test-drb

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101090 discussions

by derschjo＠gmail.com

Hi all -- At long last my Terak 8510/a is working again! I'd repaired the power supply a couple of years back but the system simply would not behave properly. I traced it down to some very unreliable IC sockets (they were not high-quality when they were new, and the damp environment this particular machine spent several years in before I got it did nothing to help). I finally replaced about 40 sockets with some nice turned-pin ones last week, and now the system is up and running and passing the System Acceptance Tests with flying colors. I do not have a keyboard or monitor for this system, and while it's pretty easy to fabricate replacements (the video's just standard composite, and the keyboard is an 8-bit parallel ASCII keyboard with a few extra special keys) I'd love to find a set of originals. If anyone has any spares in any condition, please drop me a line. (I'm also interested in tracking down an original single-density floppy controller just on the off chance...) Thanks! - Josh

9 years, 11 months

DEC's first use of PROMs

by chd＠chdickman.com

Well maybe not, but the first in the 23-001A1 sequence of part numbers was used in the PDP-8/e EAE. I was troubleshooting a problem with an EAE in which the step counter wouldn't load. There are 2 fusible PROMs in the circuit and I noticed they are 23-001A1 and 23-002A1. Maybe there is a 23-000A1.

9 years, 11 months

VCFed auction update

by cctalk＠snarc.net

Apple II (Rev. 4) sold for $4,056. Sol-20 sold for $2,878. Both were clean, autographed, and working. It is likely that bidders reached a little deeper because we are a non-profit.

9 years, 11 months

Set of mystery DEC boards: who can help me identifying these?

by p.gebhardt＠ymail.com

Hello list, I recently got a bunch of boards from somebody who was either not able to tell me where they were from. The boards seem to be unibus-based with numbers starting with X. I neither came across these before, nor could find any information in the web about it: Type, P/N , Description X029, 5013132B, AUC interconnect X022, 5012197C, unibuswindow X021, 5012181C, CD ROM control (did that ever exist for unibus?) X020, 5012180B, data path Two 16K mos memory modules M7847 came with the set. No backplane, unfortunately. Any hints about the type of system and application these boards were for? Many thanks for any pointers. Wish a nice weekend to all of you, Pierre ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pierre's collection of classic computers moved to: http://www.digitalheritage.de

9 years, 11 months

thinking of the "ultimate" retro x86 PCs - what bits to seek/keep ?

by swiftgriggs＠gmail.com

Here's what I'm currently looking at (all 486's, but I'd consider 386s and original Pentiums, too): * Compaq Prolinea systems * Canon ObjectStation * NEC Powermate * HP Vectra * IBM Aptiva or PS/1 Not considering: * Beige Packard Bell with Microsoft Sound System and a 1M graphics card. :-) I'm doing my Spring cleaning. I have way too much crap, and the particular type of crap that's lowest on my list of "things to keep" is PeeCee crap. I simply have too much and a lot of it are the parts I used to make PCs bearable at the time (like combo serial/LPT cards). I'm not all that happy that PeeCees even exist, yet I have over 20 of them last I checked. I think I'm going to rid myself of the vast majority of gear that Greg Douglas of Reputable system used to haze me for keeping, calling it "PeeCee crap", and that was 16 years ago. I was asking myself, why do I have all these junky plastic laptops from the early 2k era? They are mostly soulless trash (except maybe my Sony Picturebook - yes the cute one with the Transmeta Crusoe). Wouldn't I rather purge a gaggle of laptops and a few old crappy PCs and instead have a single "special" (but much slower) 486-era box ? Yes, I would. I'm actually pulling stuff out and playing with it more. Warehousing crap is becoming less and less an attractive pastime. So, I'm thinking I'll consolidate as much of the fun hardware from the 1990's as I can in one box. That will make me feel better about ditching the considerable horde of junk I'm looking at. To that end, I have a few bits I believe are considerably more desirable compared to others and I want to get as many as I can in one box. Chime in if you have suggestions. So, here we go, in no real order: * I want to stick with desktop or tower units only, no laptops, I'll probably have to add some PCI cards to get to "ultimate" status :-) * I'd use it with one of these OSs: *BSD, Linux, Solaris x86, OpenStep, BSDi, Unixware, Minix, MS-DOS, DR-DOS, FreeDOS, or OS/2. Thus the more compatible stuff is worth considering. Windows compatibility isn't something I care about ('cept maybe for comic relief, which I can get much more easily from politics these days). * Anyone know of a box with a built-in (integrated) Gravis Ultrasound? That'd save me a slot. However, there isn't much to compete with that card from the 90's. The SB16 was ubiquitous and worked well enough, but I didn't feel it could compete with a GUS. The SB16 wasn't the "ultimate" for sure. * Hmm, Symbios, LSI, or Adaptec on the SCSI controller.... OR! Maybe someone knows of a cool PC that had a built-in SCSI controller. I don't think I could abide PATA/IDE disks and for-sure no MFM/RLL drives (the horror). The nice stuff in the 90's was always SCSI, IIRC. I remember some NEC PCs that were pretty attractive and came with integrated SCSI. * I hate machines that used custom RAM. I guess it wouldn't be a deal breaker if it was already maxxed. * I'd certainly prefer PS/2 keyboard ports. * Slimline or other nice case designs are very much something I'll look for, but I need at least one PCI slot, methinks. Unless I could get a GUS and SCSI controller both integrated (man, wouldn't that be something!). Anything different or spacey is preferable to a beige box, even if it's just white or black. * Hmm, what was the ultimate PC framebuffer from the 1990s? I guess it depends on if you care about 3D or think it was too crappy in the 1990s to consider. I'm mostly in the latter camp. So, I'm more inclined to go for maximum 2D performance and maximum OS compatibility. Number Nine? Orchid? I guess I need to find some 2D performance benchmarks from 1999 or something similar. Matrox might work out. The MGA Millennium II comes to mind. I liked 3DFX, too, but I'm worried they were too 3D centric, plus they were ignored by the commercial Unix players. More video memory is great so it can run higher res where possible. * I'll use a 3Com 3c905, but I remember there being even better stuff. I'm just not sure which one is going to work best for all my OSs. Maybe the 3C509 is a better choice, but it's 10mbit and ISA, IIRC. I just remember that card works in more OSs than anything I've ever seen. Realtek is out. I won't use those PoSs ("fool me once" and all that). I'm also not a fan of Broadcom (again they burned me too often). * NTSC Video capability would be nice, but I'll probably just add it in the form of an old Happauge PCI WinTV. I need to find out what OpenSTEP and others supported. This is just a "nice to have" for me. I really liked things like the MacTV (all-in-one with NTSC tuner) back in the day. * Since I'm mostly looking at 486's, I'm mainly targeting the 486/66. I have nothing against Cyrix or exotic x86 processors from the era. -Swift

9 years, 11 months

media and software

by sales＠elecplus.com

I am going back to Dallas next week to sort 2 pallets of media and software. The age runs from reels of tape (9 track? Dated 1989 and earlier) to LTO4. Software, there are a LOT of MS Developer CDs from 2011 and much earlier, Xilinx CDs, AIX CDs, Solaris CDs (the earliest I noticed off the bat was version 6) and a lot of Dell server implementation disks. Also some things on cassette tapes. I need to know what is wanted. After next week it goes in the dumpster. Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 500 Pershing Ave. Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com AOL IM elcpls

9 years, 11 months

Mystery HP 1000 board

by curiousmarc3＠gmail.com

Can anyone identify this HP board (see link to pictures)? https://goo.gl/photos/BBuAV1oozWNSqeUTA It was at under the main board of a newly acquired HP 1000-E, next to the firmware board. It says HP 54427-60050 Booster Microcode. It has 5 bitslice SN 74S181 chips at the back. So I surmise maybe it's a late ALU booster upgrade? Marc

9 years, 11 months

Monitor refresh rate query

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Peter Corlett Hi, thanks for helping me out here! > Both are correct. There are 44 (rounded) frames per second, and 87 > (rounded) fields per second. "fields per second" refers to interlaced displays, right? So the vertical retrace frequence there is the 87 Hz number (since you get a vertical retrace after only 768/2 lines are displayed). Or am I confused? Although if I'm right so far, I'm puzzled as to how one could drive both interlaced and non-interlaced monitors off the same video signal - wouldn't the interlaced one need a video signal which has 'odd lines, then a vertical retrace, then even lines, then a vertical retrace'? Anyway, so which one is the one which is the number to look at when considering if the refresh rate is so high it might be dangerous to an old CRT monitor? I would assume it's the 'fields per second', since that's the frequency of the vertical retrace? E.g. my HP M50 manual says "Setting the screen resolution/refresh rate combination higher than 1024x768 at 60 Hz can damage the display." Even though the same document lists the vertical frequency range as "50-100 Hz"! Noel

9 years, 11 months

Searching an IBM Model B typewriter for IBM 1620

by johannesthelen＠hotmail.com

I got just another jewel to my collection, IBM 1620 Model I (G level). Machine has all internals intact, but table top and the typewriter are missing (probably doorway was too narrow back then, parts removed and forgotten somewhere on the journey... ) That table top can be made again, but I would need that right model typewriter. Anyone have a spare..? Also I have another problem with it, memory is suffering wire corrosion (like these all does). So this can be a looooong shot, but if someone have a functional memory or just core array, I'm interested to buy or swap it to something. Photos can be found my blog, link below. Thaaaaanks! - Johannes ThelenFinland Before microcomputers blog (Finnish) http://ennenmikrotietokoneita.blogspot.fi/

9 years, 11 months

Quadra 660AV what's with the "PowerPC" label?

by blstuart＠bellsouth.net

On Thu, 6/16/16, Sean Conner <spc at conman.org> wrote: > It was thus said that the Great Liam Proven once stated: > > And Plan 9 went one better, and (mostly) eliminated that nasty old > > unsafe mess, C, and it eliminated native binaries and brought > > platform-neutral binaries to the game. > >? Um ... what?? Plan 9 is written in C.? And they still use binaries, just > fat binaries (that is, the binary contains multiple code and data segments > for each supported architecture0). I suspect he was referring to Inferno when talking about the byte code executables. But Plan 9 doesn't use fat binaries. It keeps each architecture's binaries in a directory named for the architecture. Then one uses the union mounts to build a /bin that has the appropriate mix of binaries and shell scripts for the machine hosting that process. BLS

9 years, 11 months

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