Jules,?
Excellent! That's really helpful. I've seen a crate of 21xx cabling and gubins as ?which?needs?investigated, and there's a whole room of HP goodies to sort, not to?mention a handful of later related systems.
I have the tape drive back at the house for a clean and checkup. It looks pretty hopeful, but will need a few things.
-Colin Eby
Jules Richardson <jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote:
Colin Eby wrote:
> All,
>
> I've located two HP 2116 systems, a B and a C.
Hi Colin,
I'll save you a little bit of effort (at least on the 'B'), as here's my
catalogue of the very same machines from four years ago :-)
?? http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2007-November/063044.html
... although I never did get chance to look into whether the 'B' system had
any 'hidden' core.
It was about a fortnight after posting that message that all my visa stuff
went through and I hopped the Atlantic permanently to the US,? so I never
did get the chance to do any more with either system.
cheers
Jules
As a friend has just given me, gratis, a full copy of NeXTStep - 3.0,
with upgrade CDs for 3.1 and 3.2 - I thought I would go looking for
some way to run them, as I have yet to find a NeXT box that is both
[a] complete and [b] which I can afford.
It's not there yet, but this looks interesting and promising...
http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=20126
--
Liam Proven ? Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508
All,
I've located two HP 2116 systems, a B and a C. I've also got access to
period Teletypes, 2748A paper tape reader requiring restoration, and the
uncatalogued back stores of a museum. I'm strongly considering a
restoring one working system from the two for museum demonstration and
display.
If you were me, or have had experience with these systems before, what
would you keep in mind or look out for? Assume for the moment I have the
time and skills myself or available from colleagues to carry out the
work. All thoughts and contributions gratefully received.
Some background and progress:
* neither system has been in "conservation friendly" storage
conditions.
* the museum has fairly extensive HP collection, which makes missing
component location more likely if required
* the museum also has a range of HP instruments which might be used to
create an interactive industrial control or scientific computing display
My first steps so far:
1. Conduct background reading research using internet sites and scans.
Thanks to all the following for making these resources available
* Al and Bitsavers,
* http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/HP21xx/HP2116.html (B Hilpert)
* http://rikers.org (Tim Riker)
* http://www.hpmuseum.net/
2. Begin basic physical evaluation of the "C" system:
a. Basic cleaning of the cabinet and vacuuming out of components -- so
far excluding the card cages (ran out of time)
b. Begin inventorying components and starting photographing them
The verdict so far is that environmental damage appears limited to the
front panel and some limited contact corrosion on the chassis and
panels. There's mildew evident on the some cabling, but not really
showing on what I've seen on the backplane wire-wrap so far so far. The
cards are in a muddle though. This is what I've catalogued:
=================================================
<Rack 1>
1 - 22 EMPTY
<Rack 2>
101 A101 Front Panel Coupler
102 A102-105 Arithmetic Logic
103 A102-105 Arithmetic Logic
104 A102-105 Arithmetic Logic
105 A102-105 Arithmetic Logic
106 A106 TIMING GEN (clock)
107 A107 Instruction Decoder
108 EMPTY -- Missing A108 Shift logic (this could be in the loose
boards)
109 EMPTY
110 EMPTY
111 EMPTY
112 EMPTY
113 EMPTY
114 EMPTY
115 EMPTY
116 EMPTY
117 EMPTY
118 EMPTY
119 EMPTY
120 EMPTY
<Rack 3>
201 A201 I/O Control
202 EMPTY
203 EMPTY
204 EMPTY
205 ?? *not yet identified*
206 A13 MDB (this is supposed to be in slot 13?)
207 POWER FAIL (not sure what this is in relation related cards
208 POWER FAIL
209 POWER FAIL
210 POWER FAIL
211 ??
212 A4,6,16,18 Inhibit Driver (should be in the 2116 B according to #1)
213 A4,6,16,18 Inhibit Driver (should be in the 2116 B according to #1)
214 A4,6,16,18 Inhibit Driver (should be in the 2116 B according to #1)
215 A4,6,16,18 Inhibit Driver (should be in the 2116 B according to #1)
216 MMD / XV Driver ( should be associated with a core board )
217 SSA ( should be associated with a core board )
218 A2
219 A8,9,14,15 Driver Switch (should be in the 2116 B according to #1)
220 MDB ( system should only have one of these )
221 EMPTY
222 EMPTY
<Loose>
Looks like two or three core stacks and four cards:
POWER FAIL
??
??
??
===================================================
Given that some of these cards look like they are from the wrong
machine, all the memory slots are unpopulated (some are stuck in the IO
rack), I'm guessing that the guts of this system have been mixed and
matched with others, possibly the "B" model -- either that or just
shuffled. I won't know until I've started to look at the "B" model for
comparison, and of course, completed the cataloguing of this one.
-- Colin
> The PPS-4 was actually a bit more 'sophisticated' than I
> first thought. One other thing that was unexpected was
> that they are powered eg. 0 and negative 9V. I wonder why it's like that...
The early 70's LSI was mostly PMOS.
Simpler devices were often a good match to a 9V battery in handheld devices where that was the target. You wouldn't believe how much effort was put into putting LED drivers on the same chip where they could (often they couldn't and the LED driver was off the main logic chip.)
More complex PMOS logic often had special supplies for clock and enable lines. You often find small switching converters (magnetics or charge pump) to generate the required voltages.
A little later high-density NMOS also would use oddball voltages (both positive and negative depending on application) for density's sake. e.g. 8080A.
Some good examples of how some handheld devices generated the necessary oddball voltages at http://www.jacques-laporte.org/HP35%20power%20unit.htm
Tim.
All,
I think the time has finally come to narrow down the scope of my
collection for the sake of space, marital bliss and sanity. I need to
shed a healthy assortment of Unix workstations, most in operational form.
I have printed docs for some and DVDs full of software for all.
Not looking to get wealthy, but I would like some modicum of reimbursement
given the condition and completeness.
I will not ship any of this - you must come to Burlington, VT and take it
away (or arrange to have that done). Would love to have the entire
collection go to one person (and will adjust fiduciary expectations
accordingly).
It will take some effort to pull together a detailed list, but here's a
rough rundown to guage interest:
IBM RS/6000 43p
- Complete set of AIX 4.3 media
- Has 100Base ethernet adapter installed
HP Visualize B2000
- Complete set of HPUX 11i distribution media
- Complete set C/C++ development tools
SGI Iris Indigo R3000
- Basic machine - no 3d graphics
SGI Iris Indigo R4400
- Every option known to Westerm Man, including 3d graphics
(I have a couple of Iris Indigo keyboards and mice. These are not common
items)
SGI Indigo 2 (Teal) R4400 CPU
SGI Indigo 2 (Purple) 768MB Memory, Uber hi-end graphics board, 100Base
ethernet. I _think_ it's an R8000 (IP26).
Sun Ultra 5
Sun Ultra 2
Sun Ultra 60
- Very tricked-out machine with 2x 450 Mhz. SPARC cpu and lotsa memory.
Has U160 SCSI controller.
(I have Sun keyboards and mice a-plenty)
(I also have a gorgeous, early Sparc 2 with a box of S-Bus cards, but I'm
planning to hang on to it)
--> Lots and lots of Solaris distros on CD and DVD.
2x DEC Alpha Multia. I know one is operational. Slower than death warmed
over, but very high "cute" factor.
DEC Alpha PC64 w/ 256MB of memory in PC case. Operational system
DEC Alpha PC164 motherboard (maybe 2..)
DEC Alpha UP2000+ system w/ 2x 700Mhz. 2MB cache 21264
- This is a beast. Huge power supply, Adaptec 29360 controller, several
disks.
- Was my pride and joy until it went flakey. Might be good for parts or a
demonstration of poorly-characterized electromigration on ageing VLSI
parts.
--> I have several complete sets of install media for Digital Unix 4.x
through Tru64 5.something. License keys for everything.
- I have 2GB of memory for it, but the machine won't POST with it
installed.
DEC 5000 MIPS-based workstation (bare system, but works last I knew)
DEC VAXStation 3100 - Condition unknown
- Have a box of VMS 5.x docs, Ultrix CD, Full set of VMS media.
Also:
Boxes full of spare boards and widgets for many of the above.
Full 5-ft. Shelf of documentation on the Alphas
I'm not exaggerating when I say this will fill a van :-)
Please feel free to drop e-mail with additional questions and/or interest.
I really would hate for this stuff to end up on a barge to China for gold
reclamation...
Steve
--
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To re-iterate:
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--
Lawrence Wilkinson lawrence at ljw.me.uk
The IBM 360/30 page http://www.ljw.me.uk/ibm360
I'm about to get something to replace my old TI85 I had from high school.
Lots of you here rave about the HP's offerings. Indeed, I wanted to get,
but couldn't afford an HP48g when they were new. I don't have much need
for graphing now, but I do need scientific calculation. The HP35s seems
good for that. Or should I just jump in and get the HP50g?
--
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?
> I am also the proud owner of a Mattel Battelstar Galatica anno 1979 week 14.
>
> The chip used in this vintage handheld game is labeled B6001EA
> and I guess it's a Rockwell International PPS-4/1 micro controller
> (a PPS-4 cpu with clock, ram and rom) from sources I found on the net.
Many of the Mattel games of that era were variants on Rockwell calculator chips.
Not unrelated to 4-bit general purpose CPU's of the era, but the game chips were
way closer to the calculator chips.
Read the interview with the game's designer, Mark Lesser:
http://www.digitpress.com/library/interviews/interview_mark_lesser.html
Tim.