test-drb January 2013

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

222 participants
294 discussions

1959 Electronics Experimenters Handbook

by sales＠elecplus.com

For those of you who like the OLD electronics, here is a free ebook: http://www.tubebooks.org/Books/Findlay_experimenters.pdf Cindy Croxton _____ No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2013.0.2805 / Virus Database: 2637/6005 - Release Date: 01/02/13

12 years, 4 months

EZ-SCSI 4.1

by sales＠elecplus.com

For those of you trying to deal with old Adaptec cards, like the AHA-15xx series, EZ-SCSI is needed, since they have no on-board controls, others than a few jumpers. The software came with some drives, but is hard to locate now. You can download the entire program here: ftp://82.199.101.173/install/System/Driverzzz/CD/SCSI/Adaptec%20EZ-SCSI%204. 01a%20-%201 Documentation is here: http://www.adaptec.com/en-us/support/_eol/scsi_sw/ez-scsi_4.01/install_sw/ez scsi_401_readme.htm?nc=/en-us/support/_eol/scsi_sw/ez-scsi_4.01/install_sw/e zscsi_401_readme.htm According to Adaptec, this will not work with anything higher than Win95 or NT, but you can use it in DOS or 3.1 Enjoy! Cindy Croxton _____ No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2013.0.2805 / Virus Database: 2637/6005 - Release Date: 01/02/13

12 years, 4 months

CFFA3000 and Apple III?

by wheagy＠gmail.com

Good idea. Thanks for the plan. I'll give that a try. ---- And why would he do it with such a great memory board he has? It is just a matter of finding one (socketed) memory chip! :oD You can do a simple troubleshooting to discover which chip is defective without having 4164s there: Number chips from 1 to 16: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Now swap the first and last (1 and 16) and run the memory test No problems? swap 2 and 15, and run the memory test No problems, swap 3 and 14 and so on When you find that the last swap changed the position of memory error, you know that one of these two chips has problems :o) Since you said you have a //e, you can find 4164 as the main board memories of the //e.

12 years, 4 months

IBM Displaywriter software?

by aek＠bitsavers.org

Is there an image archive of software for the Displaywriter somewhere? Someone donated one to the Computer History Museum recently, and I went through our archives and have only come up with a bunch of versions of the CE disk and a single TEXT PACK 1 diskette. I did image what we have, and put it up under http://bitsavers.org/bits/IBM/Displaywriter One thing I discovered was you HAVE to degauss the floppy before cloning the CE diskette. It expects tracks 37, 41 and 43 to be blank or it hangs.

12 years, 4 months

FS: Compact Flash Adapter 3000 For Apple II

by slandon110＠gmail.com

Im forced to sell my spare CFFA 3000 for Apple II, this allows you to use USB and Compact Flash cards on your Apple II, boot disk images right off a USB Stick 175 shipped in the USA, These are sold out right now Heres a link to what they are http://dreher.net/?s=projects/CFforAppleII&c=projects/CFforAppleII/main.php

12 years, 4 months

CFFA300 and Apple III?

by wheagy＠gmail.com

Mike, Good info, thanks. I actually have a copy of the ON THREE manual...I forget where I found it or why I have it, because I wasn't aware that I had that board until a couple of days ago. Thanks for the offer of the loaner board. I may take you up on that, but let me try using the ON THREE manual and making sure the board is installed correctly and and everything is seated properly. And, if I can pinpoint the bad chips, I might try ordering some replacements to see if it can be fixed. If I eventually do swap in one of your loaner boards, I'm wondering if I can roll the other changes back? It looks like there were a number of mods made to the motherboard to accomodate the 512K board....including new ROMs. I certainly don't have the original ROMs to put back. At any rate, my holiday vacation time and the disproportionate amount of time I've been able to spend on this hobby, is about to end, so it may take me a bit of time to get to all of it. But thanks very much for all the info, I feel like I have a much clearer picture of how the III works and what I need to do. Win Hi Win, Yes, bad RAM could definitely cause that. The board you have was manufactured by ON THREE, which got its start as an Apple III users group. Once Apple turned its back on the III, ON THREE stepped up and began producing its own hardware and software for the computer. Apple had advertised the III as being expandable up to 512K, but never released a board larger than 256K. As the ON THREE engineers discovered, it required some new ROMs and additional addressing lines, but they got it working. That 512K board is fairly rare and sought after by III collectors, as SOS and big programs like Pascal can really benefit from the extra room. I'm not sure how easy it is to locate replacement chips for that board these days. Last time I checked (a few years ago), they were still available if you knew where to look. I have a few extra RAM boards for the III (256K and 128K, though - not 512K). I could loan you one for troubleshooting purposes, if you're interested. I wrote a quick blog entry a while back about ON THREE's card: http://www.6502lane.net/2011/01/17/a-look-at-on-threes-512k-memory-board-fo… Also, I have a PDF version of the user manual that came with it. The links in that blog entry are dead, but I can upload it, if you want. - Mike

12 years, 4 months

An interesting article on text-book vrs real-world programming

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On 12/31/2012 11:24 AM, Bill Sudbrink wrote: >>> Ironically, the garbage collected languages lead people to write even >>> sloppier code than they write in C++. >> >> ...and that's saying something! >> >>> They think that garbage >>> collection is a silver bullet that frees them from having to consider >>> the resource consequences of their implementation. >> >> Yes. "I'm a MODERN programmer! We don't have to worry about stuff >> like managing our own memory anymore!" >> >> Morons. > > Exactly. The "key phrase" that I encounter is "I don't want to have to > think about...". If someone I'm interviewing says that, the interview > tends to end fairly quickly. Hear hear! -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA

12 years, 4 months

NASA computers circa 1969

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

>> See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrwpXEiTDVk > I noticed but could not identify: > 07:13 calligraphic graphics system with hidden line removal. Could be > an Evans & Sutherland LDS-1, but might be something earlier. > I've seen this system in several NASA films, but I've never been > able to get any information on the hardware used. I scratched my head at that myself. There's a slant to the frame not too different than the perspective you'd get if you had a movie camera pointed at some graphics terminal. Several technologies I know of at that time, would not result in any such slant: State of the art for several scientific application in that area, involved pen plotters (black ink on white paper) transferred to photographic negative movie film. (White image on black). A slightly cheaper approach (used extensively in my area of academia) was line printer paper plots transferred to movie film (again often in negative). Sub-character resolution was possible through choice of characters (not dissimilar to "ASCII graphics" although I know the movies were made using IBM and EBCDIC!) There was talk of direct-laser-to-film but I never saw it. Tim.

12 years, 4 months

CFFA3000 and Apple III?

by wheagy＠gmail.com

Mike, Another follow up that probably sheds a bit more light on my Apple III issue. I tried copying some additional disk images today. I tried the CFFA SOS image, but it exhibited the same behavior as the other SOS image...the floppy drive spins for about 3 sec and then nothing. On a whim, I tried the RAM test image. It worked and brought up the RAM test screen and began the test. It stops and indicates bad RAM where shown in the pic in the imgur link below. There appears to be third party RAM in this III. Is that common? Is there a way to test without that RAM that would be recommended? I did reset all of the RAM chips on the board, but it still fails at the same location. http://imgur.com/a/c40m0 On the bright side, I'm thinking this is a good sign for the floppy drive...the down side is obviously RAM issues. Thanks, Win

12 years, 4 months

CFFA300 and Apple III?

by wheagy＠gmail.com

A couple other related questions and a comments. I made a Apple III+ system diagnostics disk and that ran fine too. So it seems like the floppy drive is Ok, and all of the tests passed except the RAM test, so that's the big issue. The RAM test disk seems to help narrow down where the bad chip may be, so I might have a chance to find it without trial and error. It looks like there are two different RAM chips on the ON THREE board (as Alexandre mentioned) TMS4164-15NL and D41256C-15. It turns out I have an extra AST SprintDisk for my Apple IIe with a few D41256C-15 chips. If I'm lucky enough that one or more of those is the culprit, I may be covered, otherwise I'll need to source a few chips. If you look at the end of the ON THREE board in the second pic http://imgur.com/a/c40m0 there is a white header connector on the ON THREE board that connects to the male header on the Apple III motherboard. The ON THREE manual indicates that a gentle rocking should loosen the connector. It is a strange looking connector. The pins appear to come through from below and bend at 90 degrees. I've applied quite a bit of force and they are not breaking free. I'm afraid to pull too hard. Any pointers on how these connectors work so I can avoid damage? Thanks, Win

12 years, 4 months

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test-drb January 2013