I have an LNW-80 Model I. If my memory is correct, this unit will run CP/M.
Can anyone confirm that?
And, if so... Can someone point me to where I can get disk images?
Thanks!
Al
Keansburg, NJ
> That's a pile of random loktals. What I'm talking about is a set of the
> five tubes called for in an All-American-Five design. I might have to
> rewire this thing for regular octals.
14Q7, 14A7, 14B6, 50A5, 35Y4? All easily available at any of the places
that have a broad stock of tubes. e.g. ESRC, Antique Electronic Supply,
etc. One of my specialties is the loctal Zentih Transoceanic (8G005) which
some describe as rare but really they're as common as dirt. I was
surprised that many of the stocks of loctal tubes are recentish (60's,
70's) Eastern European production - I had always thought of loctals
as a Philco thing of the 40's.
The business sense in dealing with something that hasn't been made
in decades (or indeed more than half a century) is contrary to most
business rules of thunb. To have a profitable resale business as a rule
of thumb you have to be able to turn your inventory over several times
a year. Anything not sold after a few months has to be slashed in price
or simply thrown out to make room for the new stuff. The tube resellers
have to work differently - their stock is already decades old. It's not
a business I'm in but I can appreciate some of the challenges. I think
the business world of tubes has seen some tumultousness recently, what
with the US Govt unloading huge stockpiles of many tubes and the de-
nationalization of Eastern European/Russian factories, but may be
stabilizing a bit.
Tim.
Does anyone have experience navigating the DECUS archive at digiater.nl?
Under this directory: http://digiater.nl/openvms/decus/vax000/
is this file: 11spp_87.001
which contains this reference:
11-SP-42 Symposium Tape from the RSTS SIG, Spring 1980, Chicago
Version: Spring 1980
Does the archive contain the contents of this tape? I would rather not
have to download the large 500MB+ ZIPs to find the needle in the
haystack and I am not sure I understand how the "indexing" scheme
works.
I looked in here:
http://digiater.nl/openvms/decus/zips_unix_attributes/
but I cannot match these files with those listed under /vax000/
Any tips or directions would be appreciated.
thanks,
nigel.
www.retroComputingTasmania.com
On Tue Feb 16 11:56:45 CST 2010, Dave McGuire wrote:
> That's it...worked like a champ.
Thank you Dave, that worked for me too; applying your tips might now
allow us to try some of the other layered products (C and COBOL -
although I notice the C TAP has a AUTOIN.COM file for auto-install so
I suppose we invoke that, much like the F77 install).
I used BP2 V2.6, only because I understood that version was intended
for RSTS/E V9.6 - I will try BP2 V2.7 and see if it is stable on V9.6.
I am still to discover which of the TAPs of RSTS/E V9.7 are worth
trying.
One surprise I encountered though on rebooting RSTS/E, BASIC/BP2
throws an error:
$ basic/bp2
?Unable to attach to resident library
?Can't find file or account
I fixed this by executing these two commands (found in BP2INS.CMD):
$ INSTALL/LIBRARY/NOADDRESS B26SHR
$ INSTALL/LIBRARY/NOADDRESS B26SH1
Then $ BASIC/BP2 works again.
So it is usual RSTS/E practice to add the install/library commands to
[0,1]START.COM to "permanently" add the layered product to RSTS/E? I
expected the install process to do this for me.
Sorry, I do not have 11SP42. I think I had it confused in my head with
11SP47 (GCE's Portacalc of course).
Lots of the SIG symposia tapes are a kind of
"best of" collection with contents repeated or improved from year to year.
Is there something specific you need from 11SP42? If so it's probably
on some other DECUS tape I can help you find.
Tim.
> Is there a good source for these things (the TVs and the tubes)
> today? I imagine people threw them away mostly. If these are
> difficult to find and/or maintain, I've considered trying to create a
> replica console television from a newer set, maybe even something
> with an LCD in it. I'd probably prefer an original though.
brian
You can try thrift stores although the ones out here in California tend
not to take them anymore. You can also check with a TV repair place as
they tend to get questions from people about what to do with their old sets.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
>On 12 Feb 2010 at 15:30, Jeff Walther wrote:
>> Anyone have a datasheet for the MCM62940 (MCM62940AFN14) static RAM?
>> It's not strictly off topic, as it's from the 256K level 2 cache of a
>> computer from the mid-90s (NuBus PPC Macintoshes).
> Apparently, the MCM62486 is pin compatible and there are datasheets
> for that online:
> http://pdf.chinaicmart.com/86B/MCM62486BFN11_1159896.pdf
> --Chuck
Thanks you for the information, Chuck. They should be very similar. I
imagine the difference is that the XX486 version has adaptations for the
80486 methods of addressing memory, while the 940 version is more oriented
for the Motorola family of processors. At least, I think I read
something to that effect somewhere--maybe in the description of the
associated tag RAM.
Anyway, I've emailed Brent and hope to pay to ship the whole databook.
If anyone else decides they want to order the 4000 soldered down static
RAMs I referenced (they have 19 batches in stock), I can scan the
datasheet after I have the book--if I can get the scanner working again.
Darned glass fell out because the manufacturer's double sided tape got old
(it's more than 10 years old too). I tried a 3M tape
<http://www.shop3m.com/3m-high-performance-double-coated-tape-9088-fl3znfcqj…>
that looked promising but it didn't hold. I'm going to try again and
heat the tape and give it three days to set. On the first try I didn't
see the information that the adhesive needs to set for three days.
Who knew that one needs to read the datasheet on *adhesive tape* in order
to use it properly?
Jeff Walther
Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at Update.UU.SE> wrote:
> Hi All.
>
> I just stumbled upon this video of a computer tablet:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPC_w9yYe5M
>
> They show a VAX-11/780 with RP06 and TU70 (I think) and claim its doing
> the graphics. But I'm curious, what terminal and software is used? Does
> anyone have a clue?
Nice stuff.
Interesting to see the speculations of people around here.
The tape drive is a TU77 or TU78, which you should know Pontus... ;-)
My guess would be a TU77 though.
Anyway, no, the graphics is not DEC. And no, it's not a serial
connection. If you ever tried doing bitmap graphics over a serial line
you should all realize that a high resolution picture like that would
take a very long time to download over a serial line, even at 19200. And
by 1986 you didn't have any faster serial ports on a Unibus-machine.
Also, DEC didn't have any high-resolution hardware for Unibus. The
closes was the VS11, VS60 and that kind of stuff. And those don't get
close to the type of resolution, number of colors, or speed of this
thing. DEC did play with a few tablets for the VAX stations by this
time, but hadn't come that far.
So, yes, this is a third party thing.
The two companies that springs to my mind here are Intergraph, who did
CAD systems based on VAXen. They usually based their systems on the
VAX-11/750, but I don't think there was any technical reason that an
11/780 shouldn't be possible as well.
The other is Evans and Sutherland, who specialized in high performance
graphic subsystems. My guess would be that this was some E&S graphic
system, but it's hard to tell, since I never actually saw any of their
stuff in real life. But I think it was/is a whole bunch of cards on the
Unibus, and video cables to a color monitor. And of course input ports
for keyboard and tablet.
There might have been other players around as well.
But I know of no DEC hardware that could produce better than aboout
256x256 on Unibus machines, and only with a very limited palette.
And it's definitely not a VT-whatever. The "best" VT-terminal, in terms
of graphic is the VT340, which have a fair resolution of about 240x800
(roughly from memory), but at most 16 colors, out of a palette of 4096.
But it's also newer than 1986, and don't look like that at all.
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
Has anyone managed to get any of the Layered Products installed on
RSTS/E V9.X (X >= 6)? Aside from F77 for which there was a declaration
of success here:
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/pipermail/simh/2008-March/001719.html
I tried with BASIC Plus 2 V2.6 (with RSTS/E 9.6) and can see that the
tape appears to be a BACKUP INSTAL.BCK set, but RESTORE is refusing to
work with the tape (TPC file).
Does anyone happen to have the BP2 installation guide or tips on how
the layered products are generally installed on RSTS/E?
A related question: Can anyone explain what a field-test versions of
RSTS/E means? is it a release candidate (in modern parlance) or a
beta? I see RSTS/E V10 but it is annotated with field-test so I assume
it was not the final shipping version.
thanks.
www.retroComputingTasmania.com
I have several of the DECUS sig tapes as images, and also extracted files.
I think 11SP42 is one of them. Like most of the 70's and 80's post-paper-tape RSTS stuff it's a DOS-11 style magtape.
Will put it up on ftp.trailing-edge.com<ftp://ftp.trailing-edge.com> tonight.
Tim.
