test-drb December 2014

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

179 participants
207 discussions

IBM Series/1, PDP-11/84 potentially available in Oregon

by kd7bcy＠kd7bcy.com

I'm looking at clearing out my basement a little as my old computer interests and space requirements change and am considering getting rid of part or all of my Series/1 system. It has never been operational while I have had it, and was originally wired up for 240v operation - although the CPU and small tape drive were re-configurable to 120v by a jumper, and I did power them up together shortly after obtaining the system, but didn't have any OS or software to run on it. I have one IBM rack, which I am willing to part with if the whole system is going, otherwise all my network gear and newer servers are going into it(it's only 6' tall so it fits well in my basement. I have a 4967-K00 CPU, a 4968 tape drive, an unknown model Cipher tape drive(very large), one or two 4959 expansion units, maybe a broken 8" floppy drive if I still have it. I also have two terminals and a lot of cabling for them in unknown but presumably poor condition, currently coiled up in the back of the basement on the floor. I should also still have a decent pile of expansion cards, most of them communications, some of them disk controllers. And hopefully enough interconnect cabling to be useful. Now for the really ugly part - I do indeed have some binders with information on some of the units, and probably some stuff that isn't there, but we had a water leak a while back and some of it was water damaged. I put them aside but never had time to attempt anything with them. I do have a picture of part of the system and the rack... The Cipher is sitting under the 1U server at the bottom of the pic. And one of the terminals with keyboard is visible sitting on top of the PDP-11/84. They've both been buried in the basement behind storage boxes for a while. http://www.kd7bcy.com/images/comp/oldracks.jpg On a side note, the PDP-11/84 may also be available soon. It's pretty bare bones and will likely need at a minimum a disk drive and controller. I used to have a list of the cards that were installed but I can't find it right now. I have a disk drive of some kind in the garage currently, I think it's an 8" floppy drive but I haven't looked at it closely, and it is in poor shape. The CPU rack in the basement is decent, just a broken spot weld on the door hinge which makes it hang loosely. Similar story to the Series/1 - never got it operational, but it was powered on long ago when I obtained them during initial investigations and testing. Other than the drive that I picked up at a local surplus store I have nothing that goes with this, maybe an old DEC paperback book of some kind if I can find it. I'm tempted to put it on eBay after seeing the price the last one sold for, but would be happy to entertain offers from this group first(interesting trades are always welcome). I should have some random DEC boards of some kind laying around as well. I know I've posted about both of these systems in the past on this list, over a decade ago. I was hoping to get this one up and running in a meaningful way but just never had the time or money to put into it. The IBM is pretty much free to anyone who wants it, picked up at my house in Portland, Oregon, USA. Time frame is pretty loose, it's not like I need these out immediately, and it will probably take a couple of weeks to round everything up on weekends and get the cobwebs cleaned up, but I won't be sitting on these a terribly long time either. I imagine I will probably start dumping unwanted stuff by other means by late February. Parts are spread all over the place, so it may take a weekend or two to get everything together and moved up to the garage for pickup. I kinda like the rack, so if you don't need it I can keep it, or if you have a spare rack 38U or shorter to swap that would be great. If no one wants it, I will likely keep the CPU and tape drive in the rack and scrap the rest of it. The Cipher looked pretty generic, it may be able to hook up to other systems. If no interest in the whole package or it is unwanted I will make it available separately. If there is interest in one or more systems I will begin moving things to the garage and making a more accurate catalog of what is actually present and a better idea of the current condition of individual pieces. A bit of a wall of randomly wandering text, but there it is. Cleaning out the basement can be such a tedious job! tl;dr - PDP-11/84 and IBM Series/1 available in Portland, Oregon, local pickup required. ------------ John Rollins | KD7BCY | http://www.kd7bcy.com Ham-Mac mailing list http://mailman.qth.net ------------

9 years, 7 months

SMD replacement options?

by earl＠baugh.org

An update on the SMD replacement options... Contacted someone at MBI (mbiusa.com) and they quoted $395 for drive... (I had asked them about a "modern replacement" for the Fujitsu drive in my Sun 1 drive assembly... what they quoted me back was an actual replacement Fujitsu drive... not sure if it's NOS or refurbished OS) Then I clarified my question and said "what's the price for the SMD emulator they had on their site... what I got back was : "The cost of the SMD emulator starts at approx $8500 per spindle, depending on the system spec and controller" (the other ones that I got a link to from a few folks on ebay start at $1500) So, that's a dead end. I can't believe someone hasn't built some sort of adapter from <Modern-Something>-to-SMD that isn't ridiculously priced... Earl the Squirrel

9 years, 7 months

SWTPc computer lot currently on ebay...

by wh.sudbrink＠verizon.net

Hi, Not going to bid on it myself, but if someone reading this should happen to win it, I have a fully functional Percom LFD-400 disk setup on my SWTPc. I would be happy to provide pointers, tips and measurements from my working system. Also, I would really like to get copies of the diskettes and documentation included in the lot. Thanks, Bill S.

9 years, 7 months

KL-10B in DEC-20 [was RE: Who's rewired their house for this hobby?]

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Phil Budne > I think MIT-MC was a "1080" and only had RH10s. That sounds right. > I think they used a DL10 for PDP11 interfacing (including chaosnet and > some disks) I don't recall anymore, but I think there was only one -11 attached to the DL10 (couldn't they support up to 4?)? And yes, the Tridents (along with, IIRC, some serial lines, and the CHAOSNET) were attached to that -11. > and ran KLDCP (pre RSX20) on the console front end.... Yup. Although it had been hacked locally. After briefly glancing at the sources (see the KLDCP; directory, and IOELEV > in SYSTEM;), it was a real kludge; the IOELEV program ran in _both_ the DL10 -11, and the console -11. (In the latter case, along with KLDCP!!) There was some stuff attached to the console -11 too, apparently; a bunch of serial lines on DH11's. > ISTR a disk farm labeled "Moon's Laundromat" Yes, but I don't think that was on MC. I vaguely recall that it was on a bunch of drives which were mounted in vertical pairs, which must have been CalChomps, which I think must have been the original AI? (IIRC, both ML and DM had DEC RP drives.) Noel

9 years, 7 months

IBM Series/1, PDP-11/84 potentially available in Oregon

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: John Rollins > I'm tempted to put it on eBay after seeing the price the last one sold > for If you're talking about the one that sold a couple of weeks back for $1K, note that that included a TM80 tape drive (the bulk of the value), and two 11/84s. By the time you deduct the value of the TM80, and the value of the boards which one could easily pull and sell separately (e.g. the CPU and memory, along with the TM80 controller), and the power supplies, the value of the rest works out to... -$0. Noel

9 years, 7 months

bigger pdp11 terminals! (was: is there any word processing software for the pdp11?)

by jacob.ritorto＠gmail.com

I want to do something like this to 2.11bsd's window(1) utility; possibly vi(1) too.. Window(1) dies with "Out of memory" if you increase the terminal geometry even a little bit. Anyone know how to go about embiggening this program? Would be great to connect a nice, big 132x66 xterm to 2.11bsd and split it all up! On Mon, Dec 1, 2014 at 9:51 PM, Jerome H. Fine <jhfinedp3k at compsys.to> wrote: > >Noel Chiappa wrote: > > [Snip] >> >> > There was also a TECO version available for the PDP-11's running >> RSTS/E >> > (and likely others) >> There was a 'visual TECO' running on the V6 Unix at MIT; that's what we >> used >> before the EMACS came along. I don't know the background of it, if it >> shares >> any history with the one you mentioned. >> >> From the (slim) manual I have for it, it seems to have had both TECO mode >>> >> (the usual TECO command interface, the stuff that looks like line noise), >> and >> a visual mode, just like primitive EMACS. (Probably only supported VT52's, >> though.) The latter mode had some built-in command keys, and there were >> also >> macro packages to extend it (again, just like primitive EMACS, although >> those >> for the PDP-11 Unix TECO were not as sophisticated). >> >> That's all almost certainly on the tape too, if anyone cares! :-) >> >> Since the "Subject" specified "word processing software", I assumed that > would exclude TECO which I regard as a "text editor" (although Johnny > strongly disagrees since his concept is a "line editor" - if I remember > correctly). > > In any case, since TECO has been mentioned, I believe that KED (a > screen editor - KEYBOARD EDITOR) which was produced by DEC > for the VT100 and other similar VDTs qualifies. KED has been distributed > with all versions of RT-11 at least since V04.00 in 1980. > > KED runs under both RT-11 and RSTS/E and will at least qualify as much > as TECO. The DEC variants are limited to 24 lines by 80 columns along > with 24 lines by 132 columns if a VT100 is being used with the AVO > hardware. MACROs are supported, so some extensive editing can be > accomplished. Auxiliary input and output files are also supported. But, > note that KED is a screen editor without the sort of things that a word > processor is likely to have. What you see is what you get. > > Ersatz-11, the PDP-11 emulator by John Wilson of Dbit, now supports > screens up to 255 lines by 255 columns, although in practice, no Windows > system can properly support those values. On my Windows XP system, > the video card and monitor support up to about 50 lines by 200 columns. > > As a enhancement to KED, I added code which runs under RT-11 and > RSTS/E which also supports up to 255 lines by 255 columns - BUT not > at the same time since the screen buffer MUST be large enough to hold > all of the characters on the screen. Since the actual maximum useful > screen > sizes are about 50 lines by 120 columns and 50 lines by 198 columns (for > a maximum screen buffer of 9900 characters), I use KED under RT-11 > running under Ersatz-11. With my current video card and monitor, I have > chosen to use FULL SCREEN mode which is supported at 50 lines by > 80 columns and 44 lines by 132 columns. The extra 20 lines available when > I inspect a MACRO-11 output listing are extremely helpful. > > Jerome Fine >

9 years, 7 months

M1705 dual 12-bit output info

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Kyle Owen > The block diagram in the Logic Handbook shows a few select jumpers, but > does not give a detailed list of the 32 jumpers, if I counted correctly. Yeah, I noticed that; there were no jumpers shown for the device code. I can only assume that they are similar to the device code jumpers for the M1703. If so, that would be 24 jumpers right there. (It's '24' because the M1705 includes two completely separate devices, which can apparently be given device codes independently.) If so, that would be all of them - the block diagram shows 8; 24 for device codes; total 32. Odd the way they use separate jumpers for 1 and 0; why not one jumper with a pull-up/down? Noel

9 years, 7 months

is there any word processing software for the pdp11?

by tiggerlasv＠aim.com

On Nov 30, 2014, at 5:43 PM, Toby Thain <toby at telegraphics.com.au> wrote: > On 30/11/14 8:16 PM, Jacob Ritorto wrote: >> or, if not, anyone feel like helping me port a contemporary line printer >> daemon to 2.11bsd? >> Best I can find is LEX-11, on TSX-Plus. >> Surprised Wordstar wasn't ported. :)> > --Toby I am both shocked and appalled that no one mentioned VTEDIT, which comes standard with RSTS/E . . . .

9 years, 7 months

System/3 on Ebay - How much isit really worth?

by dave.g4ugm＠gmail.com

So to continue the discussion, how much would these be worth as scrap in the USA? http://www.ebay.com/itm/151491089302 The asking price of $5k seems a tad high to me, so I can see it going to the crusher. Dave Wade G4UGM

9 years, 7 months

Still Alive?

by jhfinedp3k＠compsys.to

Still Alive - Test - Please do not respond!!!!!!!!!!!!

9 years, 7 months

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test-drb December 2014