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
This might be a tempest or shielded vaxstation? Anyone speculate or
know for sure.
The vendor may have these mixed in as equivalent to their other
vaxstations. If you search for "DEC vax VS42A-BN"
you end up back at the vendors listing for the ones with plastic
covers. I didn't turn up any info yet, not hoping to.
but the thing has what appears to be optical, and a huge connector which
may be shielded SCSI on the back.
I can't tell from the front, but there may be a hatch to allow it to be
opened and a floppy inserted, not sure from
the photos.
VINTAGE-RARE-DEC-DIGITAL-VAXSTATION-3100-PF-VS42A-AA-RF-VS42A-BN-COMPUTER-SYSTEM/
http://www.ebay.com/itm/370930391341
Kind of an interesting device.
I looped back into the vendors listings to this auction for the plastic
topped version, by the way
VINTAGE-DEC-DIGITAL-VT1300-VAXSTATION-VS42A-BB-COMPUTER-SYSTEM-VT-1300-TERMINAL/
http://www.ebay.com/itm/370912245260
It is badged VT-1300 so may not be a vaxstation. And the other box may
be one of the VT-1300's
that is tempest or shielded.
thanks
Jim
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
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
> 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
