test-drb May 2016

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

202 participants
259 discussions

by mattislind＠gmail.com

Has anyone dumped the microcode of the PDP-11/05? I am looking into a CPU board pair that are not behaving that well. The only switch that does anything is the START switch. The rest is doing nothing. The CPU clock is stopped. When tracing the microprogram flow it looks very suspicious. Comparing the same sequence with a better working pair reveal a few differences. All these can be narrowed down to one single PROM chip. It doesn't look like it is something else that is wire-ored onto the micor address bus since the enable signals for all those are inactive. And one signal is already low so wire-ORing would not change it. I would need a dump of the chips or at least A04A2 / E102 on the Control board. There are microcode listings in the manual but they need to be treated to get into a dump. So if someone already have a dump that would be highly appreciated. /Mattis

8 years, 5 months

FidoNet ....show [was: History [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email...

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

fido news when he became editor and they are lamenting the Internet taking away from fido net.... https://gopherproxy.meulie.net/gopher.meulie.net/0/fidonews/2002/fido1902.nw s In a message dated 4/30/2016 7:43:59 P.M. Mountain Standard Time, geneb at deltasoft.com writes: On Sun, 1 May 2016, Tomasz Rola wrote: > On Wed, Apr 27, 2016 at 10:07:34AM -0700, geneb wrote: >> On Wed, 27 Apr 2016, Sean Conner wrote: >> > [...] >>> Just look into the political machinations of what was known as FidoNet to >>> see how this could end up. >>> >> What IS known as FidoNet (1:138/142 here. :) ) and it's still a >> political shit-show, mostly due to people from Zone 2. *sigh* > > Pardon my ignorant question but is there a place on the net where I > could read some more about it? Or maybe it is short enough to explain > here? > Books could be written about it unfortunately, One of the more annoying aspects is Bjorn Felten, the current editor of FidoNews - he's refused repeated requests to pass on his editor duties for various reasons and he's refused - for at least the last 10 years. Find a telnetable BBS that's a member of FidoNet and start reading the FidoNews echo for a taste of the insanity. The Fido Sysop (FNSYSOP) is also a pretty deranged place. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

8 years, 5 months

_Processor_ magazine/newsprint?

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

Are there any archived issues of _Processor_ from the 80's or early 90's, online anywhere? I seem to recall it went through at least one major printing format change (from newsprint to cheap bound magazine or the other way around). It sometimes had articles but was mostly ads from second-hand minicomputer vendors. Most of what I remember was DEC-aftermarket of course, but there was also overlap with DG, IBM aftermarket, various office machines, and later PC-clones and Sun stuff.

8 years, 5 months

Release Notes for version 6.5 of TSX-Plus...

by lbickley＠bickleywest.com

I just received from S&H a PDF copy of the TSX 6.50 Release Notes - and Jay has posted it to the http://tsxplus.classiccmp.org website. Lots of interesting/helpful information for all you TSX-Plus buffs... Cheers, Lyle -- 73 AF6WS Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

8 years, 5 months

TEMPEST protection (was Rolm Computers: 1602, 1602A, 1602B, 1666, MSExx)

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Erik Baigar > very interesting reading If you want to see a great example of why it was important, check out the so-called 'Berlin Tunnel': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gold http://www.fas.org/irp/cia/product/tunnel-200702.pdf Some of the traffic that was intercepted was teletype traffic - which had been encrypted. However, the equipment that connected the gear to the line allowed a tiny electronic whisper of the original plain-text onto the line, along with the encrypted form, and it was possible to read the plaintext off the line with suitable gear. Noel

8 years, 5 months

Rolm Computers: 1602, 1602A, 1602B, 1666, MSExx (was Data General Nova Star Trek)

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Erik Baigar >> as was coming up with something that could be both EMP-survivable and >> TEMPEST-worthy. > TEMPEST? A set of standards for allowed levels of emissions (in particular, electro-magnetic radiation) from communication/computing gear, intended to prevent listening to the activity of that gear: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename) Noel

8 years, 5 months

AW: When did Memory- and IO Protection Emerge (Esp. in Minis)?

by radiotest＠juno.com

At 11:24 PM 5/4/2016, Andy Holt wrote: >Could someone with access to the OED please check up the first use of the term "minicomputer" I am not the OED, but when I first saw the TX-0 and the PDP-1 at MIT in late 1964 or early 1965 I believe that I heard the term minicomputer applied to them. Certainly when I next saw them in the summer of 1967 both were being called minicomputers by the staff there. Dale H. Cook, Roanoke/Lynchburg, VA Osborne 1 / Kaypro 4-84 / Kaypro 1 / Amstrad PPC-640 http://plymouthcolony.net/starcity/radios/index.html

8 years, 5 months

Data General Nova Star Trek (Rockwell Collins vs. Vaisala SPT11A)

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Erik Baigar > I wanted to have a computer using core memory and so I bought a black > box from the Tornado aircraft which contained core. This started a 10 > year yourney of analyzing it, decyphering the command set and building > tools to program it. ... I have a project page on this: > http://www.baigar.de/TornadoComputerUnit/index.html I am absolutely, completely, blown away. This has got to be one of the most amazing projects I have ever come across. I'm utterly awed by the work you did to reverse engineer this thing. Everyone should check out this site - especially the detailed time-line Noel

8 years, 5 months

Firming up rubber? (was: Cleaning rubber goo)

by tlindner＠macmess.org

On Tue, May 3, 2016 at 10:14 AM, Mike Stein <mhs.stein at gmail.com> wrote: > What's the best commonly available solvent for cleaning the rubber goo that used to be pressure > rollers, belts, feet etc.? On a similar note, does any have a solution to firm up rubber that is just starting to gooify? I have some joystick feet that are just starting to get sticky. -- -- tim lindner "Proper User Policy apparently means Simon Says."

8 years, 5 months

tsx-plus wikipedia article

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

I was skimming the Wikipedia article for tsx-plus, some of it seemed off to me. Anyone know the facts for sure? 1) They suggest tsxplus generally didn't support more than 8 users well. At my high school, we had 16 users on it constantly and it seemed to perform very well. Anyone have experience along those lines? 2) They say LEX-11 (wordprocessing) was included. I don't believe so. 3) They say a spreadsheet program from Saturn Software was included. I don't think so. Saturn had a wordprocessor, but it was a chargeable product and I don't think S&H distributed it. 4) They say the latest version of TSX-Plus has TCP/IP support. That's not true, at least not built in. There was a TCP/IP stack done by a 3rd party (actually, think it was a person that ported one and put it in a public contributed library) but that wasn't "included" by S&H. Do I have those things wrong? J

8 years, 5 months

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test-drb May 2016