Dear sirs...
Ok, life does nasty things to us, and seems it is my time. Due to personal
and health problems, I'll have to sell some of my collection. As bad as it
is, I can't really afford keeping much of my stuff. I'll save just the nice
gifts I got from friends and my beloved //e "Woz edition".
So, there are some computers that may be of interest to you
- Milmar Laser IIc apple clone - Clone of the Apple //c, but it isn't a //e
- it is a ][c in a case of a //c. Has power supply, original manual and
external slot expansion. $800 o.b.o.
- Prologica Sistema 600 - Clone of the Intertec SuperBrain
- Prologica CP500 - Clone of the TRS-80 model III
- Prologica CP400 (boxed) - Clone of TRS-Color model 1, in the box of a
Timex Sinclair 2068(!)
- Prologica CP300 - Clone of TRS-80 model III, but way portable
- Prologica CP200 - Clone of Sinclair ZX-81
- Microdigital TK95 (boxed) - Clone of Sinclair ZX-Spectrum, but in a
Commodore Plus/4 box (!)
I'll have more interesting things, as soon as I have more time to dig the
pile
Shipping from Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Thanks,
Alexandre
Saw this in AFC
Another water damaged collection heading to the landfill
--
Subject: Houston (and everywhere else), we have ... an opportunity
From: hlctminfo at gmail.com
Injection-Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2015 15:37:06 +0000
My name is John Keys, and I incorporated the Houston Computer Museum in May=
2003 as 501(c)(3) non-profit.
I've been good at collecting things. I've have various PDPs, an HP3000, SE=
L 810A, SDS 910, and a Cray YMP/EL8. I have an IBM 083 card sorter and sev=
eral keypunchs (models 024, 026, 029 and 129). I have over 1,200 books and=
manuals. And those are just a small sample.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that it's all in storage, in my home, or in a 3,300 square-=
foot warehouse. I don't have exhibit space. You might have heard that it =
rains in Houston; the warehouse has flood damage that needs to be mitigate=
d.
I haven't been good at getting the 21st century to work for me, and this is=
where you come in. I need a functional web page, one that makes it easier=
for people to donate online. I need a contact email link that works.
If you can help me get this done, I'd be grateful.
What's at stake? I'm 70 years old, and if I can't make a go of this, all t=
hat equipment will get recycled or hauled off for scrap or dumped in a land=
fill. And all of that documentation will go with it.
If you can help me with web hosting and web page design, let me know. Advi=
ce is nice -- I've had lots of it -- but what I really need is people who c=
an step up and do what I haven't done. I need help in cleaning all these ar=
tifacts that were damaged by the flood. Contact me by email discuss how you=
can help.
If there are enough people out there who care about this stuff, we can do t=
his. You don't have to live in Houston. You don't have to live on the Gul=
f Coast. It's even OK if you don't live in Texas.
To donate online, go to http://www.hlctm.org/services.htm and click on "Don=
ate."
To contact me, send email to hcmjkeys at yahoo dot com.
Once we have something presentable, come visit. And thanks very much for r=
eading this.
John Keys
I still can't get my RL8A (M8433 RL01/02 disk controller card) working again
in my 8/A system. It won't boot from the RL02 any more.
In my backplane I found it to be mechanically sensitive (AJRLAC diskless
controller test would show errors always involving bits 4-7 being
unexpectedly 0's), and when the card was flexed gently the errors would
increase dramatically during the test. No visible bad/missing solder joints
or broken traces.
Recently I sent the card to a list member who tried it in his system. He
could boot OS/8, but when attempting to open a file with EDIT the system
would crash. This behavior was repeatable and did not occur with his
controller.
I now have SerialDisk running via Omni-USB, emulating two RK05 drives from
my laptop, booting OS/8. This works perfectly - until I put the RL8A in the
backplane!
Then the system won't boot and also corrupts the first part of the boot
loader that resides at 0020-0045.
However, only the first 7 instructions at 0020-0027 are mangled, and all
seven words have their most significant six bits set to 0 (for example, 7240
becomes 0040).
The selects to the various 8234's (open-collector drivers to the data bus)
are working properly in a scope loop. Figured I was on the right track with
a bad 8234.
I physically disconnected the middle 4 bits of the DATA0..11 bus (at the
extender card rather than hack up the board)... system still won't boot,
still corrupting locations as described.
Next, I disconnected the entire data bus, all 12 bits, same problem! So
whatever is the trouble it's NOT an 8234 pulling on some of DATA0..11 as I
thought!
I am starting to think there is a defect with the DMA (aka Data Break)
facility on either this card OR even the CPU itself... everything else in
the system is programmed I/O, not DMA.
Obviously something is pulling down the memory-data bus when it shouldn't
be, and writing zeroes over the upper six bits of some words, but on this
controller card there are only inputs from the memory data bus MD0..11. It
has its own memory address registers for DMA which drive the MA0..11 lines.
I checked the various signals coming out of the card and (at least
statically) none of them are in the "wrong" state...
Any thoughts on testing the DMA facility?
thanks
Charles
the SMECC museum is a canadate if our onmnibus 8 still runs. have
not powered it up in 20 years.
In a message dated 9/4/2015 1:37:34 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time,
spacewar at gmail.com writes:
A building next door to one of my offices was a datacenter/colo facility. It
has sat vacant for quite a few years, and the new owner contacted me
yesterday about some unrelated items. I asked about the raised floor and she
said "all available, dirt cheap, come over and look".
Sometime next week I will go take a look, but I know folks here have
occasionally expressed interest in getting a section of raised floor for
their "machine room". If there's interest, let me know.
Best,
J
Hi folks,
as you might remember I made about 20 OmniUSB Omnibus to USB adapters. Since a
few month they're all sold.
The last days I got some inquiries for more. So I think of making a new batch.
As my board supplier has doubled (It was so cheap before..!) the price for gold
plated contact PCBs, the board will be more expensive in the end. And I
massively underestimated the labour...
And I'll overhaul the design.
The original board description:
http://pdp8.hachti.de/projects/omni_usb/
The facts about a new board:
- Exactly same functionality
- Smaller
- Still gold plated contacts
- Still KL8E compatible
- Power supply parts will be moved away from the PCB's edge
- USB connector will be moved away from the PCB's edge
The board will cost (fully assembled and tested) EUR 105 (without VAT for
overseas buyers) and About EUR with VAT for anyone in the EU.
A still to design cusom handle (I think of laser cut acrylic with wood) to make
the board the original size will be available in the EUR 25 range.
If YOU are interested, please let me know. I'll make my decision with regards to
the feedback I'll get from this posting.
I need at least 10 seriously interested people to make it happen again.
Kind regards
Philipp
I was going to ask a similar question here, and I am sure it has been asked
before. I do have a HP 82901 and a HP 9121 but I am not equipped to read
ROMs, so I can't really help yet. Plus I will soon need the ability to burn
ROMs for my HP 85 and HP 1000. Not only the standard 24 pin ROMs but the
small 14 or 16 pin bootloader ROMs that Jay showed me at VCF. What would be
a good ROM programmer that could read and write these of older HP equipment
ROMs?
Marc
-----------------------
From: Vlad Stamate <vlad.stamate at gmail.com>
Subject: Reading ROMs
While I was trying to read the ROM in my 9121 for Eric Smith I found
out that my Wellon VP-280 could not do it (it could not recognize it
and only read FF FF FF FF). I could use it however to dump the ROM of
an IBM PS2 that I cannot boot anymore (so it is not entirely useless).
So I am asking what you all use to dump various ROMs from vintage
PCs/peripherals/etc? Is there a good brand out there of E(E)PROM
programmer? Do you roll your own solution with an
Arduino/RaspeberryPi?
Thanks,
Vlad.
-----------------------
This isn't quite the way I remember the CMU instructions working. Nor
is it exactly how I've implemented them in my emulator.
>Another oddball thing was then then-new Cyber 72/73 CMU. An interesting
>beast, but not present on the 74.
Presumably because an instack loop could move data faster. I always
wondered, though, if you could put a CMU in the serial CPU on a 74-2x.
Probably too messy.
>It was possible initially to write code with the 46xxx CMU instruction
>in first 2 parcels of an instruction word. All Cyber 73 CMU
>instructions were 60 bits,
No, the IM instruction is 30 bits. It's supposed to be forced upper. I
don't recall whether the 72/73 were that picky and it would work in the
first 3 parcels, or work only in the first one (thus being 60-bit
equivalent) and pass in the others (with the rest of the instructions
becoming arbitrary).
>you could pack a call to a subroutine to do
>the equivalent thing in the lower 30 bits for the 74. Worked pretty
>cool
Looks like it would. Aren't there some variant OSes that would put the
monitor call parameters in the lower 30 bits of an XJ instruction? You
could probably also pack a parameter in the B register, and another in
the address, since those would mode out anyway (or be ignored in user
mode)--you'll get to CPUMTR no matter what. ECS instructions would
execute the lower 30 bits if the transfer failed; this all in user mode
with no monitor intervention.
You could probably do the same thing with a conventional XJ instruction.
6000s lacking ECS hardware and CEJ/MEJ treated all 01x instructions as
010 (RJ). Probably can't get away with that on a 70.
>until the 170. There, different models supported different subsets
>of CMU instructions (or not at all)
It was all-or-nothing, no subsets.
>--and attempting to execute one not
>implemented was greeted with an error stop. The 170 people really
>screwed that one up.
464xx and up were illegal on machines that did not (171) or could not
(175) have the CMU option, or in other parcels on any 170. 46000-46377
were pass instructions. I don't know why they did this either, since
there were no 170s with unmatched CPUs (like the 6700 or 74-2x). Also,
some dual-CP machines (including the 72/73) could have 1 or 2 CMUs.
Needed some special code in CPUMTR to avoid using the CMU for storage
moves if there were fewer CMUs than CPUs, lest it be busy in the other
CPU and we had to wait for it in monitor mode.
It's possible that on 180s, 46100-46377 were illegal instructions,
though the design goal for 170 mode was a 173. Perhaps the
175/740/750/760 did that too. Note also on 180s with CMUs (emulated),
the instruction was limited to data in the first 262K; in particular
CPUMTR couldn't use it for storage moves unless it played games with
RA/FL in program mode (and it would still have to drag the instruction
around into each segment). Too much of a kludge, I expect.
--
Jeff Woolsey
jlw at jlw.com
I'm doing a bit of cleaning out of random things I don't use much
anymore; hopefully these can find a good home.
Make an offer on these, I'd prefer local pickup (for the VDP-80 I
require it, it's just too large/heavy/fragile to trust with shipping)
near Seattle.
Thanks,
Josh
Here's what I have, S-100 wise:
Boards (in as-is condition, unless otherwise noted):
- Tarbell 1011D FDC
- Solid State Music VB1B video interface
- SSM CB1A 8080 CPU (+2k RAM). Working, used to use it in my IMSAI .
- Processor Technology 16KRA, 16K static RAM.
- CompuPro (Godbout) RAM16 - 64K dynamic RAM (despite the name)
- IMSAI MIO (rev. 2) - Serial/Parallel I/O board
- IMSAI VIO (rev 2.1) - Video board
- PSS RAM65 - 64K ram? (never could find a manual).
- Piiceon 8K Program Saver (2708 EPROMs). Only two EPROM sockets (of 8)
installed.
- Ithaca Audio 8K static RAM board. Bad shape. Missing a row of chips,
looks to be an unfinished kit. Corrosion.
Computers:
No-name (TEI generic chassis, about half as deep as an IMSAI, no
blinkenlights) with the following boards:
Thinker Toys SUPERRAM 16 - 16K static RAM. A bit of corrosion on a
few chips, but should be easy to clean up
Thinker Toys 32K static RAM. Also has some corrosion.
The Memory Merchant MM16K14 - 16 K Ram. Corrosion as with the others.
IMSAI SIO Rev-3. Dual serial board. Corrosion.
Northstar ZPB-A2 Z-80 CPU board. Corrosion .
It looks as if this system sat on end in a shallow pool (say, 2") of
water for a couple of days and wasn't properly dried up afterwards;
all boards installed have corrosion on their left sides, affecting a
couple of rows of chips. The backplane also seems to be a bit corroded
but is not as bad. Despite this, the chassis is very clean. Power
supply seems to be fine. Definitely a project, but probably fixable
with some new sockets and ICs.
Complete IMSAI VDP-80 system
(http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=343) with
manuals and software. Unknown working condition, but it's not in bad
shape given the years -- some screen rot. I got it as a project and
it's just been sitting there, waiting. Debating whether to hold onto it
or not -- make me an offer I can't refuse :).
