test-drb July 2007

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

189 participants
323 discussions

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

Hi Does anybody have: a) A Northstar Horizon S100 Mother board (Need not be working or populated) b) The PCB artwork for the above. c) Any other S-100 mother board. d) The PCB artwork for the above. Anything more would be a bit expensive on shipping from the US. So its just the board that's required Rod Smallwood

17 years, 5 months

Altair 680 Replica Kit available

by grant＠stockly.com

Well, another labor of "love" for the past 6 months is finally done. Please take a look at http://www.altair680kit.com/index.html I'd love to hear any questions/feedback on the subject. Thanks, Grant

17 years, 5 months

Telephony switches - is there anyone out there collecting these?

by jplist2007＠kiwigeek.com

Hey all; So I'm reading "The NEW McGraw-Hill TELECOM Factbook" (Second edition, "A plain English guide anyone can use!", 820 pages, phone book sized) and while delving into the sections on Circuit and Packet switching it occurs to me that these machines are just as much of an object that has enabled our industrial and technological revolution to continue in leaps and bounds as the minis and mainframes of yesteryear. They're also damned cool. Are there people out there, on the list or otherwise, that are actively collecting these machines? Admittedly, unlike a PDP8 you can use (as Dave McGuire does) on a daily basis, a twelve ton NEAX isn't too 'dramatic' as an attention piece. But, according to my little book here, they tend to be multiprocessor, reel-to-reel storage (as they 'reboot' so infrequently they need a very long-lasting storage medium), all sorts of good stuff. And with an average "Mean time between failure of 1 failure in 40 years"... boy, that just speaks for it. So, anyone out there have one of these in their... basement? JP

17 years, 5 months

Northstar hard sector floppy disks with Catweasel

by lynchaj＠yahoo.com

Hi, Has anyone had success reading Northstar hard sector floppy disks with the Catweasel? Thanks! Andrew Lynch

17 years, 5 months

TTL homebrew CPUs

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: TTL homebrew CPUs > From: woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> > Date: Sun, 08 Jul 2007 14:12:15 -0600 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Allison wrote: >> >> >> There is a lot of "you can do" but building a CPU comes down to what do >> you want to do and can reasonably achieve or can practically play with >> once functional. Unfortunately some want a cpu that can run unix and an >> IP stack others want just enough to qualify as a computer for close up >> examination of "just how do they do it?" and that represents a large >> spread of design and architecture possibilities. Having built machine >> from very simple state logic to an elaborate 16bit bitslice I can say >> all are interesting but some are a lot too much work. > >Memory is a interesting problem , if you don't use 8 bit bytes >or you need more than 32K. Since I had use of computers after >1980 64Kb or more seems normal. I am shocked >at how hard it is get any memory size at all using static >memory with the 75 to 80's chips and still not use >up mammonth amounts of power or large # or boards. Why the surprize? Until the 4k dynamic parts 1k was huge and the older dynamic parts require a lot of support (read TTL bits). That lack of density says power is big by shear force of numbers. I had the use of computers before the 70s (ok only 1969) but I got to see the growth. It was interesting to see 4K of core shrink from a box to a board and further to a chip. Myself I used in the past the higest density parts memory wise I could to save power and wiring. The 2102, 2114 2167 type static parts made life far easier than the 4116 dynamics. But by 1978 it was possible to put 64kx8 on a S100 card cheaply (by then standard) using 16kx1(4116) and 8202. If I were to do a TTL design right now I'd use 32Kx8 (or larger) parts even if the word size were 9 or 11 bits as they are cheap and easy to use and the unused excess bits are no real loss. I'm currently looking at using 64Kx8s as a way to make a RS08like disk for my PDP-8f. So what if I don't use 4 of the 16bits the cost to find X4 parts or other schemes end up using more parts or time. Maybe because every time I did TTL or slice design I wasn't trying to make a period machine or be faithful I was doing some sacrelige but I was having fun and the expereince was no less because the memory, logic used or terminal was way out of period. Heck the guy that did the Apollo AGC has a hats off to me as he did in TTL something conceived as RTL with minimal data. If anything not only was a working machine a significant accomplishment but the information about it he dug up, made visible to public and preserved along the way speaks to great work. For those that try and or succeed to build a PISC (Pitiful Instruction Set Computer) or a VSC (Very Simple Computer) they are contributing a lot to the science and history of computing. After all there are many old (really old) machine preserved and sitting that most of us have not the first idea how to power up and program. Those that do it get my attention for their efforts. Allison > > >

17 years, 5 months

The late, great TRS-80 - hey, they wrote a book!

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: The late, great TRS-80 - hey, they wrote a book! > From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> > Date: Sat, 07 Jul 2007 16:05:20 -0700 (PDT) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On Sat, 7 Jul 2007 scheefj at netscape.net wrote: > >How do you spell shill? > >Lighten up on the hard sell. > >> All, >> I cannot believe that after two weeks and about 40 messages, no one >> actually responded to Theresa's actual message. Instead, from the first >> "reply" you all were off arguing inane stuff like whether English >> measure units are better than something else. You idiots! </flame> >> If you doubt that the TRS-80 Model 1 was, as Theresa claimed in her >> original message, the "first off-the-shelf home computer", then I >> respectfully suggest that you READ THE BOOK! > >I was going to buy a copy of that book to add to the circulation >collection. Your flame resulted in deleting it from the acquisition list. > > >We were there. > >The responses were NOT about "English measure units". They were extensive >(and sometimes silly) disagreements about how "first", "Off-the-shelf", >and "home computer" were defined. It takes some very creative definitions >to be able to assign that honor to TRS80. >Theresa's definitions were barely defensible! > >Some of us, (Allison, etc.) were responsible for major design decisions. > >Some of us remember more detail than was found by the authors of >"interview" books. Such as the time when RS said that they would be >marketing an S100 adapter. Or the bad connections with the serial board. >Or the multiple iterations of patches on top of kludges trying to get the >CPU to E.I. cabling to work reliably. Or (mostly Coco) when RS declared >that because "RS232" stood for "Radio Shack 232", that it was thus open to >changes at the whim of RS. > >Some of us are tired of "history" with a "light style" (no technical >details and/or no attempt to proof technical aspects) > >Some of us are tired of undefined and ill-defined disputable "firsts". > > >-- >Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com Right on Fred. Besides the first off the shelf is more like the CDC160 or PDP-8. For that fact AppleII was even before the TRS80. There were several fully assembled machines that predate the TRS80 some were even more capable. Frist what? First home computer for under $1000? First sold through a major chain? The late 60s through yesterday have been full of first in some area or another when we talk about computers. As for me when I'd first seen the title I hit delete as the TRS80 was an interesing and common oddity. It succeeded (that is it sold many) despite design flaws, outright bugs, and production teething pains. If anything I'd conclude little about the TRS80 and more about how hungry the market was for a computing solution that could be applied as an appliance or tool rather than technotoy. The real story if one is to be less technical is how the market progressed from PDP-8 to the Mark8 and beyond MITS to the more finished machines that could do basic accounting, write and print a letter or play a decent game. Computing and the machine makers tried to answer the buring question of what does the computer consumer want or need to be a useful tool they would buy? >From that perspective what MITS, APPLE or RS (and many others) did on their own has less significance than the combined effect of getting computers from behind plate glass and in front fo the guy that ways to know how many things to stock for the next big sale weekend. KO was right, people didn't want computers, they wanted infomation appliances. All the so called firsts were only steps to that end. The end remarkably is the same as when the Gutenberg Bible was first printed, rapid ready access to information, with information being THE commodity. Just my two cents, but hey what do I know. Allison

17 years, 5 months

Turn a disk into the starship Enterprise!

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

Hi, Someone came across this in another group I am in. http://www.asciipr0n.com/archive/0013/bonnie/craft/ It's pretty cool, but I wouldn't use any old disks for this, just crappy PC ones (from modern PC's) which no longer work :) Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

17 years, 5 months

TTL homebrew CPUs

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: TTL homebrew CPUs > From: "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at verizon.net> > Date: Sun, 08 Jul 2007 14:46:09 -0400 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >I can recall a couple of different articles on boards that were designed to >plug into a PC, one used a 32032, one a 68K of some sort, and one a Z8000, >I think. I didn't pay them that much attention because I didn't have a "PC" >yet, at that point in time. :-) I may have those articles as well. I also suffered from not having a PC but the designs were very generic if you ignore the PC part and therefore handy. Allison

17 years, 5 months

TTL homebrew CPUs

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: TTL homebrew CPUs > From: Lars Hamren <hamren at sdu.se> > Date: Sat, 07 Jul 2007 21:38:15 +0200 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >The first computer built by Computer Automation, circa 1967, was the >PDC 808. It was an 8-bit TTL-only machine with a very basic >instruction set. In "Computer Technician's Handbook" Brice Ward >describes tat machine in great detail. Should be enough to build a >replica from. > >A scanned version of the relevant parts of that book is available from > > http://www.sdu.se/computer-automation-museum/books_in_the_collection.html > >PDC stands for Programmable Digital Controller. The word "computer" >was avoided because people were afraid of them! > >The "8" means 8 uS cycle time, and "08" means 8 bits. The 208 was >three times as fast (2.66 uS cycle time, hence the "2"). > >/Lars I've seen a lot of discussion on making a CPU from TTL or MSI (bitslice). The task is not that bad and the parts to do it are very available still. The assembly task with out a premade board can be large as it's a lot of repetive circuits. If the word size is kept reasonable but useful and that seems to be 8 to 16 bits people are doing it. The variable word length 8bit designs are scarce but requires less bus "width" to get a workable system and have performance in the zone of faster than serial but not as fast as wide word machines. Using that approach you can have a 32bit machine with 8bit busses saving a huge amount of repetetive hardware. For those that want small and less significant part counts there are minimalist 8/12/16 designs like TOY or Pilgrim VSC (very simple computers). A board for one of them would have wide appeal and useful for those that wish to see the guts of cpu without probling a die or having a whole PDP-8. The biggest difference between building a PDP-8 (or whatever) then and now is not using TTL (or cmos) or bit slices but the availability of fast and large RAM that is easy to use. Many earlier systems were flavored by the ram they could interface or the needs of the memory. Same for the older serial designs to were done to economize on then costly registers and arithmetic logic along with serial memories. There is a lot of "you can do" but building a CPU comes down to what do you want to do and can reasonably achieve or can practically play with once functional. Unfortunately some want a cpu that can run unix and an IP stack others want just enough to qualify as a computer for close up examination of "just how do they do it?" and that represents a large spread of design and architecture possibilities. Having built machine >from very simple state logic to an elaborate 16bit bitslice I can say all are interesting but some are a lot too much work. Allison

17 years, 5 months

Diablo Hyterm near Eugene, OR

by cclist＠sydex.com

http://eugene.craigslist.org/zip/368914556.html

17 years, 5 months

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test-drb July 2007