test-drb May 2015

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

199 participants
259 discussions

by sales＠elecplus.com

Mainframes and other stuff Recycle center in NC is willing to save out "stuff" for people. No, no one can go in the back and scrounge. No, he does not want a lot of emails from people. Yes, he gets big blue and orange and beige 6 foot tall OLD mainframes in all the time. They squash them at the moment. Yes, he will package small orders, and will properly palletize larger orders. Local pick up will be available after the new year. So, if u can send me a picture with description and some part numbers, along with what you want to pay, I will consolidate things and make arrangements. Please don't ask for specific boards from DEC; they don't want to go into that much detail. QBUS will mean nothing to him. Big orange cabinet that says xxxxx is much more likely to get saved. They are moving to new warehouse 1st of the month, so all this will start happening after the 1st of the year. Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-792-3400 phone 830-792-3404 fax sales at elecplus.com AOL IM elcpls

7 years, 1 month

TU58 tape formatter (was Re: rebuilding DC100A cartridges?)

by shadoooo＠gmail.com

Hello. I have a VAX730 with both TU58 drives destroyed (capstan melted, need replacements). I also have a bunch of cassettes, but unfortunately all seem to have problems with the bend and/or bad spots on the tape. Possibly I would try to replace the broken bands (if I find a source) and/or replace the magnetic tape when damaged (I was thinking to try with audio cassette tape, don' t know if metal oxide high density tape could be good for it). Anybody has some information about the coercivity of original DEC TU58 tape? One problem indeed is the need of reformatting the tape, but: if I can emulate the TU58 drive using a serial, would it be possible to send raw commands to the drive using the serial and a PC? Andrea PS-If possible, some good-condition cassette would be very useful to me too. I'm located in Italy.

7 years, 4 months

Logic Analyzer software for the HP-IB/RS-232 bus pre-processor HP 10342B

by marc.verdiell＠gmail.com

This has probably been asked before, but does anyone have the software package that came with the HP-IB/RS232 HP10342 bus pre-processor for the HP1650 series Logic Analyzer (actually I have a 1670G)? It should have a config file and an inverse assembler file. I'm interested in the HP-IB files. Can't find it anywhere. - Marc

7 years, 10 months

Jobs, McGowan and Olsen

by dm561＠torfree.net

An interesting 3 hours on PBS last night: - 'Steve Jobs - One Last Thing': No description necessary. - 'Long Distance Warrior': McGowan/MCI's David & Goliath battle with AT&T and disastrous merger with Worldcom. - 'Digital Man/Digital World': Ken Olsen/DEC's growth and ultimate decline. (No doubt everyone here except myself had already seen this one ;-) Interesting comparison of the different styles and personalities of three men who profoundly influenced the tech world of today and their companies. Thoroughly enjoyed it. m

7 years, 11 months

Does anyone have docs for a Ventel brand MD212-plus modem?

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

Hi, All, A friend of mine just returned a modem he got from me decades ago, a Ventel MD212-plus. It's an early-1980s non-AT-command-set autodialling modem. The settings are adjusted via a pair of 10-pin DIP switches accessible from the back. I've checked the web and bitsavers. So far, all I've found is some old Usenet articles and a couple of pictures, but no manual or jumper guide. One "feature" is that it lacks a modular jack to plug into the phone system. Fortunately, my friend kept the proprietary DA15 cable. I've never seen that choice of connectors on any other modem. Does anyone have any Ventel docs? Thanks, -ethan

9 years, 2 months

Digital archiving tools

by wmaddox＠pacbell.net

Many of us maintain large collections of bits that we'd like to preserve over a long time, and distribute, replicate, and migrate via unreliable storage media and networks. As disk sizes (and archive sizes) have increased, the probability of corruption undetected or uncorrected by the mechanisms normally built into disk drives, network protocols, and filesystems has increased to a level that warrants great concern. I would be interested to know if there exists an archive format that has the following desirable properties: 1) It is well-documented, and relatively simple, to facilitate its implementation on many platforms present and future. 2) It supports some degree of incremental updating, but need not be particularly efficient about it. An explicit compaction operation is preferable to an overly complex format. It is adequate to use append-only strategies appropriate for write-once media. 3) Insertion and extraction of files, copying of the archives, and other archive-manipulation utilities support end-to-end verification that identical bits have been stably recorded to the media, bypassing or defeating platform-level or hardware-level caching mechanisms. Where this is not possible, the limits must be carefully delineated, with some basis for determining the properties of the platform and certifying reliability properties where possible. 4) The format should provide for superior error detection capability, designed to avoid common failure modes with mechanisms typically used in hardware. For example, use a document-level cryptographic checksum rather than a block-level CRC. 5) The format should include a high degree of internal redundancy and recoverability, say, along the lines of a virtual RAID-array. Just as biological organisms constantly correct DNA transcription errors, the idea is to have a format that is robust across long-term exposure to imperfect copying and transmission channels. Does anything like this exist? --Bill

9 years, 5 months

ROM dumps of Intel MDS-2 IOC

by fulivi＠tiscali.it

Hi everyone, I'm looking for the images of ROMs installed on the IOC (I/O controller) board of Intel MDS-2 development systems. In particular I'm looking for the content of the character generator ROM (A19-2708) and of firmware ROMs (A50 to A53-4x2716). So far I had no success in googling them. My goal would be to contribute a good emulation of MDS systems to MESS, especially for what regards the look of the video terminal. Well, this is the plan, when "real-life" is not inteferring too much... Thanks a lot. -- F.Ulivi

9 years, 5 months

WTD: S100 Static RAM card

by philip＠neoncluster.com

Hi all, I?ve been struggling getting a 64k Dynamic RAM card back up and working in my IMSAI 8080. In fact I?m giving up on the DRAM card in this system and have decided to start looking for a SRAM card that can get the IMSAI up to 56k. In terms if SRAM cards, I presently have: 2 x Problem solver RAM16 cards - both seem to be working. 2 x 8K RAM cards - both seem to be working. Less cards generating heat, and putting stress on the old power supply is obviously best, so I?d be looking for either: - 1 x 16k SRAM card (for a total of 4 RAM cards (3 x 16k + 1 x 8k) in my system). A PSS RAM16 would be preferred for sake of consistency, but obviously not crucial. - 1 x 32k SRAM card (for a total of 3 RAM cards (1 x 32k, 1 x 16k + 1 x 8k) in my system) - 1 x 64k SRAM card that can have the last 8k bank turned off I would love to hear from anyone with one of the above cards who would be willing to pass it on. Much thanks for your time. Best regards Philip

9 years, 9 months

Scraping DEC Equipment

by dm561＠torfree.net

----- Original Message ----- > Date: Sun, 22 May 2011 22:56:32 -0500 > From: Daniel Seagraves <dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net> > Subject: Re: Scraping DEC Equipment > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Message-ID: <C7A98127-DFF4-41B1-A6AF-5DFCA234D286 at lunar-tokyo.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > I need a tractor feed assembly for a LA100, are the ones on the 120 > compatible? ----- Reply: Apparently not, but I might have one for an LA100. mike

9 years, 10 months

Tektronix 4404 servcie manuals needed

by g-wright＠att.net

I would like to get a Tek 4404 computer going but lack any service manuals. The system turns on but has no curser on the screen. Has good power from the Power supply and heater is on in the CRT. Has a row of LEDs on the mother board. Does anyone know how to read these. - Thanks, Jerry

9 years, 10 months

Servant .953

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

On 7 May 2010, at 08:25, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > Message: 2 > Date: Thu, 06 May 2010 16:06:37 -0700 > From: Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> > Subject: Re: Servant .953 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Message-ID: <4BE34B7D.6060902 at bitsavers.org> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > On 5/6/10 2:23 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >>> Al Kossow wrote: >>>> I am interviewing Andy Hertzfeld tomorrow, and had hoped to talk about >>>> Servant, but I can't find a copy of it around anywhere tonight. > > A huge thank you to Nigel Williams who forwarded a working copy of .951 five > minutes before Bill and Andy arrived. We spent an hour talking about MacPaint > and Quickdraw (Apple has finally given CHM approval to make the sources available) > then another hour on Alice, Dali Clock, Servant, Hypercard, and Magic Cap. Could you please clarify, the QuickDraw source is available for what purpose? Could developers modify it any include it in heir commercial 64 bit Intel applications for instance? Is the source Pascal, Assembler, C or something else? Roger Holmes, Director of Microspot who has a Carbon application which compiles with over 10,000 warnings about deprecated QuickDraw calls.

9 years, 10 months

websites on the classiccmp server

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

9 years, 11 months

Any word on the Multics revival front?

by madcrow.maxwell＠gmail.com

When Multics was officially released as free software a couple of years ago, there was a flurry of activity aimed at getting some sort of emulator up and running to run it. Did anything ever come of that or did folks just lose interest (or find out that the needed GE/Honeywell hardware was too poorly-documented to write an emulator of) Mike

10 years

M9301-YB Bootstrap/Terminator ROM dumps / listings?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Johnny Billquist bqt at update.uu.se > The per-device code are in separate PROMs that are used in both the > 9301 and 9312. Those are the ones with the device code as constants in > the beginning of memory space for the PROM, by the way. As I mentioned, the M9301-YA, at least, does not have this code. (See the listing.) Also, again on the M9301-YA, the various bootstraps, diagnostics, and console, are scattered through both banks (ditto), so one can't just replace a PROM or two to chance the supported devices; one would have to replace the entire set of 4 PROMs. > I hope you also are aware that both the M9301 and the M9312 have > different boot roms for some machines. I know that the 11/70 use > different roms with other tests than other PDP-11s, and I seem to > remember that one or two others do as well. (The 11/60 keeps popping up > in my brain...) I have yet to investigate the M9312's in depth, but I did know there are quite a few different versions of the M9301 (which amount to different ROMs: I know there are two different etch revisions of the card itself, but I think they are programming-wise identical). I don't know of any good list of the variants, but here are the versions I know of (device codes abbreviated to save typing): M9301-YA /04 and /34 OEM version; has basic diagnostics, console emulator, boots from various devices (RK, RP, TC, TM, DL, PC, TA, RX), supports auto-boot on power on, and also power-fail restart M9301-YB /04 and /34 end user version; has basic diagnostics, console emulator, boots from various devices (RK, RP, TC, TM, TA, RX, DL, PC, RJS, RJP, TJU), also power-fail restart M9301-YC /70 version; contains basic CPU, cache and memory diagnostics, boots from various devices (TM, TC, RK, RP, RK06, RJS, RJP, TJU, RX) M9301-YD All models; contains code to allow a terminal attached to the machine to be a terminal on some other line; also has boot code for RX and DDCMP M9301-YE All models; has basic diagnostics, console emulator; boots from low speed paper tape or DECnet; supports auto-boot on power on, and also power-fail restart M9301-YF All models (auto-start not available on /45, /50); has basic diagnostics, console emulator, boots from various devices (RK, RK06, RP, TC, TM, TA, RX, DL, PC, RJS, RJP, TJU) supports auto-boot on power on, and also power-fail restart M9301-YH /60 and /70 version; contains basic CPU, cache and memory diagnostics, boots from various devices (TM, TC, RK, RP, RK06, RJS, RJP, TJU, RX, PC) M9301-YH All models; has basic diagnostics, console emulator; boots from DECnet, and various devices (RX, TU, DL, DMC), also power-fail restart The -YA is the only one I have examined in detail. Noel

10 years, 3 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

10 years, 3 months

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

10 years, 4 months

Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS

by bqt＠softjar.se

Well, it's been a long time project, but I'm happy to finally announce a more public initial release of TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS. This is the result of over 20 years of development. Needless to say, I've been doing a lot of things over the years, and this code have been through four reimplementations over the years. What I now release is something that I believe is a nice and useful piece of software. I am aware of the fact that most people do not use these machines any longer, but if someone actually wants to talk to me about support for this or other RSX software, let me know. Also, feel free to spread this information to anyone who might be interested, anywhere. So - what is in this release? It is a complete implementation of ARP, IP, UDP, and TCP for RSX-11M-PLUS. It has been tested on RSX-11M-PLUS V4.6, but should work on any V4 release. There might be some small tweaks or fixes required, but nothing major. It do require a system with split I/D-space, or else at least the TCP part will not fit. For Unibus machines, it should be possible to run without any additional software except what is in a base RSX distribution. For Q-bus machines, DECnet is required for ethernet networking. The TCP/IP stack can co-exist with DECnet. Some utilities also utilize RMS for file access. A bunch of tools, utilities and libraries are also included. These include: . IFCONFIG network configuration tool. . NETSTAT network information tool. . PING . TRACEROUTE . DNS client . FTP daemon . FTP client . HTTP server . TELNET client (rudimentary) . TFTP client . TFTP server . INET server that can do SINK, ECHO, DAYTIME, QUOTE, and IDENT . NTP client . LPR client that sits in the queue manager (rudimentary) . FORTRAN-77 library . BASIC+2 library . PDP-11 C library The implementation fulfills most of the requirements put forth in RFC 1122. There are a few limitations because of restrictions in the PDP-11, but none of them should really cause any problems. Documentation is still on the thin side, but example configs are also provided, along with installation scripts. A bunch of test programs and example programs are also included, as well as the sources of all tools and libraries. The TCP/IP stack itself only comes in binary form. All tools are also included precompiled in the distribution, so an installation only have to build the stack itself for your system, and then you should be ready to go. The API only have a slight resemblance to the Unix sockets API. However, if someone sits down to write code to use TCP/IP under RSX, I'm sure they will discover that it is extremely easy to use the libraries, or the basic functions. The TCP/IP implementation is mostly written as device drivers. This also have some other interesting implications, such as it is possible to access TCP as a normal file. You can, for instance do something similar to the Unix netcat command by issuing the MCR command: > PIP TI:=TC:"foo.com";4711 which would open a connection to foo.com, on port 4711, and any data sent from that machine will be shown on the terminal. The resources used by TCP/IP are modest. A memory area (size selectable at generation/startup) is used internally. The amount of memory in the private pool limits the amount of data that can be buffered. Normal pool is used in a small quantity for each TCP port that is open. People are welcome to play around with this, and make improvements. Contributions of code is most welcome. There are still lots of things to do. The programs marked as rudimentary should be rewritten. The most obvious thing still missing is a telnet daemon, which probably is my next step. However, the reason for now announcing the release is that it can finally be distributed natively from an RSX host. The main locations to download the TCP/IP for RSX are: Madame.Update.UU.SE (anonymous ftp). This is one of my development systems for this software. It runs under E11, and if things are down, I blame E11. :-) When connected, you are already in the right directory. There is both an RL02 disk image there, which can be downloaded by anyone. If you happen to have an RSX system which you are conneting from, you can also try getting the BQTCP.TAP tape image. Such an image will not transport cleanly to a non-RSX system, however. Sorry. ftp.Update.UU.SE (anonymous ftp) - /pub/pdp11/rsx/tcpip The disk image is normally duplicated to ftp.update.uu.se as well, so the same file can be found there. I hope some people will find this useful/amusing. :-) Johnny Billquist -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

10 years, 5 months

Opening a DECserver 90M External PSU

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

One of my DECserver 90M PSUs got dropped and stopped working as a result, possibly because it got pulled by the cable. That sounds like the kind of damage that might be repairable. I tried to open the enclosure and I found a hole under one of the labels, expecting it to be a screw hole, but it isn't. I am guessing you just have to pry the halves apart, but without knowing where the clips are inside it is easy just to break the thing. Does anyone know how you open these PSUs? Thanks Rob PS Yes I know these PSUs are notoriously unreliable, and that you can make a PSU with a DIN plug and a wall wart, but I would still like the original to work if possible.

10 years, 5 months

Aresco Newsletters

by mikolaym＠yahoo.com

Hi all, Out of curiosity, did anybody on here subscribe to any of the newsletters published by a company called Aresco back in the late 70s and early 80s? These newsletters were VIPER (Cosmac VIP), Paper (Commodore PET), Source (Exidy Sorcerer), and Rainbow (Apple II). Aresco also published a series of books by Tom Swan titled PIPs for VIPs. I own several issues of VIPER, but I'm still looking for copies of the others. Does anybody have these newsletters in their collection? Matt

10 years, 6 months

Still seeking 3B2 information

by lists＠loomcom.com

Hi everyone, I've made tremendous progress on my 3B2 emulator. It's being implemented under the SIMH simulator platform, which has been a huge help. My WE32100 core is getting closer to being complete. I'd consider it alpha quality right now, but it has enough instruction coverage to pass the 3B2's power-on self tests and to (barely) run some of the 3B2 firmware mode tools. Implementing the WE32100 core has been thanks to the processor manual and assembly language manuals that are available on BitSavers, but outside of the CPU, virtually all of my understanding of the 3B2's architecture has come from studying the ROMs and the SYSVR3 source code. I've also been helped by having remote access to a running 3B2 so I can assemble and disassemble code using the real AT&T tools. Beyond that, I have found precious little documentation. I'm at the point now where I'm pretty well stuck until I can find more information. I understand large chunks of the memory map now and should be able to do things like simulate the floppy and hard disk controller, but there are large gaps in my understanding. There are many undocumented registers that are used by the firmware, but don't appear in the SYSV source code anywhere. What they mean and what they're for is anybody's guess. I've just stubbed them out for now. If anybody has access to schematics, architecture docs, or other memory map information, I'd be eternally grateful if you could share it! -Seth

10 years, 6 months

New BBS in Maryland

by mokuba＠gmail.com

+1-410-734-6804 New hobby thing. ;) Wildcat! 4 running on it, stock out of box config. If you don't see all the menus except for help and send to sysop, wait till I validate users. When I get back home i'll set it to give non-validated users more permissions, though. -- Gary G. Sparkes Jr. KB3HAG

10 years, 6 months

TSX Plus...

by lbickley＠bickleywest.com

After stating that I expected TSX Plus to be available generally to the collector community this week, I have had a number of folks request access to TSX plus via private FTP. Please be a bit patient and wait for me to post it to a new website I'm in the process of creating. I now have full agreement from S&H to generally release TSX Plus, COBOL, etc., to the collector community via a simple download. BTW: I have converted all of the original documentation, which was in HP print file format to PDFs for easier and more general use. Over time I will likely be able to release some of the utilities, etc. that S&H used internally with TSX plus. Some time ago S&H gave me all of their RL02 packs and a SMD drive with everything they had related to the PDP-11 version of TSX. (They have a current version of TSX for X86 systems which is NOT free and is NOT part of this release). Over time, there may be a project to scan the source listings and recreate TSX Plus source code. (The source listings are available on bitsavers.org (pdf/dec/pdp11/tsxPlus/listings/). Unfortunately, we are missing the MACRO definitions in the source listings. Some of us are working on that issue. (Note: All of the original PDP-11 source code was accidentally lost by S&H). I will also make available any software that other folks submit to me related to TSX on my website. Regards. Lyle -- Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

10 years, 7 months

docs or software for Quay 900 (uses Quay 90F/MPS board)

by spacewar＠gmail.com

Does anyone happen to have documentation, schematics, or software for the Quay 900? It's a system based on the Quay 90F/MPS single-board Z80 computer and two MPI double-sided 8-inch floppy drives. The drives are MPI part no. 77618022, apparently a 9406 variant but not listed in the drive manual on Bitsavers. I suspect the pinout is close to the SA800/850 pinout (industry standard), but I was surprised to find that none of the variants in the 9406 manual have a pinout similar to that.

10 years, 7 months

Qbus split I&D?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Johnny Billquist > All I can say is that I did a number of RSX SYSGENs on that 11/34, and > it truly looked just like an 11/24 from a software point of view. The thing that I wonder about it, for that to be true, is something that someone (sorry, to lazy to look in the archive to give proper credit) pointed out, which is that that CPU is only two boards, and the memory management, including the PARs, is built into one of them. So how could one extend a PAR >from 12 bits to 16, when there's already 12 bits buried deep inside the CPU? That's the part that I can't work out... > I'm hoping that Update ... still have the documentation around. You and me both! :-) I have this dream of one day having an 11/45, with the Enable and the optional cache. Now that would be a sweeet machine: most of the capability of an 11/70, but a lot less power draw. But I'd need the documentation to see how to connect it up! :-) > Every time this comes up I really want to go searching for manuals... > :-) Please do! :-) Noel

10 years, 7 months

Qbus split I&D?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Johnny Billquist > One more thing to check this summer... OK, if you can, that would really be great; if either i) it's still together, or ii) there are pictures, it would fill some of the key knowledge gaps. In particular, i) what kind of backplane is it plugged into, and ii) what is the UNIBUS edge connector on the card connected to... Noel

10 years, 7 months

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test-drb May 2015