test-drb November 2007

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

229 participants
508 discussions

by dm561＠torfree.net

-----------Original Message: Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2007 11:47:34 -0800 From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> Subject: Re: CDC Terminal (was Commodore PET) On 9 Nov 2007 at 14:17, M H Stein wrote: > Control Data Corporation > QSE 1253 Display Controller > QSE 1255 Display Equipment Maybe Billy Petit recognizes this. Before I saw the above, I was about to declare it an Intercom terminal controller (Intercom stations were used for remote job entry). But QSE is CDC parlance for "Quote for Special Equipment" (as opposed to QSS "Quote for Special Software"). Which means that it was a custom-order job, perhaps for a defense customer. Cheers, Chuck ---------Reply: Makes sense. Assuming I'm looking at the right PCB rack it's pretty modular; the cards all look pretty well the same and it also had a quite large and some smaller diode matrix boards, so I guess with the right cards, backplane wiring and diode placement you could make it do pretty well anything. Defence? In Canada? We're your peace-lovin' neighbour who welcomes our enemies with open arms (and without the kind of arms you carry down there)... m

17 years, 4 months

Commodore PET

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2007 20:53:54 +0000 From: Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> Subject: Re: Commodore PET <snip> > In my not-so-humble opinion, the PET's metal case and automobile-style 'hood' > ('bonnet' to you), hefty linear power supply, crisp built-in monitor, IEEE port, and its > generous supply of other I/O ports, not to mention Commodore's good official > support, made it stand out among the Apples and R-S model 1s of the day. I think it's not that they're particularly bad, just that I'm failing to see why they've got quite the following that they have (unless this is just another one of those UK/US differences - there were lots of expandable, well-built, well-documented systems around in the UK back in the day, but perhaps that wasn't so true of the US?) On a personal note, the styling never appealed somehow - a dinky monitor physically bolted to a large, squat, angular case with a large footprint just didn't seem too practical. But then I've never been a big fan of all-in-one systems anyway, I suppose - I'd much rather have separate keyboard / display / CPU / drives, and with units that took up vertical space in favour of horizontal. ---------------- MHS: Well, that 'splains everything; I'm a horizontal kind of guy and bemoan the trend for PCs to go from AT style to towers; they're coming back to horizontal but now they're too small to put any drives into. Then again, once you put your TV set or monitor on top of your Apple it didn't look much different; just a fuzzier display and some extra cables. But a PET sure wasn't as easy to carry over to a friend's house to play with, I'll grant you that. To each his/her own as far as styling goes, but it did look more like a 'computer' (i.e. terminal), at least after that very first graphic kbd/tape drive version. The BM in CBM did stand for Business Machines after all... ======== > And, as an aside, it was many years before the mainstream reached the 500MB > *per side* of the 8050 and 8250 disk drives (which could use pretty well any > diskette you had on hand, soft sector, 10 or 16S hard sector, whatever). Granted that does seem pretty good (I assume you mean 500KB ;) - I think Acorn would have been doing 400KB around that time but a lot of the competition (at least in the UK) were aiming at something like half that. ----------------- Oops; a small glitch in the 1/2 MB to 500K conversion... ======== I'm not really serious about them being nasty machines (hence the smiley in the original message) - they just don't really 'do' anything for me. But then we all have out *cough* 'pet' systems... ;) (Anyone know the price on a 8250 drive back in the day? I bet they didn't come cheap!) cheers Jules ----------------- Well, yes, there is that; $2000+... But they were meant for someone who could write them off their taxes... m

17 years, 4 months

PET IEEE problem (was Commodore PET)

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2007 17:45:36 +1300 From: Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at usap.gov> Subject: Re: Commodore PET <snip> >I got a lot of miles out of that PET. I still have it and it still >fires up (but I think I have an IEEE problem that may turn out to be >cruddy 40-pin sockets on the VLSI I/O chips). <snip> Those sockets were indeed a PITA, but another easy-to-overlook problem I ran into with my 8050 disk drive is that if you happen to catch the tip of one of the contacts in the female IEEE connector while plugging in the cable you can easily push it into the connector and out the back, causing an intermittent. m

17 years, 4 months

Commodore PET

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2007 09:55:34 +0000 From: Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> Subject: Re: Commodore PET >We still seem to get them offered to the museum in healthy numbers - including >the chicklet models (and once in a while one of the blue-fronted ones, which I >believe are the earliest). >I've never tried actively seeking one out though as there's been no need. >Finding one that works seems to be the difficult bit - I don't think I've ever >seen one which hasn't required some form of TLC inside. Nasty, clunky, >horrible things they are ;-) >cheers >Jules --------Reply: Well, recognizing that this was probably just flame bait, I respectfully disagree. Granted, with time there were problems with poor connectors and failing RAM & ROM chips, but that was common in systems of that day (and still is). In my not-so-humble opinion, the PET's metal case and automobile-style 'hood' ('bonnet' to you), hefty linear power supply, crisp built-in monitor, IEEE port, and its generous supply of other I/O ports, not to mention Commodore's good official support, made it stand out among the Apples and R-S model 1s of the day. Mine _is_ originally one of the blue-front models and it still works fine to this day; the only problems I've had with it is one of the ROMs developing a stuck bit and the occasional dirty connector, and the keyboard contacts need to be cleaned once in a while (and a little rust from Racoons peeing on it while it sat for many years in the garage with a hole in the roof). And, as an aside, it was many years before the mainstream reached the 500MB *per side* of the 8050 and 8250 disk drives (which could use pretty well any diskette you had on hand, soft sector, 10 or 16S hard sector, whatever). Archiving some 25+ year old diskettes recently I had one read error in 20 diskettes (and I could use the computer for playing a fast game or two while formatting or copying diskettes)... m

17 years, 4 months

Fairchild 9401 ttl ic pinout wanted.

by jdbryan＠acm.org

On 9 Nov 2007 at 13:44, I wrote: > Perhaps: > > http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/fairchild/_dataSheets/F94xx_dataSheets.pdf > > ...has what you need? Alas, it does not. Several interesting 94xx parts, but the 9401 is not one of them. -- Dave

17 years, 4 months

*ON*-topic car question

by gordonjcp＠gjcp.net

At least one version of the Aston Martin Lagonda used CRTs driven by some sort of microcomputer for the dashboard displays. Anyone know anything more about it? Short of scouring eBay and buying such a car (and incurring the wrath of SWMBO) I can't find out much about it. I bet someone here knows though. Gordon

17 years, 4 months

CDC Terminal (was Commodore PET)

by dm561＠torfree.net

---------- From: Richard[SMTP:legalize at xmission.com] Sent: Friday, November 09, 2007 12:33 PM To: M H Stein Subject: Re: Commodore PET [off-list reply] [on-list re-reply for general interest] In article <01C822C6.8F421200 at MSE_D03>, M H Stein <dm561 at torfree.net> writes: > Just one of many things I dumpstered before I saw the light; the North > Star and CDC terminal I tossed because I only wanted the desks, the What "CDC terminal"? ---------------- Reply: Well, "terminal" might not have been accurate; it might have been a console or even something else altogether But it so happens I still have the 'desk' and some of its innards; the model numbers are: Control Data Corporation QSE 1253 Display Controller QSE 1255 Display Equipment Maybe someone on the list knows more. I may be confusing it with an MDS Data entry station which I scrapped for the same reason (I needed a lot of small desks to put computers and terminals on), but I believe it was the CDC unit that had the 3-row rack of cards, mostly populated with house-numbered 10-pin TO-5 ICs and an acoustic delay line for memory, and it was the MDS unit that had the larger boards and the small core memory plane that are all still lying around somewhere in the Chaos Basement. mike

17 years, 4 months

SGI Sirius Video Breakout Box -- do you need the i/f board?

by legalize＠xmission.com

There's one on ebay right now (item 230183969927) complete with the cabling and connectors to the chassis. No cables connecting the board to the breakout box, though. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

17 years, 4 months

WTB: LIM/EMS/XMS 16-bit ISA memory expansion board

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: WTB: LIM/EMS/XMS 16-bit ISA memory expansion board > From: woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> > Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2007 17:53:05 -0600 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >> Chuck Guzis wrote: >>> Make isn't important, as long as it'll hold at least a couple of MB >>> and will work with a "plane Jane" 286. >> >> <AOL>Me too!</AOL> >> >> Seriously, I'm looking too. >> >> Peace... Sridhar >I am looking for anything that *DOES* not end in 86. >> . Sounds like someone looking for an ASk 6Pak Pro. Allison

17 years, 4 months

Tektronix 4051

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> I think the ROMs from the cartridges > should be dumped, too. I've dumped the ones that I have, would be a good thing to have copies from another source.

17 years, 4 months

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test-drb November 2007