An author friend has just put up one of his occasional
retro-futuristic photoblogs. But this time, he has a selection of '60s
mainframes which might amuse. They're the bottom section of tyhe
post...
--
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
Since others are running ?DEC things available? I?ll add a few of mine. Free; I?ll mail them inside the USA. Outside the USA, please ask.
a. Three Unibus jumpers, M9202 ? the kind with 3 feet of Unibus cable folded between the two circuit boards.
b. One DEFPA-DA dual attached FDDI NIC, PCI interface. No software for it, but it should be ok though I?ve never used it myself.
c. Two DEC Pro hard drive controllers (device code 401). One is labelled ?bad? though it looks physically intact; the other is not so labelled and also appears ok. Not tested.
paul
I have a stack of maybe ten 10MB Bernoulli box packs.
I'm not sure what's on them; I think they came from a clean-out of a
business I did in the 90s. If there's anything interesting on them,
I'd like it to get archived someplace.
Would anyone with a working drive be interested in reading them
in exchange for keeping the packs? I'll pay shipping in the U.S.
--akb
Hello,
I have the following items to get rid of:
1 KA650 with two M7621 memory boards and cabinet kit
(without battery).
1 KA630-AA, cabinet kit, but no memory.
1 KA630-AA, M7608 and M7609 memory boards, cabinet
kit.
1 VCB-02 with keyboard, mouse and VR290DA monitor.
The monitor would be really difficult to pack for safe shipping,
however.
1 DHV11 serial multiplexer.
1 CQD-223/M SCSI disk controller (made by CMD).
1 Dilog DQ153 G. (Pertek tape controller??)
1 AVIV mag tape control, might have been for Storage Tech
tape drives.
1 M3106 4-line serial mux with dirty cabinet kit
1 Dilog ESDI disk controller (I think)
1 M7607 memory
1 Andromeda MFM disk and floppy controller
1 MSC Q-bus memory board
1 MSC double-widw Q-bus memory board
1 M7264 LSI-11
1 M7950 parallel interface board
1 Dilog DQ132
2 M7941 parallel interface
1 M8027 LP interface
I can send photos or do other research to try to confirm the
identity of some of these boards, if interested.
I have some Q-22 and maybe Q-18 backplanes, too.
Jon
From: allison <ajp166 at verizon.net>
> It was my understanding that a smaller machine managed it and fed it and
accepted
> fire hose rate data from it and there was likely no OS but a framework
that the specific
> application was supported by. It was from all I read not used as a
general purpose
> machine like a VAX or CDC 6000. So rather than OS you likely looking for
something
> like VAX ELN, PDP-11 IOX, or some other library of "stuff".
The original Cray OS (COS) was basically a batch OS. More than just a
framework, but less of an OS than, say, OS/370. They were indeed
front-ended by a host machine (the one at Pittsburgh had 2 (I think)
VAX/VMS hosts) where you'd write and compile your Fortran, stage your data,
and write a script to get everything submitted to the Cray run queue and
collect the results. Later (mid 80s) they came out with UniCOS, which was
a SVR2-ish Unix port which let you eliminate the front ends. I recall
some vi-v-emacs level internecine warfare between the "UniCOS is awesome"
and "all that Unix overhead is a waste of a perfectly good Cray" camps.
Internally, Cray was committed to UniCOS, so that's who "won".
From: Zane Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com>
> As for array processor software, it sounds like we may need to talk. I
believe I still
> have a FPS array processor tape. I've never really considered that it
might be rare.
> I suppose I should have also grabbed all the spares at the time I got
tape.
Yup. I know more than one FPS that ended up getting tossed because no one
kept the software (and in one case, because the software was for a host
that no one had any more). Unfortunate...they're really interesting
devices.
It has been at least a year and a half that I sent my IOB6120 board to
Dave McGuire for assembly. I haven't heard from him in a while. Does
anyone know what's up with him?
--
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu
Does anybody have a spare external drive for a Tandy 1000EX XT clone? If
not, is there a way to make a 'generic' 5-1/4" drive work with it? IIRC the
1000EX connector is a basic card-edge deal, probably 34pin.
When I found the machine, the ext. drive wasn't sitting that far away from
it, but not realizing they were a pair, I just walked away from it. Been
bugging me for years, what a PITA with one drive, lol.
Gotta gotta get it working. Thanks for any & all assistance!
For the past couple of years we in MARCH have been teasing people with
the knowledge that we have a UNIVAC mainframe. :) It's a model 1219-B
(1965 transistor system) used on Navy ships for things like radar and
weapons system control.
This weekend we finally got around to taking some good pictures of it in
our storage warehouse. The computer was a gift to us from the Johns
Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
Here are the five main racks: http://snarc.net/1219b/all_comp.jpg. Left
to right: A/D converter (ignore the cable spools on its pallet), data
recorder / IO hub, one of two identical tape drives, both CPUs. Here are
three of the four IO consoles (paper tape below, TTY above):
http://snarc.net/1219b/all_io.jpg. All are identical. The second tape
drive and the fourth paper tape/TTY console are on on display in our museum.
Now for some close-up pictures.
1. A/D control panel: http://snarc.net/1219b/close_control.jpg.
1a. Details: http://snarc.net/1219b/close_control_detail.jpg
2. CPU: http://snarc.net/1219b/close_cpu.jpg (unfortunately both CPUs
are missing the top UNIVAC nameplates.)
3. Tape drive: http://snarc.net/1219b/close_tape.jpg
4. Data recorder and I/O hub:
http://snarc.net/1219b/close_datarecorder_io.jpg
5. Paper tape / TTY console: http://snarc.net/1219b/close_io.jpg
No, we haven't tried to power it up ... it might be another few years
before we get there, plus, we're missing the core memory, software,
various important cables, and most of the manuals. We also don't have
the electronic terminal or the line printer.
Still, it's one damn impressive-looking computer, and we're very proud
to own it!
For context: each CPU weighs about 1,500 pounds. Each tape drive cabinet
weighs about 1,000 pounds (you can see it has two drives inside the
cabinet; each is a 7MB, 7-track tape.)
We hope to be able to take this out of storage and put it on static
display at VCF East but that depends on a bunch of other factors, like
whether our forklift is working, etc.....
anyone looking for a bunch to use in a display i got a pile from making h11
tapes copies and curious befor i tossed it if anyone wanted it that bluish
white colour of dec tape
adrian