[...]
>And there are some minis in there amongst the micros:
>
>An HP 2100A CPU. Unfortunately it is the CPU only. No I/O, no
>memory, no peripherals to speak of. Did get the CPU manuals with it,
>though, and they have made interesting reading and probably will one
>day again. I am not actively seeking the other bits right at the
>moment but am keeping my eyes open.
I found one of those in a skip (literally!) a few years back, and was allowed
to rescue it. Mine came as the CPU box with 32K (I think) core, a lot of I/O
cards (or at least I assume that's what they are), a paper tape reader and a
somewhat mangled cartridge disk drive (1 fixed platter, one RK05-like
cartridge). Alas no manuals.
It looks like it could be got to run again, but as I know nothing about it,
I've not put any time in on it yet....
>
>Now *that* is sad: I am ignoring good stuff that I could probably
>learn something about, maybe even learn something useful from. But I
>am already having to come to terms with the fact that there is a lot
>of stuff to learn, probably more than I can fit into one lifetime. Or
>maybe I've just got a bad case of hardening of the brain? I don't
>know.
>
>But I wonder how many other folks out there think to collect things
>that they know stuff about, as opposed to stuff they don't know
>anything about? I have to admit, the former makes a narrower
>selection filter and the latter has gotten me into, um, unexpected
>learning experiences (yeah, that's it) more often than not. And
>for most people the "things they know stuff about" is more likely to be
>micros than minis.
I swap between the 2 'modes'. Sometimes I'll get a machine because I know what
it is, and because I remember it. The Tandy M4 I bought a couple of weeks ago
fits in here - I grew up on a Tandy Model 1, and remember the M4 coming out. I
wanted one then, but could never afford it. Now I can, and can run those
programs from 80-micro....
But more often I get a machine because I have no idea what it is, but it looks
interesting. The P850 (the machine that seriously started me collecting) fits
in here. As do the PERQs - I thought it was a 68000 box when I got the first
one, and was amazed to see a soft-microcoded CPU. Learning from such a machine
is great fun...
[...]
>(Yes, I am apt to collect this sort of documentation in the absence of
>hardware too -- I am more a programmer than a hardware guy and I
I certainly grab schematics and printsets without the hardware that goes with
them - you never know what will turn up later....
>mostly understand computers in terms of how to wrangle code for them.
>And I really stand in awe of folks like you who can understand them in
>terms of hardware too -- another thing that is on my to-learn list.)
It's not that hard. What started me off was getting a relatively simple
minicomputer - I'd recomend either the PDP8/e or the PDP11/05 as a starter, and
sitting down with the machine, the technical manual, and the printsets. I
single-stepped the machine, and watched how it executed an instruction with a
logic probe. I where the microcode went, what gates were enabled, etc, and
related it to the diagrams in the manual. After a couple of days I could
understand most of the instructions....
>Got any pointers to where we could learn more?
Yep...
CPU Technical manuals from the late 1960's - early 1970's. Most of those
include a gate-level description of the CPU operation. It helps a lot to have
the machine in front of you, though.
>
>-Frank McConnell
-tony
On Tue, 22 Jul 1997 22:47:54 -0700 (PDT), Mr. Ismail remarked:
> Sure, I'll just needlessly add to my current mountain of debt.
> There is a practical limit to what any individual can do or be
> expected to do. I'm not going to over-burden myself over a hobby.
Sorry about that, Sam. I didn't think the cattle-prod was turned
on. :-)
______________________________________________________________________
| | |
| Carl Richard Friend (UNIX Sysadmin) | West Boylston |
| Minicomputer Collector / Enthusiast | Massachusetts, USA |
| mailto:carl.friend@stoneweb.com | |
| http://www.ultranet.com/~engelbrt/carl/museum/ | ICBM: N42:21 W71:46 |
|________________________________________________|_____________________|
William Donzelli <william(a)ans.net> writes:
> > An HP 2100A CPU. Unfortunately it is the CPU only. No I/O, no
> If you ever want cards in the future, I would start looking now. HP
> circuit boards are COMPLETELY gold plated (even under the green coating),
> and are loved by scrappers everywhere.
Good point. If you want to see something really scary in that regard,
open up an HP 9000 series 5xx and look at the CPU boards. Those
*really* look like gold, closer to solid than plated.
I was looking (mostly for the memory) a bit more intensely a couple of
years ago, and found that 2100 parts were also in demand to keep
running systems running.
> I must agree with you here. DEC makes great stuff (mostly), but so do
> some of the other guys. Personally, I am starting to shift into the IBM
> world, as it really has been ignored by historians (other than Paul
> Pierce (who must be laughing at us weenies and our problems storing minis
> and micros) and IBM itself).
Yep. The mini world was kind of wide there for a while. I expect
some of those machines really are gone forever.
Has anyone here ever heard of a company called Digital Systems
Corporation, based somewhere in (I think) the Maryland suburbs of
Washington DC in the late 1970s, maybe into the 1980s? I worked on
something of theirs once, called a Galaxy/5. Never heard of it or
them since.
Come to think of it, there could be good reasons for that, and it
could be a good thing. Nah...we've got to keep the failures around
too -- learning from mistakes is so much better when they're someone
else's mistakes.
-Frank McConnell
On Tue, 22 Jul 1997 19:03:32 -0700 (PDT), Mr. Ismail was rumoured
to have remarked:
> [...] Tim was complaining that nobody wanted the stuff, but the fact
> is, who wants to spend hundreds of dollars in shipping or
> transportation charges?
Offhand, and I may offend a few sensibilities here, that folks who
care for computing's history should be willing to bear such short-
term inconveniences as medium-sized monetary expenditures. If you
don't save a machine, it might be the _last_one_! (The odds of this
happening in the near term with micros is vanishingly small.)
> [...] that's all fine and dandy if you're a bachelor or your wife
> could care less what kind of crap you drag into the house. [...]
> She has problem enough with the garage full of crap.
Oddly enough, Diana and I have been together now for the better
part of a decade, and while she occasionally grumbles about my hobby,
she supports it because she knows that it's important (not just to
me, but for a larger cause as well).
I believe the use of the term "crap" comes from fundamental
misunderstandings of our common computing history. Sad.
> Right now I'm not fully prepared to start taking in large systems
> (larger than S-100 rackmounts). I'm not going to give up my living
> space for the hobby.
It all depends upon how seriously we take our hobby, doesn't it.
(That was merely an observation, _not_ an editorial comment!) For
what it's worth, an IMSAI is just about twice the size of a pdp11/23.
And less than a quarter of the CPU power.
______________________________________________________________________
| | |
| Carl Richard Friend (UNIX Sysadmin) | West Boylston |
| Minicomputer Collector / Enthusiast | Massachusetts, USA |
| mailto:carl.friend@stoneweb.com | |
| http://www.ultranet.com/~engelbrt/carl/museum | ICBM: N42:22 W71:47 |
|________________________________________________|_____________________|
Hello all,
I own a Honeywell 716 Minicomputer, in running order. It?s a general
purpose 16-bit machine, with 128 KB of ferrite core memory, a cassette
tape device, a front panel as main console, and an ASR-33 Teletype as
operator's console.
There were other peripherals, such as line printers, fixed disks, card
reader-puncher, high-speed paper tape reader, 9" tape decks... but I
only own the basic system.
The system was designed (aprox.) in June 1972.
Has anybody ever heard about such machine? I?ve spent some time looking
through the net, and looks like I?m the only one I own that system.
Perhaps Honeywell didn?t made lots of them, like DEC did with PDP's.
I?ve read somewhere (don?t know if it?s true) that first nodes in
Arpanet were Honeywell DDP 516. I think my system is the next model
(Honeywell DDP 716). In fact, mine can execute H-516's instructions set.
I also heard U.S.Navy used these systems for shot calculations.
If anybody has any information about the Honeywell DDP 516 or 716
machines, please email me. I?m looking for somebody who worked with
those systems or even better, somebody who owns one of them.
Thanks in advance.
--
Sergio Izquierdo Garc?a
** Computer collector **
mailto: impeesa at arrakis dot es
In mail ID number 9707221139.AA13838(a)alph02.triumf.ca, Mr. Tim
Shoppa laments:
> What I'm amazed at is that I've got several thousands pounds of
> Data General Eclipse S/130's up here in B.C. - machines with full
> toggle-and-light front panels - and I'm unable to give them away.
This is a crying shame. For plain beauty, the S/130 rivals, and
to some, outranks even the much-vaunted IMSAI. For raw speed in a
minicomputer the 16-bit line from DG was virtually without peer.
Yes, some late -11s surpassed the raw power of the Nova instruction
set, but it was years behind DG.
We'd better save these machines while we can; Data General was,
at its zenith only about 20% of the size of DEC, and its install-
base was similar in scope. These machines are _not_ common, remain
useable today, and are a joy to look at and run. Don't let the
opportunity pass.
> Are classic minis, including PDP-11's and DG mini's only items for
> the junk heap?
I, for one, certainly hope not.
Part of the misconception about minicomputers is that they take
up huge amounts of space. Yes, individual examples are larger than
the average microcomputer; however, minicomputers stack nicely, can
be stored very compactly in rack-mounts, and being squared off, can
occupy corners very well. They're not as space-intensive as one
might think. They're usually faster than most micros, too.
While minis don't, right now, get the blast of attention that
machines like the IMSAIs do (why is that machine so popular? War
Games, maybe?), they are a valuable link to computing's history
and they're disappearing from existance very quickly. Without
Mr. Shoppa's efforts, better than a dozen of these wonderful
systems would have been shipped to the scrappers without a second
thought. And that would be too bad.
______________________________________________________________________
| | |
| Carl Richard Friend (UNIX Sysadmin) | West Boylston |
| Minicomputer Collector / Enthusiast | Massachusetts, USA |
| mailto:carl.friend@stoneweb.com | |
| http://www.ultranet.com/~engelbrt/carl/museum/ | ICBM: N42:21 W71:46 |
|________________________________________________|_____________________|
<> The PDP-11 were medium blue, light gray(officially it was grey #68) and
<> magenta at various times and combinations.
<
<It seems to me that the PDP-11/60s were in red cabinets (in fact,
<introduced as "the Big Red Machine").
We had one in the support lab and it wasn't red! It was lite blue and gray
combo. The only big reds were the system-20s.
Allison
Tim Shoppa <shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca> writes:
> Are classic minis, including PDP-11's and DG mini's only items for the
> junk heap?
No, but speaking for myself I am short on space at the moment (and
don't see it getting better for a while), lacking organization
(working on that one), short on time (which constrains both of the
above), and short of space between my ears too (too doggone many
learning experiences this last year or so and a medium-sized list
of some I have yet to get to).
This Sunday I told someone "you know, I sometimes think I should stop
collecting and get to work with the stuff I have." Which is enough to
fill one 10'x10' (figure 3mx3m) storage closet to where it's not too
difficult to get to stuff and make a pretty good showing of boxed
manuals and magnetic media in another. Certainly most of it needs
some sort of work.
And there are some minis in there amongst the micros:
An HP 2100A CPU. Unfortunately it is the CPU only. No I/O, no
memory, no peripherals to speak of. Did get the CPU manuals with it,
though, and they have made interesting reading and probably will one
day again. I am not actively seeking the other bits right at the
moment but am keeping my eyes open.
Two HP 3000/37 CPUs, and enough disk drives and other bits to make one
of 'em work. Well, they're a little bit small for minis, at least
if you consider just the CPU box.
An HP Micro 3000GX, currently taking up space in my workroom, with a
7970E 1600BPI tape drive that gives the resident manager hives -- it's
big and metal therefore it must be heavy, right? (I live in the
apartment above her.) Can I call this a mini? It runs the same code
that used to run on bigger 3000s, but it calls itself a "Micro" (and
fits entirely in a little tower case that with packing material and
box weighs 78 pounds -- what's that, 35kg?). Is it part of the
colllection? Hard to say, I used to do real work on it, but I
wouldn't part with it....
An HP 9000/520, but there we are straying away from minis into early
1980s supermicro/workstation sorts of things.
Various manuals for the above, as well as other systems in the 3000
and 21xx families. Also manuals and print sets for a Nuclear Data
ND812 mini.
A few odd parts: HP 3000/III front door with panel (found this on a
19" rack at Foothill swap meet -- the guts were gone and I really
don't need another empty 19" rack then or now); two HP 3000/CX front
doors, goldenrod; probably other stuff that slips my mind right now.
You may have noticed a preponderance of HP hardware in the above list.
That is because it is what I know something about (have been doing
stuff with 3000s for close to 20 years now, have dialed up 2000
time-shared BASIC systems way back when and know they are based on the
21xx-family CPUs (as are the early HP 1000 systems), and supported a
product on the 9000/500 for a little while and came to appreciate its
quirks). I don't know that much about DEC gear, and next to nothing
about DG stuff -- never used it at all.
Now *that* is sad: I am ignoring good stuff that I could probably
learn something about, maybe even learn something useful from. But I
am already having to come to terms with the fact that there is a lot
of stuff to learn, probably more than I can fit into one lifetime. Or
maybe I've just got a bad case of hardening of the brain? I don't
know.
But I wonder how many other folks out there think to collect things
that they know stuff about, as opposed to stuff they don't know
anything about? I have to admit, the former makes a narrower
selection filter and the latter has gotten me into, um, unexpected
learning experiences (yeah, that's it) more often than not. And
for most people the "things they know stuff about" is more likely to be
micros than minis.
There's another point in there too: I've consciously ignored DEC stuff
(or passed it on to other more interested folks) for the simple reason
that there seemed to me to be a pretty active community working on
preserving it already! But DG stuff is another matter, I just haven't
really noticed much of it or much discussion of it.
OK Tim, you've guilt-tripped me...a little bit. But I'm still
wondering what I could do with and learn from some of this stuff.
What would I need to make a workable system? I expect the definition
of "workable" is variable amongst the readership, but I could amuse
myself for a while looking at an instruction set reference card and
having Real Iron on which to toggle in a lights hack would be a nice
bonus.
(Yes, I am apt to collect this sort of documentation in the absence of
hardware too -- I am more a programmer than a hardware guy and I
mostly understand computers in terms of how to wrangle code for them.
And I really stand in awe of folks like you who can understand them in
terms of hardware too -- another thing that is on my to-learn list.)
Maybe it takes more to interest other folks, like the ability to hook
up and use terminal and/or storage devices. Maybe even load some sort
of operating system if that's what was customary on these things; I'd
probably want to get there someday myself. (Of course that poses its
own problem of where to get the operating software.) I don't know,
like I said I really don't know anything about DG hardware as it was
used in practice -- my background is in DP/MIS, datacomm, HP 3000s,
and nowadays sticking IP-protocol-suite stuff into Windows device
drivers.
Got any pointers to where we could learn more?
-Frank McConnell
From: MX%"classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu" 22-JUL-1997 17:47:54.16
To: MX%"classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu"
CC:
Subj: Minicomputer Storage Myths
> In a few assorted threads I've seen under various names like "RSTS/E
>Manuals" and "Minis not 'Trendy'", several folks have put forward the
>argument that minicomputers are too large to collect easily. I have one
>word: "hogwash".
Absolutly!
My parents (who have to put up with and store most of my little collection)
don't like storing micros (in fact they moan for days when I bring home
a TRS-80 or some such), but don't seem to mind the PDP11's/PDP8's etc
anything like as much.
The reason is simple. Micros are a pain to store. You can't easily stack
them (the ones at the bottom get mangled, the pile slips over, etc). Monitors
are worse. But minicomputers (generally) come in 19" boxes that either go into
a 6' (or taller!) cabinet, or get stacked up in a pile in the corner. They are
easy to store.
The floor area taken up by a 6' rack is not much larger than the area taken by
a micro, BTW...
> I noticed that one chap has installed his pdp11 under his bed; good
>call! I hadn't thought of that one...
I've considered designing a bed with 3 6U or 9U rack bays under it. In the
UK you can get beds with storage drawers under them, but one _designed_ for
computers would be somewhat interesting...
> Another guy gripes about putting a mini in his Honda Civic for
>transport. My wife did just that when she came home with a DG Nova 1200
>for me a few years back; it fit very comfortably in the trunk. I just
>got back from a trip to the US Midwest with two minis in two 6' bays
>in the back of my minivan (story coming on my website).
A large estate car (Station wagon?) will carry a _lot_ of minicomputer
hardware. I've been in one which contained :
A PDP8/e
A PDP11/44
A Sun 3/260 (on its side, on top of the PDP's)
A PPL graphics display + trackball
A northstar Horizon (OK, a micro, but in a 19" rack)
An Acorn System 4 (ditto)
A _lot_ of spare boards, drives, heads, etc
Service manuals, printsets, etc.
No problem at all.
> The ultimate space-management tool in dealing with minis is the
>six-foot rack. In one of them you can mount an easy half-dozen
>machines; if you share peripherals, they can all be used too. Un-
>fortunately, my wife drew the line at that one, so I use the "scatter
>method" of space management.
Odd... My parents _like_ big rack cabinets - in fact they grab them for me to
put my machines in. Maybe I'm just lucky.
> The bottom line is that _it's not as big a deal as it's made out
>to be_! It can be done, it should be done, and not enough people are
>doing it. The machines are disappearing - and that's a shame.
That's exactly why I started. I realised (10 years ago) that nobody was
preserving the recent history of computing, and it was going to be lost for
ever. So I did something. I started collecting and restoring computers.
>| Carl Richard Friend (UNIX Sysadmin) | West Boylston |
-tony
< Yes...most PDP-11 gear is that funky purple color...The early VAXen
<were blue, the later VAXen were brown.
Magenta is that funky pinkish purple. None of the vaxen I know of are
brown, coffee stained maybe.
The Vaxen were light grey (almost white) and medium blue or light grey and
dark gray(with a coco-ish cast).
The PDP-11 were medium blue, light gray(officially it was grey #68) and
magenta at various times and combinations.
PDP10s were litght blue and the system 20s were poppy orange.
Most systems DEC made were by the early 80s gray 68 with some darker gray.
There would be one stnadrad light grey (sorta eggshell) and about five
darker greys like the TK50 carts, insets for micro11, pro350 and the insets
for the BA11 pannel.
Allison
