test-drb May 2007

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

235 participants
483 discussions

by jfoust＠threedee.com

At 08:38 AM 5/15/2007, Ethan Dicks wrote: >Babylon 5 used hopped-up Amiga 2000s w/68040s and Toasters and >Lightwave for their first season, but I think they switched the >rendering platform to Lightwave on Pentium-class machines for the >remainder of the show. Don't know if they continued to use Toasters >for laying down the rendered images to tape or not. As I recall, they all used non-video / all-digital methods of laying down the rendered frames. I remember writing an Abekas utility at one point for Newtek for someone at the Post Group, I think it read and wrote Abekas-format data to an Exabyte 8500. Back then there were video recorders that could cleanly lay down single frames of video to tape. They may also have simply 'tar'd rendered frames to Exabytes and delivered them to a post-production service, who rendered them to high-quality video output. - John

17 years, 7 months

Giant LED Displays - Re: Motion video on an IBM PC/XT - Methodology

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Giant LED Displays - Re: Motion video on an IBM PC/XT - Methodology > From: Grant Stockly <grant at stockly.com> > Date: Mon, 14 May 2007 21:53:37 -0800 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >At 07:40 PM 5/13/2007, you wrote: >>About 3 years ago I announced to the list a little something I'd done with >>an IBM PC/XT with CGA that was unconventional for the platform >>(full-motion video using stock hardware). I recently gave a talk at a >>hacker convention on the complete methodology of how I did it, and the >>video of that talk is now available here: >> >>http://www.archive.org/details/8088CorruptionExplained > >This whole discussion has reminded me of an unfinished project of mine, a >192x99, 19,008 pixel LED display. I have not manufactured the driver >circuits, but they have been designed. > >The display is organized/refreshed as 11x1728. 8x11 characters look very >good to me, so I designed it to handle 24 wide by 9 high characters. > >Here are pictures of it: >Front: http://www.stockly.com/images2/060129-LED_Display_Front_2718.jpg >Back: http://www.stockly.com/images2/060129-LED_Display_Back_2716.jpg >Weight of all the >legs: http://www.stockly.com/images2/060129-Weight_of_39584_Legs_2696.jpg > >As you can see from the pictures it is as big as a couch. : ) > >I built it in the spirit of blinkin lights for my Altair. 19008 LEDs is >2376 bytes, 71280 bytes a second at 30 frames. The altair should be able >to handle this...??? Any ideas? Thats faster than SD 8" FDC data rate! Thats pushing an 8080 hard. >I would really love if it could handle a shade or two of grey. : ) I'm >considering now building a driver out of an FPGA. It would be able to >handle a fast refresh rate and frame rate in order to get grey scales. I >was thinking 4 shades would be enough. The FPGA might even be able to act >as the dual port SRAM for the bitmap display? Any ideas how I should >proceed? : ) You want the CPU doing as little as possible. If at all possible the display is refreshed by DMA from local or other memory and the CPU is there to update/alter the display. >You can find my thread on this on USENET called "Wall of RAM". I have >copied it here: >http://www.stockly.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21 > >Grant ;) if I were to do something on that grand a scale I'd consider a LED billboard of VDM-1 (160x512) (roughly 30"x100"). Of course it would have to use green leds. Allison

17 years, 7 months

Fairchild MB8116E == 4116 ?

by adamg＠pobox.com

MB8116 is a Fujitsu part, not Fairchild. Per the 1982 databook it crosses to AM9016, F4116, HM4716A, 2117, M5K4116, MK4116, MCM4116, MM5290, TMS4116, TMM416. -- Adam

17 years, 7 months

A twist on emulation...

by gtoal＠gtoal.com

> From: Allison <ajp166 at bellatlantic.net> > The links do not works from here. I get an operation timed out > error. > Allison It's my home site on a RoadRunner cable connection, and the cable modem locks up if there is excess traffic. Doesn't happen often, but judging by my web logs I was being overloaded by coincidental spidering from 4 different search engines at once. It's back online now. Had to wait until I got home to reset the cable device. Some time this summer, history.dcs.ed.ac.uk should be relocated to a properly hosted machine in Edinburgh. Oh yes - that reminds me - if there are any Edinburgh people here, we're organising a reunion in late June. Mail me for info. Graham

17 years, 7 months

Color Macintosh boot floppy?

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

> > Can anyone help me with creating a boot floppy for a Color Macintosh? > I have a machine whose hard disk died and I'm trying to replace it > but I don't have a boot floppy containing DiskTools to format the new > (Apple) hard drive. I *do* have an install CD for System 7.5 but it > doesn't seem to want to boot on the Color Classic even if I hold "C" > down when I start up the Mac. I'd be happy to pay for shipping and > something extra for the effort involved in making the DiskTools boot > disk. I think at one time you had to hold down both the C and D keys to boot from CD on the old Macs. I don't have a floppy drive any more so cannot help there, even though I have just about all the Apple developer CDs ever issued, including floppy images of the various systems.

17 years, 7 months

Motion video on an IBM PC/XT - Methodology

by trixter＠oldskool.org

About 3 years ago I announced to the list a little something I'd done with an IBM PC/XT with CGA that was unconventional for the platform (full-motion video using stock hardware). I recently gave a talk at a hacker convention on the complete methodology of how I did it, and the video of that talk is now available here: http://www.archive.org/details/8088CorruptionExplained Just thought some people here would be curious to see how it was accomplished. While there are several versions of the video to choose from, if you have the bandwidth you should grab the MPEG-2 version (big) because it's DVD quality and best preserves some of the detail necessary to properly appreciate the piece. (In fact, it looks best burnt to a DVD and watched on a television proper.) -- 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, 7 months

The Last of The Line

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

Hi When preserving something you go for the best example you can find. Even so in this case there was no choice involved. I want to keep as original as I can a a PDP-11 from the era when I was working with them. Speed is not an issue and a slower (but working)DEC KDJ11 board would satisfy my criteria for originality. All of your points are well made. One is very important the KDJ11-EB has its memory on the CPU board. Are you saying some models of the KDJ11 do not have their memory on the CPU board? Is it a case of unpopulated sockets and add memory or is it no sockets and no memory? Reading from the factory label the 11/94 was confgured thus Slot 1 M8981 (Now sadly empty) Slot 2 M7914 Slot 3 Empty Slot 4 M8191 KTJ11-B Slot 5 M7547 TUK50-BB Slot 6 Empty Slot 7 Empty Slot 8 Empty Slot 9 M9302 & M9713 So excluding the expensive options can anybody say exactly which board I need. Full module and DEC code to me please. For example only say M8980-AA KDJ11-BB I must get a list of the KDJ11 boards. Iv'e seen one somewhere. Rod -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jerome H. Fine Sent: 14 May 2007 03:16 To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: The Last of The Line >Patrick Finnegan wrote: >>On Sunday 13 May 2007 06:28, Rod Smallwood wrote: > > >>Hi All >>Now for my dilemma. Before checking the cost of a KDJ11-EB you are >>advised to make sure pacemaker batteries are fully charged and any >>blood pressue medication has been taken. Take it from me the prices >>are so high they need to join the astronaut corps! >> >..which is probably why your systems were missing the CPU boards when >yo got them... > >>I would like to get at least one of these historic systems running >>again. Suggestions please!! >> >It'd be a lot less expensive to turn it into an 11/84, the CPU for that >(some models of KDJ11-B) should be much less expensive, then just add >memory. :) > Jerome Fine replies: Your suggestion might not be possible. I once had the box and boards for an 11/94. I really can't remember, but there might not have been any slots for the memory. In any case, I am extremely curious. What goal(s) will you achieve? Do you want to run software faster? Is your only goal to have the fastest PDP-11 that DEC ever produced? Note that a number of other companies produced much faster PDP-11 CPU boards. Note that I very much appreciate that from a hardware point of view your goal is extremely gratifying - probably even more than my software goals. I am just curious what your goals are. One of my goals when I run using PDP-11 software is to run as fast as possible. At present I run at about 15 times a PDP-11/93. Very shortly, I hope to be upgrading my hardware and be able to run at 100 times a PDP-11/93 along with the availability of having an extra GigaByte of spare memory for data that may also allow a co-processor to perform CPU intensive calculations. About 20 years ago, I was using a PDP-11/23+ on a system with 4 MB of memory which included a co-processor that used the same memory as the PDP-11/23+. Any finally, although my experience is with an 11/93 on the Qbus, I found that there is very little difference between an 11/93 and an 11/83 as far as CPU speed is concerned. That would also be likely to apply to the difference between an 11/94 and an 11/84. Basically, I suggest that the only difference in speed is due to the clock rate of 20 MHz on the 11/93 board and the 18 MHz clock rate (or crystal if you prefer) on the 11/83 board. Otherwise, the PMI memory on the 11/83 is probably about as fast as the on board memory on the 11/93. As for the actual CPU, almost all M8190 quad CPU boards or KDJ11-Bx (maybe all) allow the use of PMI memory which is the primary reason the 11/83 is faster than the 11/73. The other reason is the 18 MHz clock rate on the 11/83 as opposed to the 15 MHz clock rate on the 11/73. So if anyone has a M8190 CPU with non-PMI memory and can find some PMI memory, then as long as there are ABCD slots available for all of the memory and CPU boards, the system will run much faster with PMI memory. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine -- If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the 'at' with the four digits of the current year.

17 years, 7 months

Manuals being scanned

by adamg＠pobox.com

Since no one seems to have said this yet: Thanks for making an effort to preserve these documents. -- Adam

17 years, 7 months

looking for System III/PC-UX for NEC APC III

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

If you don't have a clue what I'm talking about, I guess you wouldn't have it then, huh? ____________________________________________________________________________________Take the Internet to Go: Yahoo!Go puts the Internet in your pocket: mail, news, photos & more. http://mobile.yahoo.com/go?refer=1GNXIC

17 years, 7 months

Subject: Old electrolytic capacitors (IME-86s calculator)

by ed＠ed-thelen.org

Message: 12 Date: Mon, 14 May 2007 09:32:35 -0500 From: Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> Subject: Old electrolytic capacitors (IME-86s calculator) To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <46487303.8040805 at yahoo.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15; format=flowed ... > They're in the power supply of an IME-86s calculator and > are decidedly past their best :-) (At least four of the ten > in the PSU are showing signs of major leakage) I'm the power supply guy in a large restoration effort. http://www.ed-thelen.org/1401Project/1401RestorationPage.html http://www.ed-thelen.org/1401Project/TricksForCapacitors.html Fortunately, there were only linear supplies, (suitable switching devices not yet available for switching power supplies - another interesting game :-)) The machines (and currents) were large and most electrolytics were the screw connector types. After considerable experience, and using an ESR (Effective Series Resistance) unit to verify performance of the re-formed electrolytics, I went to replacing only those capacitors with "major" leakage, and testing ripple for "excessive" and that everything was "cool enough" when power supply running rated voltage and current. > The rest of the machine *looks* healthy enough; once > I've replaced the electrolytics is there any good reason > not to slowly run the system up on a variac > (rather than giving it full AC from the start)? A vital thing to watch out for in this business is motors. Most types of motors depend on sufficient source voltage to get started and generating "back EMF (voltage)" to limit current. I was using the variac technique on an old key punch when we began to hear a loud hummmm - the capacitor start motor was not moving and getting warm :-((( Interestingly, we have not had to "re-form" any capacitors on capacitor start motors!! ?? I have no clue why. One would reasonably expect some effort there. Enjoy :-))

17 years, 7 months

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test-drb May 2007