> Whenever I start a new job the first thing I do today is enable
> -Werror; all warnings are errors. And I?ll fix every one. Even
> when everyone claims that ?These are not a problem?. Before
> that existed, I?d do the same with lint, and FlexeLint when I
> could get it.
On Fri, 29 Jan 2021, wrcooke at wrcooke.net wrote:
> That's exactly what I did and was then told I was likely to get fired for
> it. I left that job soon after.
> "A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new." -- Albert
> Einstein
Similarly, "You don't have time to write comments as you go along. You
can go back and add them in AFTER the program is working." Of course, as
soon as it "seems to be working", "We're not paying you to mess with stuff
that's already DONE. We have ANOTHER project that you have to get on
immediately."
It's not good to be in a job where they won't let you be thorough in error
checking nor let you write comments.
And, of course, "Don't waste space with more than two decimal digits for
year. NOTHING that we are doing now will still be in use 30 years from
now."
One of the tasks that I was assigned (working for a contractor at GSFC)
was to work on converting a wall of punch-card subroutines for plotting on
Calcomp plotters that needed to be changed to work on Stromberg-Carlson
(later Stromberg Datagraphics). It was budgeted for a LONG project to
rewrite all of them. I realized that all of the subroutines for Calcomp
called lower and lower level routines, on down to a small number of
primitives. It was easy to write primitives for those lowest level ones,
that worked on the SC/SD. I got some help with the JCL to link my
primitives to the routines for the Calcomps. All of the routines for
Calcomp worked fine calling their lower level routines, and ultimately
calling MY primitives. The company got a small bonus for getting it all
done way sooner than planned, and I got a private major reprimand for
getting it all done way sooner than it was budgeted for. Many others
earned bonuses for the company. The company distributed the bonuses as
BIG bonuses to upper executives (I think that the top guy got a car), and
gave each of us a gift certificate/coupon for a turkey.
I?ve acquired the display and keyboard portion of a CPT Phoenix Jr but the seller didn?t have the system unit. (I suspect someone along the chain of custody thought it was a generic PC and recycled it.)
Does anyone have one that needs a home?
? Chris
? who has an affinity for portrait displays
Sent from my iPhone
In case you need a half-height SCSI enclosure to add to your VAX etc, I
put one up on EBay.
Item ID: 224332273248
https://www.ebay.com/itm/224332273248
Van Snyder
> I have a feeling there are two shell designs for the 6 pin.
Like I said, I have a vague memory of another keying design (I think it used a
ridge running parallel to the direction of insertion), but I don't think it's
>from any DEC gear. There is definitely yet _another_ keying design, with
triangular sawteeth, but again, I don't think any DEC gear used that.
> The one on my DD11-DF that I want to mate has detents in the corners
> while the catalog picture for the 6 pin on your part number shows a
> square in the center of the side.
Yes, the ones on the DD11-[C,D] (female shell, male pins) have 2 filled-in
corners, and the ones on the harness into which they plug (male shell, female
pins) have both the cutout corners (to match the filled-in corners on the
female shells), _and_ "a square in the center of the side".
As I said, I had verified that my female shells plugged into the male shells
on an -11/40 harness; I just went and checked, those males have the exact
identical shape to the ones I got (with the listed part number), including
both cutout corners and the square in the center of the side. (Oddly enough,
the 15-pin male shells used in that generation of DEC power connectors do not
have the square in the center of the side, just the cutout corners.)
Noel
I do not know this guy, this came through my site, but if you do have info
that you think he might find useful and would like to share please contact
CECIL the Specific.
VintageComputer.net Inquiry Contact Information Name: CECIL CRAIN
Email: ccrain at rgoldlegal-got-com Phone: 4157869527
------------------------- Comments:
I'm looking for any information about Bakelite insulating
materials and phenolic resins used in Univac DCT products manufactured
in the Salt Lake City facility from 1970 to 1978.
VintageComputer.net
---------------------------------------------------------------
Bill
> Are the power connectors on the DEC PDP-11 backplanes (e.g. DD11-DF
> 15pin and 6pin) Molex or other?
> Are they still commonly available?
https://gunkies.org/wiki/DEC_power_distribution_connectors#Connectors
I'm not sure why I bothered to write all this stuff up; it was clearly a waste
of time.
Noel
> I may have gotten the wrong 6pin shell.
I have this very vague memory of some similar connector shell, but I have no
memory of what the difference is.
I just checked the shells I have here, and they definitely fit onto the power
harness on an -11/40; and the numbers on the Web page are correct.
If yours arrives, and it works, please send me the number and I'll add it to
the page. Actually, if it _doesn't_ work, send me the number, and I'll add a
'no not use xxx, it doesn't work' note.
Noel
I have an HP 9817 and 9133D disk drive that I am trying to get going. The 9817 has a 98204B composite video card. I can mess with the settings of a composite monitor enough to barely read the text on the screen, which indicates that the machine is trying to boot from device A. I tried to make an image of the hard drive in the 9133D using Dave's MFM emulator, but the drive is pretty much toast and I wasn't able to recover much from it. If I connect the drive to the computer, it fails to boot and goes into BASIC.
I do not have a compatible HP monitor or HIL keyboard to use with the machine. I was planning on building a PS2 to HIL converter, but having an actual keyboard would be far easier. Likewise, having a monitor would be easier than abusing a normal composite display into working.
It looks like there were a bunch of compatible monitors back in the day. The 35721 and 35731B are mentioned on the HP Museum website.
