test-drb October 2008

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

235 participants
330 discussions

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

I found the table to interpret the LEDs, buried around page 256 of the KDF11-BA manual. It told me that 0011 is: waiting for SLU Transmit. Odd, since there's no handshaking on the console lines :) That pointed me immediately to the console serial port, since I already knew the VT220 and cable were working via the loopback test. It didn't take long to discover (with my trusty Tek 545) that there was no clock on either UART in transmit or receive. The 5.0688 MHz oscillator was working (surprisingly - I figured the recent move had broken the crystal), and its signal appeared normal at jumper J21/20. But there was barely a wiggle on the two gates that it connected to. Poor continuity also, which improved when pushing sideways on wirewrap pin J21. Close visual inspection with bright light and magnifying glass didn't show much. I resoldered the pins and voila - RUN light on, startup message on terminal, booted from DL0: etc. So it was just a bad factory solder joint from the 1980's... Sorry I panicked :) -Charles

16 years, 2 months

form feed tapes on printers (was Re: Mona Lisa)

by jeffj＠panix.com

replying to: > From: Tom Watson <tsw-cc at johana.com> > Subject: Re: form feed tapes on printers (was Re: Mona Lisa) >> Probably IBM--maybe 1620 SPS II printer mnemonics? > Why right you are. For those of you who aren't reading at home, > these mnemonics mean: > SPIM: Space immediate (1-3 lines) > SKIP: Skip immediate (to carriage control channel) > SKAP: Skip after printing (carriage control) > SPAP: Space after printing (1-3 lines) I can't top that, my Autocoder mnemonics page is out of reach :-( > All of these were control instructions that referenced the printer > (unit #9). The carriage control tape was a standard 12 channel one > (IBM used them on LOTS of printers like 407's and 1403's). And re-used the carriage mechanisms in later machines. The tractor feed and carriage control tape from the 1132 printer was recycled from earlier accounting machines. > You could access any one of the 12 channels. > The 1620 had two indicators for "summary line" (channel 9) > and "end of printable page" (channel 12), > which if you have a hard copy impact printer are probably still there. RPG has program flags triggered by that for subtotals, totals, page footers, etc. They were triggered virtually if the printer was not real-time. I don't recall the model number, but the IBM RJE terminal my high school had around 1976 didn't have a carriage control tape but was programmed with perhaps 4 "jobs" that defined the page size, carriage control stops, horizontal tabs, etc. It was a nice sit-down console with keyboard, chain printer and cabinet on the left with a 8" floppy drive. > Yes, if you skipped to a channel that WASN'T punched, > you fed lots of paper, which is why (if you were smart) > you punched the unused channels on the same line > as the "end of paper" channel (12). I punched them all for top of page. Sigh, I wish I had taken photos of my college's IBM 1130s and all the little things like the bottle of genuine IBM mucilage for gluing the carriage control tape into a loop. I still have a pad of IBM forms for planning printouts, with the carriage control tape along the edge to indicate where to punch the holes. > Oh, standard Fortran: > blank, single space; 1, top of form; 0, double space; > +, overprint (not supported everywhere). and - for triple space. It took me a while to realize that there was nothing magic about the first character as carriage control, so instead of format (" ","and more") I evolved to format (" and more") > One of these days I'll dig out the computer pic I made back > in the late 60's using a video camera connected to an 1130. > 16 levels of gray, and 200x160 or so resolution. Cool for the day! Wow! How was that interfaced? I'm trying to find ANYONE who modded their 1130s, particularly with a SAC (storage access channel) interface. -- jeffj

16 years, 2 months

Looking for AT&T 3B1/UNIXPC/PC7300 software

by labomb_s＠yahoo.com

> Seems odd - if other formats commonly used on this machine use > standard enough encoding, headers and marks for a PC controller > to read, I wonder why they went with a different format for the > 8-sector variety. Is the 8-sector type older? (ie: perhaps the > changed to a more standard format somewhere along the way?) > It's been many years since I've used my 3b1's, but I seem to recall that while some of the distribution disks are indeed formatted (and I believe that the 3b1 used a 10 sector-per-track format) and can be mounted as per usual, I think that most of the factory distribution disks actually contained raw data created by the Unix cpio utility. These diskettes are essentially a backup set, and cpio treated the drive as a raw character device. Again it's been years, but I don't even recall having to format the disks prior to using cpio to back up data... Scott

16 years, 2 months

some odds and ends to get rid of

by dgahling＠hotmail.com

I have some more stuff I need to clear out. there' s the PDP-11 no one has asked for yet, And I just found an old Xyplex switch *8 slot* I believe, loaded. was working last I checked it (many years ago), has BGP also and some others: cisco 1721 (2 of these) cisco 2501 cisco 2505 I'm moving in a few weeks and they need to be gone by then. In in scarbough (part of Toronto, Canada) if I get no response, it's all going to the scrap dealer. Dan. _________________________________________________________________

16 years, 2 months

Looking for AT&T 3B1/UNIXPC/PC7300 software

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> David, do you know whether ImageDisk will image them correctly? It appears ImageDisk doesn't work with 8 sector ones. The 3.51 utilities disks were copied OK with ImageDisk, except for the VDI disk, which apparently is 8 sector.

16 years, 2 months

dec (digital) wirewrap module sockets (greenblocks)

by pjhurst46＠hotmail.com

Are DEC Greenblocks (wirewrap module sockets H803 or similar) available from any source -- Besides the obvious route of unwrapping an existing backplane which is tedious and destroys the device. _________________________________________________________________ Want to do more with Windows Live? Learn ?10 hidden secrets? from Jamie. http://windowslive.com/connect/post/jamiethomson.spaces.live.com-Blog-cns!5…

16 years, 2 months

Seeking SunOS 4.1.4

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

This is my periodic query for original install media for SunOS 4.1.4. I have a special affinity for the Sun IPX and I'd like to get mine working with SunOS. By the way, has anyone here successfully attached an LCD monitor to an older Sun? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

16 years, 2 months

Looking for WD2010 chip

by rescue＠hawkmountain.net

Anyone have one available ? -- Curt

16 years, 2 months

USENET via TV broadcast

by jeffj＠panix.com

> In the early 80s, I think there were some very low-speed data stream > systems via teletext ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext ) > that could send the stream out RS-232. Is my memory correct? Perhaps. In the mid 80s, many technologies were attempted with similar (and often re-used) names 1) Reading the wiki entry, I was confusing Teletext with "Teletex" and perhaps something else http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletex I remember entering a contest, suggesting how a computer interface to the TV subtitles could allow linking things together (such as capturing phone numbers, URL, etc). My TV /still/ has no PC interface: USB or otherwise. (I think Sega's Dreamcast system received games via the cable TV channel). I remember attending trade shows in the late 80s where "smart phones" (desk sets with tiny terminals) and Teletex were touted as "the next big thing". Compared to Sears/IBM Prodigy, perhaps, but nothing compared to the Internet with hypertext browsing, multimedia and other new formats. In a way, today's cellular phones have replaced the landline "smart phones" since they allow texting and internet access. But here in the USA, teletext was just a terminal standard for low-res graphics, and it still used a modem via phone lines. The surplus terminals were often from France (obvious from the keyboard) since it was wildly popular there. 2) I'm unsure if it used the same technology as today's DSL, but AT&T used to offer employees "CO-LAN": piggybacking a dedicated serial line over the existing phone line. 3) Google finds nothing, but I remember project "Stargate" where USENET newsgroups were transmitted during the vertical blanking interval of the TV broadcast. I forgot if that was via satellite or cable.

16 years, 2 months

Did anyone archive the old Everex FTP before it went down?

by teoz＠neo.rr.com

In one of the forums I belong to someone is looking for the EISA configuration files and drivers for a Everex Step VL/E type 18210 EISA motherboard (EISA config. utility !EVX1698.CFG). I figured that company was popular in the early 90's and somebody might have mirrored the FTP here (we are all packrats I would think). Thanks TZ P.S. I wish archive.org would do FTP sites as well as HTTP.

16 years, 2 months

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test-drb October 2008