test-drb February 2009

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

196 participants
309 discussions

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> test equipment seems to be a poorly covered area in the museum > and archive world. I was thinking about this some more last night, and there is little activity preserving the software for test equipment. Brokers keep the manuals and the hardware, but rarely keep the software to make it work. For example, the Biomation CLAS 9000 logic analyzer had no built in user interface; it was a SCSI periperial connected to a Macintosh. They didn't document the protocol to talk to it, so it is a rather large boat anchor without a Mac and the software to talk to it. Then, there are all the PC instruments that had custom cards and software to talk to their widget. The parts are separated, and no one saves the card inside the PC or the software to make it work.

15 years, 10 months

Wanted: Processor Technology GPM card...

by wh.sudbrink＠verizon.net

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

15 years, 10 months

Can anyone identify these "multipage" terminals?

by legalize＠xmission.com

Anyone recognize these? I've never seen or heard of them before. <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/multipage.jpg> -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

15 years, 10 months

"Infoshare" or OEM Netware 1.0? was Re: Novell 68K file server

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

I have to assume then that the software that ran on the 3*'s was a later development then the stuff that ran on the Televideo Personal Mini series (80286 based). Dubbed Infoshare, which was an OEM release of early Netware (and I am looking for it). Other boxes that come to mind are the Northstar Dimension (80186), and an Altos box. Not sure what they ran though. There was a PM/286 too, which ran a later version of Infoshare IINM. ?Anyone familiar w/the Burroughs '286 boxes that also weren't MS-DOS based? ?Sorry didn't mean to *help* hijack the thread. That is a very interesting piece. The peculiar 68k stuff is far and away the rarer birds though, sadly snifful.

15 years, 10 months

8088 vs. 80c88

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

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. 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/

15 years, 10 months

Dr. Dobbs to cease?

by shoppa＠trailing-edge.com

Dr. Dobbs was pretty cool... up until the IBM PC came out and dominated everything. By the mid 80's all the Dr. Dobbs articles were the-latest-TSR-to-do-something-in-MSDOS and it wasn't really worth the effort for me to even look for something interesting in it. That may have marked my turning point towards classic computing, in fact :-). Tim.

15 years, 10 months

Novell 68K file server

by jeff.kaneko＠juno.com

-- "james" <james at jdfogg.com> wrote: >> Here are some pics of a Novell file server circa 1987. >> http://bitsavers.org/pdf/novell/68k_file_server >> >> Was wondering if anyone had documentation or software for >> this. I had some of the external dual drive scsi boxes for >> these at one point. > > >This reminds me of a similar oddity I used to support years >ago. 3Com made a server, and an OS called 3+ Open. As I >recall, it was an OS/2 - LAN Manager derivative. Ah yes, the era of the 3Server is forever seared into my brain; my first *real* job in the computer business involved the care and feeding of several generations of these beasties. The Original 3Server (about the same vintage as the Novell unit pictured earlier) used an 80188 and a heavily modified version of MS-DOS. It used an early SCSI implementation, which was closer to SASI, to attach MFM disks and QIC tapes via Adaptec bridge boards. Because there were neither video nor ISA bus, there was more room for contiguous DOS memory; something over 700k, which pertty cool at the time. They originally were equipped with 30MB drives, but then the 3Server70 had an 80Mb (unformatted) unit by Vertex. These early boxes had the (optional) QIC tape in an external box; the 3Server3 introduced in 1986 (IIRC) had disk and tape in one box; in addition the 3Server3 could be interfaced with appletalk, and also sported the then-new LIM memory used to speed up the operating system. These 80188 systems all used either 3+Share or EtherSeries NOS's for basic drive sharing. IN addition, 3+Mail, 3+Route (for routing e-mail between sites), 3+Backup and other network applications were supported under the 3+Share NOS (in <1Mb RAM). These were followed by the 3S400 & 3S500 machines, which are not interesing as they are little more than stock ISA 80386 machines running at 16MHz. These guys could run 3+Share, or 3+Open (a.k.a. OS/2 LanMan as pointed out above). ISTR that they added TCP/IP late in that products life. Then Novell took over the world and all of the above 'stuff' died in obscurity. It was at this point where I learned in my life that I had a knack for picking losers. I need a stiff drink now . . . . ____________________________________________________________ Wasting money? Stop, now. Click here for top online coupon websites. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/PnY6rw3g7mjTpd5rxcCErbhdwKhlKnl…

15 years, 10 months

Alignment disks, and the creation thereof

by ian_primus＠yahoo.com

I've been reading the now increasingly mistitled thread on alignment disks, and it's gotten me thinking. What IS required to make alignment disks? I've always aligned malfunctioning floppy drives "the wrong way", using a known good disk - or an original software disk. On the Commodore 64 (and most systems, really), you can get the drives working well enough like this, but as others have pointed out, it's not the "right way". I just don't have any alignment disks. "Good enough" is much better than "not at all", and I don't mess with the drive alignment unless I have to. I'd love to be able to align drives properly though. And that requires an alignment disk. There are different kinds of alignment disks too - analog and digital, ones that are intended to be used with a special program on a particular computer, and those intended to be used with a scope. With today's modern machining technology, it should definitely be possible to create a system to write new alignment disks. Starting with a standard floppy drive, you could replace the stepper drive with something more precise and controllable. Then, you have to somehow accurately calibrate this whole thing. Is there a document out there that describes the track layout of a standard (say, 5 1/4" 48tpi, 40 track) diskette? There has to be a spec, one that describes exactly the distance between tracks, the width of a track, and the distance from the center hub to the beginning of the first track. If you had that information, and precision measurement tools, one could set up and calibrate the drive to spec. Then, of course, there needs to be a controller for the thing, a computer interface to control the precise positioning of the head, as well as being able to read/write to the disk. It's possible. It's beyond the equipment and tools at my disposal, but it's definitely doable for a hobbyist who has access to a machine shop and good tools. Anyone out there a machinist? :) -Ian

15 years, 10 months

TEK 4107A and TEK 4209 color raster graphic terminals free for pickup in Seattle area (eastside)

by glen.slick＠gmail.com

As the title says, I have a Tektronix 4107A and a Tektronix 4209 color raster graphics terminal which are free for pickup in Seattle area (eastside). These are vintage 1987 and 1988 from the (c) dates on the terminal firmware. Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/glen.slick/Tektronix4107A http://picasaweb.google.com/glen.slick/Tektronix4209 Reply offlist if you are interested. -Glen

15 years, 10 months

Free: Fujitsu HALStation 300

by silent700＠gmail.com

've got two of these systems. One is working, one may have a bad PSU. Very cool-looking clone of the Sparc in a large tower/deskside case. Yours to pick up in the Chicago area (60074.) Shipping would be tough; these are heavy. I've also got a bunch goodies including the special Solaris distro for Fujitsu and some manuals. Come 'n' get 'em! -- silent700.blogspot.com Retrocomputing and collecting in the Chicago area: http://chiclassiccomp.org

15 years, 10 months

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test-drb February 2009