On 17 March 2017 at 14:43, Philipp Hachtmann via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
>
> On 03/16/2017 10:07 PM, Mike Stein via cctalk wrote:
>>
>> I'm pretty confident that every member of the list appreciates the
>> time, effort and whatever else you and certain others have
>> contributed to keep this list humming as well as it almost always
>> does;
>
> Full ack, of course!
>
> But the new addressing scheme still sucks, sorry.
I still maintain that the change solved every issue I've had, reading
with gmail.
No more posts ending up in the spam folder unless I configured 'never
send to spam' (which has its own issues), no more of the weekly or
bi-weekly automatic de-registrations, and addressing (when replying)
at the same level of difficulty as before (i.e. not much, just edit
out what's not needed).
Hello from a newbie to the list
I've just acquired 2 HP 382's with expanders. Have not had the time to look
inside them yet.
End goal is to set one up as an instrument controller i.e. using the built
in GPIB and potentially a 2nd GPIB card.
One thing I do not have is a display, keyboard and mouse.
A few question
Is there a PS/2 or USB (yea long shot) adapter for the HPIL interface ?
Does someone have a keyboard/mouse they a not beholding to, or know
where there maybe one ?
Once I get the opened up and take an inventory, anything I should look out
for be trying to power one of them up ?
Can one boot to a terminal on the RS-232 port. Until I find a kbd/mouse ?
What would be optimum version of HP-UX to run on them ?
-pete
Folks,
Rod has spurred me on to pay a visit to VCF Europe. I wonder if any one else on the list is going. If so any thoughts on Hotels? I will probably only manage the Saturday!
Dave
Here?s a long shot, about as long as they get.
I received an Intel iPSC/860 supercomputer, but it?s lacking the Intel SRM
(System Resource Manager), without which the system is a boat anchor.
The SRM is an Intel 386 desktop machine, with a SYP301 motherboard and a
plugin card to connect it to the iPSC/860. There?s a cable coming from the
iPSC with a 25-pin D connector, which I believe is the connection to the
SRM. It?s not a regular serial port, but a bidirectional 2.6MByte per
second connection. The interface card likely uses a bunch of Xilinx chips
(the interface cards on the iPSC node boards do). I have not been able to
find a picture of what the box looks like on the outside, so I have no
idea. So, I?m looking for one of these, preferably one the owner would be
willing to part with :-)
Camiel
Hi folks,
this might be quite interesting for the folks that miss front panel
switch handles!
As some of you might know I'm currently working (a bit) on a new batch
of Omnibus USB boards. And I have announced that there will be a kind of
handle for the boards this time... I went to my neighbour and showed him
some bits and pieces. He has a nice little workshop for concrete artwork
(https://www.fritzundfranz.com/) and spent a lot of time into perfecting
his moulding skills.
I gave him a pdp8/e yellow switch handle with broken axle (usual
problem) to try what can be done.
Today I came home and he gave me the piece saying that he was unable to
replicate it. I took it (a bit frustrated) and stated that he has
somehow ruined the surface... Haha! It was the replica!
He told me that this was a first "fast" shot including a "rough"
approximation of the colour.
I was stunned!
Here you can see pictures. Even the defects of the original have been
replicated.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/sih4qrrw4o3zgbh/AACf7kY7MbGDLt5FYJgfI4kDa?dl=0
He told me that it was a bit difficult to get the holes at the side
right. I think that it would be no problem if they'd be more shallow or
even gone.
* His material is less translucent than the original. Won't probably
change. So a perfectionist could spot the difference.
* He states that he can hit colors even better! (Think of the special
colors!!!)
* The axle stubs would be omitted and made of steel (something I already
plan for repair of that weakest point)
* He is able to produce flawless finish (remember: it's a raw prototype!)
This is not my business. I told him that I'd ask around if there would
be serious interest. He is not in vintage computing and does not work
for free. So one piece would probably cost around 5-15 EUR each,
depending on demand, color etc.
Please give some feedback!
Philipp :-)
Last Friday, I finally received a shipment of 1980's minisupercomputers
>from the US that I've been working on since September. One of the systems
is an Ardent Titan, which to my knowledge was the first (mini-)
supercomputer to come with an integrated high-end graphics subsystem
(1280x1024 at 60Hz, hardware spheres, antialiasing, and cast shadows).
After careful checking, I powered it on yesterday, and got as far as
trying to boot it; unfortunately, the harddisk does not contain the OS,
but I'm trying to get access to an installation tape. There's a full
writeup about my efforts this weekend on my website:
http://www.vaxbarn.com/index.php/42-repair/576-ardent-titan-power-on
A description with some pictures of the Ardent can be found here:
http://www.vaxbarn.com/index.php/other-bits/565-ardent-titan
Uncrating pictures are here:
http://www.vaxbarn.com/index.php/41-acquisitions/575-supercomputers-have-ar
rived
Anyone who knows anything about these machines, please contact me! Also,
if you have access to installation tapes, manuals, brochures, anything
related to these systems, please let me know.
Kind regards,
Camiel Vanderhoeven
Dwight wrote:
> The Olivetti used a piece of wire for the delay line.
The Programma 101 indeed used a delay line. Such delay lines use
magnetostrictive means to push a torque pulse into one end of the wire,
as well as detect a torque twist at the other end of the wire.
Magnetostrictive materials are typically a metal alloy that lengthens or
shortens depending on the polarity of an external magnetic field, and
will also generate a small magnetic field if stretched or compressed.
In a magnetostrictive delay line thin strips of magnetostrictive metal
are attached to opposite points tangential to the circumference of the
end of a nickel-alloy(typically) wire. These strips, for whatever
reason, are typically called "tapes".
Each tape has a small coil of magnet wire surrounding it, wound
oppositely around each tape, such that when a short current pulse is
sent into the coils, one tape momentarily lengthens, and the other tape
contracts, causing a slight but sharp twisting torque to be applied to
the wire. This acts to transmit a pulse of energy into the wire. The
torque twist mechanically travels through the wire to the other end,
where it causes one tape to lengthen slightly, and the other to compress
slightly, which induces a small current pulse into the coils around the
tapes, which can be amplified to match the electrical characteristics of
the original pulse. Sending a current pulse through the coils in one
direction causes the twist to occur clockwise, and the pulse going the
other direction induces a counter-clockwise twist, allowing ones and
zeros to be pushed into the wire as clockwise or counter-clockwise
torque twists.
The amount of time that elapses (delay) from the pulse being injected
to being received at the other end of the wire is based on the
metallurgy of the wire, and its length. The wire is capable of
remembering some number of torque twists as bits, with a clockwise
torque, for example, representing a one, and a counter-clockwise twist
representing a zero.
The wire was typically arranged in a spiral inside a metal housing.
Silicone or rubber supports supported the wire without attenuating the
torque pulses in the wire. In some cases, there were "taps" along the
length of the wire that used the same transducer method to pick off bits
at different delay periods.
The use of such delay line technology in calculators arose out of the
need to store a moderate number of bits to represent the working
registers of the calculator. At the time, magnetic core memory was
still quite expensive, integrated circuit technology was in its infancy
and too expensive to use for mass storage in a calculator, and it was
generally cost and size prohibitive to store the bits required in
discrete transistor flip flop storage registers (though a few very early
electronic calculators did use this method).
Given that delay line technology had been used with success on computers
(though the Univac I delay lines were very different than
magnetostrictive delay lines), they were a low cost, relatively simple
way to provide the small amount of storage required for an electronic
calculator. A prime example of the use of magnetostrictive delay lines
in a computer was the Packard Bell 250, a low-cost "personal" computer
introduced in the early 1960's.
The bit-serial nature of the delay line was ideal for a calculator,
since a bit serial architecture is coincident with the most efficient
way to make an electronic calculator, where raw speed is not a
requirement, and minimizing the component count saves money. The serial
nature of the delay line means that if a specific bit is needed, the
logic must wait around for the bit to arrive at the end of the delay
line. This slows down the operation of the device, but in the case of
a calculator, where results are subject to human perception, 10s to
100's of milliseconds is well within the acceptable time for a
calculation to occur.
> I forget what the Dielh Combitron used but I know it used a two delay
lines. One was for registers and the other was for lookup tables that
loaded at turn on time from a metal tape ( as I recall ).
The Diehl Combitron did use two separate delay lines, one for the
registers(as well as learn-mode program storage) as mentioned, but the
other one wasn't really for lookup tables, but instead stored the
operating microcode that made the machine run. The microcode was
indeed loaded from a punched metal tape at power-on time. The
ingenious design of the Combitron was done by Dr. Stanley Frankel, a
nuclear physicist who was deeply involved in the mathematical modeling
that made the atom and hydrogen bombs possible. After the Manhattan
project ended, he was involved in the design of quite a few computers
and calculators. Notable computers that he designed were the
Librascope-General Precision LGP-30, the aforementioned Packard Bell
250, and some design work on early General Electric computers. He also
designed the Smith Corona/Marchant Cogito 240 (and follow-on Cogito
240SR) electronic calculator, as well as the Diehl Combitron.
Many calculator companies used magnetostrictive delay line technology
for storage in their earlier calculators, before the time that
integrated circuits took over the storage duties. They included
Friden(Singer) (all of their in-house designed machines used delay
lines, e.g., 130, 132, 115x, 116x), Canon(which made machines for
Monroe), Wyle Laboratories (WS-02 and Busicom 202, 207 and 2017),
Olivetti (Programma 101 & follow-ons), Sony(early Sobax),
Victor(1400-series), Monroe(EPIC 2000/3000, 820/820A), Diehl(which made
machines for SCM and Victor), and Olympia.
-Rick
--
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
