Hey all --
Picked up an HP Integral PC. Probably paid too much for it but
something about a luggable HP machine with a plasma display running
HP-UX from ROM seemed irresistible. But I digress.
Has anyone archived the manuals for this thing? I've been unable to
find anything in my searches on the internet. Found some software
archives (and after lubricating the floppy mechanism I've been able to
make use of it...) but not much documentation. Docs for the HP BASIC
for this machine would be nice, too.
I've only played with it for a little while, but it seems like a really
neat machine. (Though it seems like this thing is just begging for some
sort of mass-storage other than the internal floppy and RAM. Anyone
have an HPIB hard disk for sale? :)
Thanks,
Josh
I've put a few photos of mostly classic computer stuff on flickr. From
memory, there are some floppy drives coming apart, the boards from the
HP9820 calculator, repairing the printer and card reader for that
machine, upgrading the memory in an HP integral and an HP42S, and a few more.
Do a search for tony_duell to find them.. Don;t try to make sense of the
'photostream', the sets, howerver, are in a sane order.
Enjoy
-tony
I just purchased one of these on ebay, but am unable to find even a shred
of documentation on the web.
It's equipped with a "PC" style 4-pin Molex connector for power, unlike
the more usual 6-pin square connector used by all my other 8" drives.
What I'd like to confirm is whether this unit can actually run on 12VDC.
It does not seem to work correctly with 12V applied, which could suggest
either that it requires 24V or is defective.
Before I let the magic smoke out of it, does anyone know the proper
voltages for this drive?
Steve
--
Thanks to help from the list admin, I have figured out why I stopped
seeing my own posts to the list!
Seems that gmail, in the their infinite wisdom, decided that it would be
best for me if my own messages were shunted directly to 'archive' and
never appear in the incoming folder. There is no control or option that I
can find to turn this "feature" off. Subsequently, I've had to change my
list subscription to use my ISP's mail service and all is well again.
Talk about obnoxious! I'm starting to wonder if gmail isn't more trouble
than it's worth. On the good side: It's free and their spam filtering is
very effective. On the bad side: They silently drop most binary
attachments, both coming and going, with no consistent policy involved
that I've been able to determine. And now, this.
Steve
--
Rich Alderson <RichA at vulcan.com> wrote:
>> From: Johnny Billquist
>> Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 12:00 PM
>
>> Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at Update.UU.SE> wrote:
>
>>> Ps.
>
>>> Checking the archives, both you and Peter posted the link :D
>
>>> http://www.classiccmp.org/mailman/htdig/cctalk/2003-July/025598.html
>>> http://www.classiccmp.org/mailman/htdig/cctalk/2009-January/267600.html
>
>> Ah. That first link was really good. There people can see what Peter
>> have in storage. Most of it very much possible to get running. So he
>> have actually four KI10 systems, as well as two KA10, and a bunch of KL
>> and KS. It was more than I thought.
>
>> Looks like a pretty good collection of all 36-bit machines with PDP-10
>> like architecture. Missing is a PDP-6, as well as a few clones.
>
> No one has a PDP-6. No one. :-(((
Afraid you might be right on that one, Rich. :-(
>> The SC30 is actually online on HECnet. :-)
>
>> .ncp tell sol sho exec
>
>> Node summary as of 28-OCT-09 19:53:09
>
>> Executor node = 59.10 (SOL)
>
>> Identification = Systems Concepts SF CA USA - SC30M - DN-20 4.0
>> State = On, Active links = 0
>
>> I think his TOAD-1 is also running, but it don't seem to be online on
>> HECnet right now.
>
> If I understand it correctly, HECNET is a DECnet network, right?
Correct.
> In that case, unless Peter or someone else has done the work to make the
> Toad-1 speak DECnet, no one's Toad-1, Peter's or any other, will ever be
> on HECNET. The management at XKL absolutely forbade the software people
> to work on DECnet, for reasons obvious to anyone knowing the company history.
Hmm. What would prevent it? After all DECnet already exists for TOPS-20.
Did XKL make such big, incompatible changes to T20 after they got it
>from DEC?
I would definitely not hold it above Peter to fix it if it didn't work
for some reason. He has done things like that in the past.
The Toad-1 do have a node number allocated on HECnet anyway.
.ncp sho nod toad1
Node summary as of 30-OCT-09 18:29:13
Remote Active Next
Node State Links Delay Circuit Node
59.30 (TOAD1) 0 30 60.664 (PDXVAX)
Johnny
On Ebay there is a DEC Digital Equipment PDP-11/R20...I may have missed a
thread about this, but any info on this? I assume it's just a custom
11/20?
Bill
Rob Jarratt [robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com] wrote:
> I am basing this on a reply I once got on a newsgroup. See
> the replies from Ian Miller here:
>
>http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.vms/browse_thread/thread/3a8893f
7f6c6
>4aab/adb777d3f37ebed?q=jarratt+tk50+tf
That's certainly news to me - I've never heard that before. Doesn't mean
it's
Not got a grain of truth behind it though.
The reason given (internally to DEC, by the group responsible for these
drives)
for not being able to proceed past an inadvertent write (or physical
damage)
is that the drive is kept constantly synchronised by the stream of data
that
it reads. Once it loses that synch it no longer knows where it is and
cannot
recover. The stream of data is then just so much noise. The only
recovery
possible is at the beginning of a new data stream.
Assuming that all of that was true (and, indeed, correctly remembered
...)
then once you hit physical damage, the way the drive works will not let
you recover data past that point. It's a feature. There may or may not
be
special firmware, but I've never heard of any.
So I'd be willing to believe that a TF drive might handle some issues
better
than a TZ drive (although I'd prefer to see some corroborating evidence
before
repeating this meme myself), if you've got a damaged tape I'd be very
surprised
if either drive makes any difference at all.
That's not a reason to avoid a TF85 or TZ85: you never know when you'll
need
one for some other tape you do want to read. Just don't sped too much!
Antonio
Rob Jarratt [robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com] wrote:
>
> If there is anyone near Manchester in the UK with a TF drive
> then let me know. The TF drive itself is not that expensive
> so I may just get it anyway on the off-chance that a cheaper
> FKQSA or DSSI machine turns up.
Is it not the case that the TZ85 (SCSI) and TF85 (DSSI) are the same
drive, jus twith a different interface? So a TZ85 may be as useful to
you in solving your problem.
As for solving your problem, a perennial complaint within DEC was
"I've somehow started scribbling half-way along a DLT tape but I
stopped quickly and I need to get to the half of the data beyond the
scribbling". I never saw anyone admit to having one of these problems
solved: even when there was a paying customer at the end of a
cheque book. The existence of special recovery firmware was firmly
denied - and I never saw even a hint that it might exist.
So I don't have any reason for believing that a TZ85/TF85 might be
any better or worse at reading your data than anything else that
can handle your DLT.
BTW iirc the TZ86 and TZ87 are (iirc) can read tapes from a TZ85. The
TZ87N lost some of the backwards compatibility (to lower costs).
Antonio
On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 4:38 PM, Rob Jarratt
<robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> I was led to believe that a TF series drive might be able to read past a
> problematic part of a tape I have, and a TF85 has come up on eBay. The
> problem is that I do not have any DSSI-capable machine and I am not familiar
> with DSSI. I have a MicroVAX II and it seems I could use a KFQSA, but they
> seem quite expensive. I also have some VAXstation 3100s and MicroVAX 3100s,
> which are SCSI. Do I have any other options for installing the TF85?
>
A KFQSA M7769 isn't very expensive, at least in the US, if you find
one at the right time. For example this one went for $25 with
bulkhead and terminators:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350264750147
No idea though if that's the best path to start going down in your
ultimate goal of reading a problematic tape.
