test-drb November 2019

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

147 participants
137 discussions

by bill.gunshannon＠hotmail.com

Let's try again with the right name in the Subject line! It's not really classic (although it does try to pretend to be but does anyone here do anything with the P112 SBC? I am trying to get 8" disks running on it but I am seeing some rather strange behavior. bill

5 years, 1 month

getting your data from yahoo

by aek＠bitsavers.org

someone just posted this on twitter they seem to have sent an email to everyone and didn't bother to mention this https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/getmydata

5 years, 1 month

Scanning docs for bitsavers

by aperry＠snowmoose.com

I am going through stuff in my office and found that I have some SCSI device docs that aren't on bitsavers. As far as multi-page documents, it seems as if my scanner (or its software) only does uncompressed TIFF. At bitsaver's recommended 400 dpi, that means about 4M per page. What should I do? Scan the docs in and find a tool to convert to lossless compression. Scan the docs in and just submit the huge files? Something else? The docs that I have are copies, not originals. Does anyone here want them after I scan them? alan

5 years, 1 month

One old Sol, Two old names...

by wh.sudbrink＠verizon.net

I've just had the pleasure of taking a new machine into my collection, a Sol 20. It's particularly interesting for several reasons. First, it was once in the possession of Jim Willing (zoom into the label next to the control key): http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/images/fixed_sol/20191125_195224.jpg For those that don't know, Jim was a very early collector of vintage computers and one of the first collectors to put up a web site with pictures of his collection, scans of documents and the like. Also, he was one of the first posters to the original classic computer mailing list: http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/cctalk/ That's the first old name. Other interesting things about the Sol include that it has an 80/64 video modification (with patches all over): http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/images/fixed_sol/20191125_202606.jpg and a patched personality module socket with a custom ROM: http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/images/fixed_sol/20191125_195249.jpg which leads to the second old name. One that I don't know: http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/images/fixed_sol/20191125_211019.jpg Every time that the machine boots it displays that banner: *** DAN CETRONE *** I've done some googling but I can't find out anything about him. I've started to disassemble the contents of the ROM. There are some blocks that look like the Micro Complex ROM, but other sections don't match. I'll publish it when I'm done. Anyway, I don't know if Dan was the author or just wanted to uniquely identify his Sol. If anyone knows, knew, knew about, Dan, I'd love to hear about it. Thanks, Bill Sudbrink

5 years, 1 month

The Internet Archive

by rickb＠bensene.com

Ethan O'Toole wrote: > We owe a ton of props to the Internet Archive. While they might not have > everything, they have a glimpse into the early days of the internet and > have been at it since early on. Here here. I very much second Ethan's sentiments regarding the Internet Archive. It's a daunting effort to scrape and store all that information. Fortunately, deduplication and compression technologies have come a long way, and long-term, online storage of large amounts of data processed as such has become much less expensive due to the huge decreases in the cost-per-bit of spinning rust. Despite all of that, it's still a lot to store, and even with these technologies, there are costs involved for staffing, servers, as well as continually adding storage. Any and all support the Internet Archive can be given is well-deserved, in my opinion. Shameless plug: I make regular donations to the Internet Archive, and right now, they are have a 2-to-1 matching gift campaign going on due to pledges from corporate and institutional donors, so if you possibly can make a donation, head over to https://archive.org and give help support this valuable /free/ resource. I just made a $25 donation myself. Every little bit helps. Best wishes for a happy and safe Thanksgiving holiday to all, -Rick -- Rick Bensene The Old Calculator Museum http://oldcalculatormuseum.com Beavercreek, Oregon USA

5 years, 1 month

System/36 Twin-Ax decode help

by alan＠alanlee.org

All, I've recently scratched a curiosity itch on what it would take to build a multi-port Twin-Ax to WiFi bridge. The electrical interface is easy enough and ESP32s are cheap. So I built a bridge PCB-to-FPGA adapter and connected my System/36 (5362), an InfoWindow II (address 0 and 1), and my board during IPL and sign-on to see what I could sniff. The result is here: https://www.retrotronics.org/tmp/s36_ipl_twinax_decode_30nov19.zip I get occasional decode errors called out with 'BAD FRAME'. The [SPF] next to bytes mean bad start bit (0), parity error, or non-zero fill bytes respectively. And I occasionally get a sync pattern followed by either illegal Manchester transitions or return to idle without any bytes (and thus no address) - the zero frames in the log. My main question is I need help on the next step. For a brief moment, I was under the impression SNA LU6 or LU7 ran on top of the Twin-Ax line layer. But that doesn't appear to be the case. I'm not sure it's direct 5250 either. Can anyone familiar with IBM-Midrange-World take a look at the decode and point me to the next protocol layer up the stack? Even the slightest breadcrumbs would be appreciated as I know very little about the Midrange world. Additionally if anyone is familiar with the wire-level and could assist on some of the framing errors, that would help as well. The twin-ax cables are less than 2m each so the line should be 100% clean. The problems are likely something I am doing wrong in the interpreter. Thanks, -Alan Hightower

5 years, 1 month

Free: USENIX publications (Computing Systems and late 90s ;login:)

by aperry＠snowmoose.com

I am continuing to clean out stuff from my office and today's items are printed copies of the USENIX publications Computing Systems (early 90s) and ;login: (late 90s). The content is available online, but some people like the printed versions. I prefer to send them all out in one lot rather than send them out one-at-a-time. They are located in the Seattle area. As far as shipping, I think they would all fit in a large flat-rate priority mail box. alan

5 years, 1 month

Compaq Floppy/Printer board?

by anders.k.nelson＠gmail.com

Hi all, I found this while throwing away e-waste at my old place: https://photos.app.goo.gl/R8xUxYijf1AYHNB38 Is it of any use to anyone? Need to know by Sunday. Thanks!

5 years, 1 month

CRT faceplates / screen "mold"

by jules.richardson99＠gmail.com

Many years ago I cut the faceplate off an HP display exhibiting serious decay of the sealant between the faceplate and the CRT itself, cleaned everything up, then reattached the plate just with a bead of sealant around the perimeter (where it wouldn't be seen once the bezel was back on). Short of outright replacing the CRT with one of the same type, is that still accepted practice - or in the years since has someone worked out a way of applying new sealant across the entire face without getting air trapped in there, thereby maintaining the structural integrity of the original? cheers Jules

5 years, 1 month

Grid server software

by grant＠millhouseindustries.com

I am looking for the elusive grid server software disks, I would really like to put this thing online I know of the disks that were on the yahoo grid group, but they were missing the all important utilities disk 2 , but worse than that they are for a tempest server, which unfortunately won't run the communications card on a regular server. I know there is a copy out there, as i watched the disks slip through my fingers a couple of yeas ago on ebay with a 2701 server drive. The search continues........

5 years, 1 month

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test-drb November 2019