I seem to collect more bits of vintage hi-fi equipment than I do computers
these days (they're much easier to find around here)...
Anyway, I've got an early-'70s receiver with a built-in 8-track deck where
its drive belt has turned to black goo in the same way that QIC drive pinch
rollers often seem to do (and oh how that stuff gets everywhere). Exact
part replacements by manufacturer / model are unsurprisingly unavailable -
but I expect that the belt material is the same composition as that used
for e.g. floppy drive spindle belts (or at the very least, floppy drive
belt material would work nicely).
So... I could measure the pulley diameters and spacing, but does anyone
know of somewhere that sells such belts by length/width rather than "this
is a belt for xyz"? (and, if such a place even exists, do I need to correct
for belt stretch, or is that factored into the sizing already?)
cheers
Jules
Does anyone reading this list still write code to be run
under RT-11? When a program has a bug, what do
you use to find the problem? For debugging programs,
SD: seems the most efficient way, especially when a
Mapped Monitor is being used. Alternatively, ODT
(VDT when Multi-terminal Support is included in the
RT-11 monitor) can be LINKed into the program.
Recently, I have been considering enhancements to
the SD: variant, SDHX.SYS, which would reduce
the Low Memory required along with adding an
additional feature which is part of Ersatz-11.
Specifically, SET PCLOG ON requests the
Ersatz-11 emulator to save the addresses of the
last 64 instructions that were executed. The the
command SHOW PCLOG displays all 64 addresses
at the users request.
I would appreciate a response from anyone still writing
and debugging programs that run under RT-11 and
which debug package is being used along with the
advantages and disadvantages that have been found.
One big advantage of SDHX.SYS (actually all of the
SD: variants) is that the user can request an automatic
display of all of the register contents every time that a
breakpoint occurs. The display occurs at the top of
the screen each time the breakpoint takes place. The
VT100 escape codes are then used to scroll down the
screen and display each instruction in turn as it is about
to be executed. One big disadvantage of SDHX.SYS
is that it freezes the system completely, including the
clock interrupts.
The big advantage of VDT is that other jobs are able
to continue running, but no other information is easily
available when the program is stopped at a breakpoint.
I would appreciate any response.
Jerome Fine
I now have over 40 recyclers across the country looking for items for
collectors. Below is a list of what is being asked for.
If you want to add to the request list, that is fine.
The scrappers are asking for pictures. Remember that to them, this is just
junk to be parted out; they are unfamiliar with the equipment.
If at all possible, PLEASE send me a LINK to a site that has a clear
picture, maybe some discussion about the machines in question.
The stuff I look for is very general terms...ESCON and FICON are the names
of the interconnects used to connect the machines to their disk arrays.
ESCON is older (but still common) and FICON is current. The earlier one,
called "Bus and Tag" or "Parallel Channel", is also something I can use, but
they're very old and much less common.
Models to look for are 3880, 3990, 3390 (much older), and "RVA". These will
typically be biggish, very heavy cabinets containing drives and a
controller.
MicroVAX 3400, 3500, 3800
HSC50, HSC70
Any whole or parts of VAX 11/780, 11/785, 11/725
VAX 6000
RA9x, RA60, TS11 drives
Any software and manuals for VAX machines
If you don't know how to test, they request that you NOT even try to power
the equipment on; they will buy it as-is.
IBM PS/2 Model 70 A21 (specifically)
IBM PS/2 Model 90
IBM RT PC 6150
IBM XT 370
Sun 386i
SGI Prism
Memorex 1270 Terminal Control Unit (used on IBM mainframes as an alternative
to 270x TCUs)
Memorex 620 (2311-11 equivalent), 630 (2311 equivalent), 660 (2314
equivalent) or 3660 (2314 equivalent) disk drives or the DEC OEM versions,
the RP01, RP02 or RPR02 disk drive
One terminal I have been looking for specifically for quite some time is the
Ann Arbor Ambassador
I'm always on the lookout for a Durango Systems "Poppy" PC
It's unlikely because they were unpopular, but a specific Amiga I'm casually
looking for is the CDTV - the one in the black "audio component" case. It's
essentially an Amiga 500 with CD-ROM that looks like a VCR or stereo
receiver. If you didn't spot the Commodore logo, you probably wouldn't
notice it was a computer if you saw it in a stack of stuff.
I am looking for scientific and industrial minicomputers from the 1960s and
1970s with "switches and blinkenlights" front panels.
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) PDP-4, PDP-7, PDP-9
PDP-8 and older PDP-11 models with the blinkelights
Data General Nova, Honeywell, Modcomp, and others as well.
I'm specifically looking for these machines from Computer Control Company
(3C), likely labeled Honeywell (after an acquisition): DDP-24, DDP-124,
DDP-224, DDP-416, DDP-516, H316. These are large machines in 6-ft racks or
4-ft cabinets. Also Datacraft 6024 and early Harris machines.
Probably a longshot, but I'm still on the hunt for JC80 series equipment
that was made by Johnson Controls. The JC80 was a building automation
"computer" that was made in the 70s/80s. I also wouldn't turn away other old
Johnson Controls stuff from the 1980s or 1990s such as JC85, DSC, old
Metasys, etc. My father once serviced these systems so I'm very familiar
with them. They are not the kind of thing that anyone who collects old
computers would likely want, so I suspect that 99.9% of them have been
scrapped long ago. I'd be willing to pay scrap value plus 10%, which
probably wouldn't be all that much anyway since these things are big heavy
steel boxes and racks with a lot of empty space inside. Because this sort of
stuff is so specialized, I wouldn't expect anyone to test it, and in fact it
would probably be safer not to try to test it since it would need repairs
and maintenance before it would even be safe to power up.
For me, non-PC keyboards are important - pre-ADB "Classic Mac" keyboards or
Amiga, especially Amiga 1000 keyboards in particular. I'm big into
Commodore, so anything pre-C-64 is also interesting (PETs, VIC-20s, disk
drives, some printers). Old external disk drives (single-sided Mac and any
Amiga) are also useful and interesting.
a complete Royal AlphaTronic PC system - with monitor & at least one of the
floppy drives. This is what it looks like:
http://vintagecpu.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/royalta.jpg
IBM 3174 desktop controllers
Any VAX mainframe computers, or any old DEC 6' cabinets that are populated.
Big Blue IBM machines
Cray super computers
Other large old interesting monsters, let me know what you get in?
Workstations:
- SGI IRIS
- SGI Personal IRIS
- SGI Professional IRIS
- SGI Indy
- SGI Indigo
- SGI Indigo^2
- SGI Octane2
- SGI O2
- SGI O2+
- SGI Fuel
- SGI Tezro
- SGI Prism
SGI Octane
Rack/deskside servers:
- SGI POWERseries
- SGI IRIS 4D series
- SGI Challenge
- SGI Onyx (any variety)
- SGI Crimson
- SGI Origin 2000 series
- SGI Origin 3000 series
Cindy Croxton
Electronics Plus
1613 Water Street
Kerrville, TX 78028
(830)792-3400 phone (830)792-3404 fax
AOL IM elcpls
_____
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2013.0.3343 / Virus Database: 3184/6369 - Release Date: 05/30/13
Woohoo! :D Not only I'm 39 now, but also got a gift from a fan of my
site!!!
A brand-new-like, boxed TI99/4A :oD
I'll take some pictures and add in www.tabalabs.com.br tonight :oD
Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice! :D
---
Enviado do meu Motorola PT550
Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br
On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 8:04 PM, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote:
> What good are old UNIX systems? I'm curious, what are people using things
> like Sparc 2's through 20's for?
I used to run Sun gear all the time at home. I just don't power it up
anymore, so
the strict answer to your question is "keeping the shelves from being empty".
At one time, old Sun gear was a great gateway to learning "real" Unix and a foot
in the door for a "real" job. It's been far, far less true for coming
up on 10 years.
And then, around 4 years ago, give or take, if the job postings said "Solaris
experience required", it was Solaris 10 or nothing, something you can't do
with SPARC hardware from the 1980s.
I've turned down more free Sun hardware in the past 2 years than I've
kept. It's
still elegant, and it still runs DNS and web servers, and plenty of
other things,
but I personally don't care to spend that much on electricity for those sorts
of services at the bandwidths I require - an old laptop running Linux can do
everything I "need" at home in the way of services and suck up 90W or less.
I also have VAXen that I only turn on for special occasions - too hungry to
leave powered on all the time like we used to do back in the day. Of course,
in the winter, it's "electric heat", so no harm there, but it's summer up here
now, so most of that stuff stays off except for a few hours here and there.
-ethan
Can we point you to web sites with pix?
For DEC gear, you might look at
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/gbell/Digital/timeline/tmlnho….
There's likely a taker for many of what is pictured. People have
mentioned VAXen and PDPs. If something is found pictured in the 12-bit
section there will certainly be *very* interested takers, and if they find
objects in the 18- or 36-bit sections, they may want to post guards.
KJ
List:
I'm working with some old media that has Swedish text on it. (8" SS FM
disks with 4 sectors of 1024 bytes per track--no OS or file structure on
it).
I can probably figure out the structural details that I need with the
exception of modern Unicode or UTF-8 characters corresponding to what's
on the disk.
Here's a binary dump sample of such a record (LIST format):
> ?000500 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 3C 44 65 <De
> 000510 74 20 76 61 72 20 66 FE-6F 72 62 61 6E 6E 65 6C t var f?orbannel
> 000520 73 65 6E 3E 0A 00 00 00-3C 73 6F 6D 20 64 72 65 sen>? <som dre
> 000530 76 20 6F 73 73 20 62 6F-72 74 20 66 72 FA 61 6E v oss bort fr?an
> 000540 20 53 61 6D 73 6F 6E 2E-3E 0A 00 00 00 00 00 00 Samson.>?
Note the characters FA and FE in this sample.
Can anyone help with this thing?
--Chuck
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/how-vintage-apple-computers-used-t…
A friend sent me this history of an apple 1. It came from my neighborhood
and I didn't even know about it. I was the initial engineer for KMUN and
helped write the FCC application back in the 1970s. I didn't know about it
in the auction or I would have driven from PDX to bid on it as I was a
collector and secondary market computer dealer at the time.
Paxton
--
Paxton Hoag
Astoria, OR
USA
