test-drb January 2017

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

198 participants
283 discussions

by silent700＠gmail.com

My latest acquisition, an IBM 5285 kinda-computer/kinda-terminal: https://goo.gl/photos/pTVhWc7mYukBeQjAA Basically, a System/[34|36] era terminal with a local CPU and a couple 8" floppies crammed in. I received no disks or docs with it, but there are manuals, product releases and other docs for the 5280 line on Bitsavers. What are my chances of finding a bootable disk(s) for this machine? Or failing that, images that could, through whatever wizardry, be written out? The product release doc mentions a number of disk formats used by the line. My drives are the "2D" model, which appear to be the higher density/capacity disks. Beyond that, I don't know what format it would have used. >From the handful of hits I found in Google's trade-magazine scans, I get the idea this line didn't do well. -j

7 years, 7 months

What is the most prized possession in your collection?

by alexandre.tabajara＠gmail.com

We've talked about the most expensive, the most rare, the less usual... Now lets talk about what you love most <3 For me is the Apple IIe signed by Woz :D What is your most prized and loved possession? :)

7 years, 7 months

WTB: DEC M8310

by w2hx＠w2hx.com

I am looking to buy a (preferably working) DEC PDP-8/e M8310 board. I have one that isn't working correctly. Mine is repairable, but it will be an easier repair with a working one on hand to compare results and pinpoint the problem. What have you got? Please contact me directly to discuss. Thanks Eugene

7 years, 7 months

Vector Graphics PROM/RAM Board?

by wheagy＠gmail.com

Does anyone have experience with the Vector Graphics PROM/RAM card...like this one. http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/s100c/vector/promram.jpg (This is not my card...mine is not jumpered in upper right.) I have some documentation with mine and two PROMs loaded in A0 and A1 (VIMON loaded on them), but am having some trouble getting any response from it. Most likely a config issue or a conflict with other RAM. Feel free to ping me at wheagy at gmail.com Thanks...Win

7 years, 7 months

What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item

by tsw-cc＠johana.com

Most unusual: I've got a complete card deck of Witran for the IBM 1620. Witran is an interpretive Fortran compiler (not even Fortran II) that was load & go. It was written in 1964. Somewhere I have a listing as well. Yes, it goes back a ways.

7 years, 7 months

any thoughts where this might be?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Adrian Graham > the island airbase is Johnston Atoll I was thinking that didn't look like Diego Garcia (which is an atoll), but rather Johnston Island. (Well, I guess technically its name is Johnston Atoll, but since it doesn't have the 'circular' above-water of the 'classic' atoll, I think of it as an island.) Cool story of surviving a Cat III typhoon on it here: http://www.travelbughawaii.com/Ioke.htm I wonder if the other pictures in the eBay item are of facilities on the island? I wonder who bought them - some interesting computer pictures in there. Noel

7 years, 7 months

MU5 Software

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

With all this talk on the list recently about rare machines, here is a really long shot. I am interested in MU5, a research computer built at the University of Manchester in the 70s, which I know for a fact no longer exists. However, I would like to find any software, in any form, for it. Does anyone here have anything, or know who to ask? I have already been in contact with some of the people most closely associated with MU5 and drawn a blank so far. I am also aware of some documents in the National Archive of the History of Computing which may help and I will be going to consult those soon. Regards Rob

7 years, 7 months

any thoughts where this might be?

by aek＠bitsavers.org

http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/rgkAAOSw-0xYfg9p/s-l1600.jpg from www.ebay.com/itm/351959392585

7 years, 7 months

What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item

by mark＠markesystems.com

From: "Jay West" <jwest at classiccmp.org> > -------------------- > Was it possible to configure an Access system with a mix of a 21MX and > 2100? > (I'm not challenging the assertion; it just never occurred to me...) > -------------------- > According to the documentation - specifically "no". Both processors must > be > the same type. > However, after digging in to it year ago, I see no reason that it > shouldn't > work and others on the list said they were fairly certain that it did > work. Thanks for the info! From: Glen Slick <glen.slick at gmail.com> > The L-Series 2103L and the A-Series A400, A600, A600+, A700, A900, > A990 were all called HP 1000 systems. They maintained software > compatibility with previous generation HP 1000 computers, although the > I/O interfaces used by the L-Series and A-Series were incompatible > with the previous generation HP 1000 computers. > I have a couple of A900 boxes that I need to get RTE-A running on them > someday. I used the A-Series quite a bit in the mid-80's. By that time, the operating system of choice had moved on from RTE-6 to RTE-A, which I quite liked in general. For control applications, it had several nice features for priority control, inter-process communication, etc. It also handled a fully hierarchical file system, which was still not a given at that time. However, I wasn't too pleased with the "full screen editor"; it worked by sending a couple of screen-fulls of text to the terminal (must be an HP26xx), then reading it back off the screen after you'd done any editing locally. It worked better than one might think, but one of the first things I did was write a character-at-a-time editor that used the WordStar / Turbo Pascal key mappings (in Fortran-77, BTW). With the A600, and at the end the A400, you could get a whole multi-user computer system, including a smallish disk drive (I think up to 60 MB) all in one 6U rack mount chassis, which I thought was pretty neat at the time. I had one, including two terminals, 7912 disk/tape drive, printer, and all the documentation and system generation media (720k floppy disks!) - I got it all for free when a customer upgraded to PCs, but gave it all away to Goodwill when I got married. On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 07:39:00PM -0500, Michael Thompson wrote: > I have two Sun 386i systems. It has an Intel 386 processor and runs SunOS. > Not exactly a big seller for Sun. I met some of the designers at the > Vintage > Computer Festival East 2.0 in Burlington, MA. I had one of those also, courtesy of a friend with a two-digit employee number at Sun. I really enjoyed it, being able to run multiple copies of DOS on a Unix machine in a windowed environment (this was well (this was at least 5 years before Windows 3.0 came out). Apparently the sales force actively *didn't* sell the unit, presumably because the price - and therefore commission - was too low. Gave that one away, too... ~~ Mark Moulding

7 years, 7 months

What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item

by mark＠markesystems.com

From: Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> > On 1/15/17 10:02 AM, Jay West wrote: >> I'd have to say my HP-2000 systems that are running are the rarest that >> I'm aware of. >> So I fairly strongly suspect that my running HP-2000's are the only ones >> left, anywhere. > > probably true. > http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102682887 > is probably an Access system, I never looked to see if it has the > interprocessor comm link Was it possible to configure an Access system with a mix of a 21MX and 2100? (I'm not challenging the assertion; it just never occurred to me...) Actually, the thing I'm calling a 21MX is listed in the components list as a "1000". Perhaps this implies that it (or they) was running one of the RTE operating systems. ~~ Mark Moulding

7 years, 7 months

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test-drb January 2017