test-drb January 2016

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

172 participants
198 discussions

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Mattis Lind > What meter do you have and recommend? My capacitance meter is a Uyigao UA6013L, and I'm quite happy with it; it seems pretty reasonable build-quality. A number of people on eBay are selling them, IIRC. My ESR meter is, alas, literall nameless - I looked on both the meter, and the (single-sheet) documentation, and there's no name anywhere. (Yes, yes, I know, I got what I paid for - which was not much! :-) Noel

8 years, 11 months

Introduction and RK05J Drive cabling

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Guy Sotomayor > To that end, I've made new "paddle" board that take 2 60pin ribbon > cables. Guy, this is fantastic news! I have previously speculated about doing this, but it's still on the 'someday' list. > I'll let folks know how they turn out (ie do they actually work!). They should. DEC made the same basic part, but using 3x40-pin cables: M9042 (half-length, knuckle-buster) and M9014 (full-length). Apparently the characteristic impedance of N-pin flat cable is close enough to the BC11 cable that it works. Speaking of M9014's, though, the board list describes them as "UNIBUS to 3 H854s", and also lists an M9015, described as "3 H854s to UNIBUS". Does anyone know what the difference is between the two? Unlike the QBUS, the UNIBUS shouldn't need two different kinds of board, since the 'grant in' pin on one end of a UNIBUS cable is the same as the 'grant out' pin on the other end (unlike the QBUS, where the pinout is designed to support plugging in boards, so there are separate 'grant in' and 'grant out' pins). I can't for the life of me think of anything about the UNIBUS that a straight through-connect wouldn't handle - i.e. a pair of M9014's, on each end of the cable set. Certainly, BC11 cables ends aren't marked 'in' and 'out'! ;-) So does anyone know why the M9015 exists - what it different about it, etc, etc? Or was someone at DEC just not thinking hard enough when they spec'd it? > The downside is that they were somewhat expensive Heh, they'll still be cheaper than actual BC11's! :-) Noel

8 years, 11 months

Introduction and RK05J Drive cabling

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Joshua Stetson > Ideally I would like to find the following: > ... > The interface cable between the two drives: BC11A > The terminator card M930 The former is going to be a pain. The latter are findable on eBay. If you can't find one, drop me a line - I may have one I can spare. > I know it's common to run these without the top cover on for > calibration purposes. Any tips for that? Maybe a piece of plexiglas > over the heads to avoid any potential dust or should I not worry too much? Don't worry about it; BITD we used to run for short periods with the cover off, to calibrate heads, etc. The air-flow through the pack and out the head entrance hole will keep the heads clear. I wouldn't run them without the cover all the time, but for short periods, it will be fine. > From: Tony Duell > The M930 and BC11 should be easy to find, they are actually the same as > the bits used on PDP11 Unibus connections. The second part is correct, but not the first: BC11 cables are now pretty much unobtainium. Noel

8 years, 11 months

VT100 PSU smelling.

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Mattis Lind > I don't have an capacitance / ESR meter so I cannot check it. If you do a lot of work with analog components (and it sounds like you do), it's probably worth getting capacitance and ESR meters, they can be obtained (new) on eBay for not that much. I have one of each that I got that way; their quality is pretty good, considering how little I paid for them (I didn't think I'd be using them enough to make it worth paying out a lot for really good ones). I haven't used the ESR meter much, but the capacitance meter works quite well, and has been very helpful. Of course, it can't be used in-circuit, but... Alas, I can't (easily) help with the VT100 question! :-) Noel

8 years, 11 months

Software Products International LogiQuest III manual?

by nw＠retrocomputingtasmania.com

The LogiCalc manual is here: http://bitsavers.org/pdf/softwareProductsInternational/ anyone have the LogiQuest III manual to go with it? Here is an advertisement for the SPI application suite that includes Logiquest III: http://i.imgur.com/k0D3wRX.png LogiQuest III was a relational database from circa 1982 and appears to have been written in UCSD Pascal although it was later ported to the CP/M. thanks.

8 years, 11 months

Restoring Old Paper Tape

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

on moldy paper and other items.... generally we will bag it and tag it to isolate it from everything else... check part # or document name ( in the case of printed material) against what already exists. if it exists then the moldy nasty stuff is scrap. If it is something that warrants preservation but not found elsewhere then we consider moving forward on preservation efforts. Ed Sharpe archivist for SMECC _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org) In a message dated 1/21/2016 6:57:02 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, silent700 at gmail.com writes: I'm tossing this out here as a conversation-starter more than a request for help, although I may end up putting the knowledge to use. Today I received a set of original HP paper tapes for the 2115a machine. I don't know if they've been archived or not - there are dozens of HP tapes on bitsavers and I'll have to make a P/N list and compare them. The real problem is they're in horrible shape. Decades of basement moisture and likely a few critters have turned them blackened, moldy and stuck together. So, what to do? How to get to the data without a bio-hazardous payload along for the ride? My thoughts go toward sunlight and/or U/V light (like a hair salon sanitizer,) rubber gloves and a mask, isopropyl alcohol, careful picking apart of layers, etc. I'd think one thing in our favor is that holes in paper are going to be easier to read than ink on paper. So Part 1 is getting them into readable condition, with part 2 being the actual reading. Any experience out there? -j

8 years, 11 months

Restoring Old Paper Tape

by silent700＠gmail.com

I'm tossing this out here as a conversation-starter more than a request for help, although I may end up putting the knowledge to use. Today I received a set of original HP paper tapes for the 2115a machine. I don't know if they've been archived or not - there are dozens of HP tapes on bitsavers and I'll have to make a P/N list and compare them. The real problem is they're in horrible shape. Decades of basement moisture and likely a few critters have turned them blackened, moldy and stuck together. So, what to do? How to get to the data without a bio-hazardous payload along for the ride? My thoughts go toward sunlight and/or U/V light (like a hair salon sanitizer,) rubber gloves and a mask, isopropyl alcohol, careful picking apart of layers, etc. I'd think one thing in our favor is that holes in paper are going to be easier to read than ink on paper. So Part 1 is getting them into readable condition, with part 2 being the actual reading. Any experience out there? -j

8 years, 11 months

Introducing myself and VAXstation 3100 help needed

by bryan＠bceassociates.com

Hi Everyone, Jay West was kind enough to point me to this list and I just wanted to introduce myself before I start begging for help. :-) I started out life coding on a CDC Cyber-170 and from there moved up through the TRS-80 model I before finally taking the plunge and purchasing a very early Apple ][+. After that, I moved up through the Apple //e and finally landed in the 32-bit world with my Amiga 1000. I had an Amiga 2000 and then finally sold out and lived in the WinTel world until being "rescued" by a PPC32 Mac Mini. From there it's been Mac mostly but I've always loved older, less mainstream gear. When I rediscovered OpenBSD and the fact that it has some of these "distaff" architectures as full tier-1 citizens, I started playing around. At this point I have that same MacMini (macppc), a Sun Blade 100 (sparc64), an Alphastation 500/400 (alpha), an SGI O2 (mips64), an HP C3700 (hppa) and a VAXstation 3100 (VAX). Everything except the VAX is running 5.9-current on OpenBSD and doing surprisingly well. I'm trying to bring the VAXstation back to life (picked it up on eBay for less than $30 US) and I'm having a problem (here's where I start begging for help). The diagnostic LEDs on the back (thanks to http://home.claranet.nl/users/pb0aia/vax/3100leds.html for helping me decode them) finally settle at: 1000 1010 Which I'm reading as a failed self-test in the "MM" subsystem. I'm assuming MM=Memory Management Unit. I have also noticed it never spins up the hard drive (that's a working drive I personally installed so I know it's good) or tries to access the floppy. On the advice of some of the folks on the list, I stripped the machine down to the bare board (man there was a lot of dust in there). I found (as I expected to) that the CMOS battery had leaked but there wasn't a lot of corrosion on the board near the connector and the solder pads in that area looked particularly beefy so I don't think I have any board or trace damage >from that. When I powered the box up with everything removed, I got the same MM subsystem failure error so I don't think it's the memory board. I'm still waiting on my final cable to be able to get on the serial console so I can't run TEST 50 yet but I'm hoping someone on here can point me in another diagnostic direction. Or, does a failed "MM" test mean the CPU or main board are done with and I need to replace it? Many thanks in advance for any help you can give me. Thanks, Bryan

8 years, 11 months

Dec items for sale or trade (winter cleaning), HP

by useddec＠gmail.com

8-A boards- i found more, or most, but no FP8 Quantity of LA34, 38, 50, 100, 120 printers and parts Quantity of DECMATE, Rainbow, and PRO units and parts H7883 ps H7894-MA ps 30-43120-01 ps 30-44712-01 ps DEC PC WXE-A2 (2) DEC PC443 DXLP CELEBRIS 560 830WW VENTURIS 466 854WW (2, one is very rough) VENTURIS 575 821WW VS42S-JC VT1200 VX10A-AA HP 82901M flexible disc drive Shipping from 61853. Feel free to contact me off list with any questions and offers. Paul

8 years, 11 months

UA11 Boards have arrived!!

by ggs＠shiresoft.com

I know some folks sent an email to me indicating their desire for a UA11 board but others may have waited until they arrived. The boards arrived this week (I'm just getting to it because I was out of town on business). They actually got here a week a head of schedule (yea!). The price will be $99/ea + shipping. To make it easy, I'll be using USPS priority with flat rate boxes, so within the USA I'll be charging $15 for packing and shipping, so the total will be $114 (for folks that want more than one board I can probably fit 2-4 boards in the flat rate box so I'll only charge shipping once). I will also be including 1 copy of printed documentation with each order (if you purchase multiple boards in a single order, you'll only get one copy). I accept paypal to ggs at shiresoft.com. If you don't want to use paypal, email me directly and we can figure something out. In any case, please email me to indicate the number of boards that you'd like and where you want them shipped. The folks who have emailed me previously will have priority. TTFN - Guy

8 years, 11 months

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test-drb January 2016