test-drb October 2011

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

199 participants
234 discussions

OT: (but still old tech) CEDs & players available

by nospam212-cctalk＠yahoo.com

This isn't old computers but still old tech and as I have talked to people on this list about these before I thought I would check here first before dumping them. I have a collection of about 300 CED (old video format similar to an old record) and a couple of players that I want to move out. If anyone here is interested contact me off list. I prefer local pickup as these are VERY HEAVY but if you really want to pay to have them shipped then I might consider it for a few dollars more. I don't have a current list of the movies and am not interested in parting it out, just want to move them on out. Thanks. ----- David Williams http://www.trailingedge.com

13 years, 1 month

hp calcs part 2

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

Looking over all the stuff on the HP 35s, I shrugged and bought a used 32sII. Does anyone here know what it would take to get someone at HP to seriously listen to the bug and misfeature complaints and come out with, say, a 35sII that fixes these problems? -- 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?

13 years, 1 month

PDP 11/70 Front Panel up for sale.

by robinsonbrian07＠gmail.com

This forum was recommended to me as a place to find people who appreciate vintage computing technology, so it seems like an appropriate place to advertise this: A PDP 11/70 Front Panel - http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280758702820& Reference material: http://www.hampage.hu/pdp-11/1170.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-11 http://www.village.org/pdp11/faq.pages/pricing.html The PDP-11/x was perhaps the best selling, most powerful series of supercomputers in the world, going through over ten major revisions in it's lifecycle. A PDP-11 setup would cost tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. It often required a whole team of people dedicated to overseeing it's operation and managing it's moment-to-moment usage. They were used in everything from business, science and academic research applications to real-time control applications (PBX, traffic, industrial). This is the front control-panel and user interface to the PDP-11/70. It's been in storage for some time and the condition is unknown, but with minimal signs of wear and tear it looks able to be restored to functional condition. Get a legendary piece of computer history right here. You'll have a hard time finding many like it.

13 years, 1 month

Seeking advice on shipping an ASR33 Teletype

by nick.jarmany＠quixant.com

I have just managed to purchase a Teletype on Ebay - something I have been yearning to obtain for a long time! However, the item in question is located in Ohio, US and I would like to ship it to Italy. Clearly it will need properly crating up by someone and freighting (I assume by sea?) across the pond to me. The vendor no doubt does not want to get involved in much of this. So, my question to all of you out there is - do any of you know of a shipping company that can package up an item like this suitably and arrange transportation? The ASR33 is (thankfully) complete with all accessories such as stand, paper holder etc. I can probably persuade the vendor to remove these accessories from the main unit, but probably not much more. I am hoping some of you will have faced similar issues and might be able to provide good advice. All recommendations gratefully received! Footnote: Given the nature of this forum I am sure I don't have to explain why I would be purchasing such an item. But as a bit of background I was fortunate to go to a school in SE London (Alleyn's) in the early 70s that had an ASR33 and an acoustic modem link to Queen Mary College (QMC) - a dual ICL 1904S system running QMC Maximop as I remember. I hate to think what the phone bill was like, as the ASR was in use continuously all day every day. This resource created a number of very talented young programmers at the school. One guy wrote a complete Monopoly program in Basic. I learnt a language that fascinated me by its quirkiness - Snobol4 (and Spitbol). I did an 'O' level project that was a line editor program written in Snobol4. In about 1975 the school obtained an IBM card punch machine that was used to prepare batch jobs that were taken by hand to be run on an IBM 360 (I can't remember where). I still remember marvelling at the tall vertical deck of cards being swallowed at a rapid rate by the reader, with forced air being used to separate the cards. Great stuff! We were also donated an Elliot machine (I think it was a 903 from photos I have found on the web) that had a high speed optical paper tape reader and punch sitting on the top. The main machine itself looked like a very large, double width washing machine. Removing the front panels revealed the magnetic core store. The system was booted by entering the initial instructions via toggle switches on the control panel, after which further programs could be loaded by tape. The process of creating and running a program was very tedious, as compiling, linking etc each required the individual program to be loaded and an output tape created that was used as the input to the next stage. This all required continuous use of the desk mounted paper tape winding machine that was hand operated and geared up to enable rapid winding. However, accidents (and broken tape) were a constant danger of using this device. We were always having to make duplicate tapes of Fortran compilers etc. The last arrival at the school was a CDC VDU terminal that had a high speed (I guess a few kbps) synchronous connection to a commercial computer bureau in London that had a major CDC Cyber mainframe, not sure which model? As I remember the company was called "SIA" or something similar. I once visited the control room and marvelled at the control console, which looked like something out of a space ship! Time on this computer was very expensive, so the school had a strict limit on CPU time. Unfortunately all this history came to a sorry end when a fire in the building that housed the computer room destroyed all the equipment - very sad. That's might bit of computing history, and is why I was attracted into the fantastic industry. Nick ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________

13 years, 1 month

Seeking advice on shipping an ASR33 Teletype

by iamvirtual＠gmail.com

I had an ASR33 shipped to me from the US. I had the vendor ship the machine in 3 different boxes. The case, base&typing unit, and stand were in separate boxes with plenty of packing. The cost of shipping was high, but the machine arrived in tact. Shipping the machine from Seattle to Calgary was about US$350.00. I would recommend having a piece in a box within a box with plenty of padding between the item and between the inner/outer box should allow the item to survive. The heavier the box, the more likely it will suffer rougher handling. --barrym On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 8:17 AM, Bill Sudbrink <wh.sudbrink at verizon.net>wrote: > Nick Jarmany wrote: > > > > All recommendations gratefully received! > > > > The typing unit _MUST_BE_ screwed to the base via > the shipping screws. Otherwise, it will bounce > around and break the plastic cover and possibly > itself as well. You will really need someone on > site that knows a little about the unit. > >

13 years, 1 month

IMSAI VDP-80 manuals archived?

by derschjo＠mail.msu.edu

Hi all - Just picked up a complete (but rough) IMSAI VDP-80 with what appears to be a complete set of manuals (and a few unlabeled 8" disks which I'll attempt to make images of). Anyone know if these manuals have been digitally archived anywhere? A cursory search doesn't reveal anything promising; This site (http://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/d_imsai.html) has them listed (for a price) but that's about the only reference I can find. I don't have any means to scan these in, but I'd love to see them preserved... Thanks, Josh

13 years, 1 month

HP screen screen rot

by jonas＠otter.se

On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 20:47:13 +0100 (BST), ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: >> Given that there are devices for easily breaking glass that are >> > essentially sharp points, would a jab from a soldering iron be able to >> > implode a CRT? I've done this by accident several times. Before anyone > Possibly. The soldering iron is hot which could set up thermal stresses i > nthe glass too. I do know that soldering to a socket contact while the > socket is plugged onto a CRT or valve can damage the glass-to-metal seal > around the pin, for esample, and is thus a bad idea. Thist doesn't > normally cause an implosion, but... Heat is seriously ungood for CRT glass. It reduces the dielectric strength of the glass which can lead to arcing through the glass. Prolonged arcing will hole the glass, thus venting the vacuum and destroying the tube. Magnetic deflection yokes need to be designed not to run too hot, the glass needs to stay well below 100 degrees C. Above 120 deg C the glass has not much dielectric strength left. /Jonas

13 years, 1 month

ColdFire (was Re: Performance-oriented development ...)

by asc135＠gmail.com

Chuck Guzis wrote: > Microchip is a very strange outfit when it comes to the PIC32. Like > the R4000, programming on the PIC32 is present as JTAG. However > Microchip incorporated a rather convoluted version of their SPI > protocol that's translated into JTAG on the chip. I'm sure it sells > a lot of PICKIT programmers, but otherwise, it's been a mystery to me > why this was done. Could it be that JTAG is more or less industry > standard for this sort of thing? JTAG is a serial protocol that communicates to one or more chips on a JTAG bus. It is commonly used as the debugging vehicle for some CPU families. It communicates between a host computer and the debug subsystem within a target CPU to allow: 1. Run-time debug and breakpoint operations. 2. Boundary-scan that lets you emulate the CPU for the outside circuit. 3. Flash programming since it can be used to generate memory bus cycles. Vendors often use proprietary serial mechanisms for their pods and JTAG functionality. I would presume this is to make sure you buy their tools. Amardeep

13 years, 1 month

Pixar Imaging Computer on ebay

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

> http://www.ebay.com/itm/Steve-Jobs-Pixar-Image-Computer-Museum-Quality-Arti… Just trying to connect old mid-80's articles I hadn't thought of in decades, to reality... is this what's described in https://design.osu.edu/carlson/history/PDFs/pixar-image-processor.pdf They describe a $125K price in 1986 dollars for a complete system (e.g. not just the pedestal.) I did some work with ECL based backprojectors in the era immediately before and the VME based stuff with gate arrays and a Sun front end, and then a little later Tahoe front end, was coming in like gangbusters at the time for many of the industrial/medical applications.

13 years, 1 month

Coldfire (was Re: Performance-oriented development in the commercial)

by asc135＠gmail.com

> > I've never worked with the ColdFire, but because of my interest in Alpha > Micros I've always been curious (near the end of the 68K Alpha Micro phase > there were ColdFire-based servers produced -- I presume with some sort of > emulation layer for those instructions not supported on ColdFire that were > on, say, the '040). How was it to work with compared to a "stock" 68020 or > '030? > They're very nice to work with. I wish I'd had the chance to do more than three or four projects with them. As Dave mentioned, the ARM has just overtaken them in price/performance in most areas and since (at least the models I used) didn't have a memory manager they could not run a full Linux. The single process uCLinux was fine, however. But they were just fantastic with MQX, eCos, and ThreadX. For eCos it was the cygwin-based GNU toolchain, an old familiar friend and I appreciated that. For ThreadX it was WindRiver's Diab under Workbench. Decent enough but the Eclipse framework it's based on was a bit piggish at the time. Today's computers should have no problem with it though. The MQX project was done under CodeWarrior which was nice. That was just a board bring-up and Ethernet demo deliverable. Didn't do too much beyond the startup code, RAM Test, and a couple of threads to blink an LED and respond to an echo server. The customer just wanted a ready to go platform to develop their app. Incidentally, there is a relatively cheap way to get into CodeFire development: http://www.dilnetpc.com/dnp0052.htm The nice thing about this kit is the entire CPU module is on a small board with dual-inline pin arrangement that can be mounted on a hobbyist prototype board. They don't have the price listed there but I think it was $130 ~ 160 or so. It came with a working eCos build and tool set so it was quite a value. If you're going to design a custom board you'll also need a BDM JTAG probe which costs $250. It's the only way to program the chip's flash with a boot loader the first time. Amardeep

13 years, 1 month

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test-drb October 2011