test-drb January 2010

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Morrow Micro Decision bootable floppy images

by aek＠bitsavers.org

Bootable images for most flavors of Micro Decision, along with apps now up under http://bitsavers.org/bits/Morrow

14 years, 3 months

Hans Pufal's PDP-8 FPGA Core?

by sethm＠loomcom.com

Does anyone know what became of Hans Pufal's PDP-8 FPGA core? I've found quite a few references to it on Google, but no links to it anywhere. I tried contacting Hans at his gmail address about a week ago and haven't heard back, but I don't know if that's his current address or not. -Seth

14 years, 3 months

Mark Simonsen of Beagle Bros to keynote KansasFest 2010

by pneubauer＠bluerwhite.org

I thought this might interest some list members. -Peter === KANSAS CITY, MO ? December 22, 2009 ? Mark Simonsen, employee number three and later owner of Beagle Bros, will be the keynote speaker at KansasFest 2010. At Beagle Bros, whose popular software products for the Apple II hobbyist demonstrated the publisher's quirky sense of humor, Mark developed software including Flex Type, Beagle BASIC, Beagle Graphics, Triple-Dump, and Double-Take. In the early 1980s, Mark decided that he "wanted to work with the Apple for the rest of [his] life," a statement that captures the enthusiasm and spirit of Mark, Beagle Bros, and many Apple II users. Beagle Bros started in 1980 under the direction of Bert Kersey to provide software to casual users of the Apple II. A year and a half after graduating with a degree in computer science from Brigham Young University, Mark "fell in love with the Apple." Mark published Flex Type through Beagle Bros in 1982, joined the company as a programmer in 1983, and bought it in 1987 at the age of 29. Besides software like Shape Mechanic, GPLE, and DOS Boss for budding programmers, Beagle Bros produced books, posters, and even advertisements full of clever and useful tidbits demonstrating the capabilities of the Apple II. Later, the company produced highly regarded productivity software like Platinum Paint, BeagleWrite GS, and the TimeOut line of AppleWorks add-ons. Beagle Bros earned many loyal followers thanks to the combination of quality products, enthusiasm, and humor. Mark sold the company's product line in 1991 and 1992 to Quality Computers. Today, Mark helps save memories as the CEO of iPreserve, a company specializing in photo, film, video, and document preservation. KansasFest 2010, the 21st annual Apple II conference, is set for July 20th through July 25th at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Missouri. KansasFest was originally hosted by Resource Central and has been brought to you by the KFest Committee since 1995. Any and all Apple II and Macintosh users, fans, and friends are invited to attend this year's "summer camp for geeks." Registration details will be announced on the KansasFest Web site in early 2010. Please heed the warning from Beagle Bros and refrain from feeding your disks to alligators. For photos, schedules, and presentations from past year's events, please visit the event's official Web site at http://www.kansasfest.org/ CONTACT: KansasFest 2010 http://www.kansasfest.org/ http://twitter.com/kansasfest/

14 years, 3 months

Call for displays at Midwest Gaming Classic March 27th and 28th

by wgungfu＠gmail.com

Just sending out another call to members of this list for vintage computing displays at the Midwest Gaming Classic in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We've taken over the entire Sheraton Four Points hotel and convention center, and have expanded to 30,000 sq. ft. this year. The convention covers consoles (past to present), pinball, video coin, and vintage computing. With about 4,000 in attendance last year and even more expected this year because of the move closer to the city, your equipment and display will be enjoyed and appreciated by a lot of people. Photos of the entire show from last year are available here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/91071283 at N00/collections/72157622883180931/ I'm, as always, continually interested in expanding the vintage computing area. Besides items from my archive, we've had members from the Commodore and TI communities come and do great displays. We want more! Please contact me direct if you're interested. Also, computing equipment is always in high demand in the vending hall as well for anyone that's interested. Marty

14 years, 3 months

HP Integral / display schematic ?

by jdr_use＠bluewin.ch

First the TU56 broke, then the Lilith disks goes, and now it is the HP Integral's turn . The Integral, stored a year ago in working condition, has a display problem. After switching on the Integral makes all the right noises, but the display remains off. Anyone has a pinout, or schematic , of the Sharp LJ512U03 EL-display as used in the Integral ? ( there is something, but not much, in the 1985 HP Journal ) a replacement will be hard to find, and far too expensive of course. I do wonder how those with 100+ computers keep them all runnning, I have maybe 25 classics and find it hard to keep them alive. Jos Dreesen

14 years, 3 months

Going off the thread of a topic (Was: Compaq Portable II - ...)

by thomas.gardner＠sbcglobal.net

In Issue 15's Topics none of these emails had anything to do with their subject: "Compaq Portable II - Restoration Problem, Help requested". I would like to thank Fred for showing how one should change the subject line when the discussion goes off thread (see Topic 14) and suggest to the rest of us that this group will work better if we all follow Fred's example. 4. Re: Compaq Portable II - Restoration Problem, Help requested (Tony Duell) 5. Re: Compaq Portable II - Restoration Problem, Help requested (Chuck Guzis) 6. Re: Compaq Portable II - Restoration Problem, Help requested (Josh Dersch) 7. Re: Compaq Portable II - Restoration Problem, Help requested (Dave McGuire) 9. Re: Compaq Portable II - Restoration Problem, Help requested (Chuck Guzis) 11. Re: Compaq Portable II - Restoration Problem, Help requested (Dave McGuire) 13. Re: Compaq Portable II - Restoration Problem, Help requested (Chuck Guzis) 14. Disk change and write cacheing (Was: Compaq Portable II - (Fred Cisin) 16. Re: Compaq Portable II - Restoration Problem, Help requested (Tony Duell) 18. Re: Compaq Portable II - Restoration Problem, Help requested (Tony Duell) 21. Re: Compaq Portable II - Restoration Problem, Help requested (Josh Dersch) 22. Re: Compaq Portable II - Restoration Problem, Help requested (Dave McGuire) Tom

14 years, 3 months

desoldering problems and technique (and amiga 2000 mod)

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

Brian Lanning writes: >On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 5:59 AM, Steven Hirsch <snhirsch at gmail.com> wrote: >>> Does anyone know why the connectors were left off the board in the first >>> place? ?It seems kind of silly since they went to the effort to route the >>> signals and have the holes drilled. >> >> To save $0.50 per slot, I'd imagine. >This kind of thing makes me insane. I would have gladly paid another >$1, or even $10, had they just put the parts on the board. I have a >hard time believing (i.e. prefer to believe) that this would be purely >a cost cutting move. More insane things have happened. Witness the VAXstation II RC, where RC stood for "reduced configuration". DEC took a perfectly normal Q-bus Backplane, with installed edge connectors, then filled the edge connectors with epoxy to prevent users from installing third-party peripherals. All to sell at a price lower than the normal Microvax II's (about $6K IIRC.) When DEC found out that folks were taking advantage of them by buying a VAXStation II RC and swapping out the backplane, the responded by pouring The epoxy so that it glued the backplane to the chassis, as well. A few folks Got these and then managed to chisel out the old backplane. Tim.

14 years, 3 months

Compaq Portable II - Restoration Problem, Help requested

by thomas.gardner＠sbcglobal.net

I have 2 Portable IIs in fairly good shape, except that both of them, one an HDD model and one with two FDs. Both run Memory Check and POST but fail to boot. During POST they both give a "162 System Options Not Set - Run Setup" message but when I continue I get a "Non-system disk or disk error" message with several known good original disks (Compaq Setup Disk, PCDOS 3.3 StartUp disk, MSDOS 2.0 disk) Sometimes I get the message, "Disk Boot Failure" I tried replacing the 1987 battery in the HDD Portable II with a fresh battery purchased recently at Frys and had no change in the failure mode. I have two HDD/FDD controller cards and tried both in the HDD Portable II with no change in the failure mode. If I listen to the boot process, it sounds like it cannot read the boot sector. That is, I can hear one seek (or maybe a rezero) to a single location and then no more. As I recall during a DOS boot, you can hear multiple seeks as, first the boot sector loads and then the boot loader (in the boot sector) loads MSDOS.SYS, IO.SYS and the FAT. Since I never hear any seeking I suspect the boot sector cannot be read. I find it surprising that two machines having very different histories will fail in the same way. BTW, they are not even the same type FDDs, one is a "push button" type and the other is a "lidded" type. I am hoping that I am making some sort of operator error which can easily be corrected. Any ideas? Thanks and Happy New Years. Tom

14 years, 3 months

Tech tip: check your batteries! Terminals and logic boards

by jrr＠flippers.com

Anyone who collects laptops, terminals, or motherboards with memory backup needs to pay attention to the batteries. If the machine is in storage it would be a good idea to open it up and remove the battery (Ni-Cad or non-chargeable Alkaline) before it leaks and destroys the electronics. Note that many 1970s and 80s terminals all used rechargeable batteries to store user info... We often repair older arcade and pinball games (hey, they have computers - and they are classic!) where the battery has leaked and damaged or taken the board to the board graveyard... If you have some battery leakage you can read up on a possible solution here: http://www.flippers.com/battery.html Along with many other web sites I'm sure... John :-#)# -- John's Jukes Ltd. 2343 Main St., Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 3C9 Call (604)872-5757 or Fax 872-2010 (Pinballs, Jukes, VideoGames) www.flippers.com "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out"

14 years, 3 months

Free in Seattle: HP 9826

by derschjo＠mail.msu.edu

The never-ending house cleanup continues. I have an HP 9826 computer (http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=1068&st=1), in non-working condition. I picked this up at Boeing Surplus (RIP) a few years back. At that time, it was working but the built in monitor was not doing so well, but the machine worked fine otherwise. I powered it up recently and got nothing out of it aside from some fans spinning. I have no real desire to get it working again (too many other projects), but of course I don't want to see it trashed. It's in worn condition (it clearly got a lot of use at Boeing), but it doesn't look too bad. The "S" keycap is broken off the keyboard but can still be typed. It has the HPL ROM set installed, and 192k of memory, if I'm recalling the amount correctly from when it was running. If there's no interest by the end of the week, I'll be dropping this off at RE-PC in Tukwila. They tend to not scrap "cool" stuff like this so it'll probably end up on sale in their "vintage" department rather than sent to the scrap heap... (I hope). This is in the Seattle area. I'd rather not ship this but if you're willing to foot the bill (it's a heavy machine, HP made some pretty solid equipment back when the HP Way was still alive) we can work that out... - Josh

14 years, 4 months

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test-drb January 2010