test-drb May 2007

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

235 participants
483 discussions

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> Well, if folks don't really care for USB Why don't we collectively just wait for the thing to work before picking it apart. It seems like a really useful device just the way it is. This discussion reminds me of what lead up to Imagedisk. A lot of talk, then someone just DOING it.

17 years, 1 month

Classic Computers and LCD TV's

by healyzh＠aracnet.com

Does anyone have any experience plugging something like a C-64 into something like this? http://www.cobyusa.com/_en/prod_item.php?item=TFTV561&pcat=tv&pscat=port_tv… I've got a chance to get one, and really the only reason I can see would be to hook a classic computer up to it. If I replaced my Commodore 2002 monitor with one of these I'd have room to keep my C64 setup. :^) Zane

17 years, 1 month

DEC Pro380 disk drives

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

>Can the Pro380 be used with any ST506/ST412 type hard disks or just >RD50, RD51, and RD52? I have a couple RD32 and some non-DEC drives and >am curious if any of the could be used with it. How do you format a >drive for a Pro? I never noticed any support for Professionals in XXDP? > Was there a utility in P/OS for that purpose? > >-chuck > > The answer is yes but the drives have to have the propper low level format. That low level format cannot be done with a PC. It can be done on a Qbus system with RQDX1/2 controller and XXDP. The OS however expects only standard drvies. RD50 == ST506 RD51 == ST412 RD52 == D540 (qunatum) Other drives that have been used were RD31 == ST225 RD32 == ST250 Allison

17 years, 1 month

Mentec

by bqt＠softjar.se

Hi, Rod. Jerome makes some interesting, if strange and faulty assumptions. Such as assuming that since Mentec hasn't complained although people "appear" to have been using and posting about RT-11 on classiccmp list for a long time. First of all, we don't even know if Mentec knows about the classiccmp list, neither if they scan it (which perhaps some people should be happy about). Second, I can't remember that many people actually coming out saying that they are using RT-11 without a license. So I would somewhat ignore Jeromes view on the legality of things. That said, I'll answer some of your questions. "Rod Smallwood" <RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk> skrev: > > Hi Jerome > > We seem to be converging on our views. The simulator is a simple > issue. I want to see the old systems run and live again. If I had spent > years restoring an old aircraft to flying condition I would not park it > and use MS flight simulator instead! I agree with you. It's fun to actually run the real hardware, and not just play with a simulator. Not the same feel of satisfaction. I still play with an 11/70 here, even though we also have E11. > RT-11, RSX-11M & RSX11-D, and RSTS were all current when I joined DEC in > 1975. The hardware to support them (Mentec excepted) has not been made > for at least ten years. The answer may lie a little deeper. I think what > may lie at the back of it is if they provide it they may be liable for > any damage it does. Licenses do not change laws and the law of the land > will always take precedence. It might be a risk based decision. That is probably one part of it. Another part is that they have paying customers (still) and probably don't think it's a good idea to start giving it all away for free, which means they need to draw up some sort of license that will limit things in a useful way. Doing that costs money, and they probably can't see any profit from it. So why spend that money? > However I'd still like to know what are the answers to the fundimental questions: > > 1. Are Mentec still selling PDP-11 operating system licenses? Yes. As someone who have customers who still buy from Mentec I can definitely confirm that they were still selling ten months ago. Can't see a reason why they should have stopped since then. This is RSX and layered products, by the way. > 2. Are they still making PDP-11 hardware? No. I think they stopped manufacturing "real" PDP-11 hardware, and are now pushing for emulators. However, that is a grey zone. We haven't had a real "true" PDP-11 CPU since the 11/20. All the rest are microcoded. Microcode is also software. :-) > 3. Why have Mentec removed all mention of PDP-11 products from > their web sites. That is a really good question, and one which I don't have an answer to. But I'd like to know if someone else have. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

17 years, 1 month

[midatlanticretro] WTD: Morrow Wunderbuss Thinker Toys Motherboard Schematic/docs

by ragooman＠comcast.net

I almost posted a lengthly explanation on the march group list before I noticed you posted the pic on cctech. The power supply in that circuit is a -12V not +12V. The voltage regulator part # on there is a 7912 which outputs -12V. The part that is blown on there is an electrolytic cap, not a zener (note the + sign on each end of the cap). Both of those parts below the 7912 are the same type of part. Caps always dry up and blowout--they don't last forever. That's why it's good to have a Variac when powering equipment that hasn't been on for a long time--a homemade current limiter helps too if no variac is available. But I'm not sure of the value, it can't be very high in value, possibly only 3.3uf or 4.7uf considering the size, this isn't very critical , so long as you keep it in the ballpark. The caps for the 7805 regulator on there beside it are only 2.7uf. I would suggest changing both of them, for sanity's sake--they both might be damaged. The other important issue is to check the traces for damages when you remove the bad parts. They could have burned through creating an open circuit. So you'll have to splice the traces back together if this is the case. Some skinny telephone copper wire always does the trick. And last but not least, is the 7912 voltage regulator. You should check the -12V power before you plug in any cards. =Dan [ My Corner of Cyberspace http://ragooman.home.comcast.net/ ] B. Degnan wrote: > > Herb/Anyone else.. > > I have a 1977 Morrow Wunderbuss "Thinker Toys" S-100 Motherboard with a > blown Zener diode near a 12+V position at the back of the board. Anyone > have a schematic? I checked Herb Johnson's site, there is nothing for > this > board listed. I would like to determine the exact type of diode so I can > replace it. > > What would cause a Zener diode to pop? > > Thanks. > Bill > > _ >

17 years, 1 month

Floppy disc reader/writer status report

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Floppy disc reader/writer status report > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Date: Mon, 07 May 2007 22:11:21 +0100 (BST) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> About putting multiple drives on a single connector--some older >> drives have removable pullups (usually 150 ohms); later ones have >> lower-value builtin pullups. In any case, I'd limit the number of > >Surely you mean higher-value here. Typically 3.5" drives have 1k pull-up >resistors. > >-tony NO Lower. Some came with 130ohm and a few with 220/330 (130ohm) terminations. Allison

17 years, 1 month

SC/MP LCDS

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

river wrote: I don't know if you saw the SC/MP LCDS (Low Cost Development System) for sale on eBay (Australia) last week, but I bought it. I've been looking for one of these babies for a long time, and to find one for sale near where I live was too good to be true. [snip] I'll let you know how I go. River ----------- Billy: Wish I had known you were looking for this. I tried to find someone interested in the SC/MP a couple of times. Not even a nibble so I put them on the bottom of the boxes of stuff to sell. I've a couple of the small development systems and the thick binder with all the technical stuff. Plus some loose SC/MP boards and documentation. I indexed it about 2 months ago then packed it up for the selling spree I going to start when I retire (later this year). I've learned that most of what I have to sell is common junk with little value and the occasional rarity. I put the SC/MP development systems in the junk category since there was no interest. The hard to find items are going to be easy to move. The rest are going to be a real pain. I've already been giving some of them away or even tossing. Billy

17 years, 1 month

Mentec

by doug＠stillhq.com

"Don't expect to ever see a Hobbyist License, and don't blame Mentec." Cool - RT-11 isn't that big, is it? If it is only a simple O/S, and a couple of utilities, then why don't we clean room it, and produce an open version. Shouldn't be that hard.

17 years, 1 month

SC/MP LCDS

by river＠zip.com.au

Hi, Yes, I built one of those Miniscamps also. I think I've always had a soft spot for the SC/MP since that time. I bought some SC/MP chips a few years ago and most of them did not work, but a couple did and I built up a small system with 4K RAM, 4K EPROM, 8255 PPI and an 8251 USART. I wrote a small program to test that it all works, and a "Lazy brown fox" message through the serial port. It worked fine, then I got distracted in expanding an AIM65... then I got a hold of a couple more AIMs, and they were broken so I set about fixing them. I guess time just got away and I got more distracted with a cantencerous Central Data 2650 system. So, the home-built SC/MP system still sits waiting for me to write a debug/monitor for it. However, now I've got the LCDS I've got the vigour back and will fix it and also get back to my home built one. I too am interested in any SC/MP stuff that's for sale. river

17 years, 1 month

Mentec

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

Hi Jerome We seem to be converging on our views. The simulator is a simple issue. I want to see the old systems run and live again. If I had spent years restoring an old aircraft to flying condition I would not park it and use MS flight simulator instead! RT-11, RSX-11M & RSX11-D, and RSTS were all current when I joined DEC in 1975. The hardware to support them (Mentec excepted) has not been made for at least ten years. The answer may lie a little deeper. I think what may lie at the back of it is if they provide it they may be liable for any damage it does. Licenses do not change laws and the law of the land will always take precedence. It might be a risk based decision. However I'd still like to know what are the answers to the fundimental questions: 1. Are Mentec still selling PDP-11 operating system licenses? 2. Are they still making PDP-11 hardware? 3. Why have Mentec removed all mention of PDP-11 products from their web sites. Rod -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jerome H. Fine Sent: 07 May 2007 02:44 To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: RE: Mentec >Rod Smallwood wrote: >Well that's interesting... > >It would seem that as long as Mentec choose to ignore non-commercial >use you can do (within reason) what you like. I did say pdp preserver >as opposed to RT, RSX or RSTS preserver. >However I must admit to having worked in digital SWS and to having been >part of the VMS marketing group I do have an interest in the software >side. > Jerome Fine replies: Hold on - I stated that everything being suggested was ONLY with regard to RT-11. While I also agree that eventually RSX-11 and RSTS/E will probably be handled in the same manner, that does not seem to have been the case in the past. In particular, I have the impression that RSX-11 distributions, although officially approved of in the same license as RT-11 for use with the DEC emulator, always remained difficult to obtain. However, since I never attempted to use RSX-11, I can't comment. On the other hand, RT-11 was very quickly available for download as soon as that license to run V05.03 of RT-11 and prior versions was made explicitly known to this list and certain newsgroups. >DEC were quite keen on educational computing and that's how they would >have viewed a hobbyist program. As HP now effectivly own what was DEC I >assume the agreement is now between them and Mentec. > It does not really seem that either HP or Mentec are interested in spending money on lawyers. HP and Mentec do seem to be very concerned that if any of the latest versions of the PDP-11 operating systems which include RT-11, RSX-11 and RSTS/E are made available free of charge and without a formal license being signed to even hobby users for strictly non-commercial use that the result would also be free use for commercial users. At least that is my assumption since I can't think of anything else that might cause a problem. Can anyone else comment on what might happen if Mentec were to allow hobby users to freely run without any restrictions either V05.03 of RT-11 or possibly even all RT-11 software, in particular with regard to commercial users of RT-11 or for hobby users of RSX-11 and RSTS/E? >It seems that many efforts to set up a hobbyist (or collectors program) >have come to nought due to Mentec seeing no profit in the arrangement. > That is also my assumption. It was also my assumption that hobby programs allow students to become capable of supporting commercial systems as well as producing interesting enhancements for and finding bugs in operating systems. As long as the operating system software is still being sold and producing sufficient profit, a hobby program is often a benefit and support to the operating system. Once the profit level becomes too low, starting a hobby program seems no longer useful and perhaps that is how HP and Mentec view a hobby program for the PDP-11 software which Mentec handles. >Needless to say as a DEC hardware collector a simulator is of no >interest to me. > > I am always confused by this viewpoint. Please explain. If you don't really care about the software, then why do you care which software is being used by the hardware? In fact, why is it necessary to run any software at all? I would have expected that the XXDP diagnostics would be more than sufficient to exercise the actual DEC hardware and provide the feeling that the actual DEC hardware is being used. On the other hand, I am quite obviously interested in the functionally of the software and the manner in which the various software components relate to each. As a result, an emulator is often much more useful than the actual DEC hardware. In respect of using E11, about the only real difference that I notice is that the RT-11 programs tend to execute about 100 times as fast on a current 3 GHz Pentium 4 as on a PDP-11/93, including both CPU and I/O, indeed especially disk I/O; the available storage is also likely to be measured in the 1000 times capacity since 500 GigiByte hard disk drives now cost less than the 600 MegaByte Maxtor ESDI XT8760E that I purchased for $ 600 at an end-of-line sale around 10 to 15 years ago. As a result, one of the enhancements that I plan for RT-11 is to allow up to 65536 RT-11 partitions which will allow for hard disk drives up to 2 TeraBytes. Anyone interested? >>Hi All >> I'm a bit confused about this Mentec issue. They bought up the >>rights to the pdp-11 line and even produced some new boards. Now they >>seem to have abandoned the whole thing. I can only find one web site >>that could be theirs but it is very up market corporate image stuff. >>No >> >>mention of pdp anything. >> >Jerome Fine replies: > >First of all, please remember I am ONLY interested in RT-11. And while >I have had contact with and used a bit of RSX-11 and a very extensive >amount of RSTS/E, I was never responsible of a system which ran RSX-11 >or RSTS/E. Which is the primary reason that I never became proficient >enough to maintain either an RSX-11 or a RSTS/E system. On the other >hand, I may now know RT-11 as well as some of the top RT-11 developers >knew RT-11 during the 1980s. > >As for why Mentec no longer actively supports any of the PDP-11 >systems, I venture to guess that it is no longer profitable. > > > >>As I am in the middle of restoring some pdp-11/94's the issue around >>how >>RT11 and RSX could be made available is of much interest. If they have >>not sold the rights and are not pursuing the business perhaps they >>could help us poor pdp preservers. >> >> >> >Mentec has helped the poor PDP-11 preservers. Unfortunately, it is not >obvious since the help is more in not causing those poor PDP-11 >preservers any difficulties as opposed to being proactive by making the >operating systems generally available such as Borland products are at >present. Also an example is the VMS hobby program which Mentec does >not have. > >In addition, as others have mentioned in their replies, it seems very >doubtful that Mentec really did "totally own" the >PDP-11 operating systems. Unfortunately, it seems highly probable that >the terms of the agreement between Mentec and DEC required the parties >to maintain confidentiality since I can't see why those terms have >never been publicly disclosed - unless those terms were so detrimental >to the users that neither party wanted to admit the mistakes in the >lack of a >PDP-11 hobby program in the face of the VMS hobby license program. But >what did happen did, what did not happen did not - the stories and >interpretations that many of us make up about what happened are >probably 90% fiction and are no longer even important. > >BUT, Mentec did make older versions of the operating systems available >for legal non-commercial use under what was at the time a DEC owned >emulator. It certainly seemed questionable at the time and it may be >even more questionable at present, but Mentec has chosen to make no >challenge to the use of those older versions of the operating systems >under the current name of that DEC emulator which has evolved to become >SIMH. In addition, Mentec also seems to be ignoring the legal >requirement for a transfer of any operating system license to the new >owner of any old PDP-11 hardware so long as, at least as far I can >interpret, the new owner is non-commercial. Certainly there have been >numerous discussions on classiccmp (one is going on right now about a >single RL02 system) over PDP-11 use of the RT-11 operating system (i.e. >NOT under SIMH) and I can't remember any recent protests from Mentec in >this regard. > >Any finally, while the RSX-11 and RSTS/E operating systems are much >more tightly controlled and not very easily available, almost 10 years >ago, Megan Gentry, a former RT-11 developer, put a zip file of V05.03 >of >RT-11 up for general download with the explicit permission of the >individuals who had to provide that permission. V05.03 of RT-11 is the >last binary distribution allowed under the DEC emulator and by >inference under SIMH. There is also a CD version (an ISO file) which >contains as many as possible of the RT-11 binary versions as could >reasonably be found for all of V05.03 of RT-11 and prior. Any for >those individuals who are legally licensed to run the latest version of >RT-11, V05.07 released in October of 1998 or just under 9 years ago, >there is also a CD containing the rest of the RT-11 binary >distributions. The latter CD was requested by a university who was >legally licensed to use and already had a copy of V05.07 of RT-11 and >was legally entitled to a backup of all of the RT-11 binary distributions. > >So - I don't really think that there are any "poor pdp preservers" >as far as RT-11 is concerned. In point of fact, I have personally >found ABSOLUTELY NO INTEREST in the last 5 years in: >(a) Preserving RT-11, >(b) Fixing any bugs in RT-11 >(c) Making any enhancements in RT-11 >Of course, for individuals in the know, most of them already have >sufficiently preserved what they want of RT-11. On the other hand, >even though I have made a number of vital bug fixes to >RT-11 (for problems that crash RT-11) along with other minor problems >as well as some extensive enhancements, I have yet to find anyone who >is even interested in a Y3K for RT-11, let alone someone who would be >interested in participating. > >Of course, Y3K may already have been done, the enhancements that I have >already completed may have been duplicated along with many other >enhancements and the bugs fixed as well and distributed to the users of >RT-11. Perhaps I just don't know that it has all occurred without a >word of it reaching my eyes and ears. > >But, as a result, I have place (a), (b) and (c) into a lower priority >and focused on attempting something even less useful, i.e. confirming >the value of pi(10^18) using a sieve program running under RT-11 with a >view to attempting to determine pi(10^24). When I find that it will >take a million years to finish the calculations for pi(10^24) with >current computers, I may shift back to (a), (b) and (c) if I can't find >something even less useful than knowing the value for pi(10^24). > >On the other hand, if anyone is really interested, drop me a line. If >anyone really knows why Mentec does not have a hobby program for PDP-11 >operating systems, let us know. Just don't complain about RT-11 and >Mentec since nothing that Mentec seems to be doing at present >interferes with "poor pdp preservers" >as far as RT-11 is concerned. In 16 more years, which will be 25 years >after V05.07 of RT-11 was released, I very seriously doubt that Mentec >will care if every hobby user who wants a copy of V05.07 of RT-11 is >using it on real DEC hardware, let alone if there is a running emulator >on what goes for a PC in the year 2023 when I will be 84 years old if I >am still kicking. > >As for commercial sites still running RT-11, if they don't already have >the Y2K compliant V05.07 of RT-11, then I very much doubt that they >will require V05.07 in the year 2023. >And if those commercial sites are managing with the current bugs in >RT-11 9 years after V05.07 was released, well ... > >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, 1 month

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test-drb May 2007