My Altair 680 has achieved the position of primary attention on
my workbench. All of the ICs are socketed. Not having seen
power in over 20 years, I did not trust the power supply as far
as I could throw a bus. I pulled all of the ICs, attached dummy
loads (automobile bulbs) and powered up. Sure enough, there was
AC all over the place (where there should have been DC). I
replaced all of the electrolytic caps and that got rid of the AC
but some of the voltage levels are very wrong, at least as compared
to what is written on the schematics. The worst offender is just
off the "plus" side of the full wave bridge (BR-1). It should be
nine volts but is actually at 11.5. This makes what should be the
main five volt rail a little more than 9 volts... the far side of
VR-1 (a 7805). The wave form coming off the transformer is really
ugly not a smooth sine wave. I hate power supplies. I don't really
understand, looking at the schematics, what this transformer should
be doing. My guess is that it should be making a nice nine volt,
60 cycle AC sine wave with each of the two outputs 90 degrees out
of sync? What could be wrong with a transformer that it would
produce something like:
__
/ \
| \
/ \_
/ \
| /
| /
\_/
bent and very squared off at spots? My scope shows nice clean 120
coming into the transformer. How do I figure out a part number for
a replacement transformer?
Thanks!
I have an Atari 800xl and a couple of 1050 disk drives. I also have
two copies of the M.U.L.E. game on disk. Unfortunately, I can't get
either to boot on the 800xl. I suspect that these are older games that
were written for the 400/800 and may need the "translator disk" that
allowed the 800xl to run games written for the older machines. Does
anyone know where I could obtain a copy of this translator disk?
Thanks!
David Betz
I have a fine old Stag PPZ modular EPROM programmer:
http://www.gifford.co.uk/~coredump/inst.htm#PPZ
It takes plug-in EPROM (model Zm2000) and PAL (Zm2200) modules, called
Z-modules by Stag. I've recently acquired a new module, Zm3000, which
looks like a more recent EPROM module. The chips in the Zm3000 are
date coded in 1993, whereas the Zm2000 is nearer 1988. The PPZ main
unit contains a 6809 CPU and a small CRT display.
Does anyone know anything about this system? What about other Z-module
types? In particular, should the Zm3000 work with the PPZ, because I
currently get an error message "Incorrect Mainframe"?
Thanks in advance for any clues! (Virtually all I get from Google is a
link back to my own web page!)
--
John Honniball
coredump(a)gifford.co.uk
This looks interesting. As collector of DEC systems my need is slightly
different insofar as due to the rapid disappearance of ST506 (MFM) drives I
need to make say an IDE drive look like a an ST506 drive to a DEC MFM
controller.
I concur. I have a CompuPro 816 System with a Q540 MFM 40 Meg HD that is
getting shaky. Sure would like to be able to use an IDE of which I have
several that would work. Lets hope others will pick up the thread and
maybe Andrews Group will consider creating a MFM to IDE adapter Board
that would insert between the MFM Cables and the IDE Drive. I'm sure
there is a lot of Older CP/M machines out there that would benefit.
Bob in Wisconsin
Found those capacitors. Yes, they were indeed the trio that were clustered
together. All the -ve sides clustered together, and the +ve wired to a
motor output connection just as you said.
I spent tonight extracting the IC and the capactors. It went surprisingly
smoothly considering this is probably the smallest circuit board I've worked
on in terms of closeness of tracks.
Now to just wait until the ICs arrive from Hong Kong. I hope it's not by
slow boat. I've ordered and paid for the ICs but have yet to hear any kind
of acknowledgement apart from the standard paypal reciept.
I've also bought an X/Profile emulator. Luckily I've managed to sell one
of my Osborne 1s for $340 NZ (about $255US) to help part-pay for it!
So, here's hoping BOTH Lisas will be up and running 100% soon!. An ominous
sign in the Lisa 2 though. Yesterday it would just suddenly switch off I
was testing this drive. A little jiggling and waiting a while, then a
switch on and it would suddenly go again. Could be something loose, or
could be the PSU starting to give up the ghost. I have a spare working (I
think) PSU, so I might have to call that into service....or attempt a repair
if that's indeed the problem.
Maintence/repair is an ongoing process with this old iron isn't it.
Terry
> Take a look at one of those HP drive schermatics I mentioned. If you are
> working from one of 'my' schematics, oyu want ot look at the sheet
> entitled 'Sony Floppy Drive Spindle Motor Sheet (3)'. You'll see the
> TA7259 chip. Connected to the inputs are the 3 hall devices H1-H3.
> Connected ot the outpus are the 3 motor windings -- notice how the other
> end of these windings are all linked together, but go nowhere else --
> that's the 'star' (or 'wye') configuration I was talking about. And just
> to the left of the widnigns are 3 capacitors C11, C12, C13 wired in
> another star circuit.
>
> I have no idea what the capacitors will be labelled on your PCB. They are
> likely to be a simular value. See if you can find 3 cpaacitors, arounf
> 10uF each, with the +ve side wired to a motor output connection on the
> chip and the 3 -ve sides all linked together. It might be the 3
> capacitors cludered just to the right of the chip in the photo, it might
> not. You cna use the resistance range of your multimeter to check what is
> connected to what, of course.
>
> Alas without the PCB in front of me (and thus being able to trace
> connections) I don;t think I cna be more definite.
>
> -tony
>
>
>
>
>
> -----
> No virus found in this message.
> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
> Version: 10.0.1204 / Virus Database: 1435/3442 - Release Date: 02/13/11
>
Yesterday my girlfriend and I returned from a hastily-scheduled road
trip to Maryland; we went to see a friend who is gravely ill. While we
were in town, we took the opportunity to visit a few other people.
Another friend up there is preparing to move, and he dropped a few
things in my lap since I was there with a mostly-empty car.
The first was a Data General Aviion AV300 workstation. This is one
of the few machines built around the Motorola 88K CPU. It came with its
original keyboard, mouse, monitor, and a full set of DG-UX manuals. I
don't yet know if it's functional, but according to my friend it was
running a few years ago.
The second is something I'm REALLY excited about. We went to his
garage and he pointed me at two dusty card-cages full of boards, and
told me that he picked them up from a college loading dock twenty years
ago, and that he had no idea of what they were, but there were core
memory boards in them. Oh, and there's this lights-and-switches front
panel that goes with them. (!)
Upon getting them home and digging around, it appears to be a nearly
complete Microdata 1600 CPU. I have the two backplanes with card cages
and boards, and the front panel, along with some cables. I lack the
power supply, but I can build one of those...with that, I think I have
enough to resurrect the basic CPU.
Neat stuff!
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Anyone here have the speech module for an IBM PC Convertible
they want to get rid of?
I just got one of these laptops & was hoping to score one.
David M. Vohs
Digital Archaeologist & Computer Historian
Computer Collection:
"Triumph": Commodore 64, 1802, 1541, Indus GT, FDD-1, GeoRAM 512, MPS-801.
"Leela": Original Apple Macintosh, Imagewriter II.
"Delorean": TI-99/4A, TI Speech Synthesizer.
"Spectrum": Tandy Color Computer III.
"Monolith": Apple Macintosh Portable.
"Boombox": Sharp PC-7000.
"Butterfly": Tandy 200, PDD-2.
"Shapeshifter": Epson QX-10, Comrex HDD, Titan graphics/MS-DOS board.
"Scout": Otrona Attache.
(prospective) "Pioneer": Apple LISA II.
"TMA-1": Atari Portfolio, Memory Expander +
"Centaur": Commodore Amiga 2000.
"Neon": Zenith Minisport.
Hi all,
I'm cleaning out my library and have the following set of IBM mainframe security
documentation free for 20lbs shipping from 94025. Sorry, all or nothing - I only
want to make one trip to ship these. These manuals cover the period from early
to late-1980s.
They go to the first person to accept the lot. Will get recycled if not claimed
by 2/2. Have already offered to Bitsavers, and have scanned in case Al wants
later.
Lee Courtney
lee_courtney at acm.org
Auditing Top Secret Overview
MVS Secured using CA-ACF2
RACF Overview
MAJOR COMPONENTS OF AN ACF2-PROTECTED SYSTEM
ACF2 Training Class
Access Control Facility Auditor's Guide
Access Control Facility IMPLEMENTATION PLANNING GUIDE
The Access Control Facility General Information Manual
The Access Control Facility Overview
Access Control Facility UTILITIES MANUAL
ACF2 Composite Index
ACF2 Release 4 Enhancement Summary
The Access Control Facility Administrators Guide
VM Secure Users Guide
VM CMS User Guide and Reference Manual
VMSECURE Quick Reference
ACF2 Reporting System Reference Card
CA-ACF2 Audit Overview
What About VM Security
VM Software Fee Schedule
VM Software Newsletter
AUTOMATING THE AUDIT OF RACF PROFILES
CONSUL Mainframe Security Overview
CONSUL RACF Sample Output
CONSUL RACF User Reference Manual
BoKS Administration
BoKs Release Notes and Getting Started Guide