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101090 discussions

A stored collection piece is a Schrodinger's cat

by terry＠webweavers.co.nz

This self-satirizing flow diagram reflecting my experiences testing computers in my collection may (or may not) amuse some on this forum. I'm sure at least some can relate to the scenarios though... http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/2015-11-28-computer-collectors-tes… Terry (Tez)

10 years, 2 months

papertape repair tape or kit wanted

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Mark J. Blair > I'm taking an eBay vacation. Which 12-step program are you in to help with that? :-) I could use a good recommendation!! :-) :-) Noel

10 years, 2 months

PDP 8 Timesharing

by rickb＠bensene.com

Hi, all, Just figured I'd post something about my tinkering yesterday. I got an M8830 from Paul Anderson. This is the crystal-contolled clock for the Omnibus PDP 8 machines. Yesterday, I had a chance to try it out. First, I checked the power supply pins to make sure no shorts or anything like that and all was good. A quick visual inspection showed no obvious issues. It was already jumpered for a 50Hz interrupt rate, so I went ahead and plugged it into the backplane. Powered the 8/e system up, and ran a few tests from the front panel to make sure the board was responding to its IOTs, and all seemed well. Booted up OS8 from RK05, and mounted up the multos8.rk05 drive via the serialdisk driver. Copied the MULTOS8 .SV files onto my SYS: volume, and although not configured exactly for my system, I figured they'd be close enough. I then stopped the serial disk server, and fired up Kermit on the laptop connected to the second serial port on the 8/e. Then, I typed R MULTOS on the console, and it said something to the effect that I needed to set the date first. I generally don't bother setting the date at boot time, so I set the date to a valid date, and tried again. This time it gave a welcome message. I checked the accumulator, and it was counting off time as it should. I checked the MQ register, and it was static, but then waited for the accumulator to overflow, and then the MQ incremented by 1, as it should. I pressed CONTROL-H on the console terminal and hit RETURN, and there was the . OS8 prompt! I went to the laptop connected to the other serial interface, and since there was no MULTOS 8 password file on the SYS: device, typed CONTROL-H there, got the login prompt, hit RETURN, and low and behold, another . prompt. I played around with it for a while, and found that because of some of the config differences in how MULTOS8 was built on the pack image, some things were acting strange but in general, it definitely was timesharing between the two users. I could run concurrent things on both terminals, and the response was quite acceptable. I intend to make a build of MULTOS 8 to match my system's configuration, and tinker with it some more when I get time. Next I want to replicate the ETOS Timeshare Board (thanks to Vince and Jack for reverse-engineering the board and making a nice schematic!) I'm accumulating parts to build one on an Omnibus prototype board. Once I get that built, then it'll be time to try out ETOS, which uses the improvements in trapping IOTs and dealing with field change instructions that really improve timesharing performance over MULTOS 8. I am also in the process of getting ready to image some old RK05 packs that belong to Paul Anderson that may hold some interesting ETOS stuff. The packs have been sitting around for quite a long time, and the platters are very dusty. They are going to require some good cleaning before they can be put in a drive, but hopefully, once I get them cleaned up, I'll find some good things relating to ETOS. I'll post updates here with my progress. -Rick -- Rick Bensene The Old Calculator Museum http://oldcalculatormuseum.com

10 years, 2 months

papertape repair tape or kit wanted

by billdegnan＠gmail.com

Anyone have a source to purchase the tape to repair a papertape, or a kit such as what they have here: http://physicsmuseum.uq.edu.au/paper-tape-repair-tool Thanks -- Bill

10 years, 2 months

Apple II+ repair details

by terry＠webweavers.co.nz

Speaking of Schrodinger's feline, here are details of my recent Apple II+ repair for those who might be interested: http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/2015-11-29-more-repairs-to-my-appl… Terry (Tez)

10 years, 2 months

PDP 8 Timesharing

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

when I was young in the computer biz wanted to build a timeshare 8 system.. however ended up going down the HP route instead for the rest of my career . There was also something called TSS-8 as I remember. Ed# _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org) In a message dated 11/30/2015 11:34:49 A.M. US Mountain Standard Tim, jwest at classiccmp.org writes: FYI - in the not too distant future I'm going to get back to my 8E rig. I'll be pulling out the TU10/TM11(unused, obviously) from the second cabinet and putting in an RX01 and RK05, and hopefully connecting up the TU56 and PC04 that are in the main cabinet. In any case, my goal is to run ETOS on the thing - so I too am closely following the progress of the group that is working to replicate the hardware board for it. J

10 years, 2 months

PDP 8 Timesharing

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

Jay - yes I know and for hardware sales too..... as I sold and troubleshot what I used and needed all the time in house so it was a perfect match. eventually the only DEC stuff that was there was in museum displays in the other suite the museum occupied. Ed# In a message dated 11/30/2015 11:58:08 A.M. US Mountain Standard Tim, jwest at classiccmp.org writes: Ed wrote... ----------------------- when I was young in the computer biz wanted to build a timeshare 8 system.. however ended up going down the HP route instead for the rest of my career . ----------- You chose the better path for a timesharing system *ducks & runs* J

10 years, 2 months

PDP 8 Timesharing

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

somewhere i have an edu system book. HA! yea the fixed head drives made better swapping media! for tss 8 as core was small in those days! In a message dated 11/30/2015 12:03:12 P.M. US Mountain Standard Tim, rickb at bensene.com writes: Ed wrote: > when I was young in the computer biz wanted to build a timeshare 8 > system.. > however ended up going down the HP route instead for the rest of my > career . > There was also something called TSS-8 as I remember. Ed# I'd *LOVE* to be able to have a real-hardware HP Timeshared BASIC system running here, but alas, those are a lot harder to come by than DEC stuff. I do have a 2000/Access system running under SimH hooked directly to an ASR-33, which emulates the experience relatively closely, but there's nothing like the real hardware. I cut my teeth learning programming on the HP Timeshared BASIC systems starting in 6th grade under the 2000C version. TSS-8 was indeed a timeshare system for the PDP 8, but it was written to run on DECs earlier fixed-head disk drives that are hard to come about today (compared to RK05's). I've heard that someone had made changes to TSS-8 to get it to run on an RK05, but the fact that it's a moving head disk drive versus a fixed head drive that TSS-8 was designed to run under, the poor RK05 gets thrashed pretty hard when timesharing. There are also the Edusystem timeshared systems that DEC developed for the PDP 8, but I haven't looked too deeply into these yet. -Rick

10 years, 2 months

Brian Brikon diskette drive tester

by snhirsch＠gmail.com

I purchased one of these units on eBay and it seems to be working - modulo a few early-80s tantalum caps that went up in smoke. The tester relies on an attached printer to record test results, which are displayed only fleetingly on the front-panel display. Unfortunately it did not come with the printer and I cannot find any information on line. Does anyone have information on this? Is it serial? Parallel? The onnector is a 20-pin, 0.1" DIP header on the rear panel. The tester supplies printer power on a small 3-pin Molex connector. I can probably trace this out on the internal logic board, but thought perhaps another list member owns one of these and can elaborate. I'm also trying to find the manual appropriate to a base Model 723 tester. The one floating around on the net is for an upscale model (723-4M). While there are a number of similarities, I'm running into just enough behavioral difference to make it worth finding the correct docs. There's also a programming and setup "worksheet" document that has not surfaced anywhere. --

10 years, 2 months

HAL DS-3100 ASR

by unclefalter＠yahoo.ca

Just posting here in case anyone not on other forums I'm on sees this and knows something about these. I picked up a HAL DS-3100 ASR terminal. My understanding is these are RTTY devices intended for teletype/radio use. It is ASCII compatible and in fact I can select ASCII and baud rates from a menu. It has a 25 pin male 'MODEM' port on the back. I can't find it now but somewhere I read it complied with an RS-232 standard. I tried hooking it up to my PC with a null modem cable, but couldn't get either to produce anything on their screens. Anyway, just a shot in the dark in case any of you remember these things. I'm not really into HAM stuff, but it's a cool little terminal and I was hoping it could be used/adapted to other tasks. Brad

10 years, 2 months

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