I've had this silly idea stuck in my head for the last day or so, and I figured I might as well share it in case anybody else gets a chuckle out of it. Or even takes it seriously, for that matter.
There's been a lot of buzz lately about the Internet of Things (IoT). I don't personally care about connecting my thermostat or clothes dryer to the Internet, but if something that's like X10 remote control but without the sucking comes out of this, then maybe it's worth the effort.
That's all fine and good, but what if you want to control and monitor your environment with a classic machine like my VAX-11/730? That VAX doesn't know anything about JSON, XML, XMPP or such similar new-fangled protocols, but it does know how to talk to remote hardware. And thus, I present my silly idea:
The DECNET of Things!
I envision it looking something like this at the console:
$ SET HOST STEREO
$ SET VOLUME 15
$ LOGOUT
$ SET HOST LAMP07
$ SET DIMMER 07
$ LOGOUT
Perhaps the most counter-intuitive aspect of this silly idea is that I came up with it without the benefit of any mind-altering substances.
So, when do you suppose I'll be able to buy embeddable DoT modules at SparkFun? :)
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
Hey,
I found this on Youtube. Its a film done in the late 70's by EMI (the
inventor if the CT scanner) about the early history of the machine. There
is some neat on-topic hardware in there, plus the depiction of the
pneumoencephalograph machine (think The Exorcist.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_R47LDdlZM
--Joe
Got my GRiD Compass 1101 working this week (got distracted from my
ASR-33 repair, what can I say, I'm easily distracted) -- replaced a
couple of bad RAM chips and it's up and running again. It boots to the
GRiD version of MS-DOS 2.00 from the internal bubble memory, so I've
been playing around with that a bit, digging through my old DOS archives
looking for stuff to run on it.
I can't find a single non-trivial DOS program that runs successfully on
it. This isn't altogether surprising as the Compass was never intended
to be a PC compatible machine, the MS-DOS port was an afterthought.
Still, it seems considerably less than useful. Which leads me to the
question -- what was the least PC-Compatible "MS-DOS" machine out there
back before "100% PC Compatible" was a thing?
The Compass has a lot going against it, as the only thing making it
close to PC compatible is the 8086 CPU -- everything else is completely
different (bitmapped display with no character modes, bubble memory for
internal storage, GPIB disk interface, a 70-something key keyboard
missing a lot of PC standard keys... I'm not sure about more esoteric
things like interrupt controllers, etc.) At least the disk controller
uses a standard 360K format compatible with the PC, so data interchange
was fairly straightforward...
What say you?
- Josh
Hi
? ? My two biggest VAXes have both developed problems.
The 4000-200 no longer talks to the network ?and the 4000-500 has a PSU problem.
I'm looking for the following:?
1. ?KA660 CPU card and Bulkhead for a VAX 4000-200
2 ? An H7874-00 plug in PSU for a VAX 4000-500
I have a reasonable stock of DEC disks and boards so a swap might be on.
Rod Smallwood
Hopefully, the seller of that ebay-auction 251553591196 won't actually do what he's threathing with! It hurts me when reading that!
Maybe somebody in the US might be interested in that disk drive from the 70's.
The price seems a bit high though. I wonder, if he would really get that amount of money via his alternative solution....
Cheers,
Pierre
?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pierre's collection of classic computers moved to: http://www.digitalheritage.de
I'd like to find a mouse for my DEC vt330 terminal; the spec calls for
a VSXXX-AA roller mouse.
Does anyone out there know if the VSXXX-GA is compatible?
Thanks.
I have some high school students on summer break working for me again.
Today they found the following, among other things.
Please contact me off list if you are interested. Shipping is from
Illinois, 61853, or close.
M7800, M7800-YA $50 each, $5 off if no BR or crystal. Not all
frequencies are here.
54-13009 VT100 logic board $50
54-13097-01 VT100 AVO $45
54-14260 VT100 PPO $50
H210
H215
M8357 RX8E make offer
More to follow soon.
Thanks, Paul
Snagged a Datapoint 1800 this week, and in my brief examination the
power supply's going to need some work -- the -5V and -12V rails are
dead. Before I get too far into this, does anyone happen to have any
schematics for this thing? There's some decent stuff on Bitsavers (as
per usual) but nothing service-manual level.
Looks like a neat machine, much like the earlier 2200; an 8-bit CPU
built from discrete TTL. I'm missing the external 8" drive unit,
unfortunately, (and it has a custom bus interface) so I may never get it
to do anything too interesting but I'd love to get the main unit running.
Meanwhile, time to clean this thing out from head to toe, it's quite
filthy...
- Josh
I just realized that I'd sent that "holes w/o thermals" email to this
list instead of the list for which it was actually destined. Sorry for
the noise. (I'm actually still not on *this* list, it's filtered out
here, so flame away if you feel you must! ;))
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
Hey folks. I've been noodling on this for a bit and it may be
obvious, but I'm completely missing it. Is it possible in PCB to make a
plated-through hole, in contact with copper planes on both the top and
bottom of a board, without a thermal?
Thanks,
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
