I seem to remember that someone on this list was a specialist collector of terminals. If he is still here, I have a nice little portable terminal he can have for what I paid for it ($5.00) plus shipping costs. I bought it for the parts, but it seems a shame to destroy it.
It is a Superprint by Ultratec. 8.5 by 13 by 3.5 inches. Has a keyboard - the part I bought it for, a small printer - 3" wide, 20 character display (14 segments) and an acoustic coupler. The PCB is fairly recent, uses an 8049 derivative.
Please contact me off line if you are the terminal collector and want it. Otherwise, it's slice and dice time.
Billy Pettit
Hello everyone,
I figured this list is big enough to ask and get your opinions.
My big question is, would you buy remanufactured vintage computers ? I have
all sorts of details regarding the line of systems I'd manufacture (most of
them from the x86 world). I spent time on the internet looking at what is
the best video card for ISA, for PCI, for AGP 2x, for AGP 4x or 8x (you
know, for the different voltages), what would be the best processor for what
system, who would buy it aside from some vintage enthusiasts, etc.
There is a follow up question, of course. If you agree with remanufacturing
the Harris 286 at 25 MHz in a system with 16 CPUs and 16 MB of RAM per CPU,
all connected in a cluster acting as a multi-CPU computer, would you be able
to find some kind of investor who's willing to finance this ?
I'm not a spammer, just asking. I don't know the "other" architectures so
well (except the famous 68000 CPUs that powered Amigas and maybe PowerPC
powering Macs until recently) so I would only make computers with old x86
and pre-x86 processors. Ok, I forgot one: the Zilog Z80. 32 of those in an
8-bit system with the S-100 bus. The "new" Altair 8800, if you will. Maybe a
new Commodore PET 2001 as well (still with a gazillion CPUs and other such
stuff).
The other computers would be (warning, boring list ahead):
one with 16 386 CPUs, a lot of RAM (as far as I know, the 386 DX
actually CAN address 4 GB of RAM)
one with 16 of the best Socket 3 486 CPUs...which are the Pentium Overdrive
83 MHz :)
one with 16 of the best Socket 8 CPUs (Pentium II Overdrive 333 MHz, 66 MHz
FSB, etc.)
one with 8 Super Socket 7 K6-III+ CPUs at 600 MHz or more (depends on the
overclocking abilities)
one with 8 FC-PGA2 Pentium III-S at 1400 MHz and 4 GB RDRAM
one with 6 Pentium IV for Socket 478, at 3400 MHz
one with 6 Pentium IV for LGA775, at 3730 MHz
I'm not over deciding on dual cores and quad cores and tri cores yet. Have
to wait and see if Intel comes up with an even better Core 2 Duo Extreme
Edition, or AMD with a better Athlon 64 X2 Black Edition. The dual cores
would have a maximum of 4 CPUs, tri-cores and quad cores would get two.
The computers would be completely "integrated." Onboard everything, except
the optical drive, hard drive, ram modules, power supply and mouse. Some
modules would be optional, like the Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or infrared module.
All of them would get optional 3dfx hardware (up to the K6-III+, the
computers would only get Voodoo II accelerators, after that it's Voodoo 5
6000 and then Rampage). The idea is to buy the rights to remanufacture all
the needed chips (and ask for modifications before that, in most cases) from
the original copyright owners.
Sound nice to you ? Oh, and if you can see cracks in the idea, please share
them but remember, I'm stress-testing the idea, I don't want to start flame
wars.
Thank you very much
--
Alex Lovin - www.erasereality.3x.ro
Patrick Finnegan <pat at computer-refuge.org> wrote:
> On Thursday 28 May 2009, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
>> Doug Jackson wrote:
>>> I would personally consider purchasing a re manufactured Vintage
>>> computer -
>>>
>>> Something running, say, a 6502, 8080, 8085, or Z80. Definitely
>>> not interested in anything post 8085.
>>>
>>> Not sure what I would do with an ISA bus. Not enough pins on my
>>> processor to drive all of the address bits.
>>> Multi CPU systems are probably to far out of the intent of the
>>> Vintage realm for me to consider.
>> There ARE multi-CPU vintage systems. Some of the CPUs in question
>> were many, many boards full of chips.
>
> The first (SMP) one that comes to mind is a VAX 8800 (I only have 1/2,
> aka an 8700), or my VAXstation 3520/3540.
>
> Of course, there were other non-SMP systems (like the Dual VAX
> (11/780)), and systems that had multiple CPUs but weren't really
> dual-processor (DEC Rainbow).
What about PDP-10 systems? Those could be SMP systems. I know of one
person who ran a 3xKI10 system with TOPS-10. True SMP...
And then we have the PDP-11/74 (up to 4 CPUs), but they are probably
even harder to find than KI10 systems.
DEC were doing SMP long before they even started spelling "VAX". :-)
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 2:36 AM, bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca
> <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote:
>> > PS. Still wondering ... did a VT220 work with a PDP8 running OS/8?
>
> Yes. I did it in the 1980s (in large part because the VT220 had 20mA
> built-in). I don't remember the terminal settings, though.
>
> What did not work was the VTEDIT TECO macro. There's something
> inexact about the VT52 emulation in a VT220. The cheapest solution at
> the time was to get a real VT52 (about $50 to buy and $30 to ship).
> That's what I did.
Hmm, I'm pretty sure I've used a VT220 with VTEDIT. I could try again
tonight... (Well, okay, I don't have any VT220 anymore, but I have
VT320, VT420, VT510, VT520 and VT525 to test with.)
> If you are just doing rather ordinary things with OS/8, a VT220 should
> work just fine.
I never saw any problems at all with anything, using a VT100 or more
modern, with OS/8. Most programs expected it to be in VT52-mode, though.
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
the S/370 was built onto a single chip. I hope I'm not drawing a blank and actually denoting the wrong architecture (I think I got it right though). There's only a prototype though. And I know the dude that owns it (he designed it ;). Nah nah nah nah nah.
--- On Fri, 5/29/09, Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> wrote:
> I was actually referring to the second. I don't
> consider the first one to be multi-CPU at all. I was
> mostly referring to S/370 systems with which I have personal
> experience, although I understand they weren't, by any
> means, the first.
>
> Peace... Sridhar
>
On Fri May 29 20:04:14 CDT 2009, Mike Ross wrote:
> Here you go:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBtXLZcY_bM
> Makes a change from pdp... :-)
That would have been a really nice video clip of a DECSystem,
if he would have moved that peksy piece of IBM hardware out of the way.
It kept blocking the view of the "real" machine. ;-)
*Scamper*
T
Ian King <IanK at vulcan.com> wrote:
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-
>> bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dave McGuire
>> Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2009 1:38 PM
>> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
>> Subject: Re: StorageWorks key
>>
>> On May 28, 2009, at 3:32 PM, Ian King wrote:
>>> I picked up a neat StorageWorks tower on ePay a while back, and
>>> decided to hook it up to my VAX-4000/300 through a HSD05. I went
>>> to install the HSD05 and realized that the front (and rear) bezel
>>> locks to the body of the tower, precluding removal of the drives.
>>> <sigh> I don't have that key....
>>>
>>> Is this another one of those keys like the XX2247 that fits every
>>> PDP-11 front panel lock? If so, is there anyone who can (a)
>>> suggest a source or (b) perhaps offer up such a thing?
>> If it takes the plastic keys used on many VAXen and some PDP-11s
>> (11/24 and 11/44), if you can find out for sure, I can likely send
>> you one of those.
>>
>
>
> My 11/44 uses a barrel key (which now that you mention it ISTR is plastic), but this is a flat key.
I have one, but unfortunately only one...
There is no manufacturer name on it, and the only text of any kind is a
number "134". I don't know if that is of any help...
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
"bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca" <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote:
> Johnny Billquist wrote:
>> > "Bob Armstrong" <bob at jfcl.com> wrote:
>
>> > Wanna try it on some special cases that I know most emulators fail? :-)
>
> Well I do ... but not tonight.
It still takes several days for my posts to actually show up, it seems.
Anyone else have the same problem?
Anyway, I sent a list of things for Bob to test.
>> > Johnny
> PS. Still wondering ... did a VT220 work with a PDP8 running OS/8?
Certainly.
> I have a problem with bit #8 being set from the PDP.
That's called 7 bits, mark parity. :-)
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
