test-drb June 2009

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

233 participants
404 discussions

Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

So to turn a bit more on-topic, my big thrift store find of the week is a 400MHz Ruby iMac. It looks loaded with OS 10.4.2 on a 10GB Quantum drive, a Matsushita CD-ROM, 576MB of RAM (the original 64MB plus an add-on 512MB PC-133 DIMM), and no Airport/WiFi interface. I found the spot for it - a pair of mounting brackets and an antenna cable, but no interface. :-( I don't have a lot of PowerMac hardware, so this is an interesting find. I do have the guts of a Blue&White tower stuffed into a beige box, but this little guy is much easier to move around and store on a shelf when I'm not using it. Somewhere, I have Starcraft for the PPC Mac. I should try to fire that up. Oh... I forgot to mention. This working machine was priced at $20, about 2% of what it cost new (but it had a keyboard and mouse back then). After some poking around, it looks like the former owner upgraded it >from OS9 and used AOL, but did at least clean most of the personal data out. I should drop a larger hard drive in there and do a fresh install of 10.4 (since I never really used 8 or 9 much, and 10.4 is as high as it goes for PPC) -ethan

15 years, 2 months

Fast EPROM eraser?

by caveguy＠sbcglobal.net

On Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:41:40 -0700, Eric Smith wrote: >A regular camera flash is probably the wrong thing to use, as by design >they don't emit a large amount of short-wave UV. usually the UV filter is in the lens / cover not the cheep glass tube. The other Bob

15 years, 2 months

cool article

by brianlanning＠gmail.com

I'm particularly impressed with the TI-99/4A in problem #13 http://technologizer.com/2009/06/14/fifteen-classic-pc-design-mistakes/

15 years, 2 months

PDP-11 Controller needed to use a couple of RX33 drive

by tiggerlasv＠aim.com

A while back, I posted instructions for making a cable to go directly from an RQDX controller to RX33's an RX50's. While I didn't test it with more than 2 drives, I don't see why it wouldn't support 4 drives. For some reason (possibly my mail editor), the archive copy had ?'s in place of _spaces_ so I am reposting it below. ----------------------------------------------- If anyone is interested, here are the pinouts, and instructions for constructing such a cable. The instructions were created with the lay-person in mind. Copying this text into Windows Notepad should restore proper formatting. This cable was constructed using a BA23 distribution panel as a guide, and has been tested with both RX50's and RX33's, attached to an RQDX3. Cable diagram: Floppy RQDX Description --------------------------------- 1 21 Gnd 2 22 Density Select --------------------------------- 3 NC (Cut) 4 NC (Cut) 5 NC (Cut) --------------------------------- 6 24 Drive Select 4 7 25 Gnd 8 26 Index 9 NC 10 28 Drive Select 1 --------------------------------- 11 NC (Cut) 12 29 Drive Select 2 13 NC (Cut) --------------------------------- 14 30 Drive Select 3 15 NC 16 32 Floppy Motor 17 33 Gnd 18 34 Direction 19 35 Gnd 20 36 Step 21 37 Gnd 22 38 Floppy Write Data 23 39 Gnd 24 40 Write Gate 25 41 Gnd 26 42 Track 0 --------------------------------- 27 NC (Cut) 28 8 Write Fault --------------------------------- 29 45 Gnd 30 46 Floppy Read Data 31 47 Gnd 32 48 Head Select 0 33 49 Gnd 34 50 Ready Stuff you'll need: 1.) A suitable length of 34-conductor ribbon cable. Make sure you have enough wire to reach the controller, and enough slack on the other end to allow the drives to slide out of the bay. Add 6" onto this measurement. 2.) A 50-pin IDC-style "Berg" connector for the RQDXn. 3.) A 34-pin IDC-style "Berg" connector for an RX50. 4.) One or two 34-pin IDC-style card-edge connectors for RX33's. What to do: 1.) Split one end of the ribbon cable as follows. DON'T separate ALL of the wires individually; keep them paired! Peel each grouping of conductors back about 4 or 5 inches. 1,2 ------------- 3,4,5 ------------- 6 through 10 ------------- 11,12,13 ------------- 14 through 26 ------------- 27,28 ------------- 29 through 34 2.) Cut conductors 3, 4, 5, 11, 13, and 27. They won't be used, and there won't be a convenient place to terminate them on the connector. These wires will need to be insulated at some point. If you have wide plastic sleeving, then put a section of it onto the cable. Heat shrink will NOT work well. A simple loop of electrical tape should suffice. 3.) Conductor 28 needs to be fairly long, since it lands on the opposite side of the 50-pin connector. Trim about 3 inches off ALL of the OTHER wires. 4.) Using a pair of needle-nose pliers, REMOVE the following contacts from the 50-pin IDC connector: 7, 9, 19, 20, 23, 27, 31, 43, and 44. This will prevent certain RQDXn signal lines from being inadvertently grounded, and will help properly identify your landing positions for some of the connections. 5.) Line up the ribbon cable with the connector, and check to make sure that conductor 28 is long enough to reach across the cable, without placing it under any strain. 6.) Press the ribbon cable onto the 50-pin IDC connector. Refer to the chart at the top of this text; You'll see that they are grouped exactly as they should sit on the actual connector, with the exception of conductor 28. Note that SOME groupings start on ODD connector numbers, and some start on EVEN numbers. 7.) If you haven't done so already, refer back to step 2, and insulate the wires that were cut, to prevent them from shorting-out against the chassis. 8.) Determine where you need your floppy connectors, and press the connectors onto the 34-pin cable. Make sure that you observe the position of Pin 1. I made a "Universal cable" for my BA123. It has a 34-pin berg, and TWO card-edge connectors near the end (spaced about 4" apart), and then a THIRD card-edge connector about 10" down. This will allow double-stacked RX33's in a single bay, individual RX33's in separate bays, or a single RX50. 9.) Test, and enjoy !

15 years, 2 months

PDP-8/L on eBay

by hachti＠hachti.de

Hi folks, there is a "PDP-8/L" on eBay: 180367591215 One should better say: A rudiment of a PDP-8/L. The system lacks all M series modules - so there is no logic left. The green part around the memory looks quite populated. No key and a switch missing. Cosmetic overall condition seems to be nice. I'm thinking of bidding on it as spares. Would be nice to get it for not too much - I would have to pay international shipping anyway... Best wishes, Philipp -- http://www.hachti.de

15 years, 2 months

Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...)

by brianlanning＠gmail.com

I received the 600e cdrom drive and a MacOS 8 cdrom. I removed the other scsi tower I had been using and installed the 600e in its place. The 600e seems to power on and the tray opens and closes. The light flickers from green to yellow as it first spins up the disk. I'm using the same cable and terminator as I did with the tower. One of two things happens, either the quadra 700 ignores the cdrom and gets stuck at the happy face like the drive isn't there at all. Or sometimes, I get the Frowny face with the four tones. The error numbers are 0000000F and 00000001. Any ideas what's happening? brian

15 years, 2 months

IBM 5100 cartridges

by tosteve＠yahoo.com

I have the original Diagnostics cartridge for the IBM 5100, but it's the only cart I have. I'd like to make some copies of it, etc. What kind of carts are these, and is there a good source for any? I have both APL and BASIC 5100 systems, so it must be possible to copy it? Thanks- Steven

15 years, 2 months

VCF East 6.0

by evan＠snarc.net

Hi all, Go here:http://www.vintage.org/2009/east/exhibit.php to register for VCF East 6.0 exhibits. It's okay if you only have a general idea of your exhibit right now. You can always fill in some more details later. However for the VCF's advertising / marketing purposes, it is MUCH better to sign up sooner rather than later! People who sign up sooner will also have dibs on the best booth locations. The event is Sept. 12-13 at the InfoAge Science Center in Wall, New Jersey. We're still in the process of arranging lecturers and special events. Please contact me off-list (evan at snarc.net) with any questions, notes about mistakes in the web site, etc. - Evan (& Sellam)

15 years, 2 months

Further Emulator Discussion

by madcrow.maxwell＠gmail.com

Al Kossow wrote: > The version there is VERY old. Tom decided to not make later versions > available. Sadly, this has resulted in many forks of the last available > source base. I wonder if the Cray/Cyber group would have any luck with > BT granting use of cyber 70 class software for non-commercial use. Right > now there is no generally available software other than Chippewa to run > on it. I wonder what happened that made him decide that? Maybe the above mentioned lack of software to run on it had something to do with the decision. > With VMS support going offshore, I wonder how long that will last. > Thank Bob Supnik for the DEC hobby licensing. > HP has been very supportive of CHM's efforts to preserve their product's > software. There are several other agreements similar to the one we negotiated > for the HP211x/2100 software in the works. Given that a core of old DECUS folks inside Connect seem to do all the work involved with the VMS hobbyist license, I wonder if the higher-ups at HP even know that it exists. The HP 21xx deal is news to me, though. I guess it firmly puts HP into the "supportive" camp vis a vis classic computing hobbyism and research, especially if they're thinking of donating more stuff to the museum (which I really need to visit one of these days, by the way) Mike

15 years, 2 months

Further Emulator Discussion (Warren Wolfe)

by mjkerpan＠kerpan.com

About that very high price: I think that may be a joke. DtCyber certainly always used free and open source. And it still lives in the FreeBSD ports tree. It's at least possible that this was done as a move of protest against BT Consulting's move to stop granting free (or even reasonably priced) hobbyist licenses for antique CDC software... It really is a shame that the only company that treated the hobbyist use of its old platforms as a good thing, was DEC. It's just a miracle that HP is still allowing things like the VMS hobby license and the 36-bit hobby license to continue. If that ended, we'd be stuck the IBM PD-era stuff as the only legally emulatable big iron :(

15 years, 2 months

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test-drb June 2009