February 2010 - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

by gkleba＠wi.rr.com

Is it possible that you still may have the 200 in 0ne manual for the radio shack 28-249 electronics kit? I've been searching for a while for this & would like to turn the kit over to one of the grandchildren but I have no manual. I realize your post is extremely old but it's worth a shot. regards Glenn

15 years, 5 months

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Storage Clear-Out

by stimpy.u.idiot＠gmail.com

Hi All, I'm having a clear out of the loft in the face of an imminent house move and I need to compress the collection a bit. On offer are: 1 x Panasonic SCSI LT-7010E Magneto-Optical Drive, no media, hence never tested but ID'd properly when SCSI hooked up. 1 x Syquest SCSI 5.25 Drive plus 2 x SQ400 44MB cartridges. In working order when last used. Both in Chester, UK. Free if collected. I will investigate shipping costs if anyone is really keen. MO drive is pretty heavy though. Cheers, Pete -- Pete Edwards "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future" - Niels Bohr

15 years, 5 months

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YouTube video of ICT1301

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

On 12 Feb 2010, at 18:00, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > Message: 11 > Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:59:49 +0000 > From: Pete Edwards <stimpy.u.idiot at gmail.com> > Subject: Re: The value of assembler language programmers [was RE: > Algol vs Fortran was RE: VHDL vs Verilog] > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Message-ID: > <11c909eb1002120759u37cef5e6x4d7e5470b6678d56 at mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > On 12 February 2010 08:00, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote: >> On Feb 10, 2010, at 3:15 PM, Roger Holmes wrote: >>> >>> the BBC web site. Oh and a couple of weeks ago I posted an old video of it >>> on U-Tube if anyone is interested the URL is >>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsBPuUJPvKg or just Google ICT 1301 and >>> select video. I hope to post a better one later in the year. >> >> ?Man oh MAN that's a beautiful machine. >> >> ? ? ? ? -Dave >> > > Seconded! That's an awesome piece of kit Roger. > I *especially* like the Forbidden Planet noises at the end. > What is that audio signal derived from? Thanks to all who responded, I think you will like it even more when you see the new layout with 8 decks in a row, four of which worked at last years open day. The sound is produced by executing a very small loop of three or four instructions many times which contains a (decimal) multiply instruction, the duration of which varies with one of its operands. Zero takes almost no time, 555555555555 takes longest because for each digit it can either count down for 1,2,3,4 or 5 or count up for 6,7,8 and 9. There is an increment in the loop hence the time varies with each iteration. A conditional branch at the end of the loop flips a bit which drives the speaker. In the demo software being run in the video there is also a small test for the bottom 2 or 3 digits of incremented value being zero which allows it to branch off and drive the peripherals from time to time. This does no seem to affect the sound too much though it is not quite as pure as the original 'ghost' program. From time to time (but not in the video) it does a bubble sort of a block of data read from tape which produces a more recognisable 'computer' type sound. I once keyed in a short sequence of jumps activated by some of the switches on the front panel. The longer loops worked fine but there seemed to be a problem with the top note. There happened to be a young lady present and she said she could hear it fine, it seems it was simply beyond the frequency range of my old ears. I think it would flip the bit 1000000 / 12 times a second, so dividing by another 2 that would be 41.666 kHz. The machine has a nominal 1MHz clock derived from a 250kHz timing track recorded on the last drum accessed and the shortest instruction is 12 clock cycles. As another thread is discussing cats, I have to add that the first time I saw my 1301, there was a cat asleep on the main power stabiliser rack which was stuffed full of 6 inch by 4 inch by 4 inch heat sinks for the GET875 transistors used in parallel to regulate the various voltage DC supplies. It was the rack which was stuffed, not the cat by the way, the cat got up later and played with my host's hands as he tried to operate the main control panel. > From: Russ Bartlett <arcbe2001 at yahoo.com> > > I worked on one of these systems? 400 words IAS , magnet drum, and 4 tape decks .Programming was MPL.? We would use a card sorter (off-line) to save on sort time for a tape sort/merge process. You've got it, though I didn't know they ever shipped them with just 400 words. I knew it was theoretically possible to have just one 'barn door' but that must have been incredibly restrictive, especially on a tape machine where you need I/O buffers for Data Transfer Unit to do what we now call DMA into/from. Yes it could be programmed in MPL (Mnemonic or machine code or TAS (Thirteen hundred Assembly System) or MAC (Manchester Auto Code) and later there was COBOL and ICT's attempt to make COBOL more bearable, RapidWrite. Do you mind telling me where this 1300 or 1301 was? I don't suppose you know its serial number do you? I am trying to identify as many machines as I can, especially so I can find out how many were made. Mine is number 6 and I have parts of numbers 58, 75 and 166 but I suspect the number nearly reached 200 but the best remaining official ICT record is incomplete, some pages were lost and it was a marketing document, a list of customers in alphabetical order, and probably made before production ceased anyway as marketing would hardly be interested in an obsolete product. Your 400 words reflects on another thread where someone said "In the mid 60's only large companies had systems with greater than 16K memory and disc drives. Mag tape 800 and 1600 bpi if you were lucky was the norm." Taking the middle of the mid 60's, 1965, about a quarter of the machines in the UK were 1300 series with between 400 and 2000 words of Immediate Access Store (core), no discs just usually one 12000 word drum. Those lucky enough to have mag tape (which roughly doubled the cost of the computer as well as requiring air conditioning) were 300 bpi, usually 10 track (4 data + 6 CRC) half inch or for a lucky few, 16 track (8 + 8) one inch wide tape. There were of course scientific machines like ATLAS around but only three? were ever built, most actual data processing was done on much more mundane machines like the 1301. The IBM 360 was announced in 1965 but how many actually got their hands on one in the UK that year? If you only had 400 words (4800 digits) of storage, who would waste it hold 19s. As to using PICTURE XX , I only ever wrote one COBOL program (put me off for life) but I think PICTURE XX means two characters, which means 4 digits so exactly the same storage size as PICTURE 9999. Roger Holmes.

15 years, 5 months

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Manual Needed

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

I have two shelves of pen plotter manuals at work, including many HP ones. Are you after the operators manual or the programmers manual i.e. the command set. I have a DraftMaster (MX plus IIRC) here. Maybe I can answer your questions from memory, if not I can look next week. Roger Holmes (Author of MacPlot, a pen plotter driver for Mac which was an application in 1984 but became a chooser level driver after Apple contracted us to change it so they could bundle it with MacProject and what became Claris Draw II). On 12 Feb 2010, at 18:00, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > Message: 2 > Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:24:59 -0500 > From: jthecman at netscape.net > Subject: Manual Needed > To: cctech at classiccmp.org > Message-ID: <8CC79AA1704C4E9-27F8-7F3C at webmail-m063.sysops.aol.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed > > Hello > Does anyone have a copy of the hp Draftmaster II manual for loan, sale, > can make a copy of it? > > Thanks, > John K

15 years, 5 months

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cctech Digest, Vol 78, Issue 17

by dm561＠torfree.net

Message: 12 Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 08:44:40 -0800 From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> Subject: Re: Hacking a typewriter into a teletype To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <4B7514F8.19394.8B6F5 at cclist.sydex.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII On 12 Feb 2010 at 6:36, Christian Liendo wrote: > I figured some one on this list would find this useful. > > http://numist.net/post/2010/project-typewriter.html Didn't a number of Brother typewriter models have the capability of also serving as printers--without modifications? I also wonder if it might not be better to start with a word-processor type of typewriter. Mr. Obvious on the web page stated: "it also revealed that avr-gcc's code generation is very poorly optimized" --Chuck ----------------Reply: There's a genuine Brother computer>typewriter RO interface for sale right now ($5) on the Vintage Computer auction site. And if anyone wants to convert an Olivetti typewriter, I still have a box full of interfaces for several models from the days when I was involved in their sales and support. mike

15 years, 5 months

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cctech Digest, Vol 78, Issue 3

by jonas＠otter.se

On Mon, 1 Feb 2010 , ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > >That sounds more like the Intel 8251 USART. IIRC on that chip you have to >send the reset command 3 times to ensure it's treated as a command and >not as data to be loadrd into one of the configuration registers. > >-tony > Hmm, I must be getting old. Between about 1983 and about 1990, I wrote a fair amount of software for a communications board which I designed, and which used an 8088, an 8259, an 8253, 8255s, and, for some reason I cannot remember now, I think it used 6850s for the serial ports. We started out with all Motorola peripheral chips but found out that the timer chip wouldn't work properly together with the Intel bus, so we switched to Intel. I do have the distinct impression that we kept the 6850s for some reason, probably price, and, I think, simplicity. We had no need for synchronous communications so that would have been a reason. We had an earlier all-Motorola design (6809-based) we got ideas from (I had never designed any microprocessor circuitry before), and IIRC, I started out sending a single reset command, which didn't work, and then I looked at the other design and saw that their software sent 3 resets, which I then understood the reason for. I may be wrong, as this was 27 years ago, but it would be easy to test. I can't, as I have nothing to test on. And Charlie C, had you asked me 27 years ago I could have told you exactly what to do ;-) Whatever it was I did, it worked well, because we sold a number of those boards, each of which used 4 serial interfaces. It annoys me that I can't be sure whether we kept the ACIAs or changed to Intel. Wh?t I do remember is that the Motorola chips were simple and elegant compared to the Intel chips. /Jonas

15 years, 5 months

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Dave's walls (was: Selling Calcomp 565 plotter)

by ken＠seefried.com

"Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> wrote: > >Fur critters, huh? I'm fighting a running battle with some nutria >that keep invading my pond, but they are definitely not "cute". > They are, however, reasonably tasty when properly prepared, so there's a way to deal with that situation. KJ

15 years, 5 months

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OT: Datasheet for Motorola MCM62940 32K X 9 SRAM?

by trag＠io.com

Anyone have a datasheet for the MCM62940 (MCM62940AFN14) static RAM? It's not strictly off topic, as it's from the 256K level 2 cache of a computer >from the mid-90s (NuBus PPC Macintoshes). The usual web searches have failed me. I thought I had downloaded it years ago, but it turns out I only collected the datasheet for the TAG SRAM and not for the cache chips. This is particularly interesting because one can get 4000 of the chips (soldered to boards) for about $50. <http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Motorola/CACHE256M500PK/> I have a couple of projects in mind where they might be useful. On the other hand, they do take up a lot of board real estate (about .75" square). Jeff Walther

15 years, 5 months

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Fwd: [comp.sys.dec] BASIC-Plus-2

by legalize＠xmission.com

This message has been forwarded from Usenet. To reply to the original author, use the email address from the forwarded message. Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:18:22 -0500 Groups: comp.sys.dec From: "Tom Lake" <tlake at twcny.rr.com> Org: albasani.net Subject: BASIC-Plus-2 Id: <hl4d6a$4vt$1 at news.albasani.net> ======== I'm running RSTS/E on the SIMH PDP-11 emulator and it works fine. It only has BASIC-Plus, though. Is there somewhere I can get a disk or tape image of BASIC-Plus-2? Me ntec was swallowed up and the new owners don't want to know from PDP-11. TIA Tom Lake

15 years, 5 months

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S-100 home brew PCB projects

by lynchaj＠yahoo.com

Hi! John Monahan and I are making some S-100 home brew PCB projects. The S-100 backplane, S-100 prototyping board, and S-100 buffered prototyping board projects are essentially done. I am gathering up those who would like any of those boards and when there is sufficient interest I'll make a manufactured PCB order. We nearly done with the S-100 IDE and S-100 keyboard projects. Both projects have been prototyped, manufactured PCBs made, and are demonstrated working. However, there are a few minor issues we'd like to clear up on both projects and are considering respins of those PCBs. If anyone is interested in those projects please let me know so I can make an order. The PCBs typically are in the $20-$30 range depending on quantity. There is an S-100 SRAM/EPROM prototype PCB in the build and test phase and an S-100 Front Panel in design phase. No estimate on when either of those will be done but it will be quite a while since we are making local prototype PCBs first before ordering manufactured PCBs. Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch

15 years, 5 months

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IMSAI / SOL-20 / Northstar + much other for sale

by gmeanie＠gmail.com

Any of those old computers left?

15 years, 5 months

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Dave's walls (was: Selling Calcomp 565 plotter)

by dm561＠torfree.net

*************Original Message: Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2010 01:36:01 -0500 From: Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> Subject: Re: Selling Calcomp 565 plotter <snippage> I work at home, and one very large room in my house is my office. An entire wall of my office, and most of another wall, is a row of racks: http://www.neurotica.com/misc/wall-o-pdp.jpg There's more behind where I was standing when I took the picture, but you get the idea. <more snippage> -Dave Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL ************Reply: Is that a prayer rug on the floor? Or just there to mop up spilled bits? m *******************************************************************************

15 years, 5 months

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Manual Needed

by jthecman＠netscape.net

Hello Does anyone have a copy of the hp Draftmaster II manual for loan, sale, can make a copy of it? Thanks, John K

15 years, 5 months

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The value of assembler language programmers [was RE: Algol vs Fortran was RE: VHDL vs Verilog]

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

>> >>> *Every* generation of programmers has *always* looked down on their successors >>> as using tools that waste too much computer time to do too little. Of course, >>> *my* generation (started programming in 1969 on a 1401) is right. ;-) >> >> I certainly agree with you in principle, but I still wonder why even >> non-GUI application bloat has to be as bad as it is. We used to put >> 25-40 users on an 8MB VAX before it would start to swap. Now, still >> using a character based interface (which happens to be ssh vs direct >> serial connect, but that doesn't affect CLI application size), a >> program to tell me what processes are active on the system is 8MB by >> itself, vs a few dozen K bytes (I should go back and dig out one of >> those programs from the old days and port it to a modern machine to >> compare library bloat vs application bloat. Fortunately, I have my >> backups from 25 years ago). > ICBW, but I think a lot of the bloat is caused by the layer upon layer > upon layer upon layer of application interface code. My theory is that > all those layers arose because of inadequate or incompetent design in > the first place. Then too, I think we have a lot of "features" that are > rarely used and that we would be better off without, to say nothing of > all the changes for no apparent reason other than to just be different. > I also suspect that some of those spurious features are the root cause > of a lot of the security holes. Too, your "non-GUI" application is > probably actually running inside a system GUI which only emulates the > non-GUI user interface you think you're using. :-) I too started programming in 1969 but on a 7094, though as a schoolboy sending off cards one week to get results the next week. Yes of course we're right :-) I agree there are far too many levels of interface code, many with bugs in them which sometime get corrected in a different level. Take text on the Mac, there was a simple technology for drawing text in QuickDraw on Lisa, it did proportional fonts, different size text, handle descent, ascent and leading. On Mac they added a Text Editing manager. Then they had to allow for internationalized for non left to right languages, then they added kerning etc then they tried to replace the Text Editing manager with the Multi-Lingual Text Editing manager, then along came Unicode and we got ATSUI (The Apple Type Services for Unicode Imaging) and so it went on, all the old levels are still available, though deprecated and unavailable to 64 bit Apps. Trying to get a Carbon application to get Unicode text to appear at the right size on a non 72dpi screen AND print properly is somewhat of a nightmare. I would like to discuss Moore's law and how it seems to have broken down in recent years. Processor speeds are still increasing but not at the expected rate, but I wonder if the real problem is RAM speed, which does not seemed to have kept up, and no longer seems to be quoted when you buy a computer, or at least a Mac. Of course on chip and level 2 cache has made tight loops of small pieces of data acceptably fast but real world programs don't do that. Think about rotating a 12 mega pixel image for instance, yes the code is a tight loop but the data isn't. Think about rendering a 3D scene with many textured objects with accurate shadows and per pixel shading and anti-aliasing ready for printing on a A0 (about 34 inch by 44 inch) printer and complex enough not to fit the capabilities of the graphics processor so it has to be done in the main processor cores. The data being processed is far too big to fit in the caches and the output pixel maps are too, though I admit it only processes one pixel at a time. Oh and while you are at it, think about error diffusing the output. I know on the PowerPC the rotation or a one bit per pixel actually ran quicker if I turned the cache off because for every bit I fetched it loaded the cache with four words of data. Does something similar happen on Intel? By the way I spent three hours this morning showing a BBC regional news crew my 1962 mainframe, apparently it will be condensed down to three minutes. I don't have a transmission date, it didn't go out today and probably will only shown in the south east area of England but should be on the BBC web site. Oh and a couple of weeks ago I posted an old video of it on U-Tube if anyone is interested the URL is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsBPuUJPvKg or just Google ICT 1301 and select video. I hope to post a better one later in the year. Roger Holmes

15 years, 5 months

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Western NY

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

Hey folks...Is there anyone in the western part of New York who might be willing to help me with the retrieval and temporary storage of a smallish system? It's a big deskside chassis, would need a station wagon or pickup truck type of thing. I'd be able to pick it up within the next 2-3 months. Anyone? Thanks, -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

15 years, 5 months

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Inflation. [Was: Re: The value of assembler language programmers [was RE: ...]]

by thomas.gardner＠sbcglobal.net

> This is a good point. I was comparing dollars in early 80's dollar amounts > for the difference between the IBM and DEC offerings. There's significant > different in the number, . > ________________________________ > From: Richard <legalize at xmission.com> <snip> > > $5,000 in 1985 is the equivalent of $9876.79 in 2008.[*] > > I know we all realize that inflation is eating away at the value of > currency, but it really has picked up quite a bit in the last decade > such that even 1985 currency is quite different from today. Last time I checked we are deflating, not inflating! $5,000.00 in 2008 has the same buying power as $$4,982.21 in 2009 BTW, $5,000.00 in 1985 has the same buying power as $9,969.19 in 2009 per http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl if u trust yr government statistics :-) Tom

15 years, 5 months

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Old machines in today's dollars (was Re: The value of assembler language programmers)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 2/11/10, Richard <legalize at xmission.com> wrote: > >> Ethan Dicks wrote: >> > For comparison, a "standard package" color IBM PC/AT (5170) >> > ... was $5K at launch in 1985, IIRC. > > $5,000 in 1985 is the equivalent of $9876.79 in 2008.[*] Interesting to note. It was expensive then, and by extension, absurdly expensive now. I routinely install enterprise-grade web servers that are well under $10K (dual-socket, quad core, 48GB of memory, 1TB internal RAID, quad gigabit NICs, etc). > I know we all realize that inflation is eating away at the value of > currency, but it really has picked up quite a bit in the last decade > such that even 1985 currency is quite different from today. Fortunately for me, I'm making more than twice as many absolute dollars as I was in 1985 (when I happened to be in college but also had a part-time, but "real", job as an electronics tech, software developer, and VMS System Manager), so economically, at least, I've made some progress over the past 25 years. ;-) > That just floors me because in 1986 I took out a $4,000 loan to get an > Amiga 1000 with dual flopppy drives and a monitor. (I also got the extra > CHIP ram expansion thingy on the front.) I also bought an A1000 in 1986. Mine didn't require a loan, but that's because I got a bare-bones 256K A1000 with no monitor, single floppy, just mouse and keyboard, for about $800. I later purchased a Skyles Electric Works CHIP RAM expansion board for under $50, IIRC (that's still on the machine!) I repurposed a Commodore 1702 monitor >from my C-64, and eventually slapped in a $50 after-market RGBI interface that I hacked to do analog RGB - still a bit fuzzy owing to the limited video bandwidth of the original product, but *much* cheaper than the going rate for a "proper" analog RBG monitor. Unfortunately for me, that monitor was stolen in a burglary in 1990, along with an A500, and a "Wedge" ISA disk interface (fortunately for me, they dumped the A1000 on the floor but didn't take it with them). I did happen to get that A1000 while I worked at the aforementioned job, and am proud that the warranty was voided before the computer even made it home. We were doing MC68000 embedded product development there, so there was no way I could help cracking the Amiga case and showing off the innards to our engineers, which started a session comparing the guts of the Amiga to our own 68K designs. I still have one of those boxes that was under development at the time - about the size of an A2000, able to be stuffed with 2MB of 41256s, and with enough proprietary slots to support 32 serial ports. It even had an early-model 3.5" disk drive. No custom chips, though, so very different from the Amiga once you got outside of the CPU/memory area. -ethan

15 years, 5 months

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A few more free things (Seattle)

by derschjo＠mail.msu.edu

In my unending quest to de-clutter my house, I offer up the following (local pickup only, please, in the Seattle area); unclaimed stuff goes to RE-PC next week: - IBM PS/2 Model 70/386 - 4MB ram, one 1.44mb floppy drive, no hard drive (but sled is present). Powers up and works fine as far as I can tell. - 2x IBM PC Convertible, one printer + serial port expansion. One with backlight, one with transflective LCD screen. Two carrying cases with two different designs. One AC adapter. IBM's first "laptop." Ugliest thing in the world, and has the most impractical expansion system I've ever seen. Kinda neat, but I haven't used them in years and I don't foresee getting any use out of them, so... - Sun Ultra Enterprise 2 - 512MB ram, 2xUltraSparc IIi processor (333Mhz, IIRC) no hard drives, but I have sleds. - DEC VR262 monitor. 19" monochrome. Just traded away my VCB01 so I've no use whatsoever for this. It works, but probably needs a new capacitor or two to make it really hum. - Compaq 15/30GB DLT drive. No idea if it works; bought it years ago >from Boeing surplus but never actually put it to use as I had intended... Thanks as always... Josh

15 years, 5 months

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Docs found: Honeywell Series 600/6000, DTSS

by hachti＠hachti.de

Hi Folks, I'm currently saving some documention. If it's ok I'll post what I found so far. Bit by bit. I'd like to hear comments on the stuff and estimates how and if it would be important to save the stuff. Now and today I have some Honeywell stuff from 1972/73: Honeywell Series 600/6000: ************************** Time Sharing Applications Library Guide Volume I - Mathematics DA43, Rev. 0 Volume II - Time Sharing DA44, Rev. 0 Volume II - Time Sharing, Addendum A DA44A, Rev. 0 Volume III - Industry DA45, Rev. 2 Volume III - Industry, Addendum A DA45A, Rev. 2 Volume III - Industry, Addendum B DA45B, Rev. 2 Volume IV - Industry DA46, Rev. 1 FORTRAN Manual BJ67, Rev. 1 JOVIAL Language Manual BS06 AGOL Manual BS11, Rev. 0 Biomedical (BMD) Statistical Programs BP82, Rev.0 (supercedes CPB-1183A) DTSS - Dartmouth Time-Sharing System (Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire): ********************************************************************************* (good photocopies) DTSS Software Product Information (Draft copy) (C) 1973 DTSS, Inc. DTSS APL, Preliminary Version By Steve Poulsen, Dartmouth College (C) 1973 Trustees of Dartmouth College DTSS - The Dartmouth Time-Sharing System 7/26/72 DTSS User's Guide September 1972 (C) 1972 Trustees of Dartmouth College Catalog of Program Library in the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System - User's guide to the programming library (C) 1972 Trustees of Dartmouth College Best wishes, Philipp :-) -- http://www.hachti.de

15 years, 5 months

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Algol vs Fortran was RE: VHDL vs Verilog

by trag＠io.com

> Date: Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:28:17 -0700 > From: Ben <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> > Chuck Guzis wrote: > >> How about GOTO-less CPUs? Do any exist that completely lack a jump >> instruction of any sort (I'm not counting those where PC is mapped as >> a general register)? > > You must have a jump instruction for a loop. > Weird programing and computing... different topic. I'm not sure you would count it as a CPU, but the TI-55 programmable calculator lacked any type of jump or branch instruction, IIRC. All programs were purely linear. So, in addition to having considerably less memory, it was also limited in this way, as compared to a TI-58 or TI-59. Jeff Walther

15 years, 5 months

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offer: IBM Binder

by rtellason＠verizon.net

It's a loose-leaf binder, labeled on the spine "IBM 7137 Disk Array Subsystem Customer and Service Information"... Anybody want to take this off my hands? Postage and a little extra would be much appreciated. :-) I have no use for it, so if I don't find someone who does it pretty soon gets the binder recycled and the paper gone. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin

15 years, 5 months

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hp 9153 floppy & disk

by emu＠e-bbes.com

Hello all, anybody knows the exact type of the hard drives in the hp 9153 enclosure ? Got an empty one :(

15 years, 5 months

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Seeking ARM MEMC2 Technical Reference Manual ($$$)

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

I'm looking for "MEMC2 Technical Reference Manual" put out by Advanced RISC Machines in 1990. Anyone have it or can make a PDF copy? Willing to pay a bounty for this if you have it. Please contact me directly. Thanks! -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

15 years, 5 months

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TIL311 or INL0397-1

by cghillen＠sbcglobal.net

I am in need of Texas Instruments TIL311 or INNOCOR INL0397-1. I have used both over the last 30 years and can no longer find them. If you know of a source I would appreciate the information. Newark Electronics has been my source over the years. They cannot find a substitute. Also INNOCOR was bought by JDSU in 2007 (the year I placed my last order with Newark). The Display Manufacturing was discontinued prior to the purchase by JDSU. Thanks, Cal

15 years, 5 months

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Anyone with 8" drives , UK ?

by robert＠irrelevant.com

Hi All. I've been quiet for far too long on this list. Had set myself to no-mail because of lack of time.... back now. Recently, I've been setting up www.viewdata.org.uk to try and remember and resurrect as much of the old BT Prestel and other period viewdata systems as I can. (For those who don't know, viewdata was a 1970s British Post Office (Later British Telecom) invention that allowed subscribers to access news, information, email, downloadable software, chatlines, etc etc. All in a 40x25 display with colour and block graphics. It was big in the 1980s, and gone by 1994... Minitel in france was a derivation, and apart from some specialist closed-access applications, about the only example that survives.) anyway... I've found somebody that has an archive of their pages from Prestel, and we'd both liketo get them up on the site. The snag, for me, is that a lot of it is on 8" discs, from a Technologics(?) system. The photographs of the discs I have seen show them labelled as 48tpi, soft sectored. The positive point is that he still has the original computer, but "it's not been switched on for 20 years" so I'm hesitant on telling him to try it...! So. Is there anybody in the UK (Birmingham or Manchester areas) that has facilities to read 8" discs and drop the contents (straight sector by sector image would be fine if it's not in a common format) onto some more modern media? Or someone who knows about old Technologics machines (I'd not heard of it before.) and can check this one out.. Failing all that.. anybody got a spare drive that I might be able to link up to a machine I do have? (PCs and Acorn machines). Thanks in advance! Rob.

15 years, 5 months

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Small C, was ... Re: Algol vs Fortran was RE: VHDL vs Verilog

by emu＠e-bbes.com

Ben wrote: > e.stiebler wrote: >> Ben wrote: >>> PS. The only small portable compiler I can find >>> is Small C - version 1.0. >> >> For the iapx432 ? >> > no... for a small machine Z80/6809 ect. Hmm time to change the subject > line. OK, I just did ;-) > How did that work back then to get software created for a new machine? > 8080's had PLM compiled on a VAX or something along the same lines. > Ben. Are you looking for a native or cross compiler ? native : z80 : use cp/m, 6809 cubix ? cross : to many to count ;-) But I remember our first z80 software was developed on a VAX ...

15 years, 5 months

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6809 SBC

by mtapley＠swri.edu

At 4:59 -0600 1/31/10, CSquared wrote: > All this discussion is making me want a >CoCo unfortunately. Never had one when they were "new" but always >thought they would be a lot of fun - maybe a garage sale will turn one >up some day. If you don't mind spending a bit, http://www.cloud9tech.com/ might be a useful alternative to eBay. Refurbished CoCo3's are among the other goodies on the site. For the "power user", you can get 512k memory expansions, a serial link to your PC to use as disk storage ("Drivewire"), NitOS-9 in ROM, 6309 CPU upgrade, IDE or SCSI adaptors, etc. etc. No connection other than as a satisfied customer. Hope this helps ... >Just what I don't need of course - yet another project or >piece of hardware. ... Oops. ;-) -- - Mark 210-379-4635 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Large Asteroids headed toward planets inhabited by beings that don't have technology adequate to stop them: Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward.

15 years, 5 months

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6809 SBC

by wbblair3＠yahoo.com

Having learned assembly language programming on the beautifully simple architecture and instruction set of the 6800, the Byte magazine article linked to below that I read when it was originally published really impressed me. In the 6809 they made one of the earliest efforts I know of to really tweak an already great uP instruction set based upon an analysis of existing software: http://tlindner.macmess.org/?page_id=119

15 years, 5 months

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Available : VAX/VMS book

by quapla＠xs4all.nl

For $10 + postage VAX/ VMS Internals & Data structures by Ruth E. Goldberg & Lawrence J. Kenah. Note : item in in the Netherlands, book weights about 4 pounds. -- Dit is een HTML vrije email / This is an HTML free email.

15 years, 5 months

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Looking for: Dauphin DTR-1 Floppy

by derschjo＠mail.msu.edu

A number of DTR-1s have been showing up on eBay recently (cheap) so I decided to snag one. (I really wanted one when they were new but my salary as a 15 year old prevented such a thing from happening...) As an additional aside, it's one of few devices that used the HP Kittyhawk drive (a 1.3" 40mb drive). Quite a marvel of engineering in 1993... Anyway, the specimen I obtained works fine (need to rebuild the battery) but lacks the external floppy drive. So my only real option for getting software on the machine is over the serial port, which is a a bit annoying (and also precludes installing a new OS on it..) Anyone have any spares? Thanks, Josh

15 years, 5 months

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Vintage Pertec 10 data recorder tape drive - $50 (Graigslist Oxnard, CA)

by tosteve＠yahoo.com

Not mine: http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/sys/1590090200.html

15 years, 5 months

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Honeywell 316 on govliquidation

by pmille2＠cox.net

Got any info on the Honeywell 316 station ? Thanks E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (7.0.0.514) Database version: 6.14270 http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor/

15 years, 5 months

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Moving "Sale". Lots of free stuff for pickup, SF Bay Area

by sethm＠loomcom.com

Folks, I'm moving in a month, and I desperately need to unload a lot of stuff. All items are located in Union City, California (Just north of Fremont, south of Hayward, in the San Francisco Bay Area). I'm very sorry, but I will not even *consider* shipping anything. I just don't have the time, I'm in full-on crunch mode at work as well as prepping for the move. All of this stuff is PICK-UP ONLY, first-come, first-serve. Most stuff is free, some things have a very small price. Prices are firm. All items are listed here: http://www.loomcom.com/movingsale/ If an item is claimed, I will remove it from the list as soon as I can get to it!! Quick-view list of what's on the page, for the impatient: * Macintosh IIsi * Apple CD 300 * PowerBook 1400c * Apple ImageWriter II * NeXTstation Turbo Color * DECwriter LA12 (Correspondant) Ribbons * DECstation 5000/240 * DECstation 5000/133 * DECstation 3100 * VAXstation 3100 m76 * SGI Indigo 2 Extreme * SGI Indy * AT&T Unix PC * TI 99/4a and box of software * TI Silent 700 Model 780 * TI Silent 700 Model 745 * Atari 800 * Panasonic KX-D4929 Printing Terminal * TRS-80 PT-210 Thermal Printing Terminal * TRS-80 Model 100 Laptop I may make another page for "Part II" if part 1 goes well. Whatever's not claimed will end up going to Weird Stuff Warehouse in Sunnyvale. -Seth

15 years, 5 months

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PDF files for Matrox Qbus QRGB boards

by jhfinedp3k＠compsys.to

In case anyone is interested, I sent Al Kossow the (PDF) manuals for the Qbus Matrox QRGB-Alpha and QRGB-Graph boards. He did not respond to or acknowledge my e-mail. In addition, the PDF manuals are still not available at bitsavers. Al, if you are reading this, did you discard my e-mail? If you are interested, I can send the e-mail again. I have other manuals as well. If anyone needs these manuals immediately, I can e-mail them to you. They are 13 MB. If you can not accept an e-mail that size, I can break the e-mail into two parts. Evidently, Glen Herrmannsfeldt scanned these manuals. He also sent them to me. The e-mail from Glen with the manuals arrived after Lou Ernst mentioned that Glen probably had the manuals, but had not scanned them at the time (a few years) ago. After I reminded Glen, he sent to to me. THANK YOU to both Lou and Glen. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine

15 years, 5 months

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The Virtual Revolution (History Of The Internet)

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

Hi all, I wasn't going to send out an email about this, but I thought the 2nd episode was just as good as the first one, so here I am :) In short, the programme (airing BBC2, UK, around 8:15pm Saturdays) The Virtual Revolution looks at the history of the internet (US Military, ARPAnet, The Well etc.) and it's influence on modern life (hackers, terrorists, social networking etc.). The official site can be found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/virtualrevolution/ Video's of some of the interviewees (including Tim Berners-Lee and Peter Thiel) can be found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/virtualrevolution/interviews.shtml A whole host of computers have been seen (for a few seconds) on the programme, including an Altair 8080 and a PDP-10. Some short clips of the programme can be found on YouTube. All of episode 2 can be found on BBC IPlayer here (for the next 7 days only): http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00qsbvv/The_Virtual_Revolution_Enemy_… The whole show is 654MB (about 55 minutes long), if you wish to download it. Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

15 years, 5 months

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Kittyhawk drives (was Re: Looking for: Dauphin DTR-1 Floppy)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 2:05 PM, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote: > On Feb 5, 2010, at 6:40 PM, Josh Dersch wrote: >> >> As an additional aside, it's one of few devices that used the HP Kittyhawk >> drive (a 1.3" 40mb drive). ?Quite a marvel of engineering in 1993... > > ?I have several of the 20MB Kittyhawks and a single 40MB unit. I have a couple of 20MB Kittyhawks. The place was out of stock on 40MB units when I found them. >?I've done a > bit of hacking on them with home-brew SBCs. ?They are a little weird in some > ways, but they're really neat, I like them. Yep. I hooked mine to an IDE-64. Quite portable. -ethan

15 years, 5 months

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a work in progress, and why I haven't been around here much...

by rtellason＠verizon.net

Have a look here: http://mysite.verizon.net/rtellason/nancy.html and you'll see what's been keeping me occupied for the better part of the past year or so... The page is still a work in progress, I need to add some pictures at some point. The worst is over, and it's time for me to move forward, including plowing through a really absurd number of posts in this folder. One other thing I'll mention in passing, a new friend, also widowed, has an H-8 computer system to deal with, I told her that I knew just the place to find someone who would be interested in it. I have no details on it at the moment, though I've seen it. I also told her that just powering it up was probably *not* a good plan at this point since it's been sitting for a number of years unused... Any of you guys interested in it, feel free to contact me off-list. Onward... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin

15 years, 5 months

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PLEASE CHANGE THE SUBJECT OF A THREAD (Was RE: cctalk Digest, Vol 78, Issue 3)

by thomas.gardner＠sbcglobal.net

See what I mean (from Issue 10) > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: cctech Digest, Vol 78, Issue 3 (Tony Duell) > 2. Re: cctech Digest, Vol 78, Issue 3 (Chuck Guzis) > 4. Re: cctech Digest, Vol 78, Issue 3 (Dave McGuire) > 5. Re: cctech Digest, Vol 78, Issue 3 (Chuck Guzis) > 6. Re: cctech Digest, Vol 78, Issue 3 (Dave McGuire) > 7. Re: cctech Digest, Vol 78, Issue 3 (Ethan Dicks) > 8. Re: cctech Digest, Vol 78, Issue 3 (Chuck Guzis) > 9. Re: cctech Digest, Vol 78, Issue 3 (Ben) > 10. Re: cctech Digest, Vol 78, Issue 3 (allison) > 11. Re: cctech Digest, Vol 78, Issue 3 (Tony Duell) > 13. Re: cctech Digest, Vol 78, Issue 3 (Tony Duell) > 14. Re: cctech Digest, Vol 78, Issue 3 (Dave McGuire) > 15. Re: cctech Digest, Vol 78, Issue 3 (Dave McGuire) > 16. Re: cctech Digest, Vol 78, Issue 3 (Dave McGuire) > 17. Re: cctech Digest, Vol 78, Issue 3 (Chuck Guzis) > 18. Re: cctech Digest, Vol 78, Issue 3 (Chuck Guzis) > 19. Re: cctech Digest, Vol 78, Issue 3 (Dave McGuire) > 20. Re: cctech Digest, Vol 78, Issue 3 (Chuck Guzis) > 21. Re: cctech Digest, Vol 78, Issue 3 (Dave McGuire) > 23. Re: cctech Digest, Vol 78, Issue 3 (Ethan Dicks) > 24. Re: cctech Digest, Vol 78, Issue 3 (Chuck Guzis) > 25. Re: cctech Digest, Vol 78, Issue 3 (Dave McGuire) > 29. Re: cctech Digest, Vol 78, Issue 3 (Ben) Tom

15 years, 5 months

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Free SGI Onyx2 in Linköping Sweden

by pontus＠Update.UU.SE

Hi This is a longshot, if you can make it to link?ping with a truck within two weeks, I can probably hook you up with 4 racks worth of SGI Onyx2. /Pontus.

15 years, 5 months

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Poly8813 on ebay

by billdeg＠degnanco.com

> > >> > From: dwight elvey >> > >> > Hi >> > I thought I'd mention that there is a Poly 8813 ( actually a 8812 ) >> > on ebay. >> > > > I tend to think his asking price ($8000) is WAY too high in spite of the > condition since it doesn't include any docs or disks. But if anyone > decides to buy it, I can supply a copy of the manuals and other board > documentation if they aren't already online. > > The 8812 is not the original and much rarer Polymorphic Micro-Altair, later called Poly-88. Those came out in 1976 and might fetch $8000. The 8813 series were advertised into early 1979 and are worth more like $400-600 at best, in unknown condition. Bill

15 years, 5 months

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OT: identifying radio coils

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

I was wondering if anyone has an Alenco 108TK am/fm radio kit and knows the specs of the coils in that kit. I'm tinkering about with replicating that kit as a small PCB to be put into a wooden cabinet. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

15 years, 5 months

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DOS Widgets

by dave09＠dunfield.com

Not many DOSheads left (I still have a DOS machine on my desk which I use daily), but perhaps someone will still benefit from this... FWIW - I've started to catalog and post some of the various widgets I've created for DOS over the years. Items range from trivial utilities to fairly complex packages. Some of these were commercial packages that I once sold mail-order (and later the web), while others are just things I put together for my own use. I'm not sure if/where I'll post it permanantly, however for now I've put a link at the bottom of "Dave's old computers" - Enjoy. Dave -- dave09 (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html

15 years, 5 months

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Poly8813 on ebay

by marvin＠west.net

> The 8812 is not the original and much rarer Polymorphic Micro-Altair, > later called Poly-88. Those came out in 1976 and might fetch $8000. > The 8813 series were advertised into early 1979 and are worth more like > $400-600 at best, in unknown condition. > > Bill The 8812 is the same as the 8813 with the exception of it only having two disk drives. Re: the Micro-Altair. The story I've heard is that the Poly88 was originally named the Micro-Altair, but the name was changed because of objections from MITS. I've talked to a number of people who used to work at Polymorphic trying to find out if the Micro-Altair actually existed as a physical product. To date, I haven't found anyone who has said the Micro-Altair actually existed. FWIW as I've mentioned from time to time, I probably have the largest collection of Poly documentation left as well as stuff I've never heard of before. When Poly shut down, they put all of their stuff that was left in storage. A friend of mine knew the owner and acquired a lot of it, and gave it to me. One of my many todo projects is to get this stuff saved as it includes source code and manuals for most of their products. There is a little over one full filing cabinet full of docs in addition to several boxes of parts. Something that I find fascinating is one of their business plans after Poly had a change in management about 1981 as it includes flyers and information about their then current product line.

15 years, 5 months

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Data I/O System 20B MOS Memory Programmer

by technobug＠comcast.net

I just was given the above named beast and a search of the usual places produces nil. Anyone have any info or manuals on this item? CRC

15 years, 5 months

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Looking for StorageTek 2500 series 9T tape drive parts.

by rollerton＠gmail.com

I have 4 Storage Tek 2500 series drives on my Sigma 9 that we are working on and hope to get two of them into service. I need to find replacement belts that drive the two air pumps. They are narrow modern looking things maybe 1/4" wide and shaped like a space age vbelt, I don't have the parts books with me, but my question is more a general one; Any one know of a source for spare parts for old Storagetek drives? Thanks. Oh, and any of you Sigma folks out there, contact me off the list if you like. Bob.

15 years, 5 months

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Check out my photos on Facebook

by invite+o9t=o2s9＠facebookmail.com

Hi General, I set up a Facebook profile where I can post my pictures, videos and events and I want to add you as a friend so you can see it. First, you need to join Facebook! Once you join, you can also create your own profile. Thanks, Kirn To sign up for Facebook, follow the link below: http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=1311167334&k=Z3D4XXPXVZTAYDEHUGYX2USUVWFJ4Y… Already have an account? Add this email address to your account http://www.facebook.com/n/?merge_accounts.php&e=cctalk at classiccmp.org&c=d0f9a7ae1532f1dd68a5f13e3639f925.cctalk at classiccmp.org was invited to join Facebook by Kirn Gill. If you do not wish to receive this type of email from Facebook in the future, please click on the link below to unsubscribe. http://www.facebook.com/o.php?k=0fd83c&u=666184564&mid=1d45020G27b52b74G0G8 Facebook's offices are located at 1601 S. California Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94304.

15 years, 5 months

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Editor religious wars (was Re: Museums)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 1/25/10, Doc Shipley <doc at vaxen.net> wrote: > emacs would be an awesome operating system, if it had a decent text editor.... It does... M-x viper-mode *ducks and runs* -ethan

15 years, 5 months

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Free for pickup

by alhartman＠yahoo.com

Of the items I posted earlier, the following is still available: Qty 2 - HP Laserjet IIIP Printers Box of Misc Network Adapter cards, ISA mixed 8 and 16 bit. Mostly 16 bit. All are Novell, Windows 3.x, Windows 95 and Lantastic Compatible. I have the following to add: 1 ZIP 100 Drive and Power Supply 1 Ditto Tape Backup Drive (Not sure if it still works due to age of rubber rollers) 1 Apple Imagewriter II Items are located in Keansburg, NJ 07734 Contact me off-list via PM. Thanks! Al Hartman

15 years, 5 months

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New PDP 11/34

by stephane.tsacas＠gmail.com

Hi, A PDP11/34 has just arrived... I need some basic help before I'll power it on. The description of the current setup can be seen there : http://www.conservatique.com/pdp/pdp-1134?. 1- There is 2 wires cable coming out the front panel, pins TB1/TB2, which goes to the rear of the box, towards the power supply. From the schematics Fig 9-5 (p64): http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/www.bi… this cable should go to a M9301 ? What if I don't have a M9301? Is there a M9301 Boostrap/Terminator Maintenance Manual available somewhere by any chance? 2- How can I test the power supply? I don't see any voltage control points, I couldn't find how I can?access?to the boards under the transformer. If anyone has the following boards for sale/trade, please drop me a mail: - a M9301 ! - any memory which can fit (MOS or CORE). I have some 11/70 core modules for trade I think ;-) Thanks! -- Stephane http://DECpicted.blogspot.com

15 years, 5 months

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Looking for TRS-80 Model I Keyboard unit...

by alhartman＠yahoo.com

During my recent move, my Model I took a tumble and has a broken case and keyboard. I'm not even going to try to power it on until we can look it over carefully. I'm looking for a donor unit that can contribute a bottom case and keyboard with keypad. The logic board does not have to be working, and no power supply is needed. If someone has such a unit, or can point me to someone I can buy a new keyboard from, I'd be most appreciative. Al Hartman Keansburg, NJ

15 years, 5 months

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test-drb February 2010