test-drb April 2008

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

196 participants
307 discussions

by rtellason＠verizon.net

Some of you may already be aware that I have a whole pile of dot-matrix printers kicking around (http://mysite.verizon.net/rtellason/w4s.html has a list of them on there), and in moving some of them yesterday I noticed some rather odd things about one of them. It's an Okidata 391, one of the few that are wide-carriage, and it's 24-pin as well. Where before I'd had most of them facing front-outwards I now have this one sitting there with the rear facing where I can see it, and have noticed a couple of odd things: First is that right next to the usual parallel connection there's another connector, a DB25. That bit seems to be a little loose, and I'm thinking plug-in board maybe? Something's not quite right. Anyhow, I was wondering if this was a serial interface adapter, and if it might be usable in any of the other units I have on hand as well. I have, unfortunately, no documentation on any of these at the present time. The other thing is that attached to that connector is a little adapter, which has an RJ-45 socket on the back side of it. The plug side of it has only a small number of the 25 pins actually installed. If I can figure out a way to pop the shell open maybe I'll trace it out, otherwise I'll probably take the ohmmeter approach. :-) Was it at all common to use these for serial connections? Anybody have docs on those 300-series Okidata printers? -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin

16 years, 8 months

PDP11/23+, Kennedy 9000, RX02, hard drive for trade

by hardware＠ees1s0.engr.ccny.cuny.edu

Dear cctalk people, We have here three PDP11/23+ machines. One might have had the CPU upgraded. There is also a Kennedy 9000 tape drive. A compatible hard drive is included that supposedly works and supposedly contains RT-11. Also included is a RX02 floppy drive, also supposedly working. The previous owner said that everything was working when it was cleanly shut down several years ago. My interest has shifted more toward analog electronics, particularly old Tektronix stuff, scopes, plugins, etc. If anybody wants to do some kind of trade, that's great. Needless to say, this stuff is heavy, so local pickup is probaly the only practical way. I am in New York City. -kurt

16 years, 8 months

FS/T: SGI IRIS 4D Boards

by silent700＠gmail.com

My attempt to give away my Iris non-op 4D310/VGX was unsuccessful (although that offer still stands for local pickup in 60074,) so now I'd like to find the individual boards a home. I don't believe there is anything special here - CPU board, RAM board, VGX 3-layer video (with 2 sets of BNCs on panel headers.) I'll take any nominal price for them (seriously - $1 + shipping would do it if you can make use of them) or would be happy to trade for pretty much anything. Don't let these lovely boards meet the dumpster!

16 years, 8 months

360/30 Console Display in Auckland, NZ

by ljw-cctech＠ljw.me.uk

After many, many years part of the 360/30 has surfaced in the form of the console on display at the University of Auckland Computer Science department. If you follow the link in my signature, you can find a photo of the console display. Of course you will notice it's missing the proper central two-piece knob, so if anyone knows were we can get one then let me know. Thanks to Bob Doran (one of my lecturers way back then) who organised this. If anyone's in Auckland you may want to go and visit it! (As far as I know it's at the City campus, so only a couple of minutes walk from Queen Street.) While you're in Auckland you should also visit MOTAT and see the /40 and other goodies there. -- Lawrence Wilkinson lawrence at ljw.me.uk The IBM 360/30 page http://www.ljw.me.uk/ibm360

16 years, 8 months

PDP-8/E

by djg＠pdp8online.com

> Could anyone out there with an 8/e confirm the following: > > 1. Knob set to STATE, SR Keys Down > 2. Press ADDR LOAD - do MD DIR and DATA CONT light up? > DATA comes on. If DIR is off it will come on > 3. Press EXAM - do MD DIR and DATA CONT light up? > DATA comes on. If DIR is off it will come on > 4 Raise DEP - do MD DIR and DATA CONT light up? > No change in those lights Not quite sure what is up with DIR. On my online PDP-8 it seems to always be on. The web front panel seems to be working fine (http://www.pdp8.net/run.shtml) which should act the same as the real front panel. I tried to verify with the real front panel but its not operating reliabily. I tried the 8/M and it acted the same except sometimes when I did things on the front panel DIR would change state but not in any obvious pattern. If it was off the ADDR LOAD and EXAM would make it turn on while the switch was held. Looks like more things for the todo list.

16 years, 8 months

a printer oddity

by tiggerlasv＠aim.com

Most of the Okidatas from the period (Microline 320, 520, etc.) had a standard Parallel port built in on the back of the printer. Right next to it is usually a plastic knockout. If you get the RS232 serial port option for this printer, you remove the plastic knockout, and slide the RS232 board into the opening. There is a card-edge connector that it mates with. You don't have to set any switches to use it. I don't really know if it will let you do "dual porting" or not. (i.e., 2 computers printing to it, one via serial, one via parallel.) As for the RJ45 adapter; those are fairly common. The serial port probably only needs 3 pins for printing, Ground, TXD, and RXD . . (7, 2, and 3), although they may have included handshaking signals. Who knows. A standard serial cable to/from your computer should work, as well as a parallel cable. Documentation should be readily downloadable >from the Okidata website. As info. . . . T

16 years, 8 months

MicroPdp-11 H7864 power supply question.

by julianskidmore＠yahoo.com

Hi folks, I have a H7864 PSU for a pdp11 (Rev C1 or Rev-12) which blew up last friday. A friend and I found out that the only thing that had gone wrong was that a 0.47uF X2 Cap had failed, so I bought a replacement and I've soldered it on now. So, maybe the PSU will work! However, there's an internal lead called J11 with a funny socket on the end: It looks like this (if you view in fixed point) [Side view] [Front view] [Plugs into ] [Which looks like on the outside of the casing] +------+ _____ | : : | / 230 \ _____ | : : | > < __/\ | " " | | : : | \_____/ =======| / ------- +------+ \_/ \###/ The far end of the lead connects to a PCB where it says "+Fan 1-" Now I think that when I dismantled the PSU I unplugged it from the bottom two prongs of a 6 pronged plug of which the other side displays "230" through a glass panel on the outside of the casing. There are connections and a resistor across the other 4 prongs of that plug. I figure that the the 6-pronged plug is for selecting the mains voltage, which in my case is 230-250v as I'm in Europe, but what are the bottom two prongs for - how could they power the fan? I was pretty sure I needed to plug J11 in - and this is the only place I could find and it's a tight fit! However, when I dismantled the PSU for my microVax II I found that J11 isn't plugged in at all! So, I'm not sure what the correct connections are. My choices are: 1. It doesn't matter if it's plugged in or not (unlikely, since fan cooling is important). 2. It should be plugged in on the pdp11 AND the microVax, so I should plug it in on the MicroVax II too. It'll only go in one way, it'll collide with the PCB with the 0.47uF X1 cap if I try it upside down. 3. It shouldn't be plugged in either of the machines and so the microVax is correct and the pdp11 is wrong. 4. It should be plugged in the pdp11, but not the microVax. Note: the MicroVax has a later power supply, Rev E1 >from 1983. Sorry to be pedantic about all the connections, but advice would be helpful! -cheers from julz @P __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

16 years, 8 months

INL0397-1

by eberhard.hewicker＠t-online.de

Hi Randy, I have come across your below posting. Can you offer INL0397-1 for a favourable price? I would need 20 ea. Can you offer TIL308 or TIL309? Mit freundlichem Gru? Eberhard Hewicker Obere Waldstra?e 3 56424 Mogendorf Deutschland Subject: replacement for TIL311 display From: cctech (at) classiccmp.org (Randy Gill) Message-id: <012701c30e56$5b3a4e70$c302010a (at) innocor.com> Date: 2003-01-03 17:00:23 _____ Hello; I just noticed your e-mail on the web. I wanted to inform you that Innocor manufactures a direct, drop-in replacement for the TIL311 (INL0397-1) featuring less power, brighter LEDs, lower cost and higher reliability. Pls find the link to our datasheet. If you have any requirements, pls let me know. Regards; Randy <http://www.innocor.com/documents/inl0397_v2_iss2.pdf> http://www.innocor.com/documents/inl0397_v2_iss2.pdf

16 years, 8 months

OK, now this is impossible (11/23+ and RL02-RLV12 problem)

by tiggerlasv＠aim.com

Equally annoying -- I've had that problem before, but it was so long ago, I can't remember what the problem was. I have some suggestions. They are admittedly shots-in-the-dark. Some may not even seem logical, based on your symptoms, but it can't hurt to try them. . . Physically disconnect all but one drive. Make that unit "Drive 0", and try booting. (Don't forget to move your terminator over.) If it still gives you the problem, change out the drive select cap, and make it drive 1. Try again. Make sure all of the other drives are powered down and disconnected during the attempt. I seem to remember having either XXDP or RT11 wig-out, because of some quirk with the number of drives attached to the controller, and/or something flaky with the drive select caps. I also had some problem with boot errors when I had two adjacent drives in the rack. It turns out, I had the boot drive positioned half-way out of the rack on the sliders, and it was picking up noise from the drive above or below it.) I'd try "rolling your own" pack with SIMH, and VTServer. Boot XXDP under SIMH using 11/23 emulation with 512K, and make a new XXDP disk on an emulated RL02 pack. Then try transferring it to a blank RL02 with VTServer. NOTE: VTserver will blindly write to the disk, and completely ignores any BAD SECTOR information on the existing pack. So, if you're using a pack with bad spots, it's going to write data over the bad areas, and you'll wind up with an unreliable pack. I hope this helps. . . . T

16 years, 8 months

Some information on Micron Optic Rams

by nanoman＠stny.rr.com

Jane, If you are interested. As a student (several decades ago) I developed several 64K and 512K DRAM cameras. I used TI and Intel DRAMs (at the time I was unaware of the Micron opticRAM). In its day, I thought this was pretty cool. The DRAM was attached via tether to my computer and I varied the refresh rate to get gray scale. Assembly language is a beautiful thing (or a nightmare). Of course the real trick was to remove the ceramic package lid and polyimide protective "goop" to reveal the chip die imaging surface (without damaging the die). Anyway, I have attached the covers of Mircro IS32 and IS256 information that I readily found. I believe I may still have the MicronEye Camera and Manual, as well as other information. If you would like copies of this information let me know. I will be out of town for a week or so (and I will have to recall where I have stuff the other information). Why are you interested in the OpticRam? Enjoy, Jim

16 years, 8 months

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test-drb April 2008