test-drb May 2015

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

199 participants
259 discussions

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

we have one of the NeXT cube looking computer, a monitor and a NeXT laser printer. looking for an archive stash of advertising lit. and graphics we can use to build a display around this hardware. Suggestions? Thanks Ed Sharpe _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org) In a message dated 5/29/2015 8:23:20 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, aperry at snowmoose.com writes: I am running OPENSTEP on an Axil 320 (SPARCstation 20 clone) with 416M of memory and a 60MHz SuperSPARC processor (sadly OPENSTEP (at least the version that I have) only supports one of the two processors in the system). The system runs OPENSTEP very well. alan On 5/28/15 8:20 AM, Sean Caron wrote: > It was always my experience ... I think NeXTstep had a reputation of being > a little balky on the proprietary NeXT hardware. I am fortunate to have a > decent swath of their product line ... an original '030 Cube, a Color slab > and a Turbo Color slab and even on the Turbo slab with 32 megs RAM and a > 7200 RPM drive, NS 3.3 gets laggy. > > Slow as it is, the entire package has certainly got some class and it's > something to revel at, of course. > > Can you even run Openstep on the NeXT proprietary hardware? The performance > must be awful... I halfway thought NS 3.3 was the last revision they would > run ... 3.3 should be pretty common in the wild because NeXT was giving it > away for free with a valid NeXT serial number about 15 years ago as a Y2K > mitigation strategy :O I run 3.3 on all my NeXTs, even the '030 Cube. > > If you really want to see NeXTstep 3.3 fly, people say it's great on the HP > 9000/712 :O > > Best, > > Sean > > > On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 1:54 AM, Brian Archer <archer174 at gmail.com> wrote: > >> I think you'll find the best upgrade for it besides the RAM is a faster >> hard drive. Also I wouldn't go higher than nextstep 3.3. Blackhole ( >> http://www.blackholeinc.com) is your best bet for the stand. If this is >> the >> one from eBay, would you mind sharing more details/pics of that next logo >> motherboard box? I've never seen one before. >> >> Thanks, >> Brian Archer >> >> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 12:42 AM, Steven Stengel <tosteve at yahoo.com> >> wrote: >> >>> Just acquired a NeXT 68040 cube computer. It's way cool, but the >>> responsiveness is unimpressive - I'd call it pokey. >>> >>> All 16 RAM slots are full for 16MB, but sixteen 4MB RAM sticks may help >>> the speed. >>> >>> It has an internal HD, as well as the magneto-optical drive. >>> >>> One things it's missing is the monitor stand - does anyone have a spare >>> stand for a NeXT N4000A monochrome monitor? >>> >>> Thanks- >>> Steve. >>> >>> >>> >>> >

10 years, 10 months

OT: Looking for the Tek 465 of Logic Analysers

by seefriek＠gmail.com

Maybe only semi-OT. I'm working on a couple of classiccmp-ish projects (6303, 6309 and 68030) and I find the trusty old Tek 465 o-scope is no longer compensating for my lack of design skill (or I'm getting better at hiding bugs in my designs, depending how you look at it). I'm looking for a recommendation for a logic analyzer. Considering my very modest design constraints, I'm thinking: - Suitable for 50MHz designs (really more like <16MHz, but you never know) - 32 channels would be nice, ~128 probably perfect, less...you know...do what you gotta do... - No weird technologies in the design (all TTL/CMOS logic) - I'm willing to spend a few $$ to get decent kit, but need to spend closer to 465 money than TLA7012 money - Decent analytics, hopefully more than "here's your traces...good luck" - Ease of finding complete kit; nothing worse than dropping a dime on what looks like a good deal only to find you're missing the unobtanium cable, or the software disk that the vendor will be more than happy to provide you only under a cripplingly expensive support contract. A brief cruse of ePay didn't turn up much Tek/HP/Agilent older-generation kit that looked like it fit the budget, but I'm not entirely sure I know what I'm looking at. I know there's a general allergy to anything USB around here, and worse Windows-based USB software, but there is tons of USB-based stuff that looked like a possibility for those who are willing to hold their nose. So have the USB logic analyzers achieved Willem levels of usefulness (which one?), or is there a must-have Tek 465 moral equivalent I need to be looking for? KJ

10 years, 10 months

Looking for the Tek 465 of Logic Analysers

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Jon Elson > On 05/28/2015 09:53 PM, Ken Seefried wrote: >> Ease of finding complete kit; nothing worse than dropping a dime on >> what looks like a good deal only to find you're missing the unobtanium >> cable > The Tek 1240 should work. I can second that. I recently bought a flock of them (for spares/parts for the first one I bought), because they were so cheap on eBay - several I got for $25 + shipping. Most of the ones I bought came without probes, etc, but I managed to round up a very complete set of stuff without spending too much money. Tek documentation is incredibly thorough, and easy to obtain; and they are very easy to work on (in terms of accessability, etc). Etc, etc, etc. The speeds/etc you are looking for are within their range. When filled with 4 16-channel data acquisition cards, you get 64 channels. They seem to have quite powerful triggering/etc capabilities, and they are easy to use/control. The only possible issue (for some people) is that the memories aren't large (although you can chain identical DACs together to get slightly longer memories). And I'll echo Tony's comments - ECL is pretty much de rigeur, and as for making your own probes, fuhgeddaboutit; the 1240's probe pods (there are two kinds, TTL-only, and 'pick a voltage') contain giant custom chips. Noel

10 years, 10 months

PDP-12 Restoration at the RICM

by michael.99.thompson＠gmail.com

The RICM is restoring a PDP-12. This system was manufactured in December of 1972, so it is very late in the life of the PDP-12. The Priority Interrupt and the Data Multiplexer are hardwired in two extra columns in the processor chassis. These options were in separate chassis in earlier models. It came with an Omnibus expansion chassis that connects to the Posibus from the PDP-12. The LP01, RK05, and PC04 controllers are in the Omnibus chassis. The VR14 and TU56 controllers are in the processor chassis. We got the LP01 too. The donor did a great job of preserving the machine, and has all of the original documentation and software. The processor and RK8-F prints are newer than what I can find on the Web, so I will scan them and send the PDFs to Bitsavers. Yesterday we reformed the caps in the power supply and powered it on for the first time in 24 years. It is going to need some debugging, but it does show some signs of life. The CRT in the VR14 -- Michael Thompson

10 years, 10 months

Sorry if I haven't back to you...

by shadoooo＠gmail.com

Hello Paul, good luck for your surgery! I hope there's nothing too bad. As for the "business", I sent you more emails in the last months, unfortunately no answer at all... maybe I went direct to spam? :( Anyway, when you are back good, please let me know something. Thanks Andrea

10 years, 10 months

Old HP test equipment power connectors...

by jules.richardson99＠gmail.com

... the style of AC power connector having three 1/8" diameter pins in parallel on 5/16" spacing, with the center pin offset by 1/16" from the outer two, and the rubber molding around the pins having rounded ends. Is there an official/common name for such a connector so that I can try and lay my hands on some more power cables? Fluke used it too (and Moseley, but I believe they were just HP by another name anyway). I've also seen the same pin size/layout on desktop calculators, albeit with more squarish ends to the rubber molding (in fact the single cable in my possession is a calculator one, which I modified to fit the rounded-end profile) (while I'm at it, is there a classiccmp-type list equivalent for old test gear?) cheers Jules

10 years, 10 months

Testing floppy drives

by alexandre.tabajara＠gmail.com

Howdy guys, greetings (as always) from Brazil! :o) I'm in a repairing spree! Got 5 (!) CP-500 (Brazilian TRS-80/III clone) to repair. All of them with single/double sided floppy drives, and the whole nine yards. Since it is not pratical to test all these drives on CP500, is there a good software solution I can use on a PC for floppy drive testing? Something that makes repairing easier? Long time I don't get so many drives to repair/refurbish/align Thanks Alexandre --- Enviado do meu Apple IIGS (pq eu sou chique) Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br Meu blog: http://tabajara-labs.blogspot.com

10 years, 10 months

Storage Replicator/Volume Replicator Software

by lbickley＠bickleywest.com

Hi All, I'm looking for an old (before 3/2000) copy of Veritas* Systems "Storage Replicator" for Windows or "Volume Replicator" for Solaris. This is for business purposes - so there's a "bounty" available :) Cheers, Lyle * Later sold to Symantec -- Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

10 years, 10 months

more old stuff decmates

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

Cindy ( or other folk)of you run across another decmate let me know any mores of them special preference to the one in the vt52 case! Ed Sharpe archivist for SMECC _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org) In a message dated 5/27/2015 11:32:15 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, sales at elecplus.com writes:

10 years, 10 months

S-100 hardware tech in Phila Area for temp assignment

by billdeg＠buzz1.com

I have some S-100 hardware that I need to work through for retail sale, more than I can do myself given my current schedule. If you're located in the Philadelphia/Baltimore area AND available to work on-site (Landenberg, PA) for a full day or two, contact me off list for details. People with prior experience in electronics, in particular S-100 hardware, preferred. Please advise your availability and any other concerns/questions. Vintagecomputer.net/contact.cfm Bill

10 years, 10 months

The small HP stuff

by sales＠elecplus.com

9121 9123 9114 98700 98710 I can tell you the first 3 all used to work, but I do not have keyboards and monitors here to test now. I know nothing about the last 2, except they say MAD BUS on the back. Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com AOL IM elcpls

10 years, 10 months

more old stuff

by sales＠elecplus.com

DEC Mate II with butterfly floppies A set of 8" floppy drives for a Display Writer A KayPro II and a KayPro II 2 DEC power supplies for mainframes? PN 874-D Several 80386? Compaq luggables Some small OLD HP boxes, will list PN if anyone is interested. I will prob be next week before I can ship these. Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com AOL IM elcpls

10 years, 10 months

Old HP test equipment power connectors

by marc.verdiell＠gmail.com

Sorry use this link instead. I bought them, they are great and new indeed: http://www.ebay.com/itm/261713737185 >From: Kyle Owen <kylevowen at gmail.com> >Yes, there does appear to be a name for them: the 163 connector. >http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/powerConn/index.html >Big thanks to our own Brent Hilpert for the great reference! >Kyle

10 years, 10 months

Old HP test equipment power connectors...

by marc.verdiell＠gmail.com

I get mine from this vendor on eBay. Very reasonably priced and the one I got were indeed like new; http://www.ebay.com/itm/261713737185?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageNam e=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT - Marc >On 05/26/2015 09:27 PM, Kyle Owen wrote: >>Yes, there does appear to be a name for them: the 163 connector. >> >>http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/powerConn/index.html

10 years, 10 months

asking for pickup help

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

Are there any collectors around Larose, Louisiana that might be able to pick up something "relatively smallish" and ship? I'd be happy to compensate/trade. whatever you wish! Best, J

10 years, 10 months

Equip available - Flagstaff Eng. external 8" floppy, Xerox 820-II (Wichita, Ks)

by microfilm＠microfilm.kscoxmail.com

A few weeks ago, I posted a list of equipment for sale, and on that list was an external 8" floppy drive built (or at least, sold) by Flagstaff Engineering. I've finally found the interface card, so now the whole shebang is available. Card, cable, and drive. Also, I have two Xerox 820-II CP/M computers, with keyboards. I have one dual external 8" floppy for the 820-II's (not on per). I can ship the Flagstaff drive, but I'm not sure how to go about shipping the 820's. They are available in Wichita, Ks. --Shaun Microfilm Services, Inc. 316-269-2203

10 years, 10 months

Sorry if I haven't back to you...

by useddec＠gmail.com

There are several members I was supposed to check on item and I have dropped the ball on a few. I rely greatly on high school students to do a lot of things I can't do myself anymore, and they have had proms and plays the last few weeks and finals this week. I am going in for another surgery next week and will be able to check email late in the week. I'll be pretty much out of commission for the summer, but they'll be able to take care of most shipping. So, if I dropped the ball on anything, please BUG ME ! I'll reply to emails ASAP, but please, no phone calls next week.

10 years, 10 months

RDI PowerLite 110 and OpenStep - watchdog-reset

by ian.finder＠gmail.com

Hi folks, So I recently made a very poor trade for an RDI PowerLite 110 under the assumption that it could run NeXTstep or OpenStep, as allegedly RDI supplied the PowerLite with this OS in some configurations. The PowerLite is essentially an SS5 in a chunky, ugly laptop. When I boot the OpenStep and NeXTstep installers however, at the second stage loader I get a "watchdog-reset" message from OBP. Ultimately it's the same issue as discussed here: http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3153&sid=b8cb75adb72457… Any hope in getting this to run? Any ideas out there? Or am I stuck with a fat ugly wannabe SparcBook 3? (I have a few of the 3GX/3TX family which seem like far nicer machines, the only reason I wanted this RDI P.O.S. Is the weitek framebuffer in the SparcBooks isn't supported by OS/NS, but the CG6 in the RDI supposedly is. What a garbage machine RDI produced with this one... Thanks, - Ian

10 years, 10 months

Hawk Disk Drive

by bpettitx＠comcast.net

Jim wrote: From: jwsmobile <jws at jwsss.com> Subject: GE disk drives on ebay, one badged Datacraft GE-14-Hawk-Drive-23991-47d266933G3 http://www.ebay.com/itm/261895292646 One of these systems really appears to be a CDC drive, but the other one is badged Datacraft 5208, and doesn't look familiar. Any idea on what it is? Looks like something that would fit a collection of storage devices as a unique item, given that it is 14" removable. This page implies it is a CDC drive, but I've not seen one with the front this one has. http://www.mfarris.com/pack/datacraft.html thanks Jim --------------------------------------------------------------------- Couldn't view the item on eBay - got the message that it was removed. However the page you sent for Datacraft 4441 shows it to be a CDC Hawk drive. The 9425 was first made by NCR. It moved from California to Oklahoma when CPI and MPI were formed. The early version 9425 Cartridge Disk Drive was not a good product. It was re-engineered into the 9427H, code named Hawk. Both were 5MB fixed, 5MB removeable cartridge. Available as a rack mount or stand alone cabinet. There were 4 different types of plug in interfaces available. As near as I can remember, there were around 350 different configurations in production. Most were variations on the color(s) of the skins. But there were also options for sector count, power supplies, front name plate, terminators, cables, etc. Without the original configuration data, it is hard to look at a Hawk and tell what was in it and who was the OEM customer. Customer base was like a who's who of 1970s - minicomputers to early microcomputers. There were even a few S-100 controllers for it There was a 2 disk fixed only version called the Falcon. Really brings back the memories. Billy

10 years, 10 months

Tadpole UNIX: TP-IX

by plamenspam＠afterpeople.com

Hello, Does anyone has TP-IX/68k or TP-IX/88k tapes or preinstalled disk? I have a bunch of 68k based TP32, found the documentation and original EPROM. And another board TP-880 which can run even more exotic release TP-IX/88k. Thanks, Plamen

10 years, 10 months

Convergent board is claimed

by sales＠elecplus.com

Thanks for the fast responses J I will let the list know if more interesting stuff pops up. Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-792-3400 phone sales at elecplus.com AOL IM elcpls

10 years, 10 months

IBM 5110 Emulator in JavaScript

by norbert_kehrer＠yahoo.de

I ported Christian Corti's great IBM 5110 emulator to JavaScript, so you can work with an emulated IBM 5110 directly in your (HTML5-capable) web browser. There are still some bugs in it, disk and tape support are still missing, and I could not test it with a non-German keyboard layout. I nonetheless wanted to share the WIP version to give you a first impression. You can try it out and write some small BASIC or APL programs at http://members.aon.at/nkehrer Greetings Norbert

10 years, 10 months

Convergent Mighty 2 CPU board

by sales＠elecplus.com

PN 60-00694, date code 8908. Does this interest anyone? About 16 inches by 22 inches, looks to be in good shape. Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-792-3400 phone sales at elecplus.com AOL IM elcpls

10 years, 10 months

Framebuffer driver for RDI BriteLite IPX?

by michael.99.thompson＠gmail.com

> > Date: Sun, 24 May 2015 19:16:53 -0700 > From: Josh Dersch <derschjo at gmail.com> > Subject: Framebuffer driver for RDI BriteLite IPX? > > Hi all -- > > Sent this query to the Rescue list last week, no bites. Any Sun > fanatics here have any ideas? (Linux/OpenBSD appear to support it, but > I'd rather keep the OS vintage-appropriate. For some reason...) > > Got myself an RDI BriteLite IPX; a "laptop" (a generous description) > based around a stock SPARCStation IPX motherboard with a very large > laptop-style enclosure around it, a 640x480 active-matrix LCD (very > pretty) and a gigantic lead-acid battery. It has a handle, so it's > portable! > > Anyway -- I have it up and running and I have SunOS 4.1.4 installed on a > fresh hard disk (the original drive was long gone when I got it). > Unfortunately, the LCD framebuffer is unrecognized by SunOS; it > identifies itself as cgRDI and it's a custom SBUS board that drives the > 640x480 LCD. > > From what I've been able to dig up this driver was packaged as "RDIlcd" > by RDI but I can't find it, of course. Anyone happen to have this > archived somewhere? Any other ideas? > > Thanks, > Josh > I have IPC, IPX, and LX based BriteLites. I believe that I have the SunOS driver files, I just need to find them.

10 years, 10 months

GE disk drives on ebay, one badged Datacraft

by jws＠jwsss.com

GE-14-Hawk-Drive-23991-47d266933G3 http://www.ebay.com/itm/261895292646 One of these systems really appears to be a CDC drive, but the other one is badged Datacraft 5208, and doesn't look familiar. Any idea on what it is? Looks like something that would fit a collection of storage devices as a unique item, given that it is 14" removable. This page implies it is a CDC drive, but I've not seen one with the front this one has. http://www.mfarris.com/pack/datacraft.html thanks Jim

10 years, 10 months

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test-drb May 2015