test-drb July 2009

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

181 participants
245 discussions

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

See # 200358832673. Not affiliated with seller, yadda yadda. This looks like a really nice system...Hard drive, looks like a QIC tape drive, terminals, printer. The seller says the machine has problems but has included some spare parts. Speaking of which, does anyone have a spare Dynabyte 8" floppy subsystem sitting around in a garage? I'd love to have a matching disk subsystem for my DB8/1. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

15 years, 5 months

Wang LOCI-2A on eBay

by derschjo＠mail.msu.edu

Item # 150356241047. Wish I had the disposable income for this. Neat old programmable calculator, with blinkenlights! - Josh

15 years, 5 months

Shuttle Communicator Hardware?

by brain＠jbrain.com

Does anyone know anything about a Shuttle Communicator system? It looks to be some sort of demodulation system that plugs into various 80's era computers and has the ability to receive data from radio, modem, telephone, etc. Yes, there were some neat tidbits in the recent acquisition. Jim -- Jim Brain, Brain Innovations (X) brain at jbrain.com Dabbling in WWW, Embedded Systems, Old CBM computers, and Good Times! Home: http://www.jbrain.com

15 years, 5 months

Telnet access to classic mainframe/timesharing systems

by djg＠pdp8.net

> Among our next projects at the PDPplanet site (which will be changing names > soon) are a PDP-8/e running either TSS/8 or MULTOS, and a PDP-11/45 running > Unix v7. We will announce their availability here as well as other well- > known fora for vintage/classic computing. > I have the multiuser MULTOS and ETOS available on my online PDP-8 (http://www.pdp8online.com/run.shtml) The version of MULTOS I built seems to be hit or miss on what it will run. It seems to run basic fine but pfocal goes into an endless loop and adventure also won't run. Have you run it enough to know if the copy your running works better?

15 years, 5 months

unpacking macintosh floppy bin files on windows

by brianlanning＠gmail.com

Does anyone know of a good utility to do this? A google search has been unsuccessful so far. I want to remove the files from a macintosh bin floppy disk image and copy them to a macintosh floppy that I've managed to be able to use on my windows machine. I haven't had much luck actually writing the bin file to a floppy disk directly on windows. brian

15 years, 5 months

OT: deliberate mis-spelling, was Re: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website

by lee＠geekdot.com

> There's a word for that, where you deliberately mis-spell something > for effect, like "kat kare" or "cheez". Years ago my mum (a retired > English teacher) told me what it was, but I can't remember and > neither can she. Cacography? Lee.

15 years, 5 months

Telnet access to classic mainframe/timesharing systems

by mjkerpan＠kerpan.com

I'd be interested to know what's out there vis a vis classic systems that are on the Internet offering public access. Currently, I know of twenex.org (emulated KL-10B DECSYSTEM-20 with Panda TOPS-20), pdpplanet.com (a TOAD-1 with TOPS-20, a DECSYSTEM-10 2065 and a VAX 780) and cray-cyber.org (an emulated CDC Cyber plus a rotating selection of historic super computers on weekends), but is there anything else? Is anybody running classic versions of UNIX (UCB-era BSD, AT&T-era System III/V, V6/V7, etc) Is anybody running a public IBM system? What about various lesser-known systems? Given that most people used these systems through remote terminals to begin with, a public access system would seem to be an ideal way to experience them, but how many of them are available in such a way?

15 years, 5 months

National Semiconductor Mass Storage Handbook

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

Does anyone have a National Semiconductor Mass Storage Handbook (databook) from around 1989? I am looking for datasheets (or at least pinouts) for : DP8468 DP8465 DP8455 DP8462 DP8463 Datasheetarchive and Digchip don't have anything, and a google search is not helpful. In case you're curious, I am trying to identify a house-coded part with a National Logo that I suspect is one of these devies. 24 pin shrinkdip if it helps.. On another subject, has anyone heard of an AMD 8053? 40 pin DIL, I suspect it's a derivative of the 8051 microcontorller. No I don't mean 8035... -tony

15 years, 5 months

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

by bqt＠softjar.se

tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: > I'm not certain of the mechanics involved, but, > you shouldn't be able to trash the format of either drive, > unless the Drive Select jumpers are set incorrectly. There are no drive select jumpers. That could, of course, be the problem. :-) > The only thing that might have an impact on this would be > if you try it in a BA23 with an un-modified 4-button front panel. This was definitely in a 4-butten front panel BA23. However, I'm not sure the front panel is the only place to blame. > *Maybe* the fact that the Ready/Write Protect lines > for the 2nd drive are left floating, is somehow confusing > the RQDXn controller, but that seems doubtful. The RQDX wasn't confused. It was the drives... When the RQDX started writing to #0, the write circuitry of #1 also went active. Or if it was writing to #1 which also activated the circuitry of #0. > Those lines merely report status of the 2nd drive. > The Drive Select and Head Select lines don't go > anywhere near the front panel, and there are > separate signal lines for drives 0, 1, 2, and 3. Exactly. Which is why I wonder if the front panel really is to blame for the problem. >>From a modification standpoint, there are NO CHANGES > required to the disk drive distribution panel; all of the > signal lines are there, and ready to use for 2 drives. > > DEC sold the "upgrade" kit for 2 hard drives; > it's called the BA23-UC. It consists only of a 6-button panel. > This is the same 6-button panel that was shipped with > later models of the MicroVax, which clearly supported > 2 internal RD-series disk drives. > > All the 6-button panels did was to add the extra > ready/write protect buttons. There is no extra logic involved. > > The Write Protect LIGHTS for the RX50's were deleted, > as the newer RQDX3 controller doesn't provide any outputs > for the floppy write protect lights. > > Most of this information is documented on-line, > in the document "third-party disks.txt". > > All that need be done to the 4-button panels is to > solder 2 resistors onto the boards, to pull the 2 signal lines > to their appropriate logic levels. The RQDX3 only uses these > signals to establish that the drive is on-line, and write-enabled. > It has nothing to do which drive is selected when it goes to write. > > Have I trashed the format of a drive in a 2-drive BA23 configuration? > Yes, I have. But only because I wasn't paying attention, > and didn't set the Drive Select jumpers to "3" on both drives. > > Remember: The distribution panel shifts the signal lines around, > and all hard drives need to be set to "3". > > This could easily trip you up if you weren't paying attention, > as some of the drives had DS markings of 0 - 3, and some > were marked 1 - 4 . . . > > Thus, depending on what DS settings you have, > you could in theory have 2 drives responding to the > same drive select signal, which could trash your format. Hmm. As far as I can remember, there are no DS jumpers on the drives. If you have an RQDXE, you have a bunch of jumpers on that in order to set up which drive is which, and all that. But the backplane of the BA23 don't have any jumpers, as far as I can remember. And in this case, both drives were RD53s. Properly formatted, DEC branded and everything. And no, it wasn't me who tried putting this together. I was called in after the fact, to rescue as much as I could from the trashed drive. Which is why I suspect it was writing to #1 which trashed #0, since I believe they were in the process of making a copy of #0, which was their only copy of the system, and which they booted from. 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

15 years, 5 months

Free (for postage) TI 59 calculator

by feldman.r＠comcast.net

The calculator has been claimed. Bob

15 years, 5 months

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test-drb July 2009