My warehouse got flooded. Is there anyone from Austin or SA that can help
rescue kbds and old computers?
Cindy Croxton
Electronics Plus
1613 Water Street
Kerrville, TX 78028
830-370-3239 cell
sales at elecplus.com
--
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
So I got the RX02 drive up and going with the RXV11 controller. Man it's
interesting to hear those old disks *click*. Both work (which is good)
and now I'm starting to look through my old disks.
Interesting issue: Many of my disks are formatted RX02. So I need to dig
out my RXV21 controller from some box around here and see if that works.
I never liked the RXV21: It's only 18 bits, does DMA, and is quite weird
in a 4mb pdp11. But I would like to get this data off.
I also uncovered my old TSX disks. I have TSX+ 6.5, 6.4, and TSX
5.something here on double sided RX02 disks. Looks like my support
contract ran out in 1991, I'll have to see about renewing that....
Anyone here still running TSX, or did everyone go to RSX11M+?
C
This talk of old tape brings up a question that I wanted to ask the list.
I've run into some tapes that say they were prepared on the IBM DCS
setup (7044-coupled-to-7094) running DCOS.
I confess to never having run into the 7044 in real life--it always
seemed like an odd machine--basically, a 7094 Jr.
There couldn't have been very many DCS setups, am I correct?
--Chuck
> From: Bob Smith <bobsmithofd at gmail.com>
> saw a comment that this belonged to CJL.
Chris Lindblad? Sorry, I'm drawing a blank on someone with those initials who
is connected with the LINC.
> From: Jon Elson
> Wow, those were fairly rare back when, and now there may only be a
> couple in existence.
Yeah, that's why I was hoping that someone connected to this community would
get it, so we don't lose track of this rare artifact.
I'd buy it, but i) it's not a PDP-11, and fails my 'PDP-11's only' test
(intended to put a strict limit on the amount of junk I accumulate), and ii) I
already have a whole bunch of PDP-11 gear I have yet to get to. :-( There's no
way I would ever get to it.
> Two complete CPUs, capable of running at the same time in shared memory
> (I think).
The documentation (1967 Small Computer Handbook) is unclear. It is clear that
the general mode of operation was for only one CPU at a time to be running,
but that appears to be to simplify programming (although it does say that "In
the PDP-8 mode, the LINC subsystem is disabled"). The memory is indeed shared;
it's on the PDP-8, and the LINC gains access via the standard PDP-8 'data
break' (i.e. DMA) mechanism.
Noel
> From: Paul Koning
> I suppose they still charge you an insurance fee according to what you
> declared as the value?
Yes, IIRC.
> This seems like a pretty clear case of fraud, and you should report it
> to the authorities.
Well, at the time, I thought it was just a local manager being a hard-ass; so maybe
not worth the effort of taking further steps. Now, of course, it looks more like a
policy change, but the incident I was a party to is now many months ago, so perhaps
not optimal for reporting.
Noel
Hi, a heads-up on sending expensive items via FedEx. They appear to have a new
policy, limiting honouring insurance coverage; so, in my opinion, they are
now unsuitable for shipping valuable items.
Data point 1: a couple of months back, I bought a PDP-11/40 on eBait. It was
shipped via FedEx in two separate packages: one with boards, and one holding
the chassis/front-panel. They somehow managed to lose the second box - and
then refused to fully pay out the insurance coverage on that box. We provided
them with data on an open eBay auction for an identical item, to prove that
our valuation was not inflated, but it didn't help - they only paid out a
reduced amout, not what the thing was worth, and _what we had insured it for_
(even though _they_ lost it).
Data point 2: I collect Japanese woodblock prints; a large dealer I do
business with used to do all their shipping via FedEx - dozens of shipments
per week - but as of yesterday I as informed that they are now switching. Why?
FedEx lost a valuable, insured, package - and would only pay out US1K on it,
not the full insured value, leaving the dealer to absorb most of the loss
(several US$K).
There's a clear pattern here; FedEx is refusing to honour the full insurance
coverage when an item is lost. So I wouldn't ship anythihg valuable via FedEx
unless you can find an outside insurer to cover it - since Fedex's own
insurance coverage now often cannot be relied upon.
Noel
Quick question: Does anyone have a copy of dx.sys for RT11 version 5.5?
I'm getting my RX01 disk running but don't seem to have this driver and
the 5.1 driver does. not. work. under 5.5
Thanks!
Chris
Ok, so this evening I went back to the house to do a quick evacuation of
the most critical stuff and take some better pictures. This time I
brought a massive xeon flashlight which helps to get quicker pictures
with less shake.
I also picked up a pile of Perq boards, and all the DC600 tapes and
floppies I could take out. The car was loaded with them, someone is
going to have to curate these. But since I know that the most important
thing is the software and not the hardware I decided this is what to get
as the top priority.
There appears to be a third Perq in there as well on the other side of
the basement. No big drives (14 inch or 8 inch) but a lot of MFM and
SCSI disks. Couldn't grab those, too heavy.
I'm going to put together a list of people and see if I can figure out a
way to get things out. The garage is blocked by an old car, and this
stuff will not go up the steps. Too narrow.
Never dull. Latest pictures are at https://www.crystel.com/bob (I moved
the old ones to a subfolder). I also took a better set of pictures of
the VME boards, look like Sun boards.
C
I've started scanning a few more of the BHP docs I recovered a while back, and thought this one was interesting.
A 1973 gizmo that buffers just enough received data for a relay to close and power up a teleprinter's motor to
operating speed before printing, apparently half a second was sufficient it reckons.
The buffering is through a pair of 64 x 4-bit Fairchild 3341 FIFO memory chips.
https://archive.org/details/utec-bmc-6092-buffered-idle-line-motor-control-…
One of the other docs mentions they had an ASR33 with this buffered motor control installed connected to PDP-11/10.
Steve.
> From: Chris Zach
> We have to move fast though, this needs to be cleaned out. How can
> people help me on this?
I'm sure there must be institutions that would love to have the PERQs; they
were very important machines, historically, and are quite rare.
Alas, although I'd normally be up for helping in such a recovery operation
(I'm in Virginia), I'm recovering from a moderate case of Covid19 (didn't
have to go to hospital, luckily, but I had a bad fever), and am still pretty
weak, so it's probably beyond me at this point.
Noel
