test-drb December 2008

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

209 participants
286 discussions

by James.Paul＠colibrys.com

Tony, Do you still have the documentation that goes with the MPF-I/88 computer trainer? If so, I know you said you didn't have a scanner, but how about taking the manuals a Kinko's or Office Depot / Office Max, and see if they can copy it. I would be willing to pay for a copy of this documentation. Please advise. Thanks and Regards, Jim

15 years, 5 months

UK DEC Meeting in North West, Autumn 2009 - expression of interest please (Mark Wickens)

by bob＠theadamsons.co.uk

> From: Mark Wickens > Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 3:41 AM > > I am thinking about organising a meeting for people interested in the > line of computers created by Digital Equipment Corporation. I'm interested in pdp8/pdp11 lines.

15 years, 5 months

Scrapping NCR 3430's and Wyse 286 Boards

by martinm＠allwest.net

I'm scrapping two NCR / ATT 3430 servers (MCA bus). If anyone wants the whole machines, they are free for pickup in Evanston, Wyoming (82930) or parts are available for shipping cost (and beer money, if the taker wants to be generous). Both servers are Pentium 60's with two processor boards per box. I also have some boards for a Wyse 286 (I think). There are two processor boards, one disk controller board, one video card and one serial / parallel board. Free for shipping. Email me directly. My address is "martinm" at the domain "allwest.net". Thank you, Martin Marshall

15 years, 5 months

Reading an MFM hard drive with a floppy disc analyser

by classiccmp＠philpem.me.uk

I've just been thinking about the problem of imaging/copying MFM hard discs... I've run the numbers, and this seems right to me, but I'd appreciate a sanity check. Let's say you have an ST-412 drive you want to read. You've also got a Catweasel or something like it, that has somehow had an extra bunch of I/O lines added to it (to control the head select lines, etc. on the HDD). An ST-412 rotates at 3600 RPM. That's (3600/60)=60 revolutions per second, or 1/60 = 16.66(recurring) milliseconds per revolution. The drive's data rate is 5 megabits per second, but could be lower (or indeed higher). But the spec says 5Mbps, and for the sake of argument I'm going to stick with that... (5Mbps/1000) = 5Kbits per millisecond. 5Kbits * 16.667 = 83.35 kilobits per track, absolute maximum. A Catweasel records the data from a disc by measuring the time between flux transitions. If we assume every data bit on the disc is a "1" (MFM coding "01") then you'd need to store at most 90,000 timing samples per disc track. So hypothetically, if your "Catweasel or something like it" had 128Ksamples worth of buffer RAM, and enough I/O lines to drive the HDD, you could read an MFM hard drive track-by-track and copy it onto another drive of the same type? Do my calculations look right? With 304 cylinders and 4 heads, that works out to 304 * 4 * 83.35 = 101353.6 Kbits, which does seem awfully low to me... Thanks, -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/

15 years, 5 months

Sources for 8b TTL keyboards (Keytronics)

by jzg22＠drexel.edu

ROBO5.8 wrote: >Hi Folks, > >It's been interesting taking out my old CP/M stuff and getting it >operational again. > >My system uses an 8bit TTL Keytronics Capacitive Sense keyboard. It was >operational for about an hour and then it quit. > >It turns out that the keyboard uses little sponge pads to hold the >capacitive disks and they have biodegraded into dust. > >So I went looking for an old 8b TTL replacement keyboard. So far no luck. > >I also looked for a black box solution that would take an AT or PS/2 >keyboard and convert it to a parallel port output. So far no luck. > >So let me turn to the experts and ask for advice and suggestions. > >Please advise >Robo I have to deal with the same problem, but I read somewhere that its possible to repair the existing keyboard by replacing the disintegrated foam with doublesided-sticky 3m grey 'exterior?' mounting foam of approproate thickness, and that's what I'm attempting. Better IMHO to repair the old rare keyboards than replace with something new but 'incorrect' for a given system, though a new keyboard can be a temporary solution until the old one is fixed. You basically take keyboard apart, remove all the conductive discs but don't throw them away, scrape the remains of the foam off the bottom of the key plungers (can use goo-gone to help with this too), punch new foam disks from 3m grey mounting foam, clean off the old conductive paper discs (also can use goo-gone to help here), carefully apply discs to foam, and stick new foam+old discs back onto each key plunger. Apparently you should use a qtip with a small bit of goo-gone around the edge of each new foam disc to prevent the top and bottom from sticking together and 'pillowing' the foam disc. It may be easier to first stick the conductive discs to the foam and use the disc as a guide for punching the foam, that way it will always be exactly 'on register'. The trouble is you need to buy a punch to punch the foam into discs of the same (or slightly narrower) size as the shiny conductive paper discs are (or have it shave a small bit off the edges off of the conductive discs, if they're a tiny bit smaller it shouldn't hurt anything I'd think). I have not done this yet, and am not sure where to buy an appropriate punch (art supply store didn't have it). If any of the aluminized-paper contact discs are 'beyond repair', I have NO idea how to replace those. Aluminum foil MIGHT work, but it doesn't sound like a good solution because its TOO conductive, I think. I have 4 keyboards that need fixing in this way: one keytronic kb3270pc (1986 firmware) four victor 9000 US-type keyboards (manufactured by keytronic) Fortunately (unlike the old digital group keyboard keytronic made with its completely insane #-shaped contact pads) I believe all 4 keyboards use the same diameter paper contact circles and foam, so I should only need one punch. -- Jonathan Gevaryahu jgevaryahu(@t)hotmail(d0t)com jzg22(@t)drexel(d0t)edu

15 years, 5 months

What should an old lady do with an Osborne?

by RichA＠vulcan.com

I work with much bigger, and usually much older, things than luggable personal computers, so when a lady in my museology certificate class came up to me to ask whether we would be interested in her friend's Osborne, I had to say "No." She then asked me if I knew where her friend could donate such a system; I told her I had no real idea, and that I would ask around. So I'm asking the assembled multitudes: What should an old lady do with an Osborne? Honestly, my only thought is to put it on That Auction Site(TM) and see what market forces say, but that's too scary for a non-computer person, I would think. Thanks, Rich Rich Alderson Server Engineer, PDPplanet Project Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com (206) 342-2239 (206) 465-2916 cell

15 years, 5 months

RSTS/E problem

by tiggerlasv＠aim.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk- > bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of H?lscher > Sent: Sunday, December 07, 2008 1:26 PM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: RSTS/E problem > > Hi, > > after installing and SYSGENing of RSTS/E V9.6 I get the following > error: > >? Beginning RSTS/E system startup... > 88.12.07? 12:10????? Installing monitor overlays > 88.12.07? 12:10????? Mounting disks > 88.12.07? 12:10????? Assigning logical names > 88.12.07? 12:10????? Starting error logging > ?ERRINT - ?No room for user on device at Line? 1265 > 88.12.07? 12:10????? Setting system characteristics > 07-Dec-88 12:10 PM?? Installing run-time systems and libraries > 07-Dec-88 12:10 PM?? Setting terminal characteristics > 07-Dec-88 12:10 PM?? Defining system commands > 07-Dec-88 12:10 PM?? Setting printer characteristics > 07-Dec-88 12:10 PM?? Starting spoolers > ?Unable to start Print/Batch Services > ?No room for additional jobs That problem can occur for a number of reasons: 1.)?? You still have SYSGEN as the currently installed .SIL ?????? (Try "INSTALL RSTS", or whatever the name of the monitor was that you sysgen'd, ????????at the Option: <Start>??prompt) 2.)?? You don't have SWAP.SYS set to a large enough size. ?????C2 (Use the FILE option of REFRESH, and change the size of SWAP.SYS to at least 256 or 512. ??????? Later, if you need more swap space, you can use system commands to add another swap file.) 3.)????You didn't specify a?high enough JOBMAX when you did your?sysgen. T ?????????????

15 years, 5 months

[HeathKit] HERO Robots for sale

by al.southern＠gmail.com

Hi, saw the following post, Are the robots still available for purchase? Alex 313-647-1314 Bradley Booth wrote: >* Hello, *>* I have two Hero 1 Robots that would be good for parts. They suffered *>* at the hands of middle school children. Brad * Are they complete, other than not working? Peace... Sridhar

15 years, 5 months

jCquard -- make modern punched cards

by frustum＠pacbell.net

http://www.outstandingelephant.com/jcquard/ (quote) jCquard is a generally useless JavaScript library that you will probably (hopefully?) never need to use ? unless you are the nostalgic type, you like to roll with the old-schoolers, or you are convinced that the end is near and soon all we?ll have left are stacks of punch cards with which to rebuild the entirety of our culture. (endquote) The program produces a image of a punched card given an input string. The biggest problem that I can see is the text printed along the top is a crisp CRT font. They should have digitized the character set from a real punched card.

15 years, 5 months

Wanted: PDP-11 MUMPS Software & Manuals

by hoelscher-kirchbrak＠freenet.de

Hi, I'm looking for Software & Manuals for any of the MUMPS implementations for the PDP-11, e.g. MUMPS-11, DSM-11 or M/11+. Can anybody help? Regards, Ulli

15 years, 5 months

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test-drb December 2008