test-drb December 2009

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

184 participants
226 discussions

by hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca

Enrico Lazzerini wrote: > Hi, > i collected all i can in this last 2 years on the mine BigBoard1 at my web site http://elazzerini.interfree.it > Please excuse me for my not perfect English. On the website I left some URL from where you can download other information like its schematic and so on. > What you mean saying: ?I am just considering divesting myself of a Ferguson Big Board system that I have never played with.? > You wish to play with it now or you wish to sell it? Let me know pls. elazzeriniATinterfree.it (substitute AT with @) I've been going through a few systems I have here, collecting photos and info, assessing which ones I wish to let go / get rid of / let somebody else play with / etc. The FBB system is one of them. As far as FBB systems go, I also have a homebrew Xerox-820-based portable (Xerox-820 is an FBB derivative). Some photos and info, so far; including the FBB and Xerox-820 systems: http://www3.telus.net/~bhilpert/tmp/ctg/index.html Two or three list members have expressed some interest in some of these already. I'm somewhat reluctant to ship this stuff, however; some of it would require crates or good double boxes. I had been collecting these, in part, as representative examples in the span of computer technology developments. I guess a lot of us here have a little fantasy of having a computer museum, and I would have liked the radio museum here to expand it's mandate to stay relevant, but most of these systems have been sitting in my house for some years now. I just powered up the FBB system and got it to boot to the monitor. I also just fixed a video problem with the homebrew Xerox-820, a problem that had been there since I received it about 9 years ago. The problem was failing 2114 RAM chips, as was just being discussed on the list, had to replace 2 of them. It now boots into CP/M from disk. Thanks (Enrico) for the pages and links about the FBB, the info was helpful in getting these going. Of course, once you start playing with them it becomes more difficult to let them go, damn it. I have enough projects to work on however.

14 years, 12 months

Symbolics.com sold

by sethm＠loomcom.com

This is old news, but I only just found out about it and I haven't seen it mentioned here. Apparently back in August, the symbolics.com domain was sold to a seedy looking investment company that's turned it into a blog about domain squatting. I guess it's kind of crazy to have an emotional attachment to a domain name, but I have to admit I'm a little bummed about it. Symbolics.com was Symbolics for as long as I've been aware of the Internet, even right up to the end when it was just David Schmidt doing a bit of support and offering a handful of spare parts. It's still around at symbolics-dks.com, but it's just not quite the same, y'know? And what an ignominious ending... -Seth

14 years, 12 months

An introduction to microcomputers books serie

by stephane.tsacas＠gmail.com

Hi Does anyone has the ISBN of the latest edition of these 4 books by any chance ? I think I found the first two, but I'm not sure they refer to the latest edition: Author: Adam Osborne An introduction to microcomputers : Vol.0: The Beginner's Book - 093198808X Vol.1: Basic concepts - 0931988349 Vol.2: Some real microprocessors - ? Vol.3: Some real support devices - ? If you want to sell me your copy, drop me a mail. Thank you -- Stephane http://updatedoften.blogspot.com

14 years, 12 months

the venerable 80186 (and 80188)

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

off the top of my head, these computers sported the '186: Tandy TRS-80 model 2000 the Mindset Burroughs ICON Televideo Personal Mini Altos 586 (not sure if *that* one did, but one Altos model did regardless) Research Machines Nimbus (UK) odd but still interesting categories: original Ampro Little Board PC (single board computer) Radio Electronics RE Robot (could be bought ready built from Vesta Technologies - they kindly provided ROM images) - 80188 AST and Orchid 4-port cards (not really *computers*, yet they are) Vermont Microsystems PGC clone graphics card (80188) let me see if I remember this one correctly - Advanced Computer Products of Anaheim, CA produced a box w/a fully compatible 80186 mobo probably dozens and dozens if not hundreds of industrial embedded systems ********************************************************* likely there are other worthy additions to this list. But the very last entry is what I'd like to touch on. Where are all these blooming things? I even remember a company in Long Island (can't remember the name, off of Vets highway) that made one. The ability to enumerate every one is a task likely to be carried out as naming all the bizarre and perverse specialty software that (truly) was available for the Tandy 2000 at one time (bizarro scientific apps mostly, but some off the wall accounting packages and whatnot also). But give it a go gurus. Lessee what you can come up with - oh, hope you all had a Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, joyous Kwanzaa. But that's it. The pagans and atheists can go scratch LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL

14 years, 12 months

Dell PowerVault 120T

by silvercreekvalley＠yahoo.com

Hi, I've got a Dell PowerVault 120T available if anyone is interested. I believe this is a DLT7000 tape autoloader and the interface on the back looks to be a SCSI (possibly differential scsi). Info I'm sure is available on the web. I've never switched this unit on, so cant confirm if its working or not. It looks as if its designed to fit a 19" rack, and there is one rack ear on the right side, nothing on the left. Anyway get in touch off list if interested. I'm in the UK (Yorkshire). Its free if collected. Cheers Ian.

14 years, 12 months

Vitek & Alcyon Regulus info (early 68k UNIX)

by derschjo＠mail.msu.edu

Hi all -- I snagged that Vitek Systems machine that was being discussed earlier this month and now that I'm back from my holiday travels I have some time to play with it. It's a 68010 machine with 2mb of memory and 2 40mb scsi drives. Hooked up a terminal to TT0 and it booted up to a login prompt, much to my amazement. The login banner says: VITEK Nerve Center II Copyright (c) 1992 by bioMerieux Vitek Inc. So I guess that gives a bit more detail on what this machine is. Clearly a system used in some sort of medical application, and bioMerieux appears to still be in business, though I can't find any info on this particular machine on their site. It appears to be running an early UNIX variant called Regulus (5.2.2, dated 7/31/86) by a company called Alcyon. I can't find much more information on the 'net other than the fact that it existed. Anyone know anything about this version of UNIX? Any idea what filesystem it used? I know none of the usernames/passwords, so either a backdoor or some way to access the filesystem would be handy... I'm going to be dumping an image of the drives this evening, before something catastrophic happens to them... Thanks, Josh

14 years, 12 months

Convergent NGEN documentation

by aek＠bitsavers.org

I spent the weekend scanning and taking pictures of what I was able to find on the NGEN/Burroughs B2x systems, now up under http://bitsavers.org/pdf/convergent There are a few things in particular on the wanted list, mainly hardware docs. I'm hoping another list member will scan the system documentation that he has. I'm also working on trying to understand how to make a bootable floppy >from a running 10mb system. It was interesting to see how the Xerox XDE development envronment influenced CTOS. File naming conventions are pretty much the same as in XDE, for example.

14 years, 12 months

Dec paddle board needed

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

Guy writes: > On Dec 28, 2009, at 12:18 PM, Ed Groenenberg wrote: >> Maybe one of you can help me, I need an M908 paddle board. > While the number is familiar, what is it for? TU11 to TU56 cable (and possibly other things too). Tim.

14 years, 12 months

IBM (Federal Systems Division) FSC Documents, and IBM GC20 documents

by spedraja＠ono.com

Hello. I am searching for some documents from IBM Federal Systems Division, particularly the related with the Systems Software Development (FSC-71-5108 et.al). In the other hand, Bitsavers contains some valuable documents in http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/generalInfo/ related with Software Engineering, but I should like to know if this set can be expanded in a future with some other interesting documents released by IBM in the 60/70 and early 80s (HIPO diagrams and so). I have some programmed courses about the matter from this epoch (which I saved from the dumpster) but in Spanish. Regards Sergio

14 years, 12 months

DDC BUS-65517 1553 card

by shrlkhms＠comcast.net

Do you still have these 3 cards (65517)?

14 years, 12 months

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test-drb December 2009