test-drb January 2017

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

198 participants
283 discussions

by dm561＠torfree.net

An interesting 3 hours on PBS last night: - 'Steve Jobs - One Last Thing': No description necessary. - 'Long Distance Warrior': McGowan/MCI's David & Goliath battle with AT&T and disastrous merger with Worldcom. - 'Digital Man/Digital World': Ken Olsen/DEC's growth and ultimate decline. (No doubt everyone here except myself had already seen this one ;-) Interesting comparison of the different styles and personalities of three men who profoundly influenced the tech world of today and their companies. Thoroughly enjoyed it. m

6 years, 8 months

Tek 40xx computer users

by rdawson16＠hotmail.com

I bought the Tek 4051 on ebay today; Jason brought it to my house and it works perfectly, with about a half hour of programming instruction my 12 old daughter was plotting a cat face. https://www.facebook.com/Thelma.Franco/videos/10154277153852670/ I would like to get in touch with other users of this first personal computer, and find additional resources. Do you know where I can find an archive of BASIC programs for this? Has anybody built plug in cards in the back, mine came with a realtime clock and a "file manager", I do not know what that one does. I have some Tek scopes with IEE-488, and I will see if I can get the IEEE interface working. There was a DC300 tape in the machine: biorithm craps blackjack artillery tanks weatherwar The belt is broken in the tape, I have ordered some new DC300's and will transplant the tape. Any resources will be welcome! Randy

6 years, 11 months

DS12887 pcb substitute with battery

by cctalk＠ibm51xx.net

Jon, Then why not use a dip compatible version of the DS chip? I mean yes this allows for switchable battery which is very nice but SMT soldering is not for everyone. I wonder if there is a way to determine if there will be BIOS issues by switching the DS12887? -------- Original message -------- From: Jon Elson <elson at pico-systems.com> Date: 1/22/17 9:16 AM (GMT-08:00) To: General at classiccmp.org, "Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: DS12887 pcb substitute with battery On 01/22/2017 10:07 AM, Ali wrote: > Al, > I thought the problem with switching these chips was that part of the ROM code was embedded in them? I.e. it isn't just an issue of battery? Am I wrong? If I am then why not use one of the replacement chips that are available? > These don't have a lot of memory on them.? many early PCs stored some config info there, but generally the BIOS can reconstruct it if it isn't there.? I suppose there is a possibility that random data in the CMOS memory could cause the BIOS to try to use unavailable features and hang.? I don't think anybody put actual executable code in there. Jon

7 years

Pine (was: Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 17, Issue 20)

by fred＠MISER.MISERNET.NET

> Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2015 21:41:53 -0500 (EST) > From: ethan at 757.org > Subject: Re: Could someone make this topic go away? > Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.1511192141030.32673 at users.757.org> > Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed > > Am I the only one left using Pine!? > > I get odd looks when I'm checking email from my cell phone. No you are not. I use (al)pine on my OpenVMS system here as well as my main Linux host. I have mail going back to 2004 here and since 1996 at another public access Unix host I use. It's great when I'm out of town and can ssh in from my phone and check the mail. :) Pine does most everything I need without having to worry about malware, phishing, etc ... the beauty of text. Fred

7 years, 1 month

Windows 1.0 For DEC Rainbow (mirror of Latrobe ftp anybody ?)

by shadoooo＠gmail.com

Hello, since the messages in May about the MS Windows 1.0 version for DEC Rainbow, I did some research to see if a version is effectively available. It seems that copies of this software are really difficult to find, but a complete copy was available on the latrobe ftp DEC Rainbow archive... which disappeared with all valuable data... Anybody has a copy of the content before the deletion? Anyway, I found a file-by-file copy of it, on this site: https://winworldpc.com/download/62DF4D23-B974-11E4-AC5A-5404A6F17893 For preservation reasons, it would be really better to have an original disk image. Any news about dumping the disks or an ftp archive where they are present? Thanks Andrea

7 years, 7 months

Supercomputers, fishing for information

by iamcamiel＠gmail.com

I'm making arrangements to have four (mini-)supercomputers from the 1980's shipped to me. In the mean time, I'm trying to find out what I can about these systems, so this is a fishing expedition. The systems are: * Convex C1-XP * Convex C1-XL * Intel iPSC/860 * Ardent Titan Pictures of these can be found on my website, at http://www.vaxbarn.com/index.php/collection/27-odd/76-four-supercomputers (click on the thumbnails to see a larger version) I'd like to get in touch with anyone who knows anything about these machines, as well as anyone who may have documentation, but I also have two specific questions: - Can anyone identify the tape drives shown in the pictures? I believe the one in the Intel iPSC/860 is an Exabyte 8mm one, but the ones used on the Convex and the Ardent are a mystery to me. - Does anyone know what the SRM (System Resource Manager) for the iPSC/860 physically looks like? Does it look like a PC, and does it say Intel on the front? Reason I'm asking is that I'm getting these out of an estate, and I need to tell them what to look for. Thanks, Camiel.

7 years, 8 months

Cleaning RK05 packs (Was: LGP-30 Memory Drum Update)

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Klemens Krause > We clean our RK05 disks in a very robust way: with cheap burning spirit > and paper towels. ... We rubbed away thick black traces from occasional > head crashes and we never removed the oxide coating with this torture. I am about to get a large batch of RK05 packs, so I am interested in the details of this. First, what is 'burning spirit'? (I assume this is a straight translation into English of some German term, but not knowing German... :-) After poking around with Google for a while (hampered no little by the fact that it's the name of a band, and also a term in World of Warcraft :-), it seems like it might be acetone? Noel

7 years, 8 months

LINCtape/DECtape Head Alignment

by michael.99.thompson＠gmail.com

The RICM is working on the skew adjustment on a TU56 tape drive on a PDP-12. We only see a 5mV signal from the head, so when we flip the tape over we will only see 1mV. This is below the capabilities of my 'scope. The DEC skew adjustment procedure talks about using a DEC amplifier to boost the head signal to several volts. We are planning to make an equivalent amplifier using a modern Op-amp. It would be really convenient to have one of the Amphenol 133-022-03 connectors from a G851 Relay module on our amplifier so it would plug directly into the head cable. Does anyone have a DEC G851 module that we could remove the connector from? -- Michael Thompson

7 years, 9 months

HP 9000/382 Questions

by pete＠petelancashire.com

Hello from a newbie to the list I've just acquired 2 HP 382's with expanders. Have not had the time to look inside them yet. End goal is to set one up as an instrument controller i.e. using the built in GPIB and potentially a 2nd GPIB card. One thing I do not have is a display, keyboard and mouse. A few question Is there a PS/2 or USB (yea long shot) adapter for the HPIL interface ? Does someone have a keyboard/mouse they a not beholding to, or know where there maybe one ? Once I get the opened up and take an inventory, anything I should look out for be trying to power one of them up ? Can one boot to a terminal on the RS-232 port. Until I find a kbd/mouse ? What would be optimum version of HP-UX to run on them ? -pete

7 years, 9 months

Logic Analyser Advice

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

I finally managed to pick up a logic analyser for a price I could justify. It is a HP1630G and it comes with a number of pods. However the pods do not seem to have the actual wires/probes. Is there a separate part number for these that I should look for. There seem to be quite a few items like this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/291753390848, are these likely to be suitable alternatives? Thanks Rob

7 years, 9 months

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test-drb January 2017