test-drb December 2011

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

194 participants
247 discussions

by jfoust＠threedee.com

I had three 9-tracks I'd picked up a few years ago. None worked out of the box; they collected dust. Last weekend I knew I'd pass by http://www.comco-inc.com/ in Bettendorf, Iowa, one of the few 9-track sales and service places I'd found. I didn't have much advance warning, so I just brought the drives with me and left them at his door step because the shop was closed. I left an M4 9914, an Overland Data 5622, and an HP 88780. Diagnosis is $495, deductable from repairs if I proceed. Ouch! He says he still sells "a few" 9-tracks a year. His offer to me was a reconditioned HP 88780 for $1795 including manual, cleaning pads and a scratch tape. He said "BIG IDEA... Here's a wonderful chance to corner the 9-track business: I'll sell you 1000 lbs of parts for $1,000 (FOB Bettendorf). I'll even throw in graphics, manuals, etc. At the very least, you will be able to build several drives. I am not kidding." The building he's in has a commercial real-estate "for sale" sign out front. Maybe he was a renter and he needs to move. - John

12 years, 3 months

diskpacks available

by quapla＠xs4all.nl

As I'm reducing my stash of DEC items I have the following diskpacks available : 8x RA60 @ Eur 5/piece 20x RL02 @ Eur 25/piece 3x RL02 @ Eur 5/piece 2x RK06 @ Eur 10/piece They are all in the Netherlands, pick-up is preferred. Ed -- Dit is een HTML vrije email / This is an HTML free email.

12 years, 3 months

Stuff for sale/free (Seattle area)

by derschjo＠mail.msu.edu

I'm in the process of moving a bunch of my computer collection into storage as part of an effort to de-clutter my far-too-cluttered house. In so doing I've decided to thin the collection a bit. This stuff is in the Seattle area, and I really really really prefer local pickup, especially for the heavy items. Items are free unless otherwise noted. More details available upon request. Thanks! Josh Computers: SGI Indy R5000 - $20 - No hard drive or RAM, but was working the last time I powered it up (which was several years ago.) I can probably scrounge up some 72-pin SIMMs for it if needed. SGI Indigo2 - $100 - R10K, Max Impact with 4MB TRAMs, 4gb drive and (iirc) 768MB RAM. Very nice system but I don't use it much anymore (and I have a better equipped Octane for those days I do want to play with a nice SGI :)). Sun Ultra 10 - $20 - 512MB RAM, 60GB drive, "Penguin" PC coprocessor. Acorn A5000 - Complete, but faceplate got damaged in shipping so it's kind of ugly. Has 240V power supply, I had tested this at one point with a 120V supply and it seemed to be working. NVRAM battery has been removed (after causing mild corrosion on the PCB, but nothing irreversable). No keyboard/mouse. 2x IBM PC Convertibles - Complete, working. Printer & RS232 expansion modules, and a pair of carrying cases. Now you can outclass those Macbook-using snobs at Starbucks. (Or perhaps not.) 3x Macintosh Portables. $30 for the lot. None in working condition, none with hard drives. Other than that, they're complete. Impress your friends with a laptop that weighs more than a small car. IBM RS/6000 (Type 7043-140) - 233Mhz 604e, unknown amount of RAM (I can power it up and find out if you're interested.) Includes gigantic POWER GXT800P video card. Was working last time I powered it up. 2x "ePod" tablet computers (w/box) - (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPod) Windows CE 3.0-based tablet device, color 640x480 screen, PCMCIA. A tablet years ahead of its time, or a useless doorstop? You be the judge. Non-Computers: Shibaden FP-107-1B TV Camera - The Seattle Science Center was tossing this out a few years back, and I couldn't let it get scrapped. It's a heavy old video camera from the late 60s. Complete with lenses but I've nothing to hook it up to so who knows if it works. Has some nifty tubes in it, though!

12 years, 3 months

osborne 1

by tdk.knight＠gmail.com

found a mint looking osborne 1 today local computer recyler they had not even looked at it yet so i managed to get it for decent price got it home opened it up found some cpm disks nice little bonus and a mint looking interior http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/4927/osborn.jpg i tried firing it up and it powers up for fraction of a second when it trys to do its power on beep and dies. http://youtu.be/WXzI-FIr50w << see here what its doing (my ipod tuch sure is usefull) i'm guesing its the power supply but want to make sure befor i tare it apart. i've got another one that does weird things that also needs servicing but one of the face plate screws is striped so unable to get it open to look..

12 years, 3 months

Anyone have a case or memory for an HP 9000 712/60

by james＠slor.net

I have a 712/60 in fine working condition, but the top case is darn near splitting in half. If anyone happens to have a spare case in good shape, I'd love to replace the cover on mine. Secondary to that, I also wouldn't mind upgrading the memory to something bigger than the 32 MB that's in it now. I'm in Indianapolis, IN. Thanks! James

12 years, 3 months

TV -> D-Sub converter possible?

by vintagecoder＠aol.com

I have an old COCO II somewhere but I don't have a television. What are you guys who have similar old systems doing for a display? Is there a device to convert the TV out from those computers to D-Sub or dare to dream, DVI? What do you call such a converter? Thanks.

12 years, 3 months

Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC

by derschjo＠mail.msu.edu

Anyone have any recommendations for a reasonably featured 8080 or Z80 BASIC? What I've got running at the moment is a mongrel IMSAI 8080 with a Z80, 48K of working memory and a serial port. My eventual goal is to get CP/M running on it (I have a Cromemco 64FDC -- anyone know of either an official CP/M for this or know of a BIOS that supports this controller before I start writing my own?) but for the time being I thought it would be fun to get a BASIC running on it. The catch is I need something I can adapt to the serial I/O on the Cromemco controller -- so something that I can pretty easily modify is of course preferable. (I'm not opposed to manually hacking up a binary but having an official source listing to start with would save time :)) I started looking at the IMSAI 8K basic listing but there's a fair amount of hardware-specific I/O code in it scattered throughout so I'm not thrilled about modifying it... (and the only source listing I can find is in a PDF, which doesn't help any...) Thanks, Josh

12 years, 3 months

22disk & CP/M's diskettes

by elazzerini＠interfree.it

Hi all, after i finally resurrected my BIGBOARD and I made ??the boot of the operating system CP/M, are struggling with reading old diskettes. Before i comes out completely my mind in the counting of all parameters to pass to the program 22disk, someone knows a comprehensive guide on how to decode the disc formats? I am very close to the identification of parameters, but frankly it is extremely stressful. I'll try to list where I am keeping in mind that the format Bigboard 1 has 77 tracks x 26 sectors / track each with 128byte single-density single-sided. 1) almost every disk CP/M in the first 2 tracks the format is 77 tracks x 26 sectors / track each from 128byte. 2) then starts the data portion that would be double-sided and i need to remove from this portion the sectors used for the FAT whose number is to be calculated as a function of the total number of sectors to be managed; 3) i'm able to reconstruct the sequence of sectors on the disk for the first 2 tracks with the CP/M and for the remain data area; 4) then takes over a parameter which is the allocation unit size that means how fields are grouped together to determine the parameters DRM 5) the allocation unit size determines all the other parameters BSH, BLM, DSM 6) Finally, AL0 and AL0 that the 22disk's document did not clarify well to me. SO: that it is a bit hard for me... Is out there anyone who can help me? Excuse for my poor english. Enrico -Pisa - Italy

12 years, 3 months

Oscilloscope vector display driver...

by rmu_scada＠yahoo.com

http://www.jmargolin.com/vgens/vgens.htm

12 years, 3 months

CP/M FCB structure (was 22disk & CP/M's diskettes )

by elazzerini＠interfree.it

Hi all, Some days ago I posted a request to identify the FCB parameters to read correctly a 8" disk CP/M. I know that i was wrong in the subject so I would like to summarize and i thank you for the suggestions and criticisms. The data obtained directly with the STAT command DSK: are the following: 9600: 128 Byte Record Capacity 1200: Kilobyte Drive Capacity 128: 32 Byte Directory Entries 128: Checked Directory Entries 128: Records / Extent 16: Records / Block 64: Sectors / Track 2: Reserved tracks 2 SIDES After further investigation the parameters for the correct reading would appear as follows: BEGIN SCO2 (1024 bytes/sector) - 8 DSDD " MFM DENSITY, HIGH CYLINDERS 77 SIDES 2 SECTORS 8,1024 Side1 0 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 Side2 0 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 ORDER CYLINDERS BSH 4 BLM 15 EXM 0 DSM 300 DRM 127 AL0 SFO 00H 11110000B AL1 2 END The following additional information which I hope can clarify or help: The inclusion of incorrect data was due to a misreading of my screen on the console CP/M in the data down the email. The calculations were performed by acquiring more information from the operating system CP/M manuals which shows how to derive the parameters needed to compose and then subsequently identified by extrapolating the FCB. The stat command dsk: when possible on a working machine that is able to read the disk whose parameters are to be identified can be useful, but if you can not read the disc seems to have realized that the only way is to use anadisk and 22disk. Anadisk reports: Tracks 0 and 1 = single density 26x128byte with OS CP/M that points to a resident BIOS involved in F800H entry points; Tracks 2-76 = 8x1024byte double density with directory consists of 2 blocks 2048Byte for a total of 128 entries and the remaining space for data SCO2 means disk2 SCOMAR machine (in Italy there was a PCB derived from the Ferguson Bigboard I with a different 1797 FDC controller and BIOS and it has been used to drive a knitting machine now discontinued and no longer supported) The diskette was created from a friend using software IMD of Dave Dunfield and myself played on floppy 3.5 "1.44MB respecting the original features (or almost I hope) With these parameters i was able to read and write to the disk even it remains some doubt as for example by adding the file to disk MBASIC.COM this does not seem to properly turn on the machine that uses this disk format Infact the main problem was that probabily the EXM value not make me able to write files greater than 16KB and the picture visualized the 3 times the same filename. So any kind of suggestion to understand betfer the FCB structure and parameters of CP/M will be welcome. I would like to thank: - For suggestions allison for the valuable explanations and clarifications which go beyond the simple description inherent in any textbook Cisin Fred for the tip to detect the possible size of the FCB parameter BLS analyzing the disk About received criticism may i ask for: - Could anybody give me the name of sw to reduce the size of a photo? - And what used to convert it into text easily? (I have not had a chance to do a dump from the screen) - Where can I buy the registered version of 22disk or is no longer available or supported? I apologize again for my poor English that puts me in trouble to fully understand the criticism received. Have an happy new year 2012 to all. Enrico - Pisa - ITaly

12 years, 3 months

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test-drb December 2011