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The fundamental building block of modern digital design turns 100 https://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/hands-on/recreating-the-first-flipflop

by couryhouse＠aol.com

YIPPEE? ?A? Birthday? Party! The fundamental building block of modern digital design turns 100 ? https://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/hands-on/recreating-the-first-flipflop

7 years, 9 months

VAX 9440

by cctalk＠snarc.net

The VCF museum took delivery of a VAX 9440 today. It arrived in two 28-foot trailers. Here's our forklift driver beginning to unload the first truck: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1E-Q5xrsYXyjrZEZh92xIBhlStvvNUcRV/view?usp=… Here's a teaser picture of the main cabinet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bEpSMzBEeOvuDnzPQ9Npc7iYmDhjZq8c/view?usp=… The full system is 30-40 feet long when it's all set up! It is in pristine condition and was in service at a defense contractor until a couple of months ago. Rumor has it that we arranged for another one to land in Dave McGuire's Large Scale Systems Museum collection, and a third to be with Bob Roswell's System Source collection. :) Perhaps they'll post updates too!

7 years, 9 months

Swap clarification (Was: bill was my first "real" computer comoany customer"

by wh.sudbrink＠verizon.net

Fred Cisin wrote: > Opened to public at 10:00 AM, by which time, the vendors had been buying > each others stuff for quite a while. "It's worth getting a vendor table, > just for the early admission!" That's true for just about any hamfest/swap meet, isn't it? Buy stuff right out of the back of the truck as it is unloaded. Bill S. --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

7 years, 9 months

Font for DEC indicator panels

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

So, anyone happen to know the font used in DEC's indicator panels: http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/DECIndicatorPanels.html or, at least, a very close match? For mockups we're doing, Dave B is using 'DejaVu Sans', but that's not a really close match: the vertical bars are wider than in the DEC font, where the verticals and horizontals are the same width. It would be nice to have a closer match when we go to turn out replicas. (We're just about settled on the format for the QSIC RKV11-F/RPV11-D panels.) Noel

7 years, 9 months

Bill Godbout

by john＠ziaspace.com

http://vcfed.org/wp/2018/11/13/r-i-p-bill-godbout-79/ :(

7 years, 9 months

bill was my first "real" computer comoany customer"

by couryhouse＠aol.com

A BILL GODBOUT TALE? C-? Ed Sharpe? Archivist? for SMECC BEWARE THIS NARTIVE WANDERS>? A very old friend Bill Godbout of the s100 computer days and my first real commercial buyer of any large quantity of surplus electronics material from me when I went into the early part of my computer store and surplus electronics business was burned in the fire in Paradise I have been informed. Very sad - He was a great guy - I met him at a computer fair in as I remember San Jose California ? I believe it was at the fairgrounds ? (Fair was run by a pleasant guy (was his name Craig or? Can someone clarify?) with the neatest 59 El Camino Chevy Truck (Prior to this I had never seen a ?59 before (I would love one!) Steve Beleauh (sp?) in High School had a ?64 ) were I had taken mainly a bunch of odds and ends but also some 8 inch floppy disc power supplies that Intel had scrapped at Empire metals ( Gary and Ray no doubt had something to do with those ending up there ? Hi guys!) and a box of AC power cords and some parts and stuff now what would be considered scrap too....Bill Godbout had set up to sell. (of course, he had all kids of computer stuff his company produced and other things he was a vendor for... He was a big guy in the BIZ in those days, We of course had some power cords and Bill and I when talking got on the topic of power cords for computers ... the new style...like all out pcs use now. ( the prior version on one end the normal 3 prog plug in the wall plug and the other had oval ends and round pins... and were available all over but not so the "NEW" style ( like we use now) I ended up with many many palate loads ITT Courier Terminal Company in Tempe Arizona ( They made IBM clone cluster terminal system -? but unlike? the? IBM? terminals? had? non-clicking? keyboards)) was surplussing ... and had calculated the quantity and cost carefully and beat the Finkelstein Brothers -> Mhz Electronics and Semiconductor Surplus... Richard at MHz still alive Steve at Semi Passed away)... ALAS!! The brothers miscalculated or used that as a reason for not getting the lot in later conversations, but It set us up with more damn cords that I ever imagined I could even sell. ? ANYWAY... First deal I did with him.... Telling Bill Godbout of all these cords he says ... well... "TRUST ME" ... "ship them to me and on receipt I will send you a check!" and then he jokes about I shouldn?t trust anyone in this business saying TRUST ME! But I did and true to his word his check arrived which set me up with enough cash to make many other great buys of Minicomputers, parts and terminals as I started out. Actually I think that is were the money came from to buy my first PDP-8 from Richard at MHz Electronics he had laying about. It was a 8M or 8F like an 8E with omnibus but short case so only accepting one Buss backplane and it used LEDS in the front panel vs the light bulbs the 8E used. (I was later able to sell this for a large sum thus? increasing the ?Computer Exchange? working capital. Thanks Bill. You will always be in our book as one of the original good guys.... and thanks for being someone I could trust in dealings. God in Heaven... Take good care of old Bill for me...

7 years, 9 months

Got a Rainbow 100 and ...

by aperry＠snowmoose.com

Today I picked up a Rainbow 100. The seller bought it new for a specific need and he says that it had been sitting in his barn since '84. It looks like it was a dry barn because things look pretty clean for the most part aside from a thick layer of dust on everything. What I got was the system unit, a VR201 monitor, a keyboard, a vertical deskside stand for the system unit, and a LQP02 daisy wheel printer. I also got the MS-DOS and CP/M doc and software slip cover boxes. The CP/M disk box is still sealed and the CP/M docs are still in shrink wrap. The specific need that the seller bought it for involved MS-DOS, not CP/M. I last saw a Rainbow 100 in college around the time that the seller stopped using this system, so I am getting familiar with it now. I haven't powered anything on yet. Problems so far - 1. The VR201 monitor is leaking a brown fluid. Doing a little searching, I found some stuff posted here a couple years ago about it being common for them to leak PVA compound, so I am presuming what is what I am seeing. Right now I am looking for something that describes how to open the case up to clean the stuff up. If someone can give me some pointers to some docs/write-ups and save me some time, that would be great. 2. The belt that moves the print head is dried out and looks like, if the motor put any load on the belt, it will fail. Is any kind of replacement available? Thanks for any help that can be provided. alan

7 years, 9 months

Any News from the Nova @ 50 Event?

by steve＠stephenmerrony.co.uk

I saw a brief positive post on Facebook, but nothing else. Any chance someone could write it up? Also, were there any announcements re. licensing etc? Steve --- Stephen Merrony

7 years, 9 months

DEC Alpha Bug Check Crash

by dj.taylor4＠comcast.net

I hadn't started this DEC Alpha 3000-300 since last summer, and booted it up so I could load the new PAK's the other day. The result was that it completes almost the entire OpenVMS startup, but then crashes with the following: %SET-I-INTSET, login interactive limit = 64, current interactive value = 0 **** OpenVMS Alpha Operating System V8.4???? - BUGCHECK **** ** Bugcheck code = 000001CC: INVEXCEPTN, Exception while above ASTDEL ** Crash CPU: 00000000??? Primary CPU: 00000000??? Node Name: A300 ** Highest CPU number:??? 00000000 ** Active CPUs:?????????? 00000000.00000001 ** Current Process:?????? DECW$STARTUP ** Current PSB ID:??????? 00000001 ** Image Name: A300$DKA0:[SYS0.SYSCOMMON.][SYSEXE]DECW$CONFIG.EXE;1 **** Starting selective memory dump at? 8-NOV-2018 21:57... The disk is a SCSI2SD board with an 8 GB SD card.? It had been running just fine, until now. Does this crash point to a hardware or software problem?

7 years, 9 months

Full story about Bill Godbout

by cctalk＠snarc.net

http://vcfed.org/wp/2018/11/13/r-i-p-bill-godbout-79/ ________________________________ Evan Koblentz, director Vintage Computer Federation a 501(c)3 educational non-profit evan at vcfed.org (646) 546-9999 www.vcfed.org facebook.com/vcfederation twitter.com/vcfederation

7 years, 9 months

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