test-drb

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101090 discussions

by wulfman＠wulfman.com

there is a cool video in the hackaday link below http://hackaday.com/2015/10/19/repairing-55000-of-vintage-core-memory/?utm_… -- The contents of this e-mail and any attachments are intended solely for the use of the named addressee(s) and may contain confidential and/or privileged information. Any unauthorized use, copying, disclosure, or distribution of the contents of this e-mail is strictly prohibited by the sender and may be unlawful. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately and delete this e-mail.

10 years, 6 months

ADVENT on TSX-Plus system?

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

My reply didn?t show up for some reason... resubmitting: It should directly in TSX-Plus . Make sure your current memory limit is 56K. See below for my attempt. BTW TSX should only use RT11 to ?boot?. TSX doesn?t run over RT11SJ in this version. TSX replaces all the OS code. .sh memory ?... Current job memory limit = 56Kb Maximum job memory limit = 64Kb .sh ver 6.20 .run advent WELCOME TO ADVENTURE!! WOULD YOU LIKE INSTRUCTIONS? ----------------------- It turns out I have (at least the pack that?s in the drive) TSX-Plus 6.16, not 6.50. But ADVENT does work now. I have to admit to ?operator error? The bootable XM pack is currently in drive 0, and the bootable SJ pack with TSX-Plus is in drive 1. Somehow I?d forgotten to copy one of the ADVENT files from one pack to the other. So when I rebooted from DL1: it couldn?t find ADVTXT and crashed! Anyhow it does now run (on both the console and the other time-sharing terminal). Thanks for the information, though. -Charles

10 years, 6 months

ADVENT on TSX-Plus system?

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

I have a PDP-11/23+ with 4 MB RAM and two RL02 drives. I can boot RT-11XM, then run VBGEXE and start ADVENT with no problem. But TSX-Plus 6.50, at least the version I have, has to run over RT-11SJ, and VBGEXE reports "Wrong version". And ADVENT won't run by itself (without VBGEXE), whether SJ or XM. So is there any way to run ADVENT while running TSX-Plus? thanks Charles

10 years, 6 months

JAMMA board video hookup

by jules.richardson99＠gmail.com

OK, so it's sort-of computery. I snagged a JAMMA arcade board from a recycling pile a couple of days ago (this is an m68k-based early 90's board). Supposedly it's faulty, but I don't know the nature of the fault - maybe it's just RAM or a reset problem or something, so I figured I'd put a little bit of time into it. Anyway, I'm having a hard time finding details about the video output - I know it's negative composite sync (I got the manual, which says that much), and I *think* it's TTL levels (right?), but I'm not sure about frequencies. Then there's the RGB outputs - analog, but I'm not seeing anything that tells me peak voltages. I suppose the question is, what's the easiest display to try and hook this up to? I've monitors with an assortment of inputs (VGA, EGA, CGA, MDA, mono-composite), and I think there's a CRT TV kicking around that has a composite input too (and maybe S-video, not sure). It doesn't bother me if the quality's not great; I'm just interested in whatever's quickest to interface to at this stage, just to see if I can get something working. cheers Jules

10 years, 6 months

Haul of the weekend

by jws＠jwsss.com

A run to a dark corner of Orange County yielded a Sun 4-260 and a DecServer 550. After loading the 4-260 the DecServer 550 seemed like a feather. Also in the pile to be collected, a stash of Hitachi ESDI drives of some sort (full high 500mb) Probably will be selling them. The storage circumstances was a bit rangy but beggars can't be choosers. Thanks Jim

10 years, 6 months

Atari Unix

by lproven＠gmail.com

Apparently efforts are underway to get this unreleased product working. I believe it was aimed at the TT030 desktop "workstation" model of the ST family: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_TT030 Atari did licence UNIX? and got a really good deal ? $10 a seat! http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/18/the-atari-st-could-have-run-unix/ ? But the original 68000 version couldn't hack it. No MMU. http://www.dadhacker.com/blog/?p=1383 The product did eventually exist: http://www.atariunix.com/ But as ever it was too little, too late. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R)

10 years, 6 months

Opening a DECserver 90M External PSU

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

One of my DECserver 90M PSUs got dropped and stopped working as a result, possibly because it got pulled by the cable. That sounds like the kind of damage that might be repairable. I tried to open the enclosure and I found a hole under one of the labels, expecting it to be a screw hole, but it isn't. I am guessing you just have to pry the halves apart, but without knowing where the clips are inside it is easy just to break the thing. Does anyone know how you open these PSUs? Thanks Rob PS Yes I know these PSUs are notoriously unreliable, and that you can make a PSU with a DIN plug and a wall wart, but I would still like the original to work if possible.

10 years, 6 months

Nice blog post on fixing a 1401 memory bug...

by lbickley＠bickleywest.com

I'm forwarding a blog post written by a member of the CHM 1401 Restoration Team. Excellent description (with pictures) of how 1401 memory is addressed, etc.: http://www.righto.com/2015/10/repairing-50-year-old-mainframe-inside.html Cheers, Lyle -- 73 AF6WS Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

10 years, 6 months

Decmate Owner's Guide (or equivalent experience)

by rob＠bitscience.ca

Hi Folks, Does anyone have a electronic copy of the original Decmate Owner?s Guide (AA-K330C-TA) that they could share? Alternatively, can anyone describe what can be accomplished (if anything) from the initial ?Setup? prompt on a VT278 *without* any disks attached? The situation is that Brent and I are trying to resurrect a Decmate ? we?ve plugged in a VT100 keyboard (Thanks, Bill!): - it boots to the ?Setup? prompt with the flashing cursor. - the ?Power? light on the rear of the unit is steady and the ?CPU OK? light is blinking. - the keyboard lights indicate ?online" - pressing ?2? or ?PF3? cause ?Setup? to disappear. ?3? seems to cause it to perform some self-test like procedure. - most keys cause keyclicks, but ?space?, ?M?, and ?/' don?t. With an oscilloscope, we can see data from the keyboard being sent for the ?silent? keys, however. Without disks, what else should we able to do? Eventually, we?d like to find or construct some solution for mass storage, but we?re still at the point of checking out the VT278 itself. Thanks, Rob Ferguson

10 years, 6 months

PDP-12 Restoration at the RICM (tony duell)

by michael.99.thompson＠gmail.com

> > Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2015 18:29:11 +0000 > From: tony duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> > Subject: RE: PDP-12 Restoration at the RICM > > > We swapped the TU56 and TU55 drives between the PDP-12 and the PDP-8/I. > We > > Does the TU55 work correctly on the 8/I ? > Yes, it works perfectly. It even worked OK after we put it back in the 8/I. > > The TU55 behaved a little better than the TU56, and sometimes would > > actually boot OS/8. We continued chasing the issue and found glitches on > > data channel 3. We have swapped every module and cable that relates to > data > > What exactly do you mean by 'glitches'? Are these on a TTL level signal, > an analogue > output of the read amplifer, or what? > You can see the logic analyzer trace of many of the TC12 signals here. <https://4310b1a9-a-11c96037-s-sites.googlegroups.com/a/ricomputermuseum.org…> The labels at the far left of the image include the backplane slot and pin number for the probe location. The signals were TTL level by the time the logic analyzer saw them. Have you looked for glitches on the other data channels? > Tracks 1 & 2 look fine. We swapped the probes for track 2 & 3 just to make sure that it wasn't a logic analyzer problem. A 'scope connected to the differential signals shows the same track 3 glitches. The glitches were present with the TU55 and the TU56 tape drives. We used different control and data cables for the TU55 and TU56. We swapped the G882 modules between tracks, and from the TC01 in the PDP-8/I and did not see a change. We swapped the W603 module in slot F16, the R107 in F12, and the W512 in F13. The LTR WRITE ON L signal is inactive and stable. We tried several tapes, including ones formatted and written by DEC and the glitches are present on track 3. -tony > -- Michael Thompson

10 years, 6 months

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