Hi,
I have sitting in my pile of stuff an HP minicomputer that I?m trying to identify (at least in terms of exactly what it is and what sort of configuration it might have).
As far as I can tell, it?s an HP-1000 M-Series minicomputer (that should hopefully get us *some* details). The ?asset tag? lists the part number as 2113023-108. Looking at the back there?s space for 9 I/O cards (5 are occupied).
So my question is which of the several CPUs could this be and how do I tell (for example) what the configuration is (e.g. how much memory, etc).
Yes, I have looked on bitsavers, but short of disassembling the box to look at the (at least) 2 boards that are below the I/O slots, I can?t tell what?s there and I?d like to see if there?s a way to determine what this is without resorting to disassembly.
Thanks.
TTFN - Guy
Al Kossow via cctalk writes:
> On 8/14/19 8:53 AM, Anders Nelson via cctalk wrote:
>> I hope this thread will be written to a blog post
>
> Buried in a filing cabinet in the basement with a sign that says
> "Beware of Leopard".
>
> Blogs are a stupid way to archive information, almost as stupid as
> putting it on Facebook.
The problem is not archiving, but rather retrieving the data.
As a current example, I am looking for information on the Jonas Escort
computers. A slight misspelling (Jonas instead of Jonos) resulted in a
whole slew of graphic escort services. And spelling it properly has
resulted in basically zero useful information about the computer itself.
It is hard to believe the almost total lack of information on the Jonos.
If the scarcity is real, it must be worth at least as much as the Apple
I :).
And ditto for the Molecular Computer although not as bad as the Jonos.
BTW, these are two computers I'm looking at bringing to VCFMW if there
is any serious interest.
Instead of the search engines working to improve AI, they should be
putting more effort into ESP.
Marvin
> From: Paul Birkel
> But which bus? There are three ...
So I'm clearly not very awake this morning. I can only think of two major
quad-width DEC standard slots - SPC (UNIBUS) and dual QBUS. What's the third
- PMI? (MUD is hex, as is Fastbus.) Or OMNIBUS, if we're not restricted to
PDP-11's?
Noel
I did have a case where the Pi I was using as secondary DNS/DHCP and as the
secondary backup server (using USB spinning disk) destroyed its SD card.
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.
I will state here, for the record, that if someone can spam effectively --
or be a botnet C&C node -- from TOPS/10 on a PDP-10 emulated on my Pi, my
irritation at having my systems abused will probably be overwhelmed by my
admiration at their dedication.
(Traffic encryption via simh is incredibly painful. You have to turn login
delay waaaaay up to run NetBSD on VAX on a Pi if you want to be able to ssh
into it; the machine itself runs fine-ish, but the zillions of cycles to
encrypt the traffic swamps it in no time.)
And, you know, if you manage to cause my SD cards in those machines to
fail, well, gosh, guess I'm out $10 or so for a new one. I'm not bothering
to back up any of the stuff inside 'em, btw (so those of you using 'em,
seriously, save your work elsewhere if it's precious--and, um, yeah, unless
you're on OpenVMS, TOPS-20, or ITS, you don't have a TCP/IP stack and since
you don't have a direct terminal interface into it, that probably means
copying and pasting from the terminal session...but if you have something
you really want off it that's larger than a couple of screens full, just
write me a note and I can likely extract it for you more reasonably).
Adam
> From: Allison Parent
> ! Seriously? ... Memory of some form there is a must.
I don't know about you, but my approach in looking into hardware issues is
often to start by reducing things to the simplest possible configuration that
exhibits the failure.
(I asssume the various reasons for that approach are obvious.)
So, the OP couldn't get ODT to work. Well, what's the simplest config one
needs for ODT? Well, a CPU (but it won't be executing any instructions, so one
could leave HALT on), the console serial card (with a working terminal
attached), a bus/backplane to plug them into, and a power supply.
But no, the LSI-11 machines also want memory - although it's unused by ODT
after a single read cycle at power-on.
It's probably worth pointing out that this is _not_ true of the F-11 machines;
those do ODT just fine without memory. Perhaps DEC got some complaints about
the behaviour of the LSI-11, and made a change?
I don't know if the front console on the early UNIBUS machines works without
any memory on the UNIBUS - I'm too lazy to check. I have this vague memory that
they do, though.
> The architecture of pdp-11 has the first 256 words as interrupt vectors
> and software locations.
Some 'internal' interrupts from the CPU (e.g. NXM) are at fixed, low,
locations (in Kernel D space on some of the models with MMU, to be technical -
I don't know about the /40 and /34, etc), but there's nothing that restricts
_device_ interrupts to be in low memory (either physical, or virtual on those
machines which get vectors from Kernel virtual).
E.g. in the "pdp-11 bus handbook" (EB 17525 20), pg. 119, it says "Place
Vector on BDAL <15:00> L" - so one could use 0140000 if one wanted.
Most DEC devices that do the vector with jumpers don't have posts for all 15
bits, it is true, but AFAIK no CPU looks at only the low bits on the bus.
> How else would the console vectors at 60 work.
ODT doesn't use interrupts.
Noel
> From: Brent Hilpert
> I wouldn't have thought any of the (various 11 CPU) ODTs used
> interrupts for the console
They don't.
> Don't know which CPU Noel was referring to.
The OP was having problems with an LSI-11 (M7264 quad card); I was working
with an LSI-11/2 (M7270 dual card - I don't have any LSI-11's). But I'm pretty
sure the CPUs on the two are identical; and certainly, both display the 'must
have memory at 0 for ODT to work'.
Noel
> From: Jonathan (systems_glitch)
> Yep, fun times on LSI-11/2!
Heh, this one was _utterly trivial_ compared to the 'must have working memory
at 0 or ODT won't start'! (I don't think I've ever seen that one in DEC
documentation anywhere...)
Noel
>> Al Kossow via cctalk writes:
>> Buried in a filing cabinet in the basement with a sign that says
>> "Beware of Leopard".
Good one!
> From: Seth J. Morabito
> I'm going to respectfully disagree .. the proliferation of modern
> JavaScript frameworks that are designed to build single-page apps, and
> make the web virtually impossible to scrape or mirror in an efficient
> and simple way. ... every single page is statically generated at
> publishing time and absolutely nothing is dynamic.
It's not clear that it's the dynamic nature of the content he's unhappy with;
it might just be that having stuff scattered across a zillion personal pages
(be they blogs, or whatever) is going to make it hard to find the useful one
when needed, and that's why he's cranky. (Well, more so than he usually
is.... :-)
If it's got something oddball term in the text, a Web indexer might be able
to find it, but what if your search term turns up 17,239 matches? Finding the
useful needle in the hackstack of crap on the current Web is a tall order -
so tall, that I suspect a lot of people don't even try, just shoot off an
email to CCTalk in the hopes that someone here will enlighten them.
I've seen a number of instances recently where people's questions were
answered on the CHWiki, but apparently they couldn't find it. So they
wound up asking here...
Noel
Thanks. I believe you are right also :)
The expensive ceramic packages have hermetic seals, not so the plastic
(epoxy) packages used in commercial grade parts.
There are some kind of failures that can be fixed by baking - but I don't
know if this is one of them (if the bond wire is soldered to the die it
might work). If it detached from the weld at the lead frame, no go. Anyway
there are over 100 chips on the ADM-3A board and I would be more worried
about damaging the others with heat.
I just paid 71 cents for another LS193 ;)
Charles
WB3JOK/0
-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Wade
Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2019 5:02 AM
To: 'Charles' ; 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'
Subject: RE: ADM-3A question
Charles,
I believe that TTL chips suffer from failure or detachment of the bonding
wire that runs from the die to the interconnect pin, which would result in a
floating pin as described.]
Not sure if environmental storage affects this as chips should be sealed...
I have also recently seen it suggested that heating the chip up in an oven
could affect a temporary repair (sorry I can't find the reference now).
Dave
G4UGM
> -----Original Message-----
> From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> On Behalf Of Charles via
cctalk
> Sent: 14 August 2019 00:20
> To: cctalk digest <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
> Subject: Re: ADM-3A question
>
> After hanging vertically for 36 hrs in a hot upstairs room, more goop
seeped
> out from under the keyboard. It now works again. Whew.
>
> While running on the bench for burn-in testing, a cursor problem suddenly
> appeared... it would only move every other keystroke. With the technical
> description and schematic at hand, it wasn't hard to track down a 74LS193
> up/down counter with a blown (floating) LSB output. Confirmed by manually
> toggling that bit and the cursor would move back and forth one position.
> Meanwhile I removed the bad chip and put in a DIP socket. Naturally my TTL
> collection didn't have an 'LS193 so I'm waiting on that. So I have a 24
line, 1
> column terminal :)
>
> The monitor was occasionally intermittent (no display at all, no HV, +15
and
> drive signals OK). It seemed to change with movement of the wiring harness
> from the main board to the monitor, too. I reseated the edge connector on
its
> PCB and it seemed to be fixed - but then the VERTICAL deflection collapsed
and
> tweaking the height adjustment caused increasing loss. The 100 ohm pot to
the
> base of the vertical output transistor had picked that moment to go open.
> Changed that out and readjusted everything - so far so good after another
hour
> of run time.
>
> This ADM-3A could have been unpowered (and in a storage area without
> climate
> control) for a very long time. I wonder if that contributed to the
failures I'm
> seeing... hope there aren't any more until I get to use it for a while on
my PDP-
> 8/A (or 11/23+).
>
>
> ---
> This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
> https://www.avast.com/antivirus
Will...
I?m still waiting for you and the Rhode Island Computer Society to get my brand new in the box 9766, the Alignment disk platter, the box of spare heads and the other unit 9766 beat up unit up and running that I gave you to donate to RICS for free in exchange for you reading the dozen 300mb platters I have and then once the data was read they could keep the platters...
So still waiting on that... hint hint hint
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2019 14:09:16 -0400
> From: William Donzelli <wdonzelli at gmail.com>
> To: P Gebhardt <p.gebhardt at ymail.com>, "General Discussion: On-Topic
> and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
> Subject: Re: Control Data 9766 drive on epay
> Message-ID:
> <CANij+dfgBwBbQ2E29umm_QUx6duuwQANQ35cGgsmC7MbOkiXVw at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> There is a Make Offer option, and it does look like the seller does
> take offers fairly regularly. I will not be buying it.
>
> If someone does, I have a huge amount of spares for 976x drives,
> including refurbished heads. It might take a while to find them in my
> mess, however.
>
> --
> Will
>
>
