test-drb October 2012

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

196 participants
268 discussions

by rampaginggreenhulk＠yahoo.com

mine was in Atari 400 BASIC - 10 REM membrane keyboards are for the birds ------------------------------ On Wed, Oct 24, 2012 2:44 PM PDT Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >Zane H. Healy wrote: >> I've always preferred the following. The key part is how I end line 10 >> with the spaces and the semicolon. >> >> 10 PRINT "HELLO, WORLD "; >> 20 GOTO 10 > >The first program I ever wrote in BASIC was (drumroll, please): > >10 GOTO 10 > >Peace... Sridhar >

11 years, 7 months

PERQ monitor problem (was HP 9845 power supply diagnostics)

by colineby＠isallthat.com

My recollection is it was both rolling and skewed. I need to get it in the queue for our CRT doctor to look at. He's got a never ending stream of Cubs to deal with supporting our BBC classroom systems. I have to nudge the PERQs monitor in among them, as well as an HP 2645 scan card that's puzzling me. I may have mentioned (?) I took the expedient measure of swapping the base from one monitor for the other to address the cable sheathing issue we had. This leave us the backup monitor on the injured list waiting for the doc. --Colin ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >> >> Tony and Rik, >> >> Can you guys just sanity check something? A colleague was scratching >> his head with this, so it seemed sensible to ask. >> >> On the mains input cable to the power supply, for 240 v external >> supply, what's the test voltage we should see across each pair? > >There are several versios of the HP9845. The 9845A is very differnet to >the 9845B. The 9845B anmd 9845C (colour) are similar apart from the >monitor section (which includes a lot of digitial circuitry, jsut to keep >you on your toes...) > >I beelvie the PSU come in sevearl version too, and that 9845Bs wit hthe >'high speed language processor' have a different PSU to normal ones. > >You can get my schematics for the 9845B from the Australian site, but of >course they only cover the machine I've got -- a 9845B with high speed >language processoar and enhanced monochrome nonitor. > >With that in mid... > >The easiest place to check the mains wiring is on the barrier stip of >faston terminals on the side of the PSU casing. There are 4 connections >there, iot may look like more, but theuy common together internally. All >the wires of the same colour are linked. > >Numbering the tags with 1 at the top and 4 at the bottom, and assuming the >votlage selector is set to 230V: > >Between 2 (White/.Red/Geey) and 3 (Grey) you should see full mains voltage > >Between 1 (White/Green/Grey) and 2 (white/Red/Grey) you should see half >mains voltage > >Btween 3 (Grey) and 4 (white/Yellow/Grey) you should, again, see half >mains voltage. > >The cooling fans are 120V AC units. The left hand one is conencted >between tags 1 and 2. The right hand one is conencted between tages 3 and >4. The internal circuitry of the PSU include asmall mains transformer >used ot power the chopper cotnrol circuitry. With the selector set ot >230V, the priomary of this transformer also acts as an autotransformwer >to split the maisn in ahlf for the fans. > >Are the fans running? If so, then the mains input is almost certainly >correct. > >This power supply is complicated -- very. The one I have is on 5 circuit >boards, in contains 17 ICs and has 4 chopepr transistors. Take care! > > >> >> BTW Tony, thanks again for your advice on the PERQ. It's been a working >> display for a couple of weeks now. I still on the lookout for an >> engaging app to demo. At the moment its just running Spy. > >What was the problem with the monitor? > >-tony >

11 years, 7 months

fine pitch soldering

by elson＠pico-systems.com

> From: David Riley <fraveydank at gmail.com> > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Subject: Re: An 80386 CPU S-100 Board > > I suppose. I've had terrible luck with bridging, but I never > really kept at it long enough to get much good at soldering > fine-pitch parts. My wife got me a pretty decent iron as a > birthday present recently, though (I picked a good one!), so > I may be doing a bit more in the not-too-distant future (more > so if my QBUS board ever gets off the ground, because I don't > really feel like paying for assembly). > I have been doing fine-pitch soldering for a long time. I do stuff as fine as 0.4mm lead pitch, which is a bit of a pain. The bulk of stuff I now make with a pick and place machine and a reflow oven (converted toaster oven with thermocouple ramp-and-soak controller). But, I still do a lot of prototypes and rework by hand. The MOST important thing is a stereo zoom microscope with a long working distance. A working distance of 2-3" is necessary to get your hands and a soldering iron under it. A ring light can be made from a ring of PC board material that fits around the snout of the microscope. Carve a ring in the copper of the PCB so it becomes two concentric rings. Use a 12 V DC wall-wart power supply and 8 while LEDs, with about 1 K Ohm series resistors. Make a piece of cardboard with a 1/2" hole in it, use this as a mask to isolate the light from one LED at a time and bend the LEDs so they all converge about where the viewing area is. This mask is for alignment only, store it somewhere as you will occasionally bump the LEDs and have to realign them. Solder braid can be used to remove excess solder bridging the leads, which WILL happen frequently. For big, high-density chips, this is my procedure: First, put a tiny dab of solder on 2 corner pads. Align the chip with the pads, and solder the corners that have the extra solder. Now, use a piece of solid wire to apply GC brand (or equivalent) liquid flux across the leads. Just dip the end of the wire into the bottle and then wipe it across the leads. If the board has enough solder plating, you may not need to add any solder, just use the iron to reflow the pad solder onto the leads. I generally add a little speck of solder every 4th or 5th lead as I go down the rows. I use .015" solder, the thinnest I seem to be able to get nowadays. You used to be able to get .010" fairly easily. I've probably done about a thousand of these now using this technique. It is probably best to wash off the flux residue later with solvent. Jon

11 years, 7 months

VMS newbie with sick VAXstation

by spectre＠floodgap.com

So I finally got the needed MMJ serial cables and got my VAXstation 3100 setup using the Solbourne S3000 as a serial console. The boot monitor comes up just fine in cu, but the machine remains at the boot monitor and does not start VMS. TEST 50 says ?41 DEVASSIGN, TEST A SHOW DEV shows an ESA0, which I assume is the 10b2 Ethernet because it shows a MAC address, and a DKA0, which is a 1.05GB drive. So, I do BOOT DKA0 and it appears to start (transcribed from my Android, sorry for typos): %SYSBOOT-I-SYSBOOT Mapping the SYSDUMP.DMP on the System Disk %SYSBOOT-I-SYSBOOT SYSDUMP.DMP on System Disk successfully mapped %SYSBOOT-I-SYSBOOT Mapping PAGEFILE.SYS on the System Disk %SYSBOOT-I-SYSBOOT SAVEDUMP parameter not set to protect the PAGEFILE.SYS OpenVMS (TM) VAX Version V7.2 Major version id = 1 Minor versio [cut] %DECnet-I-LOADED, network base image loaded, version = 05.0D.00 %DECnet-W-NOOPEN, could not open SYS$SYSROOT:[SYSEXE]NET$CONFIG.DAT **** Fatal BUG CHECK, version = V7.2 KRNLSTAKNV, Kernal stack [cut] (system dump follows, I can type this in if you want it) Being a total novice to VMS system administration, what should I be looking at? -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- MOVIE IDEA: The E-mail Signature Who Loved Me ------------------------------

11 years, 7 months

Superbrain schematics

by adwallach＠gmail.com

Hi Andrew. I have a SuperBrain QD that I had up in the loft. Unfortunately the display no longer works as the graphite core that fits into a donut coil attached to the side of the Video case has snapped in two places. Though the display appears to work no characters are visible. It does boot and if the dir command is entered it is apparent that it is attempting to display the output as the cursor moves across and down the screen. I have tried looking for spares via Google but no luck. Hopefully knowing what the gizmo should do I could fix or replace it. Thus if you have still have the schematic package available in digital or hard copy, I would be grateful if you could let me know. I am retired and wrote business applications in the 1981's and am curious to revisit them to see how things have changed since the heady days of CPM 2.2. I realise that your post goes back to 1998 but it would be great to receive a reply. Regards Anthony

11 years, 7 months

cctalk Digest, Vol 110, Issue 59

by saquinn624＠aol.com

Message: 13 Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2012 14:19:19 -0700 From: Glen Slick <glen.slick at gmail.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: VMS newbie with sick VAXstation Message-ID: <CAM2UOw+PkTqm2cGiuWoVOKkPuLcBw1LkSyyBEFVcSfCqOWsVyQ at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 On Oct 23, 2012 12:14 PM, "Cameron Kaiser" <spectre at floodgap.com> wrote: > > This is an M76. It doesn't need the terminator, does it? (It does not > have one.) > My 3100 M76 came with the external SCSI terminator. I'll have to take a look at it and see if there is a part number on it. -Glen The /76 has dual SCSI busses, so the presence or absence of the external terminator is not critical for proper operation of the internal devices, provided that the internal bus line is properly terminated. Another vote in favor of hacking in a CD-ROM drive and booting from the disks. Unfortunately, VAX-VMS doesn't have the "Minnie-VMS" environment that Alpha does.

11 years, 7 months

Removing mineral deposits from circuitboards

by derschjo＠gmail.com

So, here's a fun one: See the picture(s) here: http://yahozna.dyndns.org/scratch/gridcase/ This is in a Gridcase 3+ I picked up last week off eBay for what seemed at the time to be a pretty great price. Heard some stuff rattling around inside so I opened it up before doing anything else and what I seem to have is a few large mineral deposits on the main circuit board. It's pretty well localized,and aside from a completely dissolved drive support post and a few rusted screws there really isn't all that much rust(amazingly). And thankfully the corrosion that's present has almost entirely avoided any custom ASICs or other parts on board. Everything else in the system aside from the bad patches in the pictures is clean (although the whole thing smells like a dank basement, geeI wonder why) and the underside is almost corrosion free so there's a non-zero chance I could get this running again. Except I have no idea how to go about removing the buildup of... crud... on this thing. It's pretty solid, I've soaked it for a few minutes in water and chiseled at it (gently) with the tip of an xacto knife and I got some of it off that way but it's very slow goingand I'm afraid of removing what's left of whatever's underneath it before I can identify it. Any tips for removing this stuff? (Also, as an aside -- my mails to this list are clearly making it to the list, but I never see my own posts/responses anymore... any ideas?) Thanks, Josh

11 years, 7 months

Interesting ePay find...

by jon＠jonworld.com

I was browsing on e-bay and found these TI-1500 systems. I have no link to the seller. I never heard of these before. http://www.ebay.com/itm/TI-1500-unix-computers-/251167418839 After a lot of Google I found this: http://www.?home.?unix-?ag.?org/?engel/?ti/? (which isn't working) The software that's available for it is still quite pricey: http://www.csisoft.com/applications/ti.php I don't see a NetBSD port for it, either. -- -Jon Jonathan Katz, Indianapolis, IN.

11 years, 7 months

HP 9845 power supply diagnostics

by colineby＠isallthat.com

Josh, My apologies! I got tangled up with other things and dropped the ball. Do nag me if I seem to go away. Software -- I'm afraid the PERQ software is in the end of the archive they are still cataloguing. So I tried my luck a bit. I came across a games disk which appeared to have a copy of an asteroid clone on it, but the disk didn't appear to be readable. I've imaged it, but the system threw every kind of data error when attempting to read it. Attempting to execute the file I *did* managed to extract hung the PERQ up good and proper. I'm reasonably confident the drive is reading well and this is genuinely a diskette issue. I've also imaged a set of POS based utilities, but all those disks appeared quite badly damaged (one of them was actually clear in sections). I don't think much will come from a forensic examination of the raw image. But by happenstance, we have two copies of that set, and I've not tried the second set yet (about 8 diskettes). Depending on cirqs this weekend I might get an hour or two to slave over a hot PERQ backing off files and validating media. Nag me again Sunday, if I fail to report back! --Colin Josh Dersch <derschjo at gmail.com> wrote: >On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 11:43 PM, Colin Eby <colineby at isallthat.com> wrote: > >> >> >> BTW Tony, thanks again for your advice on the PERQ. It's been a working >> display for a couple of weeks now. I still on the lookout for an engaging >> app to demo. At the moment its just running Spy. >> > >Were you able to archive any of the software you got with the PERQ? Any >chance of making it available if so? Always looking for more stuff to run >on my PERQ (and PERQemu) :). > >Thanks, >Josh > > > >> -- Colin >> >

11 years, 7 months

Skipware level, late 2012

by lproven＠gmail.com

I just collected a new PC carcase this morning which was advertised on my local Freegle group (i.e., Freecycle by another name) last night. Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme 6850, 3GHz, 8GB DDR2 RAM. I fitted my own disks and graphics card. Apparently, that is the level of specification some people are throwing out now. Quite remarkable. It's jolly nice and very fast, though! -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884

11 years, 7 months

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test-drb October 2012