ but it has definite VG heritage. Thanks for finding out any information you can on NNC. I am certainly interested in whatever history there is. Here is some information on NNC from earlier CCTALK posts. Whatever they have is definitely not related to my VG machine. http://classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2001-May/171711.html I suspect NNC made S-100 chassis and motherboard. Then people populated them with whatever they wanted. Of course, I don't know. It is just a hunch. Maybe they were the OEM for the VG 1 cases? Thanks! Andrew Lynch

17 years, 4 months

4
3
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SG Indy Available, Cheltenham UK

by fryers＠gmail.com

All, As I try and rationalise some of my collection, I have a SGI that I can see that I will never really have a use for and would like to give to a good home. I have the keyboard, screen and mouse to go with it. The machine is complete and worked last time I powered it up - about 12 months ago or there abouts. It is currently running some version of Irix. I don't know how much memory or the size of the HDD, but I seem to remember the HDD was somewhere between 200MB and 1GB - so not exactly huge. >From the part numbers, it has an old 8 bit frame buffer and the CPU is, "R4600PC -100mhz Primary Cache only". Ideally, I would like it to be collected from Cheltenham UK. However I work in Witney and I am up in the Milton Keynes area on weekends and can deliver to these areas, or on my way to / from Cheltenham. Bristol, Swindon and London are also deliverable when I am next in those areas. Thanks. Simon -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Well, an engineer is not concerned with the truth; that is left to philosophers and theologians: the prime concern of an engineer is the utility of the final product." Lectures on the Electrical Properties of Materials, L.Solymar, D.Walsh

17 years, 4 months

1
0
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Transportation .uk -> .de

by Arno_1983＠gmx.de

Hello, a few interesting items in the U.K. have recently popped up here - and the VCFe (which usually attracts some visitors from North of the Channel) is getting closer, so I figured I might try organizing a transport once again. I'm still in the process of contacting the current owners as I wanted to inform myself beforehand whether I can arrange transportation. Items may be coming from: -Glasgow -East London -Dorset (this one is fairly critical, would have to be collected before Christmas) and would have to be transported to southern Germany (Nuremberg area) for some compensation (meal, fuel money, etc). Offers and suggestions welcome. Thanks in advance, yours sincerely, Arno Kletzander -- Psssst! Schon vom neuen GMX MultiMessenger geh?rt? Der kann`s mit allen: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/multimessenger

17 years, 4 months

1
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Mechanical calculators (was: Re: *updating* 8088's)

by Arno_1983＠gmx.de

"Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at verizon.net> wrote: > On Friday 23 November 2007 22:23, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > There are many kinds of mechanical memory. In particular, I recall > > an early TTY device that used a large rotating drum with cams > > embedded in the surface. One could flip a cam one way or the other > > and then read them out. I'm trying to remember what sort of machine > > this was used on and its application, but my memory sadly fails me. > > This stirs a vague recollection of an old mechanical adding machine I > once had, the kind that had a big rectangular array of buttons instead > of just a "10-key" set of numbers. I have *no* idea how it stored a > number in there, though. Hmm, like, say, an old cash register? This design is called "Volltastaturmaschine" in German (would translate to "complete keyboard machine"). They have a latching mechanism that holds in one button per column of keys (0-9, representing one digit of a number). When a calculation is initiated, the protruding shaft of the latched key acts as a stop for a toothed rack or similar device which is used to advance the wheels of the accumulator register by as many teeth as the corresponding digit says. There are also designs which involve an arrangement of levers positioning an intermediate gear along the axis of a stepped drum, for example the Badenia VA-17/VARE-17. The big advantage is that zeros need not be entered (to enter 100.00, you just press the "1" button in the fifth column from the right) and that operators could learn to "touch-type" on these keyboards, effectively entering all digits of a number in parallel and greatly reducing cycle times. Also, correction of mistypes is very fast and easy because you just have to latch the correct key in the respective column. I have a Diehl EVM series machine of that type, unfortunately the mechanism is about completely gummed up from old grease. Most mechanical and electromechanical ten-key adders contain a "pin carriage", which essentially is such a keyboard in miniature. A set of push rods connected to the ten keys is suspended above this construction; upon entry of a digit, the corresponding pin (sticking out through the top of the carriage after a clear) is pushed through (now sticking out at the bottom) and the carriage is advanced one position by an escapement mechanism. > Going back even earlier, I had the occasional chance to play with some > mechanical calculators. These were about the size of an old typewriter, > and there were a couple of different sets of readouts that consisted of > digits that showed through small windows on the front of the machine. > It had a "carriage" of sorts that would shift back and forth at times, > though my fuzzy recollection isn't clear on when it did that. And when > you told it to multiply, it'd really take off! :-) Ah...I suppose these were Odhner / Facit electromechanical pinwheel calculators, or at least a similar construction. I got one of those not very long ago and I'm very fond of it! A wealth of information about them is to be found on James Redin's Facit Page, http://www.xnumber.com/xnumber/cmisc_facit_page.htm The input register on those is a bank (or "drum") of pinwheel mechanisms which are actuated by the input keys - gears with an adjustable number of teeth, so to say. The "pins" are extended or retracted by rotating two parts of the gear against each other. For the calculation cycle, the adjustment is locked and the whole drum turns once, advancing the adjacent intermediate wheels (and thus the accumulator wheels) by the number of pins set. Machines with keyboard entry had to use a "split pinwheel" design in order to reduce the key travel needed, involving four pins and a sector with five more. 1 - 4 steps UP from the zero position extended 1 - 4 pins; 1 - 5 steps DOWN extended the sector AND 0 - 4 pins. Mechanical Bi-Quinary. Once a digit is set, the drum is advanced one step to the left and the next unset wheel is positioned in front of the setting mechanism. So long, -- Arno Kletzander www.iser.uni-erlangen.de Ist Ihr Browser Vista-kompatibel? Jetzt die neuesten Browser-Versionen downloaden: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/browser

17 years, 4 months

1
0
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Amiga emulation for Mac OS X?

by ethan.dicks＠usap.gov

Hi, all, In the past, I've run real Amigas (from my 1986 A1000 to my 1997 A4000), and I've run plenty of Amiga emulation ("Amiga Forever", etc.). Can anyone recommend a good URL for running Amiga apps under my present platform of MacOS 10.4? I have apps, I have ROMs, etc. I just need a good Intel-Mac-based Amiga engine. Thanks, -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 29-Nov-2007 at 10:50 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -29.0 F (-33.9 C) Windchill -44.3 F (-42.4 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 4.2 kts Grid 112 Barometer 682.8 mb (10523 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html

17 years, 4 months

2
1
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IBM mechnical devices

by dm561＠torfree.net

-------------Original Messages: Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:30:51 -0800 (PST) From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> Subject: Re: Teaching kids about computers... > > Here's a question - what > > 8-bitters (or defunct 16-bitters, Atari, Amiga, you > > know, the common stuff) had COBOL available? > > What was SNOBOL? What about COBAL? I think I > have COBAL for the TI PC. For a while, I had a binder on one of my office bookshelves labelled "COBAL", due only to having a temporary worker who couldn't spell COBOL. What is the model number for the EAM card interpreter? At the college, I had a plugboard from one of them specifically set up for putting the relevant fields of COBOL source files in handy locations on the card (the interpreter did 60 columns of text, so it did not line up with the columns on cards). That particular plugboard was clearly labelled "COBOL Interpreter". So, yes, there was a COBOL interpreter :-) -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com -----------Reply: LOL! There were several different models - see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IBM_products We did have one, but I don't recall which one (probably a 557 or 548); machines that printed card contents on the card were indeed called "interpreters." They were used mainly for utility bills, etc. which were often printed on punched cards to be returned with your payment for processing. We didn't do that sort of work very often, and when the cards had to be easily human-readable (such as your COBOL cards) they'd be punched on a printing keypunch (026) in the first place. BTW we also had a somewhat rare 047, which was a printing keypunch that could also read (and convert) paper tape. m

17 years, 5 months

2
1
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Amiga languages

by lee＠geekdot.com

> I know you can program on the Amiga using the following languages: > Assembler > Amiga BASIC > AMOS BASIC > Blitz BASIC > Rexx > Arexx > C > Machine Code > I don't think I missed any. Ada, Smalltalk, Forth, Fortran, Pascal, Lua, Lisp, BCPL, Prolog, Comal, C++, HeliOS, Intercal, J, Java, Visual Pascal, Brainfuck, Logo, Malbolge, Cobol, Perl, Pilot, Scheme, Python, Perl, SML, Y and many variations of same. And those are just the free ones. For more go look here .. http://aminet.net/search?f=2&path=dev/lang Lee. .

17 years, 5 months

3
2
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VCF 10.0 and a Stride 460 Restoration project

by daviderhart＠oldzonian.com

Hello, I exhibited some of my Sage and Stride computers, manuals, datasheets, newsletters and software at the Vintage Computer Festival 10.0. It was an exciting and rewarding event and I'm looking forward to the next one. I took some pictures and video. I've uploaded the pictures, the video will follow soon. VCF 10.0 pictures: http://entertainment.webshots.com/album/561582429RvEsQG?vhost=entertainment One of the Sage Computer Technology founders, Rod Coleman, gave a talk about the early days of Sage Computer Technology and some of the Stride Micro story. Sellam let me add one of his computers to my exhibit, a Stride 440 (http://www.sageandstride.org/html/stride_440.html). During the show a really interesting guy came to visit my exhibit and he told me about his experiences with Sage and Stride computers. He still has the original systems he used for development in the 80's. More on that interesting story later ... He has a couple Sage IV's (in beautiful condition) and a Stride 460 tower!! (http://www.sageandstride.org/html/stride_460.html) I've been looking for a Stride tower for quite a while. Recently, he let me get my grubby hands on the Stride 460 tower and I've been restoring it. It was not in the best condition when I picked up the pieces. I've documented the process with tons of pictures that I've uploaded for others to enjoy. I'm not finished with the project. I'm hoping to get the system fully operational and then retrieve the data from the hard drive. I've pulled the hard drive from the system and substituted another MFM drive until I've figured out the safest method for retrieving the old data. I'll be asking for advice on that topic soon. I think the original drive has Idris installed. Here are links to the pictures of the Stride 460 system: Disassembly: http://entertainment.webshots.com/album/561576298tAcFSb?vhost=entertainment Cleaning: http://entertainment.webshots.com/album/561577961QEgBvM?vhost=entertainment Reassembly: http://entertainment.webshots.com/album/561575340kcreuM?vhost=entertainment Booting: http://entertainment.webshots.com/album/561575350zNSULy?vhost=entertainment Stride 460 datasheet: http://www.sageandstride.org/html/stride_460.html Any suggestions on how to carefully check if an old MFM drive is still operational, without damaging it, are appreciated. The drive has some oxidation on the exterior and it appears to have been stored in an occasionally damp location. Regards, david. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - David W. Erhart daviderhart at hotmail.com daviderhart at oldzonian.com http://www.sageandstride.org

17 years, 5 months

2
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Vector Graphic restoration progress update

by lynchaj＠yahoo.com

Hi, I am working to restore an old Vector Graphic machine. I think it is a VG 5 series machine but sort of an odd hybrid. It has a VG 1 case repainted and relabeled as a "No Name Computer" with all VG 5 components inside. Seriously, it is called NNC and that is not a joke. It is a very strange name. It contains a ZCB (Z80 CPU board), 64K RAM, Flashwriter II (video and parallel ASCII keyboard interface), and integrated FD/HD controller (aka VEDMCS). After working on this machine for weeks, I finally got it to boot CP/M 2.2 with a 56K TPA! YAHOO! I am very happy and thought I would share the good news with the folks on the VG and CCTALK mailing lists. If anyone needs or wants a VG 5 series CP/M boot disk to restore their machine, please send me an email and I will make you one. If you are interested in discussing Vector Graphic, feel free to join us on the VG mailing list. Thanks! Andrew Lynch PS, Here is all the info on the mailing list: http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=VECTOR-GRAPHIC To post (send a message to all subscribers), address your e-mail to vector-graphic at h-net.msu.edu. To unsubscribe, send the command "unsub vector-graphic", without the quotes, in the BODY of the message, to listserv at h-net.msu.edu. For other help, e-mail Dennis Boone <drb at msu.edu>.

17 years, 5 months

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VAX 11/750 power supply fault

by oldcpu2＠rogerwilco.org

I've finally acquired enough of the missing boards to try for a console prompt. But I want to do this carefully. I don't want to fry any of these modules if my power supplies are not on spec. I'm still waiting for a power key that's in transit (graciously copied by another classiccmp'er), but I figured I could just set the power controller to local and crank it up. So, after cleaning and reforming the removable capacitors[1], I figured that I wanted to apply power to the system with all the loads removed, and confirm proper voltages on the outputs. I left the backplane completely empty of boards, and I disconnected the power cable to the TU58 controller, just to be safe. I get a good AC indication on the controller when I plug into the main AC supply circuit. Switching the breaker on and the control switch from OFF to LOCAL gives good air from the (loud!) blower, but... What I see on the power controller indicators is the '+2.5 FAIL' and 'REG FAIL' LEDs both light up, then several seconds elapse and the 'OVER VOLTAGE' LED will flick on and the REG FAIL flicks off for about 1/2 second, then the whole sequence repeats. Each cycle takes about 8 seconds. A couple of photos of this can be found at: http://www.rogerwilco.org/VAX11-750/psfault I admit that I've never dealt with such a complex power system before, and I've just spent the last hour or so reading through the 'VAX 11/750 H7104 Power System Technical Description' document that I found on vt100.net. Trying to get my brain around what's going on, I came across the fault isolation section and it seems that what I'm seeing on the Power Controller LEDs maybe indicates a "Fault in the CPU backplane". Of course, there is no CPU installed yet. Could this indication be normal when no boards are installed? I'm hesitant to install any of my precious boards until I'm convinced that the power supplies are good, but maybe I have to install one (or more) boards to actually close the loop on something. Further reading tells me that there is a +2.5V-at-the-backplane monitoring function in the +2.5V power supply. I haven't yet looked at this particular issue up close, but maybe the monitor circuit is not complete without the proper board in the backplane. Is this a sensible explanation? I just want to be sure that putting one or more boards into the backplane is a safe next step. Thanks! - Jared [1] System hasn't been powered since 1994. I went through the motions, but I don't think the caps needed any help; the readings during the reforming process seemed to show them in good shape from the start.

17 years, 5 months

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free DEC AlphaServer 1000A systems

by Mark＠Misty.com

Hi, I've got a pair of AlphaServer 1000A systems available for free to whoever wants them. I need the space. These were previously rack-mounted, include memory and disk, and were working last time I powered them on. I'm near Plymouth Meeting, PA, USA, about five minutes from the PA turnpike exit. Please email me if interested. Mark -- Mark G. Thomas (Mark at Misty.com) http://mail-cleaner.com/

17 years, 5 months

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Slightly OT: tips for fabricating with plexiglass?

by jwilder＠dremedical.com

Regular drill bits will work fine as long as you go slow and easy - especially when you are about to "break" through the other side. Dull bits work better. The bit the salesman was trying to get you to buy was actually a bit designed to scrape the plastic instead of cutting it. The angles are different on the bits. Also, when using screws to join your pieces together be sure to drill your holes slightly larger than your screws. This allows for some movement of the plastic and prevents breakage at the stress point.

17 years, 5 months

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Old laptop hard drive "goo"

by dm561＠torfree.net

--- Michael Lee <mikelee at tdh.com> wrote: > I just received an old-ish (1990) Toshiba T1000LE > laptop and it wouldn't > boot, so I took a look at the hard drive and there > seems to be some type > of goo oozing out of it. It's a Conner hard drive, > nothing too abnormal. > > I didn't think a hard drive contained anything that > could ooze out. Any > idea what it could be and does that mean the drive > is pretty much > toast? Let the magic goo out? ------------- I've had that problem with a Conner drive in an Ogivar laptop; it was the gasket between the housing and cover decomposing the same way as drive rollers etc. My drive was still working though and, after removing the goo and wrapping a layer of tape around the perimeter, still is (at least so far). m

17 years, 5 months

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VT100 Character ROM image

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> is it likely that I'll > be able to read it on the programmer like a standard PROM/EEPROM? Most likely. You will need to verify on the schematic that they didn't use the extra lines to control programming as chip selects, though.

17 years, 5 months

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How easy is it to damage an IBM CGA display?

by marvin＠west.net

From: Richard <legalize at xmission.com> In article <474E0308.2010901 at atarimuseum.com>, "Curt @ Atari Museum" <curt at atarimuseum.com> writes: > There was an urban myth back in the late 80's and early 90's that there > was a virus going around that could alter the scan rate of a video > adapter so that it would blow out the monitor. Never saw any such > damage to a monitor in person, so I don't know if it was just a myth or > actually existed. Its not an urban legend. The issue was that there was a sync register (horizontal sync, I think) for which you could poke in a zero value. Wasn't the issue with a MONO monitor rather than CGA? ISTR that the horizontal frequency would get altered overheating the flyback with the resultant loss of the magic smoke.

17 years, 5 months

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test Thu, 29 Nov 2007 09:58:01 -0500

by drb＠msu.edu

This is a test mailing

17 years, 5 months

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Test, please ignore

by gordonjcp＠gjcp.net

Hello Jay! Gordon

17 years, 5 months

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test, pse ignore

by drb＠msu.edu

test testing testy aardvark

17 years, 5 months

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test message

by philippe＠cowpig.ca

This is a test (as requested by Jay), please ignore.

17 years, 5 months

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OT : CRT replacement

by cctech＠retro.co.za

Hi Tony and all >Why do you suspect that the CRT has failed? Have yoy actually tested it >(e.g is the heater open-circuit?) K, here's the story. The machine is about a thousand km from here. It was sent to the Motorola agents (1600 km from here :) where the technician diagnosed a faulty CRT. He also swapped his test CRT in, proving that the problem is with the CRT, but he's not prepared to part with the CRT he has. > > > > I don't even know if it's vector or raster, I'd suspect vector? > >There is no such thing as a 'vactor CRT'. Any CRT can be used in either >mod. Although it's common for raster displayes to use >magnetically-deflected CRTs and vector displays to use >electrostatically-deflected CRTs That's pretty much what I meant, yes. A vector display would imply an oscilloscope type CRT while a raster display would imply deflection coils and the like. And yes, there are exceptions I'm sure :-) >Is it more like TV CRT ot a 'socpe one? That's what I meant :) OK, so I have >CRT is marked with the following numbers : > >P/N95-P09122T001 >P/N96/80396A98 >AEG396512 >D/14/390GH it could also be D/14/390GHB > >(None of these pop up on google). > >The size of the CRT is as follows; >L: 360mm >W: 100mm >H: 125mm A length of 360 yells "oscilloscope" to me... no? I'm trying to get a picture of this animal, but since they can't fix it, maybe I should suggest they ship it to my side of the world, then I can count the pins on the base etc. I'm thinking that if it's a 'scope tube almost anything will work? Thanks W

17 years, 5 months

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free things for cctech readers, pick up preferred

by jeffj＠panix.com

I'm unsure how many readers are local to Elizabeth (central) NJ but I'm being forced to "downsize" my holdings so I'm offering things for free if picked up: - hundreds of new and slightly used floppy disks, both 3.5" and 5.25" - floppy drives: 3.5" and 5.25" - salvaged PC power supplies: about 9 PC-AT and 2: PC-ATX - EISA motherboards and cards (SCSI, network) - token ring cards, hub - crates of CD plastic "jewel cases" If you /absolutely positively/ require something and cannot pick it up, we'll see about shipping. -- Jeff Jonas jeffj-at-panix-dot-com

17 years, 5 months

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test

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

test, please ignore

17 years, 5 months

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cAccess to IOPAGE Registers using PDP-11 Opearting Systems

by bqt＠softjar.se

"Jerome H. Fine" <jhfinedp3k at compsys.to> skrev: >> Johnny Billquist wrote: > >>>>> Jerome Fine replies: >>>>> Obviously, a SYSTEM request avoids all of the problems at a >>>>> heavy cost in overhead estimated at between 50 and 500 times >>>>> the above two examples. >>>>> >>>>> That was sort of what I was thinking about when I asked if >>>>> there was an "fast method (only a few instructions)" to >>>>> access an IOPAGE register. >>> >>> Well, in RSX, you have a rather high overhead to set up the >>> mappping to the I/O page, unless it's already mapped in when the >>> task starts. But from there on, there is no overhead at all. It's >>> located somewhere in your 16-bit address space. (Note that you >>> really don't have to map the I/O page at APR7 in RSX. You can get >>> it mapped anywhere if you use the CRAW$/MAP$ or TKB options.) >>> > > That is helpful information. There might be times when APR7 should > not be used. Might be, but I can't figure out when. But I guess if you wanted to map something else into memory as well (such as a shared library), which wasn't position independent, and which expected to be at APR7... I just mentioned it since it's technically no difference between any of the APRs for a user program. Anyway, the overhead of mapping in the I/O page is a one time cost. >> However, with normal privileged programs, the I/O page is always >> present at APR7 even if you don't do anything. > Also VERY helpful. However, if so, then would there be any reason > why APR7 could not be mapped to user memory in the normal manner so > that the user program has a full 65536 bytes of address space, but > then the PREVIOUS DATA space is mapped to KERNEL providing the user > with complete access to the IOPAGE registers via that 2 instruction > example that I gave at the beginning? I can't see that there would > be any greater loss of security since being able to change the IOPAGE > registers either directly or indirectly is just as damaging! > > Please comment? You can have a privileged program that isn't mapped to the I/O page. The problem is that the kernel sets the PSW at various times for you, so you cannot expect to be able to keep control of the previous mode field of the PSW from your program. RSX is multitasking. Things can change between one instruction and the next in your task. One typical mistake people might do is to manipulate the APR registers themself, just because they are accessible, and the program is privileged. This won't work, since a contect switch can occur at any time, and the APR registers are not preserved between context switches. Instead, they are recreated from scratch, based on your mapping context every time the task is selected to run. So in that case, it fails not because of security considerations, but because of system design. You need to have the I/O page mapped in properly. Put another way: RSX makes sure the previous mode field is set to user at every occasion the system have executed in kernel mode and goes back to user mode. That is a security design. To make this different for privileged programs would incur extra costs everywhere, whithout any real gain. Privileged programs can get around this "problem" anyway, but not by running in user mode and expecting the previous mode field to be set to kernel. >>>>>>>>> RSX had a bit more flexibility (opportunity) in this >>>>>>>>> regard. I believe you can set up a CRAW$ (create >>>>>>>>> address window) directive in either Macro or Fortran >>>>>>>>> to achieve the desired result. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Yes with reservation. CRAW$ (create address window) is as >>>>>>> a part of doing dynamic remapping of your address space. >>>>>>> However, CRAW$ always required a named memory partition. >>>>>>> You cannot create an address window to an arbitrary >>>>>>> memory address. Also, the memory partitions have >>>>>>> protections and ownership associated with them. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On most systems, CRAW$ cannot get you access to the I/O >>>>>>> page, simply because normally you don't have an address >>>>>>> space and a partition associated with the I/O page. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> But if such a partition is created, then CRAW$, in >>>>>>> combination with MAP$ would allow you to access the I/O >>>>>>> page. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> The same thing can also be achieved even without >>>>>>> CRAW$/MAP$, since you can specify mapping that your task >>>>>>> should have already at task build time, with the COMMON >>>>>>> and RESCOM options to TKB. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> This seems to be the answer if it is allowed. Obviously it >>>>> does require giving up that 8192 bytes the have APR7 mapped >>>>> to user space. >>> >>> Correct. > > But unnecessary if privileged jobs already have access to the IOPAGE. > > > Please comment? True, but that already implies that one APR is used. >>>>> There is also another option with E11 that I will make use of >>>>> when I have finished with the HD(X).SYS device driver for >>>>> RT-11. It turns out that if the memory is being accessed >>>>> sequentially, the average time to reference a single 16 bit >>>>> value in the file under: MOUNT HD: FOOBAR.DSK is actually >>>>> less than the time to get/store a single value under EMEM.DLL >>>>> when as few as 8 blocks (2048 words at a time) are being >>>>> referenced. Consequently, setting up a small 4096 byte buffer >>>>> and the associated code to handle to calls to the HD: device >>>>> driver (all standard calls to .ReadF and .WritF in RT-11) is >>>>> actually more efficient since after the values are in the >>>>> buffer inside the program, the values can be referenced and >>>>> modified at "emulated PDP-11" memory speeds. >>> >>> You mean that using a device driver, and a device that can access >>> the "normal" memory instead is better. Well, I'm not surprised. >>> What this essentially turns into, is that you're emulating DMA. > > Actually, under E11, it is almost identical in principle to the VM: > device driver which accesses "emulated normal PDP-11 extended > memory". The E11 command: MOUNT HD: RAM:/SIZE:number-of-blocks > makes HD: into a Virtual Memory device which directly uses PC memory. "Ram disk" is probably the word I'd use. > However, the average transfer rate per word for even a few blocks > (or a few thousand words) from/into emulated user memory is a small > fraction of > a normal memory access time. True. > In addition, if an operating system caches the blocks in a file, the > same speed is achieved. Not really. By using a ram disk, you don't need to run through the various layers of the operating system to deal with the system call and the device handling, even if that ends up just accessing a disk cache. >>>>> Of course, the above solution for sequential references does >>>>> not work when the references are random or when references >>>>> are at regular but very large intervals (thousands and even >>>>> millions of successive values). For this latter situation, >>>>> it may be possible to modify EMEM.DLL so that a single >>>>> reference to the IOPAGE register modifies all of the >>>>> specified values (over a range of up to many billions of >>>>> values). >>> >>> Can't comment much, since I don't know exactly what you're trying >>> to do. But speedwise, if you really want something to act like >>> fast disk, writing something that behaves like proper DMA is the >>> best. You give the device a memory address, a length, and a >>> destination address on the device, and let it process the data as >>> fast as it can, without involving the PDP-11 after that point. > > It is just a bit more complicated since the memory address can be > anywhere in the 4 MB of emulated PDP-11 memory. So 22 bit address is > required > - which can be determined during initialization. The even > better aspect is that the code (only about a dozen instructions which > set up the 6 IOPAGE registers) can be in user space which avoids the > overhead of a system call. Why limit yourself to 4 MB? If you have a device that gives you the storage, you can basically let if be of any size you want to. Johnny

17 years, 5 months

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Amiga TV Out

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

Broadcast PAL as defined by the IBA (Independent Broadcasing Authority) 'Specification of Television Standards for 625-line System I Transmissions' (September 1972) The IBA were the governing body for TV in the UK at the time. -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jim Leonard Sent: 28 November 2007 18:29 To: General at icky.berkhirt.com; On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Amiga TV Out Rod Smallwood wrote: > My requirement is much less demanding. > I only need to show test cards,static pictures and the like. > Whats most important is that the output is as close to the full PAL > standard as possible. > So to widen the scope the question becomes: > 'Where can I get an old system that will do broadcast standard PAL TV > out.' I'm not sure that question can be answered, since I have never ever seen a system that does "broadcast" PAL output. You have to define what you mean by "broadcast": - If you mean "broadcast as circa 1990 and before", then composite video qualifies, but I have never seen a system with a composite output without an unacceptable level of noise. - If you mean "broadcast as circa 1991 and later", you'd need a system with a bare minimum of Y/C ("s-video") output and I don't know of any, unless you stick a later-model genlock onto an Amiga. -- 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, 5 months

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IBM 5271 (PC3270) host interface options

by dm561＠torfree.net

------------Original Messages: Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 22:22:09 +0000 (GMT) From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Subject: Re: IBM 5271 (PC3270) host interface options <snip> > What was special about slot 8? In a true-blue IBM PC/XT (5160) or PortablePC (5155), and AFAIK very few, if any clones, the data bus on slot 8 is wired to the opposite side of a bus buffer to the data bus to the other 7 sltos. For that reason, the card in slot 8 has to assert (pull low) one pin on the conenctor on read cycles to that board (I forget the exact pin, I can look it up if you need it). The IBM Async card (RS232 card) was one card that could do this (jumper selected). I have heard that one reason such a card was included with every PC/XT was that it was bout the only thing that could go in slot 8, and by putting it there at the factory it avoided too many calls from customers 'Why doesn't the XYZ card work properly in my new XT?' <snip> -tony ------------Reply: Wasn't it used (and intended) for the expansion chassis card? m

17 years, 5 months

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IBM 5271 (PC3270) host interface options

by bear＠typewritten.org

Esteemed listmembers; I am restoring a ca. 1985 IBM 5271---the so-called 3270 PC. I received it intact, with a full complement of cards, cables, etc. It looks very much like it was shut down, removed from its original office installation, and then apparently left somewhere the squirrels could get to it (thus, "restoring"). I've vacuumed about forty pounds of sunflower seed hulls out of it. Blessedly, I haven't found any other signs of animal inhabitation. Anyway, my irrational fear of contracting hantavirus aside, I am wondering if somebody could tell me about what I suspect is the host interface adapter. All card slots are occupied: 1 - Async Adapter 2 - 5271 Graphics Adapter APA option 3 - 5271 Graphics Adapter 4 - 64-256KB Memory expansion card 5 - 5160 ST412 controller 6 - 5160 floppy controller 7 - the card I need help identifying 8 - 5271 Keyboard Adapter As there is no 3270 coax card and no open slot to have once held one, I suspect that the 3270 host interface is the unknown card in slot 7. I own IBM SDLC and Bisync adapter cards, and this one doesn't look like either. Physical characteristics: * 8-bit, short card. * One DB25F on the bulkhead. * 9x Oki M37S64-20; apparently 64Kx1 memories. * 34 pin .100" header, vertically, at back end of card (J2) * one 4-pos DIP switch at top right. * Pretty much everything else on the card is 74LS-series TTL or passive. It's built like IBM made it, but I can't find any obvious IBM-style part number on it, unless it's 2683541. Google is silent on this number. (update: I just noticed 6320999 in the etch, but that hasn't gotten me any closer to an answer). Anybody have any guesses? What other host attachment options were available for the 5271, besides 3270 coax? Thanks! ok bear

17 years, 5 months

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Amiga TV Out

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

My requirement is much less demanding. I only need to show test cards,static pictures and the like. Whats most important is that the output is as close to the full PAL standard as possible. So to widen the scope the question becomes: 'Where can I get an old system that will do broadcast standard PAL TV out.' PAL will be gone as soon as the analog systems TV systems are switched off and digital takes over. -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of John Foust Sent: 27 November 2007 14:44 To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Amiga TV Out At 11:46 PM 11/26/2007, Rod Smallwood wrote: > I'm sure that I heard that some Commodore systems could do TV out >and were in fact used to produce CGI stuff for 'Babylon Five" >Does anybody know which ones and could they do PAL or just NTSC? Special effects makers strove for higher quality as the job demanded. Part of the appeal of the Amiga for special effects was the price of the 32-bit hardware and software. SGI hardware and software was an order of magnitude more expensive. NewTek's Lightwave was used by the Babylon 5 special effects group. I know they also used an early 3D Studio on a PC for some of the modeling. (And they used some of my software to convert between 3D file formats; as I recall, the spun shape of the original station was made that way.) Yes, the Amiga had the horsepower to play back animations of useful color depths in real-time. Depending on the image and the requirements, some special effects might even look OK with the straight TV-out. For example, the typical synthetic "computer display" in a cheesy sci-fi show. When you're filming an actor in front of an animation playing on a monitor, low-res is OK. More often for serious output, as in Babylon 5's case, they laid their bitmaps to an 8mm Exabyte tape as data files, then imported into an Abekas framebuffer that could play them back in real time. High quality, no generational loss every time you made an edit or copy. Straight TV-out wasn't a high-quality method of exporting video, though. In the early days, some people used single-frame video recorders to lay down a sequence of animation. This worked reasonably well, within NTSC generational limits. Later, some NewTek Video Toaster-based animators used its higher-quality framebuffer as the output to single-frame recordings. - John

17 years, 5 months

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Amiga TV Out

by dm561＠torfree.net

-------------Original Message: Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 16:53:03 -0000 From: "Rod Smallwood" <RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk> Subject: RE: Amiga TV Out My requirement is much less demanding. I only need to show test cards,static pictures and the like. Whats most important is that the output is as close to the full PAL standard as possible. So to widen the scope the question becomes: 'Where can I get an old system that will do broadcast standard PAL TV out.' PAL will be gone as soon as the analog systems TV systems are switched off and digital takes over. -------------Reply: FWIW, if it doesn't have to be an Amiga I think some PC Video cards also could output PAL as well as NTSC. m

17 years, 5 months

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Moving house and clearing out...

by gordonjcp＠gjcp.net

I've got some stuff I need to find a new home for: MicroVAX 3300, working, spec unknown LA36, big box of paper and ribbons Altos 386 RL02, believed to be working but I haven't tried it. They're in Glasgow. I'd prefer it if you collect, but can deliver at least part of the way. Gordon

17 years, 5 months

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Free Alpha System 2000 4/233? : Dorset UK

by mjd.bishop＠emeritus-solutions.com

Yours for the holidays. Free Alpha System 2000 4/233? Collection only >from Dorset UK. PartNo 455YD-A9, condition / parts as seen in the jpegs. Pdfs are "information only". Obtained as part of a job lot. Condition is understood to be "Powers up and self tests OK but that's all I know about DEC systems. Has a video card, 5 x scsi i/o, fibre channel/RJ-45 network card". Has not been powered on since acquisition. Must be gone for Xmas -- you know what that means ... I hope someone wants it, if only for parts. Sincerely Martin Note These files are each 0M5 to 1M0 in size http://www.emeritus-solutions.com/alpha/A2k_Isometric.jpg http://www.emeritus-solutions.com/alpha/A2k_Front.jpg http://www.emeritus-solutions.com/alpha/A2k_Left.jpg http://www.emeritus-solutions.com/alpha/A2k_Rear.jpg http://www.emeritus-solutions.com/alpha/A2k_Right.jpg http://www.emeritus-solutions.com/alpha/A2k_BackplaneL.jpg http://www.emeritus-solutions.com/alpha/A2k_BackplaneR.jpg http://www.emeritus-solutions.com/alpha/Alpha2000_technical_summary.pdf http://www.emeritus-solutions.com/alpha/EK-400MP-OP-A01.pdf

17 years, 5 months

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Amiga TV Out

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

Now that's interesting. So Amiga 2000 Models were availalable in PAL composite out for this side of the water. (I'm in the UK) Rod Smallwood -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jim Leonard Sent: 28 November 2007 06:42 To: General at icky.berkhirt.com; On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Amiga TV Out Rod Smallwood wrote: > I'm sure that I heard that some Commodore systems could do TV out Composite only, but yes. You could get better results with a "genlock" device; a few of them supported Y/C ("s-video"). I produced a DVD last year with footage of running Amiga programs and I had to resort to scan-converting the RGB port itself to get acceptable quality. My signal path was RGB port->vga adapter->R/G/B/H/V breakout cable->scan converter->Y/Cr/Cb output->Y/Cr/Cb video capture card. That sounds heinous, but the scan converter and the video capture card were very high-end broadcast-quality units (scan converter was RGB Spectrum Videolink 1650x; capture card was Black Magic Designs Decklink SP) and there were really only two generational losses (RGB->scan converter and scan converter->capture card). The quality from this process was an order of magnitude better than the A500 and A4000's composite video output port. > and were in fact used to produce CGI stuff for 'Babylon Five" That was a NewTek Video Toaster, not a stock Amiga :-) The Video Toaster hardware had it's own set of video output ports, IIRC, although I could be wrong as I've never used one. > Does anybody know which ones and could they do PAL or just NTSC? All models except the A4000 (and maybe the A3000, but I'm not sure) were made in NTSC or PAL specific versions, with a different color generator and crystal to match. The A4000 had a jumper on the motherboard that selected either NTSC or PAL timings. You could get any model to "emulate" the other by using free utilities like Degrader, but these only affected the RGB video output timing. I used Degrader extensively on my NTSC A1200 to get European PAL games to run, since they required a 50Hz display, but that didn't affect the composite video output port, which was still NTSC (although it output some quasi-NTSC-50-gibberish when running in "pal" mode). -- 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, 5 months

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Teaching kids about computers...

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Teaching kids about computers... > From: woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> > Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 20:47:21 -0700 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Chuck Guzis wrote: > >> So, I propose that programming be taught first in machine language, >> then assembly. That's how I learned to do it. > >Real or fictional machine? Real, use PDP-8 it's simple enough and not too many instructions. > >> Cheers, >> Chuck >> >PS. I bet with the right fictional machine, it could be a >easy step to building hardware. PISC Pitiful instruction set computer. A varient of TOY idea. There are others inlcusing a 4bitter. Allison

17 years, 5 months

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IBM mechnical devices

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 16:49:10 -0700 From: woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> Subject: Re: IBM mechnical devices >M H Stein wrote: >> But I didn't have anything as modern as a 407; In My Day we only had 402s!!! >> BTW, my claim to fame was making it multiply; they said it couldn't be done, so... >Has look up " 402 IBM " on the web. That is old stuff, a little more on topic than >what I have seen lately. >> Haven't seen any with peripherals on eBay lately though... >So how many of the those old beasts are still around? >Ben alias woodelf. >PS. How did you get it to multiply? ---------- Actually, I think there are a few still around, but by the time you add all the necessary "peripherals" you've filled a large room... Don't ask me to do it today, but it was the "add and shift" method used by most mechanical calculators. Doubt if I still have the "coding form" though (lots of little circles connected with lines drawn to represent wires; a *real* machine language, none of that wussy octal & hex nonsense of Kids Today...) m

17 years, 5 months

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IBM mechnical devices

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 16:15:29 -0800 From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> Subject: Re: IBM mechnical devices On 27 Nov 2007 at 16:49, woodelf wrote: >> PS. How did you get it to multiply? >Added a 602-A? >Cheers, >Chuck ---------- Actually, it was a Big Day when we replaced the 602-A with a 604; lots o' blinkenlights and warm glowing tubes instead of all those clicking relays and turning cams. Only electronic gear in the place until we replaced most of it with Canada's first Burroughs B-260, grandson of the famous Lost in Space B-205. Picture of B-260 (and some other interesting pix & facts) at: http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/BRL64-b.html#B260/B270/B280 Ah, the good old days... m

17 years, 5 months

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the Commie 64 lives?

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

We all know decent emulators are a click away. But what do you do once you're downloaded and installed the emulator? Much C64 s/w was copy protected to begin with, so does having an emulator give you the ability to do much more then code from scratch? Is there s/w out there? ____________________________________________________________________________________ Get easy, one-click access to your favorites. Make Yahoo! your homepage. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

17 years, 5 months

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IBM mechnical devices

by dm561＠torfree.net

-----------Original Messages: Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:54:54 -0800 From: davis <davis at saw.net> Subject: Re: IBM mechnical devices woodelf wrote: > M H Stein wrote: > >> But I didn't have anything as modern as a 407; In My Day we only had >> 402s!!! >> BTW, my claim to fame was making it multiply; they said it couldn't >> be done, so... > > Has look up " 402 IBM " on the web. That is old stuff, a little more > on topic than > what I have seen lately. > >> Haven't seen any with peripherals on eBay lately though... > > So how many of the those old beasts are still around? > Ben alias woodelf. > PS. How did you get it to multiply? > > > How can you do any business work on hardware that can't multiply? The mind boggles! Jim Davis -------------Reply: Ah, no, for that there was the 604 Calculating punch, equivalent to a numeric co-processor (but in two somewhat larger cabinets !); since it was in big demand it made sense to do simple multiplication on the 402s instead of waiting for your turn. m

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IBM 5271 (PC3270) host interface options

by classiccmp＠memory-alpha.org.uk

Hi, > I believe some Microsoft Bus Mouse cards had this facility too.... Indeed, all of the ones I've seen have a "slot 8" jumper on them. I've still got a couple knocking around somewhere along with their associated meeces. TTFN - Pete.

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SASI and XT/IDE info

by kelly＠catcorner.org

> --- Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> > wrote: > > > Chris - you probably have something quite unique > > there. Whilst things calling > > themselves SASI interfaces are common in old > > 8-bitters, this is the first I've > > heard of one for the PC... > > They're not specific to anything AFAIK. They're not > ISA cards if that's what you were led to believe. > They're the same size as a floppy, or old klunker of a > hard drive (similar to an Ampro Little Board). > The guy who gave them to me supposedly had a drawing > for an interface that would allow *any* computer with > a *parallel* connection to utilize these boards. Kelly > Leavitt (who sailed off the end of the earth > apparently, haven't seen him around) should know a bit > more about these things. I could e-mail Roy Soltoff > about the schematics, but I doubt he held onto them. The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. I've just spent the last 8 months working on a personal project that I'm not quite finished with yet. Nothing to do with classic computers though. I have a bunch of these boards. They are WD SASI to MF boards. See the WD1002-SHD docs on bitsavers. Kelly No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.16.8/1154 - Release Date: 11/27/2007 11:40 AM

17 years, 5 months

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SASI and XT/IDE info

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

so what's a SASI board good for? I found and took pictures of my Acculogic sIDE-1/16 board (XT/IDE) if anyone would like to take a look. Besides 1 PAL chip, all standard TTL. Would be nice to get these things cloned. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better pen pal. Text or chat with friends inside Yahoo! Mail. See how. http://overview.mail.yahoo.com/

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test-drb November 2007