test-drb

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

101090 discussions

by fmc＠reanimators.org

A couple of weeks ago someone thrust this bag into my hands and suggested that I find out about it. In the finest tradition of getting the 'net to do my homework for me, I did a few web searches that gave me a lot of false leads and no real info, and now I'm pestering y'all. So what's in the bag? It's a Z80 singleboard, 4 15/16" x 6 3/4" (12.6cm x 17.1 cm for you metric-threaded folks). Legends in the component-side traces include an "EXO corporation" logo, "(C) 1982" (where (C) is the C-in-circle copyright symbol), and "1010A" which I guess is a part or model number. There's a terminal strip off to one side which I am guessing (from the ICs and a little bit of follow-the-traces that is about the limit of my know-how) is intended to be connections for power, interrupt lines, and a serial port. And there are three 34-pin (2x17) plugs in about the middle of the board. Significant ICs would seem to be an SGS Z80A, a National 2716 EPROM, nine Hitachi HM4864P-2, Zilog Z8410A (DMA) and Z8440A (SIO/O), National MC1489P and two TI SN101057 on the way to that terminal strip, and a couple of what I guess are some sort of programmable logic in 20-pin DIPs whose markings have been removed so that "(C) 1981... EXO SYS. CORP." can be stamped on top. Anybody know what this is, or anything about the company, or any better places to look? I'm guessing "singleboard for control system" but that is pretty much outside my know-how. And how did I get into this fix? I suspect it's karmic payback for something I said a couple hours before at the Foothill swap meet. Someone showed me a 68000 singleboard (not too different) and I said something like "once upon a time I'd have found that a really neat hacker toy, now I don't think I have time for it." There's clues in here somewhere, but I don't think I've figured out which ones I'm supposed to pay attention to. -Frank McConnell

28 years, 2 months

Tomy Tutor

by jpl15＠netcom.com

Well, this month's TRW Swapmeet haul was pretty expens^H^H^H^H good: I found some old computer books, and some electronic music and acoustics texts from the 60s... and a neat HP 1/4" data recorder, four channels, FM, four speeds... nice for my restoration work. And an Edison cylinder recording for $10... (cool!) BUT.... (here's the on-topic part) I found a Tomy 16-Bit Graphics Tutor, along with another Commodore 64 and printer. [Anyone in SoCal want two C-64s, a disk drive and printer? Not really my 'thing'.. free to good home, you pay FedEx shipping...] Anyway.. This unit is slightly larger than the C-64, has a cartridge port on the top, an expansion bus port on the back, as well as a DIN for the cassette and a DB9 marked 'controller', and audio/video/RF RCA jacks. I have yet to plug it in. It is stock # 800, model # TP 1000. Is this thing anything? Is it priceless/worthless? Interesting/boring? I have never run across one in all my years collecting... ALSO: I'm still looking for the vacuum column door for a Kennedy 9300 9trk drive.... if another drive was available within reasonable going-and-getting distance I'd go for that, too. ALSO ALSO: The formatter card for the above, to fit a PDP 11/34a. Cheers John

28 years, 2 months

OS's In ROM's (was: Re: Mac Classic prob (was Macintoshes..

by allisonp＠world.std.com

You could have said single chip CPU but in reality what does that mean as 8088 required a 8084a clock driver and many other chips in practical use are never quite single chips unless you mean an 8048 or 8051! <I didn't mention the 11/03 because although it's often described as a <microprocessor, it's actually a set of 4 40-pin chips (5 with optional <EIS/FIS instructions) called a D-11. That's the one often called an The KD11 was four chips (5 with EIS/FIS) but the distribution was CPU core and Micoms (microcode roms) around it. <sure there was a stand-alone system using RX02s. Of course, you could al <count 11/23 systems running standard 7th Edition Unix (1979) on RL02s, li <the one I have here. And here too! Allison

28 years, 2 months

OS's In ROM's (was: Re: Mac Classic prob (was Macintoshes..

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<I class that as a micro, but I don't know if others would. 11/23 was called a micro by it's vendor DEC! What could be more official than that. Also the LSI-11 (KD-11). Allison

28 years, 2 months

Heathkit ET-3400

by ddameron＠earthlink.net

At 04:06 AM 6/28/98 -0500, Doug wrote: >I picked up an ET-3400 6800 CPU trainer today. It was obviously abused by >several students in a past life. I've resoldered its broken connections, >and it seems to work OK, but I can't fully test it yet because I'm missing >the seven-segment LEDs and the monitor ROM. > >I happended to have the manual for a 1977 version of this trainer, but my >trainer appears to be from 1987 or so and has a few differences (for one, >it uses a 6802 rather than a 6800). Luckily, the manual has a listing of >the monitor ROM. But I don't have a 6800 assembler. > >So, does anybody have any of the following: > >1) A monitor ROM image (preferably for a 1987 model) >2) A 6800 assembler (preferably Linux-hosted, but DOS will work) >3) The EPROM part number for this board (the man. mentions MCM6830A, but >that doesn't ring a bell with me) >4) Part numbers for the 7-segment LEDs (I only have Heathkit part nos.) >5) A spare "1" key for my keypad :-) > I kooked on the net, but didn't find any info on the ET-3400. I did find this page on the EC-1, however: http://www.cyberventure.com/heathkit/computers/ec-1.html At least the LED's should be able to be replaced if uou know their sizes and whether C Anode or C Cathode. Looking in catalogs like Jameco, the part numbers don't help my memory, but the size/descriptions do. Have wished to see a Heath cross reference for things like IC's, transistors., collected from a large number of their manuals. I have at least 1 2716 with a Heath number on it- have no idea what it's for. -Dave

28 years, 2 months

Way to identify original IBM-PC?

by maxeskin＠hotmail.com

Remember: I'm the same copyright as the C-64 >Thanks for posting a more complete response than mine. I didn't think >that perhaps Max is too young to remember using a cassette recorder and >cassette tapes for program storage. I just assumed that everyone on this >list would know that computers used to use tape recorders in olden days >before disk drives came along. > >Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com >------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Ever onward. > > September 26 & 27...Vintage Computer Festival 2 > See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details! > [Last web page update: 06/11/98] > > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

28 years, 2 months

OS's In ROM's (was: Re: Mac Classic prob (was Macintoshes..

by mbg＠world.std.com

>I have to plead DEC-hardware ignorance. Did the 11/23 use a single-chip >micro (the LSI-11, according to Allison)? If so, then please add >"non-DEC" to my Q :-) The 11/23, 11/23+ and 11/24 all used the same chip set. The actual processor existed as two chips mounted on one carrier. This was the DCF-11 (the 'Fonz') chip. The memory management unit was a second chip and the floating point unit was a third chip (again, actually two chips on one carrier). In addition, there was a CIS (commerical instruction set) chip which was 6 chips on a single carrier (I have a couple of 11/23+ boards with CIS). Megan Gentry Former RT-11 Developer +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+ | Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry(a)zk3.dec.com | | Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg(a)world.std.com | | Digital Equipment Corporation | | | 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43 | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ | | Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler | | (603) 884 1055 | required." - mbg | +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+

28 years, 2 months

OS's In ROM's (was: Re: Mac Classic prob (was Macintoshes..

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jun 28, 13:29, Doug Yowza wrote: > Didn't SGI recently re-spinoff MIPS as an independent concern? In any > case, while the core ISA should be the same, NEC developed the VR4101 and > VR4102 specifically for CE, and I doubt that you'll find the chips in any > SGI box. I got invalid links when I tried to look at the specs at NEC's > site, but I think the CE-specifics were probably in areas of power > management and on-chip peripherals. Yes, lots of companies like MIPS, Digital, ARM, Motorola, etc etc make the core designs available for others to incorporate in their customised processors, and I had no doubt that that's just what NEC did. Sometimes the design owner does the customisation, sometimes the company who want the custom version. NEC would have the experise to do it themselves, I'm sure. All I meant was that it would still basically be a MIPS core, with a standard architecture and instruction set. I hadn't heard about MIPS being separated again. Given what SGI are doing at the moment, I wouldn't be surprised. > It's public knowledge that Microsoft added ARM support for WinCE 2.1, but > that version of the OS is not shipping for any platform. In fact, 2.1 was > still beta last I checked (a couple of weeks ago). I confess that I pay little attention to WinCE and even less to version numbers :-) > I have to plead DEC-hardware ignorance. Did the 11/23 use a single-chip > micro (the LSI-11, according to Allison)? If so, then please add > "non-DEC" to my Q :-) Yes, the 11/23 used the F-11 chip, which is a single 40-pin package. There are optional add-ons, but the basic processer is just one ceramic object -- though anyone who looks at it will immediately see that it's actually two smaller packages (essentially, one for ALU and one for microcode) mounted on a common carrier with a few chip capacitors for good measure. I didn't mention the 11/03 because although it's often described as a microprocessor, it's actually a set of 4 40-pin chips (5 with optional EIS/FIS instructions) called a D-11. That's the one often called an LSI-11, although strictly speaking LSI-11 refers to a particular processor board. And I deliberately didn't give more detail about the unix systems, because I can't remember what Bell called those little systems, and I don't have the reprints of the AT&T Technical Journal to hand :-) I'm fairly sure there was a stand-alone system using RX02s. Of course, you could also count 11/23 systems running standard 7th Edition Unix (1979) on RL02s, like the one I have here. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

28 years, 2 months

PDP-8

by mailroom＠knorr.com

What's the current availability of the PDP-8/E systems? Any DECtape, other devices, too? OS/8 operating system?

28 years, 2 months

C-Nets Windows history story

by Archive＠navix.net

Makes for some interesting reading, anyway.... talks of Microsoft, Apple, Atari, IBM, Xerox, HP, and others as the story traces a time-line of Microsoft Windows. Here's a cut and paste to get you to the story: Microsoft's latest OS offering didn't invent itself, and neither did the first Windows apps. It was a long, sometimes painful evolutionary period spanning at least the last 30 years. Would it surprise you to know that Atari was a contender for the OS crown? Find out how, and more, in our feature story "30 years of Windows: a retrospective." It's an enlightening look at the history of the Windows OS, and the history of computing itself. http://www.cnet.com/Content/Features/Special/30Years/index.html?dd.sd -- ____________________________________________________________ | Cord G. Coslor : archive(a)navix.net |\ | Deanna S. Wynn : deannasue(a)navix.net | | | on AOL Instant Messenger: DeannaCord | | | http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Vista/4395 | | |------------------------------------------------------------| | | PO Box 308 - Peru, NE - 68421 - (402) 872- 3272 | | |------------------------------------------------------------| | | If you don't have AOL (like us) but want a great instant | | | chat feature, just go to http://www.aol.com/aim | | |____________________________________________________________| | \_____________________________________________________________\|

28 years, 2 months

Jump to page:

2026

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

test-drb