test-drb May 2007

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

235 participants
483 discussions

CiTOH terminals (was Re: Well, now I've gone and done it... Dragged home more big(ish) iron...)

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

I don't know if it helps but I did work on terminals in the early 1970's. Before my days at DEC I did work on keyboards. The usual design was a counter going up to 127 or 255. Pressing a key pulled down the data lines for the number representing the value of the key. This was compared with the output of the counter and when they where the same the counter stopped. Thus at this point the counter held the value of the key. Some counters could be shifted (clocked) out serially or you transferred the value to a shift register and serialized the code that way. UARTS could be used like a shift register. (Parallel in serial out.) Rod Smallwood -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ethan Dicks Sent: 22 May 2007 13:58 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: CiTOH terminals (was Re: Well,now I've gone and done it... Dragged home more big(ish) iron...) On 5/22/07, Mr Ian Primus <ian_primus at yahoo.com> wrote: > > > The 101 is the model shaped and colored much like a VT100. The > > keyboard looks similar... but its protocol is _not_ compatible with > > the VT100. > > Good thing I didn't buy the one on eBay a couple months ago. There was > a 101 there, and cheap too, but it had no keyboard. I may haev a few CiTOH terminals to drag to VCFmw if there's any interest. Closer to the event, I'll inventory what I have and see if I kept any spare keyboards "just in case", if anyone out there already has a terminal, but can't figure out why their VT100 keyboard doesn't work with it. I remember back in the day, since we had dozens of CiTOH and DEC terminals, looking over the available schematics for both and not being able to figure out how the keyboard works. I think it was a matter of inadequate/fuzzy docs more than anything else. Does anyone know of a good printset to pore over to see the nuts-and-bolts of a VT100-era keyboard? ISTR the crux of it was a 6402-type UART squeezing out the keystrokes at some slow baud rate, but I can't recall any essential details right now. I'm just curious if it's possible to swap a crystal or make a simple, switched change to allow one keyboard to work across both vendor's product lines. We used to have lots of dead keyboard when there was one or two terminals on everyone's desk. Since the company was shrinking at that stage, we never bothered fixing them - we just pulled one off a vacant desk and kept working. The number of working keyboards never shrank below the steadily decreasing size of the staff, so economically, it made sense. I think I only saved working keyboards in that set of 4 van loads, but it's entirely possible I picked up one or two dead ones. Right now, I have to search the pile for a VT100 keyboard to get my DECmate I back up and running so I can press it into service as an RX01/RX02 image archiver and finally whittle down my cartons of floppies. -ethan

17 years, 1 month

DEC remote power controller cable?

by charlesmorris＠hughes.net

Via the Dayton Hamvention and Dan C., I now have a nice "new" corporate cabinet for my 11/23+ and two RL02's, installed and working. It came with an 874-D Remote Power Controller which I would like to use as intended (i.e. turn everything on by flipping the BA-11SA front panel power switch). That switch connects directly to a 3-pin male Molex connector on the rear of the BA chassis. The 874-D has several 3-pin female Molex connectors labeled "DEC Power Bus". Am I correct in assuming that I just need a 3-wire extension cable between the BA chassis and one of those Power Bus connectors? If so, is there a DEC part I should be looking for? If not, any ideas which mating connectors to order (it's not critical that I use factory original pieces)? The two connectors are not identical families (the BA-11SA's connector is flat on one side and rounded on the other; on the 874-D they are rectangular). Thanks for any help. -Charles

17 years, 1 month

Any Palm developers on the list?

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

Hi, I have been dusting off some old Palm Pilots (III and V, mostly) and am running into "decayed link" syndrome on most of my searches. I'm finding fragmentary web pages and links to abandoned projects from 7-8 years ago, and only a few things that encompass what I'm working with. I joined the Palm Developers Network, but they don't make older SDK files available for download. I'm really looking for the kit they used to have available that allows one to develop PalmOS 3.3-era stuff - so around 1999 or so, I think. Does anyone on the list have something that sounds like that? If so, please reply to me directly rather than clutter the list with stuff about Palms. To tie this search into recent events, I did see a few, very few, Palms at Dayton. The best price I ran across was a Palm V w/cradle and wall wart for $10 (and another for $15 with box). Unfortunately, that's more than they go for elsewhere. I got home and ran across a Palm Vx at the nearby thrift for $6.99 w/cradle and wall wart (along with a Garmin 12 GPS for $1.91!) Since the DragonBall is essentially a dressed up MC68000, I've always appreciated the PalmPilot innards, but I've never had a need to build my own apps. These days, everyone wants to support the Tungstens and Treos, etc., and have left monochrome Palms in the dust. Thanks for any assistance in locating ancient development tools. -ethan

17 years, 1 month

FOG DOS discs archived anywhere?

by aek＠bitsavers.org

There are around 400 MSDOS group discs produced by FOG. There were only a couple on the FOG cdrom, does anyone know if these have already been archived? They appear to span 1986-1990

17 years, 1 month

Saving DEC rainbow lotus disks image

by g-wright＠att.net

Hi, Is there an easy way to save a image of the Lotus 123 system disk for a rainbow. Not sure what they used for copy protection but image disk does not like it. - Jerry

17 years, 1 month

Price vs value for DLT tapes

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

All, I have the chance to get an inexpensive "HP DLT40" drive or two... >from my googling, it seems that these drives can read/write DLT III (10GB), DLT IIIxt (15GB) or DLT IV (20GB) tapes. Are DLT IV tapes (20GB uncompressed) worth the effort of tracking down and shipping? We pitched out several hundred new-in-box DLT IV tapes from South Pole over six months ago, partially because we hadn't unwrapped one in over 4 years (we had moved up to SDLT @ 110GB each, some time prior to 1 Jan 2003). Old though they are, I'd consider an inexpensive SDLT drive and a stack of tapes to be a somewhat useful density to use for backup on any system I have lying around. What's not as clear, though, is if tapes that hold less than 20% of that are worth more than the cost of shipping. At the moment, I can get a couple of drives for essentially free (under $5, and, no, not at Dayton). What concerns me is the expense of the tapes, and more from a shipping standpoint than an actual per-tape cost. If we were throwing out these tapes last year, I can't imagine that I can't find someone else doing the same this year - it's just a matter of how much it costs to receive them. Given the things I'd like to back up (laptop, main Solaris file server), I'd want to be able to rotate tapes in a sensible scheme so as not to write to the tapes too often, but I have enough stuff to cover that one 20GB tape per month just isn't enough; I'd need several tapes per month at that density. Over the course of a year, I'd probably need tens of tapes, but perhaps with a higher density (SDLT, say), I could get away with a dozen or so tapes per year, but the drive and tapes wouldn't be as close to free as DLT IV (I've seen eBay prices on SDLT drives in the $20-$50 range). We stopped using SDLT at Pole last year (2006 data was written to SDLT and Ultrium tapes), so, again, I can see that the modern world isn't going to be as interested in them as some of the newer, multi-hundred-GB-per-tape schemes. I guess another way to phrase this might be, does anyone on the list know of a source of extremely inexpensive piles of DLT IV or SDLT tapes - either density media quickly adds up to more than the present cost of drives, so in the end, it's the weight of the tapes that's the limiting factor. Thanks, -ethan

17 years, 1 month

Rainbow on eBay and looking...

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

http://cgi.ebay.com/Digital-Rainbow-100-pc_ W0QQitemZ180115684124QQihZ008QQcategory Z4193QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem nicely equipped. In Canaduh LOL LOL I am still looking for the color card and a monitor. Canada is too far for me to ship. ____________________________________________________________________________________ The fish are biting. Get more visitors on your site using Yahoo! Search Marketing. http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/arp/sponsoredsearch_v2.php

17 years, 1 month

DEC Pro380 disk drives

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: DEC Pro380 disk drives > From: "Ethan Dicks" <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> > Date: Wed, 09 May 2007 08:44:20 -0400 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On 5/8/07, Allison <ajp166 at bellatlantic.net> wrote: >> The RQDX1/2 are the same board and mostly interchageable depending on >> firmware rev. It's a Quad width board. > >What are the essential differences between an RQDX1 and RQDX2? >AFAICR, the RQDX1 doesn't pass grant below it so it *must* be the last >board on the bus, but the RQDX2 doesn't have that limitation; and, the >RQDX2, I think, knows about one or two more drives than the RQDX1. a) >is that correct? and b) is that all? > >I have at least one RQDX1, several RQDX3, and I don't think I have any >RQDX2, but one never knows what one will stumble across. > >-ethan They looks the same but the handle has a different rev. The real differences are bug fixes. Essentially the RQDX2 is a bugfixed RQDX1 with later firmware that is aware of a larger (at that time) assortment of drives. In the real world of MSPC controllers RQDX3 is most desireable and RQDX1 the least. FYI: some flavors of RQDX1/2 didn't pass interrupt grant and MUST be the last card in the chain. Allison

17 years, 1 month

O YEAH! What a deal!!!

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

Rainbow graphics card only $89.63! Give me 10!!! http://cgi.ebay.com/DEC-54-15688-RAINBOW-GRAPHICS-CARD-5415688_W0QQitemZ120… Honestly, who would be using such a pig these days? The price this guy is asking is indicative of his belief that someone actually NEEDS a card for his lousy 'bow. I ran into a guy in Kentucky who wanted extra TI PC's, being that the software he used for some geological surveys he made a living off of ran on them. But that's a highly unusual application. Anyone know of someone still using a Rainbow? ____________________________________________________________________________________Shape Yahoo! in your own image. Join our Network Research Panel today! http://surveylink.yahoo.com/gmrs/yahoo_panel_invite.asp?a=7

17 years, 1 month

Friden Flexowriter

by sethm＠loomcom.com

Well, this is either the stupidest thing I've ever done, or a really cool find that will fill me with joy. I just won a Friden Flexowriter on eBay (Item #180115571829). I've been looking for one of these for almost ten years, and up popped this one, with no bids but mine. It's almost local, so I'll be picking it up in person to avoid shipping. It'll cost more in gasoline, but it should protect against the danger of shipping damage. I'd love to hear from anyone else who has one, or who has worked on one. I've downloaded the MIT memos regarding the operation of the PDP-1 and TX-0 Flexowriters from Bitsavers, but that's literally all the documentation I have. I'm not even sure what character set this one has -- it is lacking the upper-case symbols on the number keys, for instance, and the "1" key seems to be on the right ("2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0, 1"). I understand they were frequently customized with their own character codes, as well. The Flexowriter in question is "not working", although it looks like it's in excellent shape physically. I've become quite handy with typewriter mechanisms recently (don't ask), so I'm hoping that whatever the problem is is fixable without terrible difficulty. If not, I'm close to Los Altos Typewriter, who (I believe? I'm not sure on this) repaired the Soroban console for the Computer History Museum's PDP-1. Wish me luck with this potential white elephant. -Seth

17 years, 1 month

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test-drb May 2007