I found this item on eBay: a Tektronix Microlab I with 8086
personality module, but can't seem to find much about what
capabilities it provided. It doesn't seem to be in the same league as
the Fluke 9000 series (9010A etc) so what could it do? Was it simply a
way of testing out different microprocessors (like a SBC with plugin
CPUs)?
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/380885770121
> From: Ben Sinclair
> Then, in between trying a few things (but without touching the
> hardware), the machine seemed to get very flaky.
> ...
> I tried removing the RLV11 boards, returning the machine to it's former
> state, but I have the same issue.
This is a total _guess_, but... I've recently been working with some 11/23's I
just bought, and I too had similar flakies appear mysteriously with one of
them.
I'm not sure exactly which of the below finally cured them, but you can try
the following things (one of which finally did it for me - after sitting for
a long time, the connections can possibly be slightly flaky):
- re-seat all the cards in the backplane
- re-seat the chips on the CPU card (take them out _very_ carefully, slowly
levering from all 4 corners - they are brittle, and you can fracture
the carrier if you get too aggressive)
- re-seat all the jumpers on the CPU card
I also discovered and repaired at least two cold-solder joints (one was one of
the pins for W1, the master clock control - the pin was actually loose when I
wiggled it). Cold solder joints are pretty insidious - they can work fine for
a while, and then start to give problems.
Do you have more than one memory card that you can swap in/around? That
might be it, too.
Noel
Random find in my local book store's pile of scrap electronics heading for
recycling - a Netronics Phoneme speech synthesizer. IC dates all around
mid-1982.
I just have the board, no case or anything, but it appears to be reasonably
self-contained: there's a connector for PSU, a phono which I'm guessing is
speaker out, pots for volume and pitch, and a DB-25 connector. The DB-25
only has pins 1,2,3,7 & 20 in the socket, so I'm assuming it's RS-232.
Does anyone know anything about these? Assuming it still works (it looks
like it just expects 6-9VAC or thereabouts on the PSU connector), is the
control protocol documented anywhere? DIP switch settings? (there are 8 on
the board, labelled BSY, 3, 2, /C, /C, B, P, C)
Looking at the PCB traces, it appears to allow data input by either pin 2
or 3 (dictated by the '2' and '3' DIP switch settings), but there's no data
sent out down the serial line, so communication is write-only.
I suppose it's possible that I hook up a terminal and (assuming that I have
the line parameters right) start typing English, but it's probably not that
simple ;)
cheers
Jules
What about the PVC bands to replace the original in the cassette?
Unfortunately any reference here in cctech older archives has been lost...
Thanks
Andrea
David Griffith <dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu> wrote:
> He seems to come and go. I ordered a mini-altair from him in September
of 2013 and got it around a year later.
I've run into this too many times over the years with someone who is
running a side business. Demand greatly outstrips their work process and
the owner is just inclined to keep stringing along the customers with
excuses, if any communications at all.
Years ago I ordered a lot of equipment from "The TRS-80 Recycler." It took
over a year and dozens of really lame excuses before I received it all.
Then I saw similar things happen to people who prepaid for those next
generation IMSAIs, but they never got theirs. Same thing with a supplier
or two in my other hobby, reel-to-reel tape recorders.
If I was in that situation I'd probably just stop accepting new orders
(i.e. cash) but accept backorders. Tell the buyer honestly how long it
might take and charge the money only the day it ships. But often these
guys *need* the money and keep accepting it, which is just a wrong thing to
do.
Amardeep
> Message: 9
> Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 10:41:03 -0600
> From: Chris Elmquist <chrise at pobox.com>
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts" <cctech at classiccmp.org>
> Subject: Re: TU58
> Message-ID: <20141110164103.GL7672 at n0jcf.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> On Monday (11/10/2014 at 06:25AM -0800), Al Kossow wrote:
>> On 11/9/14 11:44 PM, Simon Claessen wrote:
>>
>> >I have been thinking about making an Arduino sketch to generate the
>> blocks for a new tape
>>
>> Norprine tubing works great as a replacement
>> http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=104207&catid=664
>>
>> The tricky part is cutting it.
>>
>> Thanks to Brad Parker for telling me about it.
>
> What's the correct ID to choose?
>
> I assume you then slip it over the aluminum hub after cleaning all the
> old roller residue from it? Do you glue the new tubing to the hub?
>
> Maybe we could get someone to cut proper sized chunks of this tubing
> with a laser cutter of some sort so that we have accurate dimensions
> with a clean edge?
>
> Chris
> --
> Chris Elmquist
>
I'll guess: no 55134, 3/8" ID x 1/2" OD x 1/16" based on a tip in an
another forum.
I wander if it could be possible to cut in a lathe if its put on a
temporary hub and cooled down with cooling spray.
I'll try to find a seller of this tube on the European side of the ocean.
The one that is refereed to above doesn't seams to ship over seas.
/Anders
Hello,
> I haven't booted my machine up yet, because it hasn't been able to
read any of its console tapes.
I have too a lot of tapes, complete and uncomplete sets of software
installation tapes,
plus two/three console versions and some with unknown content.
The problem is, many of them suffer from sticky rubber on tape (if you
try to move the rubber leader,
it will create blank spots on tape, removing the magnetic oxide substrate).
Other have a broken band. I read somewhere around, it is possible to
detach the rubber band using hot air,
and replace it with some sort of PVC strings. I would need a lot of time
to try something... but the bigger problem is not this...
I don't have a TU58 to be used on the desk to try to read the tapes, and
even better to assembl?e a new firmware allowing to format
blank tapes.
I'm trying to buy some piece of hardware since a lot of time... no luck
so far.
If anybody has a TU58, or parts, please let me know.
Andrea
The classiccmp server and it's backups were on a temporary san that hit a
bug and rebooted itself. Needless to say, dropping iscsi to a hypervisor is
not a good thing. The classiccmp vm thus rebooted itself, ran fsck, and (as
best as I can tell) the only thing corrupted was the cctalk and cctech
config.pck files (which contain the list settings and membership). The only
backup had the same corruption on it, because it ran the backup before I
noticed the problem. Anyways.
Knowing the recovery wouldn't be quick/easy anyways, I took the opportunity
to just build a new classiccmp server VM from scratch. The latest OS,
patches, dependencies, libraries, and ports. This new VM is on the new
production san so there's a pretty fair amount of additional disk space
thrown at classiccmp (and thus bitsavers). It's always amazing when I
revisit this just how many packages/services are on that machine that a
reload from scratch requires. It's been a busy few days/nights.
Things you should know:
1> The membership list for each list was recovered thanks to the hard
work of DBoone. He processed the last few days of maillogs to get the
subscriber lists back. THANK YOU D.
2> Given how we had to do #1, it is possible that a few folks that had
subscriptions weren't automatically re-subscribed (someone who set their
membership on 'no email' could be one example). Those folks will notice and
just resubscribe.
3> Given the very bizarre way we had the cctalk and cctech lists "joined
at the hip", I do not recall the magic we did to get that working properly.
I am aware that posts from one probably aren't being redirected to the other
like it used to (if at all). I'm working on refiguring that out, and any
suggestions (offlist) would be most appreciated.
4> Given that I had to recreate the lists configurations from scratch,
I'm pretty certain that I have some settings different than used to be. If
you find anything different that matters, let me know.
5> The "new" classiccmp server is currently hosting the mailing lists,
the classiccmp.org website, plus all websites that are underneath
classiccmp.org (ex. www.classiccmp.org/hp , www.classiccmp.org/cpmarchives ,
etc.). Thus, you may notice a different ip address and hostname on the
server. The new name/IP will stick till any future rebuilds.
6> The "old" classiccmp server is still up, and is hosting all the
websites that have their own domain name. Time permitting, I'll be migrating
those one at a time to the new server. During that time period - however
long it takes - ftp and rsyncd will not be available to prevent loosing
changes when cutover occurs.
7> I do not recall who all the folks were that were helping review/gate
posts between cctalk/cctech. If you were one of those folks, please let me
know asap off-list so I can get you re-added.
8> For people who have websites hosted on the classiccmp server, be
aware the new server is running mysql56, php56, and apache24 (with mod_itk).
Before your website is moved, let me know if you're aware of any breakage
that using those new versions may cause. I'd also prefer to transform any
myisam databases to innodb unless you're aware of an issue that may cause.
9> Please do not post to the list or email me directly about "hey, the
archives are gone!". They have been preserved, and time permitting they will
get imported back into the "new" mailing list (along with the missing 199x
bits that were recently mentioned). Rumor has it that someone has
volunteered to improve the archive search mechanism in the not too distant
future.
10> Many people have asked me over the past year or so to host their
classiccmp-related website, and I pushed them off due to the lack of disk
space. That is no longer an issue so if you're one of the people wanting
that (and still do), now is the time to get back in touch with me. As
always, we'll host any classiccmp-related website free of charge.
11> Within the next 30 days (at most) we'll be adding the classiccmp server
to our CDN service. The advantage: I would expect to be able to remove
any/all bandwidth limits previously in place and folks will be able to
download files from the bitsavers master very quickly and your
classiccmp-hosted websites will be a lot more snappy. The downside is,
you'll have to either be ok with it taking a while for new/changed content
on your site to be visible world-wide, or you'll need to take a look at the
api (or via a CDN website login) to invalidate the cache when you change
something. In most cases, this can be easily automated.
12> During the mailing list outage, all websites and bitsavers were still
up. It was just the mailing lists that were affected.
I'm sure there's more that I've forgotten. But.. Enjoy!
Best,
J
Anyone have one of these sets (2 or 4 CDs) for the old IBM Thinkpad? I
have a nice old timer here that I want to use for some older
applications (ancient EPROM programmer) and this would work nicely if I
could find the drivers.
At the moment I can only find invalid torrents or what certainly looks
like malware 'drivers' to download.
IBM off-loaded everything to Lenovo and there is nothing on their site
that I could find for these legacy machines. Archive.org has the support
site archived, but not the download files...
eg:
https://web.archive.org/web/20060713020434/http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/suppor…
Seems a shame to recycle a perfectly good computer just because one
can't get it running on all cylinders!
Thanks!
John :-#)#
