test-drb January 2015

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

175 participants
253 discussions

by marc.verdiell＠gmail.com

I talked to the owner maybe 6 months ago. It was a bizarre and difficult interaction. He refused to let me see the units, and insisted I give him an offer first. He would not even give me the list of the items he had. We went into a circular discussion: that I couldn't give him an offer if I didn't know nor see what the items were, to which he replied that if I were a serious buyer I would make him an offer beforehand, therefore I was not serious and he would not show me the items nor give me the list. So that was not very helpful. Then later on he sent me 3 or 4 close up pictures of only the name badges of some of the machines (one badge from HP, maybe two of IBM). I got the distinct impression that either something was fishy or that the guy had unreasonable expectations. Or maybe both. I just gave up. Looks like you are faring much better than me, so that's positive. I am interested in the IBM system, the tapes and tape controller units mainly, if you don't want them. Marc On 1/9/15 6:38 PM, Lyle Bickley wrote: > When Bob and I initially talked to the owner, he told us that what he > had was a major find for a collector. He spoke in glowing terms as to > the condition of the 4341 and the HP mini (de-installed from a running > environment and then stored for many years). So as you would expect, > Bob and I were very anxious to see both systems. What we found was a > serious disappointment. As Bob said, the 4341 and the HP mini were > crammed into a storage unit with lots of other junk. It was impossible > to see/determine what system components were actually there. There was > no way to know how complete or what features either system had. > Repeating what Bob said, everything was water damaged, rusty and in > poor condition - and I do mean everything. We told him that his asking > price was too high - and that the condition of the systems was so bad > we wouldn't even make him an offer. Lyle Well that's a disappointment. I'm still going to take a look at it tomorrow...but I'm going to be prepared to walk away from it. TTFN - Guy

9 years, 4 months

San Diego: 1991 era AS400

by mstaunton＠roadrunner.com

hello all i just joined and am based in Carlsbad CA. I have several servers from the 1991 (yes they include fully functional CRTs and keyboard/mouse). After several conversions with JJ owner and curator for the San Diego Museum in Australia he suggested i contact this forum. Is anybody interested in these? I can also be reached at 760703096

9 years, 4 months

Framing Core Memory

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

I have been given a tiny piece of core memory, about 1cmx1cm. It has obviously been cut from a larger piece and is almost certainly unusable. I would therefore like to frame it for display and to show to young people. Is there a recommended good way to mount the core for framing with the smallest amount of possible damage? Thanks Rob

9 years, 4 months

IBM System/36

by tots＠matinino.com

Hello everyone (new to this list), I have in a place I need to clear an IBM System/36 class mini-computer collecting dust. Before it ends up in scrap, I would like to make sure is not of any value for collector/hobbyist or a computer museum for parts or as a whole. Any lead will help. Thanks. IBM's System/36 page: https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/rochester/rochester_4018.html Hector

9 years, 4 months

Looking for a free host for tabajara labs

by alexandre.tabajara＠gmail.com

Good things, bad things. I got in love with Hostinger, and uploaded my site (www.tabalabs.com.br) there. But seems that in the time I needed them most (my site was advertised into a famous brazilian site) they fell down...I have a (fairly) limitted number of pageviews in the free plan. Anyone that could (free!) host a retrocomputing site? Less than a GB. Thanks! --- Enviado do meu Apple IIGS (pq eu sou chique) Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br Meu blog: http://tabajara-labs.blogspot.com

9 years, 4 months

Excess Solutions BBQ Saturday

by aek＠bitsavers.org

For people in the SF Bay area Excess Solutions moved to 1555 7th, across from Spartan Stadium and I went down to see the new place. Mike told me he's having a grand opening BBQ tomorrow.

9 years, 4 months

Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150112)

by dpi＠dustyoldcomputers.com

This weeks question comes from Warren Stearns. It is a little obscure and specific to the PDP-8 family of computers. What is the source of the greatest latency in the interrupt system on a PDP-8. I have three answers, two of the answers depends on the options fitted to an 8. Why would this have been an important question? Interrupt latency would be extremely important in the field of data collection which was one of the principal early uses of these machines. My particular 8 was used for exactly this purpose in the Summer when it was hauled to a radar site and collected weather research data for the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences. I believe it was used for this from 1969 through 1972. I have several hundred DECTapes with some of this data. The surprising thing is we don't see any problems reading DECTapes that haven't been out of their box since the early 70's. Doug Ingraham PDP-8 S/N 1175

9 years, 4 months

Some Bugs in RT-11

by jhfinedp3k＠compsys.to

While this post is specifically for Tim Shoppa (as the only person that I can think of who can answer), if anyone else has the background, please reply. I believe that I have found a rather inconvenient bug in SDHX.SYS from version Y01.16 (from V05.06 of RT-11) that can cause RT-11 to crash. If I am not mistaken, the same bug is also present in the previous version V01.00 of SDHX.SYS from V05.05 of RT-11. Unfortunately, the bug can cause RT-11 to crash There also seems to be another bug which results in the extended memory status being displayed incorrectly, but otherwise does not cause an actual problem. I realize that RT-11 is rarely used these days and that SDHX.SYS is used even less frequently, but I suggest that these errors really need to be fixed. I would appreciate any suggestions as to how to proceed. Jerome Fine

9 years, 4 months

Upgrading NatSemi NS23C QBUS memory

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

So it turns out the NatSemi NS23C QBUS memory card can really, really easily be upgraded from 256KB to 1MB, as it has all the necessary traces, jumpers, etc for this capability built into the card - even though the NS23C documentation says nothing about this capability! I found out about this capability when I bought a group of QBUS cards which included two NS23C cards. Looking at the chips, trying to figure out how big the cards were (I didn't at that point know the card model), I saw one had 64Kx1 chips, the other had 256Kx1 - one was 256KB, the other 1MB! Later, looking at the prints, I noticed that the memory chips had all 9 address lines wired (unlike the very similar NS23M card), and there were a couple of jumpers that appeared to adapt the card to 1MB operation. So I tried upgrading the second card, and it worked! The chips are all in sockets, so pulling the 64Kx1's and replacing them with 256Kx1's was easy. There are three jumpers one has to remove/move; alas, they are in the PCB on the top surface, although there are jumper pins there - there's a trace running between the two pins - so you have to cut the traces. The first two jumpers one has to remove are W23 and W24 (right next to the other memory size jumpers), which allow one to increase the maximum memory size to 1MB. The other jumper one has to move, is to move the 'jumper' from W40 to W41; this moves the pickup point for the 'RS0' signal, which indicates which bank of chips (there are 2x18 banks, i.e. 16 data, and separate byte parity) to activate, from address line 17 to 19. (Parenthetically, the way the address logic works on the card is slightly odd; if the card is not on a 'natural' boundary [e.g. a 256KB boundary, if it's a 256KB card], the memory contents are scrambled; the low memory, in bus address terms, is at the top of the card, in chip terms, and the high memory, in bus terms, is at the bottom of the card. I understand why they did it that way, it's the most economical in logic/traces, etc but it's something one would have to remember when looking for a bad memory chip, if the card is set to an address which is not a multiple of its size.) Not sure if anyone else out there has any of these cards, but if so, I'd be interested to hear if anyone does this. Noel

9 years, 4 months

One for the Kaypro Kids

by silent700＠gmail.com

I have scanned and uploaded 12 issues of "Kugram," the official newsletter of the Kaypro Users' Group: https://archive.org/search.php?query=kugram&sort=-publicdate It's really "K?gram," which I'd say as "K-microgram" but the limits of character sets and convenience probably turned it into "koo-gram." And they refer to themselves as "kuggers," not "K-microgrammers." :) One odd thing about these: there's no date on the covers, just Volume and Issue numbers. However, it looks like they started publishing in January 1983. Anyone got any more issues laying around that I can add to this collection? I will pay for postage to get them to me. You can have them back, but I will have chopped their spines for easy scanning. Also, anyone want the physical copies of the ones I've scanned? Pay the postage and I'll send them out (there are two copies of a few of them.) They are chopped as well. Enjoy! -j

9 years, 4 months

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test-drb January 2015