test-drb December 2012

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

201 participants
280 discussions

by geoffb＠vigilan.com

Does anyone have the O/S, Applications, and Diagnostice disks for this ancient IEEE 488 bus controller (Fluke 1720A)? It used a TI 9900 processor if I remember correctly. The operating system was called FDOS- a custom effort too I think, distributed on three 5 1/4" floppies. This is no longer available from anywhere or anyone, including Fluke. Thanks for any help and/or leads. Geoff

10 years, 11 months

Anyone want some free EISA cards?

by lproven＠gmail.com

During the ongoing clearout, I've found some full-length EISA controller cards. By the look of it, there are some SCSI 2 host adaptors - they have high-density 50-pin connectors on their backplates - and what might be ESDI controllers. I don't own any EISA machines any more and am not expecting to, so if nobody wants these, I will send them to recycling. Free for the cost of postage. Surface post to the USA/Canada/south America would not be /too/ prohibitive. They're currently in London. I've never had any interest in anything on the Vintage Computer boards & I don't think these are worth eBaying, but if anyone wants to disseminate this offer, please feel free - including my email and other contact details in the .sig. -- 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

10 years, 11 months

KDJ11-B rev 8 boot roms

by aek＠bitsavers.org

put these up under http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/1173/firmware/KDJ11-B_Rev_8/ Pete Turnbull had revs 6 and 7

10 years, 11 months

Kaypro System disks?

by brain＠jbrain.com

I have been fortunate to acquire a Kaypro system that appears to be in great condition and looks to work. It looks exactly like this: http://www.computermuseum.li/Testpage/Kaypro-I-Micro.htm Thus, it says Kaypro 1 on the artwork Still, the sticker on the rear says Kaypro 2, so I'm confused. In any event, I have no system disks for it (There is a slight possibility they are part of the stash with which the Kaypro was bundled, but it's 100 sq ft of stuff). Thus, I'm wondering if there is a kind soul who might be able to ship me a set of disks. (I'll pay shipping, of course). I also am the proud owner of 2 Obsorne machines (one works, the other seems to have drive issues. They are the redesigned units, but (as I suspected) the systems disks won't work on the Kaypro. Jim -- Jim Brain, Brain Innovations (X) brain at jbrain.com Dabbling in WWW, Embedded Systems, Old CBM computers, and Good Times! Home: http://www.jbrain.com

11 years

CMD CQD-220 ROM fixes

by fraveydank＠gmail.com

A while back, I mentioned that I'd found and potentially fixed the "bricking" problem with the CQD-220. To recap, for those that werent following, the problem lies in the code for the on-board 8086 when you set the number of both disks and tapes to zero. The 8086, during its routine to load the values from the EEPROM, loads the total number of disks and tapes and executes a loop with a counter predecrement; if the counter is loaded as 0, it effectively runs through the loop 256 times instead of 7 (the max), which spins out of control and blows away some RAM somewhere before crashing. Fortunately, through a compiler bug or some such, there are 5 bytes available from a totally redundant instruction (loading a value into a register where the same value is already loaded) in just the right place to test the total number of devices and jump to the "uninitialized device table in EEPROM" section of the routine if it is zero. With one byte to spare! (good thing NOP is only a byte in 8086) This applies to the A7A revision of the ROM, anyway; I haven't gotten to the A8 version yet, though I know it exhibits the same bug. Hopefully it also has the same redundant instruction. In any case, I should be able to find and fix it quickly once I have the time, because I know where to look. So, here's the thing; I've finally gotten the time to test the fixed ROM image (was temporarily short of 27256 chips, but that's been resolved) and I'd like to get the fixed images somewhere they'll be easy to find if anyone else runs into the same problem (this took me over a year of sporadic attention to fix). Does anyone know where I should post this? There's my own website, which is really not a thing anymore, but there are probably lots of places Google is more likely to find. Also, are there copyright implications to consider? I know CMD is long gone, but I still worry about these things. Last thing: does anyone know the difference between the A7A ROM and the A8? I've not found anything different; I assume it's probably an obscure bugfix. The images are only 64K total, so I shouldn't imagine they'll be bandwidth intensive. - Dave

11 years

A Complete History Of Mainframe Computing

by lproven＠gmail.com

Tom's Hardware - a popular site for PC hardware tweakers and overclockers - has done an ambitious article on the development of the mainframe: http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/508-mainframe-computer-history.html It's a little American-centric but it's not at all bad. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508

11 years

Plastic Repair

by cool1＠thecoolbears.org

Call me odd, but my absolute, top favorite computer is my MicroVAX in a BA123 chassis. If the house were burning, that would be the one computer I would try to retrieve. Sadly, last night, the daughter snapped the corner off the louvers on the top left of the chassis. Unless some kind sole has a replacement part, I plan on gluing the pieces back on. My question is, cyanoacrylate or epoxy?

11 years

PCjr Telnet Server Test

by mbbrutman-cctalk＠brutman.com

It's running! Telnet to 97.86.233.68 to take a look and help me test it. You can use the standard Windows telnet program, Putty, Linux, or whatever you have handy. Around 10 users can be on at the same time. When you sign on (no password required) there will be a little menu to help you waste some time. Some things you can do are see who else is on the server, view the machine type, ROM BIOS date and DOS version, check the TCP/IP statistics to see how much traffic it is handling, etc. There are some upgrades since the last time I ran this test (in Dec 2007): - The TCP/IP stack is much better - I'm doing 'telnet' negotiation to figure out the terminal type, turn echoing on, etc - Crude line editing has been added Right now it is running on my PCjr using a Xircom PE3 10BT. I plan to leave it up as long as it runs, or three days, whichever comes first. It is a PCjr so if there is a momentary delay, don't panic - it's probably just doing disk I/O. Backspace is a little dodgy .. it really wants ASCII 8 and a lot of terminals and emulators do ASCII 127 instead. Try variations with the shift and control keys if it doesn't work. Thanks, Mike

11 years

IBM Model F DIN connector repair

by mbbrutman-cctalk＠brutman.com

I have two Model F keyboards (original PC or XT) that have gone bad due to an intermittent connection in the DIN connector. I'm not sure how these were originally assembled, but in the mode of failure that I have the pins (embedded in the round black plastic that spaces them) come out of the rubber sleeve. Pressing tightly restores connection for a little bit, but it is not really usable that way. Finding the DIN plug is not a problem. But I really don't want to hack off the end of the cable with the nice molded IBM plug. These are not museum pieces, but I'd like the repair to be unobtrusive. Has anybody else run into this problem and attempted a fix? I'm also open to just replacing the cord entirely, but I doubt that there is a surplus of originals laying around anywhere. Mike

11 years, 1 month

Huge lot of Univac/Unisys DCP / System-80 series manuals available soon

by p.gebhardt＠ymail.com

Hi list, I'm almost done with the scanning of the 25-30 Sperry-Univac/Unisys binders regarding OS/3, System-80 and DCP-hardware, I got from a company years ago. Parts of it are already online on bitsavers, the rest will be made available to Al at the end of year. I just wanted to make sure the content is scanned and thus saved and as I don't have the hardware and therefore no use for it, I'd like to give the documentation away to somebody who is interested in that. I'll give the documents to whoever seems most approriate from my point of view. Hints to institutions or persons not being on the list and favourable from you point of you are welcome, too. Documents are located in Germany. Shipping would cost and need to be organised if you don't want to pick up, but I'd help with organisation, if possible. Kind regards, Pierre ? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pierre's collection of classic computers : http://classic-computing.dyndns.org/

11 years, 2 months

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test-drb December 2012