- test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org - classiccmp.org

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

Here's a variation of the pdp 11/70 with a chocolate-brown and white color scheme: http://661.org/images/csis1170.jpg -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

14 years, 9 months

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cctalk Digest, Vol 99, Issue 10

by technobug＠comcast.net

On Thu, 03 Nov 2011 19:01:41 -0700, leaknoil <leaknoil at gmail.com> wrote: > I hate thinking anything in the defense department is running on a > vaxstation 4000 still but, it's the government after all. On Thu, 03 Nov 2011 22:13:53 -0400, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote: > Besides, remember how procedure-oriented the US Gov't is. It's the > world's best refuge for people who are incapable of independent thought, > because there are rule books and procedure books for EVERYTHING. If > said book says "thou shall run this on a VAX4000-96", even if a good old > 3100-M38 would do the job just fine at about $20.00, you'll sign the P.O. There are a lot of reasons that old equipment is (re)purchased by the Government, especially the Department of Defense. Most of the equipment in question is not sitting on someone's desk running a spread sheet, but is generally part of production equipment - especially test equipment. A production line is shut down and the contractor is allowed to close down and disperse the line. A then an action or foreign customer comes along and the contractor is called upon to reopen the line, generally on a short leash. At that point the contractor can purchase new equipment (cheap), re-engineer and program the line (not so cheap and generally not quick), and re-certify the new line (not cheap and definitely not timely). This of course requires re-engineering and building the certification stations. Or the contractor can scrounge around and rebuild the line as originally constituted. The equipment isn't inexpensive for what it is, but the line is reconstituted by a bunch of techs in a fairly short time. The engineering and software is done and the unit stands certified as built. A good number of years ago Hughes Aircrash shut down the TOW missile line and after storing the production equipment for a number of years was allowed to auction off the obsolete equipment. One of the many messes that we seem to be continually caught up in used up a goodly number to the missiles that were laying around and Hughes was asked to make more. They had a team of people running around buying up the old equipment wherever they could. An acquaintance got several times the new price for a HP 2115 that he had stored. I chatted with an engineer and questioned the wisdom of buying and using old equipment. They had a bonus riding on getting production going in a fairly short period and the cost of going that route was a very, very small fraction of re-engineer the line. The moral here is that paying $3k for an old VAX might in fact be saving $300k... -> CRC

14 years, 9 months

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Again packing of classic computers

by hp-fix＠xs4all.nl

Well I bought a HP 9845B from a German seller, the m**** putted the whole thing in a box with some airbags. And of cause (TONY DON'T READ THIS) the monitor came loose of the case and destroyed the monitor posts ;-) Sh** why can't they pack classic computers in a decent way. I'm getting very disappointed in epray, every time I find a nice bargain the destroy it by shipping it the wrong way. -Rik

14 years, 9 months

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Can anyone explain this to me ?

by derschjo＠mail.msu.edu

Tell that to the DEC Multia on my shelf that's never worked right... :) Josh

14 years, 9 months

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UCC 8/L

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

On Thu, 03 Nov 2011 10:53:47 -0500, you wrote: >> http://www.update.uu.se/~pontus/slask/front_paneler/ > >Hey, there's one of mine on there! > >I didn't own the UCC 8/L when that photo was taken, but I have owned it for >a few years now. Last time I checked, it worked, at least most of the time :-). Not only is that Vince's PDP-8/L, it is the very same one I sold to him (and it did "work when last turned on") :) ... and that is my picture (which I took with my Sony Mavica digital camera back in 2003!) You can see my Tek 190A signal generator and other odds and ends, sitting on the workbench my dad built for me in 1977. You're welcome to use the pic, of course :) -Charles

14 years, 9 months

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John McCarthy (LISP) has died

by spedraja＠ono.com

John McCarthy has died. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/24/father_lisp_ai_john_mccarthy_dies/ SPc.

14 years, 9 months

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8/A Love

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

On Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:19:40 -0500, you wrote: >no 8a love?? > >http://imageshack.us/f/708/pdp8a.jpg/ well *I* love my 8/A... notice the clone of the Programmer's Panel (with 0.6" LEDs) that Vince and I did :) http://i1181.photobucket.com/albums/x426/DrCharlesMorris/PDP8A.jpg

14 years, 9 months

2
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Vacuum 'leaking out'

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

You all know what I meant by the vacuum 'leaking out' of a CRT, right :-). Perhaps this analogy will help to explain why I said it. We all know that the mobile charge carriers in most materials are electrons with a -ve charge. Now, suppose I take a metal sphere and charge it positively (as is done in electrostatic experiments). In time it will discharge, it's common to say 'the charge -- the positive charge -- leaked away'. But what actually happens, of course is that when I charged the object I removed some of the electrons from it, leaving it with a net positive charge, And the leackage that allowed it to discharge actually allowed electrons to flow onto the metal sphere. So in this case, the 'charging' means I removed some electrons from it, the 'leakage' allows them to return. When a CRT is evacuated, the gas molecules are removed from the inside, leaving a vacuum. When it leaks, air goes back in, returnign it to the natural state. By analogy with the electorstatic experiment, it doesn't seem so crazy to say the 'vacuum leaked out'. -tony

14 years, 9 months

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KryoFlux - imaging of vintage floppy disks via USB

by cb＠kryoflux.com

On 2 Nov 2011, at 18:00, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: I am summing up some answers here. I hope you are comfortable with this. > I'm pleased to see the project opening up (release of library source, > etc). I was a bit uncomfortable with what I perceived to be a proprietary > approach earlier on. We always promised and we keep our promises. > What would really be the clincher for me is the ability to take a sector > image of the various machines, e.g. an Apple ProDOS or DOS 3.3 "*.po" > image and write it to a diskette. I get the impression that it currently > has the ability to read flux transitions and extract such sector images, > but nothing mentions the capability of re-creating a track image and > writing them out to media. There are several image files for some platforms, we usually support one major as there usually are other tools to convert between these. Speaking of MFM: It's used by so many platforms that we do one generic MFM dump, which can then be further processed, e.g. by adding a header for some emulator. > I have an interest in archiving, but I'm also an avid tinkerer with old > hardware and often need to generate "real" diskettes from a sector image. > > Some of the machines I would need to do this for: > > Northstar hard-sector > Amiga 5.25 and 3.5 > C64 (GCR) > Apple 2 and 3 (GCR) > Intel MDS system (M2FM) > ... > > etc. > > I have technical means for all of the above now, but they are inconvenient > and/or require dragging out and setting up something particular to that > one operation. "One stop" shopping would be great. > > If the unit is capable of doing this, please advise? I think this and the quotes below originate all from the very same misunderstanding. KryoFlux _CAN_ be used to read data that can be transformed into IPFs. It's a feature, but you aren't locked to it. Like you can use your scanner to scan something, then load it in Acrobat and do a PDF. You can chose to use whatever imaging application you like, you are not forced to convert to PDF. In this case you could as well chose to convert the image file to PDF with a third party product. It's the same here. We made our STREAM format fully documented and open as well, so you can convert to whatever format you like. Take a look into the development section on our forums, there are third party apps that process and convert data. Looking at the formats above... DTC supports, among many others, Amiga, C64 and Apple out of the box for reading. Writing is _at the moment_ limited to IPF because we wanted to to the most challenging part first. We will be adding more sector formats to the write engine in the near future. It's fully expandable and it was made to be easily expandable. > Thanks for pointing that out. They are welcome to use whatever > business/IP model they wish, but this one bothers me enough that I would > avoid the device. Again, I think this refers to IPF. You are not locked into this format, but I don't think it's grossly unfair to ask those that want to use it on a professional basis to pay for it. To be honest, I haven't seen anything that compares to it, and I feel there won't be anything like it soon, if at all. It's not that I don't wish there should not be, I just don't think there are many engineers out there that can design such thing. I did not invent or program it, so I think I am allowed to say this. I would also like to point out that there aren't many willing to dedicate their time to developing tools for floppy disks as the niche is very small. > And what prevents them from "archiving" anything you send them? This question is SPS (Software Preservation Society) related. The project's scope is about preserving computer art, which usually means games. SPS shares these files with contributors that send in the same dump (e.g. you sent a damaged dump, lateron an undamaged one comes in... you would be given access). SPS also share games preserved with archives, libraries and museums. These assets were released into the commercial marketplace. It therefore makes sense to share between institutions, because you don't have to re-analyze something if you have a good preservation asset (unless it's a different version of course). A global collaboration makes sense and was the idea of the project. You could of course submit data as part of an assignment where SPS would be working specifically for you. This only answers your question if you would be willing to trust a contractor. > My feelings exactly. I can't imagine any professional archive taking this group seriously, and it is > completely opposite of CHM's policy of preserving and making available any information on underlying > media formats that we find. We do share information, about formats and things. Just look at our site or simply feel free to ask if it's missing. The Emulator II format we reversed was not only put into KryoFlux, but it was also put into HxC for emulation. Afaik it always was free, is free, so the decoder is right there available as open source. I posted the link to the WIRED article, and I would invite you to e.g. speak to the British Library and find out and get first hand information about our work for them. I can name you some other archives if you like, but would prefer to do this via regular email as I can't just post client information here. > I sent them mail saying "I would want documentatino on how to talk to > the hardware, because your GUI will not be suitable for me" (any UI > that's suitable to most of pretty much any market has an excellent > chance of being somewhere between unpleasant and unsable for me). I replied to this mail, twice. At least I tried. The first came back because you blacklisted our ISPs mailserver. I have no control over it, I don't know who and if someone uses it to spam. Anyway. I switched to my private email on my own machine and server. It was blocked again because your system tries to retrieve a whois record from the denic. As it seems, they either don't provide it there or not at all (they are the registry for Germany, so what can I do about it?) - so again my reply was blocked. I got tired and put it to rest. My reply, in short, was that the board has all standard components. There is no firmware flashed to the board, it's uploaded from the host software. If you ever used a 1541 with custom software... it's a bit like that. So all you need is take the ATMEL SDK and write your own code. There is nothing stopping you from using your own software with the board. I could say "why not use our firmware", but that would be a binary again and you said you don't run precompiled software. The complete schematics are supplied with the software download and you can do with them whatever you like as long as you don't sell it (schematics or boards). I think this is a fair limitation. One last, personal thing: There were some replies with "them" or "they". It feels a bit odd, like talking about someone in third-person when he's in the room. I follow the digest, so you can address me. I am not asking anyone to share my opinion or to spare me, so keep it coming. Thanks.

14 years, 9 months

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PAL cloning

by cclist＠sydex.com

On the subject of hardware, I'd like to pass along a link that details my efforts to clone three PALs--the AT&T 6300 video display card HAL10L8; the Soundblaster 2.0 upgrade PAL16L8 and the Trantor T130B SCSI controller ROM address PAL16L8. http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/entry.php?314-Cloning-a-PAL- HAL-%28Part-1%29 I don't know if I'd stick with SSI TTL for the "brute forcer", but it worked well enough. I'd probably just use a cheap microcontroller if I were starting afresh. This appears to be a valid approach for pure combinatorial PALs and HALs. Registered devices are a different matter entirely. --Chuck

14 years, 9 months

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Recommend an IRC server

by vintagecoder＠aol.com

Thanks, I'll look at those. ------Original Message------ From: Dan Gahlinger Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org To: cctalk at classiccmp.org ReplyTo: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: RE: Recommend an IRC server Sent: 3 Nov 2011 12:40 Unreal is crap. :) check out InspIRCd though I used to use UltimateIRC > Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2011 10:57:48 +0000 > From: vintagecoder at aol.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Recommend an IRC server > > From: Daniel Seagraves <dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net> > > > I run an Unreal ircd for a friend, it doesn't suck up too much. If you > > don't need services it should be pretty straightforward. > > I prefer to avoid GPL-anything but it's not always possible. I'll look into > this one a bit. > > Thank you. > > > > >

14 years, 9 months

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Recommend an IRC server

by vintagecoder＠aol.com

Can anyone recommend an open source IRC server, preferably BSD or MIT-style licensed, that doesn't have dependencies on scripting languages or much else? I'd like a pure C, C++ etc. solution if possible. I'm looking for something to test socket applications against. It doesn't have to be a super duper server or have zillions of features. Something basic would be good enough, but I will want to build and run it on several platforms. Thanks.

14 years, 9 months

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Vacuum 'leaking out'

by jonas＠otter.se

On Tue, 1 Nov 2011 20:53:59 +0000 (GMT), ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > You all know what I meant by the vacuum 'leaking out' of a CRT, right > :-). Perhaps this analogy will help to explain why I said it. > Of course, it was perfectly obvious, although rather a nice way of putting it I thought. The analogy that immediately came to my mind was that of holes in a semiconductor constituting a current of positive charges. I suppose one could also say that debt leaks into my bank account and is removed when my salary gets paid. All the while leaving a negative, reducing charge of debt in the account. /Jonas

14 years, 9 months

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Paging Paul Anderson

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

I've been trying to contact Paul Anderson <useddec at gmail.com> for a couple weeks but haven't gotten a reply. Does anyone know what's up? Paul, if you're reading this, would you please contact me by private email? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

14 years, 9 months

2
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Core memory cross compatibility

by colineby＠isallthat.com

Has anyone sat down and worked out interchangeability of memory parts on 16-bit core based systems. I'm thinking in terms of things like PDP-11s HP 21xx and DG Novas. I'm curious if anyone has compiled such a thing, aside from direct part number comparison -- or has guidance of non-like core stack replacement. I'm not planning on attempting to do anything of the kind just now, but it might be useful to know what's possible as supplies dwindle. --Colin

14 years, 9 months

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embedded processors...

by greid57＠o2.co.uk

----- Original Message ----- From: <cctalk-request at classiccmp.org> To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2011 6:00 PM Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 98, Issue 78 <snip> >You have to consider the wife factor as well. A friend of mine gave >me an Apple //+ a while back, and she threatened to insert it in him >rectally. I have loads of my future 8-bit computer museum hidden in >my loft for after the divorce... (; <snip> (Raises hand) - so would this be an embedded processor? Graham

14 years, 9 months

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HP screen screen rot

by jonas＠otter.se

> Does the diellectric strength increase back to its original value on > cooling again? If so, then this is not really a problem if you happen to > heat a CRT part (pin, bit of the envelope) with a soldering iron while > working on the device. That would seem likely since the glass was once melted in order to make the CRT. Whether continuous arcing damages the glass permanently or not is another question. I would guess that the heat in itself does nothing irreversible, but arcing does. I found this in a text about types of glass and manufacturing procedures for CRTs. It did not mention whether the damage was reversible or not. Your observation about connecting a glass rod across the mains and heating it certainly supports their warnings about reduced dielectric strength. On the other hand, I would suppose that severe localised heating could cause the glass to crack due to local expansion creating excessive stresses, so I would still be very careful with the soldering iron. /Jonas

14 years, 9 months

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KryoFlux - imaging of vintage floppy disks via USB

by kieron.wilkinson＠gmail.com

Al Kossow wrote: > And what prevents them from "archiving" anything you send them? I'm not really sure what you mean by that. People send us stuff to archive. Sure, there is not much point sending SPS stuff if it's not in scope for the project because that project is only concerned with preservation of unmodified and undamaged commercial software. Our commercial venture KryoFlux does provide a service to help people generate IPFs. That is something else entirely and completely independent from SPS (other than the same people are involved, and it uses technology developed for SPS). That is a professional service as you would expect, any data generated is destroyed as per an agreed contract. Nothing stops anyone "archiving" other people's data. Most people don't do it because it is unethical - I am not sure why you might think it would be different for us? > My feelings exactly. I can't imagine any professional archive taking this group seriously, and it is > completely opposite of CHM's policy of preserving and making available any information on underlying > media formats that we find. I'd be interested to understand why you think this. What are we doing wrong? Is it wrong to want to fund our preservation work by starting a commercial venture? What are we not making available? We've released the IPF library source, including an extremely accurate, cycle exact FDC emulator. We also have tons and tons of information on the SPS website about how things work (WIPs). IPF files contain the information about each disk formats, and now that is open, I am not really sure what else we can do? I am genuinely interested, because we do want to do the right thing (even if it might take us a while). Thanks, Kieron

14 years, 9 months

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KryoFlux - imaging of vintage floppy disks via USB

by kieron.wilkinson＠gmail.com

Steven Hirsch wrote: >> From their FAQ. > > (snip) > > Thanks for pointing that out. They are welcome to use whatever > business/IP model they wish, but this one bothers me enough that I would > avoid the device. That section of the FAQ is not actually completely relevant in this case. It refers to producing IPFs. If you want to write sector images, then there is of course no real need to create IPFs anyway in this case I guess. Our IPF creation software is a commercial product, and helps fund our preservation activity. Now that the IPF library has been open source, there isn't anything stopping somebody creating something similar of course, so that FAQ is out of date too. Kieron

14 years, 9 months

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KryoFlux - imaging of vintage floppy disks via USB

by kieron.wilkinson＠gmail.com

Steven Hirsch wrote: > I'm pleased to see the project opening up (release of library source, > etc). I was a bit uncomfortable with what I perceived to be a proprietary > approach earlier on. We got there eventually at least. :) > What would really be the clincher for me is the ability to take a sector > image of the various machines, e.g. an Apple ProDOS or DOS 3.3 "*.po" > image and write it to a diskette. I get the impression that it currently > has the ability to read flux transitions and extract such sector images, > but nothing mentions the capability of re-creating a track image and > writing them out to media. That is not currently supported, no. We decided to do the hardest part first, writing IPF files, and doing it really well. As stated on our forums, other files, such as sector images, will come later. We are doing some C64-related work at the moment, but the plan is to support sector images for writing next. It almost goes without saying that, if it's sector images somebody needs for writing, then wait for that before getting a device. > I have an interest in archiving, but I'm also an avid tinkerer with old > hardware and often need to generate "real" diskettes from a sector image. Yes, absolutely. This is definitely a missing piece right now. I hope that helps clarify things. Kieron

14 years, 9 months

1
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Kaypro-II : display video to repair

by elazzerini＠interfree.it

Hi at all, I bought an old computer with the wishing to make it alive. It?s name is Kaypro-II and it has a 9" green phosphor monochrome monitor composed of a LR30477 E39164 TOSHIBA CRT and a printed circuit steering Toshiba TLC-134-TV-0. I tried to supply it with 12Vdc and I noticed that the cathode of the CRT is lit, while the screen does not turns on and no shows light even using the knob back adjustment for the light intensity. Wishing to do TV repair technician I need the wiring diagram of the circuit electric drive Toshiba TLC-134-T-V-0. Is there someone who has it? I seem to hear at the power on from the CRT an high-frequency hiss and i tryed to see if come out a shoke from the flayback transformer but nothing come out. Other useful info: 1) on the PCB SN 23989586 K10MRDO Toshiba 23879862 TLC-134-T-V-O There is a chip NEC ?PC1031H2 Flyback transformer with those info: TFB1026 2L24DS 2) on the back of the CRT CRT Monitor LR30477 E39164 E2728531 2A13 3D Hu Here some pictures: http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Kaypro-II/Foto2026.html http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Kaypro-II/Foto2018.html http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Kaypro-II/Foto2019.html http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Kayvideo/Foto2768.jpg http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Kayvideo/Foto2771.jpg http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Kayvideo/Foto2772.jpg http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Kayvideo/Foto2773.jpg http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Kayvideo/Foto2774.jpg http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Kayvideo/Foto2775.jpg http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Kayvideo/Foto2776.jpg http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Kayvideo/Foto2777.jpg http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Kayvideo/Foto2778.jpg http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Kayvideo/Foto2780.jpg http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Kayvideo/Foto2781.jpg http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Kayvideo/Foto2782.jpg http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Kayvideo/Foto2783.jpg and http://www.flickr.com/photos/67772736 at N07/sets/72157627837488485/ . Thanks in advance for any support. Enrico

14 years, 9 months

2
1
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Line Frequency Time Standard was Re: Multiplexing

by technobug＠comcast.net

On Tue, 1 Nov 2011 09:06:45 -0400, David Riley <fraveydank at gmail.com> wrote: > For example, most cheap clock radios have one 4-pin DIP running the whole show (and it's pretty much been the same chip since the '80s). It uses the 60/50 Hz zero crossing on the AC line to keep time, which gives it very precise time (Laurent Hammond, inventor of the AC synchronized motor which ran both home clocks and the Hammond organ, took advantage of this and now the power companies must make sure that the power cycles average 60/50 Hz over the day to a few ppm, if anecdotes inform correctly) and also gives it a handy time base for multiplexing half the LED segments. Normally, as mentioned earlier, a 60 Hz refresh frequency might cause a headache, but I imagine there are holdup caps on the LEDs so they're not quite so obnoxious. > > - Dave The ability to depend on time error correction on the US power grid might be going away. There was supposed to be a test starting this last summer whereby the grid was not going to be corrected. However, at the moment, it's back in committee. See: <http://radiomagonline.com/infrastructure/power/60hz-stability-going-away-06…> for a story written prior to the scheduled test and <http://www.nerc.com/page.php?cid=6|386> the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (the folks who set the standards) blurb on the proposed test. Perhaps it time to start looking for some of the early GPS network time servers that started showing up in the '80s (i.e. classic) to attach to those PDP's to ensure that one is not late for lunch... -> CRC

14 years, 9 months

4
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hp32sii repair

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

Does anyone here know anything helpful regarding opening an hp32sii calculator to fix mushyness? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

14 years, 9 months

3
2
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Zenith CruisePad?

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

Has anyone ever heard of or even seen a Zenith CruisePad? I never even heard of it until an attorney contacted me looking for one. If anyone has one, or just the manual would be good, please contact me. Thanks! -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

14 years, 9 months

1
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Need advice

by snhirsch＠gmail.com

All, I very much need to sell off my workstation collection. There has been essentially zero interest in my posting from last week on the subject. I'm trying to figure out why. Is it: - My geographical location (Burlington, VT)? - No interest in these specific items? - Something else? It cannot be price, since I didn't post any and am quite flexible in terms of negotation. Would even consider trades if the incoming item(s) take up considerable less cubic volume :-). If it's the location, I'm starting to explore what would be required to properly pack and ship, e.g. a 45 lb. Sun Ultra 60 with some assurance it will arrive in one piece. It doesn't look like anyone in the area is setup for injected foam packing anymore, and I just don't trust the usual foam + peanuts anymore - too many broken units over the past few years. I think UPS and FedEx hired the chimps from the old luggage commercials to throw packages around during loading. If I go to the trouble and expense of buying proper boxes and InstaPak cushioning, it's going to average about $35-40 per unit for packing - never mind freight costs. But, would appreciate hearing from the community with alternate ideas. It is going to kill me if I have to drag this stuff to electronic recycling. Steve --

14 years, 9 months

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Do you have a 'super collection"? Nat Geo wants to know.

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

One of the coolest computer pictures ever is from the October 1982 National Geographic. They have a picture of the proprietor of Boston's American Used Computer (one of the first well known used DEC dealers) in between parallel lineup of H960's filled with good DEC stuff. I got to visit that place and ELI back in the 80's on a few occasions. It is a true joy to see the picture. http://www.nixiebunny.com/sonny.jpg Also they had a stunning picture of the Apple II assembly line circa must have been 1981 or 1982. Various brands of TV's at each workstation, floppy drives, HP frequency counters on most benches. I think this is the whole article on the web: http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2007/04/02/the-chip/?Qwd=./NationalGeographi…

14 years, 9 months

1
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Do you have a 'super collection"? Nat Geo wants to know.

by tosteve＠yahoo.com

I received an email from a National Geographic documentary series and they're looking for people who have large, amazing collections. If you or someone you know has an impressive collection of old computers, or anything else, please contact contact: "Julie Haire" <julie_haire at beyond.com.au>

14 years, 10 months

3
2
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Fixed point financial data versus floating point - Re: Spreadsheets (was Microsoft flamage)

by vintagecoder＠aol.com

Decimal math (hardware supported) is used heavily in financial processing with IBM COBOL. No loss of precision because the type is base 10. BCD is very similar to what IBM calls "packed decimal". ------Original Message------ From: Fred Cisin Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts ReplyTo: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Fixed point financial data versus floating point - Re: Spreadsheets (was Microsoft flamage) Sent: 24 Oct 2011 16:07 On Sun, 23 Oct 2011, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I don't care if the radix is 2, 10 or 13. What is normally termed > "floating point" is a slight misnomer. Agreed. What SHOULD we call it? (Something short and [over]simpler than "IEEE 32 bit floating point representation standard") > It's interesting that while some vendors seem to be intent on > dropping decimal support on CPUs, there are others proposing decimal > co-processors-- and the POWER6 and 7 CPUs have always had decimal > floating point capabilities. I will admit to sometimes using some of the BCD instructions in the 80x86 family, such as AAM, DAA, etc. 'course, other than my sales tax program, I usually use them for stuff other than BCD. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

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Proper packing (was: Need advice)

by mtapley＠swri.edu

At 17:19 -0500 10/31/11, Fred (who else?) wrote: >I have NEVER received a damaged package packed with used toilet paoper >cores! Fred, you are one of the things that make this list worth reading. Thank you! -- - Mark 210-379-4635 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Large Asteroids headed toward planets inhabited by beings that don't have technology adequate to stop them: Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward.

14 years, 10 months

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AMPRO Littleboards and SCSi

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

it would appear as if the earliest versions may not have had SCSI as Allison stated. I photographed the add from a BYTE magazine, can forward it to interested parties. It states in the add that the BIOS and utilities source code was available. Does anyone have thems? Does anyone have an early (pre-80186/V40) model surplus to their needs? We should have some discussion on sbc's and the like.

14 years, 10 months

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Proper packing (was: Need advice)

by jonas＠otter.se

>> >> >> the box, and even pay some extra $$ for it? That way all the >> people >> >> along its shipping path will just pay more attention to it, >> instead >> >> just throwing it in the back of the truck. >> >> >> > >> > You _are_ kidding, right? >> >> >> Not at all. >> Is it that far fetched that there would be service levels? > > Mybe not, but practical experience has taught me that no matter how > much > you pay, the package is likely to be dropped at some point. You still > need to pack it properly, to withstand this. > > However careful they claim to be, things can go wrong. Personally, > I'd > rather spend more time in packing a rare device properly than have it > wrecked. > > And to return to the ASR33, I'd not want to move one myself, say on > the > back seat of a car, without either tying down or reemoving the typing > unit. > >> When I pay for support at an enterprise level, do I not get better >> support, from more experienced techs? > > Well, I've never paied for support on anything, but however > experienced > the techs are, there will surely be soemthing they don't know. So > however > mcuh you pay, there wil lbe problems they can't solve quickly. Same > with > shipping old hardware. You may pay for a better service, but the > parcel > could still slip from soembody's hands. > Some years ago I was out of work and was temporarily employed in a warehouse, packing fragile items e.g. DVD boxes, jewel cases for CDs etc on pallets and in cartons, and driving a forklift. Sooner or later, **everybody** who drove the forklift would either drop a pallet from a few metres up, or cause a stack of pallets to fall over. It was also not very difficult to have a pallet fall off the back of the lorry when you were loading or unloading it. That doesn't mean we were careless, just that there are a lot of things that can make accidents like that happen: sloping loading docks, bumps in the floor, unstable loads, a slip of the foot or your hand on the levers or pedals, someone disturbing you at a sensitive moment, etc etc. On one occasion a lorry driver had I think it was 6 pallets fall off his lorry all at once. However well-meaning and careful the freighter or lorry driver or forklift operator, inevitably someone will have a bad day, or just be unlucky. In other words, any number of "Fragile" labels will make absolutely no difference at all, you will simply have to pack your item to stand falling off the back of a lorry if you want it to arrive undamaged. /Jonas

14 years, 10 months

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Information on the PPS-4/1 4 bit microprocessor wanted

by benjamin.soelberg＠gmail.com

Hi all I am a retro fan doing both EE and CE. I started with ZX81/Lambda/New Brain/Commodore. I am also the proud owner of a Mattel Battelstar Galatica anno 1979 week 14. The chip used in this vintage handheld game is labeled B6001EA and I guess it's a Rockwell International PPS-4/1 micro controller (a PPS-4 cpu with clock, ram and rom) from sources I found on the net. I have found very good documentation on the PPS-4 CPU chip (note the missing "/1" postfix) here: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/rockwell/PPS-4_Data_Sheet_1974.pdf And I found the owners manual for the game here: http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Manuals/Mattel-BattlestarGalacticaManual.pdf But I haven't been able to find any documentation on the PPS-4/1 chip that I believe is used in the game. I found that later revisions of the PPS-4 CPU was labeled PPS-4/2 and the 'newest' one PPS-4/1 (one would guess that /1 was older than /2). I do believe (again from internet sources) that the PPS-4/2 means that a minimal system could be made of two chips, a PPS-4/2 and a combined RAM/ROM. So since there is only one chip in my handheld game, I guess it's a PPS-4/1 where I again take a wild guess that the above two chip minimal combination is in one chip just like most micro controllers today. I am also guessing that since the chip ends with EA it could have a "electrically alterable" rom instead of a maskable rom. So I would like to hear all you guys if anyone of you could provide me more information on the specific chip and if all my guesses are right or wrong. Also if there is some way to dump the rom (without decapping the chip). The end goal for me is to create an PPS-1 emulator (and possible running the game) Regards Benjamin

14 years, 10 months

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Information on the PPS-4/1 4 bit microprocessor wanted

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

> Why are the LED drivers so difficult to make, is it because of the 'high' (a few mA) current ? Most of the handheld devices of the 70's used multiplexed displays (well, still true today) and while the average LED current might be a few mA per segment, the peak current in the drivers could be ten times higher. Some of the intended-to-be-driven-by-PMOS-driver-chips of the 70's are still around today and put to other good uses. e.g. ULN2002.

14 years, 10 months

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VAX/PDP docs. received

by jwillis＠arielusa.com

Received from a former DEC service rep.: If anyone wants scans of a specific piece, I will probably arrange it. This accounts for only the miniscule portion I've managed to sort and catalog in the past 3 hours (about 1/8 of the total number of documentation pieces I received): Communications Options Minireference Manual, vols. 1-7 LSI-11 Systems Service Manual, Vols. 1-3 VAX 8600/8650 System Diagnostics User's Guide Communications Options Minireference Manual VAX/VMS Internals and Data Structures Cartridge Tape Service Documentation TK50 Tape Drive Subsystem Owner's Manual TK50 Tape Drive Subsystem User's Guide TK70 Streaming Tape Drive Owner's Manual TK70 Streaming Tape Drive Subsystem Service Manual (MicroVAX II sys.) ThinWire Ethernet COAXIAL CABLE CONNECTOR INSTALLATION CARD H4000 DIGITAL Ethernet Transceiver Installation Manual Fiber Optic Attenuator Installation/Configuration Reference Card LA120 Series Pocket Service Guide LA10X-EJ/EL Tractor Option Installation Guide DECWRITER III LA120 Operator Reference Card LCG01 Color Printer System Pocket Service Guide MicroVAX 3600/VAXserver 3600/3602 Operation KA650 CPU System Maintenance MicroVAX 3600/VAXserver 3600/3602 Technical Information ULTRIX-32 Guide to the Error Logger System LJ250/LJ252 Companion Color Printer Pocket Service Guide LN03 Pocket Service Guide RF-LN03 Pocket Service Guide VAX 6200 Options and Maintenance VAX 6200/6300, VAXserver 6200/6230 Owner's Manual VAXstation 2000 Workstations and MicroVAX 2000 Network Guide ULTRIX-32 Basic Installation Guide for the VAXserver 2000 DECstation 2100/3100 Maintenance Guide MicroVAX 2000 Installation MicroVAX 2000 Operation Addendum: VAXserver 2000 MicroVAX 2000 Operation MicroVAX 2000 Troubleshooting MicroVAX 2000 Technical Information MicroVAX 2000 Customer Services VAXstation 2000 and MicroVAX 2000 Maintenance Guide VAXstation 3100 Maintenance Information VAXstation 3100 Illustrated Parts Breakdown VAXstation 2000 Hardware Information VAXstation 2000 System Guide VAXstation 2000 Network Guide VAX 6000-400 Options and Maintenance VT100 Series Pocket Service Guide VT180 Series Pocket Service Guide VT320 Pocket Service Guide VT330 Pocket Service Guide VT340 Pocket Service Guide VAXcluster Service Reference Manual VAXcluster Service Reference Set VAX 8530/8550/8700/8800/8820/8830/8840 System Maint. Guide 8800 8700 8550 8500 Console User's Guide B213F Expander Installation R215F Expander Maintenance KA655 CPU System Maintenance VAX Architecture Reference Manual CI750 User's Guide BA11-A Mounting Box and Power System Tech. Manual VAX-11/750 Diag. System Overview Manual VAX-11/750 Level 1 Student Workbook (Digital Internal Use Only) VAX-11/750 UNIBUS Interface Technical Description VAX-11/751 User's Guide DELUA User's Guide MicroVAX 2000 Hardware Information MicroVAX VAX 8200/50, 8500/50 The Digital Dictionary, Second Edition VAX Maintenance Handbook (VAX Systems) VAX Maintenance Handbook (VAX-11/780) VAX Maintenance Handbook (VAX-11/750) VAX-11/750 Mini Diag. Ref. Guide RM05 Disk Subsystem Service Manual RM05 Disk Subsystem Student Guide (Digital Internal Use Only) RM03 Disk Drive Maint. Print Set RP04/05/06 Field Maint. Print Set Symptom Directed Diagnosis Tool Kit Installation Guide VAXsimPLUS Field Service Manual Getting Started with VAXsimPLUS VAXsimPLUS User Guide Model 733 DEC Disk Storage Drive Parts Catalog, Jan. 1976 RP04-TC Part II RP04, RP05, RP06 Field Svc. Handbook HSC50 Service Manual HSC Installation Manual VAX 86XX System Maint. Guide RP05/RP06 Field Handbook -Company Confidential- RP05/06 677-01/51 Disc Drive Illustrated Parts Catalog Model 677-01/51 RP05/06 DEC DISC MAINTENANCE Guide (Educ. Svcs.) Digital Education and Training: UNIX Utils & Cmds. Student Guide

14 years, 10 months

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In defense of Steve Jobs (The Xerox issue)

by christian_liendo＠yahoo.com

So I got this article from someone and the part about Xerox PARC caught my eye.. Personally I think he is missing some pieces to his story, but I figured I would post here and get a discussion going. http://www.cultofmac.com/126863/in-defense-of-steve-jobs/

14 years, 10 months

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Seeking advice on shipping an ASR33 Teletype

by dkelvey＠hotmail.com

> From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: RE: Seeking advice on shipping an ASR33 Teletype > Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2011 10:17:09 -0400 > > Nick Jarmany wrote: > > > > All recommendations gratefully received! > > > > The typing unit _MUST_BE_ screwed to the base via > the shipping screws. Otherwise, it will bounce > around and break the plastic cover and possibly > itself as well. You will really need someone on > site that knows a little about the unit. > Hi I also recommend removing the motor as well. It unbalances the unit and makes it shift in any loose packing. Dwight

14 years, 10 months

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Floppy Disk Drive manuals.

by geoffr＠zipcon.net

I have some drives I?m trying to find the manuals for, I have 2 Chinon, a FZ-502 and a FZ-506 and a toshiba 360K drive that I?d like to find manuals for. Chinon has long since stopped making drives and I was unable to find any information on their site for disk drives and no luck on the toshiba site. These were tested good about 10 years ago, but I no longer remember what they were tested in and do not know the jumper settings I need on them for sure (and some of the jumpers are not labelled :(

14 years, 10 months

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DEC LN03 Laser Printer Revival - advice sought please

by mark＠wickensonline.co.uk

Hi folks, I've recently acquired a DEC LN03 laser printer with spare toner and font cartridges. I'm informed it was working a few years ago when last used. Something about it makes me think I better find out more before I turn it on again for the first time. There is a little information on the internet about toner replacement - I was wondering if I could call on collective wisdom to find out what the best course of action is to ensure success when I first hit the power switch. For example, the words toner collection bottle and ozone filter make me think I should know a little more first! Thanks for the help, Mark.

14 years, 10 months

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Proper packing

by wmaddox＠pacbell.net

--- On Fri, 10/28/11, Eric Smith <eric at brouhaha.com> wrote: > From: Eric Smith <eric at brouhaha.com> > Nope, they do it themselves.? The ground service was > created when they acquired RPS. I believe this is true of their commercial ground delivery service, but was told at one time that the FedEx Home Delivery drivers are actually independent contractors. I've mostly had good luck with FedEx Ground shipments, and would even say that I've usually seen less externally-visible indication of rough handling compared to UPS.? There was one egregious incident, however, when a FedEx delivery driver dropped off a TU-56 on my doorstep while I was out of town.? I had specifically asked the shipper to require a direct signature release to preclude such a delivery.? When I checked the tracking paperwork online, my name was signed on the paperwork, undoubtedly forged by the driver. --Bill

14 years, 10 months

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A cautionary Freecycle tale

by mhs.stein＠gmail.com

Most of us on this list are computer professionals, and our most important asset is probably our good name and a reputation for integrity and confidentiality; as such we also often have access to or even first dibs on equipment that's being upgraded or scrapped but is often still quite serviceable and useful once it's been cleaned up, confidential data erased, disks reformatted, etc. Being 'in the business' and having somehow collected 20 or 30 still quite serviceable P4+ systems but having run out of relatives, friends and friends of friends to give them to, I decided to explore and join the local Freecycle group a few weeks ago. After finding a happy new home for some items and also picking up a few items to repair and pass on or keep for myself, the list traffic suddenly stopped; when I inquired I was rudely told that I had been (unjustly) accused off-list of 'stealing' from someone's porch a broken laptop that I had inquired about but that had been promised to someone else, and without any notice or opportunity to respond I had been summarily banned and was even threatened with police involvement. I think as trusted industry professionals we should all ask ourselves whether the risk to our reputation that this sort of thing can have is worth it or if we should just let these items go to Asia or into landfill, and if we do in fact deal with people outside our community we should probably make sure that we maintain a separate identity from our professional one. Has anybody else had any experiences like this, and regretted trying to find new homes for slightly outdated equipment? Comments? mike

14 years, 10 months

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OT: (but still old tech) CEDs & players available

by nospam212-cctalk＠yahoo.com

This isn't old computers but still old tech and as I have talked to people on this list about these before I thought I would check here first before dumping them. I have a collection of about 300 CED (old video format similar to an old record) and a couple of players that I want to move out. If anyone here is interested contact me off list. I prefer local pickup as these are VERY HEAVY but if you really want to pay to have them shipped then I might consider it for a few dollars more. I don't have a current list of the movies and am not interested in parting it out, just want to move them on out. Thanks. ----- David Williams http://www.trailingedge.com

14 years, 10 months

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hp calcs part 2

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

Looking over all the stuff on the HP 35s, I shrugged and bought a used 32sII. Does anyone here know what it would take to get someone at HP to seriously listen to the bug and misfeature complaints and come out with, say, a 35sII that fixes these problems? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

14 years, 10 months

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PDP 11/70 Front Panel up for sale.

by robinsonbrian07＠gmail.com

This forum was recommended to me as a place to find people who appreciate vintage computing technology, so it seems like an appropriate place to advertise this: A PDP 11/70 Front Panel - http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280758702820& Reference material: http://www.hampage.hu/pdp-11/1170.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-11 http://www.village.org/pdp11/faq.pages/pricing.html The PDP-11/x was perhaps the best selling, most powerful series of supercomputers in the world, going through over ten major revisions in it's lifecycle. A PDP-11 setup would cost tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. It often required a whole team of people dedicated to overseeing it's operation and managing it's moment-to-moment usage. They were used in everything from business, science and academic research applications to real-time control applications (PBX, traffic, industrial). This is the front control-panel and user interface to the PDP-11/70. It's been in storage for some time and the condition is unknown, but with minimal signs of wear and tear it looks able to be restored to functional condition. Get a legendary piece of computer history right here. You'll have a hard time finding many like it.

14 years, 10 months

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Seeking advice on shipping an ASR33 Teletype

by nick.jarmany＠quixant.com

I have just managed to purchase a Teletype on Ebay - something I have been yearning to obtain for a long time! However, the item in question is located in Ohio, US and I would like to ship it to Italy. Clearly it will need properly crating up by someone and freighting (I assume by sea?) across the pond to me. The vendor no doubt does not want to get involved in much of this. So, my question to all of you out there is - do any of you know of a shipping company that can package up an item like this suitably and arrange transportation? The ASR33 is (thankfully) complete with all accessories such as stand, paper holder etc. I can probably persuade the vendor to remove these accessories from the main unit, but probably not much more. I am hoping some of you will have faced similar issues and might be able to provide good advice. All recommendations gratefully received! Footnote: Given the nature of this forum I am sure I don't have to explain why I would be purchasing such an item. But as a bit of background I was fortunate to go to a school in SE London (Alleyn's) in the early 70s that had an ASR33 and an acoustic modem link to Queen Mary College (QMC) - a dual ICL 1904S system running QMC Maximop as I remember. I hate to think what the phone bill was like, as the ASR was in use continuously all day every day. This resource created a number of very talented young programmers at the school. One guy wrote a complete Monopoly program in Basic. I learnt a language that fascinated me by its quirkiness - Snobol4 (and Spitbol). I did an 'O' level project that was a line editor program written in Snobol4. In about 1975 the school obtained an IBM card punch machine that was used to prepare batch jobs that were taken by hand to be run on an IBM 360 (I can't remember where). I still remember marvelling at the tall vertical deck of cards being swallowed at a rapid rate by the reader, with forced air being used to separate the cards. Great stuff! We were also donated an Elliot machine (I think it was a 903 from photos I have found on the web) that had a high speed optical paper tape reader and punch sitting on the top. The main machine itself looked like a very large, double width washing machine. Removing the front panels revealed the magnetic core store. The system was booted by entering the initial instructions via toggle switches on the control panel, after which further programs could be loaded by tape. The process of creating and running a program was very tedious, as compiling, linking etc each required the individual program to be loaded and an output tape created that was used as the input to the next stage. This all required continuous use of the desk mounted paper tape winding machine that was hand operated and geared up to enable rapid winding. However, accidents (and broken tape) were a constant danger of using this device. We were always having to make duplicate tapes of Fortran compilers etc. The last arrival at the school was a CDC VDU terminal that had a high speed (I guess a few kbps) synchronous connection to a commercial computer bureau in London that had a major CDC Cyber mainframe, not sure which model? As I remember the company was called "SIA" or something similar. I once visited the control room and marvelled at the control console, which looked like something out of a space ship! Time on this computer was very expensive, so the school had a strict limit on CPU time. Unfortunately all this history came to a sorry end when a fire in the building that housed the computer room destroyed all the equipment - very sad. That's might bit of computing history, and is why I was attracted into the fantastic industry. Nick ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________

14 years, 10 months

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Seeking advice on shipping an ASR33 Teletype

by iamvirtual＠gmail.com

I had an ASR33 shipped to me from the US. I had the vendor ship the machine in 3 different boxes. The case, base&typing unit, and stand were in separate boxes with plenty of packing. The cost of shipping was high, but the machine arrived in tact. Shipping the machine from Seattle to Calgary was about US$350.00. I would recommend having a piece in a box within a box with plenty of padding between the item and between the inner/outer box should allow the item to survive. The heavier the box, the more likely it will suffer rougher handling. --barrym On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 8:17 AM, Bill Sudbrink <wh.sudbrink at verizon.net>wrote: > Nick Jarmany wrote: > > > > All recommendations gratefully received! > > > > The typing unit _MUST_BE_ screwed to the base via > the shipping screws. Otherwise, it will bounce > around and break the plastic cover and possibly > itself as well. You will really need someone on > site that knows a little about the unit. > >

14 years, 10 months

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IMSAI VDP-80 manuals archived?

by derschjo＠mail.msu.edu

Hi all - Just picked up a complete (but rough) IMSAI VDP-80 with what appears to be a complete set of manuals (and a few unlabeled 8" disks which I'll attempt to make images of). Anyone know if these manuals have been digitally archived anywhere? A cursory search doesn't reveal anything promising; This site (http://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/d_imsai.html) has them listed (for a price) but that's about the only reference I can find. I don't have any means to scan these in, but I'd love to see them preserved... Thanks, Josh

14 years, 10 months

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HP screen screen rot

by jonas＠otter.se

On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 20:47:13 +0100 (BST), ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: >> Given that there are devices for easily breaking glass that are >> > essentially sharp points, would a jab from a soldering iron be able to >> > implode a CRT? I've done this by accident several times. Before anyone > Possibly. The soldering iron is hot which could set up thermal stresses i > nthe glass too. I do know that soldering to a socket contact while the > socket is plugged onto a CRT or valve can damage the glass-to-metal seal > around the pin, for esample, and is thus a bad idea. Thist doesn't > normally cause an implosion, but... Heat is seriously ungood for CRT glass. It reduces the dielectric strength of the glass which can lead to arcing through the glass. Prolonged arcing will hole the glass, thus venting the vacuum and destroying the tube. Magnetic deflection yokes need to be designed not to run too hot, the glass needs to stay well below 100 degrees C. Above 120 deg C the glass has not much dielectric strength left. /Jonas

14 years, 10 months

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ColdFire (was Re: Performance-oriented development ...)

by asc135＠gmail.com

Chuck Guzis wrote: > Microchip is a very strange outfit when it comes to the PIC32. Like > the R4000, programming on the PIC32 is present as JTAG. However > Microchip incorporated a rather convoluted version of their SPI > protocol that's translated into JTAG on the chip. I'm sure it sells > a lot of PICKIT programmers, but otherwise, it's been a mystery to me > why this was done. Could it be that JTAG is more or less industry > standard for this sort of thing? JTAG is a serial protocol that communicates to one or more chips on a JTAG bus. It is commonly used as the debugging vehicle for some CPU families. It communicates between a host computer and the debug subsystem within a target CPU to allow: 1. Run-time debug and breakpoint operations. 2. Boundary-scan that lets you emulate the CPU for the outside circuit. 3. Flash programming since it can be used to generate memory bus cycles. Vendors often use proprietary serial mechanisms for their pods and JTAG functionality. I would presume this is to make sure you buy their tools. Amardeep

14 years, 10 months

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Pixar Imaging Computer on ebay

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

> http://www.ebay.com/itm/Steve-Jobs-Pixar-Image-Computer-Museum-Quality-Arti… Just trying to connect old mid-80's articles I hadn't thought of in decades, to reality... is this what's described in https://design.osu.edu/carlson/history/PDFs/pixar-image-processor.pdf They describe a $125K price in 1986 dollars for a complete system (e.g. not just the pedestal.) I did some work with ECL based backprojectors in the era immediately before and the VME based stuff with gate arrays and a Sun front end, and then a little later Tahoe front end, was coming in like gangbusters at the time for many of the industrial/medical applications.

14 years, 10 months

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Coldfire (was Re: Performance-oriented development in the commercial)

by asc135＠gmail.com

> > I've never worked with the ColdFire, but because of my interest in Alpha > Micros I've always been curious (near the end of the 68K Alpha Micro phase > there were ColdFire-based servers produced -- I presume with some sort of > emulation layer for those instructions not supported on ColdFire that were > on, say, the '040). How was it to work with compared to a "stock" 68020 or > '030? > They're very nice to work with. I wish I'd had the chance to do more than three or four projects with them. As Dave mentioned, the ARM has just overtaken them in price/performance in most areas and since (at least the models I used) didn't have a memory manager they could not run a full Linux. The single process uCLinux was fine, however. But they were just fantastic with MQX, eCos, and ThreadX. For eCos it was the cygwin-based GNU toolchain, an old familiar friend and I appreciated that. For ThreadX it was WindRiver's Diab under Workbench. Decent enough but the Eclipse framework it's based on was a bit piggish at the time. Today's computers should have no problem with it though. The MQX project was done under CodeWarrior which was nice. That was just a board bring-up and Ethernet demo deliverable. Didn't do too much beyond the startup code, RAM Test, and a couple of threads to blink an LED and respond to an echo server. The customer just wanted a ready to go platform to develop their app. Incidentally, there is a relatively cheap way to get into CodeFire development: http://www.dilnetpc.com/dnp0052.htm The nice thing about this kit is the entire CPU module is on a small board with dual-inline pin arrangement that can be mounted on a hobbyist prototype board. They don't have the price listed there but I think it was $130 ~ 160 or so. It came with a working eCos build and tool set so it was quite a value. If you're going to design a custom board you'll also need a BDM JTAG probe which costs $250. It's the only way to program the chip's flash with a boot loader the first time. Amardeep

14 years, 10 months

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Performance-oriented development in the commercial

by asc135＠gmail.com

On Oct 26, 2011, at 4:48 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > Absolutely agreed, I was just getting tetchy about the juxtaposition of the > talk about little RTOSes for PICs and then Unix on the PIC32. It's a > nervous tic I have from working with too many customers whose only > experience with micros is the PIC (because they're too lazy to try anything > else) and insist on upgrading to a PIC32 because they think it'll be > compatible with their existing software base. > Though I've overcome it now (mostly), I had a very strong bias against PIC for many years mainly because of the technologically inbred nature of many of their fans. A few years back I started a new job to work on a project to replace an aging PIC-based door access control module. The new platform had already been selected by the time I started: ColdFire running an RTOS. This was driven mainly by the fact that the new parent company had a commercial line of HVAC controllers based on that processor. Not a bad choice but the dreams of code re-use were mostly unfounded. Interestingly, it turns out one of the reasons I was hired was to backfill the fan-boy who resigned in a huff because a PIC-32 wasn't selected. Amardeep

14 years, 10 months

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HP screen screen rot

by jonas＠otter.se

On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 20:03:45 +0100 (BST), ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: >> > I was referring to holding the faceplate on the CRT, not supporting the CRT= >> > . I plan to replace the metal band, padding with e.g. strapping tape if ne= >> > cessary. Does that make more sense? - Ian > It wworries me, I can tell you that. That metal band is fixed ot the > glass, it's also deliverately very tight. Somehow it supports the screen > glass during an implosion, protectggn the viewer. It's not just a mouting > band for the CRT. Do *NOT* remove the band!! It protects the CRT from implosion by putting compressive stresses on the faceplate, thereby counteracting the tensile stresses produced by the force of the air on it and thus allowing it to stand more stress. The same idea as pre-stressed concrete in other words. If you remove the band you will seriously weaken the CRT. /Jonas

14 years, 10 months

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HP screen screen rot

by IanK＠vulcan.com

Hello all, I recall a while back a thread on dealing with screen rot on ADM-3a terminals - surprising to me, because I have several of them and have had no such issue. But I do have nasty looking spots on a HP 9845A screen. Does anyone have specific experience with addressing this problem on this machine? Just to be clear, it looks like round mold colonies around the edges of the screen. It's likely that there's an anti-glare coating and something colonized underneath it. Again, I'm looking for specific details regarding this machine or another machine of the era using the same screen technology, and how you eliminated the colonies. :-) Thanks -- Ian

14 years, 10 months

11
35
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Integer pennies (was: Re:Spreadsheets)

by mtapley＠swri.edu

At 3:22 -0500 10/24/11, Fred wrote: >In many cases, "REAL" (actually "floating point") numbers are >inappropriate. For MONEY, I tried to get my students to use ints (and >calculate the pennies not the dollars), and then just move the PERIOD >when they display the results. How will they ever get rich moving the rounded-down fractional pennies into their own accounts? -- - Mark 210-379-4635 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Large Asteroids headed toward planets inhabited by beings that don't have technology adequate to stop them: Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward.

14 years, 10 months

11
13
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stack of Indigo 2's need to go

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

I think I have 6. Teal and Purple Impact 10000s. If you want one, make some kind of offer. I'd be willing to part out pieces too I guess if that's what people need I guess.

14 years, 10 months

2
1
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Performance-oriented development in the commercial computing world

by vintagecoder＠aol.com

Dave McGuire said: > Kinda like the "what constitutes a minicomputer" debate. > Nobody disagrees that, say, PDP-11s are minis, Sadly, I've heard many people call PDP-11s mainframes, and go as far as saying DEC was a mainframe company. > but nobody can coherently tell you why. I was thinking about this recently and I can't come up with a definition either. Maybe anything smaller than the smallest mainframe and bigger than the biggest PC? > People who know about this stuff just "know". Agreed. I aplogize for the crudity of this post's formatting (but not the content). Best I can do at the moment, posting as I am from an embedded (mobile) computer that is neither PC, mini, nor mainframe.

14 years, 10 months

5
5
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HP screen screen rot

by robgarn＠mac.com

As an alternative to the hot wire approach, I placed my moldy PDP-12 CRT+faceplate into a tub of PROSOCO Dicone NC9 "silicone sealand & adhesive remover." After about a week, the silicone seal had separated and was easily removed. I'm not sure how best to remount the CRT with the glass faceplate and metal surrounding rim without reapplying a RTV/PVA layer and re-bonding it all with silicone again. - Robert p.s. If you're in the Bay Area: there's a gallon jug of leftover Dicone NC9 for the asking. On Oct 20, 2011, at 7:34 AM, cctech-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > Message: 25 > Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2011 08:28:56 +0100 > From: "Rod Smallwood" <rodsmallwood at btconnect.com> > To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only'" > <cctech at classiccmp.org> > Subject: RE: HP screen screen rot > Message-ID: <AA472F3C2B81454EAD4B734855D4D4EE at dorsetsweets.local> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > I have fixed a few Rainbow monitors suffering from screen mould. > It may be crude but I just removed the outer glass by breaking it into parts > and then peeled off the offending plastic layer. > > The tube then goes back into the case and you end up with a narrow gap > between the bezel and the tube. > > If you are not used to working with glass and CRT's then this way is not for > you > > > Regards > Rod Smallwood --- On Mon, 10/17/11, Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote: > From: Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> > Subject: Re: HP screen screen rot > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Monday, October 17, 2011, 8:33 PM > On 10/17/11 5:06 PM, Ian King wrote: >> Hello all, >> >> Does anyone have specific experience with addressing >> this problem on this machine? > > The procedure is removal of the RTV between the safety > glass and CRT separating the two by > cutting through the RTV with a hot wire, then reattachment > at the corners. > > There are some examples on the web.

14 years, 10 months

6
9
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Any interest in an IBM 5160 XT?

by james＠slor.net

Would anyone on this list be interested in acquiring a working XT? I picked one up a few years back and just haven't had a whole lot of use for it, so perhaps there's someone here who would. It's in excellent condition (both cosmetically and functionally), and I can take pics if anyone has interest. General specs: - 640 KB RAM - 20 MB hard drive - 5.25" floppy - Currently running DOS 3.3a - Includes IBM 5151 TTL monitor (solid picture without burn-in) Thanks! James

14 years, 10 months

5
5
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PDP 11/70 Front Panel up for sale.

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

> Wasn't the 11/70 in a class of machines called "supermini" > computers...machines that were based on the architecture of > minicomputers, but with CPU extensions(e.g., multiple CPU modes[kernel, > supervisor, user]), larger memory capacity(including virtual memory > capabilities), and significantly improved I/O architectures and > bandwidth? I wonder if the poster of the auction on eBay misread > "supermini" and thought "supercomputer"? A complete 11/70 installation almost certainly included line printers, many terminals on multiplexers, timesharing software, a medium to large farm of massbus disks and tapes, etc. This meant it was usually in a room with a raised floor. Just a few years later (or even overlapping) the same departmental computer market was being sold 11/780's with very similar or identical peripheral complement. Contrast this with the (to me) more traditional -11 market of a computer that went into a lab with some custom and simple Unibus peripherals for data acquisition. To me at least the "supermini" concept was almost closer to a personal workstation (although e.g. Encores/SEL's are certainly superminis) but these often became departmental superminis well outfitted with high performance Japanese (Fujitsu) peripherals not the crufty old Massbus-hose type stuff. While I have a lot of respect for a complete 11/70 installation... at the same time all that Massbus stuff was pretty crufty compared to the new much smaller peripherals coming in from the low end by the early 80's. Classic computer collectors (including the E-bay seller) often focus too much on the CPU as defining the environment. Tim.

14 years, 10 months

1
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Need advice

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

Steven Hirsch wrote: > All, > > I very much need to sell off my workstation collection. There has been > essentially zero interest in my posting from last week on the subject. > I'm trying to figure out why. [...] > It cannot be price, since I didn't post any and am quite flexible in terms > of negotation. On the issue of price... you might be surprised. If you listed it on E-bay at 10 times what the stuff cost new describing it as the biggest and most historically important mainframe ever, you'd probably stroke more egos and raise more interest than if you continue trying to honestly find a good home for it.

14 years, 10 months

1
0
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QBUS PDP 11's available free in Yorkshire (UK)

by silvercreekvalley＠yahoo.com

All the machines have gone now. Thanks to the list for the interest.

14 years, 10 months

2
1
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Working as a systems programmer on IBM big iron

by vintagecoder＠aol.com

Responding to myself and Rich: I said: >> If somebody was actually a sysprog *at the time in an IBM shop* and >> can tell what was released and when they started copyrighting things, >> then great. Rich said: > I *know* what I'm talking about, with regard to access to IBM sources. I > was at SHARE in San Francisco when the great OCO debate heated up again, > and still have my button reading "When source is outlawed, only outlaws > will have source" in my collection. I remember the discussions of the > changes in US copyright law, including court cases, which allowed program > sources to be copyrighted and have the copyrights stand up, in > _ComputerWorld_ and _Datamation_ and other trade rags. So, since you were, what was the last release that was not copyrighted and what was the first release that was? And when was the change to OCO? Thank you.

14 years, 10 months

2
3
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Eagle TTL/MDA monitor and generic CGA monitors available

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

15$ each plus shippage. Both work well. CGA (Microway or something like that) may need a convergence adjustment though, not egregious, it's easy to do on big monitors, I'm sure it will be on this unit too.

14 years, 10 months

1
0
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John McCarthy

by aek＠bitsavers.org

We just heard over at CHM that John died last night.

14 years, 10 months

11
11
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moving IBM Sys 23/Datamaster, Atari stuff, other...

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

Datamaster -50$ plus shippage. It's going somewhere THIS WEEK, perhaps a dumpster if there's no interest. It weighs 95 lbs.It's dirty and has seen enough use to burn the screen a box of Atari 800xl stuff, cpu doesn't work, that's all I know, there's also a disk drive and printer in box, mostly pretty clean w/Atari covers, but cords are dirty - 15$ + also an atari 800xl in original box, not sure of details, could investigate 15$ + NIB Atart printer, contemporary w/the 800xl, 5$ + will combine shipping of course Hyperion, very yellow (almost orange), small crack in upper left corner, DOESN'T WORK, it did a few years ago. Perhaps something simple 20$ + I'll add more stuff tomorrow I'm in New Jersey

14 years, 10 months

1
1
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Sr. Server Engineer (Vintage Systems) at Living Computer, Museum,

by ken＠seefried.com

I know I will regret dipping my toe in this argument, because I'll dump some facts on very well established classiccmop groupthink, but hopeful it will help the few listmember who aren't yet reality-immune on this topic. I'm on my second decade as a hiring manager of one sort or another, from Fortune 10 companies to startups, and I'm a non-degreed candidate for these roles. And I was married to a IT recruiter for a decade. This is a US perspective, BTW...non US markets are more or less different. In particular, the UK isn't so different. It's the party line of course to blame HR in general and the recruiters in particular for being "gatekeepers" and not realizing how amazing the non-degreed candidate is. That's bullshit. The recruiters are *paid* to place people, and since much first tier recruiting has been outsourced, a placement is often the only source of compensation for these folks. Recruiters are continually looking for ways to fit a square peg in a round hole. The first thing a recruiter does when they get a requirement is to say "what of this are you flexible on?". You have no idea how far they will push this. "You want a programmer. My candidate has a computer", "You need a security expert? My candidate worked mall security for 5 years". "Project management? My candidate managed a Pizza Hut." These are not exaggerations, they are personal antidotes. Anyone who's ever signed up for a job search site knows how wide a net the recruiters cast. Recruiters are sales people, often not good ones, usually working on commission, trying to sell a hiring manager on whatever they have in the queue, no matter how bad a match. Period. Full stop. Conversely, it's very rare that a hiring manager says "I don't care how good a match the candidate is, if they don't have a degree, I don't want them". It happens, usually with a junior manager who hasn't been around the block a couple of times, but it's not the norm. Any of us who have been around for a bit all know that there are good candidates in any candidate pool. But there's a reason we all put "BS required" in those ads, and it is because it's a filter. It's not a have/not have filter. It's an asshole/not asshole filter. Hate to break it to folks, but getting through HR without a degree isn't that hard (been there, done that), but if your answer to "so you don't have a degree" is "let me read you the riot act about how stupid you are to require a degree", "degree requirements are bullshit and you should rely on the intangible things I think make me awesome" or "degrees are a waste of time, and the fact that most of your employees have one has no bearing on the fact that I'm in a special category", then don't be surprised if the HR drone says "I don't care how much I've got to make mortgage this month, I'm not going to try and sell this assclown to the hiring manager. There's a dozen other folks in the queue who can at least fake being a reasonable human being". So, bottom line, if you're "perfect" for the jobs, but you think you are continually getting turned down because you don't have a degree, you're wrong. You're either *really* not perfect, or you're toxic waste from a personality/attitude standpoint. Usually the later. Yes, I know...you're different/special/unique and none of this applies to you. SOP for this list. I'm just telling you what I've learned from dozens of HR orgs, a couple of hundred slots I've been responsible for filling and several thousand candidates I've had to weed through. Not that that matters.

14 years, 10 months

41
154
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Mathematica/NeXT - Re: Spreadsheets (was Microsoft flamage)

by mtapley＠swri.edu

At 2:20 -0500 10/25/11, Toby clarified: >You can run Mathematica on a NeXT without any optical drive or media (I >have a licence & have done so, on a slab). Right! I'm running Mma 3.0.2.0 on my NeXT 040 Cube (NeXTStep 3.2) right now. However I think it's significantly harder to find Mathematica 3.0 for NeXTStep than NeXTStep 1.0, which is why I suggested the latter route. -- - Mark 210-379-4635 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Large Asteroids headed toward planets inhabited by beings that don't have technology adequate to stop them: Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward.

14 years, 10 months

1
0
0 0

Outlook in comparison

by cisin＠xenosoft.com

I am changing my opinion on Outlook. I just experienced the State Farm Insurance "Secure Messaging Center". In comparison, Outhouse is MAGNIFICENT! For example, the State Farm system will not permit cc'ing an email address outside of their system (my own!). What's so frigging secret about an insurance claim?? The State Farm system times out after 15 minutes while composing a message. When it times out, there is NO warning. No "1 minute until doom". No "want to extend/continue?". No "want to save?" No automatic save of compositions in progress! Their "systems programmers" have told them that their hands are tied, and that it isn't possible to implement those "features"! When I first started using PINE, I wasn't completely satisfied. But each "Modern" system that I've tried has made me appreciate it more. And this State Farm system makes Outhouse look good. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

14 years, 10 months

3
3
0 0

Dennis Ritchie has died

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

Dennis Ritchie, co-creator of C and heavily involved in the creation of UNIX, has died. He was 70, and he was one of my heroes. RIP, Dennis Ritchie. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA

14 years, 10 months

53
285
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Spreadsheets (was Microsoft flamage)

by jonas＠otter.se

On Fri, 21 Oct 2011 21:09:01 +0100 (BST), ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > Interesting. This is not at all well-known (I know people who use Excel > and who need complex numbers who haven't found this...) > > I must look into this and see just what it does. In particular, is a > complex number something that's sotred in oen cell or two (if the > latter, it's a kludge!)? Do the normal arithmetic operators work with > them or do you have special functions (written in prefix as opposed to > infix notation) to do this? I'm not really sure since I found this by Googling, but it seems as if you have to enter complex numbers by entering a function. You can't just type "5+j8" into a cell, you have to go via a dialog box. The number will be displayed as "5+8j" (you can use anything you like instead of "j", it is an argument to the function and presumably[hopefully] does not take part in any calculations. What happens if you use "j" for one number and "i" for another, and then add them, is open to speculation. Could be interesting...) Any arithmetic operators have to be expressed via functions. In other words, clumsy to say the least, but it may actually work. Excel functions and macros, of course, are another subject. IMHO the designer of that functionality must have been an evil, embittered sadist who probably grew up pulling the wings off insects and attaching firecrackers to the tails of cats. /Jonas

14 years, 10 months

7
20
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HP 13181B Tape Interface

by wrm＠retro.co.za

Hi Etienne and all I remember Leon's name from Stellenbosch days. I recently managed to sign back onto the list -- thanks to whoever was responsible for that. I'm also in Cape Town, and I have some hardware I want to play with and some hardware I realise I will never get around to. The latter includes some Acorn RISC PC stuff, and a vast stash of BBC stuff. Two actual computers, and lots and lots of software and a few books. The only HP I have is an HP-85. Anybody else here from South Africa?

14 years, 10 months

1
0
0 0

QBUS PDP 11's available free in Yorkshire (UK)

by silvercreekvalley＠yahoo.com

Hi, I discovered some more QBUS PDP 11 machines in an old storage unit I'm emptying. These machines are the rack mount style QBUS PDP 11's, and appear to be intact, although their disk drives have been removed. They all have CPU and memory. These are collection only from Yorkshire - but free of charge. I have 3 machines available and possibly some spare cards. These need to be collected next week unfortunately. Any interest email me directly. Thanks Ian.

14 years, 10 months

7
8
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Spreadsheets (was Microsoft flamage)

by mtapley＠swri.edu

At 3:22 -0500 10/24/11, Tony wrote: >There probably is a need for an 'engineer's spreadsheet' with proper >complex number support, but I guess the market is much less than for >'business' applicatiosn which only need real numbers. Mathematica can do that functionality, but probably not cost-effectively and not (current versions) on legacy hardware. (Mma v. 1 is included in NeXTStep 1.0, so if you can get that optical media together with a working optical drive (good luck there!) you are set). I have not tried MathCad, Maple, macsyma, etc., and at least the last one of those is on-topic and should run on the classes of machines (VAX-11/780, etc.) that might be found around Casa Duell. I have got (but sadly have not tried yet) a copy of muMath which might be able to do it on a DEC Rainbow. muMath's successor Derive (DOS/Windows) became the basis for the TI Nspire CAS, and early versions of that might also serve in this context. Has anyone got experience with doing complex arithmetic in any of these? -- - Mark 210-379-4635 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Large Asteroids headed toward planets inhabited by beings that don't have technology adequate to stop them: Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward.

14 years, 10 months

2
1
0 0

Reading Amstrad PCW floppies on a PC

by lproven＠gmail.com

I've bought a copy of LocoScript 4 (or so) to run on my PCW9512+. However, I'd also like to get it running under the Joyce emulator on my PC. How might I read a PCW floppy into a PC disk image? It's a 3.5" 720 DD disk. My PC does have a 3?" drive and runs Windows 7/64 and Ubuntu 11.10/64. I possibly have an ancient copy of 22copy somewhere, but it runs under DOS which at the mo' my PC is not configured to boot... :( -- Liam Proven ? Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508

14 years, 10 months

8
12
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Spreadsheets (was Microsoft flamage)

by jonas＠otter.se

On Wed, 19 Oct 2011 21:42:03 +0100 (BST), ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > Did/does any spreadsheet, on any platform, allow you to put complex > numbers in the cells and operate on them? > > Yes, of course you can treat a complex numner as 2 real numbers and > define the appropriate operations -- any spreadsheet will do that. I did > it in Visicalc. But as I use complex numbers a lot in AC circuit > analysis, and I know others who do too, I am suprised no spreadsheet > handles them as well as my HP calculators. Surprise surprise, apparently Excel will let you work with complex numbers. It seems you have to install the "Analysis Pak" (which apparently is supplied with Excel, see e.g. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/load-the-analysis-toolpak-HP00… for the 2003 version). That of course doesn't mean that it handles them as well as your HP calculators :-) /Jonas

14 years, 10 months

4
3
0 0

Kaypro-II video section

by elazzerini＠interfree.it

The computer-Kaypro II had a 9" green phosphor monochrome monitor composed of a LR30477 E39164 TOSHIBA CRT and a printed circuit steering Toshiba TLC-134-TV-0. I tried to supply it with 12Vdc and I noticed that the cathode of the CRT is lit, while the screen does not turns on and no shows light even using the knob back adjustment for the light intensity. Wishing to do TV repair technician I need the wiring diagram of the circuit electric drive Toshiba TLC-134-T-V-0. Is there someone who has it? Here some pictures: http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Kaypro-II/Foto2026.html http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Kaypro-II/Foto2018.html <http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Kaypro-II/Foto2019.html> http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Kaypro-II/Foto2019.html http://www.flickr.com/photos/67772736 at N07/sets/72157627837488485/ . Unfortunately I did not notice on the board (component side) or under the card (solder side) no sign of burning. I seem to hear at the power on of the CRT an high-frequency hiss. Having found the power supply of the Kaypro-II not working and not knowing whether it is the motherboard, I was first trying to see if the CRT works. As a signal source I am using the monochrome output of a PC 8088 XT video card because the kaypro-II accepts distinct signals: video, Hsync and Vsync. It could be not true that the polarities of these signals are useful as a signal generator to test the video section of Kaypro-II. Any suggestions would be great. The schematic much more. Enrico

14 years, 10 months

2
1
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Fixed point financial data versus floating point - Re: Spreadsheets (was Microsoft flamage)

by vintagecoder＠aol.com

The same thing can happen in COBOL. All the guys when I started on IBM knew the native data types and which ones to use for what. A few years ago somebody asked me to give a training session to some guys who had 2 to 8 years with COBOL on IBM and nobody in the room (about 15 people) had any idea about anything, not one of them ever opened an IBM manual. Lucky for them and their employer, they never actually wrote any code, they just cut and pasted and were using packed decimal for money. ------Original Message------ From: Fred Cisin Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts ReplyTo: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Fixed point financial data versus floating point - Re: Spreadsheets (was Microsoft flamage) Sent: 24 Oct 2011 19:38 On Mon, 24 Oct 2011, Vintage Coder wrote: > Agreed. It's not floating point (no mantissa/exponent) and the user has > complete control over the decimal point, which is imaginary as far as > the representation goes. There is no decimal point in the data, only > digits and a sign. The name "packed decimal" seems like a safe way to > differentiate it from floating point while giving a hint to the internal > representation (two digits to a byte). As most everyohne here knows, the 80x85 family has some minimal support for both packed and unpacked BCD. But the lack of a widely known data type using those in C and BASIC results in way too much software being written with inappropriate data types, such as "float".

14 years, 10 months

1
0
0 0

Fixed point financial data versus floating point - Re: Spreadsheets (was Microsoft flamage)

by vintagecoder＠aol.com

Agreed. It's not floating point (no mantissa/exponent) and the user has complete control over the decimal point, which is imaginary as far as the representation goes. There is no decimal point in the data, only digits and a sign. The name "packed decimal" seems like a safe way to differentiate it from floating point while giving a hint to the internal representation (two digits to a byte). ------Original Message------ From: Fred Cisin Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts ReplyTo: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Fixed point financial data versus floating point - Re: Spreadsheets (was Microsoft flamage) Sent: 24 Oct 2011 19:11 On Mon, 24 Oct 2011, Vintage Coder wrote: > Decimal math (hardware supported) is used heavily in financial > processing with IBM COBOL. No loss of precision because the type is base > 10. BCD is very similar to what IBM calls "packed decimal". Although with a radix of 10, which MAKES SENSE for financial, I still think of that as being scaled integers. It is not an exponential structure like the IEEE Floating Point Representation Standard.

14 years, 10 months

2
1
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Integer pennies (was: Re:Spreadsheets)

by john＠yoyodyne-propulsion.net

On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 3:53 PM, Mark Tapley <mtapley at swri.edu> wrote: > How will they ever get rich moving the rounded-down fractional pennies into > their own accounts? If you do that you'll end up in Federal "Pound you in the Ass" prison. -- Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: ?"The Future Begins Tomorrow" Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net -------- "If a free society cannot help the many that are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich." -John F. Kennedy

14 years, 10 months

2
1
0 0

HP 13181B Tape Interface

by etienne＠tlabs.ac.za

Hi All, I'm a nuclear scientist and serial hobbyist out in Cape Town, South Africa. I'm helping a friend restore some old HP machines. We have a 13183 Interface set to swap for a 13181B Tape Interface. We will also happily pay for it and cover the shipping costs to wherever you are. As a point of interest, we are also currently restoring a MITRA 125. If anyone has any info on this machine we'd really appreciate it. Best Regards Etienne Vermeulen and Leon Heinkelein

14 years, 10 months

1
0
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HP 2116 restoration: Feasiblity and "what to look for" advice needed!

by colineby＠isallthat.com

Jules,? Excellent! That's really helpful. I've seen a crate of 21xx cabling and gubins as ?which?needs?investigated, and there's a whole room of HP goodies to sort, not to?mention a handful of later related systems. I have the tape drive back at the house for a clean and checkup. It looks pretty hopeful, but will need a few things. -Colin Eby Jules Richardson <jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote: Colin Eby wrote: > All, > > I've located two HP 2116 systems, a B and a C. Hi Colin, I'll save you a little bit of effort (at least on the 'B'), as here's my catalogue of the very same machines from four years ago :-) ?? http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2007-November/063044.html ... although I never did get chance to look into whether the 'B' system had any 'hidden' core. It was about a fortnight after posting that message that all my visa stuff went through and I hopped the Atlantic permanently to the US,? so I never did get the chance to do any more with either system. cheers Jules

14 years, 10 months

1
0
0 0

"Previous": a 68K NeXT Cube emulator

by lproven＠gmail.com

As a friend has just given me, gratis, a full copy of NeXTStep - 3.0, with upgrade CDs for 3.1 and 3.2 - I thought I would go looking for some way to run them, as I have yet to find a NeXT box that is both [a] complete and [b] which I can afford. It's not there yet, but this looks interesting and promising... http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=20126 -- Liam Proven ? Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508

14 years, 10 months

2
1
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HP 2116 restoration: Feasiblity and "what to look for" advice needed!

by colineby＠isallthat.com

All, I've located two HP 2116 systems, a B and a C. I've also got access to period Teletypes, 2748A paper tape reader requiring restoration, and the uncatalogued back stores of a museum. I'm strongly considering a restoring one working system from the two for museum demonstration and display. If you were me, or have had experience with these systems before, what would you keep in mind or look out for? Assume for the moment I have the time and skills myself or available from colleagues to carry out the work. All thoughts and contributions gratefully received. Some background and progress: * neither system has been in "conservation friendly" storage conditions. * the museum has fairly extensive HP collection, which makes missing component location more likely if required * the museum also has a range of HP instruments which might be used to create an interactive industrial control or scientific computing display My first steps so far: 1. Conduct background reading research using internet sites and scans. Thanks to all the following for making these resources available * Al and Bitsavers, * http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/HP21xx/HP2116.html (B Hilpert) * http://rikers.org (Tim Riker) * http://www.hpmuseum.net/ 2. Begin basic physical evaluation of the "C" system: a. Basic cleaning of the cabinet and vacuuming out of components -- so far excluding the card cages (ran out of time) b. Begin inventorying components and starting photographing them The verdict so far is that environmental damage appears limited to the front panel and some limited contact corrosion on the chassis and panels. There's mildew evident on the some cabling, but not really showing on what I've seen on the backplane wire-wrap so far so far. The cards are in a muddle though. This is what I've catalogued: ================================================= <Rack 1> 1 - 22 EMPTY <Rack 2> 101 A101 Front Panel Coupler 102 A102-105 Arithmetic Logic 103 A102-105 Arithmetic Logic 104 A102-105 Arithmetic Logic 105 A102-105 Arithmetic Logic 106 A106 TIMING GEN (clock) 107 A107 Instruction Decoder 108 EMPTY -- Missing A108 Shift logic (this could be in the loose boards) 109 EMPTY 110 EMPTY 111 EMPTY 112 EMPTY 113 EMPTY 114 EMPTY 115 EMPTY 116 EMPTY 117 EMPTY 118 EMPTY 119 EMPTY 120 EMPTY <Rack 3> 201 A201 I/O Control 202 EMPTY 203 EMPTY 204 EMPTY 205 ?? *not yet identified* 206 A13 MDB (this is supposed to be in slot 13?) 207 POWER FAIL (not sure what this is in relation related cards 208 POWER FAIL 209 POWER FAIL 210 POWER FAIL 211 ?? 212 A4,6,16,18 Inhibit Driver (should be in the 2116 B according to #1) 213 A4,6,16,18 Inhibit Driver (should be in the 2116 B according to #1) 214 A4,6,16,18 Inhibit Driver (should be in the 2116 B according to #1) 215 A4,6,16,18 Inhibit Driver (should be in the 2116 B according to #1) 216 MMD / XV Driver ( should be associated with a core board ) 217 SSA ( should be associated with a core board ) 218 A2 219 A8,9,14,15 Driver Switch (should be in the 2116 B according to #1) 220 MDB ( system should only have one of these ) 221 EMPTY 222 EMPTY <Loose> Looks like two or three core stacks and four cards: POWER FAIL ?? ?? ?? =================================================== Given that some of these cards look like they are from the wrong machine, all the memory slots are unpopulated (some are stuck in the IO rack), I'm guessing that the guts of this system have been mixed and matched with others, possibly the "B" model -- either that or just shuffled. I won't know until I've started to look at the "B" model for comparison, and of course, completed the cataloguing of this one. -- Colin

14 years, 10 months

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Information on the PPS-4/1 4 bit microprocessor wanted

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

> The PPS-4 was actually a bit more 'sophisticated' than I > first thought. One other thing that was unexpected was > that they are powered eg. 0 and negative 9V. I wonder why it's like that... The early 70's LSI was mostly PMOS. Simpler devices were often a good match to a 9V battery in handheld devices where that was the target. You wouldn't believe how much effort was put into putting LED drivers on the same chip where they could (often they couldn't and the LED driver was off the main logic chip.) More complex PMOS logic often had special supplies for clock and enable lines. You often find small switching converters (magnetics or charge pump) to generate the required voltages. A little later high-density NMOS also would use oddball voltages (both positive and negative depending on application) for density's sake. e.g. 8080A. Some good examples of how some handheld devices generated the necessary oddball voltages at http://www.jacques-laporte.org/HP35%20power%20unit.htm Tim.

14 years, 10 months

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Thinking of selling collection

by snhirsch＠gmail.com

All, I think the time has finally come to narrow down the scope of my collection for the sake of space, marital bliss and sanity. I need to shed a healthy assortment of Unix workstations, most in operational form. I have printed docs for some and DVDs full of software for all. Not looking to get wealthy, but I would like some modicum of reimbursement given the condition and completeness. I will not ship any of this - you must come to Burlington, VT and take it away (or arrange to have that done). Would love to have the entire collection go to one person (and will adjust fiduciary expectations accordingly). It will take some effort to pull together a detailed list, but here's a rough rundown to guage interest: IBM RS/6000 43p - Complete set of AIX 4.3 media - Has 100Base ethernet adapter installed HP Visualize B2000 - Complete set of HPUX 11i distribution media - Complete set C/C++ development tools SGI Iris Indigo R3000 - Basic machine - no 3d graphics SGI Iris Indigo R4400 - Every option known to Westerm Man, including 3d graphics (I have a couple of Iris Indigo keyboards and mice. These are not common items) SGI Indigo 2 (Teal) R4400 CPU SGI Indigo 2 (Purple) 768MB Memory, Uber hi-end graphics board, 100Base ethernet. I _think_ it's an R8000 (IP26). Sun Ultra 5 Sun Ultra 2 Sun Ultra 60 - Very tricked-out machine with 2x 450 Mhz. SPARC cpu and lotsa memory. Has U160 SCSI controller. (I have Sun keyboards and mice a-plenty) (I also have a gorgeous, early Sparc 2 with a box of S-Bus cards, but I'm planning to hang on to it) --> Lots and lots of Solaris distros on CD and DVD. 2x DEC Alpha Multia. I know one is operational. Slower than death warmed over, but very high "cute" factor. DEC Alpha PC64 w/ 256MB of memory in PC case. Operational system DEC Alpha PC164 motherboard (maybe 2..) DEC Alpha UP2000+ system w/ 2x 700Mhz. 2MB cache 21264 - This is a beast. Huge power supply, Adaptec 29360 controller, several disks. - Was my pride and joy until it went flakey. Might be good for parts or a demonstration of poorly-characterized electromigration on ageing VLSI parts. --> I have several complete sets of install media for Digital Unix 4.x through Tru64 5.something. License keys for everything. - I have 2GB of memory for it, but the machine won't POST with it installed. DEC 5000 MIPS-based workstation (bare system, but works last I knew) DEC VAXStation 3100 - Condition unknown - Have a box of VMS 5.x docs, Ultrix CD, Full set of VMS media. Also: Boxes full of spare boards and widgets for many of the above. Full 5-ft. Shelf of documentation on the Alphas I'm not exaggerating when I say this will fill a van :-) Please feel free to drop e-mail with additional questions and/or interest. I really would hate for this stuff to end up on a barge to China for gold reclamation... Steve --

14 years, 10 months

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S-100 8086 CPU board

by lynchaj＠yahoo.com

Hi! At long last the S-100 8086 CPU board is done and ready to go. I will make a manufacturing order for PCBs in the next few days or so. If you would like to be included please contact me at LYNCHAJ at YAHOO.COM to get on the list. http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/w/browse/#view=ViewFolder&param=S-100%208086%2… http://s100computers.com/My%20System%20Pages/8086%20Board/8086%20CPU%20Boar… These PCBs will be $20 each plus $3 shipping in the US or $6 elsewhere. John has CP/M-86 running on the S-100 8086 CPU board with a debug monitor and BIOS. Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch

14 years, 10 months

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No subject

by lynchaj＠yahoo.com

Hi! At long last the S-100 8086 CPU board is done and ready to go. I will make a manufacturing order for PCBs in the next few days or so. If you would like to be included please contact me at LYNCHAJ at YAHOO.COM to get on the list. http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/w/browse/#view=ViewFolder&param=S-100%208086%2… http://s100computers.com/My%20System%20Pages/8086%20Board/8086%20CPU%20Boar… These PCBs will be $20 each plus $3 shipping in the US or $6 elsewhere. John has CP/M-86 running on the S-100 8086 CPU board with a debug monitor and BIOS. Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch

14 years, 10 months

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cctalk and cctech List subscriptions

by ljw-cctech＠ljw.me.uk

Due to the large number of pending subscriptions to cctalk and cctech I am about to 'reject' all of them and request that anyone still waiting to subscribe please re-subscribe at which point they will be approved quickly. Please make sure you only request subscription to one of the lists. To re-iterate: cctalk is un-moderated, cctech is moderated cctalk is a superset of cctech Anything posted to cctalk appears immediately Anything posted to cctech is cross-posted to cctalk immediately Anything posted to cctalk OR cctech is (cross-)posted to cctech if the moderator (me!) feels it is on-topic - therefore they will always be a delay before postings appear on cctech There are some posts in cctech which are bypassing moderation - we hope to sort this out soon. -- Lawrence Wilkinson lawrence at ljw.me.uk The IBM 360/30 page http://www.ljw.me.uk/ibm360

14 years, 10 months

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hp calculators

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

I'm about to get something to replace my old TI85 I had from high school. Lots of you here rave about the HP's offerings. Indeed, I wanted to get, but couldn't afford an HP48g when they were new. I don't have much need for graphing now, but I do need scientific calculation. The HP35s seems good for that. Or should I just jump in and get the HP50g? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

14 years, 10 months

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Information on the PPS-4/1 4 bit microprocessor wanted

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

> I am also the proud owner of a Mattel Battelstar Galatica anno 1979 week 14. > > The chip used in this vintage handheld game is labeled B6001EA > and I guess it's a Rockwell International PPS-4/1 micro controller > (a PPS-4 cpu with clock, ram and rom) from sources I found on the net. Many of the Mattel games of that era were variants on Rockwell calculator chips. Not unrelated to 4-bit general purpose CPU's of the era, but the game chips were way closer to the calculator chips. Read the interview with the game's designer, Mark Lesser: http://www.digitpress.com/library/interviews/interview_mark_lesser.html Tim.

14 years, 10 months

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Retro Computing Roundtable podcast

by david＠classiccomputing.com

A new show is posted! A whopping two-parter at 55 minutes each, with Blake Patterson as our guest from bytecellar.com / toucharcade.com Retro Computing Roundtable podcast, show 17 Get it through iTunes or listen online @ http://bit.ly/pAJWKs or download it directly @ https://public.me.com/dgreelish Best, David Greelish President, Atlanta Historical Computing Society

14 years, 10 months

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help me get off this list

by rdawson16＠hotmail.com

anything would help... I cant read 20 Tony Duell emails a day

14 years, 10 months

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More HP Calculators

by ploopster＠gmail.com

I understand that the build quality of the 49G isn't up to the build quality of the 48SX. How does the build quality (I'm mostly interested in the build quality of the keyboard...) of the 48GX, 48GII, and 50G compare with the 48SX? How do they compare with that of the 49G? Peace... Sridhar

14 years, 10 months

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RIP Roger Tallon

by stephane.tsacas＠gmail.com

He was a French designer, and he invented the word "minitel", among other things. Read more on the wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Tallon -- Stephane http://en.freedonne.org join my Kiva or BOINC team!

14 years, 10 months

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Cctech or cctalk

by benjamin.soelberg＠gmail.com

Hi All I finally got aproved after waiting "for a while" :-) If i were to ask about the pps-4/1 would it be here or on cctalk ? Med venlig hilsen/Regards Benjamin S?lberg

14 years, 10 months

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Assembler for 21xx and hp1000 systems...

by lbickley＠bickleywest.com

I've been assembling from source code most of the HP diagnostics for the HP2100 and HP1000 systems. To do so, I used Eric Smith's original "asm21" - and found that a number of diagnostics didn't assemble correctly. I updated it - and subsequently Terry Newton joined the project and made more updates. Between us, over the course of several months, we've managed to debug asm21 to the place where we have not found any more errors in several additional months of use. asm21 runs under both *NIX and Windows environments as it is written entirely in Perl. Te get a copy, do an anonymous FTP to bickleywest.com and cd to the asm21 directory. Download (binary) asm21_107.zip If you're using Firefox, Chrome or Opera, simply use: ftp://bickleywest.com/asm21 to get to the directory, then right click on asm21_107.zip to download it. BTW: Terry created a great testing environment - scripts and software that allowed us to assemble source code and subsequently check asm21's binary output against HP's binaries which had been created under one of their OSs. Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley, AF6WS Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

14 years, 10 months

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Dennis Ritchie has died

by jonas＠otter.se

On Thu, 13 Oct 2011 20:59:46 +0100 (BST), ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > I am very sorry to hear that. > > I am sure he won't get the media hype that followed the passing of Steve > Jobs last week, but I am also sure that dmr had a much greater influence > on the sort of computing that I am interested in than Steve Jobs did. > > :-( Sad indeed. Seeing that OS X is in some sense Unix-based, I would say DMR won... /Jonas

14 years, 10 months

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hp calculators

by jonas＠otter.se

On Thu, 20 Oct 2011 20:18:06 +0100 (BST), ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: >> years ago). How hard is it to replace the batteries? > > Very easy. > > The battery pack clips into the bottom of the machine, you just slide > it > slightly forwards (towards the '0 key end' of the machine and lift > the > rear edge to get it out. > > The battery pack contains 2 AA-size NICd cells connected in series, > normally by a double-spring thingy (that;s a highly techncial term, > of > course). The housing is made in 2 parts which were glued together. > You > cna crack the glued joint, take it apart, and fit new cells. > > But actually, I don't recomend doing that. It's better to cut away > the > pack housing ad the front end, where the cells touch the contacts in > the > calculator. Then silde out the old cells and slide in the new ones -- > taking care of the polarity (since HP calculators were designed for > use > with their own battery packs only, which only fitted the right way > round, > there is no reverse-polarity protection. The cells will be held in > place > when the pack is clipped into the calculator, and you can remove the > cells easiy for charging in a normal charger, thus avoiding possible > damage to -C models. > There is a *much* easier way to do it, which doesn't mutilate the pack anywhere as badly. Cut through the strip of plastic which runs along the pack between the batteries at one end, using e.g. a pair of side cutters or a scalpel. The strip will now flex out of the way sufficiently for you to be able to prise the batteries out, one at a time. Then push the new batteries in the same way. This operation doesn't weaken the pack mechanically to any noticeable extent, it can be used just as before, and the batteries can be replaced any number of times. OTOH it is harder (not very) to get the cells out to charge them in a normal charger. Note that the contacts in the calculator are simply large rivets soldered in to circuit board fingers. That solution is a bit of a let-down IMO, as is using the battery as a load to reduce the voltage from the charger, simply limiting the current with a whopping big resistor. It could have been done a lot better, and not much more expensively. Everybody who had an HP-25 (just about everybody who didn't have a TI-57) when I was at University learnt to do this. /Jonas

14 years, 10 months

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Up for grabs (free)

by frebird2＠swbell.net

(2) MODEL 7600 rackmount cases, each populated with 8 Preston SCI floating differential amplifiers, model number 8300 XWB-B.? Can't tell you if any of the amplifiers are working or not, I do not know.? They appear to be in good condition. I also have (4) Mitsubishi 2019CEB40 CRT's.? Three of them look unused - they still have a blue plastic sheet covering the faceplate and have been stored in the original shipping crates.? All of the tubes are coated with a white phosphor. ? If you are interested, contact me offline and I can provide photos of the equipment or additional information.? Location is St. Louis.

14 years, 10 months

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cvhp.c - Oops

by lbickley＠bickleywest.com

In my last post I included a small C program to strip high order bits and "zero" characters from 21xx .tap files. Unfortunately, I posted an old version. Here's the correct version: cvhp.c ------ #include <stdio.h> main() { int c, d; while ((c = getchar()) != EOF) { if (d=(c & 0x7f)) putchar(d); } } ------ Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley, AF6WS Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

14 years, 10 months

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