Hi all --
I'm looking to rack up my PDP-11/34 so I can get it off my bench. I'd
like to track down something similar to (if not exactly) the original
rackmount rails (the ones that allow the chassis to pivot 90 degrees so
you can deal with the backplane easily), but I'm not sure what the
original part number or manufacturer was. Anyone have this information
handy? Better yet, anyone have a spare set of rails handy?
Thanks as always,
Josh
Hi all, some of you may know me as the guy who runs the Unix Heritage
Society and the archive of old Unix systems:
https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tuhs,
http://www.tuhs.org and http://www.tuhs.org/Archive
Mid-year 2019 is the 50th anniversary of the creation of Unix and I've
been quietly agitating for something to be done to celebrate this. Up to
now, there's been little response.
The original Unix user's group, Usenix, will hold its Annual Technical
Conference on the west coast of the US at this time, so it would make sense
to do something in conjunction with this conference. Some suggestions:
- a terminal room with a bunch of period terminals: ASR-33s, -37s, VT100s,
VT102s, VT220s
- these connected to emulated Unix systems either locally or via a terminal
server and telnet to remotely emulated systems
- some graphical terminals: Sun pizza boxes, a Blit would be great
- if possible, some actual real PDP-11s, VAXen
- emulated systems: V1 to V7 Unix, 32V, the BSDs etc. In fact there are
plenty of Unix versions that we could run in emulated mode.
- Unix of course was one of the systems used to implement the Arpanet
protcols, so it would be interesting to get some of the real/emulated
systems networked together
- how about an emulated UUCP network with Usenet on top of it, and
some mail/news clients on the emulated systems.
- retro workshops/tutorials: how to edit with ed, using nroff, posting
a Usenet article, dealing with bang paths.
I'm proposing to gather a bunch of people to start the ball rolling on the
technical/demonstration side. We'd need people:
- with terminals, portable PDP-11s and VAXen, Sun boxen
- prepared to set up emulated systems
- who can help bring the networking (UUCP, Usenet, Arpanet) back to life
- willing to write and run workshops that show off this old technology
- to help set up terminal servers and all the RS-232 to telnet stuff
Some of this we can start doing now, e.g. rebuild an emulated Arpanet, UUCP,
Usenet, get emulated systems up, build front-end telnet interfaces.
Is there anybody willing to sign up for this? I think once we have some
momentum, we can tell the Usenix people and get some buy-in from them.
Post back and/or e-mail me if you can help. Thanks, Warren
Just checking here, as someone told me that this is the case, but do the
Compaq Portable 286 and Portable III take stock 40-pin IDE hard drives? I
just wanted to make sure that they weren't expecting something that might
be a bit non-standard before I go trying to find modern replacements for a
pair of failing disks.
Assuming that an enormous modern(ish) drive is OK, are there any other
gotchas involved in configuration and formatting? Obviously I don't need a
partition bigger than a few tens of MB, but perhaps there are things to
keep in mind when fitting a drive that's most likely to be getting on for a
thousand times the capacity of the original.
cheers
Jules
I have a set of boards from an original Tandy Model 16 (long before
the 6000) Worked when removed from a system with a dead CRT
but has been sitting around for more than 10 years and I have no way
to test them. Make an offer and let's see if we can keep them out of
the landfill. Plan on probably $10 for Priority Mail.
bill
I have a Tandy Model II Technical Reference Manual available for
sale. It is in one of those clunky brown Tandy binders so it will not
fit in a Priority Mail Envelope so will need to go in a box. I figure
$30 will cover it all nicely.
Anybody interested?
bill
Hi all. I'm hoping you can help me solve a minor mystery.
I have a magnet with the DIGITAL logo, and underneath the logo, it says "we
C.A.R.E.". I have no idea what that means, and Google searches have not
helped. I'm assuming it's some sort of service or technical assistance
program? Anyone heard of it?
Thanks!
- Earl
I made this as a joke, but also as a simple test device for a NatInst
PCI-DIO-96 GPIO card I was writing a driver for:
https://www.facebook.com/john.m.b.wilson/videos/10212562451077947/
It occurred to me that lots of old machines had binary front panels
(switches and lights) and lots of machines had keypad front panels (octal
or hex, with 7-segment LEDs), but I'd never seen a binary keypad front
panel. Plus I wanted to experiment with Cherry MX keyswitches, and try out
wasdkeyboards's custom keycaps (but they're $7/ea so I didn't want to try
anything too big the first time). That plus two 74LS132s, four 74LS240s,
and two 74LS273s, discrete stuff and cabling, and a PCI-DIO-96 that was
$25 on eBay, and it works.
"set dr dio96:" in the DOS and stand-alone versions of E11 V7.3 makes it
(or anyone else's homemade doohicky) appear at 777570 as usual (or you can
add "set dr r0" to get the R0-during-WAIT display like on a PDP-11/70 --
whatever your OS's NULJOB uses). I'd give Gerbers to anyone who cares
but really it's just a dumb joke. Fun one though.
John Wilson
D Bit