test-drb May 2010

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

189 participants
248 discussions

by wdonzelli＠gmail.com

Is there any interest in a Wang 2200 located (I think) in New Jersey? I know very little...I am just the messenger. -- Will

15 years, 1 month

Funny video...some old mainframe hardware in use!

by bbrown＠harpercollege.edu

Enjoy! bbrown at harpercollege.edu ####? #### Bob Brown - KB9LFR Harper Community College ##? ##? ## Supervisor of Operations Palatine IL USA????????? ####? #### Saved by grace -----Original Message----- From: owner-vse-l at Lehigh.EDU [mailto:owner-vse-l at Lehigh.EDU] On Behalf Of Ingo Franzki Sent: Friday, May 07, 2010 8:08 AM To: VSE Discussion List Subject: Funny video: Linux on IBM System z: A silent clip on the past and the You may know some of the "actors" in that video..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0i7kBnhN3Lg Kind regards, Ingo Franzki, IBM

15 years, 1 month

picture of VAX 4000 Model 50, so-called VAXbrick?

by nigel.d.williams＠gmail.com

I am curious about this model, anyone have a photograph/picture/scanned manual for this model? Are they rare? I have seen only one reference to one being on eBay in 2004. thanks.

15 years, 1 month

TMS1000 Processor (fwd)

by charlie＠tech-j.biz

Attention: Al Kossow See url: http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2004-January/035417.html You discussed options with TMS1000. Have you found a way to read the rom as yet. There is : http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT3988604&id=Py4uAAAAEBAJ&dq=3,988,604 in the PDF it explains using the 'test mode' to dump rom. Is this of use ? Beyond my capability. Would appreciate your comments. charlie at tech-j.biz Charlie Harris New Zealand

15 years, 1 month

FFS: Key CAD for DOS

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

Stuff free for shipping: Key CAD for DOS (PC/XT/AT) complete with manuals and media Norton Utilities Version 4.0 by Richard Evans Epson, Epson, Read All about It! by Dave Prochnow PC Tools Deluxe 5.0 for DOS (manual only) Epson MX-80 Type 2 operations manual Epson MX-100 operations manual I ran this stuff for a week and a half in the dollar bin with my ebay stuff. No takers. Let me know if you want any of it. -- 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, 1 month

Servant .953

by aek＠bitsavers.org

I am interviewing Andy Hertzfeld tomorrow, and had hoped to talk about Servant, but I can't find a copy of it around anywhere tonight. Does anyone have a copy they can send me? This was the finder replacement he did just before Multifinder came out. I think .953 was the last version.

15 years, 1 month

Digital Joysticks (was Re: Greatest videogame device)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 3:54 PM, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote: >> Those were gimmicks, too, in their day - we used to spend quite a bit >> of effort to adapt Atari joysticks to PET User Ports (one is easy, two >> joysticks takes a bit of effort because there are five switches and >> eight primary bits - mostly folks used diodes, but I think there was > > I am wondering how you did this... The wiring diagram is reproduced in the PET FAQ. Note that there was not a lot of software that supported joysticks since not that many PET owners had them. http://www.zimmers.net/cbmpics/cbm/PETx/petfaq.html > IIRC, there are 5 swithces for the joystick, up, down, left, right Yep. > OK, up and down can't be actuated simultaneously, nor can left and right. This becomes important later... > But > combinations such as up-and-right are possible, at least on any decent > joystick. That is not strictly correct - there were and are "4 way" and "8 way" joysticks. Pacman shipped with 4-way" joysticks, and many MAME enthusiasts have learned that trying to play with 8-way joysticks is more frustrating than playing with the original type. It's now possible to buy arcade-quality joysticks that can be swapped from the top (with some sort of push and rotation move) so that you can buy one set that plays either way without opening up your MAME cabinet. > And the fire button is independant of the joystick position. Yes. > That means there are 9 states for the joystick (centre, U, D, L, R, UL, > UR, DL, DR -- using the obvious abbreviations). That takes 4 bits to > encode. Exactly the same number as if you fed each switch into its own > port line. > > So you would still need 10 port lines... You are making an assumption here - that it's required to support 18 unique states (9 joystick states with button up, 9 with button down). To do that, yes, you need 10 port lines to support two joysticks. What the aforementioned diode trick does is to activate up and down simultaneously, an "impossible" 10th state for a regular mechanical joystick. The joystick scanner routine must be checking for that first, acting on the fire button being pressed, then *not* treating it like the combination of an up event and a down event. > I I had to do it on an 8 bit user port, I think I would use a '157 mux to > select between the 2 joysticks (4 bits each, going to 4 bits on the > port). And an port line configured as an output to switch between them. > And finally 2 more port inputs (a totla of 7 of the 8 user prot lines > used) for the fire buttons. I think the Sega Genesis did something like that; at least I recall a '157 in the game controller I dismantled years ago. By contrast, the NES used one or two 4021 shift registers to pump bits in (the standard NES controllers had 8 buttons and used 1 shift register, but the "power pad" had 12 sensor spots and used two shift registers). That's how they did eight buttons with a 7-pin connector - Vcc, ground, latch, clock, D0, D3, D4, where a regular controller sends back its data on D0, and the power pad sends back its data on D3 and D4 simultaneously. -ethan

15 years, 1 month

Good advice re: Cleaning with compressed air...

by lbickley＠bickleywest.com

Good advice regarding cleaning Tektronix gear (From the "TekScopes" List) - but applicable to any equipment with DC fans... From: "Mac Perkins" (Pacific Studio, Inc) "Spinning up a DC fan with compressed air also makes it a remarkably good generator, whose output voltage can easily exceed its normal supply, damaging either its internal driver circuitry or if you're really lucky other components that share the same power rail. We had a series of mysterious failures on rental units that were routinely blown out on return. The rental warehouse staff liked to see how high a pitch they could create by spinning up the fans with shop air. I did a little testing and found the 12 V rail was around 20 V when this was done, with the rest of the circuitry unpowered, leading to failures of several power drivers. We required that the fan be immobilized before blowing down the units, and the failures stopped. A small screwdriver through the fan works well and is difficult to miss - we tried toothpicks, but they did not always get removed." -- Lyle Bickley, KF6ZGI Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

15 years, 1 month

Transfer files to/from N* CPM image?

by snhirsch＠gmail.com

I found what purports to be a diskdef for cpmtools, but am not having any success at all. The file _appears_ to copy into the image and I can read it back out uncorrupted with cpmtools, but when I write it to a disk with Dave Dunfield's NST and boot it, the file is filled with E5s. I did note the diskdef is for 70 tracks (double-sided) and tried changing the track value to 35. No luck. I'm trying to move the Morrow HD format/test utility to a diskette that can be accessed from my N* CPM 2.2 boot diskette, but so far it's "Can't Get There from Here..". I'd try a comm program, but guess what I don't have on an N* diskette? :-). Steve --

15 years, 1 month

Drive recovery

by thomas.gardner＠sbcglobal.net

> Message: 3 > Date: Tue, 4 May 2010 16:52:54 -0700 > From: dwight elvey <dkelvey at hotmail.com> > Subject: RE: Drive recovery > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Message-ID: <SNT129-W423C1F47E5486E7A1E8EFFA3F30 at phx.gbl> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > ---snip--- > > Hi > If I was running a drive recovery business, every drive that came in > would be opened first in a clean room before powering on. If there > was a failure of one of the disk, shipping could have distributed bits > to unaffected surfaces. > I don't think I could run it any different than that. I'd have to charge > for that as well. > Dwight Since most drive failures are not head disk interferences much less a crash, the proposed process would unnecessarily both add cost and increase the risk of head disk interference without, IMO, significantly changing the data recovery probability. The small particles that do the most damage are not visible so I am not sure what one would do upon opening a drive unless there are many large visible particles indicative of a rare catastrophic head crash. When there is a catastrophic head crash the debris is well distributed by the rotating disks, damaging all the heads and disks then. At this point the damage is done and subsequent shipment and testing is not likely to do much more damage. Furthermore, it is extremely difficult, perhaps impossible and certainly expensive to recover data when there is such a catastrophic failure. A simple audio test should be sufficient to detect a catastrophic failure at which point you turn the drive off and consider the very limited options available. One might consider a particle count test for contamination but then it is not clear what one would do about it, purge cycle perhaps. So it seems to me that opening every drive is of little value Tom

15 years, 1 month

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test-drb May 2010