test-drb August 2019

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

161 participants
150 discussions

by david＠kdbarto.org

I?ve just come into possession of both of these units. The Mac has a 20MB internal HD and doesn?t startup. There is no happy mac or boot chime. The video is just a single line in the middle of the screen. The HDD spins up and wants to be formatted by any Mac I?ve got that has USB on it. If anyone wants either of these let me know (San Diego area of California). If I hear nothing both will go to the electronic recycler next Saturday. David

4 years, 7 months

Too many DEC binders

by shadoooo＠gmail.com

Hello, I also have a bunch of manuals, mainly for rt11, which aren't available in bitsavers. I always thought of bitsavers as the "whole" archive for DEC stuff, however time ago, sorting these manuals, I found they where available only on Manx or Antonio Carlini's archive. Many manuals then are available on other sites, etc Now the question: why collected manuals from other sites couldn't be added to bitsavers too? Thanks Andrea

4 years, 7 months

Shipping from Europe to USA

by tosteve＠yahoo.com

How do I ship a 50 pound computer from Europe to the United States? Who has good rates? Thanks- Steve

4 years, 7 months

ADM-3A question

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

Today I got home and my Mouser order had arrived. I soldered in the new 6-position DIP switch and popped a new 1488 in the socket. Nice RS232 data coming out... for about 10 seconds, then the transmit data line went to around +2 volts and stayed there. WTF. Tried another one, same thing. Went back to the first new chip, same thing - so it's not blown (and maybe the old one wasn't either). OK, it has to be the power supplies. Again. Sure enough, +12 was sinking slowly until it was near zero at which point the RS232 output basically went floating... This looked familiar and it didn't take long to discover that the CT on the transformer for the + and - 12 volt supplies was open again!! This time it was the wire from the transformer broken as it entered the Molex connector. Fixed that, back in business. I am amazed that none of the epoxy drop tantalums on the high leg with the open neutral have blown. Maybe they're open circuit :) Also I don't know what gorilla at the salvage place was connecting/disconnecting until he found a combo of base, board and monitor that worked. --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

4 years, 7 months

Too many DEC binders

by aaron＠aaronsplace.co.uk

I have a full book case of DEC binders, each containing one or more manuals. I went through the lot of it this evening and checked to see what was on bitsavers. It seems an awful lot of it is not available. I cannot bring myself to dispose of any of it until it is digitised, but keeping hold of this much paper is not practical for me. I'm going to try to scan as much as I can. The full list of what I have is available at the link below. It is mostly mid 1980's VAX/VMS stuff.. If anyone would like one of the manuals for the cost of shipping, I'd gladly send it over to you. http://aaronsplace.co.uk/dec-manuals.html *** If there is anything you consider a priority in terms of being scanned, please let me know and I'll try to do it sooner, rather than later. *** Finally, I'd like to mention that these manuals came from a friend, Marc, who passed away early last year. Marc used to be somewhat active on this list (more so the #classiccmp IRC channel). A friend of Marc will be participating in a walk for the Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) charity. If anyone is willing to donate (even a small amount), it would mean a lot to me. CALM is a charity supporting men who suffer from depression - one of the leading killers of men under 45 in the UK. https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/losthourswalk2019inmemoryofmarc Many thanks, Aaron

4 years, 7 months

Raspberry Pi write cycles

by john＠ziaspace.com

> But then it turned out not to be the load at all. No matter what I ran > on that Pi, it would corrupt its SD cards in a matter of weeks (the > symptom was that the fourth bit of some bytes would just stick on). I > assume it was just something broken in the Pi itself. You can simply root off of a USB disk by changing the "root=" parameter in cmdline.txt on the FAT partition on your SD card. Since the card won't otherwise be used unless you mount it if you do this, your next card should last forever. I've got a Suptronics x830 board and enclosure with an 8 TB drive which boots this way. Any Pi processor newer than the original ARM1176JZ should run NetBSD pretty well. My 900 MHz Pi 2 runs NetBSD/vax almost as fast as a VAXstation 4000/30 (VLC), which is about 5 VUPS. An original Pi or Pi Zero should be able to emulate a VAX at least as fast as an 11/780. One issue with CPU intensive things on Raspberry Pis is that even if your power supply provides plenty of current, the slightest drop in voltage can cause throttling. If you know your power supply is good but see a lightning symbol anyway, add "avoid_warnings=2" to config.txt on your SD card's FAT partition. John

4 years, 7 months

Update: Shipping 50 lb computer from Zell am See, Austria to CA.

by tosteve＠yahoo.com

Well, I knew the computer, just not the city. It's Zell am See, a small town in western Autria, far from everywhere it seems. The computer is a Datapoint 2200 - 50lbs, 10x19x20 inches. I want to get it shipped to Calfornia, where I live. The cheapest option is to just use local Austria mail, but max dimensions are 60x60x100cm, or 23.5x23.5x40 inches. That would leave just 2-inches on each of two sides for padding. Best option - remove the plastic cover and mail it separately. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the entire bottom of the computer seems to be a solid piece of metal, like the Apple III = very strudy. The back is a giant metal heat sink. I think it's do-able, do you? Steve.

4 years, 7 months

bit-slice and microcode discussion list

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Jon Elson >> On 08/22/2019 12:47 PM, Tom Uban via cctalk wrote: >> On a possible related note, I am looking for information on converting >> CISC instructions to VLIW RISC. > I think it might end up looking a bit like the optimizers that were > used on drum memory computers back in the dark ages. I dunno; those were all about picking _addresses_ for instructions, such that the next instruction was coming up to the heads as the last one completed. The _order_ of execution wasn't changed, there was no issue of contention for computing elements, etc - i.e. all the things ones think of a CISC->VLIW translation as doing. Noel

4 years, 7 months

bit-slice and microcode discussion list

by spacewar＠gmail.com

On another mailing list, someone asked if there was any list specifically about bit-slice design and microcoding. I don't know of one, so I've created a new mailing list specifically for those topics: http://lists.brouhaha.com/mailman/listinfo/bit-slicers The intent is for the list to cover technical discussion of bit-slice hardware design and/or microcoding. In other words, discussion of microcoding that doesn't use bit-slice hardware is fine.

4 years, 7 months

KE11-A craze (Was: Current MANX location)

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Ethan Dicks >> Speaking of KE11-A's, does anyone know what's behind the bidding wars >> on recent eBay KE11-A component board listings, e.g.: >> >> https://www.ebay.com/itm/372685033144 > Perhaps someone has a broken KE11-A Must be two such people, though - I was neither of the top two bidders. Odd for there to be so much interest in them. Noel

4 years, 7 months

← Newer
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
...
15
Older →

Jump to page:

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

test-drb August 2019