February 2009 - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

by vcf＠siconic.com

I have a monitor for a Stardent workstation. It's a re-badge Sony, model number 130-0001-01. Free for pickup, or 1.2 * cost of shipping to recoup time and trouble if you want it shipped. Please respond soon if you are interested as it will be going off for scrap in a week if there are no takers. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

10 years, 11 months

8
8
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VT-180 (Robin) EPROM images?

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: VT-180 (Robin) EPROM images? > From: "Robert Armstrong" <bob at jfcl.com> > Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 20:23:04 -0800 > To: <cctech at classiccmp.org> > > Does anybody have images of the v2.1 Z-80 firmware for the VT-180 (aka >Robin) ? At least, I think 2.1 was the last version ever released. They >should be DEC part numbers 23-017E3-00 and 23-021E3-00. > >Thanks, >Bob Armstrong I have enough of them laying around I could supply the actual roms. I've never imaged them as It's easier to replace the code outright. Curious why are you looking for them? Allison

11 years, 6 months

5
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Compaq SLT/286

by aw288＠osfn.org

Like the Sanyo just yesterday, I have a Compaq SLT/286 portable computer taking up space. Very nice condition, with power unit, dock, and bag. Any interest CHEAP? I am located in New York, zip 10512. Unlike the Sanyo, if there is no interest, I suppose I will just chop this up. I am desperately trying to clear out a bedroom to work on it - the bedroom that ends up being the junk overflow containment chamber. It would actually be nice to sleep in it sometime. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org

11 years, 10 months

8
12
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FDOS for Fluke 1720A

by geoffb＠vigilan.com

Does anyone have the O/S, Applications, and Diagnostice disks for this ancient IEEE 488 bus controller (Fluke 1720A)? It used a TI 9900 processor if I remember correctly. The operating system was called FDOS- a custom effort too I think, distributed on three 5 1/4" floppies. This is no longer available from anywhere or anyone, including Fluke. Thanks for any help and/or leads. Geoff

12 years, 1 month

3
2
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PCjr Telnet Server Test

by mbbrutman-cctalk＠brutman.com

It's running! Telnet to 97.86.233.68 to take a look and help me test it. You can use the standard Windows telnet program, Putty, Linux, or whatever you have handy. Around 10 users can be on at the same time. When you sign on (no password required) there will be a little menu to help you waste some time. Some things you can do are see who else is on the server, view the machine type, ROM BIOS date and DOS version, check the TCP/IP statistics to see how much traffic it is handling, etc. There are some upgrades since the last time I ran this test (in Dec 2007): - The TCP/IP stack is much better - I'm doing 'telnet' negotiation to figure out the terminal type, turn echoing on, etc - Crude line editing has been added Right now it is running on my PCjr using a Xircom PE3 10BT. I plan to leave it up as long as it runs, or three days, whichever comes first. It is a PCjr so if there is a momentary delay, don't panic - it's probably just doing disk I/O. Backspace is a little dodgy .. it really wants ASCII 8 and a lot of terminals and emulators do ASCII 127 instead. Try variations with the shift and control keys if it doesn't work. Thanks, Mike

12 years, 3 months

25
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Wait! There's more including MS-DOS 1.25!!!! was Sanyo MBC-550 (Yuck!) software available

by rigdonj＠intellistar.net

I'm still digging. I found more 550 stuff. I think this is everything that came with the 550. Here's a chance for you 550 owner's to get the whole set at one shot! Original DS-DOS box and invoice. Original Sanyo Easywriter ver 1.3 disk Original Sanyo disk box with 550 dos ver 2.11 and BASIC 1.25, two original Sanyo disk for InfoStar (set B disk 2 and 3 of 4; disks 1 and 4 are below), original Sanyo disk for DOS 1.25 and BASIC ver 1.1 Original Sanyo disk box with all three original disk of set A, WordStar and CalcStar and a backup copy of DS-DOS. Two card board dummy disks used to protect the floppy drives duing shipment. Joe > >A few weeks ago we were talking about the Sanyo 550 series and someone mentioned one of the alternates operating systems that supported 80 track drives in the 550. I said that was DS-DOS by Michtron. > > Today I found an old Sanyo disk package with four disks for the 550. One of them is DS DOS 2.11, one is InfoStar, one is MailMerge/SpellStar and the other is a disk of misc utilities. The first three are original disks. In additon, the InfoStar, MailMerge/SpellStar are Sanyo labeled disks that came with the 550. If anyone wants them, trade me something I can use and they're all your's. > > Joe

12 years, 6 months

3
2
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Gooey TU58 rollers

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Gooey TU58 rollers > From: "Ethan Dicks" <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> > Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 17:39:20 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On 8/27/07, B M <iamvirtual at gmail.com> wrote: >> I am trying to get a Vax-11/750 machine up and running. It looks like the TU58 drive >> is suffering from the 'gooey roller syndrome'. > >Unsurprising. > >> I see that people have successfully used 1/2 inch (ID) Tygon tubing to replace the >> goo. Is there any specific type of Tygon tubing (eg. R3603, R2000, etc.) that is used? > >I don't know the particular variety I used in mine - I just went to >the Lowe's down the street and bought a foot of 1/2" ID tubing - >whatever they had on the shelf. I was unaware of a large amount of >varieties of tubing, so I just used what they had in stock, and it >worked perfectly. > >-ethan I started that many years ago like 1995ish. I spec'd Tygon (brnad name) as that was available to me. Most any generic Vinyl tubing works so long as it fits tight and has enough wall thickness. After about 10 years it tends to get hard, the fix is obvious. Allison

12 years, 7 months

4
3
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Texas Instruments 960B

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> does anybody have bits for the TI 960B (not 960A) minicomputer, e.g. > software, schematics etc. ? I have some additional material on the 960 that isn't up yet on bitsavers. The 960 and 980 share some peripheral interfaces. Did you end up with the 990 system as well?

12 years, 9 months

7
6
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NEC Spinwriter 5525 available

by iamvirtual＠gmail.com

[I hope this is on-topic; I believe the machine is at least 20 years old] I have a NEC Spinwriter 5525 printer that is available for the cost of shipping (free if you pick it up). The printer is a wide carriage and appears to have a RS232 serial interface. I do not know if the printer works or not. The machine is located in Langdon Alberta Canada (postal code is T0J 1X1) which is approximately 10 minutes east of Calgary. The machine is rather heavy. I estimate 50 pounds or more. If there is no interest, the machine is headed to the e-waste recycling. I can send pictures upon request. Contact by e mail: i a m v i rt ihatespam u al @ @ @ g ma il . c om <-- remove spaces and ihatespam Thanks! --barry

13 years

3
2
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Has anyone ever heard of theProtec Microsystems PRO-83?

by rdcoll＠hotmail.com

Hello everyone, I just joined this mailing list today on the advice of more than one vintage computing contact. I was wondering if anyone could tell me anything about the Protec Microsystems PRO-83 Z80 Single-Board Computer. I have conducted an exhaustive search of the Internet and found only two sites (one from a surplus store and a picture of it from a museum). I would appreciate any information available, especially information regarding the power supply and peripheral devices. Thank you very much. Rob _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx

13 years, 1 month

2
1
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HPIB cables

by donm＠cts.com

I have a couple of HPIB cables available at $15 the pair, shipped. They are: 1 HP10833A ~42" 1 HP92220R ~12" The 92220R has a right-angle connector at one end and the usual straight connector at the other. (I wonder if the 'R' indicates a right hand connector?) First come, first served. - don

13 years, 1 month

4
6
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Century Data T2000 exerciser

by nasim786＠earthlink.net

Hi, This is a belated response to a post you made here: http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctech/2003-February/010641.html I happened upon it while doing a 'for fun' search on the net for anything doing with good ol' Century Data, my employer when I was young. Couldn't resist responding to the post, even if it was half a year late! The exerciser that you have is/was for the Trident series of hard disk drives (predecessor to the Marksman). I was the main (in fact, pretty much the ONLY) technician at Century Data/Calcomp, for these exercisers back from the late 1970's to the mid 1980's, when they were phased out. I retired in 1985. Have fun! (BTW, where'd you find one of these dinosaurs??) Take care, Nasim

13 years, 1 month

2
1
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Tiny BASIC Extended available

by eds_2＠yahoo.com

Every so often, a discussion of Tiny BASIC appears around here. I was curious about one of the very first versions of Tiny BASIC, the 8080 implementation done by Whipple and Arnold, as documented in the Vol. 1 No. 1 (Jan 1976) issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal (of Tiny BASIC Calisthenics and Orthodontia) This issue contains an octal listing of a Tiny BASIC interpreter for the 8080, and I couldn't find this version available for download anywhere. So... I typed it in, and it works! I documented my work, which is available at http://oss.readytalk.com/tb/tinybasic.tar.gz (Note - this location is temporary - I need a home for this if anyone is interested) Included are the text file for the octal listing, a binary which can be loaded into memory, an attempt to extract the IL from the binary, and some instructions on bringing up Tiny BASIC. I was able to run some simple programs with a Z80 simulator that I've been running, and it appears to work correctly. I found the PDF of the listing in the ACM digital library: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/987491.987494 Typing in octal listings is error-prone enough, and typing them in from bad PDF scans of bad photocopies is even trickier. I have corrected many errors, but I'm sure there are more. If any kind soul would be willing to proofread / correct the listing, it would be **GREATLY** appreciated. I hope this is of interest to people. I'm very interested in other versions of Tiny BASIC out there, if someone has ever typed this listing before, etc. I'm familiar with Tom Pittman's work, but other resources would be greatly appreciated. -Eric ____________________________________________________________________________________ Don't pick lemons. See all the new 2007 cars at Yahoo! Autos. http://autos.yahoo.com/new_cars.html

13 years, 2 months

8
7
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"first" computer on the internet

by dgahling＠hotmail.com

I thought I had posted this, perhaps not. Anyhow, I have what's purported to be the "First" computer on the internet, the one that joined the pieces together and I guess you could say "made" the internet, or conversely, the "last" node, as it were (depending how you count). It's also the system where E-Mail was first created. It's a Sun SLC workstation, owned by Einar Steffard. I have the original box (very slightly torn), and the workstation itself is in very good shape except one cosmetic crack, which I believe can be fixed very easily. I tried the smithsonian, and other computer museums, but basically was told they already had too many of this model, never mind the significance of this particular unit. it still runs, last I checked, and has all the original data still intact on it, such as it is. now, I find myself with a severe lack of space, and need to part with it. I would like a little bit of money for it, it wasn't a donation to me, and shipping maybe expensive. or I would be willing to trade it for a vaxstation 4000, or perhaps a 3100 or two. (I have a need for 2 working vaxen you see) so anyhow, that's how it is, this piece of history sitting in the corner of my office, collecting dust, and not doing much else. I'd like to see it get to a good home, and never scrapped, I think it's too important for that. so anyhow, anyone who wants this piece of history, drop me a note. and yes, I have pics (including the shipping labels from Einar to me) for what it's worth... Dan. _________________________________________________________________ If you like crossword puzzles, then you'll love Flexicon, a game which combines four overlapping crossword puzzles into one! http://g.msn.ca/ca55/208

13 years, 7 months

59
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VAX/PDP docs. received

by jwillis＠arielusa.com

Received from a former DEC service rep.: If anyone wants scans of a specific piece, I will probably arrange it. This accounts for only the miniscule portion I've managed to sort and catalog in the past 3 hours (about 1/8 of the total number of documentation pieces I received): Communications Options Minireference Manual, vols. 1-7 LSI-11 Systems Service Manual, Vols. 1-3 VAX 8600/8650 System Diagnostics User's Guide Communications Options Minireference Manual VAX/VMS Internals and Data Structures Cartridge Tape Service Documentation TK50 Tape Drive Subsystem Owner's Manual TK50 Tape Drive Subsystem User's Guide TK70 Streaming Tape Drive Owner's Manual TK70 Streaming Tape Drive Subsystem Service Manual (MicroVAX II sys.) ThinWire Ethernet COAXIAL CABLE CONNECTOR INSTALLATION CARD H4000 DIGITAL Ethernet Transceiver Installation Manual Fiber Optic Attenuator Installation/Configuration Reference Card LA120 Series Pocket Service Guide LA10X-EJ/EL Tractor Option Installation Guide DECWRITER III LA120 Operator Reference Card LCG01 Color Printer System Pocket Service Guide MicroVAX 3600/VAXserver 3600/3602 Operation KA650 CPU System Maintenance MicroVAX 3600/VAXserver 3600/3602 Technical Information ULTRIX-32 Guide to the Error Logger System LJ250/LJ252 Companion Color Printer Pocket Service Guide LN03 Pocket Service Guide RF-LN03 Pocket Service Guide VAX 6200 Options and Maintenance VAX 6200/6300, VAXserver 6200/6230 Owner's Manual VAXstation 2000 Workstations and MicroVAX 2000 Network Guide ULTRIX-32 Basic Installation Guide for the VAXserver 2000 DECstation 2100/3100 Maintenance Guide MicroVAX 2000 Installation MicroVAX 2000 Operation Addendum: VAXserver 2000 MicroVAX 2000 Operation MicroVAX 2000 Troubleshooting MicroVAX 2000 Technical Information MicroVAX 2000 Customer Services VAXstation 2000 and MicroVAX 2000 Maintenance Guide VAXstation 3100 Maintenance Information VAXstation 3100 Illustrated Parts Breakdown VAXstation 2000 Hardware Information VAXstation 2000 System Guide VAXstation 2000 Network Guide VAX 6000-400 Options and Maintenance VT100 Series Pocket Service Guide VT180 Series Pocket Service Guide VT320 Pocket Service Guide VT330 Pocket Service Guide VT340 Pocket Service Guide VAXcluster Service Reference Manual VAXcluster Service Reference Set VAX 8530/8550/8700/8800/8820/8830/8840 System Maint. Guide 8800 8700 8550 8500 Console User's Guide B213F Expander Installation R215F Expander Maintenance KA655 CPU System Maintenance VAX Architecture Reference Manual CI750 User's Guide BA11-A Mounting Box and Power System Tech. Manual VAX-11/750 Diag. System Overview Manual VAX-11/750 Level 1 Student Workbook (Digital Internal Use Only) VAX-11/750 UNIBUS Interface Technical Description VAX-11/751 User's Guide DELUA User's Guide MicroVAX 2000 Hardware Information MicroVAX VAX 8200/50, 8500/50 The Digital Dictionary, Second Edition VAX Maintenance Handbook (VAX Systems) VAX Maintenance Handbook (VAX-11/780) VAX Maintenance Handbook (VAX-11/750) VAX-11/750 Mini Diag. Ref. Guide RM05 Disk Subsystem Service Manual RM05 Disk Subsystem Student Guide (Digital Internal Use Only) RM03 Disk Drive Maint. Print Set RP04/05/06 Field Maint. Print Set Symptom Directed Diagnosis Tool Kit Installation Guide VAXsimPLUS Field Service Manual Getting Started with VAXsimPLUS VAXsimPLUS User Guide Model 733 DEC Disk Storage Drive Parts Catalog, Jan. 1976 RP04-TC Part II RP04, RP05, RP06 Field Svc. Handbook HSC50 Service Manual HSC Installation Manual VAX 86XX System Maint. Guide RP05/RP06 Field Handbook -Company Confidential- RP05/06 677-01/51 Disc Drive Illustrated Parts Catalog Model 677-01/51 RP05/06 DEC DISC MAINTENANCE Guide (Educ. Svcs.) Digital Education and Training: UNIX Utils & Cmds. Student Guide

13 years, 8 months

6
5
0 0

Looking for : Sharp PC-1405

by mhstein＠canada.com

--------------Original Message------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 16:27:36 -0500 (EST) From: liste(a)artware.qc.ca Subject: Looking for : Sharp PC-1405 Or equiv (Tandy had them as PC-2 or something, iirc). The goal of my classic collection is to get one of every computer I've programmed over the years. One of the first computers I programmed was a PC-1405 (actually, I can't remember the exact model). I found one of these in a pawn shop. By brother "stole" it. I found another. This was my one classic computer that was helluva useful. So useful I took it with my places. And, well, I've just lost it. I've checked eBay and there are a few Sharp Pocket Computers, but W@W L@@K @ T3H PR1C3Z! Buy it now for "only" 300 USD! http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3000156764&category=15030 So, does anyone here have one they don't need and/or would be willing to let go for a reasonable price? -Philip -------------------------------------- I've got a PC-1421 Financial Computer if you (or anybody) are interested: 76 character keyboard 16 character display 40K ROM Basic 4.2 Kb RAM Interface for optional CE-126 Printer/Cassette (don't have) 6 modes: Normal calculator Financial calculator Statistical calculator Basic program mode Basic run mode Almost new, in box with cover & 280P manual. Make me an offer (less than US$ 300, or even CDN$ 300 :). mike

13 years, 9 months

2
1
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8/L has been sold. Have ADM-3A for sale.

by charlesmorris＠direcway.com

The 8/L, ASR33, DF32 disk emulator project has been sold. Thanks for all your interest (and offers). Anyone who wants the DF32 emulator schematic and artwork, I can email you a copy. I hope someone can take my "first draft" and make a useful unit for those who are interested. I have a working ADM-3A that I may want to sell also. It has a homebrewed lower-case 2716 ROM (thanks Steve Loboyko for the font files). I installed the "optional" parts for current loop on the main PCB, and used it with the 8/L. The only thing that's missing is the little aluminum panel covering the dip switches. Any interest? Same deal as before, please email offers, "sealed bids". thanks Charles

13 years, 10 months

7
9
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Perkin Elmer 7300 Pro System Museum Quality!

by mail.list＠analog-and-digital-solutions.com

Here's one some of you might like. Perkin Elmer 7300 Pro System Museum Quality! http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2738081449 Current bid US $9.99

14 years, 1 month

3
2
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Atari 800xl "translator disk"?

by dbetz＠xlisper.com

I have an Atari 800xl and a couple of 1050 disk drives. I also have two copies of the M.U.L.E. game on disk. Unfortunately, I can't get either to boot on the 800xl. I suspect that these are older games that were written for the 400/800 and may need the "translator disk" that allowed the 800xl to run games written for the older machines. Does anyone know where I could obtain a copy of this translator disk? Thanks! David Betz

14 years, 2 months

9
15
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Stag PPZ EPROM programmer

by coredump＠gifford.co.uk

I have a fine old Stag PPZ modular EPROM programmer: http://www.gifford.co.uk/~coredump/inst.htm#PPZ It takes plug-in EPROM (model Zm2000) and PAL (Zm2200) modules, called Z-modules by Stag. I've recently acquired a new module, Zm3000, which looks like a more recent EPROM module. The chips in the Zm3000 are date coded in 1993, whereas the Zm2000 is nearer 1988. The PPZ main unit contains a 6809 CPU and a small CRT display. Does anyone know anything about this system? What about other Z-module types? In particular, should the Zm3000 work with the PPZ, because I currently get an error message "Incorrect Mainframe"? Thanks in advance for any clues! (Virtually all I get from Google is a link back to my own web page!) -- John Honniball coredump(a)gifford.co.uk

14 years, 3 months

4
3
0 0

IBM PC Convertible Speech Module.

by netsurfer_x1＠fastmailbox.net

Anyone here have the speech module for an IBM PC Convertible they want to get rid of? I just got one of these laptops & was hoping to score one. David M. Vohs Digital Archaeologist & Computer Historian Computer Collection: "Triumph": Commodore 64, 1802, 1541, Indus GT, FDD-1, GeoRAM 512, MPS-801. "Leela": Original Apple Macintosh, Imagewriter II. "Delorean": TI-99/4A, TI Speech Synthesizer. "Spectrum": Tandy Color Computer III. "Monolith": Apple Macintosh Portable. "Boombox": Sharp PC-7000. "Butterfly": Tandy 200, PDD-2. "Shapeshifter": Epson QX-10, Comrex HDD, Titan graphics/MS-DOS board. "Scout": Otrona Attache. (prospective) "Pioneer": Apple LISA II. "TMA-1": Atari Portfolio, Memory Expander + "Centaur": Commodore Amiga 2000. "Neon": Zenith Minisport.

14 years, 4 months

5
6
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GNT 3601 tape punch docs?

by chrise＠pobox.com

Probably a stretch but wondering if anyone has any info (manual, pinouts, service documentation) for a GNT model 3601 8-bit (1") paper tape punch. It was probably better known in the CNC / automated machining world than in computing but my hope is to resurrect it as a backup punch for copying tapes I use with my ASR-33 and thereby save wear on the -33's punch. The unit has serial and parallel interfaces on DB25 connectors but I do not have any pinout information for those. The serial one I can probably figure out. Unfortunately, the unit is a little more sick than "works OK" seemed to imply from the eBay seller. It has what I believe to be a power supply problem because as soon as you try to punch all eight holes with the front panel test button, the power LED dims and the punch jams, apparently from lack of umph to complete the mission. It could also be jamming to start with and that causes the power drop I suppose. In any case, looking for any docs before I open it up and start digging around. I have written to GNT without a reply so far. Chris -- Chris Elmquist mailto:chrise at pobox.com

14 years, 9 months

9
27
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Reading NorthStar Horizon hard sector disks on PC

by marvin＠west.net

> From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Not all Northstar diskettes are HS. One of the models (Advantage?) > isn't--and it's that format that the Microsolutions MatchPoint will > read, not the others. It's been too long since I've seen the darned > things... I think the machine you are thinking of might be the N* Dimension. The Advantage still uses 10-sector floppies. I've never seen the Dimension but vintagemicros on Ebay was selling one a while back and had a picture of it. Apparently it was MS-DOS compatible.

15 years

4
9
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HP Integral PC Manuals?

by derschjo＠msu.edu

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

15 years, 7 months

7
25
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HP-CHM agreement

by aek＠bitsavers.org

Al Kossow wrote: > > I annouced a few months ago that the agreement had been signed. > > I'm attaching a pdf. If the attachement gets eaten, i'll put it > on bitsavers under http://bitsavers.org/bits/HP/ > Looks like the message was eaten. The pdf is on bitsavers for you to take a look at. CHM hasn't issued a press release about it since we're still doing things like trying to convert the interleaf formatted manuals to pdfs and are organizing what we have. What HP actually donated was materal from about the last 10 years of the product's life (RTE-A, mostly). The earlier code is coming from other holdings.

15 years, 9 months

3
4
0 0

I'm so stupid...

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

Back in 1998 (actually more like from summer 1997 until summer 1998, i.e., the 1997-98 school year), before I started Quasijarus Project, I was searching the World high and low for a copy of the 4.3BSD tape set. That was before PUPS got its momentum with getting the $100 "Ancient UNIX" license deal from SCO, and more importantly, getting people interested in preserving and working with Original UNIX, and at that time the entire world was basically in a conspiracy of anathema against original Bell/Berkeley UNIX, everyone just wanted it to stay buried in its grave and not come up. Getting a copy of the 4.3BSD tape set seemed next to impossible. www.berkeley.edu was shockingly silent about the fact that Berkeley UNIX aka BSD, UC Berkeley's greatest accomplishment in all of its history, ever existed, much less saying how to order a tape. Finally I found a phone number and a couple of E-mail addresses for some office at UCB that was apparently kept for sending out tapes after CSRG itself was gutted. The office was basically a voice mailbox and a couple of E-mail addresses, with the two people who were actually supposed to get those E-mail and voice messages being away somewhere in San Francisco and taking a few weeks to answer inquiries. Finally they got back to me and told me to send a check for $2400 for 4.4BSD and $1000 for 4.3BSD. Ouch! And of course some murky business about licenses. At that time, however, I attended Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) and had a semi-staff relationship with their computer science department. I realised that the university must have had a UNIX source license from back in The Days, and most probably had the actual 4.3BSD tapes at some point as well, especially given that the old-timers told me that they were indeed running 11/780s before. But again the conspiracy of anathema was working: everyone had completely forgotten about it, and no one on the entire campus even knew that the university had a UNIX source license (and old-timers confirmed that indeed there was one). When spring 1998 came around, PUPS was making its debut with the $100 license deal from SCO. I didn't care so much about license stuff, but it meant a resurgence of interest in Original UNIX and a community of people involved with it, something that was completely lacking only a few months prior. I wanted access to the PUPS archive, and I wanted to use the university's license rather than fork over $100 for a personal one. The only issue was *finding* that license. Then I got a bright idea: since the license agreement was between CWRU and AT&T, there must have been copies of it on both sides. If CWRU had chosen to forget about the license they once paid big money for, how about if I dig up a copy of the license agreement from AT&T side? So I asked SCO's Dion Johnson about it, and lo and behold, a few days later a copy of CWRU's original UNIX license agreement shows up in my box in the computer science department mail room! Warren Toomey got another copy and soon I got an overseas fax from him with passwords for his PUPS Archive! Whoo-hoo! But I still needed 4.3BSD. It wasn't in Warren's archive since they were still PDP-only at that time, and me holding a copy of my school's AT&T UNIX license agreement didn't help convince anyone I knew who might have had 4.3BSD tapes to share them with me. In late 1997 I got myself an office at CWRU, it was the CES department's computer junkyard room. I was quite happy, a room full of classic computers was the best office I could get. It was actually two rooms, 411 and 412. Only 411 was accessible from the hallway, the entrance to 412 was inside 411. Both rooms were filled with classic computer gear, but 411 was a little less full and actually had some room for a desk and was usable as an office. 412, on the other hand, was *completely* filled with classic computer gear (mostly Sun 3) and it was difficult for a person to make it through to the end of the room. At the very end of room 412 (the end opposite the entrance door from 411) there was something that looked like a plastic curtain or plastic window blinds. The architecture of that building was really intriguing, the kind one finds only on good old university campuses, and I couldn't really tell if there was supposed to be a window there or not. I just never gave it much thought, and it was too difficult to climb over all that Sun 3 gear in the way to see exactly what it was. On a shelf in room 411 there were some magtape reels, and I thought that if they ever had 4.3BSD tapes, they ought to be there. But I looked through all the tapes I could see and 4.3BSD wasn't there. Bummer. Then one day in summer 1998 I came to work in the morning, went up the stairs to my beloved Computer Engineering and Science department 4th floor, went to the end of the hallway to my office, and got in. I turned on the lights and per my usual habit, peeked all over the room to make sure all the fun classic computers were still there. And lo and behold, at the very end of room 412, where I previously saw those plastic curtains or window blinds or whatever, I now saw two racks full of magtapes! It turned out that the plastic "curtains" were actually vertically sliding doors (kinda like garage doors) of two huge magtape cabinets! Another staff member must have had a need to get some old magtape and didn't close the cabinet after he was done. With trembling hands, I raced there and started looking through all the tapes. And sure enough, in a few minutes I found all 3 tapes of the 4.3BSD 1600 BPI distribution. I spent pretty much the whole year prior to that moment searching the World high and low for 4.3BSD tapes when they were sitting the whole time in my own office! Now that's a "Duh!" moment. MS

15 years, 9 months

3
2
0 0

plastics

by generalordertwentyfour＠gmail.com

many types of course. Generally speaking do the materials used in pc's from the 80s fall into a single category? Everything is injected into a mold for sure, from largish cases to tiny keytops. Would all this qualify as polystyrene? Whatever the case, what's a good solvent (not necessarily glue) that's useful for repairing big cracks or splits, to tiny hairline cracks. I say solvent, and some glues can fall into this category, because it makes more sense to reinforce the materials from behind to effect a strong bond, and for cosmetic sake meld the item from the front, to obscure the defect itself. Many surfaces are anything but smooth. Has anyone tried, given they were successful in melding the surface, in reproducing the look of the surface surrounding it? Smooth surfaces can be melded then touched up lightly w/ultra fine emery cloth and some sort of lubricant I would guess. But the rough textures are a different story.

15 years, 11 months

6
7
0 0

9-track BOT/EOT markers?

by derschjo＠msu.edu

Hey all -- Got myself an HP 7980S 9-track drive (always wanted a 9-track drive...) and accidentally mangled my one and only 9-track tape just after the BOT marker (not sure what caused it, maybe the drive needs a bit of adjustment...). So I have two questions: Where can I find a reasonable replacement for the marker, and where does it go? I see the sense foil on the part of the tape that got mangled, but I don't know what side of the tape it was originally on... Thanks! Josh P.S. The magical tape autoloading thing this drive does is the coolest thing I've seen in a long time :).

15 years, 12 months

8
10
0 0

Emulex SCSI Controllers available...

by lbickley＠bickleywest.com

I was chatting with a DEC broker recently regarding SCSI controllers for DEC gear - when he mentioned that he had a quantity of Emulex UC07's available. UC07's are QBUS cards which have a single SCSI port and support either MSCP or TMSCP (in RT land, that would be either DU or MU devices). The manual states that the UC07 is compatible with RT, RSX, RSTS/E and Ultrix versions which support MSCP or TMSCP. The dealers initial price was high (as expected). However, he then added - "I'd be willing to do better for hobbyists - as long as they commit that the boards will only be used for hobby purposes - and not for commercial use". So here's the "deal": $235 per UC07 plus shipping from Mountain View, CA (FedEx Ground). I've paid MUCH more for SCSI interfaces for my DEC QBUS and UNIBUS systems - so IMHO, this is a great deal. The broker said he did not want to deal "individually with a bunch of hobbyists" - so he asked if I would be willing to consolodate a single order of UC07's to him. I reluctantly said "yes", as this is not my business and I'm not interested in making money on this deal - only covering costs. To get a sense of interest, please reply to me privately if you'd like one or more if these "critters". The manual for the UC07 is available on bitsavers. A link to a bitsavers mirror is below: http://bitsavers.vt100.net/pdf/emulex/UC0751001-F_UC07_Feb90.pdf Regards, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

16 years, 1 month

6
6
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list of nordisk data books and floppy disks

by bert＠brothom.nl

If you need access to one of these, contact me an urge me to make a deal. Keep pushing, as pushing raises priority with me. Books: NOTIS-BG User Guide NOTIS-RG New functions in the E-version NOTIS-DS User's guide Introduction to ND Office Systems The SPRINT User Guide Documentation Catalogue SINTRAN III Real Time Loader Dialogue-UNIQUE-II User Guide Operator Environment User Guide NOTIS-WP Brief Introduction User Environment Reference Manual NOTIS-WP Reference Manual COSMOS User Guide User Environment Reference Manual SINTRAN III Utilities Manual (3x) ND-110 Instruction Set The Database System SIBAS II ND User Manual SIBAS II Operator Manual NOTIS-DS Introduction (2x) Sintran III Real Time Guide NOTIS-DS Supervisor Guide (2x) ACCESS User Guide File Manager Introduction (2x, one in shrink-wrap) NOMIS Norwegian Medical Information System SINTRAN III COMMANDS Reference Manual SINTRAN III Monitor Calls (2x) Symbolic Debugger User Guide Examples for NOTIS-RG Version B SINTRAN-III Release Information K-version NOTIS-TF Macro Guide (new in shrink wrap) BACKUP User Guide (3x) SINTRAN III System Supervisor Operator Environment User Guide ND-110 COMPACT Operator Guide (contains several quick reference cards) SINTRAN III User Guide BRF-Linker User Manual NOTIS-TF User Guide User Environment Library Routines NOTIS-RG Reference Manual Test Program Description for ND-100/ND-110 ordner with following description: course program the supervisor's responsibility Handbook of Useful information examples of LOAD-MODE etc. telefix customer information miscellaneous materials MEDITEBS (in dutch) bunch of unknown listings a document with information on SCSI on ND ACCESS DBA manual NOTIS-TF text formatter reference manual partly dutch presentation with general user info SINTRAN III Timesharing/Batch guide some dutch documentation on MEDITEBS datasheets of several ND products, such as software packages, computers and accessoiries Floppies: (each floppy or set of floppies contains a few pages of information) SINTRAN III K GENERATION 312 CONF.D VSX, 2 disks (2 sets) PATCH-SIN-K-5400 (2 sets) SINTRAN III Configuration Program SUBSYSTEM PACKAGE 32 BITS FLOATING FORMAT SINTRAN III VSE/VSX Utility Programs ACCOUNTING System for SINTRAN III BACKUP-SYSTEM X-MESSAGE TELEFIX FILES FOR USER SITES SUBSYSTEM PACKAGE II VTM terminal tables USER ENVIRONMENT (3 disks) TEST PROGRAMS FOR ND-100/110 TEST PROGRAMS FOR ND-100/110/120 (2 disks) JEC job execution control ND-10634A MEMORY TO FLOPPY NOTIS-WP FOR ND-100 (4 disks) SIBAS-II for ND-100 (2 disks with pretty much the same label) ACCESS FOR ND-100 (dito) NOTIS-RG for ND-100 norwegian NOTIS-DS for ND-100 (3 disks) NOTIS-DS for ND-100 48-bit floating point (3 disks with pretty much the same label) NOTIS-BG-for ND-100 norwegian version 32 bits fl NOTIS-BG-for ND-100 32 bits fl NOTIS-BG-for ND-100 (business grafics) 32 bits fl PR for ND-100 (Norwegian version) BRF-Linker for ND-100 SINTRAN III MONITOR CALL Pack. SPRINT Spooling System (3 disks) MEDITEBS specials Mass Storage Utilities OPERATOR ENVIRONMENT (4 disks) Disk Restore (3 disks) TESTPROGRAMS FOR ND-100/110/120 (2 disks, both labeled PART 1 OF 2) UNIQUE-II SIBAS for ND-100 UNIQUE TEXT SYSTEM UNIQUE-II SIBAS ND-100 (hand-written label) SOFTWARE KEY DISCETTE

16 years, 2 months

3
2
0 0

Zebra Systems Videos...

by alhartman＠yahoo.com

In emptying the warehouse of Zebra Systems, we uncovered the original Betamax tapes of these two shows. I posted them on YouTube for your enjoyment. We also uncovered a load of books, tapes, and some TS-1000/1500/ZX-81 Hardware. We even found about 5 TS-1500 Computers that we'll be offering on eBay. But for now, enjoy these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtDG5cWmH8s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awUonjY_jcs Al Hartman

16 years, 2 months

3
3
0 0

What kind of IC is this

by lehmann＠ans-netz.de

Hi, My Zilog S8000 Winchester Controller board carries 2 ceramic DIL16 packaged chips labeled (beside a logo) just with the two lines of text. The chip looks like this (tried to ASCII-art the logo in front of the text) +----------------------------------------+ | +-------+ | | |----- | | \ | > ----| 6306-1J | / |----- | 8147 | | | > ----| | | +-------+ | +----------------------------------------+ I guess the 2nd line means: 81 == 1981 47 == calendar week 47 So I wonder what 6306-1J stands for? I've not analyzed the circuit to see if it is a PROM or something like that. It is put in a socket so I guess it must be something (onetime?) programmable... Maybe you can tell... -- Oliver Lehmann http://www.pofo.de/ http://wishlist.ans-netz.de/

16 years, 2 months

21
59
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What kind of IC is this

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: What kind of IC is this > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2008 22:50:52 +0000 (GMT) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> > If you're lucky, eitehr th microcontroller is old enough not to >> > have any >> > security features, or they're not used. In which case you remove >> > the chip >> > from the PCB and stick it in a suitable programmer. >> >> Even the original Intel 8051/8751, circa 1980, has security >> bits. :-( There are ways to get around (at least) those, though. > >Yes, but IIRC the 8048 series (common in classic computer stuff) doesn't... > >-tony My fractional portion of currency is that the 630x is a hitachi varient of the 680x (6800 single chip mpus). I've seen and have some them from older hard disks and DC300 tape drives that had mechanically expired. Allison

16 years, 2 months

3
2
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Archiving 8" RT-11 floppies to CD-ROM?

by fjkraan＠xs4all.nl

Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 1:36 PM, F.J. Kraan <fjkraan at xs4all.nl> wrote: > >> Just recently I was able to read my MiniMINC (a PDT-150) floppies with an 8" >> drive connected to an AHA1542B (capable of single density) with Dave >> Dunfields ImageDisk. >> > > Good to know. I have at least one 1542B running around, and an old > DOS box I can use to stuff it all into. > > What 8" floppy did you use? I think I have a Tandon one (TM848?) I > can borrow from a non-DEC Qbus box. > The drive is a NEC 1165, very flexible. It allowed me to write to a disk with only the wrong index hole, so the MiniMINC wouldn't see it. Writing RT-11 V3b to the right disk it booted . So writing with this setup is also possible. The 5 1/4" to 8" interface can the one from Dave Dunfield or the CP/M faq. I will try it with a Catweasel one day, but the current setup seems more common, and a MiniMINC doesn't do RX02 anyhow :-). Would posting an URL with the images of the disks be ok? Fred Jan

16 years, 2 months

2
1
0 0

Oxidation

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

On 19 Jan, 2009, at 05:10, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: >> The steel parts are fine, but the rest has a white material over >> most >> of it. I'm not sure what sort of metal it is, looks a bit dark for >> aluminum but the white material looks similar to aluminum oxidation. >> What's a good approach to cleaning it up? > > I seem to recall that the drums on 02x keypunches were brownish > (probably an anodized coating) and silver-metallic if you scratched > them or they wore through. I suspect that the drum is a magnesium- > aluminum die casting. > I always through they were rubber covered, but from the picture it looks like I'm wrong. My 836 (like an 026) came without its drum and I was told that all leased machines had their drums removed and the customer got to dispose of the rest. Maybe it was rubbish. A couple of them have come up on eBay in the last five years and both went for silly money which to me means there are more keypunches than drums. Roger Holmes.

16 years, 2 months

6
6
0 0

Source for bipolar PROMs?

by snhirsch＠gmail.com

Does anyone have a pet source for: DM74S287 DM74S571 ?? Jameco has the first part number at 13.00 each (ouch) and there are some on eBay at nearly that. The 571 seems to be pure unobtanium, unless you count 50 hits of *&ssholes who want you to submit an RFQ and won't deal under $250 a shot. I need a small number (~5-6) of each. Steve --

16 years, 2 months

22
31
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vintage ads

by legalize＠xmission.com

<http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/What-the-Ad.aspx> -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

16 years, 3 months

29
74
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Wanted: VAX Ultrix 3.0C

by hoelscher-kirchbrak＠freenet.de

Hi, I haven't got ULTRIX/VAX V3.0C, but: V2.0 V3.1 (disk image only) V4.2 V4.4 V4.5 I'd like to have the missing versions, too. More ULTRIX-Manuals would be VERY interesting as well. (I scanned the ones at bitsavers.com) What type of VAX do you want to run ULTRIX on? Regards, Ulli

16 years, 3 months

8
11
0 0

Zilog System 8000

by lehmann＠ans-netz.de

Hi, I was able to acquire 4 Zilog S8000 boards lately. - S8000 Central Processing Unit - S8000 Winchester Disk Controller - S8000 Cartridge Tape Controller - S8000 ECC Controller I'm trying to get my hands on the Case and the 1MB memory card, but I was wondering if someone has still pieces of the S8000 at hand? What about tape images of ZEUS? I mean - when I'm getting the minimum required hardware sooner or later - without an installation tape I'm a bit lost - right? ;) I've tried to put all the information I was able to found about the S8000 together at http://pofo.de/S8000/ I've scanned the boards I got and put all the EPROM images online. COPYRIGHT, ZILOG, INC. 1980 S8000 Monitor 1.2 - Press START to Load System ;) -- Oliver Lehmann http://www.pofo.de/ http://wishlist.ans-netz.de/

16 years, 3 months

4
13
0 0

Norsk Data website

by axelsson＠acc.umu.se

Hi! It is not complete yet. As a lot of other sites it is a work in progress, but the work has reached the point where it is reasonable to show it to the world. What I'm talking about? The new Norsk Data wiki website of course! Last autumn I asked for some help finding information about ND-100 and now it's time to give something back. Have a look at http://www.ndwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page and tell us what you think about it. If you want to help us even better, just register and add information. :-) /G?ran

16 years, 3 months

2
3
0 0

Schematic/Dip-switch info for PSS RAM65 (S-100)

by derschjo＠mail.msu.edu

As the title suggests, I have a PSS (Problem Solver Systems?) RAM65 S-100 static RAM board. No documentation. Anyone have any docs/schematics/info about this? I ask because I need to configure it, plus a chip appears to be missing at IC51... Thanks! Josh

16 years, 3 months

2
1
0 0

hams on classiccmp

by lynchaj＠yahoo.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Al Kossow > Sent: Friday, January 16, 2009 9:45 PM > To: classiccmp at classiccmp.org > Subject: hams on classiccmp > > > Wonder who else? > > probably lots.. > > Eric Smith just got his licence. > I know Don North is, as am I (wb9ggj) [AJL>] Andrew Lynch, 73 de N8VEM

16 years, 4 months

4
3
0 0

1" paper tape buy ?

by dm561＠torfree.net

If you can't arrange a group buy and you don't mind white/unprinted then I could send you a couple of rolls; I don't see myself doing anything with my PPT perfs and readers any time soon - think of it: loading Vista from PPT... ;-) Email off-list if interested. mike --------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:47:09 +0100 From: Henk Gooijen <henk.gooijen at hotmail.com> Subject: 1" paper tape buy ? Hi all, I was searching for a company that sells 1" unoiled paper tape, here in The Netherlands. No luck. After googling and many pages, I found a company in the USA: http://www.wncsupply.com/paper-tape-rolls.html I would like to buy one or two rolls of 1000 ft, order# 0400A, R-V-PU471 Unoiled / Printed Top Arrow yellowish color, but it comes in either a package of 28 rolls (1) and weighs 40 lbs, or in a quart package, 7 rolls, still a weight of 10 lbs. The 7 rolls package costs $80. That OK, but the shipping costs would make it quite expensive. My question is simple. Are there people on this list who also want to buy some rolls of 1" nice looking yellow paper tape? I would take 2 (or 3) rolls. Hint: Get a paper tape reader from an old CNC machine from eBay. (I bought one for $30 and another for $79 two weeks ago). You can interface such a reader to a computer, in my case the SBC6120 ! Think of it ... booting the SBC6120 from a paper tape. Is that cool? The site also sells nice reels (http://www.wncsupply.com/reels.html). I wanted to buy the 4" blue ones, but again shipping costs, aarggghh. However, a nice lady from the company emailed me that she is looking into the shipping costs, as the costs quoted on their site is a bit high. I hope to hear from one or two people also looking for a few paper tape rolls ... Please contact me off list. Links to other companies that sell 1" paper tape are also welcome! Thanks, - Henk, PA8PDP

16 years, 4 months

18
36
0 0

UNIX funny, classic computing relevant

by slawmaster＠gmail.com

I was just browsing around on UP and found http://up.update.uu.se/DSK%3AHUMOR1%3BUNIX%20TEST I took the test and got 0x72, "operator", not bad for being born after half the things mentioned were retired :) John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba

16 years, 4 months

20
21
0 0

8088 vs. 80c88

by trixter＠oldskool.org

I was always under the impression that when Intel moved to a CMOS manufacturing process for the 8088/8086, they fixed a bug regarding a repeated LODSB with a segment override -- that the REP prefix was ignored (bug) in the old 8088s, and was honored (correctly) in the newer chips. So a simple routine to try to identify the 8088 vs. the 80c88 would look something like: mov cx,2 ; test if following instruction will be ; repeated twice. db 0F3h,26h,0ACh ; rep es: lodsb jcxz Yes ; intel non-CMOS chips do not care of rep jmp Nope ; before segment prefix override, NEC and ; CMOS-tech ones does. If I run this on my 5150 with (C)1978 8088, I see the bug (cx does not update). If I run this on my 5160 with "80c88" printed on the chip, I do not see the bug (cx goes to 0). So all is well, right? Well, I use this routine in a detection library for a project I recently completed(*) and someone is claiming that the code is broken. It reports an 80c88 when the chip is *not* marked 80c88, but rather "8088 (C) 1983 Intel". So what's going on? Is the chip from 1983 actually an 80c88, since it doesn't have the bug? Or did Intel fix the bug before moving to a CMOS manufacturing process? (*) project is a CGA compatibility testing program; you can grab it from www.oldskool.org/pc/cgacomp -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/

16 years, 4 months

2
2
0 0

S-100 power supply voltage ranges

by lynchaj＠yahoo.com

Hi! What are acceptable voltage supply ranges for an S-100 power supply? I am assuming 115VAC input. My intended application is a small home brew S-100 backplane. I have seen the S-100 voltage rails vary but I believe +15VDC, -15VDC, and +9VDC would be sufficient. Herb's S-100 page lists the voltages as +18VDC, -16VDC, and +8VDC but I have seen other voltages used. Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch

16 years, 4 months

8
8
0 0

YouTube video to repair screen rot

by legalize＠xmission.com

This demonstrates a technique to repair screen rot on a vintage television set. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l1EoMmmOcQ> Nekochan.net's blog reports that he used the technique on an ADM-3A: <http://www.nekochan.net/weblog/archives/2008/10/adm-3a-screen-r.html> I hadn't seen this mentioned here before and screen rot problems have come up often in discussions of vintage terminals. He uses a heat gun to separate the layers instead of a nichrome wire as has been discussed here previously. I would feel much more comfortable with a heat gun than with a heated wire! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

16 years, 4 months

10
26
0 0

Combined Retro Tech and Vintage Computer Fair

by gilcarrick＠gmail.com

The Arlington Museum of Information Technology (AMIT) is sponsoring the first annual Vintage Computer Fair Light - South to be held in conjunction with The 15th annual Antique Science & Retro-Tech Show And Swap Meet. The combined event will be held Saturday, March 14, 2009 at the Ramada Hotel, Irving, Texas, 4440 W. Airport Freeway. from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. Admission is $5. AMIT Director Gil Carrick said that this combined event should attract many visitors who are interested in displaying their vintage computing artifacts or in buying, selling, swapping or just seeing these artifacts. Vintage Computer Fairs have been held in other parts of the country, but this will be the first one in the South. Since this is the first of these events in the region, it will not feature any speakers and will only last one day - hence the term "lite." Antique Science & Retro-Tech Show And Swap Meet organizer Skip Solberg said that for a decade and a half the event has been a favorite spot for fans of this antique gear to show, sell and swap their stuff. Visitors interested in displaying or selling should contact Skip Solberg at 817-467-0368 or email solberg2 at airmail.net for pricing and availability of table space. If you'd like more information about the Retro Tech Meet, or to talk with Skip Solberg, please call 817-467-0368, email solberg2 at airmail.net or see the web site at http://www.slideruleguy.com/tx-1q09.htm. If you'd like more information about the Vintage Computer Fair, or to talk with Gil Carrick, please call 817-994-9213, email amit at tx.rr.com or see the web site at http://amit-tx.org/. -- A. G. (Gil) Carrick, Director Arlington Museum of Information Technology 1012 Portofino Drive Arlington, TX 76012

16 years, 4 months

3
2
0 0

1" paper tape buy ?

by csquared3＠tx.rr.com

On Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:18:59 -0700 Mike Loewen wrote: > On Thu, 26 Feb 2009, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > >> Didn't someone once work out that to store a single MP3 you'd need a >> stack of 80-column cards ten miles high? > > Assuming a 6MB MP3 file and 40 bytes per card: > > 6 * 1048576 = 6291456 bytes > / 40 bytes per card = 157286.4 (157285) cards > * .178mm card thickness = 27996.73 mm high > / 25.4mm per inch = 1102.233465 inches > / 12 = 91.85278871 (91.85) feet > > > Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us > Old Technology http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ Umm if you store binary ... that is 80 bytes per card .. 46 feet per file. Now how many dec tapes is that? Errr, ISTR that a standard IBM, etc. punched card was 0.0065" thick rather than the 0.007" implied by the 0.178mm, BICBW. Also, since there are 12 rows per column, the most efficient packing technique could store 120 bytes in the up to 960 "bits" (hole positions) in the card. Using those numbers, I came up with the following: 6,291,456 bytes / 120 = 52,428.8 cards (OK, 52,429) 52,429 * 0.0065 = 340.7885 inches or about 28.4 feet per file. What an improvement. ;) (Is anyone else bored today?) I also seem to recall that Univac or some other computer manufacturer actually used a 90 (?) column card for even better packing density. I'll leave that improved calculation to someone who actually remembers how many columns those cards were blessed with. Later, Charlie Carothers -- My email address is csquared3 at tx dot rr dot com

16 years, 4 months

4
3
0 0

SGI 4D/220s

by legalize＠xmission.com

[Oops, hit send too quick] Just scored a couple SGI 4D/220s from a government auction site. Anyone have any familiarity with these? Anything I should look out for besides what's listed on various SGI web sites? (sgistuff, obsolyte, etc.) Crappy auction pics: <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/images/4D-220-1.jpg> <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/images/4D-220-2.jpg> -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

16 years, 4 months

3
3
0 0

Dumping MCM6832 PROMs

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> Please mail me, if you are interested in the data i was reading from the ROMs. > It is in Binary format. Sorry to post this here, but email to the address you used appears to be bouncing. I'm interested.

16 years, 4 months

2
1
0 0

8088 vs. 80c88

by les＠hildenbrandt.com

> > >> I am assuming the problem relates to following a lxi sp instruction >> immediatly with a call instruction, I can see how pipelining >> instructions could cause this failure. I cant immagine how calling >> the address which happens to match the sp would be an issue. > > >As far as we could determine, it was precisely the issue. >> My thought was that most cp/m programs either left the sp alone, and used >> the stack provided by cp/m, or set up a local stack early on in the >> program. In either case this bug could be completly avoided. Am I wrong >> here? Is the bug related to calling the address which happens to be in >> the sp? > > >Again, yes. I am sorry I am so slow here. Which is the problem? The value or the sequence? >Probably not a bug, but definitely a factor in determining if I >should have bothered to use the V20/30 for emulation at all. >Certainly, I wondered if the lack of Z80 instruction set support >would have been an issue. It was--and I supplied a software emulator >for that. Fortunately, I also included an software 8080 emulator, so >even users of JRT Pascal weren't left hanging. The Z80 thing is an interesting point. Before I started running CP/M on a V20, I allways ran on a 8085. I would get annoyed when cp/m software required a z80, because it was not a z80 operating system. I later did build a few z80 systems, a laptop and a 20mhz sbc system, but all of the coding I did for them was 8080, except for using the 16 bit io address features of the z80. >To clarify my point, would you try to run CP/M on a Rabbit uC with >all of its "we're just like a Z80 except when we're not" instruction >set? I've never tried, as the compatibility issues are just too >severe. I assumed the rabbit was a z180, you learn something new every day. I have done a few designes with z180's, but I cant even rememer what language tools I used at this point. Les --------------------------

16 years, 4 months

3
2
0 0

UNIX for the VAXstation or AlphaStation

by slawmaster＠gmail.com

Hi all; I realize that this sorta overlaps with a previous thread or two, but I thought I'd start a new one rather than practice necromancy. So, I've got both a VAXstation 4000-60 and an AlphaStation 250 here and after playing with it for a bit I've decided I don't really care for VMS so much that I want it on both of them. I'd like to find an interesting, preferably AT&T-style UNIX to run on one of them, so I'm hoping some of you can help me figure out my options. So far, I know I can run: -NetBSD -Probably some DEC/HP UNIXes (Tru64 on the Alpha?). I'd really appreciate perspectives on these different systems, user/admin experience, etc. I'm not looking to accomplish anything in particular here, I just want something to play around with on my DEC hardware while I wait for the PDP-11 :) Thanks John Floren -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba

16 years, 4 months

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Heat Failures

by ohh＠panix.com

Hey, all: I'm hoping for some info about older micros and heat failure. We have an archaic system at work which is going stupid on us, and we're looking at repair-or-replace options. Let's say you have a system which is locking up due to heat problems. I suspect we've all seen that from time to time. We're talking failures where you can cool things down and reboot and the system comes back and works again, not failures where things are visibly melting and/or burning. :) Is there a "typical" mechanism by which heat causes a system to go south? If you get a system which is knocked out by heat, does it make it more prone to being knocked out by heat in the future? In other words, do heat failures make a system physically more susceptible to more such failures - is the damage cumulative? Any relevant info appreciated. Thanks! -O.-

16 years, 4 months

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Whatever happened to MENTEC and the PDP-11?

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

The last I heard of them was a takeover by Calyx. in 2006 I can't see any reference to PDP-11 on the Calyx Website. So what happened ? Rod (Renovates Old Dec)

16 years, 4 months

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Halted

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Halted > From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> > Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:21:58 -0800 (PST) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >> > They died a really long time ago, probably by 1983. I grew up in >> > Wakefield, MA and remember them well. I used to raid their dumpster and >> > those around them. > >On Fri, 27 Feb 2009, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Poly Paks actually had something left after sending their stuff out >> to put in a dumpster? The mind boggles! :) > >What would Poly Paks reject? Only totally nonfunctional parts without any metals value. Allison

16 years, 4 months

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UNIX for the VAXstation or AlphaStation

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: UNIX for the VAXstation or AlphaStation > From: "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com> > Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:47:24 -0800 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >At 10:54 PM -0500 2/27/09, John Floren wrote: >>So, I've got both a VAXstation 4000-60 and an AlphaStation 250 here >>and after playing with it for a bit I've decided I don't really care >>for VMS so much that I want it on both of them. I'd like to find an >>interesting, preferably AT&T-style UNIX to run on one of them, so I'm >>hoping some of you can help me figure out my options. So far, I know I >>can run: >>-NetBSD >>-Probably some DEC/HP UNIXes (Tru64 on the Alpha?). >> >>I'd really appreciate perspectives on these different systems, >>user/admin experience, etc. I'm not looking to accomplish anything in >>particular here, I just want something to play around with on my DEC >>hardware while I wait for the PDP-11 :) > >UNIX is a waste of good DEC hardware! :-) DEC never sold a UNIX >variant that would run on a VAXstation 4000/60. I think NetBSD and >OpenBSD will both run on it. I'll confess that OpenBSD at least used >to rock on Alpha and can handle a machine with less RAM than OpenVMS >expects. Your choice of OS's are a lot wider for the Alpha. DEC sold Ultrix32 (unix BSD flavor) and it was installable on most VAXen. I have 4.2 running on a UVAX2000. >As for a PDP-11, I recommend RT-11, RSTS/E, or RSX-11M+, not UNIX. For low end PDP11 Unix up to V7 runs. If you have one of the I&D machines (11/44, or any of the J-11 cpus) then BSD2.11 is interesting. >For UNIX get a Sun or SGI system, in other words cool hardware that >only runs UNIX. I did buy a nice DECstation 5000/133 (a MIPS box) >years ago to run NetBSD. I wonder what happened to that machine... > All the DEC mips machines run unix (ultrix). Or find an Alpha and run true64. Allison >Zane > > >-- >| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | >| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | >| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | >+----------------------------------+----------------------------+ >| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | >| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | >| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

16 years, 4 months

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FS: DEC H3104 (36-Pin to 8 MMJ ports) -- New, never opened

by eric940＠gmail.com

For USA folks only, sorry... I have 3 of these: DEC H3104 (36-Pin to 8 MMJ ports) They are all new, in factory sealed bubble wrap, never opened (not even for the pictures). All include mounting screws. PHOTOS: http://www.flickr.com/photos/35806042 at N03/ $10 each (includes shipping - will provide tracking number) Please reply off list if interested. -Eric

16 years, 4 months

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Free: IBM 3151 31/41 DEC/IBM terminal emulation cartridge

by eric940＠gmail.com

(USA folks only, please.) IBM 3151 31/41 Cartridge Part number: 94X4114 PICTURE: http://www.flickr.com/photos/35806042 at N03/sets/72157614533585520/ Never used it myself, but apparently emulates IBM & DEC terminals. Found it at my last job. I'm guessing it plugs into an IBM terminal? Doesn't seem to have a standard PCMCIA edge connector. Out of curiosity, I wouldn't mind knowing a bit more about it. Contact me off list, and it's yours free. -Eric

16 years, 4 months

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Antikythera fans

by rdawson16＠hotmail.com

wondering if you guys love this as much as I do. I would like to make a user group/club for it if there is enough interest For myself, I am fully equipped here with machine capability and stage one is to make the model (2005) as currently known. Stage 2 is heck make these in volume, its a marvelous thing and may be profitable. You cannot find a better classic computer than this. Randy Dawson _________________________________________________________________ Access your email online and on the go with Windows Live Hotmail. http://windowslive.com/online/hotmail?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_AE_Access_022009

16 years, 4 months

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SGI 4D/220s

by ball.of.john＠gmail.com

>Just scored a couple SGI 4D/220s from a government auction site. >Anyone have any familiarity with these? Anything I should look out >for besides what's > >Crappy auction pics: <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/images/4D-220-1.jpg> <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/images/4D-220-2.jpg> So you bought those twin tower systems. We were all crying over them. Those are Twin Tower 4D systems as you can already see and they are not the most powerful things out there as they are pretty old. They should be able to run Irix 4.0.5 but that is it and I don't know much about Irix software older than version 5.3 so you better hope that there are some GL demos installed. In all honesty I recommend you go talk to the folks over at http://www.nekochan.net as they are the last people on the net really to tame these old beasts. I also recommend http://www.martnet.com/~bobd/sgi/4dfaq.html as it contains a nice FAQ and tells you how to make a serial terminal cable adapter which is essential for any SGI system. John.

16 years, 4 months

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Powering up a 20-year old MicroVAX II

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

Thanks for all the replies over the last few days. I am sorry I have not replied to them, I have been away for work all week (and will be away again over the next few weeks). I thought I would gather up my various responses into one email, so here goes. To the person who asked about the enclosure. This is a BA23 and has only one PSU, so without that PSU I cannot try to get the machine running again. The harness I have is not the same as either of the two that someone sent me pictures of. It is not a ribbon cable, it has discrete wires, of different lengths, its part number is 70-20450-01, rev C1 and there is a date of 9th Dec 1985 on it. The actual connectors though look like the connectors on the bad ribbon cable harness, I think they are MTA-156. Some have suggested it blew because I had insufficient load. I had a TK50 and an RD53 attached, would that no be sufficient. Furthermore I did not actually switch the PSU on, just connected it to the mains, would the load connected to the PSU matter when the PSU is not actually switched on? There was also a suggestion that the PSU would have needed switching separately for 50Hz operation as well. The hardware manual I have for the machine tells me how to switch between 110 and 240, but does not say anything about switching it for frequency, so I suspect this was not an issue here. >From the various responses I think it would be unwise for me to attempt a repair. Is there anyone on this list who is in the UK who would be willing and able to fix this PSU, or who knows someone who might be? Thanks Rob

16 years, 4 months

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free for shipping things on ebay

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

I will be continually adding listings on Ebay that will run at fixed prices until sold. For those of you reading cctalk, if you make me an offer for zero and reference cctalk, the item is yours for shipping. Check my stuff out at http://myworld.ebay.com/frotz661. If you're not on speaking terms with Ebay, take a look anyway and email me if you like something you see. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

16 years, 4 months

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Paging Ethan Dicks

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

Ethan Dicks said he wanted the copy of Zaks' "CP/M Handbook" I offered up in October. We both forgot about it. I tried emailing him at his usap.gov address just now and that came back as invalid. Ethan, if you're reading this, please email me! -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

16 years, 4 months

2
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Xerox 8010 system software diskettes

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

Spread across several ziplock bags I found a bunch of system diskettes for the venerable Xerox 8010. The disks are in excellent condition and there are lots of duplicates. Is there a museum in need of some of these? Also, would someone please point me to a list of diskettes originally shipped with the machine? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

16 years, 4 months

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UNIX for the VAXstation or AlphaStation

by slawmaster＠gmail.com

On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 12:11 AM, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote: > At 12:03 AM -0500 2/28/09, John Floren wrote: >> >> It's not so much what I have as what I will be soon inheriting from >> the good folks over at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics; I'm not >> sure of the exact model but it's a MicroPDP-11 of some type. Comes >> with an RX02. More details when it actually gets decommissioned and I >> pick it up. > > Sounds like you might be getting a MINC-11. > > Zane > Cool as a MINC-11 would be, I've seen the system and it's in a standard BA23, not the MINC box. John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba

16 years, 4 months

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UNIX for the VAXstation or AlphaStation

by slawmaster＠gmail.com

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 11:58 PM, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote: > At 11:54 PM -0500 2/27/09, John Floren wrote: >> >> The PDP-11 has RT-11 loaded already, so I look forward to playing with >> that; when I get it home and can check exactly what the >> processor/memory/disk values are, then do some research into whether >> or not it would be possible to try RSTS/E or RSX-11M+ on it too. > > I really like RT-11. ?I don't follow the list like I used to (no time), what > kind of a PDP-11 do you have? > > Zane > It's not so much what I have as what I will be soon inheriting from the good folks over at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics; I'm not sure of the exact model but it's a MicroPDP-11 of some type. Comes with an RX02. More details when it actually gets decommissioned and I pick it up. John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba

16 years, 4 months

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UNIX for the VAXstation or AlphaStation

by slawmaster＠gmail.com

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 11:47 PM, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote: > At 10:54 PM -0500 2/27/09, John Floren wrote: >> >> So, I've got both a VAXstation 4000-60 and an AlphaStation 250 here >> and after playing with it for a bit I've decided I don't really care >> for VMS so much that I want it on both of them. I'd like to find an >> interesting, preferably AT&T-style UNIX to run on one of them, so I'm >> hoping some of you can help me figure out my options. So far, I know I >> can run: >> -NetBSD >> -Probably some DEC/HP UNIXes (Tru64 on the Alpha?). >> >> I'd really appreciate perspectives on these different systems, >> user/admin experience, etc. I'm not looking to accomplish anything in >> particular here, I just want something to play around with on my DEC >> hardware while I wait for the PDP-11 :) > > UNIX is a waste of good DEC hardware! :-) ?DEC never sold a UNIX variant > that would run on a VAXstation 4000/60. ?I think NetBSD and OpenBSD will > both run on it. ?I'll confess that OpenBSD at least used to rock on Alpha > and can handle a machine with less RAM than OpenVMS expects. ?Your choice of > OS's are a lot wider for the Alpha. > > As for a PDP-11, I recommend RT-11, RSTS/E, or RSX-11M+, not UNIX. > > For UNIX get a Sun or SGI system, in other words cool hardware that only > runs UNIX. ?I did buy a nice DECstation 5000/133 (a MIPS box) years ago to > run NetBSD. ?I wonder what happened to that machine... > > Zane > The PDP-11 has RT-11 loaded already, so I look forward to playing with that; when I get it home and can check exactly what the processor/memory/disk values are, then do some research into whether or not it would be possible to try RSTS/E or RSX-11M+ on it too. John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba

16 years, 4 months

2
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SGI 4D/220s

by legalize＠xmission.com

Just scored a couple SGI 4D/220s from a government auction site. Anyone have any familiarity with these? Anything I should look out for besides what's Crappy auction pics: <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/images/4D-220-1.jpg> <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/images/4D-220-2.jpg> -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

16 years, 4 months

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Not sure this is classic enough...

by lproven＠gmail.com

Would anyone be interested in an original, complete copy of Windows 3.1 on 1.2MB 5?" floppies? Just uncovered during a clearout... -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat, Yahoo & Skype: liamproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508

16 years, 4 months

2
2
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Recommendations for AIM-65 power supply?

by derschjo＠mail.msu.edu

Title basically says it all -- anyone have any recommendations for a decent power supply for an AIM-65? I have it running right now on just 5V, but I need something that puts out 24V so I can run the little printer, too :). It'd be nice nice to something small enough to fit inside the enclosure this thing came in but I'm not that picky. My searches on the 'net reveal a lot of choices, so I'm looking for advice on what to look out for. For those playing along at home, the AIM-65 wants 5V at ~2A, and 24V at ~2.5A. Thanks! Josh

16 years, 4 months

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Overland Data 9-track drive

by IanK＠vulcan.com

In one of my fortunately few poor deals on eBay, I bought an Overland Data 9-track drive, identified on its tag as an OD 3601 GCR. It's an interesting unit, a bit bigger than a briefcase and standing "on end" with the drive reels facing out. It has both a Pertec-style interface and a PC serial interface. It looks pretty cool. There are only two problems. One is a broken door hinge - not a big deal. The other is that the drive does not respond to any control input - a big deal. After asking about, someone told me that the flashing LEDs on its face mean that its main electronics have failed. I'm guessing that one or more of the many EPROMs in it have lost their minds. It's a really nice looking unit, but it doesn't work. So I have an offer or two I'd like to make. If you perhaps have one of these drives, and it has a bad mechanism but good electronics, I'd be glad to give this to you for the actual cost of shipping. On the other hand, if you have those good electronics but don't want/need the drive, I'd be glad to talk about obtaining the innards from you for a nominal cost (shipping and some beer money, perhaps). Anyone interested? Thanks -- Ian PS: this is a piece in my personal collection. I'm just using this email account because this is where I read the list.

16 years, 4 months

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Copying simh images onto real disks

by toby＠coreware.co.uk

I've been trying to get BSD 2.11 running on my uPDP-11/73. Rather than going the vtserver route, I thought I'd try to speed things along by making a disk image under simh and then copying it onto a SCSI disk for use on the PDP-11. I successfully built a 300MB disk image under simh from the BSD 2.11 tape and then copied this onto the SCSI disk with: dd if=bsd211.dsk of=/dev/sda However, when I put the disk onto the -11 and try to boot DU0, it just hangs. Anyone know where I am going wrong? Many thanks, Toby -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

16 years, 4 months

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Apple Laserwriter 16/600PS, parts/repair, free

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

I have an Apple Laserwriter 16/600PS available for free, just pay shipping. (continental US only, please) It functions, but it jams 30-50% of the time. It is just wearing out. I've babied it for many years and it is in pretty good shape otherwise. If you want to (probably) replace the pickup rollers and give it a good cleaning, you'll have an absolutely wonderful 16PPM, 600DPI, TCP/IP-capable Ethernet-connected PostScript laser printer that works well in the Mac, Windows, and UNIX/Linux worlds. It comes with a paper tray, but no toner cartridge. (same cartridge as HPLJ 4/4M/etc, Canon EX engine if memory serves) Continental US shipping should be $40 or so. PayPal me that and it's yours. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

16 years, 4 months

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DEC Equipment - Tucson, AZ

by technobug＠comcast.net

I was wandering around my local scrapper and found four PDP11/23+ chassis (without cards) and three RL02 on a pallet in purgatory (prior to triage). If there is any interest, drop him a line @ "<keith at swliquidators.com >. He promised to hold them for a week or so prior to making a decision to scrap. CRC

16 years, 4 months

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More Info RE: Emulex SCSI Controllers available...

by lbickley＠bickleywest.com

I've received a number of responses from folks - and a few questions. Here's answers to the most common questions: 1) Is there a warranty? Yes the boards are guaranteed by the dealer to not be DOA. I just re-checked - and he's agreeable to a 15 day warranty. My guess is that if you went a few more days, he'd cover it - but he would like whoever gets the boards to check them out right away. ALL boards will be pre-tested by the dealer on a QBUS system using RT before shipping. All will have the latest EPROMS. 2) Is it standard QBUS (i.e., not "S") Yes. 3) Is the SCSI port standard 50-pin? Yes. Lyle ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: Emulex SCSI Controllers available... Date: Thursday 26 February 2009 From: Lyle Bickley <lbickley at bickleywest.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> I was chatting with a DEC broker recently regarding SCSI controllers for DEC gear - when he mentioned that he had a quantity of Emulex UC07's available. UC07's are QBUS cards which have a single SCSI port and support either MSCP or TMSCP (in RT land, that would be either DU or MU devices). The manual states that the UC07 is compatible with RT, RSX, RSTS/E and Ultrix versions which support MSCP or TMSCP. The dealers initial price was high (as expected). However, he then added - "I'd be willing to do better for hobbyists - as long as they commit that the boards will only be used for hobby purposes - and not for commercial use". So here's the "deal": $235 per UC07 plus shipping from Mountain View, CA (FedEx Ground). I've paid MUCH more for SCSI interfaces for my DEC QBUS and UNIBUS systems - so IMHO, this is a great deal. The broker said he did not want to deal "individually with a bunch of hobbyists" - so he asked if I would be willing to consolodate a single order of UC07's to him. I reluctantly said "yes", as this is not my business and I'm not interested in making money on this deal - only covering costs. To get a sense of interest, please reply to me privately if you'd like one or more if these "critters". The manual for the UC07 is available on bitsavers. A link to a bitsavers mirror is below: http://bitsavers.vt100.net/pdf/emulex/UC0751001-F_UC07_Feb90.pdf Regards, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" ------------------------------------------------------- -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

16 years, 4 months

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Archiving 8" RT-11 floppies to CD-ROM?

by dbetz＠xlisper.com

I have a friend who has a number (10-20) of 8" RT-11 floppies he wants to archive to CD-ROM or some other modern media. Is there anyone in the Boston area (he lives in Medway) who could help with this? I believe these are RX01 media since I think they were created on a PDT-11/150 that I gave away to someone a few years ago. Can anyone here help? What would the fee be for such a service? Thanks! David Betz dbetz at xlisper.com

16 years, 4 months

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visiting Seattle next week -- get together?

by legalize＠xmission.com

I'll be visiting Seattle next week for the Microsoft MVP Summit. The Summit wraps up on Wednesday around 5pm in downtown Seattle. I'd love to get together with other collectors for a beer, say at the Elephant and Castle? I'll be returning home on the weekend, so I have some time on Thursday during the day, Friday and Saturday. Last time I got to check out bear's collection (r.stricklin) and I'd love to see anyone's collection that's willing to share :-) Email me off-list and let's trade contact info and I'll give you a hollar! -- Richard -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

16 years, 4 months

2
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truck trip, space available

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

Hey folks. It looks like I'll be making a road trip from Port Charlotte, FL (just south of Tampa, Gulf coast) all the way up to Boston, and then back down, sometime next week. I'll be in a 24' truck with a lift gate. The southbound trip will be full, but the northbound trip will be at least half empty, so I may be able to move big and/or heavy stuff along that route. The requirements are that it be not too far off of Route 95, and that any stops not take too much time. I will need a few bucks for this. Be aware that the scheduling and other details of this trip are not yet set in stone. Any thoughts? I'll need to hear back soon. Please CC me on any replies, or email directly, as I'm only on cctech. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

16 years, 4 months

1
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43 "classic" articles about our hobby

by evan＠snarc.net

>From the better-late-than-never department .... Tonight I posted 43 articles from the former Computer Collector Newsletter / Technology Rewind. Many of you will recall that I published this a a weekly e-newsletter from Jan. 2004 to March 2006, with the help of Sellam Ismail, Christine Finn, Erik Klein, Bill Loguidice, Michael Nadeau, and many others. The newsletter ran for 2 years and 3 months. Now it's been 2 years and 11 months since the end. So, I finally got "a round tuit". Read them at http://www.snarc.net/tr/newsletter.htm. - Evan

16 years, 4 months

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Archiving 8" RT-11 floppies to CD-ROM?

by fjkraan＠xs4all.nl

Jan-Benedict Glaw <jbglaw at lug-owl.de> wrote: > On Tue, 2009-02-24 13:14:06 -0500, David Betz <dbetz at xlisper.com> wrote: > >> > I have a friend who has a number (10-20) of 8" RT-11 floppies he wants >> > to archive to CD-ROM or some other modern media. Is there anyone in >> > the Boston area (he lives in Medway) who could help with this? I >> > believe these are RX01 media since I think they were created on a >> > PDT-11/150 that I gave away to someone a few years ago. Can anyone >> > here help? What would the fee be for such a service? >> > > I obviously cannot help, but it would be nice if, once it is done, > describe the procedure for others. > Just recently I was able to read my MiniMINC (a PDT-150) floppies with an 8" drive connected to an AHA1542B (capable of single density) with Dave Dunfields ImageDisk. I didn't write them back yet (inverted write protect logic, but assume it will be no problem... Fred Jan Kraan

16 years, 4 months

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sun HD 'sledges'

by silvercreekvalley＠yahoo.com

I'm looking for a sledge for the SPARCstation 1, I have a couple of loose HD at the moment and its not great :) Ian.

16 years, 4 months

7
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Halted

by evan＠snarc.net

Roy said: >>> I've taken notice of them and have intentions of stopping in there one of these times I make a trip to The City... Consider making your trip in the second or third week of September. Then you combine it with a visit to VCF East in New Jersey!

16 years, 4 months

1
0
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washing floppies

by legalize＠xmission.com

An interesting blog post... <http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/2009-02-21-retrieving-data-using-s…> -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

16 years, 4 months

12
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1" paper tape buy ?

by henk.gooijen＠hotmail.com

Hi all, I was searching for a company that sells 1" unoiled paper tape, here in The Netherlands. No luck. After googling and many pages, I found a company in the USA: http://www.wncsupply.com/paper-tape-rolls.html I would like to buy one or two rolls of 1000 ft, order# 0400A, R-V-PU471 Unoiled / Printed Top Arrow yellowish color, but it comes in either a package of 28 rolls (1) and weighs 40 lbs, or in a quart package, 7 rolls, still a weight of 10 lbs. The 7 rolls package costs $80. That OK, but the shipping costs would make it quite expensive. My question is simple. Are there people on this list who also want to buy some rolls of 1" nice looking yellow paper tape? I would take 2 (or 3) rolls. Hint: Get a paper tape reader from an old CNC machine from eBay. (I bought one for $30 and another for $79 two weeks ago). You can interface such a reader to a computer, in my case the SBC6120 ! Think of it ... booting the SBC6120 from a paper tape. Is that cool? The site also sells nice reels (http://www.wncsupply.com/reels.html). I wanted to buy the 4" blue ones, but again shipping costs, aarggghh. However, a nice lady from the company emailed me that she is looking into the shipping costs, as the costs quoted on their site is a bit high. I hope to hear from one or two people also looking for a few paper tape rolls ... Please contact me off list. Links to other companies that sell 1" paper tape are also welcome! Thanks, - Henk, PA8PDP

16 years, 4 months

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Fwd: Alpha in San Leandro, CA

by slawmaster＠gmail.com

If anyone is interested in this, send Rich an email. I already have too many VMS boxes; I'd hate to see this get tossed. John ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Rich Asvitt <rasvitt at comcast.net> Date: Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 6:13 PM Subject: Re: Alpha or VAX machine wanted (dublin / pleasanton / livermore) To: John Floren <slawmaster at gmail.com> John, I know it's been a while but are you still interested in getting a VMS machine? My wife has been asking me what I'm going to DO with my workstation. As I haven't cranked it up in over a year, I suppose it's time I find it a good home. ?So if you're still interested, let me know and we can work something out. What we have is a Alpha 3000 with an internal disk there is also an external disk drive. ?There is also a CD drive and a cartridge tape drive. ?I just cranked it up today and deleted all my junk on the disks, So it's running fine. ? So....... Lemme know Rich

16 years, 4 months

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Halted

by christian_liendo＠yahoo.com

Yea... I remember that place...I was over at Silicon Graphics back in I think 97 and I would stop by there. In fact every time I was in Silicon Vally I stopped by there. There were other places as well, I guess they are all gone now I'm glad they are still around. --- On Wed, 2/25/09, Tom Uban <uban at ubanproductions.com> wrote: From: Tom Uban <uban at ubanproductions.com> Subject: Halted To: "On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Date: Wednesday, February 25, 2009, 9:13 AM Sorry if this has already gone around, but I only saw it yesterday after a friend sent me the link: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/02/05/technology/personaltech/20090… It reminded me of ELI in Cambridge Massachusetts, which was a similar type of place back when I lived in the Boston area, but which is now gone. I can only imagine that Halted will not be around too much longer and I definitely want to stop there the next time I'm in the area... --tom

16 years, 4 months

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8088 vs. 80c88

by les＠frii.com

>In emulation mode (V20) BP = (8080) SP. But I don't follow your >logic on how to avoid it. Why JRT chose to code things that way, >I'll never know, but it worked on 8080, 8085 and Z80 and not on V20, >so it's a bug. And a bug in commercial (i.e. you paid money for it) >software. The code snippet you showed seemed to indicate that either you couldn't preform a call to the same address contained in the stack pointer, or that you couldn't preform a call as the next instruction after a lxi sp instruction. Its not really clear which the problem is. I am assuming the problem relates to following a lxi sp instruction immediatly with a call instruction, I can see how pipelining instructions could cause this failure. I cant immagine how calling the address which happens to match the sp would be an issue. My thought was that most cp/m programs either left the sp alone, and used the stack provided by cp/m, or set up a local stack early on in the program. In either case this bug could be completly avoided. Am I wrong here? Is the bug related to calling the address which happens to be in the sp? >The instruction prefetch queue issue was well documented in the 386, >as was the use of an unconditional jump to void the queue. Although >it's lousy practice to use self-modifying code, I don't blame >MicroPro for it--they wrote their code to an earlier processor. >But claiming backward compatibility is a different game. Unless >something is 100% backward-compatible with the original, you'd best >not advertise it as being backward-compatible at all, unless you like >answering support calls. So as I understand your opinion, if NEC had stated in the V20 documentation, that you should not follow a lxi sp instuction immediatly with a stack operation, this would not have been a bug. In the case of the 386, they documented issues with the 386 queue, issues which crashed commercial software, but which are not a bug. In this case, it was just code written for an older processor. Les

16 years, 4 months

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Plessy Core Stack Indentification

by fsmith＠ladylinux.com

Hi All, I am cleaning out my basement and came across a mystery Plessy core stack. Its 16k by 16 and is a full height Unibus slot card. Its one of those sandwiched controller/core stack type of card. Looks to be able to only take up one slot which is nice. Part number is PM 1116B I suspect its a compatible 11/05 or 11/10 memory card but I am not sure. I could plug it into one of my 11/05's but really don't want to do the old see if it smokes test as I think this lil baby is kinda hard to find and desirable to the right person/machine. -- Kindest Regards, "No Problems Only Solutions" L.B. Network Consultants LLC. Baltimore, Maryland

16 years, 4 months

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DEC Computer Lab workbook

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

There's one on eBay right now, auction number 230326916375. (not affiliated with seller, etc etc) Too rich for my blood right now, but I'd love to hear that someone here grabs it and gets it scanned. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

16 years, 4 months

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Nicolet 660

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> It continued to do this for > several reboots, but after running unattended for a few hours the hard > disk was again unreachable They took this opportunity to completely back up the contents of the disk, right?

16 years, 4 months

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TS-11 tapedrive controller cards available

by quapla＠xs4all.nl

Hello All, I have available a set of controller cards from the internal backplane of a Dec TS-11 tapedrive. Contact me off list if interested. Ed --

16 years, 4 months

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contact at cray-cyber.org or cyber1.org?

by legalize＠xmission.com

I've sent requests to join their mailing lists, which never get approved. I've tried to contact the owners directly, but never get a response. I suspect my email is being dumped into a spam folder. (I've been on the net so long and my email address has been so prominent, that spammers have often used my email address as the forged From address on their spam; as a result I've been placed on a bunch of filters and its hopeless to try and get removed from them, since they don't notify you that you've been put on a filter list.) Does anyone have any successful contact with these sites? <http://www.cray-cyber.org/general/start.php> <http://www.cyber1.org/> I've been trying to get in touch with them to get my PLATO terminals up and running. Thanks! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

16 years, 4 months

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Sun 3/80 colour card?

by silvercreekvalley＠yahoo.com

Looking for a colour card for a Sun 3/80 if anyone has one spare? Will pay or trade. Part numbers are 501-1443 or 501-1505 Thanks Ian.

16 years, 4 months

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washing floppies

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> On a related subject, have there ever been any non-contact (i.e. > flying head) tape drives brought to market? It looks like IBM filed a bunch of patents in the 70's on flying head helical tape http://www.google.com/patents?id=BZ4vAAAAEBAJ

16 years, 4 months

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Archiving 8" RT-11 floppies to CD-ROM?

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

Read the headers, It's 8" floppies and likely RX02. For that you must have a PDP11 (maybe uVAX) and RX02. David, I have an 11 with RX02. I can copy them to RX50 or RX33 that can be read on PCs. Allison > >Subject: RE: Archiving 8" RT-11 floppies to CD-ROM? > From: Ian King <IanK at vulcan.com> > Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 11:57:30 -0800 > To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >I've developed a procedure for this. It's a bit roundabout but it uses easily available tools. > >Tools needed: >- PDP-11 running RT-11, with an extra serial line (SLUx) >- DOS PC with a serial port >- PUTR program from John Wilson >- TU58 emulator, which I found through Will Kranz' website > >At a high level the process looks like this: > >Install TU58 per its README file. Copy the contents of the floppy onto the emulated TU58 using the COPY/DEVICE command in RT-11. Some versions will gripe at you about the fact that the floppy may be bigger than the tape. RT-11 v4 seems perfectly happy with that, and the TU58 program doesn't care. :-) IIRC there are prompts from RT-11 v5, but you can provide answers that will direct it to do the full copy anyway. > >Use PUTR to copy from that tape image onto... whatever you want! PUTR will let you manipulate the individual files and copy them into DOS directories if you so choose. By using COPY/DEVICE, you can preserve "bootability" of bootable disks, as well. > >I've used the reverse of this process to create physical floppies from disk images as well as to restore floppies after disk failures. Of course, if you want to burn either the images or the individual files onto a CDROM, you'll have to have the files on a machine that supports that device, has burner software, etc. But at that point, they're just files in a DOS filesystem. > >Cheers -- Ian > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk- >> bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jan-Benedict Glaw >> Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 11:37 AM >> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts >> Subject: Re: Archiving 8" RT-11 floppies to CD-ROM? >> >> On Tue, 2009-02-24 13:14:06 -0500, David Betz <dbetz at xlisper.com> >> wrote: >> > I have a friend who has a number (10-20) of 8" RT-11 floppies he >> wants >> > to archive to CD-ROM or some other modern media. Is there anyone in >> > the Boston area (he lives in Medway) who could help with this? I >> > believe these are RX01 media since I think they were created on a >> > PDT-11/150 that I gave away to someone a few years ago. Can anyone >> > here help? What would the fee be for such a service? >> >> I obviously cannot help, but it would be nice if, once it is done, >> describe the procedure for others. >> >> Backup is one thing, restoring the image another. A third thing would >> be to use that image on some simulator... >> >> MfG, JBG >> >> -- >> Jan-Benedict Glaw jbglaw at lug-owl.de +49-172- >> 7608481 >> Signature of: >> http://perl.plover.com/Questions.html >> the second : >

16 years, 4 months

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Why do the OOP Seller's use RFQ?

by shoppa＠trailing-edge.com

On Tuesday 24 February 2009, Jeff Walther wrote: > And how is it more profitable to them to let this stuff sit in > (costly) storage somewhere, rather than selling fifty pieces to > someone who could use them? IMHO: They do not have them sitting in storage. What they have is a small hand-run chip-labeling machine and a bunch of random chips. They grind off the original part numbers and label them to whatever you wanted to buy. And they have a website with a bunch of part numbers culled from various databases. Google "counterfeit chips" and "counterfeit transistors". Tim.

16 years, 4 months

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Powering up a 20-year old MicroVAX II (BA23/123 cables)

by tiggerlasv＠aim.com

On Monday, February 23rd, Charles H Dickman wrote: >> Robert Jarratt wrote: >> The harness in my system does not seem to match any of the descriptions I >> have seen so far. The wires are not equal in length, but it is not a ribbon >> cable with IDC connectors either. The connectors are black rather than >> white. The harness wires do not seem discoloured, but I believe that this >> particular system may have only had light use in its day. I have a picture >> of the harness but I am not sure if the rules of this list allow >> attachments. >> > The key point of your description is that the wires are not equal in > length. This COULD be a bad thing. On the BA23, the backplane and power supply connectors are at right-angles to each other, so the 5-volt (red) wires are shorter than the 12-volt (yellow) wires, as well as most of the grounds (black). The same is true on the BA123. As you can see in the ASCII art below, the 12v interconnect wires end up being longer than the 5V wires. This is normal. I have a side-by-side photo of the old style cables, as well as the FCO, however I don't have a convenient place to post it. If anyone wants it for reference, let me know. | 1 | 2 | V | | G | n | d | | 5 | V 5 V G n d 1 2 V _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ T

16 years, 4 months

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Nicolet 660

by slawmaster＠gmail.com

Hi everyone A kind list member in my area has offered me a Nicolet 660 computer free if I can haul it off, so I'm hoping to see if anyone else has any information about it. Luckily all the documentation seems to still be there so it's not a total mystery machine, but Google doesn't really offer any info on it. The Nicolet is a hip-high (3'?) cabinet that acts like a mini rack (units slide in and out on rails). The disk unit sits on top and has two SCSI 3.5" floppy drives and an SMD hard disk. Under that is the CPU unit, which has (as I recall) a start/stop button, a program1 button, a program2 button, and a power switch. There is a VGA monitor and an AT keyboard to go with it, both Nicolet branded. The OS is called NICOS and apparently is FORTH-based. It also includes floppies for FORTRAN, PASCAL, and BASIC. There is also a lot of software for data collection and processing, as this was once hooked up to lab equipment. Apparently the hard drive has died. Is it easy to get replacement SMD disks, or are there adapters that would let me plug in a SCSI drive or something more common? This seems to be a very unique piece of equipment that I would like to try to get working. Thanks! John Floren -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba

16 years, 4 months

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8088 vs. 80c88

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: 8088 vs. 80c88 > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 23:58:23 -0800 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On 22 Feb 2009 at 22:17, Allison wrote: > >> Your kidding tight? ;) >> >> JRT pascal was fairly buggy itself and it was till arond V3 that it stopped being >> noticalbly so. > >Buggy or not, the V20 wouldn't run it. Rich Naro verified the bug >and published a MicroNote on it. And JRT was comparatively popular >for the time. It boils down to the V20 not being able to run a >commercially available 8080 product because of a fault in the CPU. That may be true, bought it too but found it buggy on both 8085 and Z80 too. Why did I buy it, $29.95 and I even got a copy, some didn't! However using a buggy suite to prove a bug is weak even if it got lucky. That it had bugs, can't argue that. They could have just as easily given it the base uCOM78 instruction set instead. But how many V20s were bought to run 8080 rather than as a faster varient of the 8088? >Suppose a customer used an application written and deployed with JRT >Pascal. What do we tell him? "JRT Pascal--ho, ho, ha, you must be >kidding...." > >Nope, serious business. Who knows what other product could have used >the same coding technique? That's a regression testing issue. Generally getting functional code out of it was at best luck till later versions. >In a way, this was deja vu of a much earlier problem with the NEC >version of the 8080, where NEC left the carry bit unaffected after a >boolean operation, where Intel reset it. Considering that many 8080 >programs cleared the carry bit with something like "ORA A", do you >think that CP/M would have run with the old NEC chip? Yep, I as working for NEC then. What's also forgotton is Intel changed the spec to match there part as it was deemed fine that way. Since NEC was ground up from spec, oops. They also fixed it and copied many other subtle timing bugs as well. Sometimes you get it wrong and other times you don't. In the industry the number of second source flubs are legion.. remember the 8251,2651, and friends. FYI at the time CP/M did run with the old chip. Allison > >--Chuck

16 years, 4 months

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test-drb February 2009