test-drb

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101090 discussions

by kylevowen＠gmail.com

Found some IBM parts recently. Any idea what specifically these might have come out of? I'll be picking them up soon and getting more pictures, but here's a few for now. http://imgur.com/a/pikqG Thanks, Kyle

10 years, 6 months

Q-bus I/O project

by wilson＠dbit.com

This may never see the light of day (if the prototype turns out to be stillborn) but it's pretty and I can't resist posting a pic before I've powered it on and proven its uselessness: http://www.dbit.com/wilson/projects/qba.jpg Officially it's for my morally repugnant attempts to earn a living (so it's supposed to be a Q-bus bridge that connects over Ethernet), but I wanted to still be able to do something fun in the very likely case that the Ethernet port doesn't work (no idea if my PCB layout is kosher for something as fast as the gigabit PHY's bus) or has uselessly high latency, so I added an SD card slot and made all the CPU-end terminators switchable, so it can act as just a plain peripheral (I'm mainly thinking disk controller -- I've already found a reason why the USB device port can't work), if its CPU's alive and can talk to the Q-bus. We'll see. Many many many chances for mistakes. Five different power-supply voltages, for starters. As always, I can't say enough good things about XMOS microcontrollers and OSHpark.com. John Wilson D Bit

10 years, 6 months

WTT: My Amiga Mouse for your Atari ST Mouse!

by ethan＠757.org

Looking for an Atari ST mouse, have an extra Amiga mouse to trade? Also looking to buy a 520ST power supply to complete a system if anyone knows of extras. -- Ethan O'Toole

10 years, 6 months

MEM11 status update

by ggs＠shiresoft.com

I wanted to let folks know what the current status is on the MEM11 project. I apologize in advance for the long post. Previously I had mentioned that the emulator was fully functional (more on that later) and that I was starting to debug the MEM11 firmware. I have made significant progress and I'm in the final stages of testing the recovery image firmware and the configuration image firmware. In reality, the recovery image firmware is a heavily stripped down version of the configuration image firmware - I had to make space for all of the strings, in the configuration image the strings are kept in FRAM. This usually means that I can do most of the testing in the configuration image and (with a few exceptions) I'm assured that it'll work properly in the recovery image. The recovery image is what will be in the J1's RAM (in the FPGA) after reset. It is also the "cold boot" loader. Depending upon configuration settings and a couple of jumpers, it looks for a version of firmware to run. Recall that there are up to 5 copies of the firmware: 2 copies of the "run time" firmware, this is what makes the MEM11 a set of Unibus devices 2 copies of the "configuration" firmware, this allows you to configure the board, load new firmware, load/save memory, ROM images and RS11 disk images 1 copy of the "configuration" firmware that is deemed "safe". This copy cannot be updated except by the recovery image The recovery image is part of the FPGA programming so it cannot be updated in the field. The recovery and configuration images support the XMODEM protocol for uploading/downloading FRAM contents. I'm going through and exhaustively testing all of the command and checking that they produce the proper results and leave no extraneous bits on the stack(s). I haven't been able to do any testing on the XMODEM command yet because I don't have support in the emulator for connecting other programs to the console. So once all of the other commands have been tested, I'm going to extend the emulator to handle some other devices. I'm also going to add some scripting capabilities. I'm getting really tired of typing some commands (the first 3 in the session below are burned into my brain). It should also allow me to provide some capability to emulate the Unibus side of things once I get to the point of testing out the runtime firmware. Here's a short session on using the emulator: $ gforth emulator/j1-emulator.fs J1> mode status 0008 J1> load 60000 mem11-cfg.img J1> get j1-boot-ram.img J1> run MEM11 Recovery Interface MEM11 Firmware Version 0.4 (EMUL) RECOVERY> help Commands: BOOT Boot selected image CLEAR Clear specified memory region DUMP Dump out a section of FRAM MAP Display FRAM address map MODIFY Modifies contents of FRAM VERSION Display version RESET Perform a HW reset XMODEM Download into FRAM using XMODEM protocol SET Set configuration information SHOW Show configuration information Additional help: HELP <command-name> RECOVERY> boot safe MEM11 Command and Configuration Interface MEM11 Firmware Version 0.3 (EMUL) SAFE> help Commands: BOOT Boot selected image CLEAR Clear specified memory region DUMP Dump out a section of FRAM ENABLE Enable indicated UNIBUS device DISABLE Disable indicated UNIBUS device EXAMINE Examine J1's RAM LIST Lists names of images MAP Display FRAM address map MODIFY Modifies contents of FRAM POKE Change J1's RAM VERSION Display version RESET Perform a HW reset XMODEM Download into FRAM using XMODEM protocol SET Set configuration information SHOW Show configuration information Additional help: HELP <command-name> SAFE> set defaults SAFE> show dl11 0 ENABLED SLOT: 3 CSR: 777560 LENGTH: 000010 INT VECTOR: 060 INT PRIORITY: BG4 BAUD RATE: 9600 PARITY: NONE DATA BITS: 8 STOP BITS: 1 SAFE> show memory ENABLED BASE ADDR: 000000 LENGTH: 760000 SAFE> show kw11l DISABLED SLOT: 7 CSR: 777540 LENGTH: 000010 INT VECTOR: 100 INT PRIORITY: BG6 LINE FREQ: 16667 uS SAFE> list boot-image 0 : <NO IMAGE> 1 : <NO IMAGE> 2 : <NO IMAGE> 3 : <NO IMAGE> B SAFE : MEM11 Config V0.3 (EMUL) Built on Fri Oct 9 20:18:31 PDT 2015 SAFE> Execution Stopped at: PC: 016C J1> help Commands: HELP - Help command DUMP - Examine the contents of FRAM MODIFY - Modify the contents of FRAM EXAMINE - Examine the contents of J1 RAM PATCH - Modify the contents of J1 RAM CLEAR - Clear the contents of FRAM LOAD - Load FRAM from a file SAVE - Save FRAM into a file GET - Load J1 RAM from a file QUIT - Exit the emulator RUN - Run the J1 program STEP - Single step the next J1 instruction BREAKPOINT - Set a breakpoint CONTINUE - Continue J1 execution .R - Dump the J1 return stack .S - Dump the J1 data stack .PC - Display the current J1 program counter DEPTH - Report the depth of the J1 data and return stacks TRACE - Control tracing of J1 instructions RESET - Reset J1 and the emulated peripherals MODE - Set or view the MEM11 mode LED - Display the LEDs that would appear on a MEM11 board Typing 'HELP <command>' will give additional details about the command J1> .s DSP: 5 ST0: 0005 Data Stack: 5 : 0000 4 : 1E1E 3 : 1E6E 2 : 1E1E 1 : 0000 J1> .r RSP: 6 Return Stack: 6 : 0D84 5 : 0D4A 4 : 0D7E 3 : 1C1A 2 : 3B26 1 : 3BB2 J1>

10 years, 6 months

Z system pics

by sales＠elecplus.com

More pictures have been uploaded. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxqLDyoLYuCKZmNsZlo1U0JyVkE Cindy --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

10 years, 6 months

Smalltalk-78 resurrected in a web-browser

by nw＠retrocomputingtasmania.com

A mix of Smalltalk luminaries have resurrected Smalltalk-78 (a port of Smalltalk-76 to an early 8086 prototype luggable called NoteTaker http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/xerox/notetaker/) and it runs in a modern web-browser using Javascript (even runs on an iPad but will need changes to support touch). http://lively-web.org/users/bert/Smalltalk-78.html PDF describing what they did here: http://www.freudenbergs.de/bert/publications/Ingalls-2014-Smalltalk78.pdf According to this document there is yet to be published Java implementation too. A 35-minute video presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTh65b8qSY8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3t13RHO3X8 Smalltalk-78 compliments the Smalltalk-72 Alto emulator from Dan Ingalls released in 2013, although the link I found doesn't seem to work anymore: http://lively-web.org/users/Dan/ALTO-Smalltalk-72.html. It almost works, but the display is messed up on Safari/Chrome.

10 years, 6 months

Computers in Election Vigils - take two

by mattislind＠gmail.com

Unfortunately SVT ?ppet Arkiv is not available to anyone outside Sweden, which is a pity. A great source. This interest for computers and election vigils come from the fact that I had a email conversation with a person that was involved when DEC won the contract to for the election in 1976 in Sweden for SVT. He was involved in adapting the VT30 system for TV use. Genlock and stuff. I found three clips in ?ppet Arkiv which I trimmed down heavily. These shows tend to be quite long anyhow. I hope SVT is not getting mad now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDoFM3hfbic /Mattis

10 years, 6 months

Z system link correction

by sales＠elecplus.com

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxqLDyoLYuCKVWNYVEk1cjJwLWM/view?usp=sharin g Try this link; it should work. Cindy --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

10 years, 6 months

HP & 800BPI / was Re: Tape cleaner on eBay

by marc.verdiell＠gmail.com

Glen, I'm right in the middle of resuscitating an HP7970E (1600 bpi with the HP-IB interface). The main problem I had so far was the rubber in the reel hubs had completely fused to the tape reels that were left on the hubs. I had to disassemble the hub locking mechanism and use lots of careful X-Acto knife work to separate the two. A few tape rollers were rough or stuck - just oiled them for now. Then it started to work, I am very surprised. There are three red switches on the motor control board inside to make the tape go forward, reverse and fast rewind. So it's pretty easy to test if the transport works and the motor servos and tension arms move how they are supposed to. Brent, Wow, looked at your site, and you actually wrote a HP 2100 cross-assembler? Nice. Would it work for the HP21MX too? Did you compile it using the command line tools in XCode? Marc ========================================================== Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2015 13:29:37 -0700 From: Brent Hilpert <hilpert at cs.ubc.ca> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: HP & 800BPI / was Re: Tape cleaner on eBay Message-ID: <858603D2-2D79-45D6-993C-A8939D996815 at cs.ubc.ca> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On 2015-Oct-07, at 12:56 PM, Glen Slick wrote: > I have an 800BPI 7970B in a 2113B rack system. I've never gotten > around to trying to get it up and running. Are they fairly reliable > drives to get going again? I don't have any other 800BPI drives to > write any tapes to read with it. >On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 12:46 PM, Brent Hilpert <hilpert at cs.ubc.ca> wrote: Well, the unit here was in pretty good physical condition as received. It had a cascading failure in the capstan driver but it was a fairly straightforward fix. I think there was one sluggish/partially-seized pulley bearing (freed up with some oil). Pretty rugged drives as you know. I wonder about the capstan rubber in the long term but I think that's about the only thing to worry about on age alone. I think bitsavers nowadays has manuals and schematics for the B version as you have, years ago I had to do some reverse-engineering for the capstan repair. This page is over ten years old and needs some updating, but FWIW: http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/HP21xx/HP2116CSys/index.html Note the tape drive repair log page linked there.

10 years, 6 months

MFM Emulator

by cctalk＠fahimi.net

Hello All, This is just a general shout out and thanks to David (Gesswein) for the excellent work on the MFM emulator boards. I received both of my fully assembled emulators today. They arrived professionally packaged and ready to go out of the box. I wish more hobby/home brew projects went this smoothly and bore such excellent fruit. Kudos to David! -Ali

10 years, 6 months

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