All,
I've got some cosmetic touchup to do on an HP cabinet (rust showing
in a few scratches). It's not a big job, so I've been considering a
coat or two of a rattle-can paint. I'm guessing that said cabinet is
late 1980s--early 1990s vintage.
Has anyone been in this situation before? Does anyone have any
recommendations on a suitable brand and item number for said paint?
Thanks,
Chuck
I recently picked up 2 HP2627A (Feb 85),both missing covers, one missing the
two boards in the rear, and a HP82901M flexible disc drive. If anyone has
any interest, please contact me off list.
Thanks, Paul
Sellam Ismail wrote:
I don't suppose anyone knows where one can get a set of personality
modules for the Heathkit 4801 EPROM Programmer?
A manual would be nice also ;)
--
Sellam Ismail
----------------------------
I've been looking for over a year for this information. So far, no luck.
If you find anything, I would love to have a copy.
Billy
The Rainbow in question was owned from new by a DEC employee. The system
is marked PC100-B3 and displays Version 05.03E
In other words about as up to date as you can get. Apart from the ageing
VR201 with blue spot face plate mould it runs cool and quiet. It's a
very good example and only lacks a VR241 colour display.
I think I have most of the software that ever ran on a Rainbow under
CP/M or MSDOS.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jeffrey Armstrong
Sent: 30 August 2007 18:06
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: DEC Rainbow Hard drive.
> Just because we are on the subject already.
>
> What is the last version of the firmware ?
I can't remember exactly, but the 100A was definitely 4.xx series (maybe
4.12?) while the 100B was definitely 5.xx series (maybe 5.03A). I've
never seen different values on any Rainbow, though, suggesting that the
boot roms were finalized before manufacturing started and never again
updated. Could be wrong, though.
Some Rainbow's have different character set ROMs, like the Technical
Character Set ROM, but that doesn't change the firmware version on the
boot menu.
-Jeff
jba at sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org
Hi William, I worked extensively on the 316 516 416 and 716 minicomputers for Honeywell in the UK and have only just seen your article. Do you still own this incredible 16 bit mini? Please let me know.
> From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com>
>
>> Which port are you using, serial or parallel?
>
> With a Draftmaster I?
No, you got me. My mind had strayed forward to the HP DesignJets
(large format ink jet printers) where a higher data rate was very
useful, and back to several other manufacturers such as Watanabe
(Graphtec) and a whole host of others. For some reason HP stuck with
serial and HP-IB. I can't remember which was their first parallel
plotter, maybe the electrostatic model (HP7500?) which could emulate
a pen plotter using HP/GL or take semi vector data plus raster fills
using HP-GL/2 and proper raster with RTL as well I think. Now that
must be a rare animal now, and probably difficult to get consumables
for. At least it never dropped ink on the floor, we still have big
patches of yellow and magenta on the carpet in the office which
leaked out from another electrostatic we borrowed to write a driver
for. Very clever engineering which cut paper off a roll, wrapped it
around a big drum, plotted the four colour passes and ejected the
paper. It just got bored if you didn't use it for a few weeks and got
incontinent. Can't remember the name.
>From: "Ethan Dicks" <ethan.dicks at gmail.com>
>Subject: Re: HP DraftMaster I
>On 8/29/07, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
>> The usual problem is getting the right cable to connect it to the SERIAL
>> port of the computer. Joe Campbell's "The RS232 Solution" will teach you
>> what you need to know to make the cable.
>I'd wager at first approximation, the usual difficulty is hardware
>handshaking, or lack thereof.
>> If you connect a serial device to the parallel port of the computer, you
>> are likely to do some damage.
>!!!
>The fast way to turn Light Emitting Diodes to Smoke Emitting Diodes. ;-)
>I've seen people toast parallel port dongles by stuffing them onto a
>Mac-style DB25 SCSI port before, but I've only seen serial-parallel
>confusion with the Amiga 1000, since they a) chose the opposite
>connector gender from PCs (DB25M for parallel, DB25F for serial),
>_and_ b) ran power over the serial and parallel connectors (along with
>some unusual signals like clock and system reset) which _was_ handy
>for, say, a host-powered voice-mail modem, but not so handy for trying
>to attach an ordinary printer over a cheap PC cable.
Watch out for some AT&T 6300 PCs that used a DB25 for the monitor cable and supplied power to the monitor (at least +12V) through the same cable. A good way to convert an LED into an EED (Epoxy Emitting Diode).
As to the HP plotter, I think I have cabling instructions for using it with AutoCAD on a PC in my copy of the AutoCAD 2.18 setup manual.
Bob
OK, I know some of you have done this -- Henk with his brick PDP machine
room in the Netherlands, at least!
Looking more closely into the power and other environmental
requirements for my Onyx2 and other rack SGI systems, it seems prudent
that I shouldn't attempt having these systems up and running without
the appropriate environment.
Fortunately the electrical isn't too bad -- 220 VAC, single phase.
Its more the cooling and ducting part that has me wondering. At the
moment, I'm not concerned with creating a building. I'm wondering
more about what would it take to build a "machine room" inside an
existing structure. Naturally, we're talking about building this on a
"collector" budget and not what you would do if money were no object.
Assume you have something like a warehouse with a concrete floor but
no warehouse-wide cooling situation. Is it feasible to build a small
climate controlled room inside this larger structure? Where do you
get the necessary A/C equipment for such a thing?
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
On 8/5/07, Brad Parker <brad at heeltoe.com> wrote:
> If you're talking about eprom emulators, "back in the day" I used to
> use a device called a "PROMICE".
Got one of those myself. It's a verrrry niiice. ;-)
> It was wonderful. I did a few different boot proms with one. Very handy.
> It was made by (I think) Grammer Engine. Try www.promice.com. But
> gosh, they do seem more expensive now that I remember...
Yes... Grammar Engine makes the PromICE. I've known Arvind since
before he made his first ROMulator (22 years ago). He was the design
engineer for the COMBOARD-I, the first model of 68000-based HASP and
3780 engine from Software Results. Arvind's a great guy to work with,
and makes solid products. If anyone on the list ever ends up with a
PromICE, I think you'll be really satisfied with it.
-ethan