test-drb July 2009

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

181 participants
245 discussions

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

Back in 1998 (actually more like from summer 1997 until summer 1998, i.e., the 1997-98 school year), before I started Quasijarus Project, I was searching the World high and low for a copy of the 4.3BSD tape set. That was before PUPS got its momentum with getting the $100 "Ancient UNIX" license deal from SCO, and more importantly, getting people interested in preserving and working with Original UNIX, and at that time the entire world was basically in a conspiracy of anathema against original Bell/Berkeley UNIX, everyone just wanted it to stay buried in its grave and not come up. Getting a copy of the 4.3BSD tape set seemed next to impossible. www.berkeley.edu was shockingly silent about the fact that Berkeley UNIX aka BSD, UC Berkeley's greatest accomplishment in all of its history, ever existed, much less saying how to order a tape. Finally I found a phone number and a couple of E-mail addresses for some office at UCB that was apparently kept for sending out tapes after CSRG itself was gutted. The office was basically a voice mailbox and a couple of E-mail addresses, with the two people who were actually supposed to get those E-mail and voice messages being away somewhere in San Francisco and taking a few weeks to answer inquiries. Finally they got back to me and told me to send a check for $2400 for 4.4BSD and $1000 for 4.3BSD. Ouch! And of course some murky business about licenses. At that time, however, I attended Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) and had a semi-staff relationship with their computer science department. I realised that the university must have had a UNIX source license from back in The Days, and most probably had the actual 4.3BSD tapes at some point as well, especially given that the old-timers told me that they were indeed running 11/780s before. But again the conspiracy of anathema was working: everyone had completely forgotten about it, and no one on the entire campus even knew that the university had a UNIX source license (and old-timers confirmed that indeed there was one). When spring 1998 came around, PUPS was making its debut with the $100 license deal from SCO. I didn't care so much about license stuff, but it meant a resurgence of interest in Original UNIX and a community of people involved with it, something that was completely lacking only a few months prior. I wanted access to the PUPS archive, and I wanted to use the university's license rather than fork over $100 for a personal one. The only issue was *finding* that license. Then I got a bright idea: since the license agreement was between CWRU and AT&T, there must have been copies of it on both sides. If CWRU had chosen to forget about the license they once paid big money for, how about if I dig up a copy of the license agreement from AT&T side? So I asked SCO's Dion Johnson about it, and lo and behold, a few days later a copy of CWRU's original UNIX license agreement shows up in my box in the computer science department mail room! Warren Toomey got another copy and soon I got an overseas fax from him with passwords for his PUPS Archive! Whoo-hoo! But I still needed 4.3BSD. It wasn't in Warren's archive since they were still PDP-only at that time, and me holding a copy of my school's AT&T UNIX license agreement didn't help convince anyone I knew who might have had 4.3BSD tapes to share them with me. In late 1997 I got myself an office at CWRU, it was the CES department's computer junkyard room. I was quite happy, a room full of classic computers was the best office I could get. It was actually two rooms, 411 and 412. Only 411 was accessible from the hallway, the entrance to 412 was inside 411. Both rooms were filled with classic computer gear, but 411 was a little less full and actually had some room for a desk and was usable as an office. 412, on the other hand, was *completely* filled with classic computer gear (mostly Sun 3) and it was difficult for a person to make it through to the end of the room. At the very end of room 412 (the end opposite the entrance door from 411) there was something that looked like a plastic curtain or plastic window blinds. The architecture of that building was really intriguing, the kind one finds only on good old university campuses, and I couldn't really tell if there was supposed to be a window there or not. I just never gave it much thought, and it was too difficult to climb over all that Sun 3 gear in the way to see exactly what it was. On a shelf in room 411 there were some magtape reels, and I thought that if they ever had 4.3BSD tapes, they ought to be there. But I looked through all the tapes I could see and 4.3BSD wasn't there. Bummer. Then one day in summer 1998 I came to work in the morning, went up the stairs to my beloved Computer Engineering and Science department 4th floor, went to the end of the hallway to my office, and got in. I turned on the lights and per my usual habit, peeked all over the room to make sure all the fun classic computers were still there. And lo and behold, at the very end of room 412, where I previously saw those plastic curtains or window blinds or whatever, I now saw two racks full of magtapes! It turned out that the plastic "curtains" were actually vertically sliding doors (kinda like garage doors) of two huge magtape cabinets! Another staff member must have had a need to get some old magtape and didn't close the cabinet after he was done. With trembling hands, I raced there and started looking through all the tapes. And sure enough, in a few minutes I found all 3 tapes of the 4.3BSD 1600 BPI distribution. I spent pretty much the whole year prior to that moment searching the World high and low for 4.3BSD tapes when they were sitting the whole time in my own office! Now that's a "Duh!" moment. MS

14 years, 7 months

Atari and Commodore stuff

by dbetz＠xlisper.com

I have a bunch of Atari and Commodore stuff that needs to find a new home. I'd love it if someone would come and pick this up in Bedford, NH. If that doesn't work, I may be willing to ship some/all of it if the buyer pays the shipping. If possible, I'd like all of the Atari stuff to go in one batch and all of the Commodore stuff in one batch (or everything in one batch). I'm offering this stuff for free although if you have any old calculators or hand-held computers that you'd like to trade that would be even better! Thanks! David Atari stuff 2 Atari 1050 disk drives with power supplies and SIO cables 1 Atari 850 interface with power supply and SIO cable 6 SIO cables 1 Atari Logo cartridge and manuals 1 Atari Editor/Assembler cartridge and manual 1 pair of Atari paddle controllers 1 Atari controller extension cable / Y adapter 2 RF switch boxes 1 Atari PAG-1200 power supply, 9VDC 1A 2 Atari CO-14319 power supplies, 9VAC 15.3VA 1 Atari 1010 Owner's Guide 1 Atari Basketball cartridge CXL4004 1 Atari Music Composer cartridge CXL4007 1 Spinnaker Adventure Creator cartridge Commodore stuff 1 Commodore 1541 disk drive with power and data cables 2 Suncom Tac5 joysticks 1 Aprospand 4 slot extender 1 Cardkey numeric keypad with a missing keycap (the multiply key) 1 Cardco centronics parallel interface with cables

14 years, 7 months

Problems with IBM 5150 Power

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

Re: "If you mean the power supply fan, then that means nothing in the 5150 (AC fan?)" That's not true. The fan is run on DC from one of the outputs (12 volts, I think, but it might be 5 volts). So a working fan is a good sign. But an entire output voltage can still be completely dead.

14 years, 8 months

Vax 11/750 disks

by pontus＠update.uu.se

Hi all. I have a Vax 11/750 coming my way. It currently has a three RA81 disks in a half-height rack. I feel that the RA81 takes up a little too much room. I would rather run on as small disks as possible (physical size of course). What options do I have? I believe that RA90 would work with existing controllers and I could fit one or two of those into a rack I already have. Kind regards, Pontus.

14 years, 8 months

PDP 11/40 Unibus termination query...

by derschjo＠mail.msu.edu

Hey all -- I'm one step closer to bringing my 11/40 back to life -- the front panel is now responding and I can examine and deposit memory. But the machine is only responsive without the Unibus terminator (an M9302) installed. If it's installed, the front panel is basically hung -- toggling "Start" causes a brief flurry of activity, but that's the only thing that causes any response. Without the terminator installed, the front panel more or less works, I can examine and deposit memory, load the address register, etc... but I can't get any toggled in code to run, obviously -- it traps to the bus error vector at 00004. (There's also an odd issue, which I doubt is related, but Examining/Depositing does not correctly increment the address -- starting from 0, it's "0, 2, 6, 12, 16, 22, 26..." and if I start at 1 it's "1, 3, 7, 13, 17, 23, 27...") I currently have the CPU boards + MMU option installed in the correct order with a SLU card in the SPC slot, and an M981 connecting to a 4-slot Unibus backplane with a single 64K MOS memory card (M7891) in slot 2 -- all other slots have grant continuity cards installed. The Unibus terminator is installed in the last slot. Any ideas? Thanks as always, Josh

14 years, 8 months

VT420s, 80 meg packs

by wdonzelli＠gmail.com

Is there any serious interest here for DEC VT420s? I have a large pile of them now, and am wondering if they are worth refurbing, or if I should just scrap them out. Also, I have access to a large number of 80 meg disk packs for the CDC SMD drives. I do not really need them (I am more a 300 meg guy), but is there interest in these? -- Will

14 years, 8 months

plastics

by generalordertwentyfour＠gmail.com

many types of course. Generally speaking do the materials used in pc's from the 80s fall into a single category? Everything is injected into a mold for sure, from largish cases to tiny keytops. Would all this qualify as polystyrene? Whatever the case, what's a good solvent (not necessarily glue) that's useful for repairing big cracks or splits, to tiny hairline cracks. I say solvent, and some glues can fall into this category, because it makes more sense to reinforce the materials from behind to effect a strong bond, and for cosmetic sake meld the item from the front, to obscure the defect itself. Many surfaces are anything but smooth. Has anyone tried, given they were successful in melding the surface, in reproducing the look of the surface surrounding it? Smooth surfaces can be melded then touched up lightly w/ultra fine emery cloth and some sort of lubricant I would guess. But the rough textures are a different story.

14 years, 8 months

[rescue] Tapes, Drives, Libraries, and Arrays Need to Go (fwd)

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

If someone would forward this to CC-talk and elsewhere, I'd appreciate it. I am preparing to move soon. I don't know how soon, but it's likely going to be the case that I find something in a neighborhood I want, that I can afford, and that I need to pounce on quickly, so I'm trying to be rid of anything I don't have any hope of ever using. I have a huge cabinet (I think it holds either 300 or 500 reels) of full of 2400ft nine track tapes. I no-longer have a working nine-track drive. This cabinet is about four feet wide, seven feet tall, and two feet deep. This pile o' tapes, the cabinet in which they hang so uselessly, and the non-working DEC SCSI tape drive[0] need to go. I don't want any cash for it or the tapes, just please come and get them. If you only want the drive, I'll deliver it anywhere in Austin, but preference will go to someone who'll pick up the cabinet full of tapes. I also have a Sun StorEdge L3500 tape library with six DLT7000 drives. It is mechanically sound, and the drives work, but there's a defective optointerruptor that determines the X position of the carriage; it's a cheap part to replace and shouldn't take a lot of labor, but I'm backing up to disk now. You may either pick this up, or help me load it and unload it, and I'll drive it to your central Texas location with my truck. Photos of the library are here: http://jonathan.celestrion.net/photos/library/ I also have a Compaq Storageworks BA370 24-slot enclosure with dual controllers. This takes SCSI Storageworks "storage building blocks", and I may actually have enough of them to fill the unit (not necessarily with disks in the blocks). I have spare batteries, controllers, and other bits. Need a fiber switch? I have gigabit Brocade Silkworm and possibly enough GBICs to fill it. Feel free to make an offer on the BA370 or the switch. I'll mail the switch or deliver the BA370 in central Texas, but I won't ship the BA370 anywhere; it's just too hard to crate reasonably. [0] I don't recall the model, but it's vacuum-loading, SCSI, and 5 or 6 rack units tall. The failure mode is that it fails to load the tape (or loads, fails to notice, and then unloads), so hopefully it's just a sticky sensor. -- Jonathan Patschke ( "They don't have the right to read a book out loud." Elgin, TX ( --Paul Aiken USA ( Executive Director, Authors Guild _______________________________________________ rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

14 years, 8 months

List admin problems?

by wmaddox＠pacbell.net

Am I the only person who has had trouble subscribing to the list? I've attempted a couple of times over the last couple of weeks to subscribe another email address with no success. I don't know if the moderators are just backed up, or if the requests are getting black-holed. --Bill

14 years, 8 months

Problems with IBM 5150 Power

by starbase89＠gmail.com

I recently acquired a 5150. It is a 16-64k with two drives and color. I have not been able to boot it up yet. I cleaned the inside, and made sure everything was well connected. When I flick the power on, the CPU fan goes, and nothing else. There is power coming out of the motherboard and drive connectors, but there is nothing at the ISA slot. No beeps or anything. I tested the power supply with a modern CD drive. It worked. I removed the motherboard and inspected it for obviously bad components and scorch marks. I then opened the power supply. It was pretty clean, except for the hornet's nest inside. I haven't yet removed that board, but plan to soon. The fuse is intact. Can anyone suggest what to do next? I have PDFs of the Hardware Maintaince manual and the technical service manual. Thanks Joe

14 years, 8 months

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test-drb July 2009