test-drb November 2013

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

158 participants
158 discussions

by bdamer＠digitalspace.com

Folks I just wanted to let you know that a key project in computer history that has taken a year to complete has resulted in the Apple ][ DOS source code and other key 1978 Apple documents being released to the public (backing by Apple). Take a look at the DigiBarn pages at: http://www.digibarn.com/collections/business-docs/apple-II-DOS/index.html (including last April's CNET story with a lot of background) and my scans of many of the documents (but not the source listings) And Len Shustek's blog entry at the Computer History Museum which also has the actual documents and FULL SOURCE of the October 1978 delivery all converted to text and corrected at: http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/apple-ii-dos-source-code/ Anyone out there want to help try to assemble to binary and test on an Apple ][ or emulator? bruce

11 years, 1 month

SCSI-to-CF bridges?

by cctech＠beyondthepale.ie

> >Does anyone have any experience with replacing aging 50-pin (or even >68-pin and SCA) SCSI drives with a SCSI-to-CF bridge? I'm thinking >specifically for DEC hardware (PDP-11, VAX or Alpha). > In 2008, I bought an Acard AEC-7720U 50pin SCSI to IDE adapter for EUR 60 plus an IDE to CF adapter from Hong Kong for less than EUR 2. Unfortunately, I think the price of the former has increased since. The setup works nicely with my Alphas to read CF cards directly and SD and XD cards via yet more adapters purchased in a camera shop (except for some unreliability reading the XD cards.) I've not done much writing. A PWS 500a I was given had an IDE disk in it and a 68pin SCSI to IDE adapter (also Acard) which seems to work nicely, although I have not tried booting >from it. > >Also given the fact I have a good supply of drives, how cheap can >such bridges be obtained? Believe it or not, part of what I'm >thinking of is noise. > I've not had any noise problems with this setup :-) Regards, Peter Coghlan.

11 years, 1 month

UNIVAC 1219 / MK 152 Bootstrap Loader and Rep. of Instructions

by billdeg＠degnanco.com

Scanned more docs related to the the UNIVAC 1219, also known by the US Navy as the MK 152 Computer. MK 152 Computer Repertoire of Instructions Reference Card http://www.vintagecomputer.net/univac/1219/UNIVAC_MK%20152%20Computer%20Inst ruction%20Set.pdf Toggle in program to print addresses set by the bootstrap loader (or any block of memory) http://www.vintagecomputer.net/univac/1219/UNIVAC_1219_Print_Addresses_Boots trap.pdf UNIVAC 1219 / MK 152 Bootstrap Loader http://www.vintagecomputer.net/univac/1219/UNIVAC_1219_Bootstrap.pdf Brochure scan and Duane Craps' 1219 emulator: http://vintagecomputer.net/univac/1219/ Bill

11 years, 1 month

Scrapping 2x RA81 + parts, 4x RA72

by aperry＠snowmoose.com

On 11/10/13, 10:00 AM, Rich wrote: >> If I remember right the RA81 is the complete cabinet (the actual >> >HDA inside is called something else), but the RA72 is just a drive, >> >correct? > No, it's called "the RA81 HDA". We had 6 RA81 drives in 2 low-boy > cabinets at LOTS, with redundant HSC50s and an SC008 putting them > together with 3 DEC-20s and a System Concepts SC-30M on a CI network. > With an MTBF of 6 months, DEC Field Circus replaced an HDA roughly > every month until the manufacturing error was discovered[1]; our FE > sincerely hated those drives. I tried to give the Living Computer Museum parts from a RA81 that I disassembled. I also tried to give it away here and within the local SRCS group. I ended up giving the to RePC, a local computer recycler that has a small museum in one of their stores. I still have another RA81 and two RA82s. The HDA is the sealed assembly with the platters and heads and was sometimes (often?) replaced separately from the rest of the drive. The HDA is installed in a chassis that forms the rest of the drive and mounts in a standard rack. The drive motor, the logic boards, front panel switches, power supply, etc. are inside of the chassis, outside of the HDA. alan

11 years, 1 month

My Windows 3.1-based 386-DX40 on YouTube

by terry＠webweavers.co.nz

A look at my Windows 3.1-based 386-DX40 PC-Compatible. The last one on the list, although video re-makes of earlier systems are planned at some stage. http://youtu.be/qoN0HhDnRR8 There are also a few strays I need to clean up, get working and add to the collection. These might also see time in front of the camera. Terry

11 years, 1 month

Looking for a MicroController Recommedation

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

I have been mulling a project to emulate MFM disks (DEC RD53 and RD54 in particular) at the disk-to-controller interface. Before anyone asks, I don't want to interface to Qbus (or any other bus) because I want to emulate the least possible hardware and keep my RQDX3 cards working. And yes, I know this has been talked about many times before, but I want to actually start trying this out. My idea is to use some kind of MicroController, talking to specific interfacing logic that drives the lines, and using SD memory for the actual storage. I am considering two approaches: 1. Just record the flux transitions in memory and play them back. This needs me to be able to sample and drive the data lines from the microcontroller at 25ns intervals because the pulse width of the flux transitions is 50ns. This would need a pretty fast microcontroller, but is my preferred solution as it seems the most general. 2. Build custom logic that does the sampling and encodes/decodes the data in 8-bit bytes, so that the microcontroller would only need to read data at a rate of 1 byte every 1.6us. I'd prefer not to do this as it requires me to understand the encoding (not too hard I suppose) and build custom logic, and makes the solution possibly a little less general. I would need a development board that makes it easy to interface to the SD memory on one side and to the custom interfacing logic on the other side (perhaps with a serial interface for debugging too), remembering that there is a 50-pin connector, although only 20 of these are signals, the rest are either reserved or ground. I would need enough onboard memory to store a whole cylinder which is just over 150Kbytes on the RD54. If I am successful I would then like to be able to make several more of the devices, so I would need something that is not too expensive to replicate. I am not sure at this point whether development boards are a good idea for the replication or if I would need to then source the actual microcontroller chips myself and make my own boards. If I have to make my own boards then I would need a microcontroller that is available as a DIP because I am pretty sure surface mounting is going to be beyond me; it would also have to be simple enough for me, who is not an expert in electronic design, to build the other components like the volatile and non-volatile memory, SD interface etc. Looking for recommendations for a suitable microcontroller that does not cost the earth ... Thanks Rob

11 years, 1 month

Free: MS-DOS and early Windows software & docs

by snhirsch＠gmail.com

I am drowning here. If anyone wants it you can pickup free in Burlington, VT. Unfortunately I'm very much not retired and simply don't have the time to deal with shipping. There are probaby 2-3 large storage bins of boxed product, docs without software and software without docs - and, gasp, software WITH docs! There's a limit to how much one can accumulate and I think I'm past it :-). For extra credit: I can probably arrange to hand over a fair amount of miscellaneous junk, err, classic stuff if you have the room to take it. Take advantage of this special offer before the snow flies! Steve --

11 years, 1 month

More Shameless vintage computer trafficking.

by ittybittybytes＠gmail.com

I'm putting up for auction another pdp11/73 (# 251376445034) with some extras on eBay tonite at around midnite PST. Any list member who buys this, identify yourself, and I'll throw in a free working VT510 terminal. They LK411 keyboard broke but it has a PS/2 port so I'll throw in a dec pc keyboard, but you'll have to remap it! free to winning bidder, you pay shipping (weight 20#) Cheers TomP

11 years, 1 month

Free: A few miscellaneous Sun items

by kurt.m.nowak＠gmail.com

I have the following things I was going to take to the e-waste place 3x Sun Type 5 optical mice with the hard optical pads P/N 370-1398-02...Need cleaning and the felt pads are in bad shape..Tested working...come with the pads 1x Sun Type 4 mouse...clean and good felt P/N 370-1170-01 Other optical pads of varying resolution...most are Sun Sun Speaker P/N 540-2220-04. Not tested. I would love to throw everything into a $16.85 flat rate shipping box. email me if interested.

11 years, 1 month

Here’s how The Post covered the ‘grand social experiment’ of the Internet in 1988

by stephane.tsacas＠gmail.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/11/04/heres-how-the-… With a nice picture of a 11/780. -- Stephane FreeDonne <http://www.freedonne.org> Join FreeDonne - Rejoignez FreeDonne.

11 years, 1 month

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test-drb November 2013