test-drb October 2011

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

199 participants
234 discussions

by mloewen＠cpumagic.scol.pa.us

I'm looking for a HP 12821A HP-IB board and 59310-60002 cable for my 2109E - does anyone have one for sale or trade? Crisis Computer doesn't have any. Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/

13 years, 2 months

Free! HP Netserver LX Server P-Pro Parts

by mikelee＠tdh.com

Not all that "classic" but figured I'd make the offer in case someone needed pieces or parts. Located near the Chicago area, willing to ship parts and I highly doubt anyone would want the whole thing. You however might want HP SCA drive trays (also works in the other HP storage stuff the same age), scsi/sca backplanes (6 drive slots per side, actually quite nice drive cages if you wanted to do something with that), power supplies, proc or mem boards or anything else. It's a mini-fridge sized multi-proc Pentium Pro server with 12 half height drive bays, 3 power supplies, etc. One last offer for parts from this beast before I part it out and scrap it. I'm keeping the basics memory, procs and drives, but I can be convinced to part with those as well if you have a need. Nice machine for its time, but the 1kW/hr power use and physical size is convincing me to get rid of it. Once again, located in the Chicago area. Crossposted, so first come first serve and closer the better. Mike

13 years, 2 months

For Sale: Phillips PX-1000cr terminal with crypto capabilities

by tosteve＠yahoo.com

FOR SALE: Two Phillips PX-1000cr - a small hand-held message terminal from 1985, with text encryption features. Any interest or value? See a link here: http://www.cryptomuseum.com/crypto/philips/px1000/index.htm

13 years, 2 months

Free for the cost of shiping : Altos CPM and MiocroSoft COBOL 8"disc's

by hp-fix＠xs4all.nl

Free for the cost of shipping : Altos CPM and Microsoft COBOL 8"disc's About 10 discs I don't have the hardware anymore, so before I format the discs... -Rik

13 years, 2 months

open FTP index

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

On Tuesday 18 October 2011, Al wrote: > just stumbled upon this > http://www.mmnt.net/ > > this is interesting since afaik Google doesn't index anonymous ftp sites and > there is a site search. > > I see one of the trailing-edge sites is on there. In fact Googlebot is regularly scanning all my ftp sites quite regularly. But I would not classify as usefully return search information. There are several other bots out there (some of them russian, one of them may be mmnt) scanning ftp sites. Remember when archie did all this? (Or at least, tried to do all this.)

13 years, 2 months

old clocks

by Arno_1983＠gmx.de

Oh well, another post that reminds me of all that tinkering I'd like to do but can't due to lack of time right now. There is a broken Siemens "Hauptuhr" (master clock) HU 10 in one of ?y banana boxes from hell, which formerly did its duty in a school in my district. This is more modern (I'd say 70s if not 80s vintage) unit with a lead-acid battery for backup and a discrete electrical second (or maybe half-second) oscillator driving the "seconds" part of the mechanical work, which in turn actuates a contact to generate "minute" pulses for both the minutes/hours hands of the local dial and the slave clocks. It seems that just the primary oscillator or maybe the seconds actuator is broken, as manually generating pulses via the Set button does advance the hands as expected. What's more, the device also comprises a loop of, IIRC, 5-level punched tape in a box with, I think, one "character" position for every five minutes in either 24 hours or even seven days, which would usually probably be used to ring a bell for signalling the breaks at the desired times (on schooldays), but could of course also accomodate other functions. I also do have a kind of slave clock, but not the usual hands-and-dial variety - mine is a digital one which looks like it was from some kind of larger office and works by means of plastic sheets printed with numbers and arranged in a horizontal drum, which flip downward, one per minute, at the actuation of a magnet. Besides hours and minutes, this thing also has a whole calendar with day-of-week, day-of-month and month display derived from this movement, but I've not yet investigated how it deals with the different lengths of the months, i.e. whether it will need manual intervention every two months or just once a year (apart from going into/leaving DST, of course). Unfortunately some greedy, egoistic creature has pilfered some of the flip sheets, so these will have to be recreated using some kind of plastic stock and painted to match the figure patterns of the rest. Uh huh, how long will I have to live... So long, yours sincerely Arno Kletzander ...sent from HTC Magician PDA ----- Urspr?ngliche Nachricht ----- >Message: 17 >Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2011 18:39:08 +0100 (BST) >From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) >To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >Subject: Re: old clocks >Message-ID: <m1RFUg7-000J43C at p850ug1> >Content-Type: text/plain >> Does anyone in here admire/collect old clocks? I want to get a Standard > >Hell yes. I've been interested in clocks for longer than I've been >interested in computers :-). All types of 'clocks' actually, from >sundials to atomic clocks. > >I am (as you have probably guesed) more interested in the movements >(mechanisms, working parts, call it what you will) than the cases. >Unforutnately, antique clocks are expensive, so I can't own what I'd >really like to own, but I cvna still enjoy repairing a 1930's shelf clock >that I've bought for \pounds 10.00 or so in a charity shop (thrift >store). > >> Electric AR-2 slave clock (60s style). I fondly remember that model as >> the one used at my elementary and junior high schools. > >Alas I cna't help you there. > >-tony > > > >Message: 19 >Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2011 19:22:58 +0100 (BST) >From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) >To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >Subject: Re: old clocks >Message-ID: <m1RFVMX-000J48C at p850ug1> >Content-Type: text/plain > >> I was a proffesional clockmaker for a while. >> We did mechanical, electric and electronic clock repair and >> manufacture, till the site closed. >> Dont forget you will need some form of master clock to drive the slave dial. >> The drive is a current pulse set to a fixed current and all the dials >> are in series. > > >Many slave clock systems had the dials in series as you describe (and as >is described in Hope-Jones's book), but I am sure the system we had at >school (which weas almost certainly from Gents of Leicester) had the >slave dials in parallel and fed them 24V pulses. I deducdd the first fact >by unpluging the connector on one of the slaved and finding it had no >effect on any of the others and the latter by useing a 'scope... > >Anyway, the pulses for that system were alternate polarity pulses, one >pulse per minute. Something like this : > > -- -- > | | | | >-- ------ ------ ------ -- > | | | | > -- -- > > | | > | | > <-1min-> > >The slave clock motor was similar in concept to the motors in those quartz >insert movements. It had 2 mechncially stable positions half a turn apart. >The +ve goign pulse pulled the (magnetised rotor) one way round between >the ends of the coil core, when the pulse ended, the rotor moved ot the >nearest mechanically stable position. The next pulse (of the oppostie >polarity) again lined the rotor up with the coil core, but the other way >round, It then moved to the other stable position. And so on. > >The master clock had a spring-drivien mechancial movement with a short >(about 30cm) pendulum. The spring was automatically rewound my an >electric motor, and would keep the clock running for quite a time (12 >hours or more) if the mains failed. The pulses to the slave dials were >generated by a pair of 3-terminal mercury switches, which were rocked by >a camshaft. Power to the switches (and thus the slave dials) came from a >transofmer/rectifier unit. Of course if the mains failed, no pulses were >gneerated (there was no battery backup) and the slave dials didn't move. >However therew was a mechanism invovling a mains motor and a differneital >gear which kept track of the missing pulses (when the mains motor wasn't >turnign). When the mains came back on, the thing 'caught up' generating >pulses every few seconds to reset the slaves to the correct time, > >Anyway.... > >While it would be nice to have such a master clock (or, indeed one of the >synchonomes), these slave dials (in all the common systems) effectively >count electrical pulses. And it doesn't matter how you genrate the >pulses. Provided you know what the pulses should look like (voltage, >current, whether they have to be of alternating polarity), it's a fund >exercise to design a digital circuti to produce them using your favourite >technology, whether that's TTL, FPGAs or microcontrollers. > >-tony > > >------------------------------

13 years, 2 months

C trivia - was Re: Dennis Ritchie has died

by jonas＠otter.se

On Mon, 17 Oct 2011 16:06:17 -0700 (PDT), Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote: > > I wasn't given much choice. My parents told me to behave, and to learn > how to handle situations where people with power over me were wrong. (Sometimes unfortunately) you don't get to choose your parents. But you must have had sensible parents :-) > I guess that I learned PART of that - I have never defenestrated a college > administrator! Perhaps the wrong part? ;-) It sounds as if your college administrators ought to be defenestrated as soon as possible, and from as high up as possible... They sound just like Dilbert's pointy-haired boss. /Jonas

13 years, 2 months

C trivia - was Re: Dennis Ritchie has died

by dm561＠torfree.net

-------------Original Message: -------------- Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2011 16:06:17 -0700 (PDT) From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> Subject: Re: C trivia - was Re: Dennis Ritchie has died > ...Although, admittedly, that was half a century ago (PI does NOT change!) > (or DOES IT??)) > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred -------------------------- Well, Xerox was ready in case it ever does! Supposedly from their Fortran manual: "The primary purpose of the Data statement is to give names to constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the variable Pi can be given that value with a Data statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change." mike

13 years, 2 months

C trivia - was Re: Dennis Ritchie has died

by jonas＠otter.se

> start by undoing a lot of what they had previously been taught, such as > that PI was EXACTLY 22/7 ! (half a century ago, in elementary school, I > got into "big trouble" for telling a teacher that PI was NOT 22/7 !) Aarrghh!! Is that what they teach in American schools?? That is *evil*. My mother once had a teacher who when his pupils were bad, told them to behave, otherwise he would teach them wrong. In his opinion that was the worst punishment he could think of. I am absoutely sure that over here everybody is taught, and always has been, the difference between natural, real, rational and irrational numbers, and that pi is an irrational number which can be approximated by 22/7. The Swedish school system may have very serious problems, but hearing this kind of thing makes me very, very grateful that my kids haven't grown up in the USA. /Jonas

13 years, 2 months

Sperry 5000/Arete' 1200 Unix Mini

by silent700＠gmail.com

We have had a successful mission with the Sperry minicomputer pickup. We dodged the rain showers and successfully loaded a ~5' rack and two Fujitsu tape drives into two vehicles, then broke for dinner. Here are pics from today, with more to come of internal bits: https://picasaweb.google.com/102190732096693814506/Sperry1200Pickup# The machine appears to be an Arete' 1200, although badged as a Sperry on the front. Research suggests it is equivalent to a Sperry 5000/80 machine. It is a Motorola 68000-based UNIX minicomputer. This one appears to have two CPU boards (each with a 68020 processor,) a few RAM boards for a total of 30MB of RAM, and is missing all of its storage. The drives it used seem to be SMD interfaced but we're not sure what it had originally as there are external and internal connectors. Two Fujitsu 9-track tape drives, model M2444AC, came with the Sperry and we assume they were used with it, too. They are heavy! Here is some information on the Sperry 5000 line. Truly a unique machine! http://www.porterdavis.org/computing/sperry.html -- silent700.blogspot.com Retrocomputing and collecting in the Chicago area: http://chiclassiccomp.org

13 years, 2 months

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test-drb October 2011