test-drb

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101090 discussions

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Steven Malikoff > I have been looking but not yet found a picture of the DEC-trimmed RC11 > ... If anyone could point me to a photo of the RC11/RS64 DECdisk panel > to be honest I don't know if it even had one? I'm not sure it did. The list of available inserts (in the Indicator Panel Assembly drawings, available in the RF11 prints, pp. 186-190) doesn't list an RC11 insert, and that list does include the RF11, which is a later controller than the RC11. I tried looking online for RC11 engineering drawings, to see if it included an indicator panel connector (the way the RK11-C does), but I could not find _anything_ substantial about the RC11 online. > From: Jon Elson > These look VERY posed, so don't be sure ANYTHING in the picture was a > fully working system. Yeah, I'd come to that conclusion... > If those panels look like something off a KA10 controller Well, I'm not sure. Most PDP-10 gear had rows of 36 lights, which is the full width of these 19" indicator panels (i.e. every light in a row - like the top row of the RP11 panel, see the page for an image), and I don't see that in this one. But I suppose I should try and round up images of 19" x 5-1/4" PDP-10 panels, too (ISTR that there are a few). Noel

9 years, 3 months

Passing of Bunnell & Machrone

by c.murray.mccullough＠gmail.com

David Bunnell and Bill Machrone of PC Magazine have passed on. They both were involved in promoting computers in its earliest day. Both will sadly be missed. Murray--

9 years, 3 months

What the heck is the deal with this eBay item

by vintagecomputer＠bettercomputing.net

I've been wondering about that one myself. ?Very odd. ?That's not the first time I've seen that either. Along with stuff that 'sells' for absurd amounts of money. At first I though the absurd sales were attempts to manipulate the market.. but it doesn't seem worth the effort or ebay fees. ?I almost kind of wonder with some of them if something more sinister is going on.. like money laundering. ?That'd be a fairly obscure way to do it.. Sent from my Samsung device -------- Original message -------- From: Corey Cohen <AppleCorey at optonline.net> Date: 2016-11-01 4:43 PM (GMT-08:00) To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: What the heck is the deal with this eBay item https://www.ebay.com/itm/272433760795 This Helios II has been "sold" multiple times for varying amounts and then suddenly hours later appears for sale again.? I'm done bidding on this each time it appears, because if I won, who knows what I'd receive or if the seller would cancel the auction.? corey cohen u??o? ???o?

9 years, 3 months

cctech Digest, Vol 29, Issue 1

by mark＠matlockfamily.com

> Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2016 10:48:56 -0400 > From: Paul Koning <paulkoning at comcast.net> > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Subject: Re: For sale 128K Core RAM Industrial PDP 11/40 Massbus > System > Message-ID: <A0F4A035-0EAA-4343-87DC-86495173458F at comcast.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > >> On Oct 31, 2016, at 10:26 AM, william degnan <billdegnan at gmail.com> wrote: >> >> Given 128K core, wouldn't one be able to save the OS in core, no need to >> load what would need to "get started" from a diskpak? The data would be on >> the tape drives, and something on stand by to re-load the OS back into core. > > Only if the OS implements the ability to resume from a power failure without reloading from disk or tape. Few do. Perhaps some flavors of RSX, I don't know. RSTS V4A, when built with the power fail handling option, could do so. Later versions do not; they unconditionally reboot (from disk) at powerup. > > paul RSX-11M and M+ did resume from power failures very robustly. I had a PDP-11/44 with batteries for the MOS RAM (and fans to cool it) with RK07 drives. I can remember testing it by pulling the power with a number of applications runnings including editors etc. The disks would yank the heads back and spin down, then when the power was restored and the drives spun up, it was like it never happened. I might see an entry or two in the error log file about a disk retry, and a user might loose a keystroke on the file they were editing but it absolutely was solid. I don't know of a single modern operating system that can do that today. RSX-11M+ can run TCP/IP today with Johnny Billquist's BQTCP package but it dies require I/D space processors. M+ itself can run on a 11/23+ or 11/24 but it really needs more than 128KW and the lack of I/D space really limits its capabilities. Mark

9 years, 3 months

Has anyone here seen a 8H070 external floppy?

by isking＠uw.edu

I bought one of these on eBay thinking it was the standard 37-pin D-connector that connects to an ISA floppy controller. No, it's a 25-pin D-connector. I can't find any references in Google aside from people selling them. I'm wondering if it might be something like a printer-port-connected device, in which case I'm probably out of luck trying to find its driver.... -- Ian -- Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS, Ph.D. Candidate The Information School <http://ischool.uw.edu> Dissertation: "Why the Conversation Mattered: Constructing a Sociotechnical Narrative Through a Design Lens Archivist, Voices From the Rwanda Tribunal <http://tribunalvoices.org> Value Sensitive Design Research Lab <http://vsdesign.org> University of Washington There is an old Vulcan saying: "Only Nixon could go to China."

9 years, 3 months

Soundblaster Live Card with Midi interface daughterboard, UK

by mark＠wickensonline.co.uk

Can anyone use a Soundblaster Live card with midi daughterboard? For the cost of postage? ?4.99 in the UK. Thanks, Mark.

9 years, 3 months

Imaging Old Disks Advice Needed

by todd.george＠gmail.com

Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2016 06:39:04 -0400 From: Peter Cetinski <pete at pski.net> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Cc: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts" <cctech at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Imaging Old Disks Advice Needed > Well, I made a number of these this weekend and I just left the end open. The hub > keeps the cookie in place. Thanks to everyone for the input. > > So, I was able to image half of the disks without issue. The others all had a few > bad tracks. On most of those I don't see any physical damage so I was wondering > if there were any other techniques to possibly recover those tracks? Baking the > cookie? Is there a good tool to merge tracks from multiple disks if I find another > copy of the software that has the missing tracks? Pete: I've had pretty good luck during a data restoration project by ensuring the drive heads are clean and then also cleaning the cookie VERY GENTLY with good quality rubbing alcohol (I'm using 91%, some say you should use better stuff) on a cotton ball. My method has been to put the cookie on a clean, dry, soft surface. The disks I'm working on are Apple ][, so flippy (if the jacket is punched), otherwise I only need to concentrate on the "bottom" side of the cookie. Essentially, the side without the hub ring. I use a very fine-tipped needle top bottle (found it in the baking section of a local big-name craft store) and apply a reasonable amount of rubbing alcohol then use a fresh cotton swab and gently clean the surface. Depending on how it goes, I'll clean it a second time. Note, some of the disks look just fine, but still have some issue reading. This cleaning process has been highly successful (maybe 85%?) for me even with disks that looked clean. Also, on a few prior attempts I've had inexplicable results in trying different drives. I don't know if alignments, speeds, magnetic sensitivity or other factors were at play but it's worth trying as another trick to have in the collection. Sometimes it worked better, sometimes it was worse. I am not 100% sure, but I thought the "baking" was for media that was shedding or at some risk of having a physical issue with delamination, etc. Also, I can't really help on the merging question. I'd think you could just cut the resulting images together using a hex editor or similar. Naturally, you'd have to know where the bad parts were in the file. Maybe you could start with a 'fc /b filename.bin filename.bin' at a Windows command prompt, note the offsets of differences between multiple reads and visually compare those sections in a hex editor? Good luck with the data restoration! See ya. -Todd

9 years, 3 months

FTGH: Video controller

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

So I have an Oxford Metrics Vicon video controller box: http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/jpg/VideoController.jpg FTGH. No idea what it does, I have't bothered to look for info, since I'm sure I have no use for it! Noel

9 years, 3 months

DEC bus transceivers

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Philipp Hachtmann > that one posting sounded a lot like that, sorry. OK. > Do you have a source where there are still 30k chips sitting and > waiting? It was ~30K a couple of months ago. I checked about a week ago, and it was down to ~26K (IIRC). Although, like I said, I doubt they have all 26K in stock themselves; based on comments they made when we bought a large group, I think that's the total number available to them across a number of suppliers, in a network which shares inventory information. Noel

9 years, 3 months

[TUHS] Booting PDP-11's from RX02's

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Don North <north at alum.mit.edu> > .. the hardware bootstrap reads track 1 sectors 1, 3, 5, 7 Ah, thanks for that. Starting to look at the code, I had missed the interleave. So does DEC do anything with track 0, or is it always just empty? Noel

9 years, 3 months

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