Bill: FWIW The only to get them to come up with a realistic price is wait
until after 90 days but before 120 days. Then talk to Van and make him an
offer. I have dealt with them for several years. He has learned that my
offers are realistic and 95% of the time takes them. He has dumpstered a
lot that I had made offers on and could not get back in before 120 days.
The magic # there is 120 days (the last week or the beginning of the first
week of the month) That is when the dumpster gets very full. At the old
location Van used to let me dumpster dive. I have not asked since they
moved.
Dan
-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Yakowenko <yakowenk(a)cs.unc.edu>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Saturday, March 06, 1999 10:25 PM
Subject: OT? Tek Scopes
>Visiting a surplus shop today, I found a small herd of Tek Oscilliscopes.
Some
>of them looked pretty old to me. They want real money for them too.
Details:
>
> Model Mod 1 Mod 2 Cart
> ----- ----- ----- -----
> 564 3C66 2B67
> 564 3A74 2B67 Y
> 504 Y
> 561A 3A72 2B67
> 5111 5A20N 5B10N
> 515A Y
> 549 1a1 Y
> D11 5A14N 5B10N Y
> 504
> 564B 3A9 3B4
>
>Prices were originally $200 for most of them, except the 549, which was
$400.
>Some of them had been marked down to $100. They have some kind of
automatic
>decrease in price based on how long things stay in the store (1% per day?),
>but most of them have been there only since late February. And I don't
know
>how that effects the ones that were "manually" marked down.
>
>I suspect these prices are outlandish. The same place wants $25 for 2400
>baud modems. :-) Anyway, the age-based discount may eventually make the
>prices more reasonable. At least for the scopes, if not the modems.
>
>The ones marked "Y" under "Cart" had a "Scope-Mobile" cart with them. But
I
>didn't think to get model numbers from those.
>
>Oh, and I can't guarantee that these work. I didn't ask if they would
allow
>me to test them, and at present I don't know enough to be able to test them
>anyway. I also can't guarantee that they'll still be there when I next
visit.
>
>Questions:
>
>0. How old are these guys?
>
>1. Are any of these potentially useful for computer work? Can they handle
the
> frequencies used in old machines, say, up to a few MHz? (Judging from
their
> apparent age, I wouldn't hope for much more than that.)
>
>2. Anybody want one? Be aware that in addition to the price tag, I
wouldn't
> expect these guys to be easy or cheap to ship. (At least one time in
the
> past I have had to back out of a deal because I couldn't arrange
shipping
> within cost & safety constraints.) And the carts are probably too big
to
> go through UPS or USPS. Given all that, if you want one, let me know.
>
> Cheers,
> Bill.
>
I normally pass by printer ribbons, but these are strange, so I nabbed 'em.
The ribbons are 1" wide, on spools with an inside diameter of 1.75" and an
outside diameter of 4" (all approximate). I have about ten of them. Anybody
have any idea what they might belong to? Anybody want them?
Cheers,
Bill.
I just picked up a nice little HP 150 (series 100) and the 9121 diskdrive
and the 82906A printer. I dont have any software for this machine. Can
someone help me out. That someone can have the right of first refusal on
the 82906A printer. If there passed, anyone can have it for the cost of
shipping.
And... Anyone enjoy *old* mechanical adding machines? I've got a Felt &
Tarrant Mfg. Comptometer (20's ??) that looks and works great t (well, the
10th column has some problems) that I would consider putting on the trading
block.
- Mike: dogas(a)leading.net
The Atari Transputer Workstation (ATW) is an example of a computer that doesn't
use a host. It is build upon a T800 transputer processor and runs the Helios Operating
System. Another example is XTM from Cogent Research (does anyone have a picture
and/or docs for this machine) which ran Linda and NeWS-based X-Windows system. It
was also powered by a transputer without a host. The transputer only uses the host
for I/O and for downloading the initial program. As Tony said, you can also boot from ROM
and use different types of TRAMS to handle I/O without a host. For info on the ATW, I suggest
you check out http://columbia.digiweb.com/kiffer/ATW/. For general info on transputers, you
can see my webpage at http://skyscraper.fortunecity.com/ppp/533/.
Cheers,
Ram
If you need datasheets and info on transputers, then check out my webpage.
I love transputers and I devote my entire webpage to it. I maintain a huge collection
of programs, documents, specs, and links on transputers. The URL is http://skyscraper.fortunecity.com/ppp/533/
Ram
-----Original Message-----
From: Derek Peschel [SMTP:dpeschel@u.washington.edu]
Sent: Saturday, March 06, 1999 8:49 PM
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
Subject: Re: The TI 34010
Tony Duell wrote:
[transputers generally rely on a host]
> (1) is not so much of a problem. The reason most transputer systems have
> a 'host' is that you can boot a transputer over one of its links without
> having any user-written boot code on the transputer. This means it's easy
> to develop for (no possibility of your (firmware) bootstrap having bugs
> in it), etc. But you can equally boot a transputer from external ROM in
> its own memory space if you want to. And hook a terminal up over an RS232
> port (the transputer's bus is similar to just about every other bus
> you're likely to see, so you can have RS232 chips and SCSI chips, and
> whatever, mapped into the transputer's address space).
So graphics chips are a good possibility. *drool* RS232 is fine but it's
not very flashy. :)
> In fact one of the first INMOS transputer boards - the B001 - had a
> transputer + RAM + RS232 port + ROM on it. It didn't expect a transputer
> link to the host.
This may be a good time to ask if there's an exhaustive list of part numbers
and specifications for the various INMOS chips? I've seen lists (in a
couple of mass-market books about the transputer) but I suspect they're not
complete. I've never seen the actual data books.
> Problem (3) is more serious - the fact that most (all?) of the transputer
> chips are no longer in production.
I guess that IS a problem. Do they show up on the surplus market?
> > them; Sketchpad relied on them and Evans & Sutherland continued the trend.
> > (I'd love to play with some of their machines!)
>
> Does anyone know anything about the PS/390 display from E&S?
Not me. There's some sort of E&S display at the Computer Museum History
Center but I don't know the model number.
-- Derek
The TI 34020 is the (principally similar) successor to the 34010, and I have
designed in my company our basic bread-and-butter product of that time
around that some 7 years ago. This is machine vision, i.e. digital image
processing.
I do not think it is advisable to emulate anything. If you want to build the
Perfect Computer (tm) I would suggest to use Linux as operating system, and
write your own driver for whatever display hardware you see fit.
The TI 340x0 family is best viewed as a totally general microprocessor,
which happens to have a few special gadgets for image / graphics processing.
There is nothing you could not do in principle by using any other
microprocessor,
but some things - in particular drawing graphics - will just be significantly
faster on the TI 340x0. The basic thing to know is that in those days people
were most concerned about putting graphics display lists on the screen,
that is you have a list of triangles, lines, circles, and whatnot, and the
hardware primitives (really microcode of course) on the TI 340x0 allow you
to do that pretty efficiently.
That in other word means, that _ON_ _THE_ _APPLICATION_ _LEVEL_
you must be prepared to hand DISPLAY LISTS over to the graphcis processor;
in those times, that was done by people like AutoCad, e.g.
John G. Zabolitzky
Hi Folks
I picked up a DB MV/200 DC and the micro to load it. The problem being,
I'm not sure how to hook it all back together. Anyone got any ideas or
know where I can find info on the beast? The machine is ported for 48
RS232 devices, but I'm not too sure what its good for.
Thanks
Terry
terryf(a)intersurf.com
I don't know what all this stuff means, but NASA paid Martin Marietta,
where I worked back in those days, a LOT of dough, and provided
documentation labeled Honeywell and showing pictures, though they were not
relevant, of a model 516 computer. I spent six months or more poring over
schematics, struggling to keep my eyes open, and making note of any
potential race conditions, running logic simulations, etc, just to document
all the potential single-point failure modes and their potential effect.
We found several conditions which seemed to be "bugs" in the system,
capable of creating catastrophic failures resulting in loss of lives and
billions of dollars' worth of equipment, but those were "ground-ruled-out,"
meaning that, for example, a power supply failure in the mode wherein it
drifts completely out of regulation, is a "normal" operating circumstance
and need not be considered . . . but, I digress . . .
The fact is, dladies and gentlemen, that the proposition of the time was
that the engine controllers were Honeywell 516's, whatever that means.
There was talk of installing a 68000-based computer in their place because
semiconductor memories were faster, and a system of that type was superior
for many reasons, not the least of which was modern read-only memories
would allow much better testing. The plated-wire memories in use on the
Challenger engine controllers allowed fault conditions which were not
detected to be inherited from a previous mission, which risks went
completely away with the newer design. It's not hard to imagine that such
an upgrade would save on power and weight, as well as providing much more
testability. It should also be enough faster to improve the system
considerably.
Dick
----------
> From: Hans Franke <Hans.Franke(a)mch20.sbs.de>
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
> Subject: Space shuttle computers
> Date: Wednesday, March 03, 1999 12:17 PM
>
> (Just reaching the Internet/Shuttle thread :)
>
> > The best information I have suggests that the Space Shuttle does not
> > use the Honeywell DDP-516 in any capacity, and that engine control is
performed
> > by the some of the IOP processors that are part of the IBM AP-101S
> > computers. The entire AP-101S, including both the GPC and IOP,
occupies
> > about 0.025 cubic meters, masses about 30 Kg, and consumes about 550 W.
> > A DDP-516 occupies about 2.5 cubic meters, masses about 250 Kg, and
consumes
> > over 1000 W.
>
> AFAIK the first generation of rocket control computers
> (thrust, angle, etc.) had HDC-601 processors (with plate
> wire core mem), And if I'm not completly wrong, the HDC-601
> is a DDP-516 compatible system. I don't know if the shuttle
> engines have been equipped with them, since the actual
> controlers are (since the mid 80s) are based on 68.000
> processors.
>
> And for the AF-101, I always belived the last core mem unit
> was named AF-101F not B, as mentioned in another message. In
> fact, I love the idea of using a /370s design CPU - It's just
> the best OPcode design ever :)
>
> BTW, does anybody know if a new design is planed ?
>
> Gruss
> H.
>
> --
> Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
> HRK
> And are there other categories of products that might become future
> collectibles?
First mouse? Oddball mice? First hard drive? Seminal software, of course.
