>from ttp://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070306-commodore-announces-
new-gaming-pcs.html:
"At the upcoming CeBit electronics show in Germany on March 15, a
company called Commodore Gaming is scheduled to release a new line of
gaming PCs for the European market.
"25 years ago, Commodore launched the best selling personal computer
of the late 20th Century, the C64, and defined the early computer
games experience for millions of people worldwide," said Bala
Keilman, CEO for Commodore Gaming. "We are privileged and excited to
bring the Commodore brand back to the gaming community and mark a new
chapter in its history with this exceptional machine. We're sure that
it will deliver what gamers need and want."
Cheers,
Chuck
For the record a PDP 11/04 is on offer at:
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Computers/Vintage/auction-90878548.htm
I seem to recall that comment on the list has been that these machines are
fairly easily obtained. And there's the *slight* drawback for anyone who's
interested that it's pick-up only!
Cheers,
Peter
> I suppose (or is it like that already?) bitsavers needs some form of database
This is difficult to do the way that it is hosted and mirrored currently. Right
now, it is just a directory heirarchy with a couple of files I have to manually
edit and upload every time I add something (IndexByDate and Whatsnew in the pdf
directory) There are no equivalent files in the 'bits' directory.
I know Jay would like it to distribute the transfer load across the mirrors, too.
At 07:21 PM 3/6/2007 -0500, you wrote:
>On 3/6/07, Steven Canning <cannings at earthlink.net> wrote:
>>I think the multiplexing issue has been well addressed ( no pun intended )
>>so for those who would like to mux their nixies may I suggest checking into
>>the following IC's for that purpose: 7441, 74141 and the Soviet KM1551 ( Das
>>Vadanya ! ) .
>
>I knew about the 7441 and the 74141 (such things are well covered in
>Don Lancaster's "TTL Cookbook"). I did _not_ know what the Russian
>part number is. I'll have to see if I can scare up one or two of
>those. I was thinking of breaking my large strip of Nixies into a
>clock or three.
My great treasure is a box of Burroughs 7971 nixies. I have five, or maybe
six of them. As you may know, these are "British Flag" displays that can do
any number, letter, and some punctuation. They're 4.55 inches high,
excluding the pins, and the characters are 2.5 inches high.
They have 15 segments each making designing for them a challenge. What I
want it a device I can build with a PIC or two that will display the time
and maybe the temp, plus a scrolling alpha numeric message uploaded to it
via a USB port. I see USB port boards for PIC use all over the place, but
I'm fairly daunted by the prospect of designing a circuit flexible enough
to drive 6x15 segment nixies. Maybe a character generator in addition to
the main PIC??
The other thing I want is a WWV decoder so it sets itself. Yes, I know I
could periodically set it over a USB port, but I want it to be self
sufficient if no PC is handy. The only suggestions I've gotten so far are
to cut up a cheapo atomic clock from a big-box store and salvage the 1 PPS
output from it. That might help me keep it accurate, but won't help me set
it automagically.
Others have suggested a GPS eval board. Those are certainly cheap enough
and some require no more than power and spit out NMEA strings the minute
you power them up. But GPS won't work indoors and certainly not in the
basement.
Still looking,
-Tom
-----
445. [Humor] I just got skylights put in my place. The people who live
above me
are furious. --Steven Wright
--... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -...
tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio)
"HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB: http://www.mixweb.com/tpeters
43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc
WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531
> On Wed, 7 Mar 2007, Jules Richardson wrote:
>
>> Jim MacKenzie wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I just recently got approved as a participant on the list.
>>
>> Welcome, pull up a VAX cluster etc. :-)
>
> Speaking of which, and continuing my wantwantwant: does anyone have a
> fairly recent OpenVMS VAX (i.e. beyond 7.3-something, whatever version
> shipped TCP/IP with ssh v2, or better) ? In return I can assist with
> kits
> from a recent-ish CONDIST for OpenVMS VAX.
That would be difficult. OpenVMS AXP can be done (but is not convenient
- I've been keeping tabs on the Hobbyist distro and they're trying to
remaster with v8.2, but it is slow).
v8.anything VAX would require acquisition of sources and backporting.
VAX support stopped at 7.3 (boo, hiss, and all that I suppose).
BTW, excl. a better SSH (which can be done with Multinet or TCPware,
see www.process.com [they even have hobbyist licenses]) what are the
advantages of v8 for you?
> From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>
> I can remember seeing at least one project for a crystal-controlled
> timing source using tubes (I think it used push-pull 6F6's in the
> output stage) to run an ordinary synchronous-motor wall clock. This
> would probably be during the 1940s or 50s.
>
> Does anyone remember that the oldest of said wall clocks required the
> owner to start the motor manually by spinning a little knurled shaft
> located on the back?
I seem to recall a rumor where the power companies were offering to replace at
no charge those clocks that needed to be mamually started (before my time.) The
reason had something to do with using power that didn't register on the power
meter. Anyone here know if this is fact or fiction?
At 19:41 -0600 3/7/07, ard wrote:
>Well, I've said many times the most important piece of test gear is not a
>'scope or multimeter, it's that thing between your ears. Your call :-)
Ah. My "ballast". (My family calls it 'rocks', but what do they know ...)
--
- Mark, 210-379-4635
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Large Asteroids headed toward planets
inhabited by beings that don't have
technology adequate to stop them:
Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward.
Hey listmates ... some good news ... Computerworld magazine invited me to
blog for them about our hobby.
I'm really excited about this because Computerworld's site reaches hundreds
of thousands of people! This means awesome exposure for our hobby to a
prime audience of potential new collectors. (Way back in April 2004, as
many of you will recall, I announced the "Computer Collector Newsletter" ...
that started with 350-ish subscribers and reached 1,000 before I burned out
two full years later. But that's kiddie play compared to the likes of
Computerworld.)
There isn't much posted yet -- just a short bio and a short "hello world"
post. There still won't be much until post-VCF East this summer. Anyway, I
just wanted to share the good news. The classiccmp list will be atop the
blog's links page.
Feel free to suggest blog topics, etc.
- Evan
I'm curious about how cable management was typically done on the H960
cabinets when stuffed with peripherals... by DEC field engineers. As I've
racked up several peripherals for my 11/34 and tonight I was racking the
last bits I want to go with my 11/45 - the problem becomes rather obvious.
Put two RL0x's in a cab right together and you quickly realize it's a pain
cause the cables from the top one drag on the bottom drive (making it come
out too) when when pulling it out to mount platters, etc.
If you leave enough slack for the cable to go out with the drive, it'll get
caught when pushing the drive back and such. In some of the later white
"corporate cabs" I have seen (and have) spring loaded bars to ziptie the
cables to. However, I suspect this particular arrangement wasn't done on the
older H960 cabs generally - when they first came out and all.
I haven't come across much in any of the installation manuals I've seen that
really talk about routing the power and data cables in an H960 for
peripherals that slide out the front and lock on chassi-trak rails. What was
usually done historically in the field?
I can jerry rig something that will work... but I'd rather find out what was
done as installed by DEC installers at the time. I'd appreciate any advice,
pointers to manuals I must not be finding, etc.
And yes, this means I'm getting ready to revisit my 11/45 restoration. Where
I left it off, the thing was basically running (booting xxdp and running
some diags) but it had a problem with interrupts. No matter what device
interrupted, it always got a constant vector (3 or 4 or 0, I forget what).
I'm hoping Tony can direct me on how to troubleshoot that when I get back to
it. Before I start troubleshooting I need to go back and refamiliarize
myself with the box (check where I had jumpers for NPR removed, recheck all
the power supplies, move all the cards back to a sane test setup). After
that I'll be asking the wise ones here for direction :)
Jay West
