test-drb August 2015

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

206 participants
257 discussions

by kylevowen＠gmail.com

I hope to start backing up my MicroVAX 3800 soon via the TK70. Sounds like 8mm is more unreliable than the TK70, and I don't have but one magneto-optical disk. Are there any precautions I need to take before sticking a tape in the drive? Pinch rollers that might be gooey? I assume the TK70 drive is backwards compatible with TK50 tapes? Lastly, I've got some tapes that I couldn't find much info on. Here are the labels: ER206200-00 REV G 1.03 P4000 DOWNLINE VMS SOFTWARE 09-29-89 (C) 1988 EMULEX ER2062014-00 REV A P4000 LAT-TCP/IP VER 2.00 05/14/90 TK50 (VMS LOAD) (C) 1990 EMULEX ER2062014-00 REV 01 P4000 LAT-TCP/IP VER 2.00B2 05/1/90 TK50 (VMS LOAD) (C) 1990 EMULEX ER2062014-00 REV 00 P4000 LAT-TCP/IP SOFTWARE 3-22-90 TK50 (VMS LOAD) (C) 1990 EMULEX Are any of those worth keeping? Any tips on getting those tapes online using my VAX? I know there are utilities for the PDP-8 and PDP-11 world, but being thrown into VAX and VMS so quickly, it may take me a bit to catch up. Any recommendations on reading material? I also have a tape for VAX Occam 2 from INMOS. I know what that is, as I have a 64-node Transputer array. It'd be nice to get that going at some point for fun. Thanks, Kyle

8 years, 7 months

De-yellowing results

by evan＠snarc.net

Brought my Apple //e Platinum to a MARCH workshop last weekend. We used a bottle of a "B-Blond" which I think is a woman's hair product from England. We painted it onto the computer case, wrapped the case in Saran Wrap, and left it outside in the sunlight for a few hours. The results were dramatic. Here's a reminder of the "before" showing the top cover. You can see the original platinum color at the bottom where it tucks into the main case. I don't have a "before" shot of the main case, but it was as badly yellowed as the top cover:http://snarc.net/yellowing.jpg. Here are some "after" shots. 1. Back at home. Notice color difference vs. the disk drives and system saver --http://snarc.net/desk.jpg. 2. Up-close. See the streaking and slight blotches? I believe that's from where the sunlight was blocked by trees (as the sun moved vs. the horizon that afternoon) and also from where the Saran Wrap bunched up in a few places --http://snarc.net/streaks.jpg. 3. De-yellowed case on the right. Case on the left is from another Platinum in the MARCH collection. I did a quick-and-dirty de-yellowing of the left half of that one, just to show another before/after shot. Prior to experimenting on it, this is the one that Ian Primus and others used for pranking me by swapping it with mine, overnight while I slept! :) -- http://snarc.net/both.jpg. So my computer isn't perfect and never will be, but overall it was a successful experiment.

8 years, 7 months

Sales of unearthed Atari games total more than $100,000

by lbickley＠bickleywest.com

I was surprised to see the average cart price to be over $120! http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/08/29/sales-unearthed-atari-games-total-more… Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

8 years, 7 months

APL\360

by Paul_Koning＠Dell.com

Probably old news to some, but I just ran into this 3 year old article. Gotta dust off your Hercules: http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/the-apl-programming-language-source-co… And also http://wotho.ethz.ch/mvt4apl-2.00/ paul

8 years, 7 months

Future Computers FX31

by jules.richardson99＠gmail.com

Anyone know anything about this system? Someone on a vintage computer group on Facebook has one (missing its keyboard[1]), and having seen some photos, although it seems to be mostly a generic PC-compatible with 8-bit ISA, it's notable for having a "video in" connector on the back, as well as LAN in/out ports (proprietary? presumably some kind of ring network though) Surprisingly, Google's coughing up nothing of any use. I'm guessing someone tried making a PC-compatible with a few built-in extras as a selling point (not that uncommon back then), and of course it didn't work out. [1] Although the keyboard socket is something oddball, I see four wires leading back to the motherboard and an 8042 near to where the keyboard connects, so there's a possibility that it can be wired to a standard AT (or possibly XT) keyboard - although of course maybe the scan codes or even the protocol are completely different, and the owner has themselves a nice boat anchor... cheers Jules

8 years, 7 months

PDP-12 Restoration at the RICM

by michael.99.thompson＠gmail.com

The team at the LCM sent is a listing of their Kaleidoscope program. We toggled it in and it runs great! You fiddle with the bottom two analog input knobs to find settings that will make patterns. You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/_KZG_kE-K-0 Two more days of debugging on the PDP-12 LINCtape controller didn't accomplish much. We now a lot more about what is not broken, but haven't found the intermittent problem with reading tapes. We reran the Tape Quickie and TAPE CONTROL TEST, PART 1 and 2 to make sure that the controller was still OK. We tried reformatting LINCtapes on the right drive in the TU56. It sometimes worked OK, sometimes not. It doesn't seem to matter what tape we use, the intermittent behavior is the same. A LINCtape that formatted OK worked fine on the Tape Data diagnostic for quite a while and then halted, so the TC12 and the TU56 are mostly working. We noticed that if we were searching for a tape block on the right drive with the left drive OFF, it usually worked OK. With the left drive in LOCAL or REMOTE the right drive had trouble finding blocks. The only change between OFF and LOCAL & REMOTE is that the power to the motors is enabled. The motor power supply voltages looked OK in OFF and LOCAL & REMOTE. We swapped lots of TU56 boards between the left and right drives and a spare TU56, but didn't find a problem yet. Since we replaced the tape head on the right drive we speculated that we introduced a tape head skew problem that was causing problems when reading tapes created on other drives. The left drive was untouched, so we thought that one might work better. The left motor for the left drive in the TU56 was sticking so much that it would not turn under its own power. We suspected bad bearings, so that should be an easy mechanical fix. When we removed the motors we found that the motor shafts turned freely. We found that there is a pair of bushings and spring on the motor shaft that take up the play and make the tape alignment more accurate. The lubricant on bushings and shaft had dried out and was sticky, making it difficult to rotate the shaft. Unfortunately after cleaning and reassembly we found that the left drive would barely read a tape. Maybe this is related to the previous problem? Warren saw evidence on the logic analyzer traces of the TC12 that might indicate a timing problem in the TC12 LINCtape controller. Next Friday we will check the TC12 and TU56 timing adjustments. -- Michael Thompson

8 years, 7 months

Saved DEC kit

by witchy＠binarydinosaurs.co.uk

Folks, Before the great company meltdown of Jan this year and as I discovered the great mailing list breakdown of not long after I saved some DEC kit for list members to collect, namely: Alpha 800 (rackmount) uVAX 2000 VAX 4000VLC These are still in my hallway in Cambs UK so if either the people who called for them or failing that anyone else would like to collect that'd be great. I have proper scales for shipping weight but they need to be calibrated and I'm struggling to find anything that weighs exactly 25kg :) (I know the Alpha800 is '24-28kg', scales are pretty correct there, as they are with my DS25, but they get a DS10 horribly wrong so...) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection?

8 years, 7 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"

8 years, 7 months

Xerox 6085 / daybreak microcode boot issues

by ian.finder＠gmail.com

So I picked up a 6085- When I try and boot it, it gets stuck on 0199, which indicates microcode is getting loaded. It never gets to 0200 or 0201, indicating a success or failure loading microcode. It just hangs. If I boot diagnostics instead, it tells me (in report codes) to replace the MPB first, followed by the IOP/io board. Well, I can't really replace the MPB because I don't have another, and I paid quite a bit for the machine. Anyone seen this issue before? Where should I start on diagnosing the CPU? Better yet, if someone has a 6085 MPB they are willing to sell, I would be eternally grateful. Cheers, - Ian Sent from my iPhone

8 years, 7 months

Xerox 6085 microcode boot issues

by iafinder＠microsoft.com

8 years, 8 months

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test-drb August 2015