test-drb October 2015

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

195 participants
329 discussions

Reinstalling SunOS 4.1.4 without CD drive

by echristopherson＠gmail.com

A very generous list member just gave me a SPARCStation 20 with SunOS 4.1.4 on it. I thought the first thing I would do would be to image its hard drive in my Linux PC, in case I ever wanted to start fresh. I assume that if I make a bitwise copy of it, I can later write those same bits out. But now I'm wondering what would happen if the disk developed marked bad sectors; would that make an exact image impossible to write onto it? I have a disc image of that release, but unfortunately no SCSI CD-ROM. It occurs to me that I could perhaps make a SunOS filesystem on Linux and untar things from either the install CD or the image of the original HD into it, but I don't know if that would produce something actually bootable. I'm hoping there would be some way within Linux to capture the actual format of the filesystem to use as a skeleton. Does anyone know if this is possible (viz. creating a valid, bootable filesystem and untarring files into it)? Or should I just invest in a CD-ROM drive? -- Eric Christopherson

8 years, 11 months

IBM PS/2 Model 70 HARD DRIVE NEEDED

by mokuba＠gmail.com

Got a hard down situation and need to re-install/recreate the BBS system I had running. HDD makes swishy noises when shaken, haven't tried stirring yet. I /guess/ a bootable MCA SCSI card would work too... ;) I had the 160MB drive, but anything above 30 would work - i guess i'll just have to use a SCSI Drive for the file storage area once i get an MCA SCSI card .... -- Gary G. Sparkes Jr. KB3HAG

9 years

Large batch of DEC flip chips

by j_hoppe＠t-online.de

Here's the opportunity to buy&save batches of DEC flip chip modules. It must be several thousands, I estimate the total weight of the boxes to over 100kg. Most are "red" logic series, but other colors are there too. Apparently they are plugged from different machine types, maybe even PDP-10s or -12s. Of course I'm greedy! But while we have a PDP-12 and some DECtapes here, this amount is mostly useless and will occupy much precious space until the end of my days. So question: Is there any reasonable demand for flip chips in the community? And more difficult: any hint about the price I can offer? Thanks for your opinion, Joerg

9 years

Query for dec teleprinter roms

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Mike Stein > I don't think I can scan the print set; IIRC the pages were longer > than 14". How much longer? My A3 scanner will take up to 17". I'd be happy to scan them for you (and return them afterwards) if you send them to me. (BTW, this offer is open to everyone/anyone - although if I get 23 sets of prints, please don't expect instant service! Please contact me first.) Noel

9 years, 1 month

youtube video of a runnning XDS Sigma mainframe with lots of nice peripherals

by p.gebhardt＠ymail.com

Hello list, spotted this video recently on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQzDSOXHd70 It's a Xerox Digital Systems mainframe! Wow, I didn't know that such installations were still running as of 1997! The computer room is quite untidy. Andybody has an idea, where with was filmed? There's also a Data General minicomputer and Honeywell mainframe equipment. Can anybody identify the Honeywell stuff? It's Level 6000 style, but it's strange to me that there seems to be just this one cabinet along the rest of the XDS equipment. Maybe a Datanet option? There are *very* nice close views on running CDC disk drives using the 100/200MB disk packs. I was looking for a long time for a video actually showing how the big head actuator of these drives moves when performing data operations! And there are nice reel tape drives which look to me like rebadged IBM drives (not sure, though). Enjoy watching it! I did! Kind regards, Pierre ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pierre's collection of classic computers moved to: http://www.digitalheritage.de

9 years, 1 month

DG S/130 progress

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

Pictures of the S/130 system I'm building up are at https://www.flickr.com/photos/131070638 at N02 I think the last I posted here... the cpu was up and running, that was the first piece I refurbished. I took everything out of the rack and cleaned that up well, and the cpu has been remounted there. Yesterday I mounted the 6030 dual 8" floppy drive. It was squeaky clean inside and at power up everything does what it should. However, I can't proceed further with it as I have no media. The docs say it uses hard sector 8" floppies, which I believe I can find. However, it specifies 8 sectors/track hard sector floppies - and those I've never heard of. Maybe DG made them special just for their gear, or, maybe the drive or controller or software was smart enough to expect the more common 32 hard sector floppies and knew to only pay attention to every 4th sector hole ;) In any case, before I spend "real dollar$" on media, if anyone has a single piece of 8 sector hard sectored 8" media I'd love to get one for testing :) Getting the 6030 connected to the cpu took a lot of documentation reading. It would seem that DG didn't believe in anything plugging in to interface boards. Instead, interface boards went in the cpu with no external connectors. Then you wirewrap from the backplane from a given slot to one (of a stack) of paddle boards bolted to the rear of the cpu chassis. Those paddleboards have edge connectors, and that's where you connect the device cable. Fun stuff. I started digging in to refurbishing a 6125 mag tape unit to go with the above system. It has power supply issues. The schematics I have are similar but not 100% correct so some guessing was involved. Whenever I turned on the tape unit, any other things (shop light, oscilloscope, etc.) plugged in to the same circuit would start randomly turning off and on. That is not a good sign ;) Earth leakage... Checking the snubber circuit on the mains side of the transformer led me to suspect a mylar that sat between hot and neutral. I lifted one leg of it (just for testing) and that problem is definitely gone. Next problem is the power supply makes a loud ringing noise. I believe that's usually either ceramic disc capacitors or transformers, but I'm having a really hard time locating the exact source of the sound. I'm going to remove the power supply from the metal chassis and hook it up externally (that's how it goes in the rack anyways) and see if I can tell for sure that is the issue. Other than that, offline tests all work, so that will be racked up shortly and cabled to the S/130 cpu. Next on the list is refurbishing the DG 4084 dual cassette tape unit and racking that. Something tells me media will be unobtainium for that. Last step will be to refurbish and install a hard drive, most likely I'll use a 6050. So... some progress at least :) J

9 years, 1 month

VCF-Berlin, 2015

by j＠ckrubin.us

Here are some of my photos from VCF-Berlin - http://tinyurl.com/vcfb-2015 . More narrative is at the Vintage Computer Forum - http://tinyurl.com/vcfb-vcfd . Enjoy - I certainly did! Jack

9 years, 1 month

Front panels

by charles.unix.pro＠gmail.com

The front panel I want to build is for my DPS8-M (aka Honeywell 6180) emulator. http://8bitaficionado.com/2010/09/22/multics-honeywell-6180-mainframe-panel… (Now it's a pretty big panel, so I'm thinking 1/4 scale.) I'm mostly interested in the lights; having functional switches would be nice, but not critical. (My background: good grasp of basic digital electronics; did some wirewrap boards back in the early eighties. Poor soldering skills, no workshop. Mad software skillz.) I would like to build it reasonably cheaply. So I would start with a simple SBC; Beaglebone or the like, that can function as a USB device. I can write the S/W to push a bunch of bits down to it. What I don't know how to do is drive 500 or so LEDs. I am guessing a bunch of shift registers, but I've pretty much reached my design limits. I need some guidance on locating and understanding the technology to run that many LEDs. TIA, -- Charles

9 years, 1 month

Emulex QD32

by cc＠informatik.uni-stuttgart.de

Hi all, I'm trying to set up a MicroVAX II that has an SMD disk attached to an Emulex QD32 controller. I need to test and/or format the disk and so I'm looking for images of the Emulex diagnostic floppies (should be RX50 AFAIK). Those found at http://www.headcrashers.org/comp/rx50/ boot, but I have not the faintest idea of how to start anything in there; even a "DIR" gives only an error, so I assume they are faulty/incomplete. That's what I get: >>> b dua0 2..1..0.. Emulex VAX Monitor V1.2 MicroVAX I 16-SEP-1985 09:00:00 uEVM>DIR ---> ERROR: PHYSICAL READ ERROR Is there by any chance also a diagnostic manual for this stuff? Christian

9 years, 1 month

RF08/RS08 photos and panel measurements (Re: RK11-C Panel)

by cube1＠charter.net

Looking at the document at: http://dustyoldcomputers.com/pdp-common/reference/drawings/peripherals/docs… The picture, though extremely fuzzy, matches my panel in the organization of legends and breaks in line. Since I have what I think is a complete RF08, and pieces of the drive (RS08), I think it is safe to conclude that I have the panel from an RF08. However, the panel is designed to actually hold up to 8 lights of 36 bits each. I have to believe that DEC used this setup for any number of light panels. For photos of the drive electronics, controller electronics, power supply, platter and display and display measurements, see: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2v4WRwISEQRTkVRX2NPMThILWM I posted detail display panel photos and measurements in subfolder Display of this Google Drive folder (RF08-RS08) The main folder has photos of the drive (RS08) electronics and the controller (RF08) electronics, etc. (The very first photo shows some mouse droppings / seeds, which I cleaned up (though I did not entirely disassemble the thing), and are less apparent in subsequent photos (I recall there being even more extensive cleaning after the simple vacuuming I did before taking most of the photos). There is also a photo of the power supply and the (now separated from the container) platter and a head or two as well as a photo of the display panel. In the Display sub-folder are photos of the panel and its components, and a text file with measurements. Apologies in advance for the photo quality of the display. I didn't want to use a flash, and so there was some camera shake, even with IS. JRJ On 10/26/2015 7:25 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > I have just worked out the pattern on the cables to the indicator panel, > > which allows me, from the device schematics, to tell which signals are > > shown on which lights on the indicator panel - I can even tell where the > > spaces are between light groups (since those lights are not > > connected). So I know now exactly what the panel shows, and almost > > certainly in which lights (although there might be a left/right swap, > > there are no fields which span the boundary). > > So here's the writeup on the RK11-C insert: > > http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/pdp11/RK11-C_insert.txt > > The unusual light pattern should allow us to know, instantly, if we see one. > > Noel > >

9 years, 1 month

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test-drb October 2015