test-drb July 2015

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

176 participants
257 discussions

Fwd: How to disassemble the DEC PC05 puncher unit?

by j_hoppe＠t-online.de

Hi, I have an broken DEC PC05 puncher unit here. It seems the shaft which transfers motor power to the excenter mechanism is broken in the inside. So i need to dissassemble the whole unit, but have no idea where to start. I've read somewhere the mechanical puncher unit is not made by DEC but by some other company. Is there any known documentation about the DEC PC05 puncher ? Thanks, J?rg

9 years, 5 months

using new technology on old machines. Was: PDP-12 Restoration at the RICM

by kspt.tor＠gmail.com

On 15 June 2015 at 22:55, Mark J. Blair <nf6x at nf6x.net> wrote: > >> On Jun 15, 2015, at 13:46 , Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at Update.UU.SE> wrote: >> >> On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 04:55:57PM +0000, tony duell wrote: >>> >>> Unfortunately I believe you. Use at least a thousand times more components than >>> you need to. >> >> Actually it's just two, a Teensy and a usb cable. (Sorry, I couldn't >> resist). > > LOL! I must admit that I used to scorn those durned kids using Arduinos to do the job of a 555. But then I pulled my head out of my ass and realized that times change, nowadays a microcontroller is as cheap and common component as a 555 was[..] I think I'm reasonably well into the pragmatic camp (ref. Chuck G.'s post). But one point about 555s and Arduinos is that I couldn't build a 555 more easily than I could build the MCU on an Arduino board (a more relevant comparision might be a 555 vs a Propeller chip) - they're all black boxes to me. Even a transistor, to some extent - I know exactly how it works, well, as much as any other EE anyway, but I couldn't build one. Or a vacuum tube..

9 years, 5 months

FS: Telecom Gear- Switchboard, Phones, PBXes & More

by slandon110＠gmail.com

Clearing out the phone collection as well 1 Western Electric 551B PBX Switchboard. Fully Functional with a 24V Power Supply- Switch calls like a BOSS 1 Panasonic 616 PBX 1 Plexus by BBS Telecom PBX- Highly programmable with IVR About 100 vintage telephones, all kinds, 500 sets, trimlines, princesses, explosion proof, australian phones you name it its here. 3 totes of telecom cable, over 500ft of 25pair wire with 66 blocks 1000ft of aerial wire and outside network stuff. 1 Asterisk Server with TDM400p Card About 10 Analog Telephone adapters. You name it I have it. Make an offer on it

9 years, 5 months

FS: HP 9836C System- Make an offer on it

by slandon110＠gmail.com

I picked this up last year, sat in the closet ever since.. Its an HP 9836C, In perfect condition with Owners Manual, Some software, Long HP IB Cable and some sort of weird network interface. The disk drives need lubed to work. Make an offer on it Its a heavy beast, Id prefer not to ship it, but I can if need be.. I live near Mount Pleasant Michigan, but could meet anywhere in Michigan for the cost of gas. Id like to see this go to someone who would appreciate it and use it. Thanks Steve

9 years, 5 months

IBM 5120

by ggs＠shiresoft.com

I had acquired an IBM 5120 a few months ago but I didn?t have time to really check it out. It?s a fairly pristine example (32KB) with dual 8? floppies. It also came with a few manuals including the Maintenance Information Manual as well as the Computing System Logic Manual (still shrink wrapped). It also has a serial I/O diskette and a diagnostic diskette. It also came with a printer but I have not yet unboxed that yet. When I originally unboxed the 5120 I was a bit disappointed in that the shipper didn?t pack it as well as I would have liked (styrofoam peanuts) but there was other packing material so it wasn?t a complete disaster. Since it was a working unit prior to shipment, after an initial inspection, I powered it up only to have nothing happen. :-( I proceeded to take the covers off and noticed that the fuse for the display had blown. It was likely vibration related since I didn?t see nor smell any burnt components. Replacing the fuse, I saw that the cathode filament was lit but still nothing on the display. :-( After removing the logic chassis and removing all of the foam ?gunk?, I noticed that a couple of the boards as well as the connectors for two of the boards were loose. After reseating everything, success! I haven?t yet done a complete checkout yet, but I did enter a small BASIC program and it ran successfully. Now I have to find some IBM formatted 2D diskettes for this so that I can save what ever programs I enter. ;-) TTFN - Guy

9 years, 5 months

PDP 11 - how to lock heads in a rx01 and rx02 - seeking advice

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: tony duell > I find [RL0x's] easier than RK05s Try taking out an RA81! (Somewhere I have pictures of the rig I built to take a couple of RA81's out of some racks I was sent. I should post them...) Noel

9 years, 5 months

Altos ACS 8000-15A

by fozztexx＠fozztexx.com

Last week while bored and browsing eBay looking at things that are ending soon something I had never heard of caught my eye: an Altos ACS 8000-15A. I looked at the pictures and googled the brand and model and it didn?t seem to be a very common computer and there were no bids on the item so I put in a fairly low bid. I ended up winning! :-) The seller asked if it would be ok to bring the item to me the next time he was in my area. I figured that was fine since I was concerned that since it has a large 8? hard drive in it that it would be more likely to be damaged in shipping. I actually didn?t even need to wait very long! Friday he set out to drive across 2 states and dropped off the computer at my front door on Saturday morning. Talk about excellent service! I buy lots of untested items on eBay and usually they work just fine. But luck hasn?t held for me this time and so far the Altos doesn?t work. I can hear the drives spin up and all the voltages from the DC power supply are perfect. But nothing spits out on the Console 1 RS232 port. From what I understand the serial ports are wired DTE (which seems odd since you use it with terminals) and so I?m using a null modem adapter. Although with the null modem or without I get nothing. Anyways, I posted an album with lots of pictures here: http://imgur.com/a/9X8Gh Yay another project for me to fix! :-) -- Follow me on twitter: @FozzTexx Check out my blog: http://insentricity.com

9 years, 5 months

PDP-12 at the RICM

by michael.99.thompson＠gmail.com

J. Victor Nahigian donated some M221 and M222 boards for the processor and TC12 LINCtape controller. They are in pretty bad condition, but are repairable. Warren wrote a test program for the M222 boards, and some of the just donated boards actually work OK. It will be nice to have some spares. Dan (the donor) brought over the now lubricated top of cabinet fan. He had to make some special tools to disassembled it but was able to lubricate the dry bearings. We will reinstall it next week. He also dropped off the system logbook and more diagnostic manuals. More scanning for Bitsavers! It is really interesting to see the service history of this system since it was new. The LICM scanned some of the missing MAINDEC documentation so we were able to run: MAINDEC-12-D1AC-D Extended Memory Control (EXTMC12) MAINDEC-12-D8CC-D_KW12A_Clock_Test Fails test #11 where the AC should be 0000 and is 7777 on the CLRB instruction. MAINDEC-12-D8CA-D-(D) KW12 Real Time Clock Diagnostic (KW12TST) shows the same failure mode as D8CC. MAINDEC-12-D6BA VR12 Display Test Runs, but we have no display connected. We connected the 'scope to the outputs of the VC12 display controller when MAINDEC-12-D6BA was running. Without a way to interpret the intensify signal, and no persistence in the phosphor, the resulting image was not too good. At least we know that the display controller is responding to commands and outputs signals that look reasonable. We reran MAINDEC-12-D3AD-D-D Tape Control Test Part 1 of 2. It still fails at 3400 with the error message "LGP GP=GPC PRESET" printed. We reran MAINDEC-12-D3GA-D-D Tape Control Test part 2 of 2. That runs fine. I bought the matching terminator for my current probe and was able to give it a try today. The normal setting for PDP-12, PDP-8/I, and PDP-8/L core is 320mA. When we debugged the core we set the voltage regulator to the middle of the high and low voltage settings that caused periodic errors. The low going part is the read current and the high going is the rewrite current. The result turned out to be 316mV for the read. Not too bad! -- Michael Thompson

9 years, 5 months

80s magazines at Huntington Beach, CA estate sale

by brendan＠bslabs.net

I bought the two old Macs there this morning, but there's *years* of 80s magazines still there: BYTE, nibbles, MacUser, Softalk, Creative Computing, Personal Computing, Call-A.P.P.L.E, a few Macworld and PC Magazine issues, probably some others I'm forgetting. Only one more day for the sale, they'll probably let you haul them away for (close to) nothing on Saturday. Also there's a Toshiba T1000 and Apple II+ probably still there. http://www.estatesales.net/CA/Huntington-Beach/92646/931308 Brendan

9 years, 5 months

A 'good-enough' H960 |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| PDP11 masthead replica

by steven＠malikoff.com

Following the recent discussion here on the 'DEC logo' topic, I've been mucking about with my own efforts to produce a replica PDP11 masthead panel for the DEC H960 rack. The idea is basically to make an SVG for a vinyl stencil which looks 'good enough' until I can find an orignal one. I've drawn CAD (vectors and arcs only - no splines) over images I've found on the web, from scratch, without relying on the Batchelder examples. So far the output is virtually complete but I need some help from the list, if possible - I would like the dimensions of the width and height. I know it's larger than a DEC filler panel. With thise I can adjust the drawing to the final size and continue on the project. As I need to mix a blurb with example images I've placed it under a blog entry on the VCF board at http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/entry.php?544-A-good-enough-replica… Please take a look, and thanks for any help or comments, Steve.

9 years, 5 months

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test-drb July 2015