test-drb November 2008

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

181 participants
235 discussions

by rescue＠hawkmountain.net

I have some VAXstations available for those that are interested... 1 x VAXstation 3100 (M30) 1 x VAXstation 4100 (M40) missing 'door' for front bays 2 x VAXstation 3100 M38 2 x VAXstation 3100 M76 all have 8 plane graphics except for the M30 (or was it the M40?). all have 8M of RAM. Other than the 4100 and one M38, these systems are in excellent cosmetic condition (may require some cleaning). The M40 has plastic 'issues' (missing front bay door, some hidden cracks), and an M76 has a 2" scratch in the top. One of the M38's top doesn't look like it fits as good as on the other M38 and is a bit more dinged up. Other than that and that most require some cleaning, they are in excellent condition. Systems do not have hard drives. I do have 1G and 2G 50 pin SCSI drives available though (non DEC). Add 1G drives at $10 each, Add 2G drives at $15 each. If you are interested in a specific one, please make an offer. I'll likely be listing these on eBay depending on interest here. Buyer will be actual shipping plus $5 to cover packing materials. -- Curt

17 years, 6 months

Systems based on Fairchild 9440 / 9445

by ken＠seefried.com

> I can't think of any CPUs that are "68000 style" but > not actually members of the M68K family. Signetics 68070 KJ

17 years, 6 months

BBC reports "New lifeline for Bletchley Park"

by steve＠cosam.org

English Heritage pledges ?330,000 grant: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7710966.stm -- Steve Maddison http://www.cosam.org/

17 years, 6 months

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

by dm561＠torfree.net

A while back there was talk about maybe having a database of who had what and where, in the way of hardware, software, documentation and expertise; any further thoughts on that? mike

17 years, 6 months

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

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

On 6 Nov, 2008, at 04:34, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > Message: 18 > Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:14:51 -0600 > From: Jules Richardson <jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> > Subject: Re: PDP-8/e and terminals in West Sussex, UK > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Message-ID: <491228EB.1080000 at gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15; format=flowed > > Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Tony Duell wrote: >> >>> What do people consider to be the 'holy grails' of classic computer >>> collecting? >> >> Do people collect CPUs that no longer have peripherals or are bereft >> of any sort of software? >> >> If so, what is done with them, other than to use them as doorstops? > > Collect enough and they do help save on heating bills - there's less > free open > space in your house to need heating :-) > > (It'd be interesting to do a poll on how many systems each of us > here has, and > how many hours a year each of those systems actually gets run for - > I suspect > the results would be quite disturbing!) My computers: 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) 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. c1977 UK 101 Bought new but not turned on for 20 years c1980 Apple 2 last used about 15 years ago c1983 Apple 2e last used about 10 years ago Apple 3 and profile, not used since it broke in service and not deemed to be worth fixing Lisa 2 and various old Macintoshes. Powered up now and again, mainly to access data stored in old formats/on old media. Average probably once in 5 years each. Titanium PowerBook, used to play Civilisation 2 and a few other games about twice a year for a few days, usually Christmas or when I am sick. MacBook Pro everyday machine. It is perhaps interesting to compare with my old non computer items: ASR33 used 3 months ago Flexowriter with wide carriage and reader and punches for either regular paper tape or thin fanfold card. Last used about 10 years ago but hopefully soon to be restored. IBM 836 keypunch with I/O and programmable patch panel, originally connected to above Flexowriter as a tape to card and card to tape transfer but I stupidly did not buy the cables or even the plugs. - I need patch cables and control drum for this too if anyone has any. Feeds cards but will not punch or print, need to fix the punching very soon. Sumlock comptometer, used by my late Aunt for doing people's accounts about 10 years ago. Mechanical calculator. Works but not used for 10 years. 1974 Sharp calculator. 21st birthday present, still used every couple of days. 1890s Cash register, left here by previous owner of the farm, never used but good to look at. Edison dictating machine and player machines. Looks to be 19th century. Not used since my father bought them in the 1950s as he did not have a skimming machine for the cylinders. 1964 Rover car. Last week turned engine over and operated clutch to stop it seizing but would not start. 1966 Rover, 1969 Daimler, 1987 BMW, 1993 Jaguar. Used daily in rotation. 1972 Land Rover One Ton, used about 4 times a year, like when the snow is a foot thick or as a truck when setting up my classic car show. 1998 Daimler Supercharged 4 litre. Was used in rotation with the above but now produces copious steam - presumably a cylinder head gasket failure which I don't have time to fix. Victorian oak table which extends to about 20 feet long by 7 feet wide. Was not used for 40+ years but I got it restored and now used regularly as my company's board room table, but still belongs to me and my parents.

17 years, 6 months

Video capturing from different video sources (Sun, SGI, etc)

by jplist2008＠kiwigeek.com

Hey all; I've been wanting to do some video capturing from an SGI and have been trying to work out the 'best way' (or, perhaps, the EASIEST way) of doing it. The video I'm capturing is prior to the OS coming up (waffling around the Command Monitor, etc), so I can't have the system itself help me out. If I had some LCD panels which spoke SGI I would simply sit a DV cam in front of the LCD and record it - the quality should be acceptable - but I don't (LCD since CRTs would have flicker, of course, when recorded). Plus, I'd quite like to source video from Suns and other machinery. I imagine there really -isn't- a catch-all solution, but I'd love to have the thoughts of the Geek Masses. I've never done video capture before in any form, and have little experience with working with video at all to be honest, so anything would help. Many thanks; - JP

17 years, 6 months

VT terminal emulator suggestions

by mark＠wickensonline.co.uk

Collective wisdom, I need a terminal emulator for the DEC VT series of terminals, from VT200 upwards. This is to connect to an OpenVMS box running All-In-1, so it needs to support double width/height characters and be a fairly good emulation. Most 'vt compatible' terminals appear to not be up to the job. Does any one have any suggestions please? Even better if it supports soft font downloads so I can use APL aswell. I've got access to Windows and Linux boxes. Many thanks, Mark

17 years, 6 months

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

by julianskidmore＠yahoo.com

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. I'd be willing to drag it to Manchester - would it fit in my fourtwo ;-) ? In my case I'd try and see if Manchester University or MOSI would be interested. Man Uni would be a good target - since they created the first stored- program computer in 1948 and still has luminaries such as Steve Furber (who headed the team who developed the ARM). Moreover, I remember when I was there, there was an ORIGINAL pdp-8 standing in a corner on the first floor of the Kilburn building. MOSI would be a good target - since they house the reproduction of the the 1948 Baby. The second question of course is what to do with all these machines. I know Peter wants to put a demo OS on it and some demo software (CHKMOV ? / pdp8- music?). But is this the best way forward? I've seen some of the Bletchley Park videos, but frankly most of them look quite boring; certainly not as good as the YouTube series on programming the pdp11 where the student travels back in time to see how hard it was to develop and debug in the early 70s. How do you get students interested for more than 5 minutes in machines that 'can't' do anything ;-) ? How do you pass on and formalise the knowledge needed to maintain and preserve these relics? It seems to me that using the machines themselves (or replicas) would be a way forward. Museum or University courses where a team of students is assembled to recreate or restore an ancient mini and program their own demos. A 3 hour evening class once a week with a team of 10 would provide 3*10*40 = 1200 man-hours of experience.... -cheers from julz @P

17 years, 6 months

VT terminal emulator suggestions

by tiggerlasv＠aim.com

Reflection?? from WRQ software is a nice suite for Windows. You can occasionally find it on e-bay for a decent price. Depending on the version you find, it will emulate: VT52, VT102, VT400, etc. Newer versions include SCO-ANSI, ADDS VP2, Wyse 50+, Wyse 60, DG215, Unisys T27, and AT386 I'm using "Version 10 for Unix and Digital" . . .? It has a built-in visual basic scriping language, which is really cool. I use that functionality daily. . . . T

17 years, 6 months

URGENT: Computers & parts needing home - New Haven CT

by woyciesjes＠sbcglobal.net

It's moving time, and for various reasons I need to get rid of a few items: DEC Multia 166 MHz Alpha workstation, not sure what CPU. Apple PowerBook150c Cardinal 386 computer. All in one case, like a Mac SE/30 2 external CD drives, SCSI, with carts various 72 pin SIMMS, some parity, some other 30 pin SIMMS 2 PS/2 keyboards various cables. First come, first served; take it all in one shot, it's free. If you feel this pile is worth something, I won't turn down cash or good beer. If you want to disperse the items to others, that is your choice. If you do make a profit, great! Enjoy it. I just need this stuff to disappear by Thursday, Nov. 13. I tried to give some of these things away before, but the recipient never got back to me about something. Let me know ASAP. Thanks very much -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- ICQ# 905818 --- AIM - woyciesjes "From there to here, From here to there, Funny things are everywhere." --- Dr. Seuss

17 years, 6 months

Systems based on Fairchild 9440 / 9445

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

Chuck asks: > Anyone remember the > Fairchild F8? Around the same time as the 9440, the F8 was hugely > popular in embedded type applications. Mostek's 3870, a derivative of the F8, was popular throughout all sorts of mass-produced products in the late 70's and through the 80's. STMicro had a chip that was very similar (clone? derivative?) of the 3870 that appeared in consumer products in the 90's. General Instruments certainly took a very similar microcontroller (now known as the PIC) and built it up and out in several directions. Tim.

17 years, 6 months

Systems based on Fairchild 9440 / 9445

by kahrs＠caip.rutgers.edu

As I recall, the 944x series did away with the high order indirect bit just as the Xerox Alto did, thereby permitting full 16 bit addresses. I wonder what became of my data sheet...

17 years, 6 months

Fairchild 944x

by cclist＠sydex.com

On 4 Nov 2008 at 5:51, Robert Borsuk wrote: > Don't know if you guys found this but I did find one computer reference. > > http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=196 > > and the data sheet on bit savers for the chips(thank you Al). 1983? I was trying to get the attention of the Fairchild sales department around 1978. You'd have thought with DG not selling the MicroNova CPU to outside customers and the 9440 being a Nova-like chip that Fairchild could have cleaned up. There weren't many other 16-bit chips at the time (e.g. NS PACE, GI CP1600, TI TMS9900). But Fairchild seemed not to be interested in selling the stuff. My understanding is that the 9440 is an "almost" Nova in that it lacks certain features needed to run Nova software. Can anyone verify this? Cheers, Chuck

17 years, 6 months

Systems based on Fairchild 9440 / 9445

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> A very puzzling company, Fairchild. And the Clipper.. They waited too long to get into CMOS, since they were making tons of money on ECL and bipolar. AMD also blew it in waiting too long to convert the 2900 product line to CMOS.

17 years, 6 months

Amiga 1000, Atari 520 ST, TRS-80 & Timex 1000 in NY

by christian_liendo＠yahoo.com

I am not selling, I found and am posting. I figured someone would be interested http://newyork.craigslist.org/que/sys/905721821.html For sale: Vintage computers.. (Ditmars/Astoria) Reply to: sale-905721821 at craigslist.org [?] Date: 2008-11-04, 2:57PM EST For sale I have the following computers.. -Amiga 1000 with mouse, monitor and kickstart/workbench disks (A1000 is refurbished to a nice white, but monitor is aged/yellowed) 100$ -Amiga software packages (Comic Setter, Professional Draw, TV Text) 30$ -Atari 520 STFM (Desert Camouflage custom painted, 360kb internal drive, 1/2 mb ram, no mouse) 45$ -TRS-80 Color Computer 2 (16kb ram) 35$ -TRS-80 Color Computer 2 (64kb ram) 35$ -Timex 1000 with manual in its original box (has a problem at display - probably a bad capacitor or a loose connection) 30$. Pickup only in Ditmars/Astoria.

17 years, 6 months

Wanted: Epox EP-9NPA+SLI MB manual

by woyciesjes＠sbcglobal.net

If anyone has the user manual for the Epox EP-9NPA+SLI motherboard, could you do me a small favor and email it to me? Searching around with Google is of no help, and the Epox websites don't seem to have it. Trying to resusitate my Ubuntu 8.04 box with this MB. The caps on the old board leaked.... The zip archive of it in archive.org appears to be corrupted... Thanks in advance... -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- ICQ# 905818 --- AIM - woyciesjes "From there to here, From here to there, Funny things are everywhere." --- Dr. Seuss

17 years, 6 months

Space Invaders

by pete＠dunnington.plus.com

Does anybody in the UK have a classic Space Invaders console? I'm looking for one to borrow for a short while for a TV program. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

17 years, 6 months

Vaxstation 3100 M76 Parts request

by dsnyder＠corefurnace.com

I recently acquired a Vaxstation 3100 M76, it's missing a few parts. Does anyone have a couple of drive brackets, 4M simms (x4) and maybe a GPX or SPX card? I am willing to pay. TIA, Dan Snyder

17 years, 6 months

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

by paul＠frixxon.co.uk

Thanks to Martin for grabbing 14 DEC terminals from me last week -- very pleasant to meet someone who is still working with PDPs and real terminals in the wild! I've just passed our waste electrical skip at work and noticed that someone has dumped a PDP-8/e box in there. I'm being imprecise about this because I've never seen one before. This isn't a big rack, just a single heavy box fronted by an orange and brown PDP-8/e front panel. I assume it's the processor itself. If I can chuck this in my car this evening, would anyone here be able to pick it up from me by the end of this month? And here's a reminder that I still have a bunch of terminals left; see my previous email for details. The later DEC ones have gone but there are at least 20 Wyse WY-420 terminals available, which have (I believe) a competent VT320 emulation. These are for pickup only from here in Crawley, West Sussex.

17 years, 6 months

Looking for a front panel fastener for a DEC SA482 rack

by alanp＠snowmoose.com

As the subject says ... I am looking for one of the fasteners that holds on the front panel of a DEC SA482 rack. It is a Dzus-like head stud, except that it is turned with a 4mm hex key. Anyone have one or know where I can get one? alan

17 years, 6 months

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

by ball.of.john＠gmail.com

>Thanks to Martin for grabbing 14 DEC terminals from me last week -- very >pleasant to meet someone who is still working with PDPs and real terminals >in the wild! > >I've just passed our waste electrical skip at work and noticed that >someone has dumped a PDP-8/e box in there. I'm being imprecise about this >because I've never seen one before. This isn't a big rack, just a single >heavy box fronted by an orange and brown PDP-8/e front panel. I assume >it's the processor itself. If I can chuck this in my car this evening, >would anyone here be able to pick it up from me by the end of this month? Oh man, I am really interested but I really wish I didn't live in Western Canada ;_; If I knew someone close to you I would ask them to pick it up for me and then ship it in chunks but even then it would still be expensive.

17 years, 6 months

Lear Siegler ADM-5 schematics?

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

Hey folks. I'm looking for schematics for the Lear Siegler ADM-5 terminal. I don't see anything related on Bitsavers, which surprises me. Would anyone have this handy? Thanks, -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

17 years, 6 months

OmniProm programmer

by jeffj＠panix.com

I'm trying to revive an EPROM programmer: the bottom label says Omni-Prom Programmer model OMNI-01 SherTek, Inc. Memphis, TN USA but the inner label says P/N OMNI05, V7.0, R0.0 (C) 1986, SherTek Inc. It has 28, 40 pin ZIF sockets on top, internal power supply. But the only interface is for the PC's parallel port so I'm unsure what protocol it uses to read back the results. I'm missing the floppy with OMNI.EXE the DOS program that ran it. The manual only documents the program menu, not the parallel port protocol. Any clues? -- jeffj at panix.com

17 years, 6 months

FS: PDP-8/L users handbook

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

DEC PDP-8/L Users Handbook (1968). My father was the original owner and he wrote his name on the front cover in Magic Marker, and a couple of other scribbles here and there.Overall good shape. Pages are turning brownish like all old DEC publications do. $10 shipped within the US. Overseas pay actual shipping cost. Please contact me offlist if interested. thanks Charles

17 years, 6 months

UK source of small UNC nuts and bolts?

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

This is classiccmp-related in that I am repairing an old HP 'Multiprogrammer' (a modular input/output system for HP2100s, HPIB machines, etc). While dismantling it I had one screw shear off and had to drill out pop-rivets holding a heatsink to the side casting. So waht I am looking for is a source of small UNC nuts and bolts in reasonable quantites. 'Small' means 4-40, 6-32 and 8-32. I would be looking for countersunk and pan head scewws, nuts, lockwashers, etc. 'Reasonable quantities' would be a bag of 100. These are not at all common in the UK, we tend to use BA (older machines) or metric (M3/M4 sizes). Does anyone know a company who can sypply these to the UK? Preferably one based in the UK (to save on postage charges), but there's no real problem with shipping a ag of nuts and bolts from anywhere. -tony

17 years, 6 months

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test-drb November 2008