I have a Vector Graphic's ZCB cable that is wired for a 9600b 8/n/1 serial
terminal. It was working yesterday, but the connections were brittle and a
few of the wires have come loose from the 25-pin connector. I can see the
spots where the solder was applied but I am not confident that I have the
correct repair points. Does anyone have the pinouts for this cable so I
can re-solder/replace? A picture says a 1K words. I am not sure I have an
original cable. I will keep looking and if I find the answer I will post
it here.
Thanks
Bill
Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 1:09 PM, Ben <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote:
>> > Johnny Billquist wrote:
>> >
>>> >> Why use a line editor? There are several full screen editors for OS/8.
>>> >> Really fast and nice ones.
>> >
>> > Where?
>
> I just know of one - VTEDIT.TE
>
> http://www.pdp8.net/os/os8/os8_cmd.shtml
>
> I had unhappy results with a VT220 in VT52 mode 25 years ago, but it
> works great with a real VT52.
I seem to remember using it just fine with a VT320 though. I think you
had to make sure you set it to 7M1 or something like that, and not use
8N though, or else it wouldn't be pretty.
I totally forgot that I wrote a Emacs-clone for TECO8, which is what I
normally use. That one I have probably not posted anywhere anytime. But
we also have VISTA, which was available from DECUS, and which I have. I
think I made it available, and maybe others have too.
So for people in general, you have atleast two options, and I should
post my EMACS.TE sometime too...
Johnny
On 6/8/2010 09:54 AM, cctech-request at classiccmp.org wrote:
>Message: 17
>Date: Mon, 7 Jun 2010 16:45:00 -0400
>From: Brad Parker <brad at heeltoe.com>
>Subject: Re: yet another pdp-8 in a fpga, but this time running tss/8
>To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
> <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>Message-ID: <D71821FC-0C2B-4891-ACF6-C4835EF9DBDE at heeltoe.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
>
>On Jun 6, 2010, at 7:02 AM, Jerome H. Fine wrote:
>
> >
> > (a) Without being very accurate, and based on your experience
> with the PDP-8, how
> > long do you think that it would take you to implement a
> PDP-11? Just a rough estimate
> > in months or years!
>
>um. I already did that. It took a few years, but I only worked on
>it sporadically. It currently
>boots (in simulation) RT-11, RSTS V4, BSD 2.9 and V6. I have not
>debugged the split I & D
>but it's there.
>
>If you send me a RK05 image with TSX on it I'll try and boot it in sim.
>
>The last FPGA version I did had no MMU but it did boot RT-11. It had
>some disk problems which
>I have since corrected. I believe I could synthesize and run the
>"no mmu" version pretty quickly.
>The mmu version need still needs some work do make 50mhz timing.
>
> > (b) About how fast might the FPGA solution be compared to
> something like a PDP-11/93?
> > Again, just a rough estimate like 10 or 20 times as fast.
>
>Well, as I said, the no-mmu version runs at 50MHz. I could improve
>that. The mmu version probably
>won't run faster, mostly due to the 20ns rams on my fpga board.
>
> > Any idea why you did an FPGA implementation of the PDP-8?
>
>
>back in the day I spent a lot of time on TSS/8. I wanted to run it
>again :-) And, I want
>to work on cpu's when I grow up.
>
>I also spent a lot of time on RSTS and TSX, hence the pdp-11.
>
>I know the s/w sims are better, but I like hardware and love running
>h/w simulations.
>
>-brad
>
>Brad Parker
>Heeltoe Consulting
>781-483-3101
>http://www.heeltoe.com
Now what would be really cool would be to make 4 CPUs and re-create
an 11/74 quad.
http://www.miim.com/faq/hardware/multipro.html#castor
Dave.
Sorry to eat up bits on the list, but I've tried sending you a few
emails from two different addresses, but haven't seen any reply from you
(re: the SGI Onyx XL).
Pat
--
Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org
Are you kidding? We can't fund enough people to deal with important things like education, health and public safety, and people really think we are paying people to watch *lightbulb sales*? I think someone's tinfoil hat is too tight.... -- Ian
________________________________________
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of William Donzelli [wdonzelli at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2010 2:49 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Anyone off to VCF-UK
> I cannot find the primary legislation, and I bet if I could I'd
> regret it :-)
>
> Here's one retailer's opinion:
> http://www.lightbulbs-direct.com/info/incandescent/
>
> Here's another actually selling them:
> http://www.lyco.co.uk/Light-Bulbs/Regular-Light-Bulbs/Rough-Service-Bulb
> s/sc1340.aspx
What I have heard from all this lightbulb talk, as well as other
issues - in the US, everything you read is crap, unless you are
looking at the text of the law. There are many people with axes to
grind, and will even use lightbulbs to do it.
> Apparently in the US the sales of alternatives (like rough service
> bulbs) are being
> monitored and action may be taken if sales go up too much. or maybe not,
> who knows.
Lightbulb cops?
No, there is no monitoring.
> Same as the analgesics packaging rules: if you make it inconvenient
> to go around the rules, most people won't be bothered. Job done.
Pretty much like the various copy protection systems software has used
over the years.
--
Will
While I do understand that an external data separator is a good thing, I was one of those who did a design using the internal data separator using the WD1771 (and later National) chip. It was on a M6800 system I did some work on, and it seemed to work OK for me. I was using (originally) 35 track Seagate drives, but later used 40 track ones.
I used 256 byte sectors (10 per track). If I git an error, I just did a retry. No real problems.
Just my experience. I still have a system operational (I haven't turned it on in a few years, but may soon). I also interfaced various hard disks. What fun. It was 1976 and also worked on Qume (daisywheel) printers (it only takes a single PIA to interface to them!).
I'm sure that others will have different views on data separators. My experience was a bit different, I don't know what I did different (maybe it was something!).
The last two nights I've been busy archiving some of my Amiga floppy
collection. Most disks were written over 20 years ago.
On a sample size of about 150 floppies, most of them were perfectly
readable by my homegrown usb external amiga floppy drive controller.
I paid very close attention to the failures or ones where my controller
struggled.
Without sounding too obvious here, the time between the pulses (which
more or less define the data) were grossly out of spec. The DD pulses
should nominally be 4us, 6us, and 8us apart before pre-write
compensation. Most good disks are slightly faster, and normal times for
these ranges are:
4us: 3.2-4.2us. Many around 3.75us
6us: 5.5-6.2us.
8us: 7.5-8.2us
(notice margins around 1-1.3us)
My original microcontroller implementation was 3.2-4.2, 5.2-6.2, and
7.2-8.2.
When my current FPGA controller would have a problem, I'd notice that
there were problems right on a boundary. So maybe pulses were coming in
at 3.1us apart instead of 3.2. Or maybe 4.3 instead of 4.2. So I kept
bumping the intervals apart, making a larger range of pulse times
acceptable --- the XOR sector checksums were passing, so I was likely
making the right choices. The bits were ending up in the right buckets.
But as I went through some of these disks, I ended up with the
difference between ranges(and basically my noise margin) being reduced
smaller and smaller. Some to the point where an incoming pulse time
might fall darn smack in the middle of the noise margin. Which bucket
does THAT one go into?
My approach has been very successful(easily 95%+), but it makes me
wonder about Phil's DiscFerret dynamic adaptive approach where a sample
of the incoming data defines the ranges.
Some disk drives and controllers might be faster or slower than others,
and if you create custom ranges for each disk (each track?), perhaps
you'll have better luck.
Keith
I have a customer who may be interested .
How much would you like to sell them for?
--
*Harry McMaster*
President
P 519-763-3391 ext:223
F 519-763-9241
C 519-841-3391
www.systemresale.com <%3Fwww.systemresale.com%3F>
