test-drb April 2020

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

142 participants
114 discussions

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

Favor to ask: Would anyone have MPW running in some environment, such that if I give them a PEF file they could run dumppef on it and get the symbol table exports and such? The format is documented and I can write python to pull out what I need, but would be so much quicker if someone had MPW installed and running already.. Thanks in advance! J

4 years, 8 months

Looking for a document regarding PDP8

by bobsmithofd＠gmail.com

I have posed this question to the 8lovers list, and folks seemed to misunderstand. So let me try here. I believe sometime in the late 70s, maybe as late as 1980, a prof associated with UMass wrote a paper describing an extension of the PDP8 called 8/X or 8X. THIS IS NOT the Pre Nova/DG machine but a completely different concept. THis is not the FPGA pdp8 implmetaton that also has an X in the name. I believe, my memory is fuzzy, that it was a prof nnmed Stone or Stoner (perhaps Harold S) who lead the effort and had his name on the paper. My fuzzy recollection was this was PDP8 with a Cache, an extension of the instruction set, maybe to 24bits, and full compatibility with 8/e-8/a. I recall the spec citing a 10mhz (100NS) cycle time. some sort of start up setting that would make it 8 mode or X mode on start up, don't recall if it could switch modes while running. I had a copy of the papers some where and it is misplaced hiding on one of my computers and I am bout to pull out my BigMac that might have the data in it. THanks for any hints as to the online location, Again, this is NOT the pdpX concept that led to the DG or the FPGA system or the spartan 3 based system, it is just a concept paper. Thanks bob

4 years, 8 months

World's most frustrating FTGH giveaway - Palm Pilot box

by mark.tapley＠swri.org

All, Next to go is a box in which a Palm Pilot was originally sold. The box is in great shape, shrink-wrap intact except where it was sliced just enough to open the top. The manual is in great shape. The registration card is in great shape. The order receipt is in great shape, name of original owner mis-spelled but otherwise apparently correct. The accessories catalog is in great shape. The software on 3 each 3.5? floppies and on CD appears to be in great shape (not test-read yet). The Now Sync accessory software, on 2 more 3.5? floppies, appears to be in great shape. The leatherette protector is in great shape, with its foam insert still inside keeping it shaped for the Palm Pilot. The DE-9 to DB-25 serial port adaptor is in great shape. For Pete?s sake, the screen protector that peeled off the Palm Pilot screen is in great shape, lovingly tucked into the manual. You have probably noticed what is missing. There are no electronics included. No Palm Pilot, no charging/syncing cradle. Grrrr. You probably want this if you picked up the Palm Pilot at ShopGoodwill somewhere, want to re-create that 1997 ?first on the block with a personal digital accessory? feeling and really enjoy going through the accessory paperwork. https://www.shopgoodwill.com/Item/87198940 (but I think that is a different model). Free to a Good Home, preferably one with an actual Palm Pilot. Shipping will be from San Antonio TX, 78254. If as I suspect, nobody interested, headed to the trash. Standard rules, I?ll wait for a week or so, ship to the sender of the first email in my in-box or to Al K if he emails before I ship. - Mark 210-522-6025 office 210-379-4635 cell

4 years, 8 months

Pdp11/05 boot media

by malcolm＠avitech.com.au

> Hi everybody > > I'm the proud owner of a PDP11/05 system with a couple of 8" floppy drives. I believe they are likely to be RX01s. > > Does anybody on the list have some boot media that they could provide. I understand that the controller can't format > the disks so I'm in a frustrating state where I don't know where to start. > > Doug Jackson > > Canberra Australia. Hi Doug, I'm in Melbourne and have several working PDP-11's. I can send you a couple of bootable RT11 8" disks. I'll need to know whether they are RX01s or RX02s though. Perhaps send me an email offline and we can take it from there? Malcolm www.avitech.com.au <http://www.avitech.com.au>

4 years, 8 months

Motorola EXORciser M6800 System

by osi.superboard＠gmail.com

Since a few days, my EXORciser Development System is finally able to boot from floppy diskettes. Previous attempts have shown that the Motorola EXORciser M68SFDC1 floppy disk board used has a special modified ROM version. This was probably written for an 8-inch drive, in which the Write protect and Direction signal were inverted. For the sake of simplicity, I have used free inverter on the board to invert the signals accordingly. After adjusting the PLL frequency, reads and writes from the card are now error-free. And all without FDC, only clever programming by Motorola software engineers in the early 76? Originally, the EXORdisk system was a dual drive with two 8 "units. This I have replaced with a double drive of two 5.25 inch units. An Epson and a TEAC, which can be jumpered to 360 rpm. Luckily, 2HD floppy disks are easy to R&W. I also got a GOTEK floppy emulator running, which I can boot from. Thanks to Roland Huisman, Bitsaver has some interesting floppy disks that convert to HFE format work perfectly. This format makes the Gotek drive most reliable. Now to my question. The vintage computer forum at http://www.vcfed.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-44638.html mentioned some interesting manuals. Archive.org has some manuals, Bitsaver does not have manuals about the M6800 development system. If someone already owns scanned manuals to the following list M6800 Basic Interpreter Reference Manual M6800 Macro Assembler reference Manual M68SFDU Exordisk 11/111 Disk `Drive Unit Maintenance Manual M6800 Exorciser 11 User's Guide M6800 Exorciser User's Guide MEX68PP1 PROM Programmer Module Supplement M6800 Exorciser User's Guide I would welcome any feedback or questions --THOMAS

4 years, 8 months

pdp11/84 PMI memory: What is the problem with Q bus?

by mark＠matlockfamily.com

> > Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2020 15:29:44 -0400 > From: Chris Zach <cz at alembic.crystel.com> > To: CCTalk mailing list <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Subject: pdp11/84 PMI memory: What is the problem with Q bus? > Message-ID: <3efa4105-3d3d-bb98-0358-8c46fca0fdcf at alembic.crystel.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed > > So I picked up an 11/84 CPU, 3mb of memory, and a 11/84 Unibus card on > Ebay. Goal is to speed up my fastest 11 here > > For boot time, the diagnostics run in 13 seconds (from when it starts to > prompt) on the 11/73 board I have and 13 seconds on the 11/84 board. > This is with a camintonn 2mb half height memory board. > > Put in the first PMI module above the 11/84 CPU and tried it out. This > is a CA rev board which apparently only works in a Unibus pdp11 and not > a Q-bus one. Apparently it does work. > > So what exactly was the bug with the older PMI memory? Block mode DMA, > I'm using an MTI ESDI controller which can do 16 word block DMA on Q > Bus. Something else? Chris, Congrats on the PDP-11/84! I also have a PDP-11/84 that uses one of Joerg?s Hoppe?s UniBone devices to simultaneously emulate MSCP disks, RL02 disks (including the RL02 Load/Ready/WriteProtect/ and fault lights) and a DL11. I have a question about something you said above, that you are using a MTI ESDI disk controller and then you mention Qbus block mode DMA. Are you able to use a Qbus MTI controller in the 11/84?s Qbus section of the backplane? This is something I?ve often wondered about but never tried. Also, you mention putting the PMI memory above the 11/84 CPU. In the 11/83 Qbus backplane this is of course determines whether the M8637 memory is accessed via Q22 or PMI. In the 11/84 System Maintenance Guide Figure 2-8 shows the CPU card above the memory which if you were to do this in the 11/83 would mean that the memory will be accessed via Q22 and essentially become an 11/73. In my 11/83 I have run both configurations to understand and measure the benefit of PMI. As has been mentioned the 11/84 can use any of the M8637 memory boards but the 11/83 can only use the M8637-D or -E versions. For anyone who is curious about what Happens when a M8637-C version board is used as PMI memory in an 11/83 I can speak >From experience. This was running RSX11M+ and it boots fine but after a few minutes if The system is active, the console starts to report that various installed tasks are corrupted And the system will XDT a bit later. After this the disk is corrupted and you will need to restore the system disk from backups after you get the correct PMI memory boards. I?m not completely sure how the write DMA operations put bad data through the disk controller (I was using an Emulex UC07 with a SCSI2SD) into the disks but that is what happens. Mark Matlock

4 years, 8 months

HP 41-CX

by abs＠absd.org

I've come into possession of an HP 41-CX calculator - unfortunately it appears to have had batteries left in it which have left corrosion on the internal contacts. (some pics: https://photos.app.goo.gl/48bE7WJZP8R4PF9a9 ) My classic hardware tendencies tend to run more towards the "can run *nix" end, and while I could just clean it up and throw it on eBay I wondered if anyone here has a 41C shaped soft spot and would be interested? (happy to trade/part trade for something they already have for which they are less fond if that works :) David

4 years, 8 months

pdp11/84 PMI memory: What is the problem with Q bus?

by mark＠matlockfamily.com

> Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2020 15:29:44 -0400 > From: Chris Zach <cz at alembic.crystel.com> > To: CCTalk mailing list <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Subject: pdp11/84 PMI memory: What is the problem with Q bus? > Message-ID: <3efa4105-3d3d-bb98-0358-8c46fca0fdcf at alembic.crystel.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed > > So I picked up an 11/84 CPU, 3mb of memory, and a 11/84 Unibus card on > Ebay. Goal is to speed up my fastest 11 here > > For boot time, the diagnostics run in 13 seconds (from when it starts to > prompt) on the 11/73 board I have and 13 seconds on the 11/84 board. > This is with a camintonn 2mb half height memory board. > > Put in the first PMI module above the 11/84 CPU and tried it out. This > is a CA rev board which apparently only works in a Unibus pdp11 and not > a Q-bus one. Apparently it does work. > > So what exactly was the bug with the older PMI memory? Block mode DMA, > I'm using an MTI ESDI controller which can do 16 word block DMA on Q > Bus. Something else? Chris, Congrats on the PDP-11/84! I also have a PDP-11/84 that uses one of Joerg?s Hoppe?s UniBone devices to simultaneously emulate MSCP disks, RL02 disks (including the RL02 Load/Ready/WriteProtect/ and fault lights) and a DL11. I have a question about something you said above, that you are using a MTI ESDI disk controller and then you mention Qbus block mode DMA. Are you able to use a Qbus MTI controller in the 11/84?s Qbus section of the backplane? This is something I?ve often wondered about but never tried. Also, you mention putting the PMI memory above the 11/84 CPU. In the 11/83 Qbus backplane this is of course determines whether the M8637 memory is accessed via Q22 or PMI. In the 11/84 System Maintenance Guide Figure 2-8 shows the CPU card above the memory which if you were to do this in the 11/83 would mean that the memory will be accessed via Q22 and essentially become an 11/73. In my 11/83 I have run both configurations to understand and measure the benefit of PMI. As has been mentioned the 11/84 can use any of the M8637 memory boards but the 11/83 can only use the M8637-D or -E versions. For anyone who is curious about what Happens when a M8637-C version board is used as PMI memory in an 11/83 I can speak >From experience. This was running RSX11M+ and it boots fine but after a few minutes if The system is active, the console starts to report that various installed tasks are corrupted And the system will XDT a bit later. After this the disk is corrupted and you will need to restore the system disk from backups after you get the correct PMI memory boards. I?m not completely sure how the write DMA operations put bad data through the disk controller (I was using an Emulex UC07 with a SCSI2SD) into the disks but that is what happens. Mark Matlock

4 years, 8 months

Wanted for non-profit public museum: DEC VT100

by bbortnick＠2bcool.ca

Old IBM magnetic media I am hoping someone can help me with a project. I?m volunteer at our local music museum (National Music Centre/Studio Bell.) They are restoring a vintage Synclavier, an early digital audio workstation, which happens to have an embedded DEC PDP 11/23. Part of the museums purpose is to restore, maintain and make available these instruments for musicians to use in addition to static displays. The Synclavier should have a matching VT100, but that is the only component the museum does not currently have for this functioning device. Yes, the VT100 can be easily emulated, but as a museum, historical accuracy is also vital. I was wondering if anybody had any leads on a VT100 that might be donated? Thanks for any help!

4 years, 8 months

paging rik bos

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

Anyone seen Rik Bos around? I sent him some 12920/21 mux boards to repair, and he got to keep some but haven?t heard anything in a long time?. I may start playing with the HP2000 again soon ?

4 years, 8 months

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test-drb April 2020