test-drb November 2008

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

181 participants
235 discussions

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> But it's just a plain old 1/2 inch tape drive. 7 track A 729 would be my least favorite choice for data recovery. They must not have looked very hard at recovery services. As much as I hate him, John Bordynuik has working high-quality 7 track equipment already working with high success rates.

17 years, 5 months

1985 Computer Chronicles TV computer show

by wbblair3＠yahoo.com

> William Blair wrote: > > Found this accidentally and I'll bet there are many more computer > > related videos on this site that would be interesting to watch. If > > you find some more, please post the links here. > That would be a lot of links, since the entire Computer Chronicles > series was donated to the Internet Archive. Yep, I noticed that right after I sent the message. 560 shows.

17 years, 5 months

Computer Shopper scans?

by jules.richardson99＠gmail.com

The museum's been offered a reasonable archive set of Computer Shopper magazines, but doesn't however really have the space to justify taking/keeping them given the historical 'worth' and anticipated demand for them as reference material. Consideration's being given to just scanning them as an electronic-only reference - question is, has this already been done by anyone? There seems little sense in duplicating effort! cheers Jules

17 years, 5 months

seeking SS20

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

For some reason I'm thinking about getting a Sparc 20. Does anyone have any lying around to trade? -- 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?

17 years, 5 months

Semi-OT - Sources of magneto-optical disks?

by ian_primus＠yahoo.com

I posted this over on the rescue list, but I figured it's probably close enough for here too, since I use these for classic machines. I'm looking for magneto-optical disk cartridges. Primarily the 3 1/2" versions, I use the 128mb disks for shuffleing data around between old machines, but I actually have a mix of drives - 128mb mostly, but also a 230mb and a 640mb drive. I also checked last might, and found the 600mb 5 1/4" drive I had forgotten about. Just no media for it. I've been checking on eBay, and they turn up from time to time, and I actually just bought a few 128mb disks there. But mostly, the MO disks available tend to be the expensive, higher capacity disks that I can't use. These old, small ones rarely get listed, and I almost never see used ones. Or, when they do get listed, the shipping is wildly inflated. For example, I found an auction for 20 used 128mb disks. Flat rate $20 shipping. How it can possibly cost $20 to ship a small box of disks is beyond me. Likewise the BIN of $2 for five disks, with flat rate $12 shipping. So, anyone have a good source of these critters? I remember buying a few boxes many years ago (back when the Zip drive was the great new thing) from an online media store, and paying about five bucks apiece for brand new 128mb cartridges. Surely the prices should have come down, but the the cheapest I can find them is $7 each. I'd really like to just buy some used cartridges, but I guess the used media market isn't what it was, I don't really even see used tapes much anymore. So, anyone know of a source of 128mb, 230mb, 540mb or 640mb 3 1/2" disks, or the 600mb 5 1/4" disks? -Ian

17 years, 5 months

Free: Cipher Model 920 9-track tape drive

by mardy＠voysys.com

I have a brand new Cipher Model 920 9-track tape drive that needs a new home. It can do either 800 or 1600 BPI and uses what I believe is a Pertec like interface, i.e. Pertec compatible signals, but non- standard connector pinouts. It also comes with a complete set of documentation and schematics. From the picture below, you can see that it is still in the original shipping frame with all of the protective paper still on the plexiglass. http://web.mac.com/mardy/iWeb/Cipher920/front.jpg It was given to me for free by someone else on the list, so I'm going to continue the tradition and offer it for free as well. For local pickup, I am located in Southern New Hamphire, but I am also willing to ship it if someone is willing to cover the shipping costs. I have already crated it. I am guessing that it will be somewhere around $150.00 to ship it within the continental US. -Mardy

17 years, 5 months

PCMCIA Prototyping board on Ebay...

by rmeenaks＠olf.com

This is a very nice prototyping board for the PCMICA: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem <http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260303159467> &item=260303159467

17 years, 5 months

Datec?

by evan＠snarc.net

No ------Original Message------ From: Greg Manuel $V$ Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only ReplyTo: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: RE: Datec? Sent: Nov 9, 2008 4:15 AM Evan, do you mean Datek? They were electronics liquidators. Well, they did electronics and lots of other stuff to. It was a catalog(ue) company IIRC. Greg > -----Original Message----- > From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Evan Koblentz > Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 11:31 PM > To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' > Subject: Datec? > > > Is anyone familiar with a company called Datec Inc., based in Colorado > Springs in the mid-1980s? >

17 years, 5 months

Quimax PX 22

by trebor72＠execpc.com

I have a Quimax PX 22. I had it hooked up to my PC XT to a CGA card. It was working but began to heat up so I shut it off. Tried to bring it up using a A/C VARIAC. But nothing. It has the ability to display in Red or Green or White. Is it worth fixing. Is anyone interested in IT. It might be an easy fix Couple of CAPS.

17 years, 5 months

Datec?

by evan＠snarc.net

Is anyone familiar with a company called Datec Inc., based in Colorado Springs in the mid-1980s?

17 years, 5 months

Wanted: SCO Xenix rel 2.2 Ver 286AT

by g-wright＠att.net

Not too sure what I did with mine, but is cannot find the activation Key info. I'm trying to get a old Wyse LoadStar 286 Xenix box going and this version seems to be able to handle the serial port as console. I can't get any of the other versions I have to take the serial port as console they all switch as they boot or error when the run hardware tests. Mine disks have a part number on it of 12866, not sure if this means anything. (Xenix Sys V release 2.2 version 286AT) The Wyse LoadStar is just a 286 PC with special ROMs. and no Video card or Key board. - Jerry

17 years, 5 months

40k Ferrite Memory Core

by mloewen＠cpumagic.scol.pa.us

I received this request for information on a core memory stack - does anyone recognize it? I passed on some general info to him about core memory and how they work. Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:36:53 EDT From: BALLSHOP at aol.com To: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Subject: 40k Ferrite Memory Core Hello, I was hoping you could help me figure out what I have here. I bought it an estate and it had a note attached that said "40k Ferrite Memory Core". It's pretty amazing to look at, there are thousands of tiny wires and it has little black "doughnuts" at the intersection of each wire. Any help in identifying this would be greatly appreciated. Thank You, Scott http://www.thegolfballshop.com/oct28/1.jpg http://www.thegolfballshop.com/oct28/2.jpg http://www.thegolfballshop.com/oct28/3.jpg http://www.thegolfballshop.com/oct28/4.jpg http://www.thegolfballshop.com/oct28/5.jpg

17 years, 5 months

PDP-1 Spacewar! program internals

by aek＠spies.com

Here is part of an oral history I recorded with Steve Russel last August which discusses how the Spacewar! program works internally. Exerpt of an oral history of Steve Russell August 2008 CHM Reference Number X4970.2008 (C) 2008 Computer History Museum Russell: Anyway, the PDP-1 arrived, and Marvin Minsky wrote the tripos demonstration, generally called the Minskytron, and there was the famous weekend where the mob of undergraduates transcribed the macro assembler from TX-0 to the PDP-1, because they didn't like FRAP. And then fairly quickly thereafter, they wrote DDT and connected up the macro symbols to DDT. So that was all sort of in place by the middle of the fall of 1961. And the combination of the Minskytron and having DDT with interactive debugging with symbols was very tempting. I don't remember the exact order of things, but I'm pretty sure I started talking up a better demonstration program than the Minskytron, and eventually, Alan Kotok went up to Maynard and collected the sine and cosine routines from DECUS, presented them to me, and said, "Okay, here are the sine and cosine routines; now what's your excuse?" And I discovered I had run out of excuses; I had to actually think. And so I started work and figured out the basic trick of Spacewar! display which is that you only need to calculate a unit vector pointing in the direction of the spaceship. And you can express everything else the spaceship does, and the outline of the spaceship in terms of that unit vector, suitably scaled. So it's basically a lot of addition in the usual program upkeep. Kossow: Do you want to just give an overview, then, of how Spacewar! actually works? Russell: It's one big loop, and the loop is on the displayable objects. And I called them displayable objects, although I didn't know about object orientation or object- oriented programming at the time. Kossow: So you have the sun-- Russell: Colliding objects, not displayable objects. The colliding object is a space ship, there are two of those. And that has a lot of extra data with it. It shares the position and velocity tables with all of the torpedoes and explosions that are running around. So there's just one big loop through the colliding objects, and it looks at all the higher-numbered colliding objects to see if there's a collision, using an octagon because you don't need to calculate the square root of anything, you can do that by work on X difference, Y difference, and X+Y difference-- Kossow: So the bounding box for the collision detection is an octagon? Russell: Yes. So it goes through, it sees if this object is colliding with any higher- numbered object. If it is, it replaces the calculation routines. That's another thing that every colliding object has, is a calculation routine. It replaces the calculation routine with the explosion calculation routine. And then things take care of themselves. Then, after it's decided whether it's an explosion or not, it goes off to the calculation routine. And the calculation routine updates the position, since all colliding objects have velocity; and if it's a spaceship, it worries about reading the controls and updating the other things about the spaceship in deciding whether to launch a torpedo or not. And if a torpedo needs to be launched, it searches up the colliding object table for an empty slot, indicated by having no calculation routine. It searches up the table for an empty slot, puts a torpedo calculation routine there, and the spaceship position plus the suitable increments, so it won't run into its torpedo, and of the velocity of the spaceship plus an increment for the torpedo, and it goes on. When that the main loop gets done, you go off and do some star display and display the sun, and calculate -- and part of the spaceship calculation is to calculate the effect of gravity on the spaceship. Originally, there wasn't any gravity, and I had an interpreter, which interpreted the outline description, and Dan Edwards, sometime in late 1961 or early 1962, looked at that code and decided if he could write a special purpose compiler which would compile precisely the right code, and proceeded to. And there's one compiled outline for each spaceship; each spaceship actually does half of the spaceship outline and then you twiddle the vectors and do the other half. That keeps the display running just as fast as it can. That gives time to calculate the effect of gravity on the two spaceships, but not on the torpedoes. So we decided that they were photon torpedoes not affected by gravity. Kossow: So when the explosion routine starts, it continues calculating motion, so the explosion moves? Russell: Yes. If you see two spaceships collide, if you watch closely, you will see that there are two explosions that continue off in the direction that the two spaceships were going. There is another number in the table for all colliding objects, which is the size. And this is, roughly speaking, proportional to the amount of computing it takes to compute that object. And at the end of the loop, as you go through the main loop, you accumulate the sizes also; and so at the end of the loop, there's fritter away time loop that attempts to keep the frame rate approximately constant. It doesn't do a wonderful job; it's visually adequate, but God help you when you try to take a movie of it. Kossow: One of the complaints with all modern kids trying to play it now is that it's TOO SLOW. Russell: Kids who are used to something like Asteroids seem to think that. But when we do the demos, we get a number of people who seem to be still quite addicted to it with the old, slow version. Now, that was always a complaint; the reason that all the parameters got accumulated in the first page of the listing, which says you can put that first page of the listing of the console, and anyone who wanted to try a different set of parameters could. But the ones that were compiled in or assembled in were the ones that I thought were good. Now it turns out I'm not a representative arcade game player, and so my version of the parameters is slower and gives more opportunity for marksmanship than the arcade version. Kossow: Right, that's the whole thing with gravity and doing the, what's that called, where you whip around the sun? Does it have a name, where you whip around the sun and you shoot? Russell: The closest name is the "CBS maneuver" is what happens when two lazy experts fight each other, which is they both turn at right angles to the sun, and fire for 3.5 or 4 seconds, so they're now in stable orbits, and they know it. And then they turn at each other and start trying to place torpedoes where they think the other one is going to be. And so the trails turn into an eye around the sun, and CBS used that as a logo, so it got called the "CBS maneuver". You can-- one of the spaceships can go the other way around the sun, so that both ships meet on the same side of the sun. But that seems usually to have less chance of winning. Not much less, but somewhat less. Kossow: It's better that you stay on opposite sides, then? Russell: Yes. Kossow: And then at some point, you added hyperspace? Russell: Yes, and we realized that that was going-- I don't remember whether we actually had it. I may have had it for a little while with no limit, but it became very clear that someone who didn't understand could use hyperspace to escape their proper justice forever, and so we added the unreliability of hyperfield generators very quickly. One thing that Asteroids and the arcade versions, the later arcade versions of Spacewar! added, which actually was a big help, especially with their high acceleration rates, was "training mode" where space was actually viscous. So if you got your ship accelerated so that it was going across the screen so fast you couldn't understand what was going on, if you took your hands off, the situation would gradually become understandable. I don't think I would have been persuaded to do that in the original Spacewar! because it was unrealistic. But it definitely made it easier to learn. Kossow: So are there any other favorite anecdotes about Spacewar!, or just the spread of Spacewar!? Russell: Well, the "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"-- many people saw Spacewar! as, some people ask for copies of the source, and of course we gave them out because we very briefly considered trying to sell Spacewar!. We realized the only possible customer was Digital Equipment, and we also, on a little reflection, that they were too cheap to do it. So we gave it out to anyone who wanted it, and some people got the listing and thought about it, and by reading it-- a lot of people simply saw the game and had a computer that wasn't the PDP-1 but did have a display, and implemented Spacewar! their own way. I suspect most of them figured out the "basic trick", but I'm not sure. Kossow: What "basic trick" were you thinking of? Russell: That you could do everything based on the spaceship unit vector. How are you fixed for the source code for different implementations of Spacewar!? Kossow: We have a few. I don't know if we have the PDP-10 version. We have the 12 version, and I think we have a PDP-7 version. Russell: I think Bob Saunders wrote the PDP-7 version. I think one 6 version simply ran on the PDP-1 simulator. I think there must have been others, but I don't know. Something for some history grad student to pursue. When we were running a demo for the Yelp event, there was one woman who had done Spacewar! in turtle graphics as a high school programming project, which she wasn't too happy with. She seemed to like the demo of the original Spacewar!. Kossow: So turtle graphics running on a micro or something like that? Russell: I didn't quiz her. I didn't have the opportunity to quiz her further. Kossow: So she thought this version was better? Russell: No, she just thought it was nice to see the original. Kossow: So she was in her mid-20s? Russell: 20s or early 30s; probably 20s. The DEC field service story where the DEC production people got into the practice of loading Spacewar! the last thing before PDP-1 shipped, and field service would then unpack it, make sure that nothing horrible had happened, tryed turning on power, and starting Spacewar!. And if it worked, they would call the customer over and say, "See, it works." If it didn't work, then they'd worry about it. In the restoration project, we had a little reflection and we decided that probably if Spacewar! works, just about everything works, as far as machine instructions go. It doesn't guarantee all the I/O gear works, but it does multiply and divides, and just about every instruction. So a lot of people implemented Spacewar! just from knowing that it existed and having seen it maybe once.

17 years, 5 months

Edmund Scientific NIM

by rdawson16＠hotmail.com

Hi all, I bet somebody has some documents from this toy. I am starting to think about christmas, and all sorts of mechanical computers and toys. One of the other fun computer tricks I recall, is using 3x5 cards. You can punch a row of holes in the top edge, and selectivley cut slots thru to the top. So, a deck of cards with numbers on them, and appropriately cut slots, you can sort the deck with a pen, a binary sort by lifting the cards (its a bubble sort) What other kid ideas do you guys have? I'm going to bring a stepper controlled etch a sketch. Randy _________________________________________________________________ Color coding for safety: Windows Live Hotmail alerts you to suspicious email. http://windowslive.com/Explore/Hotmail?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_hotmail_acq_safety…

17 years, 5 months

Computer Shopper scans: definitely worthy

by jeffj＠panix.com

> From: "William Donzelli" <wdonzelli at gmail.com> > Subject: Re: Computer Shopper scans? > No, not that newsprint crap. It will start disintegrating within 50 > years, and the costs associated with acid paper stabilization are very > high. I see how the hobby publications of the 1940s are falling apart > now, and Computer Shopper is in the same danger. And thus all my friends' paperback collections literally turning to dust. > Like it, or (mostly) not, Computer Shopper > is a very important slice of computing history. I'm not so sure of that. It's not a scholarly journal such as the Journal of the ACM, but it shows the state of the art for hobbyist & business machines, such as price & capacity of hard drives, CPU, RAM, when certain peripherals were ubiquitious, etc. Some of the ads were memorable, particularly for things that didn't happen as anticipated. It also listed BBSs, which was the only way for online/virtual communities before the Internet and well-connected services such as GEnie, Prodigy, Delphi, BIX, ...

17 years, 5 months

Kontron EPP-80 EPROM Burner

by msalay＠one.net

Hello, Sometime back you posted looking for info on the Kontron EPP-80 EPROM programmer. I have such a unit, but need to find a manual and fellow users. I'd appreciate if you can drop me a quick note with anything you know. thanks, Mike

17 years, 5 months

DECmateIII (was Re: PDP-8/e and terminals in West Sussex, UK)

by jason＠havnet.com

Hi Paul, Sorry for the direct email, but I have missed the beginning of your thread regarding the PDP-8/e and terminals in West Sussex. Is any of the equipment available? I ask on behalf of the Centre for Computing History in Suffolk. See : www.computinghistory.org.uk Sorry if this email is out of place. Kind Regards Jason Fitzpatrick -----Original Message----- From: paul at frixxon.co.uk Sent: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 11:00:35 -0000 (UTC) To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: DECmateIII (was Re: PDP-8/e and terminals in West Sussex, UK) > Ethan Dicks wrote: >> On Thu, Nov 06, 2008 at 05:53:03AM -0800, Julian Skidmore wrote: >>> >>> You also have what looks very much like a DecMate in the bottom, left >>> of: >>> http://hisdeedsaredust.com/pdp/04112008377.jpg > > The grey box there ? It looks like a tk50, or just scsi drive enclosure. > There is an SCSI terminator on it ... You're right, it is a TK50. I accidentally responded off-list to Julian.

17 years, 5 months

PDP-8/e and terminals in West Sussex, UK

by julianskidmore＠yahoo.com

Hi Paul, You also have what looks very much like a DecMate in the bottom, left of: http://hisdeedsaredust.com/pdp/04112008377.jpg Of course, that's another pdp-8! I have a DecMate III which I picked up at a Radio Rally, but it doesn't have an RX50, so I can't get it to do anything, apart from display its bios screen. -cheers from julz @P

17 years, 6 months

VT terminal emulator suggestions

by mark＠wickensonline.co.uk

Thanks for the replies. I have a VT520 that I use as much as possible! However, sitting in front of the TV of an evening I was looking for an emulator capable of accessing some of the forms related software on my DEC Alpha 3000/600 such as DECforms and All-in-1. Both use double wide/high fonts which don't work well with most terminal emulators. I did have a serial connection to the attic at one time and used a VT terminal for a while, but having a VT terminal in the lounge is maybe taking the 'hobby' a little too far in my wife's eyes! Anyway, I have answered my own question: IVT. Available free at http://www.softwarevoordelig.nl/en/ I was amazed at (a) how well it worked and (b) what a quality piece of software it is. I recommend it. Regards, Mark.

17 years, 6 months

PDP-8/e and terminals in West Sussex, UK

by bqt＠softjar.se

Julian Skidmore <julianskidmore at yahoo.com> wrote: > Hi folks, > > So who's taking the populated pdp8/m? > > Since Peter Turnbull is taking the pdp8/e and a pdp8/m is only an > OEM pdp8/e with less slots; I'm wondering if the pdp8/m should go > to another University. Actually, the 8/m is the OEM of the 8/f. There are more differences between the 8/e and 8/m and 8/f than just less slots, but the differences aren't normally that relevant. I think I still have both an 8/m and an 8/f around in my basement. Johnny

17 years, 6 months

PDP-8/e and terminals in West Sussex, UK

by paul＠frixxon.co.uk

It appears that I'm the only person on this list who doesn't want a PDP-8/E! Thanks for all the responses -- too many to respond to individually. I managed to get the PDP-8/E in my car yesterday, with a bit of huffing and puffing. A new home has now been found for it, where I am told it will be put on display at least annually. I was surprised that I didn't know that we had one on site before it was disposed of because I'm always hunting around the labs for interesting kit. It appears to have been part of some automated test equipment made by GenRad. There were GenRad boxes in the skip and the 8/E has some "General Radio" stickers on it. This morning, I've found two PDP-8/M boxes. One of them is populated, and the other one appears to be almost empty (so it's now just a pretty front panel, or a source of switches for repairing the other one). I've put some photos of the 8/E and the two 8/Ms on a web site. I was going to do the flickr thing but I'm trying to do real work as well, so I apologise for the pics being uncropped and rather large. http://hisdeedsaredust.com/pdp/ You'll see two pictures of my storage unit as it was at lunchtime. This needs to be clear by the end of the month. Eek! If you'd like either or both of the 8/Ms (bearing in mind, as I said, that only one of them has any boards in), make me an offer. You will have to come and collect them from Crawley, so please don't ask me to ship them.

17 years, 6 months

Aesthedes graphic design workstation on eBay

by quapla＠xs4all.nl

> At 06:24 AM 10/8/2008, William Maddox wrote: >>This isn't my auction, and I don't know the seller. This thing >>is totally over the top, however, for lots of screens and buttons. >>Looks like the helmsman's station for a starship. It's in >>Mineapolis, and, as of this writing, its $9.99 with no bids. > > Dutch! > > http://www.science.uva.nl/museum/aesthedes.html > > - John > > > Haha, that's interesting, the middle & right monitor shows (at least for us here in NL) a very familiar logo, the one from Heineken Beer. Ed

17 years, 6 months

[personal] Poll (was Re: PDP-8/e and terminals in West Sussex, UK)

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

> From: "Mike Hatch" <mike at brickfieldspark.org> > Subject: Re: [personal] Poll (was Re: PDP-8/e and terminals in West > Sussex, UK) > > >> 1962 ICT 1301 (includes CR,CP and LP) + 5 off TM4 Ampex tape >> transport + >> paper tape used once a fortnight for a day except in winter >> (Germanium >> hates cold) > Ampex TM4's seems to be used by a lot of systems, we had them on the > SDS9300, ICL gave me a job purely to repair TM4's on their > contracted LEO > III's. > >> c1963 ICT 1301 (includes CR,CP and LP) + 5 off TM4 Ampex tape >> transport. >> Dismantled 30 years ago. Sold and will be picked up for a new >> computer >> museum's centrepiece on Tuesday. > Which museum ? Its not open yet but it is in the far north west of England, I don't think I can say much more than that, I don't want to steal their thunder. Roger.

17 years, 6 months

Systems based on Fairchild 9440 / 9445

by rborsuk＠colourfull.com

Does anyone know of any computers based on the Fairchild 9440 / 9445 cpu? Rob ps. Google wasn't being my friend. Rob Borsuk email: rborsuk at colourfull.com Colourfull Creations Web: http://www.colourfull.com

17 years, 6 months

anyone utilizing early Macs to access the internet?

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

I've been told using the compact Macs are an exercise in futility. But what about the Mac II's? (original II, IIx, IIfx, IIcx). I was just curious.

17 years, 6 months

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test-drb November 2008