test-drb

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101090 discussions

by vintagecomputer＠bettercomputing.net

Hey guys, I have a second SWTPC 6800 system I got recently and have it all running. It came with a Gimix 8K PROM board and, thankfully, the manual. It has two EPROMs installed: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4pq0-BHd2x6R29LVy03d3c4dTA/view?usp=sharin g I'm assuming this board is used for things like storing BASIC in ROM, etc. Based on the manual with DIP switch 7 set it is set to use C000 - if I wanted to try and init whatever is on those chips, would it be as simple as J C000 at the SWTBUG prompt? Many thanks, Brad

9 years, 3 months

PDF PDF Which is right and which is ... Was Re: PDP-11/24 CPU later version

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

In a message dated 2/19/2017 8:06:50 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG writes: > - PDF/A is [...] > Those are all good archival properties! However, it's also R/O. Maybe if you stick to Adobe's tools. As demonstrated by this thread, it's entirely possible to modify such files, even if the currently-easy ways to do that involve a trip through a completely different representation. I find it astonishing that anyone would seriously call any documented file format read-only. (If PDF/A isn't documented, then IMO it's not suitable for archival under any circumstances. But this thread makes it sound as though it's documented.) /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B ====================== OK .. (correct me if I am gong in the wrong direction) so the important thing is that there is... - data in a format that is readable by others and a description of formats so if needed a reader can be constructed at a later date if needed. -non-commercial tools to access it or have the ability to modify the data in the future for all of time. -a reader/writer can be redone to work under a new operating system since source code is freely available for it? .... yea... makes sense... I do know what I do in any given week here is not necessary for the present but for years and sometimes lifetimes far removed from the present moment. #Ed _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org)

9 years, 3 months

PDF PDF Which is right and which is ... Was Re: PDP-11/24 CPU later version

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

Adobe claims " PDF/A ? the ISO standard for long-term archiving" -I am confused about all the versions etc.. -which are good which are bad? -are there good programs for opening hesitant to open pdf file? - what is a good freeware PDF generator? / modifier? - are older versions of the reader better than the newer ones? -my HP scanner software makes PDF files eiher as graphics or as graphics with OCR -is my HP scanner making "good" pdf files that can be read into the future? Sorry if I seem confused on this... but I am! thanks for any help Ed# _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org) In a message dated 2/18/2017 11:24:14 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, bobalan at sbcglobal.net writes: On 2/18/2017 10:04 AM, Paul Birkel wrote: >> -----Original Message----- >> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Al Kossow >> Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2017 12:50 PM >> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >> Subject: Re: PDP-11/24 CPU later version >> >> PDF-A >> >> which is the reason it's not on bitsavers > Thank you Al. It's not just me then who has heartburn with that format ... > > ---- > > I removed the /A format and put the copy up here: http://dvq.com/docs/EK-11024-TM-003.pdf Bob -- Vintage computers and electronics www.dvq.com www.tekmuseum.com www.decmuseum.org

9 years, 3 months

OT: Immediate job opening in Atlanta

by sales＠elecplus.com

If you are near Atlanta, there is an immediate opening for someone who knows terminals and keyboards. Must be able to drive fork lift, climb ladders, carry 50 pounds, etc. Email me if interested. This is a long term, full time, good paying job. Cindy Croxton

9 years, 3 months

Atlanta job opening

by orders＠elecplus.com

9 years, 3 months

PDP-11/24 CPU later version

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

So I was recently provided (thanks!) with a copy of the later rev of the PDP-11/24 Tech Manual (EK-11024-TM-003), which I have had scanned for a while now (waiting for a quite period on the list ;-), and is now available for upload here: http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/pdp11/EK-11024-TM-003.pdf (Bitsavers et al, please pick this up and distribute.) So it has an Appendix D, which described the -YA later rev of the CPU card (in which a bunch of gates were replaced with a couple of custom gate arrays. Does anyone have one of these? I'd love to get a photo of one, if so. Thanks! Noel

9 years, 3 months

Harris VOS question

by cclist＠sydex.com

I'm looking at what I suspect is a labeled Harris VOS (Vulcan) tape. Is it the case that the Harris minis are incapable of writing tape records that aren't a multiple of 3 bytes in length? The reason I ask is that the VOL HDR, etc. records all seem to be 81 bytes in length. All other records on the tape are also a multiple of 3 bytes long. Anyone remember anything like this? The Bitsavers documents are of no help as far as I can determine. --Chuck

9 years, 3 months

PDP-11/24 CPU later version

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Al Kossow > PDF-A Sorry, what's the issue with PDF/A? Since it's supposedly the 'archival' version, that's what I asked for; I wanted to maximize the lifetime of these things. What version of PDF should I be asking for? (I'm not doing the PDF'ing. The person who is is using Acrobat.) > which is the reason it's not on bitsavers Are any other of the things I've scanned that aren't up for the same reason? List here (first two sections): http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/pdp11/PDP-11_Stuff.html Please let me know, and I'll get them re-PDF'd into an acceptable form. Noel

9 years, 3 months

Box of old books

by db＠db.net

Wow from 2013 > I've put together a small box of old TTL books, computer references > of all sorts that I simply do not want anymore. If someone really > wants to collect old databooks instead of me sending this stuff out > to pulp let me know. It would be easiest if someone local to me here > in Ottawa could deal with it. I had a nibble from a local but somehow we never got the move arranged and it has grown to two smallish boxes now. I'll throw in DEC books and maybe a few other goodies. Toronto/Montreal is a possibility too if you can arrange a pickup. Diane -- - db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db

9 years, 3 months

How I came to vintage computers

by hachti＠hachti.de

Hey folks, after my OmniUSB-thread has gone down the teleprinter way... I'll start a new thread. Did you now how I came to vintage computers? How I became some kind of computer engineer? Probably not. It's so easy. Listen. Long story ahead. In 1999 I started to study computer science. Java and algorithms and all that clean stuff. One day in autumn 2000 I had that idea: I need a Fernschreiber (=teleprinter)! I had nothing to do with that stuff. And I did no know how it worked. I even did not remember having seen one. It was just that word in my head. So I bought my first Siemens T100 (still here in the house, two floors below me). It was a machine with strange connectors which made awful noise when connected to power. So I went to the library and found a good book from 1934. That told me how the teleprinter works. I then somehow soldered a simple interface to connect that beast to the parallel (!!!) port of my Linux server (the first hachti.de server was a mainboard and a harddisk in the corner of my student home where we had 10mbit LAN acess and fixed IP. I even did a DNS reverse mapping philipp.vorstrasse.uni-bremen.de for my IP). At that time all about programming I knew was Turbo Pascal, some Z80 machine language (not assembly language, I programmed that beast in hex) and a bit Java. I didn't even know much about Linux. The server back then had been setup by someone else who was in need of a server. So he used it as well. I used the parallel port because I had an idea how to control the pins. I knew that there was something ugly called serial port but I had not yet made the connection that this was EXACTLY what I would have needed. To program that thing I needed some software. So I went to the bookstore at noon. Will never forget that. Bought the O'Reilly Linux Kernel drivers book (the one with the horse) and started to write my first C program ever. It was a kernel module. The Kernel must have been Linux 2.2. It was frustrating. But after a decent 30 hour nonstop session and hundreds of reboots (haha, of my web and mail server which was also running X from time to time) I really had some bitbang code which made the teleprinter say what I wanted it to say. I soon realised that with a multitasking OS like Linux I had the choice of outputting correct data using busy wait in Kernel or outputting a mess when the system gets under load. So I learned THAT lesson. I decided that I needed something else. Because I had heard of other people working with something called PIC Microcontroller, I bought one and a programmer. And a breadboard. That evil 16f84 was sitting there on my desk, naked, and did - nothing. Getting the PIC up and running was pure horror. The hardest architecture I've ever mastered. Since then I know: PIC is a load of complete shit! In the end I failed to create a RS232 (had learned that in the meantime) to teleprinter converter but had the idea to hook up two teleprinters using modems. TelexPhone was born. The project (telexphone.net) was eventually kind of stolen a few years later and continued to something still in existence called i-telex over internet. That was never what I wanted because the V21 modems (hard to find!!) are bit transparent. That means that the teleprinters on both sides of the wire run as synchronous as with a real wire between them. Very cool. The TelexPhone used a 16f876 with a approx 2k cooperative multitasking system written entirely in assembly. It was somehow modular. I managed to hook in modules with private main loop and init parts by writing an impressive linker script which automated that. Hey, I was 21 and did all that on my own! Please do NOT laugh! In the meantime someone somewhere invented something called eBay. And because It's always good to have several different devices of the same type and even better to have several examples of each those different devices, I had an eBay search for "Lochstreifen" which means punched paper tape. Paper tape for teleprinter, of course. One day I found an offer "Honeywell H316 minicomputer" which sounded interesting. With paper tape. And no pictures. In Switzerland. A quick search (probably already google? I used altavista.digital.com before) told me that this could be an interesting toy. So I bought it for the incredible amount of SFr 450. Borrowed a car and went there. What I found was some messy stuff somewhere on an uninsulated attic in Switzerland. Very dirty. I nearly turned down the deal because it all looked so crappy. The seller admitted that he had kept the stuff in that open attic since beginning of the 1980s. I took it home. Had to drive TWICE from Bremen to Switzerland to get it all. And it was a lucky buy. After fiddling and cleaning around some weeks (never seen a minicomputer before!) and reading the manuals, I found out that the PSU had a slight problem which lead to unjustified shutdown. After I had solved that by pulling out one of the security circuit card from the PSU, it powered up the computer. And it magically worked instantly exactly as the manual told me. That was in 2004. The H316 has never since then failed a single time. Only issue are some contact issues with some memory cabling which may happen after moving the machine. Since then I have never had to switch a chip or a lamp or whatever. No single failure. Not one failed CPU or memory test (except when I stress the cable's card edge connector). It's so amazing that it became boring. Programming in FORTRAN IV? Read the manual, punch tape, use the compiler, linking loader and libraries as described in the manual - works. No secret shit. And The machine came with all that software as nice source code listing and binary paper tapes. While still wandering around on my Olympus of quality, I got a call by a teleprinter friend who asked me if I would take a pdp8 computer. I thought that bit of that infamous DEC mess could be a good counter example for my H316's unlimited quality and went to pick up the pdp8. The day ended with my yellow car completely stuffed with rusty pdp8/l, and lots of other stuff. It were three machines. The tape drives and racks were fubar and went to scrap. http://pdp8.hachti.de/gallery/haul/dscn0750_full.jpg http://pdp8.hachti.de/gallery/haul/dscn0751_full.jpg http://pdp8.hachti.de/gallery/haul/dscn2109_full.jpg That was the beginning of the end. It just happened. Later 8/e, lab8/e etc. And I had to admit that playing with Omnibus pdp8 is absolutely amazing! It's a great toy! I think the pdp8/e (not straight-8, 8/i, /s or whatever) is one of the greatest toys ever made. There are many games, it breaks regularly while still giving you a chance to be satisfied after fixing it. And it's so versatile! And digging through those blurry schematics is a game in its own right! For the Honeywell everything comes in high quality print, completely correct, no derivations and workarounds. With DEC it can be an adventure to get an overview over a hardware, its features, ECOs and FCOs and what else could happen. Someday I also made a pdp8 in an FPGA. That was during the time I wanted to be a chip designer. But the only place where I could to ASIC design (I did my diploma thesis about a video generator FPGA design) was closed down instead of hiring me. Thank you, Silicon Image! Currently I'm working for a Bosch/Denso joint venture doing Linux security for car multimedia systems. In my free time I have just started to construct a M?rklin model railroad digital decoder which I will try to sell commercially (the competition use closed source PIC stuff. I use GPLv3 AVR code). And I run a letterpress print shop with the biggest machine being over 5 metric tons. In the printshop there's also an 8/e. And I have inherited a forklift. Don't know why I wrote this... Just wanted to write it. The teleprinter discussion... It was the teleprinter discussion.... I never learned to get that paper... I just had the right toys. That's it for now :-)

9 years, 3 months

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