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101090 discussions

Singleboard and peripherals for grabs (Northern CA)

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<It's a Netronix 8085 SBC from around 1979 (I thought the 8085 came out a <little later than that), with some sort of S-100 compatibility. He's <faxing me a spec sheet tonight. I may pick this up if nobody else wants <it, but I'll defer to somebody who's also interested in a (home made?) <terminal and a small thermal (Telepar?) printer. The 8085 is late '77 I built my Netronics8085 in mid '78. I used to call on netronics. Mine is still in use as a Eprom programmer. The system was motherboard based with bus expansion as S100. The CPU was a 3mhz 8085. There was also a simple serial IO (bitbash) and casette interface on the board along with an assortment of parallel IO. The base board could be configured to take up to 8k of 2716 eprom (or 2116 2kx8 ram) and 4k of 2114 ram. The Northstar disk and PT-VDM1 worked very well with it makes in very compact s100 system. Allison

28 years, 4 months

ISA to PCI?

by kyrrin＠jps.net

Tim Hotze scribbled... >the old ISA cards I've collected, I just got an AWE 64, and my scanner and >PCMCIA cards are ISA-based. So, is it possible to make a device that will >make an ISA card fit into a PCI socket? Is anyone making them? No one that I know of. In fact, I question that such a device is even economically possible to the point that a company would want to try. The architecture differences between PCI and ISA are enormous. The only thing I can think of that -might- stand a chance of working is to construct some sort of sub-board that the ISA card would plug into. Said sub-board would contain the necessary circuitry to implement an ISA-to-PCI bridge. This means, at bare minimum, dealing with a 220-lead surface-mount PQFP chip and its supporting components. That means lots of skill in engineering such bridges, to say nothing of having access to schematic capture and PC board layout tools that can handle advanced boards... Well, you get the idea. I'm not going to say "it can't be done" because I think it can. It's just that I have neither the skill nor the desire to attempt it. ;-) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Sysop, The Dragon's Cave BBS (Fidonet 1:343/272) (Hamateur: WD6EOS) (E-mail: kyrrin(a)jps.net) "Our science can only describe an object, event, or living thing in our own human terms. It cannot, in any way, define any of them..."

28 years, 4 months

Math coprocessors

by photze＠batelco.com.bh

Seriously look for a Weitek Math Co processor, especially if you've got lots of RAM. They were 387-compatible FPU's that used some RAM to boost speed dramatically. As a matter of fact, a Weitek might even be faster than a FPU found on a Pentium or higher machine. -----Original Message----- From: Jack Peacock <peacock(a)simconv.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Monday, April 06, 1998 9:34 PM Subject: RE: Math coprocessors >Ward Donald Griffiths III wrote: >> Max Eskin wrote: >> > >> > I found a PS/2 Model 70 recently, which would normally have a 386, >> > but the previous owner installed a Cyrix 486 upgrade chip. Does >> > anyone know if I can use a 386 math coprocessor with this? I want >> > to run AutoCAD. >> >> The i486 has a coprocessor built in, I assume that the Cyrix does >> as well. Try the software. IIRC, AutoCAD doesn't _require_ a math >> coprocessor, but one does help performance by an order or two of >> magnitude on a 386. >> -- >No, the Cyrix 486DL (I assume it is a DL or DR2 if it's in a 386 >motherboard) is not the same as an Intel 486. The Cyrix 486DL was an >upgrade CPU for the 386 pinout, adding a 486 instruction set and 1K >internal cache. The 486DR2 version was clock doubled. These CPUs do >not have floating point. Generally an Intel 80387 did not work >reliably, but the Cyrix 487 co-processor did. ULSI (and I think IIT) >also made 487s. You can try the Intel 387, sometimes they ran ok, >mostly it depended on the speed range used. > Jack Peacock

28 years, 4 months

Looking for help with Mac SE Radius board/monitor

by erd＠infinet.com

Having recently discovered this list, I might have a chance at getting some help for a long obsolete Radius product: the Radius Full Page Display for the Mac SE. My late mother bought this a while back, attached to a Mac, for her word processing/typesetting business. It has never worked, due to the fact that the previous owner of the Mac SE formatted the hard disk before handing it over to her. The drivers for the card _were_ on there, but she used the machine for weeks before asking her sons why the big screen initialized but never worked. The external monitor comes up, displays a half-tone pattern, then goes dark. I did manage to get _a_ driver for the card when Radius still had it on their ftp site, but, alas, the ROMs are too old to work with that version of the driver. At the time, my mother didn't want to spend $80 to get newer ROMs from Radius, and now, they aren't available. So... what I could use is either a) an old version of the FPD SE disks (c. 1987-1989) or b) FPD SE ROMs newer than version 4.1 (the ones that are installed there now). Besides the version number, the ROMs have a U number (U19 and U20) and a part number (297-132-D and 297-131-D) and a size (256K). The date on the ROM labels is 1989. The date on the PCB silkscreen is 1987. Thanks for any help. -ethan P.S. - I can burn my own ROMs from images. They're just plain-old 27C256's.

28 years, 4 months

Singleboard and peripherals for grabs (Northern CA)

by engine＠chac.org

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28 years, 4 months

Speaking of VoxBox...

by sethm＠loomcom.com

I have one here that I'd gladly part with. In the original box, with the original documentation and cassettes. The original box, it should be noted, has been written all over and used to mail the thing hither and yon, so it's not "pristine" to say the least. I don't want a lot of money for it, but I'll accept little offers to cover the hassle of mailing it, plus postage. The only reason I'm getting rid of it is because I'm frankly not that interested in RadioShack stuff :) So hopefully it will end up in a nice happy friendly collector's home being tinkered with instaed of sitting on my shelf collecting dust. -Seth Morabito Computer Historian, DEC Enthusiast, Weirdo Send comments, questions, and offers to sethm(a)loomcom.com

28 years, 4 months

Recent Brother's Find, More PET info & 2.8mb floppy

by foxnhare＠goldrush.com

Last week my brother found me something (usually I am the one finding 'stuff' for him. An overhead projector LCD unit! (circa 1987 so it's on-topic). It's a monochrome unit that approximates colors via greys but bhe really cool thing about this display is it's inputs: RGB and Composite Video! So next time I drag one of my Commodore 8-bits for a demo I have a an overhead display unti that works with it! (tested it with a Commodore 128 -in 64 mode-, the screen just fits in the visible area.) (manufacturer Computer Accessories) 00100111101010010010010011100100100001110010111001001001 Andre Fachat, another Commodore PET enthusiast has just opened his 'PET Index'. Much of it is on his latest toy the CBM 8296 (the last of the PET line -I think even after the SuperPET-) includes links to other valuable PET information (such as my PET FAQ). A good place to bookmark if you have any interest in PET computers: http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/~fachat/8bit/petindex/petindex.html 00100111101010010010010011100100100001110010111001001001 As far as anyone ever seeing a 2.8 mb floppy drive, yes, a friend of mine has one, for the Commodore 8-bit! Creative Micro Designs (CMD) a thriving Commodore peripheral, expansion, and accererator manufacturer for the Commodore 64/128 had used them for the FD-4000 series disk drives. The drives use ED (extended density?) disks (the high density hole is farther down than on HD disks and there is an ED on the casing.) Unfortunately CMD had to drop the line a couple years back due to the drive manufacturer dropping the model as there was not a big enough demand for them. :/ -- -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- Larry Anderson - Sysop of Silicon Realms BBS (300-2400bd) (209) 754-1363 Visit my Commodore 8-Bit web page at: http://www.goldrush.com/~foxnhare/commodore.html -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

28 years, 4 months

TRS-80 VOXBOX?

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<I acquired a TRS-80 VOXBOX last week. It is in the original box <with cable, interface box, mic, and three casette tapes. I remember <when RS was selling these. Has anyone ever used one? Did they actually <work? < <Any historical insight is appreciated. It speaks, classic mechanical sounding speech. Rather fun to play with. Allison

28 years, 4 months

DEC 11/70...

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<The accompanying lab workbook for the _The Art of Electronics_ is <worth obtaining for getting the "Write-Only Memory" datasheet, too. <My favorite graph on the data sheet is "Number of pins remaining <vs. number of socket insertions". (Wasn't this originally published <in an April 1 issue of _Electronics_ in the 70's?) I got my copy of that data sheet as an official looking Signetics data sheet along with the data books circa 1972. It was the EIA/IEEE spec'd spigot in the lower right side of the device logical drawing. IT went well with the ISO bit bucket. ;) Allison

28 years, 4 months

math coprocessors

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Apr 6, 17:15, Max Eskin wrote: > Subject: Re: math coprocessors > [Autocad not requiring math coprocessor] > Well, version 12 for Dos, which is what I have, seems to require it. > It refuses to start up, quitting with "80x87 required, but not > present". Whoever said it doesn't, maybe you have a lower version. > If so, which and what's it like? I would certainly be interested in > an older version, such a 7 or 8. Even fairly old versions require a maths copro. Some of my then-colleagues at Acorn Computers were involved in negotiations with Autodesk in 1987, to get it ported to the ARM architecture. AD ported Autosketch quite quickly, because it doesn't need a maths copro, but they refused to port AutoCad, because they insisted a maths coprocessor was essential (despite the fact that the software routines available outperformed some contemporary maths processors). -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

28 years, 4 months

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