Hi.
My apologies to those of you who already know this; I am going through
my address book somewhat indiscriminately. :-)
I am sending this message to a melange of my friends, family, and
business contacts. I have moved (from Rochester, NY, to Canastota, NY)
and very shortly will no longer be at cchiesa1 at rochester.rr.com.
My new e-mail address will be cchiesa1 at twcny.rr.com . Please use it
henceforth. Thank you!
Chris Chiesa
Jay wrote:
>You might try Crisis, see www.crisis.com
>They are great folks, I've delt with them a lot.
>
>You might try some of the comp.sys.hp.XXXX newsgroups,
>I know there is an HP hardware one there that used to
>have good info (not saying they don't anymore, I just
>haven't been there in ages). There was also an HP3000
>newsgroup that had a lot of grizzled veterans from
>"back in the day" who may have some info. I just noticed
>a csd.machines and csd.machines.hp group that
>could be fruitful just based on the name (I'm assuming
>csd is Computer Systems Division).
I will poke around in these groups and see what I can find.
>> I need to construct an interface cable for my
>> recently acquired HP7202A flatbed pen plotter.
>I messed with a few HP plotters many many years ago.
>I seem to recall that their interfaces were bizarrely
>"multipurpose". You're going to need a manual I bet.
>I seem to recall that there were option selections in the
>cable as well as dip switch settings? Whatcha gonna
>do with your other 72xx plotter?
I have the service manual for the 7200A, which is basically
the same plotter. I am still trying to figure out the
technical diagrams in the manual. HP does not appear to
have as much detail in their engineering diagrams as DEC
did. If I can't find a cable, I will figure it out. I just
need to find out which 4 pins are used for the 20mA interface
and then I should be in business.
I plan to keep my other old HP plotter, which is a 7210A model.
Right now I need to "borrow" the pen holder from it because
the one on the 7202A is broken.
The 7210A was a couple years newer than the 7200A/7202A. It
used a different command language and a different interface.
Ashley
http://www.woffordwitch.com
I got no bites the first time, so I'm trying again.
Does anyone know of any good classic HP forums,
sites, or parts sources?
I need to construct an interface cable for my
recently acquired HP7202A flatbed pen plotter.
This plotter was manufactured around 1971 and
could be interfaced using one of three styles of
interface cables (it appears that they all plugged
into the same male adapter port on the back of
the unit, but must have used different pins). I
plan to use the 20mA style of hookup, which I
assume will use four of the pins. I just need
to determine which of the pins are used for the
20mA send and receive. Other options were for
an EIA (RS232) connection, and a third type of
connection. The plotter is controlled using
ASCII commands to plot points or lines.
I am looking for someone who may have had some
experience with these plotters in the past. Even
better (although not likely) would be that someone
would have an interface cable. These are HP part
numbers 17251A, 17252A, and 17253A.
Last night I repaired the fuse housing, cleaned
out the dust, and powered on the plotter. It
worked fine in standalone mode. The electrostatic
"chart hold" feature held a piece of paper in
place on the bed, and the lower left and upper
right "pen set" functions worked, as did the
"pen up / pen down" button and the controls to
move the pen.
The plan is to hook this ancient device up to
my 11/40 as part of my classic computer center.
Ashley Carder
http://www.woffordwitch.com
>
>Subject: Re: Billy Pettit real disappointment
> From: Gordon JC Pearce <gordon at gjcp.net>
> Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 15:02:42 +0100
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
>On Thursday 28 June 2007 13:58:28 Jay West wrote:
>> Billy wrote...
>>
>> >> Come on people: there were computers long before there were
>> >> microcomputers.
>>
>> I seem to remember a recent post complaining that this list was nothing but
>> minicomputer and big-iron talk, no microcomputer discussion. Apparently
>> that was wrong, as now there is a complaint it's just micro talk? ;)
>
>It's never going to be "all things to all men", is it? Everyone has their own
>little sphere of interest, and what may seem hugely off-topic to one person
>might be massively relevant to another. For instance, I like the DEC
>conversations, but I'm not quite so interested in HP (but I keep an eye on
>them just the same). I'm surprised there's not more about the UK
>microcomputer scene. I'm incredibly surprised that there's no discussion at
>all of early computer-based musical equipment; we all know about EMS and the
>Putney Studio I'm sure, but what about the Fairlight CMI and the Synclavier?
>I'm surprised the latter wasn't mentioned during the "weird computers"
>thread...
>
>And what of the things to keep the big *big* iron running? I'm also
>interested in stuff like the power plant and environmental plant around old
>kit - but I can easily see how some would see that, and the Fairlight, as
>offtopic.
>
>Maybe we need some sort of map showing what we think is on- and off-topic...
>
>Gordon
Well for on topic and weird Computers or IO...
PDP-8 I've never seen anything else that did IO that way save
for the CMOS version.
TI9900 (and 990) oddball IO but loved the workspace pointer idea.
Minuteman Missle guidence computer. Bizzare transistor serial machine
where the fixed head disk drive served both program storage and as
active registers. I wonder if there are any around and if they are
operational or the mountain of manuals needed to figure it out?
Allison
Hi,
> The only reason I feel Tony's HP can't be classified as a
>microcomputer is because I was taught that a microcomputer
>utilized a microprocessor, and I was taught that the definition
>of a microprocessor is a processing solution contained entirely
>on one chip. Anything larger (more than one chip) and it's a mini....
That's a bit too inflexible a definition. Just off the top of my head, by
that logic, the i8080 is a minicomputer....which it clearly is not.
Likewise, would you consider a processor made from bit-slice devices to be a
mini?
TTFN - Pete.
Has anyone got any recommendations for PCB CAD software on Linux?
I tried Eagle, which I'd heard a lot about, but found it to be utterly
useless. Practically everything I tried to do resulted in a big pop-up box
saying something to the effect of "This feature is disabled in the Light
version", even things like moving pads on the grid.
Gordon
The Lisa Emulator Project, Release Candidate 2 is now ready for
download: http://lisaem.sunder.net/downloads.html
The biggest change is in the video handling code. The following
description on video methods is a bit technical, so skip over it if you
find your eyes glaze over.
The rawbitmap method:
The video updates are now using a hidden API in wxWidgets called
rawbmp.h, which allows direct read write access to the pixels. This
isn't a secret API by any means, since wxWidgets is open source,
however, it is undocumented. To turn this on pass --with-rawbitmap on
compiling.
This is a lot faster on OS X, but it crashes win32, and shows a black
screen on Linux
The SetRGB wxImage display method:
An alternate method is also available for systems where rawbmp.h doesn't
work, such as on win32. Compile using --without-rawbitmap to enable
this slightly slower mode.
While this mode is also much faster than the original version on OS X,
it's slower than rawbmp.
The SetRGB method builds a wxImage, and access the pixels via the SetRGB
method, then converts the wxImage into a wxBitmap, and blits the result
to the display. (On wxWidgets, you can't blit Images, they must be
converted to wxBitmaps, and there's no SetRGB method on wxBitmaps.)
The original code which built 4x1 blits has been ripped out. In terms
of speed, it worked fine on Linux and Windows, but it failed miserably
on slower OS X machines. The new code is also a big hack, but at least
it's a good hack. :-)
The rest of the display mechanism is based on Brian Foley's code, which
refreshes only the changed data, and schedules CPU execution via a
timer. While Brian's UI code is a lot cleaner, the main LisaEm wx UI
code has branched off too far for it to be compatible, so I've adapted
the code to do what his code does. Future updates will aim for cleaner
C++ code.
There may be issues refreshing the display on scrolling, however.
Another issue, is that the new code causes a bit of fuzzing in the
antialiased modes. This is due to the color levels used by the new
code. This will be fixed eventually by trial and error. I suspect that
tweaking contrast/brightness levels is what's needed.
The Display refresh rate options have been removed as they're no longer
needed.
The biggest improvement is for G4 OS X machines - the new display code
is fast enough to get a 5Mhz on average for a 500Mhz G4 running OS X
10.3.9. It uses about 60M of real memory and about 160M of swap (which
includes things like profile disk images, and other mmap'ed data) on the
same G4.
Other improvements:
Dual Parallel ROM cheat - if you have this ROM and are using it, the
power on self test is very painfully slow, especially on older systems,
the new version bypasses the test routines, so power on time is a lot
faster. Should future releases of the emulator support other expansion
port cards, this method can be used there as well.
NOTE: If you do not enable the ROM cheats when using the Parallel ROM,
and set the throttle to anything other than 5MHz, the Parallel ROM tests
will not only take a very long time, but fail since they test CPU vs VIA
timing.
Unlike most standard open source software, LisaEm doesn't use
"./configure; make; make install" autoconf/automake method of building.
However, Linux distro maintainers have scripts that make use of that, so
I've built a fake configure script file that builds a makefile which
acts as a wrapper around the build.sh script.
libdc42 updates allow access to both macbinaryII wrapped DART and
DiskCopy 4.2 images, and detects Disk Copy 6 images. (Since the
NDIF/DMG file formats are undocumented, libdc42 cannot support them.)
Floppy code can now deserialize tools/install disks and offers the
option on disk mounting.
Inserting a blank floppy works again. Previously, it either attempted
to install an existing floppy, or when inserting a blank disk whilst
running Lisa Office System it would cause LOS to hang when initializing.
Added raw buffered keyboard mode to compensate for keyboard repeating
when throttle >5MHz.
The Lisa's COPS Clock is now decoupled from CPU clock, so that the time
is accurate regardless of the throttle setting.
Remaining known bugs:
Screen blurriness with new display. This is a color levels issue. (new)
win32 crashes when built --with-rawbitmap (new)
Linux shows a black screen when built --with-rawbitmap (new)
There's a problem with MacWorks emulation which has existed for a few
versions of the emulator - when quitting an application MacWorks gets
stuck in a loop refreshing the desktop and reading from the floppy.
This prevents the Hard Drive installer from completing as well. I've
done a bunch of swap & compile attempts to switch out parts of the
source code to isolate the code causing this but haven't been able to
locate the bug.
Scrollbar arrows overlap in LOS. This has existed since the very first
versions.
>> Hp does not appear to
>> have as much detail in their engineering diagrams as DEC
>> did.
>
>Oh, I strongly beg to differ as I'm now intimately familiar with both
>documentation sets. However, at the risk of starting a religious war I shall
>just saunter off quietly instead :)
>
>Jay West
Nah, don't saunter away. I'll scan the stuff in and maybe
you can give me some pointers on deciphering it!!
Ashley
http://www.woffordwitch.com
Rather urgently needed....
Servo formatting PCA (12995-60114) and the special servo writing head
Servo reference cartridge (12995-60031)
I was sure that I had the above items, but I just went looking for them and
it appears all my "special" cartridges were head alignment carts not servo
formatting carts. Also turns out all my disk service boards were head
alignment boards, no servo formatting boards. Yikes!!
What hurts the most - is someone showed me a link to the above on gov liq a
few weeks ago. I didn't bid - and now wish I did.
If anyone has the above, I'd be interested in borrowing for a bit... or
trading for.
Jay West
