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

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

Hi Sounds like capacitors. Alhough it's a switcher any high voltage/high value capacitors in the PSU might well need reforming. Quite often you will see caps with a pair if incised lines on top. This makes them go pop instead of bang. You would not want to see a PSU where they have gone bang. Rod Smallwood The DEC Collector -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Robert Jarratt Sent: 21 February 2009 19:17 To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: RE: Powering up a 20-year old MicroVAX II > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk- > bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Robert Jarratt > Sent: 20 February 2009 22:45 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Powering up a 20-year old MicroVAX II > > I have just collected a MicroVAX II which has been in storage and has > not been powered on for 20 years. This is my first machine of such an > age, unfortunately I am not particularly knowledgeable at the > electronics level (I studied circuits academically 25+ years ago and > can solder a bit, but that is as far as it goes). I know I will need > to treat it carefully in order to get it working again. I plan to open > it up and make sure I clear out any debris etc, but beyond that I need > advice from those with the experience and knowledge that I lack on how > to go about powering it up carefully. > > > > Thanks > > > > Rob After removing all the boards and leaving just the disk and tape drive for load I impetuously decided to try powering it up. I knew the PSU (model H7864) was set for 110V and made the switch to 240V (I am in the UK). When I connected the power cord, after a few moments there was a loud pop, followed by another before I could pull out the power cord, smoke rose from the PSU. This sounded just like when I had once accidentally made a 110/240 mix-up. The question is, could it be that I had not made the switch to 240 correctly, or could this just be down to the age of the PSU? Regards Rob

16 years, 4 months

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sun HD 'sledges'

by silvercreekvalley＠yahoo.com

Hi - does anyone have any spare Sun 'sledges' for the older pizza-box style Sparcstations? These are used to mount the hard-drives in the box. Thanks. Ian.

16 years, 4 months

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Powering up a 20-year old MicroVAX II

by doc＠mdrconsult.com

Robert Jarratt wrote: > After removing all the boards and leaving just the disk and tape drive for > load I impetuously decided to try powering it up. I knew the PSU (model > H7864) was set for 110V and made the switch to 240V (I am in the UK). When I > connected the power cord, after a few moments there was a loud pop, followed > by another before I could pull out the power cord, smoke rose from the PSU. > This sounded just like when I had once accidentally made a 110/240 mix-up. > > The question is, could it be that I had not made the switch to 240 > correctly, or could this just be down to the age of the PSU? I haven't been into a BA23 PSU, so this is a question, not a suggestion - does that PSU have a separate "jumper" plug for 50Hz/60Hz switch? I toasted an RA60 once by just flipping the visible switch from 240V to 110V, not knowing there was a separate physical setting to switch it >from 50Hz to 60Hz. The behavior as it burnt up was just like this. Doc

16 years, 4 months

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Electrolytics

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

Will writes: > So even though I was one of the first people on this list > to suggest reforming old capacitors, I have basically > completely reversed my view > on the issue. Now, if the machine is not super old, I will > just pretty much plug in the machine and let it power up. > Even if something does fail, most of the machines I > deal with have enough built in protection > that they will just shut down safely. Some of us do the opposite of using a variac to reform caps - we use a variac to stress-test the components at above the rated voltage. If they blow up now, that's better than them blowing up later. We always called this "margining". I suppose it depends on attitude. To some people a KA630 in a BA123 is a holy shrine to be babied all the way back to restoration. Which I find odd, because there isn't that much that's actually restorable. I mean, 20 years ago I was fixing rubber bumpers in RD53, but who today wants to go through that much work for 70 Mbytes of really slow storage? Maybe I just hate all those stupid MFM drives too much. Tim.

16 years, 4 months

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Electrolytics

by jgessling＠yahoo.com

> We always called this "margining". Years ago, I had read a book about the Whirlwind computer developed at MIT. In that book was the claim that margining had been invented during that project, the idea being to increase the voltage and make the weak tubes fail so that overall reliability would be improved after they were replaced. I've wondered if that's really true or was the technique in common practice and it just became formallized at that time and entered into historical lore. Of course Whirlwind was also important for other developments like core memory and employing a young grad student by the name of Ken Olson. BTW, I think the book was: Project Whirlwind: History of a Pioneer Computer by Kent C. Redmond, Thomas M. Smith Digital Press, 1980. Definitely a good read, alas, my copy is miles away. Regards, Jim

16 years, 4 months

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AAARRGGGHHHH ... people still stealing my work

by evan＠snarc.net

This was an issue a couple of years ago. Now it's back: the 10,000-word article that I published on my personal web site in 2005 (and since took down) is reprint IN FULL at http://www.iranianpda.com/iPDADB/FAQs/PDAHistory/ThehistoryofPDAs.htm, obviously without my permission. Whatever moron did this even included my disclaimer saying not to steal my work!!! Here are two other examples: Big yellow chart 1/3 down the page: http://um_pxgt_6103.seedwiki.com/wiki/um_pxgt_6103/pda_-_discuss?wikiPageId= 237424 Timeline 1/4 down the page: http://pdaforum.ladoshki.com/viewtopic.php?t=20027 <http://pdaforum.ladoshki.com/viewtopic.php?t=20027&postdays=0&postorder=asc &start=5&sid=772e87081af243f1c20a6cc14bb989ce> &postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=5&sid=772e87081af243f1c20a6cc14bb989ce Can anyone help?

16 years, 4 months

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Why Do the OOP Seller's Use RFQ?;Was: Source for bipolar PROMs?

by trag＠io.com

> Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:03:22 -0500 (EST) > From: Steven Hirsch <snhirsch at gmail.com> > 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. Does anyone know why those businesses operate that way? Why not just post a price list? A line item on their RFQs is always "Target Price". Well, honestly, my target price is 0, of course. I know I won't hit it, but that's what I'd like. I'm certainly not interested in telling them there is a floor to the price they can offer me. 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? I've been hunting WD92C32 for a long while and they all seem to be in the hands of *those* people. About once a year I do another search, and the quantity available listings never change. There's plenty of them out there, doing nothing, but try getting your hands on any for less than $5 each. The total value of the thing I want to build is probably $15 so spending $5 on one component is ridiculous. Jeff Walther

16 years, 4 months

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RL02's And RL01 Offered Baltimore Maryland

by fsmith＠ladylinux.com

Hi, I have two nice RL02's and a RL01 I am offering either for trade or whatever to whom ever wants to stop by and pick these up. They were part of a E-Pay lot I bought over a year ago and were working when deinstalled. I am looking for a later BA23 case with skins (Hopefully) so I can build my frankenpdp with or anything else including good beer you want to offer. I had to haul them here and store them so something must be offered but I am not asking for much. No shipping as they just are too big. More stuff is coming to be offered up as I have discovered a old love with vintage audio equipment and some of my Dec "Projects" have to be put into the hands of people who will actually use them. -- Kindest Regards, "No Problems Only Solutions" L.B. Network Consultants LLC. Baltimore, Maryland

16 years, 4 months

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VCF's this year

by rborsuk＠colourfull.com

Hi All, Has there been any dates for VCF's this year? Rob Rob Borsuk email: rborsuk at colourfull.com Colourfull Creations Web: http://www.colourfull.com

16 years, 4 months

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Central Point Option Boards available

by trixter＠oldskool.org

I've seen a smattering of interest around Option Boards in this list every few months, so I thought I'd mention that my last two option boards are now up for auction, an older CopyIIPC Option Board and a Deluxe Option Board: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110355365098 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110355371748 I set the starting prices at about half what I've seen them go for in the past (and that was for loose boards). -- 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

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8088 vs. 80c88

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: 8088 vs. 80c88 > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 03:29:14 -0800 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On 23 Feb 2009 at 18:36, Allison wrote: > >> 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? > >To be certain, almost all of the publications that I saw touting the >V-series chip emphasized the performace aspect. Few even mentioned >the 8080 emulation mode. I was surprised to see emulation extend to >the V40 and V50 uPs. > >And almost none mentioned that the V20 implemented many of the 80186 >and some of the 80286 instructions. > There was that too. >I've heard reports where the V20 doesn't work as a drop-in >replacement for an 8080. Must be just enough timing difference that >one works and the other doesn't. > True also. the original IBM PC didn't run it, as well as any cpu other than intel. Seems there was a minor timing issue that the intel part tolerent of but no one elses would work.. rumor was it was deliberate. But most of the 8088 designs were not well cooked and werern't so reliable. Allison >Cheers, >Chuck

16 years, 4 months

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8088 vs. 80c88

by les＠frii.com

1) I can attest that the V20 runs cp/m80 (2.2), wordstar, word master, asm, mac, load, ddt, collasal cave adventure, logicalc. I just verified these things yesterday. 2) Here's the one with JRT Pascal (IIRC): LXI SP,LABELX CALL LABELX LABELX: ... Does the 8080 decrement the sp before it pushes the return address, or after. If its after, that code would of course not work. I can't remember which order that happens in, although I suspect that it decrements before pushing. Another possibility (seems more likely) is that the loading of the stack pointer is not finished before the next instruction is executed. I am trying to remember which register was used for the sp in the emulation mode. (I think it may be BP????) In this case, as long as some instruction gets executed between lxi sp,xxxx and the first push/pop/call, it may not show up. In any case, this seems like a rare issue, as most programs (thats a big undefensable statement) would set the sp when they start, and then leave it alone. Related, I found a bug in Spellstar for DOS. It worked fine on an 8088 or 80286, but crashed on a 386 (it could have been a 486). Here is what the code did: 100 mov dx, address of routine to jump to 103 mov [121],dx .. .. .. .. .. 120 jmp 0000 This little piece of self modifying code worked great until the instruction queue in the cpu became large enough that the jump instruction was already in the pipeline before it was modified with the desired address. I was able to fix this with a jmp dx instruction, but compilers do generate odd code sometimes. The question becomes, did the 386 have a bug, or is this just a software issue? Les

16 years, 4 months

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VAX cables for the cost of postage

by pcoghlan+cctech＠vms.eurokom.ie

> >> A weird DEC cable, DB25 male on one end, and what I think is QBus >> female on the other (3 rows of pins, 17/16/17 - DB50?). I'm guessing >> this will be a huge score to someone, just not sure what it goes >> with. :) > >I'm not sure how fair it is to call a DD50 "Qbus", since Qbus is a >card-edge connector bus. > The Qbus sockets on the back of my Vax 4000-100A are DD50 so I guess DD50 connectors are used on Qbus cables for at least some applications? > >>But this might be a SCSI cable; I've seen both DB25 and DD50 used for >>SCSI (D-shell SCSI in my experience always uses male connectors on the >>cables, but my experience with DD50 SCSI is pretty much limited to >>Suns). It might be useful to buzz it out.... >> > It sounds to me like a V.24 adapter cable for something like a DEMSA X.25 router and various other DEC synchronous serial items. This would seem to be a BC19D-02 from what I can find. Is there a part number stamped on it? See http://www.islandco.com/cables.html#bc19d Regards, Peter.

16 years, 4 months

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Dumping MCM6832 PROMs

by derschjo＠mail.msu.edu

Anyone out there have the capability to dump Motorola 6832 PROMs? I'd like to dump the rom sets from my Tek 4051 (and expansion packs) for some reverse-engineering but I don't currently have any means to do it. (Can't use the Tek to do it since the system software is BASIC only and has no low-level memory access functionality.) Ultimately I'd like to be able to build a custom expansion ROM pack with my own code on it, and eventually write a 4051 emulation. (And of course if anyone out there's already dumped this stuff, I'd love to get a copy...) Thanks, Josh

16 years, 4 months

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Powering up a 20-year old MicroVAX II

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

They can often go down internally without the top going. Some have vents that end up next to the PCB. I did four years in a high voltage test lab. And..... Yes they do pop and they can explode! Rod Smallwood -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Gordon JC Pearce Sent: 23 February 2009 10:25 To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Powering up a 20-year old MicroVAX II Rod Smallwood wrote: > Hi > Sounds like capacitors. > Alhough it's a switcher any high voltage/high value capacitors in the > PSU might well need reforming. > Quite often you will see caps with a pair if incised lines on top. > This makes them go pop instead of bang. > You would not want to see a PSU where they have gone bang. This is the only popped electrolytic I have ever seen, in damn near 30 years of fiddling with electronic stuff: http://www.gjcp.net/~gordonjcp/blowncap.jpg Gordon

16 years, 4 months

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Can someone help me identify this IBM machine?

by mwichary＠gmail.com

I spent 20 minutes on Google without much luck: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mwichary/3300685689/ It seems like a calculator. Thanks in advance! -- Marcin Wichary Sr. user experience designer, Google Graphical User Interface gallery >> www.guidebookgallery.org

16 years, 4 months

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Electrolytics

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

>>> I have to say, for all the talk of failing caps in power supplies >>> I've only ever seen one electrolytic cap fail *ever*, and that was >>> last week in a one-year-old graphics card that has hardly ever been >>> powered off... >> >> > Gordon, you don't mention how many caps you've looked at or tested, or > how you've done so, but I encounter them constantly. Not so much in > the 1980's vintage DEC equipment YET, but it's no myth that AEC's are > electrochemical vats that have a lifespan. The lifespan varies widely > depending on many factors, heat being the big one. My gut feeling is that electrolytics got a lot lot better in the 70's compared to earlier generations. It's not just that they're 20 years newer than the ones from the 50's, they really were better quality to begin with. I work on old radios and it's pretty much a given that any set has electrolytics in need of replacement. If the set was used for a while, in fact some lytics were probably already replaced in the 50's or 60's, and maybe the replacement needs replacement today. "Failed" is a relative term... it's easy to find electrolytics leaky enough that they no longer meet their original spec, or leaky enough that they get warm. But the set still works. Other times they literally explode, or they cause other components in the circle to fail catastrophically... my experience is that switching supplies are far more sensitive to out of spec ESR's in electrolytics than any old radio ever was. Tim.

16 years, 4 months

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servicing terminals/monitors

by slawmaster＠gmail.com

I've got a quick question about power safety here. My ADM-3A has needed fiddling for a while, since what I believe is the flyback is making a very high-pitched whine that gives me a splitting headache and makes it hard to see straight after 5 minutes. I want to take a poke around, make sure everything is connected firmly, make sure none of the components are visibly bad, that kind of thing. How long does it take an unplugged CRT to discharge? This hasn't been plugged in for over a month, so I figure it's probably safe right now, but if I test it and then want to check something else, how long do I need to leave it sit? Is there a safe way to discharge a CRT when you're working on it in the living room? I'm a little leery of just shorting connections with a screwdriver randomly, although that's almost exactly what I did the first time I worked with a CRT :) (it was 5th grade, and I had just had it on, unplugged it, opened it, and started poking around with wires. BIG SNAP) Thanks 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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Powering up a 20-year old MicroVAX II

by js＠cimmeri.com

-----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk- > bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Robert Jarratt > Sent: 20 February 2009 22:45 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Powering up a 20-year old MicroVAX II > > I have just collected a MicroVAX II which has been in storage and has > not > been powered on for 20 years. This is my first machine of such an age, > unfortunately I am not particularly knowledgeable at the electronics > level > (I studied circuits academically 25+ years ago and can solder a bit, > but > that is as far as it goes). I know I will need to treat it carefully in > order to get it working again. I plan to open it up and make sure I > clear > out any debris etc, but beyond that I need advice from those with the > experience and knowledge that I lack on how to go about powering it up > carefully. > Thanks Rob > After removing all the boards and leaving just the disk and tape drive for load I impetuously decided to try powering it up. I knew the PSU (model H7864) was set for 110V and made the switch to 240V (I am in the UK). When I connected the power cord, after a few moments there was a loud pop, followed by another before I could pull out the power cord, smoke rose from the PSU. This sounded just like when I had once accidentally made a 110/240 mix-up. The question is, could it be that I had not made the switch to 240 correctly, or could this just be down to the age of the PSU? ---- *Rob, possibly you made the 110/240 switch wrong, but also possible is that the PSU just wasn't ready to be turned on like that. Electrolytic Capacitors (of which there are many in that PSU) tend towards non-functionality the longer they sit unused. Without those caps working right, the PSU will do pops, smokes, and other alarming things. Then good luck fixing it. What I do with an old PSU like that is test each cap prior to it ever being powered up.. both for capacitance and ESR. Usually, some or all of the caps need reforming or even replacement. Only after the caps are back to health, do I then give the PSU power... at first with the smallest load I can get away with. If it's a switcher PSU (as that one is), I'll bring it up quickly to about 90V using a variac... then in 5V increments every 1/2 hr after that to 130V, then back down to 120V. This in the USA. jS *

16 years, 4 months

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TransEra documentation

by aek＠bitsavers.org

Going through my Tek 405x stuff, I realized I hadn't uploaded anything >from TransEra, who was a third party supplier of firmware. http://bitsavers.org/pdf/transEra

16 years, 4 months

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Powering up a 20-year old MicroVAX II

by chd_1＠nktelco.net

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. I have a BA23 chassis that had a melted power supply connector. The connectors were AMP MTA .156 IDC connectors with individual wires. The connector housings were Yellow. The failure point was the connection between the harness and the power supply pin. As Allison describes, the problem is that there was an unequal distribution of current between shared pins. I replaced the harness with one that I made myself using high current box connection pins... with equal length wires. There is a field service notice that describes the problem and even mentions the color of the connectors. I remember reading it and saying to myself that was my chassis. I just can't remember where... -chuck

16 years, 4 months

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AAARRGGGHHHH ... people still stealing my work

by evan＠snarc.net

>>> Else something more wordy and crafted in legalese, rather than a plea. I hate legalese. I was trying to be nice. :)

16 years, 4 months

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Advice for Tek 4051 vector-drawing issue?

by derschjo＠mail.msu.edu

Inherited a Tektronix 4051 this afternoon (really, really cool old machine - 6800 CPU, vector storage-tube display) and after cleaning it out and reseating the socketed chips it appears to work almost correctly. (Even the tape drive works after cleaning the head... amazed that the pinch roller hasn't turned to goo.) The one issue is that "long" vectors do not get drawn as straight lines -- they end up curving in the direction of the destination. I've taken a photo to demonstrate: http://yahozna.dyndns.org/computers/tek4051/unvector.jpg The above is _supposed_ to be drawing a line from 0,0 to 100,100 and back, but as you can see, it's not really doing a very good job. Short vectors seem to draw OK, as do perfectly vertical and horizontal ones. Text gets drawn fine. I have the schematics but I've never dealt with a vector-based display before (only other vector display I have is in my Vectrex, and I haven't had to tweak that one yet.) Any ideas where to start? I figure the D/A converters on the CPU board are working correctly since text positioning works, and the endpoints of the vectors seem to be correct. Bitsavers has the schematics at: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/tektronix/405x/070-2286-00_4051_Service_Vol2_M…, (see page 92 for the start of the display schematics.) And a higher-level overview of the functionality at: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/tektronix/405x/070-2065-00_4051_Service_Vol1_M… (See page 147 for the start of the display overview.) Thanks! Josh

16 years, 4 months

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Powering up a 20-year old MicroVAX II

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

> > > *Rob, possibly you made the 110/240 switch wrong, but also possible is > > that the PSU just wasn't ready to be turned on like that. > > Electrolytic > > Capacitors (of which there are many in that PSU) tend towards > > non-functionality the longer they sit unused. Without those caps > > working right, the PSU will do pops, smokes, and other alarming things. > > Then good luck fixing it. > > Do you mean that it will be difficult to fix, even if I can find someone who > really knows what they are doing? It might be. It depends on just what's failed. In SMPSUs (Switch Mode Power SUpply Units), one component failure can wreck other components too (ecven to the extent of multing PCB tracks) and if you don't find _all_ the failed partsm, but juet replace some of them and turn it on again the same thing can happen again. > > > > > What I do with an old PSU like that is test each cap prior to it ever > > being powered up.. both for capacitance and ESR. Usually, some or all > > of the caps need reforming or even replacement. Only after the caps > > are back to health, do I then give the PSU power... at first with the > > smallest load I can get away with. > > I only have a basic multimeter so I don't know if I would have had the > necessary equipment to do this, do you have any advice on the minimum > equipment needed? Now that there has been some damage is it sensible to You need a multimeter, certainly. An ESR meter is very useful too (this measured the effective series resistance of a capacitor, basically the higher the value the worse the capacitor is). A good 'scope is handy, and if you want to owrk on the primary side of the PSU when it's running, or examine waveforms there, you need a mains isolating transformer. And the 'series light ulb' (a mains-rated lightbulf, or 2 in series, conencted in series with the DC supply to the chopper circuit to limit the current in the event of a catastrophic failure) will save your nerves and possibly some expensive components [1]. But very important is a _brain_ :-) [1] THe fact that mains-rated light bulbs are getting hard to get thanks to the governemnt does not help here! > replace the blown capacitors and any other ones that don't measure well? > > > > > If it's a switcher PSU (as that one is), I'll bring it up quickly to > > about 90V using a variac... then in 5V increments every 1/2 hr after > > that to 130V, then back down to 120V. This in the USA. > > I looked up variacs but there seem to be an awful lot of different ones, > again any recommendation as to the minimum I would need? I would recomend against using a Variac on an SMPSU unless yoy really know what tyou are doing. An SMPSU is a fairly good aproximation to a contant _power_ load, in other word the input current increases as the input voltage decreases. Some SMPSUs can actually be damaged by running them at too low an input voltage, while plenty of other types do strange things. > By the way, I am aware that PSUs can be very dangerous to meddle with when > you have limited knowledge. How long should I leave the PSU between any Indeed. Mains, and the rectified mains you find in SMPSUs, is probably the most danagerous voltage you're going to come across. > tests to allow the capacitors to discharge? The label on the PSU says to > leave it 5 minutes, I suspect it should be longer. It's impossible to say. A good electrolytic capacitor with nothing connected to it will hold the charge for quite a time. Of course when the supply is working, the chopper circuit tends to discharge the mains smoothing capacitors, so the charge won't remain for very long. And many supplies have bleeder resistors (resistors connected in parallel with the mains smoothing capacitors) to discharge them. But of course those could fail too. What I do is open up the supply carefully and then measure the voltage across the mains smoothing capacitors (sometiems, as in the case of the HP9845 and DEC PDP11/44 supplies there are clear testpoints to do this). If it's more htan a few volts, I carefully connect a suitable resistor (a few 10's of kilohms) across the capacitors to discharge them. -tony

16 years, 4 months

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Advice for Tek 4051 vector-drawing issue?

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> I'm looking into whether if it's possible to adapt one of the "backpack" > expansions to take EPROMs instead of MCM6832 ROMs. Later modules used EPROMs. I've put everything I had dumped up under http://bitsavers.org/bits/Tektronix/405x along with scans of the binary loader and real time clock pcbs.

16 years, 4 months

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GPIB cards [WAS: Re: Advice for Tek 4051 vector-drawing issue?]

by devonstopps＠gmail.com

Speaking of GPIB cards, if anyone needs an ISA GPIB interface card, let me know. They're usually NI AT-GPIB/TNT+ cards. We usually toss a few every couple of months. For the cost of shipping (about $15CAD to almost anywhere). Also have Sun Ultra10 and Ultra5 free for pickup in Kingston, ON. On Sun, 22 Feb 2009, Josh Dersch wrote: > > Richard wrote: >> >> I guess the best way to get data transferred from these systems is to >> >> use the GPIB interface and transfer the programs out of the system and >> >> into the internet. I wonder if the easiest would be to use a >> >> Commodore GPIB compatable floppy drive or something.

16 years, 4 months

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Can someone help me identify this IBM machine?

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> So the other pictures in that bunch implies that most (all?) of the > stuff formerly at the museum is now at the offsite warehouse? The space which was formerly large and small storage in Mountain View has been packed and moved offsite to make room for an exhibit which is in development that will take up much of the first floor. This also helped the efforts to get the collection cataloged. Exhibits in the front of house are still there.

16 years, 4 months

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Randy Cook, TRSDOS, and Datapoint

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> Can anybody here compare the two and find threads of similarity? Gordon P. seems like the guy to ask..

16 years, 4 months

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8088 vs. 80c88

by les＠frii.com

I just thought of another intersting example. The version of adventure I used to play (550 point Geotz B01) behaved differently on a Z80 and a 8080. Something happened at the beginning of the game on a Z80 (It asked for your name, or have a version message, or something) which did not happen on an 8080/85. With that exception, it worked fine on either processor. That allways struck me as odd, and became my test for what processor was in a system. Les

16 years, 4 months

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Can someone help me identify this IBM machine?

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> Where is this thing? Do you know if there is any more of it left? At CHM. Apparently one of our volunteers went into storage while the artifacts were still in Mtn View and got creative with his camera. The 610 console was all that was donated.

16 years, 4 months

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AAARRGGGHHHH ... people still stealing my work

by evan＠snarc.net

>>> I only questioned the expectation of licensing and control given the original distribution medium and terms As far as the owner and creator am concerned, the original terms were: "This is cost-free to read and to quote for fair use, and I reserve the right to change these terms by making an announcement." "Fair use" doesn't mean "make available wholesale to the world" ... that's one of the (few!) things I think the courts got right about file sharing, for example. Later, I removed it from my site and announced about it.

16 years, 4 months

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Powering up a 20-year old MicroVAX II

by js＠cimmeri.com

Message: 20 Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 17:58:50 -0000 From: "Robert Jarratt" <robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com> Subject: RE: Powering up a 20-year old MicroVAX II <<Do you mean that it will be difficult to fix, even if I can find someone who really knows what they are doing?>> *Yes, it'll be difficult (but not impossible) to fix. You're probably better off finding another working one. Or trying to find an electronics buff.* <<I only have a basic multimeter so I don't know if I would have had the necessary equipment to do this, do you have any advice on the minimum equipment needed?>> *You don't have the necessary equip. And, No, I don't, because teaching you how to be an electronics technician is a whole other subject and beyond my means. * << Now that there has been some damage is it sensible to replace the blown capacitors and any other ones that don't measure well?>> *Not for you to replace them, no. It needs knowledgeable attention at this point.* << I looked up variacs but there seem to be an awful lot of different ones, again any recommendation as to the minimum I would need?>> *You choose them according to your voltage and amperage needs. I use a 5 amp one for small electronics and computers, 10 amp for larger computers (like my own Microvax). Again, though, unless you already know what you're doing with one, please take the time to learn prior to blowing stuff up. * <<By the way, I am aware that PSUs can be very dangerous to meddle with when you have limited knowledge.>> * Yep! They remain dangerous even when you have knowledge. * << How long should I leave the PSU between any tests to allow the capacitors to discharge? The label on the PSU says to leave it 5 minutes, I suspect it should be longer.>> *Honestly? Don't use time as a safetly measure. Assume the caps are always fully charged. Then test them and discharge them if needed. Again, because you don't know this, you need to get the knowledge or let someone else handle it before meddling with the PSU. Proceed carefully.* On Feb 22, 2009, at 3:33 PM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > >> I have to say, for all the talk of failing caps in power supplies >> I've only ever seen one electrolytic cap fail *ever*, and that was >> last week in a one-year-old graphics card that has hardly ever been >> powered off... > > Gordon, you don't mention how many caps you've looked at or tested, or how you've done so, but I encounter them constantly. Not so much in the 1980's vintage DEC equipment YET, but it's no myth that AEC's are electrochemical vats that have a lifespan. The lifespan varies widely depending on many factors, heat being the big one. jS

16 years, 4 months

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AAARRGGGHHHH ... people still stealing my work

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

Jim writes: > If this were a commercial work then I would obviously see it > differently. Not evaluating it from a commercial sense, but from an academic sense, Evan's work (not just the web page but all the effort and research and deep context behind it) puts it at the top 1% of anything I've ever seen done in the "history of technology" realm. It's far more than a picture of a bunch of old stuff, and it's far more than just scans of old documents. It's truly original work of top-notch caliber. I believe that in a world that is dominated so heavily by the current winners in brand-names that having a deep look at the outfits that may not be current commercial players (but whose ideas did eventually win) is very important. How such deep looks might become commercial ventures of their own... harder for me to say. There's clearly lawsuits flying back and forth about technology where examples of prior art or experts in prior art have value. And there's clearly coffee table books. But there are probably ways to succeed that I've never thought of. Tim.

16 years, 4 months

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More on early laser printers...

by kahrs＠caip.rutgers.edu

Given the close connection between Wirth and PARC, perhaps it would be useful to examine the Alto SLOT card? Together with Alto microcode, this drove a very early Xerox printer. (Personal bias: The Alto microtasking is SUCH a clever idea... The SLOT ran fairly high as I recall in the tasking priority...)

16 years, 4 months

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AAARRGGGHHHH ... people still stealing my work

by evan＠snarc.net

>>> if it's something you're going to make commercial, stop giving it away for free. I did stop. This is legacy infringement. :) Also: big thanks to everyone for the genuinely helpful replies. I really appreciate it.

16 years, 4 months

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VCF's this year

by evan＠snarc.net

>>> VCF East 6.0 is Sept. 12-13. > Is this going to be held in the same location as last year? Yes. InfoAge Science Center, Wall, N.J. Did you go last year? Every year we make a little more progress on the "nice-ification" of our buildings and grounds. Recently we got central HVAC for the computer museum wing.

16 years, 4 months

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AAARRGGGHHHH ... people still stealing my work

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

I think it's pretty much a given that anything that hits the web may appear days or months or years later in some form, either an exact mirror or hacked up and without attribution to original sources. I'm pretty sure that what you see was not actually cloned and included by an actual person but by some sort of web-mirror-bot whose purpose is to drive search engines to a site to rack up some clicks and earn some bucks. I've seen some of the stuff that I've written or synthesized get translated, garbled, or even quoted by patent examiners. (The patent examiner thing is weird... what he quoted from my Usenet post has absolutely no applicability to the actual patent. But my words are somehow backing him up even though I actually disagree.) Maybe my years in academia have twisted me, because I still strongly feel that any citation (even cloning or mangling) is in some way a form a citation that will somehow help me get my next job even though that hasn't been true for a long time. I think it's also true that sometimes we get too wrapped up in what we ourselves have done, and sometimes can lose track of the big picture of the larger classic computer community, some of which is not so able at writing or running websites or giving attribution where it is legally needed or just morally deserved. Certainly you are at the top 1 percent at coming up with original work on the subject and making it available; the top 10 percent is good at taking pictures of their stuff and putting it on the web; the rest of us are just sort of plowing through the research others have done. Just being at the top of the heap makes web-cloning inevitable, and I think you should take it as a compliment. And even more... I think that we often forget that the web is "just the web" and someday will seem minor and inconsequential compared to whatever new technology comes down the pike. If you've ever heard the BBC's production of the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy I'm trying to intone in the same voice as Deep Thought when he tells everyone that his work is truly minor compared to the work that will have to be done by the computer that actually computes The Question. Really we're pretty minor compared to The Ancients (the ones that actually constructed the classic computers) and compared to The Future (the ways in which the web will be superseded by something we can't even imagine.) I'm sometimes surprised that the web has been around as long as it has and still is kicking along so well and dominately. I think that someday some little guy in some obscure corner will come up with the next wave, and it won't look AT ALL like Web 2.0 or "The Cloud" or anything that is getting money today. Tim.

16 years, 4 months

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AAARRGGGHHHH ... people still stealing my work

by evan＠snarc.net

>>> I do find myself wondering had been on http://israelipda.com with all the supporting text in Hebrew, if there would have been such a screaming about it ;-) Very funny ... you should see the debates I have with Sellam ... It's not enough that my opinions are mainstream American "left"; he wants extreme. :)

16 years, 4 months

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8088 vs. 80c88

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: 8088 vs. 80c88 > From: "bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca" <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> > Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 18:54:49 -0700 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Chuck Guzis wrote: >> On 21 Feb 2009 at 15:09, Les Hildenbrandt wrote: >> >>>> The problem with the V20's 8080 emulation was that it was buggy (I >>>> have a few MicroNotes on the subject and can even claim to have >>>> discovered one of the bugs). >>> I wonder if it was only cetain chips. I ran cp/m 80 on a v20 for years. I also ran it on V20 inserted in the Leading Edge model D, not only did it help dos level stuff by a few percent it ran every thing 8080 I'd thrown at it. >> Try running a program in CP/M with JRT Pascal 1.0 on a V20. CPU bugs >> can be very subtle. Your kidding tight? ;) JRT pascal was fairly buggy itself and it was till arond V3 that it stopped being noticalbly so. Allison >Well what are the bugs? > >> Cheers, >> Chuck >> >>

16 years, 4 months

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8088 vs. 80c88

by les＠hildenbrandt.com

> The problem with the V20's 8080 emulation was that it was buggy (I > have a few MicroNotes on the subject and can even claim to have > discovered one of the bugs). I wonder if it was only cetain chips. I ran cp/m 80 on a v20 for years.

16 years, 4 months

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Wanted: DEC Computer Lab manuals

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

Hi, All, I was one of the ones lucky enough to get one of the DEC Computer Labs on ePay last month. Mine finally showed up, and after a quick inspection, I'm ready to make some cables and hook up some circuits. Somewhere, I do have the teacher's manual. It was given to me nearly 30 years ago, a thoughtful gift from my step-dad's mother who was the local high school chem teacher. I haven't seen my copy in years, and I'm worried it was one of the things I lost in a basement flood in the 1980s. I did a google search and a look through bitsavers and didn't see anything to download, but I did see that this topic has come up on the list before. There was a call for scanning the docs some time back (6 years ago?) but no posting of where said scans might be. Also, there are Phillip's pictures of the cables on grid paper, so they look like pretty ordinary crimp pins, but I'm having to guess at the nominal diameter... 3mm? From the cover of the student manual, it looks like there are 25-ish of the shortest (brown) jumpers, and fewer of each longer length, but if anyone has a documented count of the number of each length of jumper wire, that'd be really nice to know. So are there scans of the student and teacher's manuals for the Computer Lab anywhere, and does anyone have a list (including in one of the manuals) of the normal inventory of jumper leads? Oh... one more thing... does anyone have any idea which bi-pin bulbs DEC used on this? I didn 't tear mine apart far enough tonight to get bulb details. Thanks, -ethan

16 years, 4 months

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PDP 11/35 EIS option

by silvercreekvalley＠yahoo.com

Hi, Does anyone have a KE11-E (or KE11-F for that matter) available. This is a UNIBUS board for the PDP 11/35 or 11/40 which provides the extended instruction set. Part number is M7238 Thanks Ian.

16 years, 4 months

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Powering up a 20-year old MicroVAX II

by gordonjcp＠gjcp.net

Robert Jarratt wrote: > The question is, could it be that I had not made the switch to 240 > correctly, or could this just be down to the age of the PSU? > Mains filter cap. Gordon

16 years, 4 months

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Canon LPB-10 info sought.

by jos.mar＠bluewin.ch

I am looking for info on this very early (1979) laserprinter. In particular I need to know the electrical and software interface. Jos

16 years, 4 months

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Searching for Disassembly pods for Tek 1230 Logic Analyzer

by ragooman＠comcast.net

Just wondering if anyone might know of any Disassembly pods for a Tek 1230 Logic Analyzer lying around somewhere. I keep searching the usual places online--but maybe someone knows a better place. I'm currently using the 6502 Disassembly pod and 48 channels, I like to try and get the Z80 pod or others if available. thanks =Dan -- [ = http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/ ]

16 years, 4 months

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Powering up a 20-year old MicroVAX II

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

> After removing all the boards and leaving just the disk and tape drive for > load I impetuously decided to try powering it up. I knew the PSU (model Personally, I'd not have used a disk drive (presumably a winchester-type hard disk) as a dummy load. If might well contain interesting software. But anywy, I would be very suprised if anything on the output side of the PSU has been damaged, > H7864) was set for 110V and made the switch to 240V (I am in the UK). When I > connected the power cord, after a few moments there was a loud pop, followed > by another before I could pull out the power cord, smoke rose from the PSU. > This sounded just like when I had once accidentally made a 110/240 mix-up. > > The question is, could it be that I had not made the switch to 240 > correctly, or could this just be down to the age of the PSU? I don't know the MicroVAX PSU that well (another list member wants me to dig mine out, take it apart and work out how to repair said PSU...) but my experience of DEC hardware is that if there's an obvious external voltage selector switch, that's all that needs to be changed. If there isn't (at least on older machines) there may be one or more sets of terminals inside to rewire. But I've never seen both. Of course on large systems there may be voltage selectors for each sub-unit (CPU, expansion box, drives, etc), but the Microvax II is in one cainet with one PSU. My guess is that it was just bad luck. Something in the PSU decided to fail. The next thign to do is to open up that PSU and see what has failed. Often it'll e obvious now. Look for burnt reisstors, exploded capacitors, blown PCB tracks, etc. -tony

16 years, 4 months

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CiscoPro 761 ISDN router

by lproven＠gmail.com

Standalone ISDN to Ethernet router. Like a modern ADSL one, but this is for digital dialup. Handy for a relative with no ADSL coverage, perhaps? Bare unit - no PSU. Offered for free to anyone who will pay postage or can collect. -- 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

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Powering up a 20-year old MicroVAX II

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: RE: Powering up a 20-year old MicroVAX II > From: <arcarlini at iee.org> > Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 22:04:43 +0000 > To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: >> IMHO the most important thing to do after checking for >> obvious problems >> -- loose parts, evidence of overheating/burning, etc, is to test the >> power supply (PSU) on a dummy load. A defective PSU could >> wipe out every >> chip in the machine!. > >In addition, pay particular attention to the PSU wiring harness. > >The early rev of harness on (iirc) the BA23 had a habit of >catching light. I think it was slightly underrated for the >maximum power load and so would deteriorate over time. It >would eventually reach the point where one of the N conductors >would fail, leaving N-1 carrying way too much load and smoke >ensued. > Correct the worng harness has unequal length wires and the correct one has equal length wires. The harness in question goes from the Backplane to the PS. The problem is with unequal length wires the connectors were sharing the load unequaly and the connecotr would overheat and fail sequentially. It was more of a problem on highly loaded boxes. >Field service were (again, iirc) supposed to swap these out if >they came across them. But if your machine has truly not been used >for twenty years, it ended up in storage relatively eraly in its >life and so may not have had a chance for some FS TLC. 20 years is maybe on the wire. It may have been already replaced. > >A little bit of googling should find you the relevant details >(or you could wait for the next post which will no doubt be >from someone with much better memory than me :-)). > >The only other thing I would add to Tony's post is that once >you think it isn't going to fry your boards (or burst into flames) >then you only need the CPU and one memory board in. Then you hook >up a terminal to the console (9600-8-N), set the switch properly >and check that you get some kind of life on the console. It doesnt bust into flames, it can overheat to the extent of destroying the connectors and smoke some. In this day and age cookingthe backplane connector is a real pain as spares are getting scarce. Allison >At that point you can start to add the remaining boards (checking >that Qbus grant continuity is OK as you go) and build your system >back up again. > >There are plenty of docs you can track down on Manx >(http:://vt100.net/manx). >You can google for the various Micronotes too, some of them are relevant >to the MicroVAX, others to the Qbus, and all of them are interesting >background reading. > >Antonio >arcarlini at iee.org > >

16 years, 4 months

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WTS: AT&T 3B1 Olivetti branded with manuals and DEC Vaxstation 2000 storage box.

by hp-fix＠xs4all.nl

I'm concentrating my collection on HP, so before I put it on epay: I want to sell or trade my working AT&T 3B1 Unix PC this one is co-branded with the Olivetti logo. I'm selling it together with 5 manuals and the original installation software (only disk two diagdisk is missing) The 3B1 is equiped with the DOS73 Co-processor board. Also I'm selling a VaxStation 2000 storage box inside is disc but I won't spin when power was applied. This could be a jumper issue but I sell it as non working. Photo's can be found at flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/35618294 at N03/ Please contact me off-list . -Rik I'm located in the Netherlands.

16 years, 4 months

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Powering up a 20-year old MicroVAX II

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

> > I have just collected a MicroVAX II which has been in storage and has not > been powered on for 20 years. This is my first machine of such an age, > unfortunately I am not particularly knowledgeable at the electronics level > (I studied circuits academically 25+ years ago and can solder a bit, but > that is as far as it goes). I know I will need to treat it carefully in > order to get it working again. I plan to open it up and make sure I clear > out any debris etc, but beyond that I need advice from those with the > experience and knowledge that I lack on how to go about powering it up > carefully. IMHO the most important thing to do after checking for obvious problems -- loose parts, evidence of overheating/burning, etc, is to test the power supply (PSU) on a dummy load. A defective PSU could wipe out every chip in the machine!. Since you're happy to dismantle the machine anyway, this should be quite easy. With all the PCBs out of the backplane (make notes/diagrams as to what goes where), and with the power cables unplugged from the drives, connect a 6V car bulb between the +5V line and the 0V line (you can find these by tracing back from the known Q-bus pinouts if you can't find them any other way) and power up. Mearue the 5V line with a voltmeter, and if possible the other power lines (if you can find them). Only when you know they're correct should you plug the logic boards in. Oh, I would recomend opening up the PSU (mains disconnected, of course), and looking for signs of trouble in there. And check all the fans are rotatig when you turn it all on -tony

16 years, 4 months

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HP 64000 state analyzer manuals?

by jdbryan＠acm.org

Would anyone have any of the following HP 64000 logic development system manuals: 64635-90901 64635A State Data Probe Service Manual 64636-90901 64636A State Clock Probe Service Manual 64650-90905 General Purpose Preprocessor Service Manual 64650-90906 General Purpose Preprocessor Operating/Service Manual I have a 64000 and the 64620 state analyzer cards, and I want to build an HP-IB preprocessor interface. The theories of operation and schematics in the above manuals will help me with this. Thanks! -- Dave

16 years, 4 months

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Intel μscope 820 from 1978 found - for 8085 microprocessor

by innfoclassics＠gmail.com

I just picked up an intel ?scope 820 with a date code of 1978. It came with the 8085 module and cables. Looks complete with manual but I have not tested it yet, I probably will. It was originally designed as a diagnostic tool for the 8080A. Unfortunately I did not get that module. It is in a plastic black carry case with the manual, 8085 overlay, 8085 module with a ZIF socket for the 8085 and a cable from the module that plugs into the original 8085 socket for the board under test. AC powered. To quote from the manual: The ?scope 820 is most easily described as three instruments combined into a single convenient test instrument. A minicomputer front panel. A microprocessors anayzer. A substitute program memory. I am planning on selling it so if you are interested please make offers. It is very clean and not abused at all. I would bet it has had very low use. This is the first time I have seen one of these even though we used to buy truckloads from intel in the early 1990s. Please contact me off list at paxton.hoag at gmail.com for offers or more information. I supose I should scan the docs, there are only about 35 pages. Paxton Astoria, Oregon USA

16 years, 4 months

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reasonable price for a working VT05?

by legalize＠xmission.com

What's a reasonable price for a working VT05 in good working order and cosmetic condition? By "reasonable price" I don't want to hear stories about how you found one for $5 at surplus 10 or more years ago. Its irrelevant. So before you go on about how these things used to be commonplace and cheap/free, let's just inject a little reality into the discussion. They don't come up on ebay with any sort of regular frequency; in several years of running a standard search for DEC terminals, its never come up once. VT52s/VT78s rarely show up anywhere, while VT100s are fairly common. I'm not even aware of many collectors that have one; I know the Wofford Witch project has one, but I don't think Henk in the Netherlands has one (he has a VT55 link, but no VT05). The Computer History Museum appears to have two in its collection, but that's no surprise considering they've received a lot of stuff from Gordon Bell (as I understand it). -- "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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WTS: AT&T 3B1 Olivetti branded with manuals and DEC Vaxstation 2000 storage box.

by rikbos＠xs4all.nl

I'm concentrating my collection on HP, so before I put it on epay: I want to sell or trade my working AT&T 3B1 Unix PC this one is co-branded with the Olivetti logo. I'm selling it together with 5 manuals and the original installation software (only disk two diagdisk is missing) The 3B1 is equiped with the DOS73 Co-processor board. Also I'm selling a VaxStation 2000 storage box inside is disc but I won't spin when power was applied. This could be a jumper issue but I sell it as non working. Photo's can be found at flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/35618294 at N03/ Please react off-list -Rik I'm located in the Netherlands.

16 years, 4 months

1
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Emulith V1.2, the ETH Lilith emulator, now also for windows.

by jos.mar＠bluewin.ch

I prepared a new release of Emulith, my emulator for the ETH Lilith hardware. New features : - Usage of the FLTK toolkit instead of of Xlib. - Windows port. - Landscape/portrait modes - normal/reverse video. - file transfer to / from host system - diskimage make & split tool. - partial floppydisk support. - Speed display. Basic CPU emulation remained unchanged and, as before, sourcecode is supplied. Interested parties can now download from my FTP site - The Emulith windows package : ftp://jdreesen.dyndns.org/emulith/emulith_v12.msi - or the Linux package : ftp://jdreesen.dyndns.org/emulith/emulith_v12.tgz - for OS-X : no package yet as I do not own a Mac. However i expect very little issues in porting to the Mac. Volunteer can contact me. and a set of 5 diskimages ftp://jdreesen.dyndns.org/emulith/disk.tar.gz Enjoy, Jos Dreesen

16 years, 4 months

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VAX cables for the cost of postage

by jim＠photojim.ca

Hi all, Yesterday I had a failure of my router (it wouldn't reboot after a UPS was reset and it took me basically all day to get it running - but I did get it running!). Since there was a ton of hurry-up-and-wait, I took advantage of the opportunity to clean my basement computer area quite a lot, and made a huge pile of stuff. Most of it isn't of any particular interest to people here (unless you have an itch to own an external Supra modem with a rotating LED display :) ) but I found a box of VAX cables that might well be of interest. Included: A very long (50'?) MMJ to MMJ cable (male on both ends) A fairly long MMJ to DB25 female cable, homemade by someone, connected to a standard DB9/DB25 modem cable. I haven't tested it. This can be the console cable on a VAX (I have one just like it on my VAXstation 4000/60). Two MMJ female to DB25 male cable adapters. You have to self-wire them but the wiring is included. Unopened. Labelled ATI-G25M6-DEC. One MMJ female to DB9 male cable adapter. I inserted the pins on this, but I'm not sure if it's right because it didn't work for me. Hopefully if I did screw it up, you can rewire it easily enough. Two RJ45 female to DB9 male cable adapters, as above, pins uninserted. Two RJ45 female to DB25 male cable adapters, as above, pins uninserted. I think I figured I could put these to use in this project, but I'm not quite sure what I had in mind. :) Obviously, they'd be useful in making inexpensive CAT5-based serial cables. (Presumably they'd be good if you wanted to make a cable for Sparcstations or such, since Sparcs seem to have reverse gender serial ports. I seem to have gender bender adapters for mine though.) A weird DEC cable, DB25 male on one end, and what I think is QBus female on the other (3 rows of pins, 17/16/17 - DB50?). I'm guessing this will be a huge score to someone, just not sure what it goes with. :) Cost: Free. You pay shipping from Canada (to check postage costs, http://www.canadapost.ca, from postal code S4R 1A1). I'll have to formally weigh the package, but I'd guess about 2.5 kg. It's in a standard #10 envelope box that originally held 500 envelopes. To make it fun: - I won't pick a recipient until whenever I check my email first on Sunday (so figure noon CST/1800 UTC as a rough guess, although it might be earlier or later). - If only one person wants them, they win no matter what. :) - Each interested person gets one entry to the random selection. - Canadians preferred, and get an extra entry. But if you're outside Canada and will pay postage, and really, really need this stuff, an exuberant email convincing me of such will make me treat you like you're Canadian. :) (You may also owe me a draught ale from a local establishment, if I ever end up in your city.) (Particularly exuberant Canadians may get three entries, at my discretion.) - Correctly answering the trivia question below gets an extra entry. - Promising to give me an account on a VAX you are running gets you an extra entry. :) (I promise not to abuse it.) (And you don't have to give me an account unless you are awarded these bits, of course.) - Don't answer the trivia question in-list. :) Please reply to me directly, and not on-list. The trivia questions: If you live in Canada, or are a Canadian citizen, answer this one: What is the newest Alberta telephone area code? If you live in the United States, or are an American citizen, answer this one: What state(s) in the United States have land area north of the 49th parallel? If you do not fit into either of those categories, answer this one: Palm trees can be found growing where in Canada? (Hint: the answer is not "indoors", although this may pedantically be true. :) ) Good luck :) Jim

16 years, 4 months

3
3
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Powering up a 20-year old MicroVAX II

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk- > bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Robert Jarratt > Sent: 20 February 2009 22:45 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Powering up a 20-year old MicroVAX II > > I have just collected a MicroVAX II which has been in storage and has > not > been powered on for 20 years. This is my first machine of such an age, > unfortunately I am not particularly knowledgeable at the electronics > level > (I studied circuits academically 25+ years ago and can solder a bit, > but > that is as far as it goes). I know I will need to treat it carefully in > order to get it working again. I plan to open it up and make sure I > clear > out any debris etc, but beyond that I need advice from those with the > experience and knowledge that I lack on how to go about powering it up > carefully. > > > > Thanks > > > > Rob After removing all the boards and leaving just the disk and tape drive for load I impetuously decided to try powering it up. I knew the PSU (model H7864) was set for 110V and made the switch to 240V (I am in the UK). When I connected the power cord, after a few moments there was a loud pop, followed by another before I could pull out the power cord, smoke rose from the PSU. This sounded just like when I had once accidentally made a 110/240 mix-up. The question is, could it be that I had not made the switch to 240 correctly, or could this just be down to the age of the PSU? Regards Rob

16 years, 4 months

1
0
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8088 vs. 80c88

by les＠hildenbrandt.com

There was also the NEC V20, which was pin for pin compatible with the 8088. It was a CMOS part. There were a few instructions that the V20 executed in fewer clock cycles than the 8088 (multiply comes to mind), causing some motherboard vendors to install a V20, and the sell a 10mhz motherboard as a 12mhz motherboard. The truly great feature of the V20 was the 8080 emulation mode. When a special opcode was executed, the processor switched to 8080 mode, a very fast 8080. I made several CP/M (80) systems using a V20 processor, with a small prom to put the v20 into 8080 mode. I could then switch back into 16 bit mode to implement a ram disk. Les

16 years, 4 months

7
10
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UK101 update

by lproven＠gmail.com

I have just, this afternoon, finally received the rest of the Compukit UK101 I was talking about last August, which aroused some interest - I received half a dozen direct emails and a few IMs about it, too. I now have the UK101, in a metal case resembling a rather enlarged Dragon32. I also have the original instruction manual, complete with receipt stapled in the back - 26/9/79, I believe. ?252 and change, including VAT, for an 8KB 8-bit machine. :?) I also have a bare (uncased) CRT monitor for it, in its original shipping box. I believe I may also have a demo software cassette tape - I've not yet tried to remove the monitor from its box. My plan is to put these on eBay and donate any proceeds to the Bletchley Park museum. Does this seem reasonable? They will cost a fair amount to post, although I am prepared to do that and I am a reasonably competent packer, not of the "chuck it in a box, add some polystyrene peanuts and hope" variety. Personal collection would be preferable, from South London, but for several potential purchasers I imagine this would not be viable. -- 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
1
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(no subject)

by AA1RONHAM＠aol.com

Hi Brian: My Dad's secretary just gave me the 200 in 1 Science Fair electronics kit, (28-249) but there is no instruction manual. I found your old post (below) and wondered if you still had the pdf for this manual. Thank you very much. Aaron Radio Shack Science Fair manuals YahooMagneticSci Guy magneticsciguy at yahoo.com Sat Nov 4 19:39:00 CST 2006 Previous message: OT: Where have electronics hobby stores gone? Next message: New monitors on old machines Messages sorted by: [ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ] Do you know of a group(s) exchanging Radio ShackScience Fair manuals?I'm thinking of rolling all of these into torrent(s)as I get them collected.I have manuals (that I can scan in, in a few phases)for:28-249 "200 in 1"28-267 "75 in One"& need manuals28-245 "20 in 1" 28-259 "130 in One" Thanks much!Brian ************** A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1218822736x1201267884/aol?redir=htt… treport.com%2Fpm%2Fdefault.aspx%3Fsc%3D668072%26hmpgID%3D62%26bcd%3Dfebemailfo oterNO62)

16 years, 4 months

1
0
0 0

MICRAL documents

by aek＠bitsavers.org

Some people asked about it on comp.os.cpm, so there are a few MICRAL documents up on http://bitsavers.org/pdf/r2e now.

16 years, 4 months

2
1
0 0

Data General Dasher D200 Terminal on eBay

by eric940＠gmail.com

I recall (some time ago) that a few folks mentioned they were on the lookout for these terminals: http://tinyurl.com/dasher-ebay ebay item #: 200270569660 Always have admired the aesthetics of this terminal, albeit a bit pricey from this seller. (Then again, many items from this seller are pricey.) Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated w/this auction in any manner -- purely an FYI post for those who had expressed interest.

16 years, 4 months

4
4
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Powering up a 20-year old MicroVAX II

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

I have just collected a MicroVAX II which has been in storage and has not been powered on for 20 years. This is my first machine of such an age, unfortunately I am not particularly knowledgeable at the electronics level (I studied circuits academically 25+ years ago and can solder a bit, but that is as far as it goes). I know I will need to treat it carefully in order to get it working again. I plan to open it up and make sure I clear out any debris etc, but beyond that I need advice from those with the experience and knowledge that I lack on how to go about powering it up carefully. Thanks Rob

16 years, 4 months

1
0
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FS: AUI/Thinnet Xceivers, 10bT Xceiver, Plextor 4Plex HH SCSI drive

by jtp＠chinalake.com

More items from cleaning out the lab, nothing free this time (need cash for restoration): All used, minor wear on one LTX-2 and the Hong, others are excellent. (2) Lantronix LTX-2 ThinNet tranceivers, (RCV, HBE switches), T included, Term if you need one, $3 each + shipping in a padded envelope. (1) Hong Technologies 10baseT tranceiver. Slightly larger than normal, Handy leds: Jabber, Link, Polarity, Transmit, Receive, collision, Power. $3 + shipping (1) Plextor SE SCSI, HH CD-ROM, Sept 1995. This is a caddy unit and I will include one caddy, if I can find more I'll add them in. Term and Polarity jumpers, sound out also. Let me know if you want a ribbon cable and term with it, $8 + shipping. Unit is about 2.5 lbs (-) There is also a DEC SCSI Y Cable "BN21V-0B" on ebay Photos avail. Ship from 02421, Boston area, MA Cheers, -j

16 years, 4 months

1
0
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Our hobby on MSNBC.com

by evan＠snarc.net

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29264722/ MSNBC today posted a slide show about vintage portables. Myself and CHM curator Chris Garcia are quoted. Also, pictures were supplied by myself, Bill Degnan, and Erik Klein. The slide show is pretty much accurate. It's "the truth" but not necessarily "the whole truth" because of a few other products and technical nuances. Anyway, speaking for myself / MARCH / InfoAge Science Center, we're happy to have the mainstream press.

16 years, 4 months

1
0
0 0

Data Translation DT2803

by teoz＠neo.rr.com

I have a Data Translation DT2803 card I am looking for software for, I think it is 1986 vintage (8 bit ISA) frame grabber and can't find anything on it at the Data translation website (the oldest stuff they have seems to be 16 bit ISA). Anybody have a mirror of their old files?

16 years, 4 months

1
0
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Randy Cook, TRSDOS, and Datapoint

by frustum＠pacbell.net

It is fairly well known that Randy Cook developed TRSDOS 1.*, 2.1. and 2.2 until he and Tandy had a falling out over the rights to the code. Randy even placed an easter egg that caused his name to be printed out in a copyright message. For TRSDOS 2.2 tandy found the code and patched "RANDY COOK" to read "TANDY CORP" (a three byte difference). Randy developed VTOS, and according to Tim Mann, LDOS was developed by disassembling VTOS 4.0, fixing bugs, and building on top of that. LDOS was eventually licensed by Tandy to be TRSDOS 6.0. OK, the new piece, which I didn't know, was that Randy Cook was an employee of Datapoint when he got the contract to write TRSDOS. He left Datapoint do to consulting work, and everyone assumed he meant on datapoint business. Apparently Datapoint claimed that Randy took DP's code and or "technology" and used that as the basis of TRSDOS. There was a either a lawsuit or a threat of one, but my contact says he wasn't privy to that and so it is hearsay coming from him. I am not familiar with the DP OS (was it really just the Databus language, or was there an OS layer akin to TRSDOS?) Can anybody here compare the two and find threads of similarity?

16 years, 4 months

1
0
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Available: Victor manuals - southern California

by tosteve＠yahoo.com

Hello, I have two boxes of Victor software manuals only, no software: They include: Pascal MultiPlan BASIC Cobol Word Prefect and more. See attached photos. Sorry, some manuals not visible in photos. I live in Orange County, southern California. Who will make an offer on these? $0.00 is acceptable, but you may be outbid.

16 years, 4 months

1
0
0 0

EPROM erase times and lifespan

by ian_primus＠yahoo.com

Working with EPROMs, one must have an eraser. I built my own a while back, using a germicidal UV lamp tube, a flourescent fixture, a sealed box and a programmable timer. It works well, and I typically can erase an batch of eproms in like three minutes. At least, when I was working primarily with 2732's and 2764's, I could. Now, I've been needing to use higher capacity chips - and these seem to take longer to erase. Five minutes isn't enough for some. AMD 27C010's seem to take closer to ten minutes to erase. My eraser has a drawer that can accept about a foot of eproms (I used a 12" tube). I could probably cram more on there, but I try to keep them centered under the light. So, if I stick a dozen chips on there, of varying sized and types, and 'nuke' them for five minutes, I'll go and blank-check them, and some will be blank, others will be nearly blank (lots of FF's, but some garbage left), and some don't seem affected at all. I've been trying to come up with a correlation between manufacturer and erase time, but it seems to vary. Last time, I nuked four AMD 27C010's that I pulled off of an old LaserJet font cartridge. Three were unaffected and the other was blanked. I worry about leaving the chips in there too long, since I know too much UV can damage them. But at the same time, I wonder about the lifespan of the UV tube - and how many hours it's good for. (I guess I should have checked the package when I bought it...). So, how much UV exposure does it take to damage an EPROM? Is UV exposure cumulative? For example, if I have a chip that's unaffected by five minutes, and I put it back in for another three - is that the same as as running it for 8 minutes total, or do the charges that the UV is supposed to dissapate simply linger? Are CMOS chips harder to erase, taking a longer time than the older parts? -Ian

16 years, 4 months

19
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[Claimed] HP 1000 F for trade?

by rborsuk＠colourfull.com

Thank you all who have responded. The HP system has been claimed. Rob (always looking for a trade) Borsuk Begin forwarded message: > Subject: HP 1000 F for trade? > > All this talk about HP 1000 F reminded me that I have one of these > beast that I need to get rid of. > Anybody got anything good to trade? (Wang equipment would take > precedence)(TRS-80 and CP/M machines are cool). > > Pics at: > http://gallery.me.com/irisworld#100093 > > Rob > > ps. USA only please. > Rob Borsuk email: rborsuk at colourfull.com Colourfull Creations Web: http://www.colourfull.com

16 years, 4 months

1
0
0 0

MITS 1440 Calculator

by billdeg＠degnanco.com

Does anyone have a MITS 1440 Calculator? I am looking for someone who either has a non-working unit, or one that needs some sort of attention, or someone who would be trusting enough to loan me and a friend their working unit to carefully swap the ROM chips and see which one is bad. I think the risk of damaging a good chip is low, but paranoid attention will be made to avoid accidents. I have been told that the input chip is OK, and the output chip is OK. The control chip seems OK. Most likely the program ROM chip is bad, but it could possibly be the registers or ALU. More likely the ALU than the registers chip.If anyone is interested in this project, feel free to drop me a line. See July 1973 Radio Electronics for more info. Bill D

16 years, 4 months

1
0
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Working IBM luggable available

by spc＠conman.org

I wrote about this in December, but I figured I'd just give the gentleman's email address in case anyone is interested in this. I think he wanted quite a bit of money for it, so be prepared to haggle a bit. > Subject: Luggable computer > > From: DShoquist at seisint.com > Contact Phone: 561.893.8001 > > I found your name in an article about vintage computer collectors. I have > a working IBM luggable gathering dust and wanted to sell it. If you or > anyone you know is interested, please contact me. -spc (Please be kind 8-)

16 years, 4 months

1
0
0 0

HP 1000 F for trade?

by rborsuk＠colourfull.com

All this talk about HP 1000 F reminded me that I have one of these beast that I need to get rid of. Anybody got anything good to trade? (Wang equipment would take precedence)(TRS-80 and CP/M machines are cool). Pics at: http://gallery.me.com/irisworld#100093 Rob ps. USA only please. Rob Borsuk email: rborsuk at colourfull.com Colourfull Creations Web: http://www.colourfull.com

16 years, 4 months

2
1
0 0

Canon LPB-10 info sought.

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> I am looking for info on this very early (1979) laserprinter. I should have docs. Will pull them out of storage and try to get it scanned for you. The earliest Imagen printers used this engine. It was a beast..

16 years, 4 months

1
0
0 0

Heathkit ET-3400 Epay $10

by jgessling＠yahoo.com

The display doesn't show "CPU UP" (my memory may vary) so it's got some problem. Up to $15 now. Since you made me look around, I noticed there's a google group for this item. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ET-3400/ Regards, Jim

16 years, 4 months

2
1
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Radio Shack Science Fair manuals

by rmliu＠hotmail.com

Hi Brian, I read your post back in 2006. You said you have the manuals for "200 in 1" and "75 in 1". Could you email me a copy of both manuals? I actually need the manual for "160 in 1", but maybe the two you got might work. thanks, Robert _________________________________________________________________ Get more out of the Web. Learn 10 hidden secrets of Windows Live. http://windowslive.com/connect/post/jamiethomson.spaces.live.com-Blog-cns!5…

16 years, 4 months

1
0
0 0

Big Mouth Buttars

by legalize＠xmission.com

Go over to sltrib.com and vote this article up! <http://www.sltrib.com/ci_11731577> -- "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
3
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GPM card

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> I wonder if I could at least get a Cutter dump from them. Do you know what the rom type is?

16 years, 4 months

3
2
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Wanted: Processor Technology GPM card...

by wh.sudbrink＠verizon.net

Reposting due to the resounding lack of response and the possibility that something went wrong with the list right after I posted the original... I can buy or trade but I would prefer to trade. I have a large collection of S-100 cards and some other goodies to work a trade with. If it has the CUTTER ROM, all the better. If not, I can burn a 2708 (and I'll probably post a "Wanted: CUTTER ROM dump" message). Thanks, Bill Sudbrink PS... To engender some discussion, does anyone on the list have an operating Processor Technology Subsystem B machine?

16 years, 4 months

3
6
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Tektronix 4225 -- is it an X terminal?

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> All this makes me realise just how much Tek knowledge seems to be a lost - I > mean, the earlier Tek terminals seem to be pretty well understood, but then > most of the hardware, software and docs from the later years has just vanished. It would be nice to try to get this documentation and software archived, if it can still be found. There were a couple of generations of workstations, including the obscure AI workstation that supported Lisp and Smalltalk. A friend of mine worked on the 32000 based system before moving down to the valley. The development systems that had their own OS, then a port of Unix called Tnix. And, all the DC300 based 405x software..

16 years, 4 months

3
2
0 0

8088 vs. 80c88

by steven.alan.canning＠verizon.net

Intel does some squirrelly crap but I can assure you that unless it says 80C88 it is NMOS ( the -2 version of the 8088 is Enhanced NMOS or HMOS, but still not CMOS ). CMOS is not necessarily slow either, but at higher frequencies it looses it's low power advantage. We used SOS ( Silicon On Sapphire ) 1802s on spacecraft because of the low power, and the SOS makes it much less static sensitive and Radiation Hardened. Intel screwed us when they stepped the 8031 to CMOS ( 80C31 ) as they forgot to mention the multiple pages of errata of things that didn't work right, like Power on Reset and Interrupts..... Best regards, Steven ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris M" <chrism3667 at yahoo.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Friday, February 13, 2009 8:10 AM Subject: Re: 8088 vs. 80c88 regardless, and be sure I am no expert on semiconductor manufacturing, I'd be surprised to find out that all 8088's were CMOS after a certain date. The 80c88's were used mostly in small laptops, no? (small being anything smaller then that Zenith big honker, w/the shocking blue display. It used a *real* 8088 IINM). A CMOS version would be slower and more prone to damage from static electricity. And it would require less power. Off the top of my head I can't think of any desktops that used them, but I may have actually ran into 1 or 2 in my travels. But I am glad you managed to answer your own question Jimbo :) --- On Thu, 2/12/09, Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> wrote: From: Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> Subject: Re: 8088 vs. 80c88 To: General at mail.mobygames.com, "On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Date: Thursday, February 12, 2009, 2:49 PM Jim Leonard wrote: > 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.

16 years, 4 months

1
0
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Saving TU-58 Tapes

by jhfinedp3k＠compsys.to

I just received a number of TU-58 tapes. Most seem to have VAX software. Is a list of the contents of such tapes available somewhere? I want to save the files before I use them for RT-11. I have seen such a collection of VAX software before and I presume that I am not the only person to save the files. So if this has already been done, it will not be necessary to repeat the exercise. I attempted to look at bitsavers, but there does not seem to be anything much there in the way of software for the VAX. I assume that since there are hobby licenses for the VAX that all of the software is also available. By the way, the dates on the files are 1983 to 1985. Some of the contents are: VAX/VMS 3.4 FORTRAN C PASCAL Are these tapes useful? How are the files saved? Can the files be easily saved using RT-11? What is the best media to save the files? Probably the only reasonable method with RT-11 is to save all 512 blocks of the TU-58 tape as an image so that a VAX/VMS system can easily ATTACH the file as a TU-58 tape drive under SIMH. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine

16 years, 4 months

3
2
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Altos 8000-2 booting, SD> DD (CPM)

by g-wright＠att.net

as long as I'm on the Altos thread. I'm trying to make some disks for another list member for the 8000-8200 Z-80 based machines. Both of my systems have floppy disk boot or write problems. So I decided to look into the easier machine which it a 8000-2. basic Z-80 , 1791 FDC and 2, 8" SSDD floppies. The machine will boot a single density CPM disk, read and format a SD disk, but dies if a DD disk is either inserted for boot or the format program on the SD disk is told to format a DD disk. These all have SD Boot tracks, then have to switch to DD, if formated in DD. I have the wiring diagrams and there is a "EN DD" coming off the PIO chip and goes to the 1791 chip, that never changes state. I would believe it would have a floppy density code on the 1st track to tell the OS what the remaining tracks are ??? (just a guess) I know the disks are OK, they can be read in another machine. ( just not copied.). i have looked at the data lines on the PIO chip and have replaced it just in case. I have scoped the started up circuit which also has the "EN DD" tied to it. (input) The software can only be copied by another Altos due to the disk layout. The boot ROM could be damaged?? but not knowing what it should read, its hard to guess. Can't be much there just a 2708. Anyone have a 8200-2 that can read the ROM on, or any ideas. The manual is on Bitsavers under Altos, ACS8000 users manual. The motherboard is a 8100 series (double density) Has 8000 SD, 8100 DD and 8200 in the manual. - jerry Jerry Wright g-wright at att.net

16 years, 4 months

2
1
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Altos & M/PM manuals available

by silent700＠gmail.com

I have a large box of Altos materials here that I would like to find a home for. About half of it is standard bound books, which will go first. The remainder is ringbound and I am going to attempt to scan them. In addition to manuals there is a lot of dealer sales material, including about a dozen issues of the monthly sales newsletter "ALTOgether." The first lot includes manuals for the Altos 486 (which was really an 80186,) Altos 586/986, Altos XENIX, and a few for the M/PM-II and MPM-86 operating systems. A couple books are a bit warped from sitting in a box too long, but they're all in pretty good shape otherwise. All in all about 16lbs of books. Free for the cost of shipping (Media Mail rate shouldn't be too bad) from 60074. -j

16 years, 4 months

2
3
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Tektronix 4225 -- is it an X terminal?

by legalize＠xmission.com

See ebay item # 360132413754 That listing just includes the base unit, but thankfully has closeup pictures of the connectors on the back. It looks like it takes AUI ethernet or RS-232 and outputs RGB video. Anyone familiar with these puppies? I've not seen one before. -- "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
2
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Alive?

by healyzh＠aracnet.com

At 3:49 PM -0500 2/15/09, Jerome H. Fine wrote: >Is classiccmp alive? Interesting, it appears that it isn't, the last message I received was at 4:02am on Saturday. No news no PDP-11 matters, I've not had time to make enquiries. House hunting is slow going, we've been waiting for nearly a month to hear what the bank that owns the house we currently have an offer in on says. Unfortunately the only houses we can afford are ones that the banks own, and that takes forever. The one house we had our offer accepted on failed the inspection miserably. 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

2
1
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List down - transcript of my test on the 15th - Feb archive afu on 15th

by vern4wright＠yahoo.com

Returned mail: see transcript for details Sunday, February 15, 2009 4:37 PM From: "Mail Delivery Subsystem" <MAILER-DAEMON at dewey.classiccmp.org> Add sender to Contacts To: vern4wright at yahoo.com Message contains attachments Message001.txt (375b), Is ClassicCmp down?.eml (2KB) The original message was received at Sun, 15 Feb 2009 18:37:40 -0600 (CST) >from keith.ezwind.net [209.145.140.15] ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors ----- "|/usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman admin cctalk" (reason: 1) (expanded from: <cctalk-admin at classiccmp.org>) ----- Transcript of session follows ----- Traceback (most recent call last): Logging error: <StampedLogger to '/usr/local/mailman/logs/error'> Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/mailman/Mailman/Logging/Logger.py", line 91, in write f.write(msg) File "/usr/local/lib/python2.3/codecs.py", line 400, in write return self.writer.write(data) File "/usr/local/lib/python2.3/codecs.py", line 179, in write self.stream.write(data) IOError: [Errno 28] No space left on device Original log message: [Errno 28] No space left on device File "/usr/local/mailman/scripts/admin", line 61, in ? Logging error: <StampedLogger to '/usr/local/mailman/logs/error'> Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/mailman/Mailman/Logging/Logger.py", line 91, in write f.write(msg) File "/usr/local/lib/python2.3/codecs.py", line 400, in write return self.writer.write(data) File "/usr/local/lib/python2.3/codecs.py", line 179, in write self.stream.write(data) IOError: [Errno 28] No space left on device Original log message: [Errno 28] No space left on device main() Logging error: <StampedLogger to '/usr/local/mailman/logs/error'> Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/mailman/Mailman/Logging/Logger.py", line 91, in write f.write(msg) File "/usr/local/lib/python2.3/codecs.py", line 400, in write return self.writer.write(data) File "/usr/local/lib/python2.3/codecs.py", line 179, in write self.stream.write(data) IOError: [Errno 28] No space left on device Original log message: [Errno 28] No space left on device File "/usr/local/mailman/scripts/admin", line 56, in main Logging error: <StampedLogger to '/usr/local/mailman/logs/error'> Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/mailman/Mailman/Logging/Logger.py", line 91, in write f.write(msg) File "/usr/local/lib/python2.3/codecs.py", line 400, in write return self.writer.write(data) File "/usr/local/lib/python2.3/codecs.py", line 179, in write self.stream.write(data) IOError: [Errno 28] No space left on device Original log message: [Errno 28] No space left on device bounceq.enqueue(sys.stdin.read(), listname=listname, _plaintext=1) Logging error: <StampedLogger to '/usr/local/mailman/logs/error'> Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/mailman/Mailman/Logging/Logger.py", line 91, in write f.write(msg) File "/usr/local/lib/python2.3/codecs.py", line 400, in write return self.writer.write(data) File "/usr/local/lib/python2.3/codecs.py", line 179, in write self.stream.write(data) IOError: [Errno 28] No space left on device Original log message: [Errno 28] No space left on device File "/usr/local/mailman/Mailman/Queue/Switchboard.py", line 130, in enqueue Logging error: <StampedLogger to '/usr/local/mailman/logs/error'> Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/mailman/Mailman/Logging/Logger.py", line 91, in write f.write(msg) File "/usr/local/lib/python2.3/codecs.py", line 400, in write return self.writer.write(data) File "/usr/local/lib/python2.3/codecs.py", line 179, in write self.stream.write(data) IOError: [Errno 28] No space left on device Original log message: [Errno 28] No space left on device fp.flush() Logging error: <StampedLogger to '/usr/local/mailman/logs/error'> Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/mailman/Mailman/Logging/Logger.py", line 91, in write f.write(msg) File "/usr/local/lib/python2.3/codecs.py", line 400, in write return self.writer.write(data) File "/usr/local/lib/python2.3/codecs.py", line 179, in write self.stream.write(data) IOError: [Errno 28] No space left on device Original log message: [Errno 28] No space left on device IOError: [Errno 28] No space left on device Logging error: <StampedLogger to '/usr/local/mailman/logs/error'> Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/mailman/Mailman/Logging/Logger.py", line 91, in write f.write(msg) File "/usr/local/lib/python2.3/codecs.py", line 400, in write return self.writer.write(data) File "/usr/local/lib/python2.3/codecs.py", line 179, in write self.stream.write(data) IOError: [Errno 28] No space left on device Original log message: [Errno 28] No space left on device 554 5.3.0 unknown mailer error 1 Forwarded Message: Is ClassicCmp down? Is ClassicCmp down? Sunday, February 15, 2009 4:37 PM From: "Vernon Wright" <vern4wright at yahoo.com> To: cctalk-admin at classiccmp.org Is ClassicCmp down? The last message I've received was 14 Feb 2009 timed 4:02 am, regarding the Nicolet 660 by Ian Primus, I think. Of course, if it is down, I won't get a reply. But I should get a bounce. Vern Wright

16 years, 4 months

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Sphere documentation

by aek＠bitsavers.org

Docs for the Sphere 300 are up now under http://bitsavers.org/pdf/sphere The details of the Sphere bankruptcy is in the programma document under newsletters.

16 years, 4 months

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Any have a CMD CQD-200/M manual?

by toby＠coreware.co.uk

Hi, Has anyone by change got a manual for a CQD-200/M (QBUS SCSI controller). The device is pretty similar to the CQD-220/M, which has a pdf on bitsavers, but jumpers are alas not the same and I just want to check I've got everything set correctly and enable its bootstrap I've fired it up on my PDP-11/23+ with an RZ27 disk and I can indeed access it via RT-11 but I only get a 32MB (65K blocks) disk after an initialize. Does RT-11 have a 65K block limit on a disk? 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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No adjective for this ebay item

by melamy＠earthlink.net

unfortunately eBay only charges the guy $ 0.35 for the listing... Maybe he is hoping for a miracle! best regards, Steve Thatcher -----Original Message----- >From: David Griffith <dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu> > >That guy has been trying to sell that thing at that price for at least a >year. > >-- >David Griffith

16 years, 4 months

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Awfully Quiet out There

by martinm＠allwest.net

Anyone about? It's been very quiet since 2/14 - any list problems? Martin

16 years, 4 months

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Fwd: [alt.sys.pdp8] LA-36 Free to a Good Home

by legalize＠xmission.com

This message has been forwarded from Usenet. To reply to the original author, use the email address from the forwarded message. Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 11:00:28 -0600 Groups: alt.sys.pdp8 From: John Everett <jeverett3 at sbcglobal.DEFEAT.UCE.BOTS.net> Org: at&t http://my.att.net/ Subject: LA-36 Free to a Good Home Id: <08rlp45lofocavjg9oumacf50dt428t6b9 at 4ax.com> ======== I have an LA-36 DECwriter that was working last time I plugged it in. It's free to the first person who wants to pick it up in the western suburbs of Chicago. Just email. -- jeverett3<AT>sbcglobal<DOT>net (John V. Everett)

16 years, 4 months

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BLINKENLIGHTS! Rare Hewlett Packard HP1000 1000F

by julianskidmore＠yahoo.com

Hi folks, HP1000 F-series available from Ebay UK. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/BLINKENLIGHTS-Rare-Hewlett-Packard-HP1000-1000F_W0QQi… The seller even includes the classic Blinkenlights text! -cheers from julz @P.

16 years, 4 months

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No adjective for this ebay item

by evan＠snarc.net

Kaypro II. Buy it now price: $35,000. 300039229895 http://tinyurl.com/dykuue

16 years, 4 months

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Source for 12.44Mhz crystals?

by derschjo＠mail.msu.edu

Hey all -- While I'm waiting for other parts to arrive for my Tek project... anyone know where to find 12.44Mhz crystals? I acquired an old SSM VB1B video card (with an amazing 64 cols by 16 rows display capability!) that was only mostly-assembled, and the crystal is missing. According to the manual (http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/s100c/ssm/vb1b.pdf), it's a 12.44 Mhz part but I can't for the life of me find one anywhere -- even my Google searches mostly return links to the VB1B manual :). (And while we're at it -- my Tek project needs a pair of 39M-ohm resistors... anyone know where to find _these_? I know I can hack one up by putting a few others in series, but it's quite a mess...) Thanks, Josh

16 years, 4 months

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Free for the cost of shipping DEC HSJ memory card (I believe)

by jtp＠chinalake.com

I was cleaning out a box of PCMCIA cards and found a gray thin pcmcia memory card with no markings on it. I believe it was used to load some of the HSJs when we got updates. If anyone wants it, I'll drop it in the post (US or Int'l) for the cost of shipping.

16 years, 5 months

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Datasheet for ICT 27CX321 EPROM?

by ian_primus＠yahoo.com

I've got a handfull of these things that I've been trying to use. My programmer supports them, and I was hoping that they would have the same pinout as a 2732. At the moment, I'm not so sure. So far, I've had three of these chips in the eraser for a good 45 minutes total. If I set the programmer to the ICT 27CX321, it won't blank check - although reading it in and examining the data produces something composed mostly FF's - though not entirely. If I set the programmer to a generic 2732, it passes blank check. I haven't tried programming one yet - although I suppose I could try to fill one with zeroes. So, I take it that these things have a different pinout? I can't find any data on these. Any help would be appreciated. -Ian

16 years, 5 months

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8088 vs. 80c88

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: 8088 vs. 80c88 > From: Chris M <chrism3667 at yahoo.com> > Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 08:10:34 -0800 (PST) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >regardless, and be sure I am no expert on semiconductor manufacturing, I'd be surprised to find out that all 8088's were CMOS after a certain date. The 80c88's were used mostly in small laptops, no? No they wer eused in many stationary apps wherelow power was desired. (small being anything smaller then that Zenith big honker, w/the shocking blue display. It used a *real* 8088 IINM). A CMOS version would be slower and more prone to damage from static electricity. And it would require less power. Off the top of my head I can't think of any desktops that used them, but I may have actually ran into 1 or 2 in my travels. They were not slower, most were as fast or faster. I have a few here. 10mhz and 12mhz parts along with 80C188s (12 and 16mhz). Allison >?But I am glad you managed to answer your own question Jimbo :) > >--- On Thu, 2/12/09, Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> wrote: > >From: Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> >Subject: Re: 8088 vs. 80c88 >To: General at mail.mobygames.com, "On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> >Date: Thursday, February 12, 2009, 2:49 PM > >Jim Leonard wrote: >> 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. > >It turns out my information is bad.? The bug only asserts itself when an interrupt occurs during the REP.? Buggy CPUs don't continue; later ones do.? So to fix my detection code, I will increase the count in cx to something much longer, probably f000. >-- 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/ >=0A=0A=0A

16 years, 5 months

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Can anyone identify these "multipage" terminals?

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

> Anyone recognize these? I've never seen or heard of them before. > <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/multipage.jpg> I don't recognize multipage as a brand name, but those sure look a lot like the generic 3270 clones that were everywhere in the 80's and 90's. A picture of a keyboard or the connections on the back of a terminal would confirm my guess. Tim.

16 years, 5 months

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Bletchley Park fires up Big Green-Eyed Monster • The Register

by woyciesjes＠sbcglobal.net

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/12/iris/ -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- ICQ# 905818 --- AIM - woyciesjes --- CompTIA A+ Certified IT Tech - http://certification.comptia.org/ --- HDI Certified Support Center Analyst - http://www.ThinkHDI.com/ "From there to here, From here to there, Funny things are everywhere." --- Dr. Seuss

16 years, 5 months

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test-drb February 2009