test-drb November 2010

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

162 participants
241 discussions

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

Tony writes: > Tim writes: >> Having worked with 1103's I would argue that by modern standards >> Even the "cream of the crop" were little above floor sweepings. > Was it that a lot of new 1103s were DOA, oe what there a problem with > them fialing in use, or what? > The reason I ask is that I have several old HP calculators full of 1103s, > and AFAIK all are original (and gettign on for 40 years old). So far, > otuch wood, I've not had any problems with the RAM in these machines. How many hundreds of 1103's are in each HP calculator? :-) In the early minicomputer 1103-based memories (say 16Kbytes, so 128 1103 chips) it was, um, optimistic to expect a lot of stability. In the bigger "supermini" systems (say 128 Kbytes, so over a thousand 1103 chips) ECC was a necessity and continual scrubbing helped a lot with stability - but that was a lot of work and power consumption just to brag that you had semiconductor memory, and the advantages over core were not all that obvious. I'd expect that smaller systems probably didn't have ECC or scrubbing but also didn't have high expected uptime. Were 1103's in the HP 9830? I had a couple but they usually worked fine enough that I never had to go rummaging through the insides. My feeling is that in the 1103 era (which preceded my direct involvement but I inherited several 1103-based systems), DRAM chips were not quite ready for prime time. By the time the 4116 came along things had settled down and a lot had been learned from the 1103 and DRAM really was ready for prime time. Tim.

13 years, 6 months

Legacy Binary File Editor

by Hollandia＠ccountry.net

Will someone direct me to a good binary file editor that will function on legacy machines? Thanks, Kurt

13 years, 6 months

Looking for a Depraz mouse.

by h.marien＠telenet.be

Hi, I don't know if this tread is still valid, but I have such a mouse with a blue cover and white buttons. The mouse was especially made in this color combination for our long gone firm. It's a quadrature mouse but I have a special developed serial interface card for it too. It served to couple the mouse to a Digital PRO350/380 (personal PDP11) computer. Regards, Hugo

13 years, 6 months

Legacy Binary File Editor

by Hollandia＠ccountry.net

My request was apparently a little hazy. The machine I refer to is a Packard-Bell 486SX running DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.1 By "legacy machine" I meant a machine that was "slightly behind the times". 8D Thanks, Kurt

13 years, 6 months

printer ribbons and print wheels - free for shipping

by jack.rubin＠ameritech.net

DEC - DECwriter L180 Reorder Spool #152 LQP01-KA LA75R (qty 2) Diablo - 8R2986 (black multistrike) - qty 8 printwheel 9R87019 pica 10 Teletex - qty 2 printwheel 9R87097 elite 12 Scientific - qty 2 Please let me know if you're interested ASAP. In the trash on 11/30 if unclaimed. Jack

13 years, 6 months

trying to save a GPS

by rescue＠hawkmountain.net

I know this isn't old... but I'm trying to rescue an Omnitech 16878-US GPS from the recycling bin..... It boots, gives the Go!, Maps, and Setting icons, you can touch any of them, get a click sound, and then... locked up solid. I applied a 'quick fix' from them, but that didn't fix anything. I believe that it is more likely the software on the SD card has gotten damaged somehow. Anybody have one of these ? Would like to get it working. It is a WinCE 5.0 based PDA basically (restricted to run the software provided of course). -- Curt

13 years, 6 months

Punched cards - which paper/cardboard?

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

> From: Philipp Hachtmann <hachti at hachti.de> > > I'm thinking about making punched cards. I could need some information about the material used for > them. Precise information about tolerances, specifications, references to more information, and so > on would be quite helpful. I have read the follow up e-mails too and wonder why you want to do this. If you want cards for storing data why do you need to print on the cards first? I have a loads (110,000) of cards of the right shape which I use for my mainframe. They are already printed up with every two columns marked out as one column of mark sense boxes but of course the mainframe doesn't see the markings. I have probably more than I will ever need in my lifetime. I even use them for keeping hand written notes and my ex-ICT engineer friend folds them in two, pushes the pins of a PCB through them and marks the bay number, carrier level and card position the card came from on them. If you want, I can sell you some at less than the commercial suppliers rate and I think less than they would cost to tool up to make them. Carriage is of course another question. I have been buying up local supplies of 11" by 14.5" fan fold paper for less than the carriage costs from say 50 miles away. I see your suffix is .de, I guess that's Denmark or is it Germany? At least there'd be no customs issues but I would think carriage would still be quite expensive. I'm not sure my card equipment would be happy without rounded corners. I know there were hardware modifications listed for dealing with cards with and without diagonally cut corners at leading/trailing edges. There's also the possibility of paper cuts for the operators. I think my IBM 029 keypunch uses the rounded corner to push the card guide down when it registers the card at the punching station. I think a square cut card would jam up.

13 years, 6 months

Ugh, I think I am going to be sick...

by lynchaj＠yahoo.com

http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2010-November/294055.html [Alexandre Souza] > Andrew, Am I wrong, or the 68000 IC is a **very common** microprocessor? >:oO I wouldn't call them common but certainly not rare either. It is the thought of really nice and still useful ceramic 68Ks being reduced to toxic sludge for a tiny bit of gold that bothers me. They could easily be sold for much more than the value of the metal recovery. eBay has them going for $8 to $50 or more each. Also amateur gold scrappers have a nasty habit of making a mess with their chemical waste. Andrew Lynch

13 years, 6 months

Ebay Sperry Unisys Boards

by leaknoil＠gmail.com

Anyone know what these are from ? The only card I find labeled microprocessor is facing the wrong way of course. Something military I'm guessing. http://shop.ebay.com/cieinternational/m.html?_nkw=vintage+computer&_sacat=0…

13 years, 6 months

Tektronix 4023 documentation?

by jonnosan＠gmail.com

I am continuing my exploration of the SacState 8008 boot PROM code (using James Markevitch's listing), and have a little more understanding of the escape codes I was asking about previously (in the thread 'identifying terminal by escape codes') It looks like the SacState machine was built as a card that plugged into a 4023 terminal motherboard. My current assumption is the data going out of the 8008 card (i.e. where the code on the PROM is running) is interacting with the other cards on the 4023 bus directly. My further assumption is that there must have been some kind of block device (tape or disk?) that was also on that same bus, and that some of the escape codes must be doing some sort of device selection (i.e. signalling that the next chunk of data is intended to be read from, or written to, a specific device, not read from keyboard or displayed on screen). I am not clear as to whether the other devices are interfacing via - a commercial 'dedicated' I/O card, e.g. a drive controller (if any existed?) - a commercial 'generic' I/O card, e.g. a serial I/O and an 'intelligent' device is being controlled - a custom made I/O card that plugged directly into the 4023 bus The only 4023 documentation I can find online is the User Manual, which has: - a list of bus signals, which confirm there are enough signals available to construct complex device I/O - a list of accessory cards, including a serial 'Data Communications Interface', a 'hard copy unit', and 'audio recorder card' (tape controller ). - a reference to a 4023 service manual, which has a 'theory of operation' which may describe enough of the bus protocol to work out how the 8008 PROM could be interacting with other devices on that BUS. So my questions are - - were any commercial accessory cards available for the 4023 other than the ones listed in the back of the user manual? If so, does any documentation for them exist? - is the 4023 "service manual" available through any means? Cheers Jonno

13 years, 6 months

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test-drb November 2010