test-drb August 2020

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

116 participants
97 discussions

A tale of two Automated Logic Diagram Sheets

by cube1＠charter.net

I encountered my second missing Automated Logic Diagram (ALD) page for the IBM 1410: 13.64.03.1, which, based on the signals fed to it and which it produces, would, fortunately, necessarily have the same logic as page 15.41.10.1 - "E CH FULL CONTROL-ACC". Page 13.64.03.1 is for the second, or F Channel. The E Channel version uses 9 NAND gates and 4 drivers. However, based on the card location chart, the F Channel version, even though it would have corresponding logic, has TWENTY-ONE gates (some of those could be just load resistors) on card type DGR. These are ALL just INVERTERS. The card location chart also calls out 2 gates on card type DFS - also inverters, and one gate on card type AEK which uses equation (NOT IN1) OR IN2 to produce its output. The F channel logic used up two cards slots plus parts of six others. The E Channel logic version used three card slots (probably in their entirety) and the drivers used parts of four other cards slots What to do? As readers will likely know, you can't do any real logic with just inverters. However, SMS card outputs can be hooked together with all but one of the gates so connected (or "DOT-ed") having open collector outputs. Electrically, given the circuits on the DGR and DFS cards (as well as most others the IBM 1410 uses), if you follow that with an inverter you get OR => NOT, aka "NOR" logic. Now that we can do something with. So, I wrote a VHDL test bench, based on the Intermediate Logic Diagram (ILD) that shows the necessary logic for the E Channel (and indicates the F Channel is the same), and tested that against the E Channel page to make sure my understanding of the logic was correct. Then, as an exercise, with liberal application of DeMorgan's theorems, I proceeded to lay out the logic for the F channel version in that fashion. It took 21 inverters (using the AEK as an inverter) and 1 load resistor (which I probably didn't need to use) and eight DOT functions (ORs) to produce the necessary logic. So, pretty close, but not a perfect reproduction. One thing is an issue for sure: I "DOT-ed" two inputs together that come from other sheets whose outputs are used on still other sheets - which is generally a no-no. It would not have been that way on the original machine - they would need to be isolated by being fed into gates of some sort - even if only back to back inverters. I could probably spend a bit more time, find a way to leverage the second input on the gate AEK, and get it more exact, but frankly, it isn't worth the effort right now. JRJ ?

3 years, 8 months

[GreenKeys] Omaha craigslist - Teletype RO printer - what model?

by jfoust＠threedee.com

At 12:56 PM 8/3/2020, Nick England wrote: >Looks interesting - I know nothing more ><https://omaha.craigslist.org/sys/d/omaha-heathkit-h19-terminal-vintage-old/…>https://omaha.craigslist.org/sys/d/omaha-heathkit-h19-terminal-vintage-old/… > >What model printer is that? typewheel, not dot matrix. Any ideas over here? - John

3 years, 8 months

Seeking PET 4016/32 'shift' keycap

by jules.richardson99＠gmail.com

After over a decade of keeping eyes peeled, I found a Commodore PET 4016 at a yard sale yesterday (it actually wasn't in the sale, but there was some old phone stuff there, and when I see anything like that I always ask the owner if they happen to have any vintage computer stuff hiding away). The case is pretty battered, and it was disgusting and reeked of rodent urine, but after cleaning it and going over things it (incredibly) actually works. I am, however, missing a right shift keycap. Does anyone happen to have a junker (perhaps one that's already missing keys) and so would be willing to sell me one? It's identical to the left-side, and I think is shared with the 4032 models. Cosmetically the machine's never going to be perfect (at least not without some careful gluing on a couple of cracks and a full repaint), but a complete keyboard would improve things considerably! thanks Jules

3 years, 8 months

Any interest in "newer" hardware, software?

by boris＠summitclinic.com

Have been going through my shop and storage room trying to see what can get rid of and wasn't aware of how much old electronics and computers have accumulated over last 50 years. Should note that this process has been at insistance of my wife as a lot of these boxes just got moved whenever I moved and much of this stuff haven't looked at for decades. Was about to toss a 1987 box containing DOS 3.3 but then figured someone might want it. Have a couple of XT systems kicking around somewhere but in 1987 I'd discovered the Mac and considered 68000 processor a far superior architecture as it was an easy transition >from someone who'd spent most of their time programming on a PDP-11. Also have early Mac software, hundreds of 3.5" disks which are primarily taking up space and all of them have been copied to HDD's and now run my Mac code under Basilisk2 was faster than it used to run on my MacIIvx (of which I have a couple). Also managed to find, in no particular order, a couple of C64's, a TI99, ZX81, VIC20 and an 8" floppy drive with full documentation that I faintly recall buying at a surplus electronics place in Seattle. Also found a box of old Univac cards which appear to be DTL with individual transistors and then go on to having DTL IC's as well as some old IBM cards. Used to pull transistors and diodes off these to build my own circuits 50 years ago. Now, with storage being so ridiculously cheap haven't even come close to making a dent in the capacity of a 256 Gb SD card in my Samsung S8 handheld supercomputer of which I'm using the camera function to create high res images of what I'm going through. Also have lots of PC motherboards starting with XT's and progressing upwards. Never liked 80286 and so only collected from 80386 and higher. Seem to have lots of various parallel port adapters, disk interfaces as well as parallel and serial port boards. Was planning on using these as dedicated processors for data acquisition but found that technology progressed faster than my getting around to use them and it's a lot simpler to either use Phidget's SBC with various sensors for environmental monitoring or a much less power hungry Parallax Propellar chip for more demanding data acquisition applications. (Haven't let my wife know how many of newer systems I have stashed away but they take up way less room than old hardware). Do also have a couple of PDP 11/23 systems which I'll probably have to part with as I haven't used then in last 15 years. Also have a number of unibus boards which haven't run into yet but won't be using them. Lots of old computer books as well which would be nice to keep but likely have most of documentation in digital form and usually back up all important pdf files to separate drives. The PC stuff is most voluminous and, if there's any interest, can post images of what I have on my web site. Only components I've tested are disk drives of which most work but SCSI drives are all old and a number of them didn't take kindly to be powered off after running for years and being moved from Vancouver to Kamloops. Boris Gimbarzevsky

3 years, 8 months

SUN VME - seller in Sweden.

by mattislind＠gmail.com

A company has a few VME SUN 3/xxx CPU Cards and a SMD card for sale in case anyone is interested: https://ggsp.se/69-oevriga Approximately 100 USD each. They have also been listed on Swedish auction site Tradera for some time without selling so perhaps it is possible to negotiate? /Mattis

3 years, 8 months

cctalk Digest, Vol 71, Issue 1

by earl＠baugh.org

I?m interested!!! Would you be able to take them to a UPS store ( or the like ) and I?ll call them to pay for shipping. Possible?? Earl Sent from my iPhone > On Aug 1, 2020, at 1:00 PM, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > ?Send cctalk mailing list submissions to > cctalk at classiccmp.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://www.classiccmp.org/mailman/listinfo/cctalk > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > cctalk-request at classiccmp.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > cctalk-owner at classiccmp.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of cctalk digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: OpenVMS Community License (Rico Pajarola) > 2. Tallgrass PC hardfile driver/utility software (r.stricklin) > 3. SUN VME - seller in Sweden. (Mattis Lind) > 4. Re: SUN VME - Have em in US.... (Chris Zach) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 16:04:29 -0700 > From: Rico Pajarola <rp at servium.ch> > To: Bill Gunshannon <bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com>, "General > Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Subject: Re: OpenVMS Community License > Message-ID: > <CACwAiQnFqofBCeHtMGTTmFv28Syu+Wa2-X5f5D8yFFL7VG3qGg at mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" > > On Thu, Jul 30, 2020 at 8:06 AM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > >>> One could make a case that the >>> wording of the license is imprecise enough >> >> The wording is only imprecise to those who do not wish to follow it. >> It is, by far, the cleanest and plainest written Hobbyist License I >> have ever seen. > > IANAL, but I'm married to one... just pointing out that "clear language" > does not mean the same thing to lawyers as it does to us engineers. > "software owned by Digital Equipment Corporation" is pretty vague as far as > lawyer-speak goes. The license does not seem to specifically include or > exclude alternative scenarios. Anyone, especially a non-lawyer who was not > involved with the drafting of the license, and says "obviously that must > mean X" is just making stuff up (it doesn't matter what X is. Notice that > I'm not saying it means you can use it under this license. I don't know, > and IANAL). It's like undefined behaviour in C. You can make an educated > guess (given additional information you have, such as history, > correspondence with Mentec about the topic etc.), and you might be right, > but the only way to find out for sure is to run the compiler and look at > the disassembly, i.e. force a clarification from Mentec. > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2020 00:03:19 -0700 > From: "r.stricklin" <bear at typewritten.org> > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts" <cctech at classiccmp.org> > Subject: Tallgrass PC hardfile driver/utility software > Message-ID: <11E069C4-5A01-4E1B-875E-D36D13C5E738 at typewritten.org> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > Folks; > > I see (and am grateful for) the disk images for the Tallgrass PC Hardfile/Tape unit (TG 3000/3100 series, such as my TG-3020) that have been archived on minuszerodegrees.com. This represents version 4.xx of the utilties, for use with PC-DOS 2.x. > > I was hoping to use this device on a 5150 PC with PC-DOS 1.1 and CP/M-86. This requires an older version (3.xx) of the DOS software, and one for CP/M-86 1.00 (also Tallgrass software version 3.xx? but a separate disk, I should imagine). > > If anybody happens to have a copy of either of these and don't mind sharing it, I'd love to hear from you. Thanks! > > > ok > bear. > > -- > until further notice > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2020 14:55:50 +0200 > From: Mattis Lind <mattislind at gmail.com> > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Subject: SUN VME - seller in Sweden. > Message-ID: > <CABr82SJF-i8VNp1e_+CejOWt2H5qYkOpp8z=y41vZMv1cW7m0w at mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" > > A company has a few VME SUN 3/xxx CPU Cards and a SMD card for sale in case > anyone is interested: > > https://ggsp.se/69-oevriga > > Approximately 100 USD each. > > They have also been listed on Swedish auction site Tradera for some time > without selling so perhaps it is possible to negotiate? > > /Mattis > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 4 > Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2020 11:47:50 -0400 > From: Chris Zach <cz at alembic.crystel.com> > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: SUN VME - Have em in US.... > Message-ID: <3b876af1-7662-93c1-ad8e-bf8837fc682d at alembic.crystel.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed > > I have about 15 boards that look like they came from Sun 3/xxx series > systems. Mostly SCSI controller boards things that might be clocks, and > memory boards. About 3 Sun 3/xxx CPUs as well (later ones, 68020) > > Anyone need them? Let me know, pickup from MD preferred. > > CZ > > On 8/1/2020 8:55 AM, Mattis Lind via cctalk wrote: >> A company has a few VME SUN 3/xxx CPU Cards and a SMD card for sale in case >> anyone is interested: >> >> https://ggsp.se/69-oevriga >> >> Approximately 100 USD each. >> >> They have also been listed on Swedish auction site Tradera for some time >> without selling so perhaps it is possible to negotiate? >> >> /Mattis >> > > > End of cctalk Digest, Vol 71, Issue 1 > *************************************

3 years, 8 months

Tallgrass PC hardfile driver/utility software

by bear＠typewritten.org

Folks; I see (and am grateful for) the disk images for the Tallgrass PC Hardfile/Tape unit (TG 3000/3100 series, such as my TG-3020) that have been archived on minuszerodegrees.com. This represents version 4.xx of the utilties, for use with PC-DOS 2.x. I was hoping to use this device on a 5150 PC with PC-DOS 1.1 and CP/M-86. This requires an older version (3.xx) of the DOS software, and one for CP/M-86 1.00 (also Tallgrass software version 3.xx? but a separate disk, I should imagine). If anybody happens to have a copy of either of these and don't mind sharing it, I'd love to hear from you. Thanks! ok bear. -- until further notice

3 years, 8 months

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 2020