test-drb November 2014

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

200 participants
279 discussions

DECwriter Correspondent (LA12) mechanical issue...

by derschjo＠gmail.com

Hi all -- Got myself a nice looking DECwriter Correspondent (AKA the LA12). It's having a bit of trouble moving the carriage assembly and I can't find a service manual for this thing. (It's similar in some respects to the DECwriter IV, but the mechanical parts appear to be fairly different.) The carriage assembly (print head, ribbon) is carried from one end of the platen to the other via a cable attached to a servo motor on one end and a pulley on the other; in the middle of this cable is a small metal ball -- this ball is (as far as I can tell) meant to sit in a small "cup" on the underside of the carriage and when the cable moves, the ball pulls the carriage along. I'm assuming this was done this way since the Correspondent is meant to be portable, and allowing the carriage to break free of the pulley mechanism would probably reduce damage in the case of a sudden shock (like getting dropped.) So far so good -- unfortunately the vast majority of the time, the ball leaves the carriage behind (especially on carriage return) and I can't quite figure out what's out of tolerance -- the carriage appears to move smoothly, nothing is bent out of shape or broken as far as I can tell, and there's plenty of tension in the cable. There's also not much to adjust here so I'm kind of puzzled. I've put up a few pictures (and a short video demonstrating the problem) with the print head/ribbon removed here: http://yahozna.dyndns.org/scratch/la12 Anyone ever worked on one of these before? Any ideas? Thanks as always, Josh

11 years, 1 month

ccmp server

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

FTP has been re-activated on the new server, so those who have websites/content on the machine can again get in via ftp to add/remove/change content. J

11 years, 1 month

assistance sought with mailman

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

Greetings folks. The additional drive was added to ccmp server last night. No problems encountered other than for some oddball reason xenserver added it as drive 4 instead of drive 3. It thinks drive 3 slot is in use but it's not. I can live with ada3p1 ;) I've got my hands full with some work on bitsavers as well as ongoing client workload, and some rough edges still remain on the mailman "two views of the same list but joined at the hip" thing. That needs to be addressed quickly before the current/new archives get incoherent but I'm short on available time. So, is there anyone that is *very* well versed in mailman "under the hood" that can do a one-time assist with the following: 1) Get the "two views of the same list but joined at the hip" working the way it previously was. I have some details/recollections on this, but not complete "do this" instructions. 2) There has been an ongoing issue for years with the "forgot password" emails and/or the new subscriber email verification not working right. 3) Please for the love of god figure out why every single post to the list gets me a "bounce rejection" notice to my mailbox and stop it. 4) Integrate multiple fragments (I have several, if that's not complete other listmembers have mentioned they can supply any missing fragments) of the list archives into one archive that is complete. FYI - when rebuilding the server a couple weeks ago, I switched from sendmail to postfix, so a passing familiarity with postfix would be helpful as well in your endeavors above. The OS is FreeBSD r10 p11. If anyone is versed in the above and has a bit of time to spearhead the above tasks, please email me off-list. Also - once the archives are cleaned up, two other folks have volunteered to get archive searches to be "much improved". Thanks!! J

11 years, 1 month

LINC archives

by j＠ckrubin.us

Here's a collection of LINC material, produced in conjunction with the LINC reunion in St. Louis a few years back - http://tinyurl.com/LINC-StLouis . Jack

11 years, 1 month

List downtime.

by pontus＠Update.UU.SE

I'm back! (if anyone should care :-) I just resubscribed. Thanks to those who worked to get the list back online. I assume Jay. Big thanks. /P

11 years, 1 month

Kearney & Trecker Core memory, may be PDP8

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Paul Anderson > The first board is definitely a DEC core board. If it will help anyone > I can pull a MM8-A and MM11-D and compare them to the pic to see which. That would be really useful. If I had to bet, I'd go with the 8: DEC SPC/MUD memory boards often have CA1 jumpered to CB1 (NPG), and I don't see that here. And the way CC1 is ganged to CF1 to CT1 is very odd - CC1 is Parity A in an SPC/MUD slot. (Yes, it could be for a specially wired system unit - but those don't usually use hex cards.) And then there are a number of different kinds of component (e.g. the transistors in the cans, TO-18 I think?) which seem to be in multiples of 12. Too bad there's no picture of the edge of the handles to give us an M-number! Noel

11 years, 1 month

IBM 5151 (MDA display) - common faults / gotchas?

by jules.richardson99＠gmail.com

So, my local bookstore guy has an IBM 5151 monitor for sale, which is surprising because: a) I haven't seen *any* vintage IBM PC kit locally in the last 8 years, b) I picked up a 5160 with an MDA display adapter but non-IBM monitor from John over in Duluth a few weeks ago, and I was thinking what a shame it was that it didn't have the original IBM screen. So, it's almost like it's meant to be, or something... Of course working condition is unknown, so before I commit to it, are there any common showstoppers with these displays (failed CRT, yoke windings, LOPT etc.) - or are whatever faults that may be typical with them all in components that are still available? (I'm kicking myself a bit because he said I was welcome to bring it home over the weekend to try it out and then bring it back if I decided I didn't want it - I just couldn't remember at the time if the 5151 was the MDA display or something else, but with hindsight I probably should have just taken it regardless!) cheers Jules

11 years, 1 month

Whitesmith C install

by quapla＠xs4all.nl

I'm trying to install the Whitesmiths C compiler under RSX11M using FLX (using the Whiteshmiths c compiler distribution tape V2.25 from bitsavers). Alas, 'FLX' says the tape has zero files and directories, while a dump under Linux shows definitely some contents. I tried both the simh & tpc format, no luck here yet. Am I missing something? The command I used is 'flx /rs=ms0:[*,*]/do' Thanks, Ed -- Dit is een HTML vrije email / This is an HTML free email. Zeg NEE tegen de 'slimme' meter.

11 years, 1 month

server bounce

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

There's about an 80% chance that I will reboot the classiccmp server tonight to add another 300gb drive to it. Total expected downtime would be about 30 seconds. If I do wind up doing it tonight, I'd expect it to occur vaguely around 8:30pm-ish CST. J

11 years, 1 month

ADDS 4000/260 keyboard connector

by jules.richardson99＠gmail.com

Longest of long shots, but does anyone happen to know the keyboard connector pinout on an ADDS 4000/260 terminal? I have such a terminal here, and it has a 6-pin RJxx-type socket, but the keyboard which came with it would appear to be for something else, and has a 4-pin RJxx plug (I'm not sure of the actual RJ designations, but they're physically different, albeit close - the keyboard one fits in the terminal's 6-way socket, but is too loose to make contact on its 4 pins) However, the manual for the terminal mentions supporting a PC keyboard, so it's possible that a standard PS/2 keyboard with the PS/2 connector lopped off and replaced with a suitable RJxx connector would work - i.e. the clocking method and scancodes are identical - if I knew the pinout (it's also possible that the same is true of the keyboard that came with it - the physical layout's identical to a PC, but with the addition of a 'select' key) cheers Jules

11 years, 1 month

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test-drb November 2014