test-drb October 2015

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

195 participants
329 discussions

by shadoooo＠gmail.com

Hello, I'm almost sure that the DG dual 8" uses hard-sectored floppies with 32 sectors (33 holes). The internal logic will generate sync signals for 8 sectors starting >from the 32 on the floppy. So industry standard hard-sectored floppies should be fine. You need to use formatted disks, DG supplied floppies already formatted, and the OS cannot format it. But: the drive itself has a format mode, so using a special formatter program (available at least on paper tape), you can format disks. Interesting thing (I think): as I have a Nova 3 with 6030 floppy, which I would restore when time will allow me to, and as I have no media to start the machine from, I searched a way to write new media from PC. Then I developed a tool to connect it to PC via serial, using the console port; this tool is somehow similar to VTserver for PDP11 realm, but more expandable. Basically, you can do memory transfers between Nova and PC (both directions), and execute almost *ANY* I/O instruction on the Nova, under the strict direction of the PC. On the PC, a tool developed in Python is used to bootstrap a special binary program (using Program Load feature on Nova), and then to execute special scripts, prepared for particular disk and/or tape peripherals, to dump a device to image file (compatible with SIMH), dump an image file to device, format a disk, and so on... As all these procedures are controlled remotely by the PC, on the Nova always sits the very same small binary code, thus supporting new peripherals should be very easy, once one understands how the whole stuff works. I already developed (and debugged using an emulated Nova3 on SIMH) all is needed to read/write/format disks on 6030. I think the very same code should work on the S/130, so if you want you could give a try. Interested? Andrea

8 years, 10 months

Visual 100 Terminal - Circuit Diagram Wanted

by jonathan.chote＠gmail.com

Hey everyone, I know it exists out in the wild somewhere, but I can't find a copy myself. It's for a VT100 clone terminal called the Visual 100 - from around 1982. If anyone can help me track the circuit diagram down, and/or any other information too, I'd be very greatful. If payment is required I have the usual PayPal etc. Thanks! Jono

8 years, 10 months

New logo: Vintage Computer Federation

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Ben Franchuk > I would get rid of the outer leaves I think I might agree - they don't add much, for the amount of space and complexity they add. Very clever to make them out of PCB traces, though! Noel

8 years, 10 months

RK11-C (was Re: H960 logo panel)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On Tue, Oct 13, 2015 at 4:07 PM, Henk Gooijen <henk.gooijen at hotmail.com> wrote: > On Tue, Oct 13, 2015 at 2:13 PM, Henk Gooijen <henk.gooijen at hotmail.com> wrote: >> I'd love to get one complete RK11-C ... anybody? :-) > > I have an RK11-C but it did not come with a panel. > > Now you know where you can leave it behind for a good old retirement :-) > You don't happen to get that RK11-C from an eBay auction some 8 - 9, > maybe 10 years ago? I did not. I've had it since August, 1984, and I got it from Software Results shortly before starting to work there. It (along with a stripped PDP-8/a and a DataSystems 310 desk) came with a pair of RK05 drives: one RK05J and one RK05F (but no power supply) that I wanted to use with the PDP-8. I'm told the whole pile came from Ohio State Surplus sometime in 1983 or so. Sadly, I mangled the RK05F due to youth and inexperience. I might still have the front cover for that RK05F in a box of parts, but I'm pretty sure the rest of the drive got stripped for parts 30 years ago to repair RK05J drives (if I knew then what I know now, I assure you that events would have unfolded differently, but I had no docs and no experience... then I had a series of "educational experiences" with this hardware and am wiser now). I only ever saw one other RK05F in the wild, FWIW. > I remember (just) one RK11-C passing by on eBay, and that was when I > still worked at Oc? training centre, so at least 8 years ago. It sold for > ~ $50 (IIRC). Will never forget that I let that one go! :-( That's an amazing price just for the pile of FLIPCHIPs. -ethan

8 years, 10 months

VAX in action

by jason＠smbfc.net

I was just speaking with a guy who works in the physics department at work (A large State University) . He was looking for a 68pin SCSI card for some purpose, which I was able to find for him in my pile-o-stuff. It turns out he's trying to revive one of their VMS machines which didn't come back after a power outage a couple weeks ago. Then I learn that they're still using a VAX to run their freakin' particle accelerator, I asked if I could see that stuff in action. So, I'm going to go over for a tour sometime in the next couple weeks. :) He also mentioned that they're starting to transition off the old DEC hardware -- this is also my chance to be sure it doesn't just end up in the bin. --Jason

8 years, 10 months

H960 logo panel

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Henk Gooijen > I will probably download everything ... in my experience, websites > with "/~xxxx/" in it seem to disappear after "some" time :-/ True, but pages maintained by institutions are almost equally bad about staying put! Many's the time I've clicked on a link, and the target's gone... I make a real effort to try and not not kill any URL to my Web site that ever worked (via redirects, if needed). I wish institutions were the same, but alas, for most Web-masters, they apparently seem not to give a rodent's posterior. But the downloading is a good idea - the more copies, the better (although in this particular case, it's not like the content is irreplacable). > I have probably all PDP-11 models (except the PDP-11/50) > ... > I am not going to disassemble just for a scan. Well, the /45 front panel is easy: take out the 4 screws holding the bezel on (quite easy - unlike, say, removing an H7420 to clean it - something I am probably going to have to do), and then take out the 3 counter-sunk screws holding the panel on (ditto), remove the two knobs (ditto again) - done! And equally easy to reverse the process. > I could take pictures, but as you say, edges will warp a little. We've already got pretty good pictures of the 11/45 panel, and the RP11-C. There are no RF11 or RK11-C images (that I know of - the RF11 manual only has a drawing, and the RK11-C manual, not even that), so if you have either of those, a picture would be better than nothing. Noel

8 years, 10 months

New logo: Vintage Computer Federation

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

Looks good Evan... Yea the ADM 3 a classic indeed! Ed# _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org) In a message dated 10/13/2015 7:13:24 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at snarc.net writes: Cctalk'ers, Vintage Computer Federation -- the new 501(c)3 non-profit that now runs the MARCH museum, and which will soon make some major expansion announcements -- has a very cool new logo. Here's a preview: http://www.snarc.net/vcf-logo-preview.png. Hoping everyone likes it! - Evan

8 years, 10 months

ST506/412 failure modes? (in this case, an IBM 0665)

by jules.richardson99＠gmail.com

Afternoon all, This may be forgotten knowledge - or perhaps more likely, something that was never known in the first place - but are there any typical failure modes of ST506/412-type drives (beyond the obvious mechanical damage between heads and platters)? I've seen quite a few dead drives over the years, but of course haven't invested much time into thinking about what might actually be wrong with them, because they were once quite common. Now that working ones are getting scarce, it got me wondering if there were any obvious things to check. In this particular instance, I've got an IBM 0665 30MB drive in a Compaq which spins up, bounces the heads around a little, then causes the machine to issue a fixed disk failure at boot time. This is an embedded servo drive with a voice coil, not a stepper type. Oddly enough, it passes Compaq diag's spare cylinder read/write tests, but fails the seek test. I've not tried a LLF yet because I was interested in trying to salvage whatever data might be on it first; there are several large ASICs in the logic board, but also a lot of more common stuff, so it's possible that the fault is something fixable - but checking component by component is probably more trouble than it's worth. Yeah yeah, MFM emulators and whatnot... but I do want to keep noisy old boat anchors alive in my machines for as long as I can - while a modern replacement is the only long-term solution, I always think of modern tech as detracting from the experience of using old hardware. cheers Jules

8 years, 10 months

Xebec 1410A (WAS Xebec 1402A Seagate HDD controller)

by dmonnens＠gmail.com

Ok, correction to previous message. It's a Xebec 1410A with 1.0 Firmware. Should be MUCH easier to find now that we have the correct model number! Was curious if anyone here has - or knows someone who does - a Xebec 1402A > Seagate HDD controller. The drive is in an IBM 5150. Note that this MUST be > the 1402A, NOT the more common 1402. There is some important historical > data we are trying to recover, but the controller is nonfunctioning. > Thank you for any help! -- Devin Monnens www.deserthat.com The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

8 years, 10 months

RK11-C (was Re: H960 logo panel)

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Ethan Dicks > I only ever saw one other RK05F in the wild, FWIW. I only ever saw one, also. > On Tue, Oct 13, 2015 at 4:07 PM, Henk Gooijen wrote: >> I remember (just) one RK11-C passing by on eBay .. at least 8 years >> ago. It sold for ~ $50 (IIRC). > That's an amazing price just for the pile of FLIPCHIPs. Hey, back in the late 60's, you could buy an outdated Ferrari racing car, or a retired Cobra Daytona, for a couple of thousand, US$. Those cars now sell for tens of millions... >> Will never forget that I let that one go! :-( The people who passed on those Ferraris, Daytonas, etc now have the same reaction! I wonder if PDP-11's will ever get anything like that stupid? Probably not (although one never knows, q.v. the Ferraris and Daytonas); although I reckon they will be more noteworthy to later collectors (i.e. who didn't use them themselves) than most other old machines, because the PDP-11 was the machine that really set Unix on the road. (Which is not why _I'm_ big on them, mind...) Noel

8 years, 10 months

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test-drb October 2015