test-drb February 2015

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

203 participants
261 discussions

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

This is sort-of off-topic : Does anyone have old-ish (1980s) Philips/Mullard/Signetics data books around. I am looking for a data sheet (or at least a pinout) for the SAB3012 remote control receiver IC (no, I do not mean SAB3021). I can find nothing on the web. (It's only sort-of off-topic as the IC is used in an old Viewdata / Prestel set which I guess is classic computing) -tony

9 years, 5 months

Classic computing goes mainstream....

by jdr_use＠bluewin.ch

Even the BBC is reporting : http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31188257 Wil we see a flood of speccies and BBC-B ? Jos

9 years, 5 months

Answers: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150204)

by dpi＠dustyoldcomputers.com

On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 9:37 AM, Doug Ingraham <dpi at dustyoldcomputers.com> wrote: > This time lets refer to some classic fictional computers used in movies. > Everyone probably knows about the HAL 9000 used in the movie 2001 a Space > Odyssey. > > What was the name of HAL's sister computer in the movie 2010 Odyssey two? > SAL 9000 > That was a warm up question. This one should be more difficult. > > What was the designation of the computer in the movie WarGames and what > does it mean? > WOPR which stands for War Operation Plan Response. And finally, > > As silly as it was the movie Hackers referred to the mainframe computer in > the movie as a Gibson. > > Where did the term Gibson come from? > It is believed to be a reference to the author William Gibson who coined the term Cyberpunk in his short story Burning Chrome (1982 Omni) and then his novel Neuromancer (1984). Hope you all enjoyed this one! -- Doug Ingraham PDP-8 SN 1175

9 years, 5 months

Anyone need spare 11/05 - 11/10 keys?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

I've discovered a local place that can create them, and just had one made, and it worked fine. I'm about to go back for two more: does anyone else need one/any? If so, please let me know (reply to me _only_, please - no need to gunk up the list with that). They'll be $2 each, to cover costs only. Noel

9 years, 5 months

xylogics 650 manual

by jacob.ritorto＠gmail.com

Hola, According to this thread from BITD ( http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/cctalk/1999-July/1414.html ), I have what appears to be a Xylogics 650 sitting here in anti-static wrap, glistening like brand new. Anyone have a manual? Tried replying to Dan, but no dice.. thx jake

9 years, 5 months

RA-81 issues

by g-wright＠att.net

Did not see this come through so here it s again. I have a rack full of RA81's, all Pass Rom base self test. If I try to spin up one of the drives, It will start to spin up and then just stop. There are no front panel lights that come on or codes on the terminal screen. all 3 drives do the same. These are not connected to a controller, and the manual does not say this is need. The forth one has no drive and the motor seems to turn hard, is there a brake on the motor ??? - what I'm I missing here Thanks Jerry

9 years, 5 months

11/45 hack?

by jacob.ritorto＠gmail.com

Hi, Man. I'm becoming concerned that I can't fit any of the significant features that I want in my 11/45 without making uncomfortable sacrifices. The first 25 slots are for an initial "unibus a" terminator, cpu, floating point and memory, which, since I only have one bipolar matrix, is an enormous waste of like ten slots (they're wired for weird voltage and would presumably explode other boards installed there, right?). So then there are three slots available at the end, 26, 27, 28 that are also marked "non-standard voltage." I guess that means that putting normal boards in there is right out, too. Anyway, the unibus out and bridge 9200 jumper that connects unibus a and unibus b are supposed to go there. That's it for the main backplane. The next three small backplanes are core. They take up the rest of the chassis. I don't want to give up my core because core is cool, right? So this means I've nowhere to put the hex boards I need to run. I need to install more memory (planning to use MS11 (124KW M7891)), ethernet, some sort of hex height SMD disk controller (SC21,etc.), possibly an RL11, and a DZ11. That's at least four, maybe six hex-height boards I need to accommodate. I'm going to duck after asking this, but would it be at all feasible to rewire the main 11/45 backplane to get rid of the weird voltages in those bipolar slots so they'd accommodate normal boards like these? Short of that, what can I do? I definitely don't want another chassis. I guess I have to sacrifice my core to make way for a second "normal" dd11-type backplane to house the modules I need to run. So sad. <duck> jake

9 years, 5 months

11/23 clock issue

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Tothwolf > Before I forget again, did you check for +5V on pin 1 (enable) when you > were testing your existing oscillator? Wow. Never thought to try that. Then again, I don't look for +5V on your average 74xxx when I'm debugging, either! :-) I mean, it's a trace, the solder on the pin looks good, that's as far as I go, usually! And there's nothing shown as connected to that pin on the circuit diagram. So I looked, and... it's at ground (or floating). The only pin that has anything is 14, at +5V (expected). But I looked online for some datasheets for similar oscillators, and some of them say 'pin 1 - N/C'. Are yours tri-state? (That's the enable pin on the tri-state ones.) I suppose even if yours are tri-state, I can still use them; a quick ohmmeter check shows that pin 1 isn't connected to either power or ground, so I can probably tie it high (via a resistor, which in addition to being normal practise, will prevent a major disaster in case I'm confused - a state I'm often in :-). Noel

9 years, 5 months

Radio Shack

by evan＠snarc.net

So ..... Radio Shack is (more or less) finally dead. There are still plenty of RS stores open for business. (Although I read this morning that they're not getting new shipments, which makes them essentially clearance stores.) Apparently the company is legally allowed to close a maximum of 200 stores per year. Or something like that. Horn-tooting: the Wall Street Journal interviewed me about RS back at World Maker Faire last fall. They published the story online today and it'll be in print tomorrow. http://www.wsj.com/articles/strategic-confusion-put-radioshack-at-the-mercy… Scroll aaaaaaaaaaaall the way down to the bottom. (LOL, yeah, I'm important!)

9 years, 5 months

Differences between PDP-11/83-84 M8190-AB/AC and AD/AE CPU cards

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Jerome H. Fine > for the PDP-11/83 (usually in a BA23 or a BA123), the backplane is > wired so that the PMI memory is activated correctly WHEN the first > memory board is in slot 1 and the CPU follows the memory boards. That's an artifact of the way Qxx/CD backplanes, and PMI CPU cards, are wired. (And you probably already knew this, but just to be explicit... :-) For the backplanes, with few exceptions, pin nQm2 (where n is the slot #, Q is C or D, m is A-V, in the DEC alphabet) is wired only to pin (n+1)Qm1 - i.e. pin Qm1 is not wired through to all slots. In other words, the CD bus is not carried _through_ a slot, only _between_ slots. The PMI bus on the CPU is only wired to the top (i.e. 1) pins. So if you plug a PMI CPU into a normal Q22/CD backplane, the only slot that receives the PMI signals is the slot _before_ the CPU. Hence the requirement to plug memory cards in _before_ the CPU when using a Q22/CD backplane for PMI. The 11/84 backplane is different; per the backplane prints in EK-PDP84-TM-PR2, the 1-side pins on the Q22/'CD' portion of the backplane _are_ all bussed together. (Note: from what I can see in the backplane prints in EK-PDP84-TM-PR2, none of the other CD bus pins are bussed together; in particular, the staggered connections from nCA1 to n+1CC1, nDA1 to n+1DC1, etc found in the real Qnn/CD backplane don't seem to be there in the 11/84 backplane. So it's not _real_ Q22/CD - it's probably better to call that section of the 11/84 backplane Q22/PMI. PMI _can_ run over a normal Q22/CD backplane, though.) >> Would a KDJ11-A board even work in an 11/84 backplane? > I meant the KDJ11-BD board or the M8190-AC. > ... > it seems reasonable to hope that the PDP-11/84 can also use the > KDJ11-BD instead of the KDJ11-BF Ah. My guess (having not looked at the 8190-AC in detail) is that to the extent the M8190-AC implements PMI, it should work fine in an 11/84. Noel

9 years, 5 months

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test-drb February 2015