In case you've not already heard, I have just been told that Martin
Gardner has passed away.
He was, of course, responsible for many excellent books of mathematical
puzzles. He had a defintie knack of being able to make something simple
enough to understand but still keeping enough mathematics there to be
worthwhile.
The world is certainly a poorer place without him.
He certainly inspered me to love mathemaitcs. Had I not read his books
some years ago, my life would have been very different. I don't think I
am exagerating if I say that without his books I would not have passed
A-level mathematics...
True story : Many years ago I was given a couple of his books as a
Newtonsday presnet. Once contained a chapter on base -2 arithmeatic. I
spent the next day or so designing a base -2 full-adder circuit and
soldering it up. Never found any practical use for it, but...
-tony
> I know they have created a new one recently demoing the PDP11 based system
> used at the UK Air Traffic Control centre until a few years ago, but they do
> not seem to have published it yet.
FWIW, the write-up of the 'restoration' of that machine in Computer
Resurraection was quickly retitled by some of my friends 'What not to do
with a PDP11'
And for all it was written up in 'Computer Resurraction; which seems to
be related ot the CCS, and for all when I joined the CCS I listed the
PDP11 as one of the mahcines I had knowledge of, no questions ever came
my way. So I am wondering what the point of lisitng the machines i had
knowledge of was...
-tony
Some of you may recall that I had posted almost a year ago with an HP 64110A portable logic analyzer station. At the time I was only interested in selling the whole thing as a set, but now I am willing to part it out, since a buyer for the whole thing hasn't really surfaced.
I have the following parts:
HP 64110A- all stock parts present and fully functional, including CRT, dual disk drives, video RAM board, main processor board, keyboard, power supply.
HP 64110A "backpack" vinyl pouch, in good condition. Some faded ink smudges on the front from wet dot matrix printer paper.
HP 108338 networking cable, in excellent condition
Some misc. floppy disks, including boot disk, disk utils., timing disks, and a few with no labels.
I have 5x HP 64604A 8 channel timing probe pods, with a plethora of probes. I also have 3 connecting cables for said pods which can run to the timing analyzer boards inside of the station.
I have tons of probes, including some special probes that come with a DIP chip clamp. All these are still in their original HP branded ziploc bags.
I also have two timing analysis boards, and the main control board for them, along with all associated cables. So that's two 64602A's and one 64601A.
I don't have any firm prices, since I don't know what these things are worth. I also haven't had the opportunity to fully test all this gear, since I am not versed in operating it. If you'd like anything tested I'd be happy to do so for you, provided you can walk me through it. I'm also happy to take pictures of anything you'd like, but I already have some uploaded to Picasa if you'd like a look: http://picasaweb.google.com/arf.at.sjv/HP64110APortableMainframe
If you need any of these things, please feel free to email me at arfink at sdf.lonestar.org or to call me at 763-789-1285.
Thanks very much, and have a nice day!
-Tony Fink
Just wondering if anyone has the pinout for the NCR 53C400 SCSI
controller (68 pin PLCC).
FWIW, I have the "NCR 5380 53C80 SCSI Interface Chip Design Manual"
as well as the NCR "SCSI Engineering Notebook", if anyone cares to
form a collection of information for early NCR SCSI chips.
--Chuck
Rob Jarratt wrote:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-
>> bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of allison
>> Sent: 20 May 2010 20:13
>> To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only
>> Subject: Re: RD53 Restoration
>>
>> Tony Duell wrote:
>>
>>>> Yes, this drive did have a sticky bumper. I resolved it by putting a
>>>>
>> very
>>
>>>> thin sliver of tape over the sticky bit. I did not loosen any bolts,
>>>>
>> but
>>
>>> I wonder if that bumper is no the wrong size, and that is what's
>>>
>> causing
>>
>>> the problems.Maybe the heads have to be able to find something o nthe
>>> disk for hte drive to not find an error.
>>>
>>> -tony
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> I've outright removed the bumper with no ill effect. Reason for that
>> is unsticking it once didn't work as it would stick again. Only
>> solution
>> was remove the offending material. Result was a reliable working drive
>> that when powered off emitted a noticeable "clunk". That has had no
>> impact on reliability, least not for the last 10 years.
>>
>>
>
> After putting back the original boards the disk worked again for a bit. But
> it is not working again now and I have determined that I have not completely
> cured the sticky bumper because when I placed a very small screwdriver in
> front of the bumper the heads moved again.
>
> I am curious about your solution of removing the sticky material entirely, I
> can't see how to do that without what looks like some serious dismantling,
> something which you recommended against on an earlier thread, maybe there is
> an easy way I cannot see. If anyone can tell me how do this I would really
> appreciate it (if anyone has a photo showing how this is done that would be
> great).
>
> Thanks
>
> Rob
>
>
>
I did it by grabbing the offending material with a very fine and long pair
of forceps and pulling it out. At the time I was quite annoyed and had
other more pressing things on my todo list and that was, in the way,
and I needed that drive working. No disassembly short of removing
the cover.
FYI: the head positioner has very low torque so any sticky will trap
the head.
Allison
i went to school in fullerton,ca with charlie marbury on the 4118 we were trained by the hughes engineers i helped install and maintain the 4118 at keesler i retired in 1973 my email address is wfp1934 at bellsouth.net my name is fred panter. we were trained in 1970
