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

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

I've scanned and OCRed the Radio Shack pt210 printing terminal users manual and service manual. If someone wants them right now, please email me. I'm waiting for Howard Harte to grab them from my super-secret website to put it in his archive of manuals. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu

18 years, 9 months

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*updating* 8088's

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: *updating* 8088's > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:38:01 -0800 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On 20 Nov 2007 at 16:27, Fred Cisin wrote: > >> Wasn't the PS/2 30 an 8086? (can't remember for sure) > >Initially. A later version used the 286. The model 25 was, as far >as I'm aware, always an 8086. The model25 was 8088 powered and I think a few others of that series. Allison >Cheers, >Chuck > >

18 years, 9 months

2
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Sun 3/4 updates

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

Al was right about the Sun 3/200 - it was the PROM - more specifically the complete absence of the PROM - that left the diag lights on all the time. That board's been shelved for a while. The 4300 is up though - it was the NVRAM (someone had put it in backwards at some point during the board's lifetime). Fortunately I had another 4300 board (suffering from the "all lights on" plague) that I grabbed the NVRAM from and it now works fine (but 200+MB of memory makes the diag boot excruciatingly slow).

18 years, 9 months

1
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*updating* 8088's

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: *updating* 8088's > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 16:27:41 -0800 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On 21 Nov 2007 at 18:11, Jim Leonard wrote: > >> Could you quantify "lame"? I used a 386sx-16 for years and it was >> always faster (visibly, not just via benchmarks) than the 12MHz 286 I >> had access to. > >My own experience was the opposite. I had a 16 MHz 386sx that was >visibly *slower* than a 12MHz 286 that I also had. It was very >cheap and eventually just quit working reliably all on its own. >Perhaps that was an artifact of early SMT. OTOH, I still have a >couple of 386DX systems that have worked flawlessly since the day I >bought them. One uses DIP for memory; the other uses SIPPs. I have a SIIG 3000 Is a 3x4x12" box with VGA, RS170 video, 2 serial, 1 printer port and one slot for modem or NIC. IT's 386sx1/6 and my only beef with it is it maxes out at 5mb (1mb installed and 4mb of simms). Runs good uses wall wart for power and makes a killer linux router/nat box with a 400mb drive and 3.5" floppy. Beside being a good router it's small, a good reason to keep it. Allison > >So, perhaps my own was a victim of bad design. I never was even >tempted to purchase another, so bad was my experience. It's short life and bad design may be an indicator. Allison > >Cheers, >Chuck

18 years, 9 months

1
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Teaching kids about computers...

by evan＠snarc.net

And don't forget Lego Mindstorms! Doesn't teach the hardware but it is much more fun than I ever had in LOGO back in the fourth or fifth grade ... I forget which. -----Original Message----- From: Michael Lee <mikelee at tdh.com> Subj: Re: Teaching kids about computers... Date: Wed Nov 21, 2007 11:17 am Size: 3K To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> This is actually one of the topics I'm most interested in. I gear my collection towards teaching and showing kids, as well as the nostalgic adults. Over the years, I've been surprised by some of the reactions, so I found it best to adapt to the interest level of the audience. For fundamental computing and electronics, it seems to be best to go back to the basics. A lot of the books available either go too much into the history of computing, or get into topics/details that quickly lose the interest of a kid. It seems to be best to relate something they are used to in modern day and work back to the origins. For example, a xbox, it's basically a computer, it has a CPU, hard drive, memory and then other "blocks" such as graphics processing, networking etc. Those are easy to relate back to "how it works." Basic I/O, what is actually on the game disk, how and what makes "online" work, and what the machine is doing in the background. This easily then can lead to small projects and some programming. From there it can be basic logic functions (AND/OR/NOT) and the simple concepts of programming and making things happen. Depending on the interest and geek level of the kid, there are many hobby books that explain this well. I don't know if "vintage" computers is the best way to start as I found a lot of kids (esp. 9yo) are turned off by "it's just old crap" But can easily lead into more of the origins. Something "new" is good to start. There are a good number of hobby kits like the BASIC STAMP now that can teach both the electronics and computing aspect, which then can lead into other things. A little simple micro-controller kit, with a little instruction on logic, electricity and electronics can go a long way. Making stuff, and making stuff happen is always a plus, so a soldering iron lesson with an interesting kit always works too. But once again, all depends on the interest level. Mike Lee Geek Museum A funny story with where things might lead: I got a rotary dial phone in my collection to use with an acoustic coupler. A four year old sees this, and has no problem with the phone, nor the rotary dial. He understood the concept it's just a different user interface, but what got him was that it was wired down. He had never seen a phone handset with a cord attached. So this lead to interesting show and tell about telephone technology to a four year old. Jules Richardson wrote: > > So the boy (9yr. old) was asking last night about how computers > work... any recommendations for good books for learning the basics > from? I think I started out with a Sinclair Spectrum and its BASIC > manual, but I really don't recall now where I found out about the > fundamental building blocks of [typical] computers and how a CPU > worked. There must be a good 'classic' "how computers work" type of > book which avoids going on about PCs and Xboxen... > > I figure I should find him one of those kids electronics projects kits > too (I think that was where I got my first exposure to logic gates > from at about the same age) and also some old 8-bit machine to play with. > > I can get a Spectrum / BBC micro shipped over in a few months, but > something US-built might be better; any thoughts? I did wonder about a > C64, but maybe it'd be better to start with something a bit more > simple? i.e. probably something Z80 or 6502-based (just because > there's more resources devoted to them), generic cassette data > storage, basic video abilities etc. > > (You know, I don't recall seeing a 'how to introduce kids to vintage > computing' thread on here before :-) > > cheers > > Jules >

18 years, 9 months

3
2
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"intelligent" disk drives

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 21:59:02 +0000 (GMT) From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Subject: Re: "intelligent" disk drives <snip> >As an aside, IMHO one of the worst mistakes commodore made was that the >8050 could not at least read the disks of the earlier drives. >-tony -------- Sort of unavoidable because to get the 500MB/side they went to 100TPI drives. Not as big a problem then as it may be today, because the high price of the 8050/8250s tended to put them into a different market, mostly business and institutional, where price and compatibility with the smaller and cheaper units wasn't usually an issue. And of course the IEEE bus was compatible so you could easily convert among drives (until the serial versions came along) as long as you had one of the (also expensive) IEEE<>IEEE cables. m

18 years, 9 months

14
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Keyboards (in general)

by tsw-cc＠johana.com

woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote: > der Mouse wrote: > > > I don't recall seeing a computer keyboard that *is* lowercase, ever. > > Modern keyboards are generally connected to systems that map alphabetic > > keystrokes to uppercase and lowercase depending on other state, and > > have keys ("Shift") designed to provide that state, but the keyboards > > themselves have only one case of alphabetic key, and in every case I > > can recall seeing, that case is upper. > > I stand corrected ... the only keyboard without a shift key I have seen > is a TTY's. > > > /~\ The ASCII der Mouse > > \ / Ribbon Campaign > > X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca > > / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B > > You are a bit mistaken. TTY's DID have shift keys. On the five level machines (28, 32, etc.) there was a LETR and FIGS shift. On later machines, like the 33 and 35, there was an actual key labeled 'SHIFT'. While it didn't make upper and lower case letters, it did take the alternate graphic on the keyboard. On the 33/35 machines, it used a "bit paired" sequence where the difference between the 'shift' and 'unshifted' code was 0x20. This led to some weird pairings like '+' and ';'. Some shifts were locked out (zero might have shifted to be space, and vice versa, but they were separate keys. Later model devices, Teletype 37 comes to mind, had both upper and lower case. Many early CRT terminals didn't have upper case letters either. The ADM-3 had lower case as an option. Some of the portable Silent 700's (I remember having one) didn't have lower case. Those that had lower case used 'miniature letters' not ture lower case. I'm sure there are other examples. Keypunches are another catagory. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better sports nut! Let your teams follow you with Yahoo Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/sports;_ylt=At9_qDKvtAbMuh1G1SQtBI7ntAcJ

18 years, 9 months

2
1
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*updating* 8088's

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: *updating* 8088's > From: woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> > Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:39:49 -0700 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Chuck Guzis wrote: > >> Well, there's clock speed and then there's "apparent clock speed". >> Let's see, a 16MHz 80386sx is equivalent to what, a 10MHz 80286? Actually it's teh other way around the 386 was more efficient than 286 for the same clock speed. >So what speed does the memory run at is my question and how wide? The SX narrows teh bus bandwidth so the memory is cycled either faster to make up for it or has fewer idle states (bus availability). that meant using 60ns 30pin simms. >Playing around with homebrew micro design I am working on, a 500 ns >memory cycle ( 2Mhz ) is about as fast as you can go with standard >parts about 150 ns access time. My limiting factor is not memory >speed but EEPROM and I/O chips dead slow speeds. Those speed limits are consistant with pre 1978 parts for ram and even in 1979 I had some semistatic rams that were 200ns. Eproms were always slow and didn't break the 250ns barrier until around 82 but the mask roms were quite a bit faster. I build with 6 and 10mhz z80s and 12mhz 8085s I have and theres little problem with finding static rams and Eprom (and EEprom) that can keep up. I say little problem as I can find plenty of parts that way too fast in non-DIP formats. If I need faster I can easily find CMOS static rams in the under 25ns range (486dx used 32kx8 and even 64kx8 15ns parts for cache) and larger EE/Flash/Eproms in the sub100ns range. Even back in 1982 I could get power hungry 2147(4Kx1) and 2167(16kx1) parts in the 45ns range. Drams even first out 4164s were under Tcy of 300ns. Old Eproms in the pre8K sizes (2716, 2732) were never fast but 27C256s that do 150ns are really old parts and 27C010s I have are 150ns for the slow parts. Zilog peripherals can be found still at 4mhz and the 8085/8088 (82xx) parts were good to 5mhz with later ones (82Cxx) good to 125ns. Allison >> Cheers, >> Chuck > >

18 years, 9 months

8
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Windoze reqs

by dm561＠torfree.net

Message: 16 Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 18:23:49 -0500 From: Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> Subject: Re: Windoze reqs To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <4744BE05.3090903 at gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Fred Cisin wrote: >>> There was Win3.0 (prolly same requirements) >> 3.00 would (and did) run on 8088. One of the font editors that I used >Not only that, it worked properly with a CGA. >Peace... Sridhar -------- And the much higher def monochrome graphics cards commonly installed in the clones (no colour of course). m

18 years, 9 months

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*updating* 8088's

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

We've all seen different varieties of 8088 to 80286 upgrades. A few at least plug into the 8088's socket. I saw a '286 to '486 upgrade (must have been similar in that respect) at a show a while back (didn't buy it). We also know about OverDrive products. What would happen if you pig-piled all these things in an old 8088 machines? What would happen? Cataclysmic explosion? Were there ever 8086 to 80286 upgrades for the few machines that used them? ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

18 years, 9 months

19
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VAXmate for Windows

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: VAXmate for Windows > From: Adrian Graham <witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk> > Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 12:51:54 +0000 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On 19/11/07 06:54, "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote: > >> At 9:23 PM -0800 11/18/07, David Griffith wrote: >>> I have seven 5.25" floppies labeled as RX33K which contain: >>> >>> VAXmate MS-Windows v1.03 (two disks) >>> VAXmate Info System v1.1 >>> VT240 Emulator Update >>> VAXmate S/A Install v1.1 >>> VAXmate MS-DOS v3.10 >>> >>> All of these are labeled "For VAXmate operating environment v1.1". >>> >>> I don't remember where it came from, but there's been some recent talk >>> about VAXen. Who wants these? >> >> I assume these will only run on a VAXmate? I've only seen one >> VAXmate and that was nearly 10 years ago. How good was the VT240 >> emulation? > >I never tried the full graphics side of things on the emulator, but as a >terminal it was great, a novelty in those days to have a black-on-amber >display too! > >We have 2 VAXmates at Bletchley Park so if those floppies could wing their >way across the pond that'd be great! I keep meaning to drag them out of >their storage room and set at least one up to exhibit, we're building an >Electronic Office exhibit that the VAXmate should be a part of really. If the VAXmates have the optional hard disk box mind the cooling if RD32 (ST250? 40mb) as it ran very hot and tended to fail. The RD31 (st225 20mb) was lower power, cooler and far more reliable. If you make it operational the VAXmate was a PCSA(Pathworks) terminal with Ethernet access to shared and private files on VAX/OpenVMS. The result made it a very useful system. Typical VAXmate had 2MB of ram some had 4, back then that was a large amount. Allison >-- >Adrian/Witchy >Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator >Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer >collection? >

18 years, 9 months

2
1
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Apology

by dm561＠torfree.net

I've been chastised off-list for forgetting to change the subject header on a few recent posts from its digest default; for anyone else whom I've inconvenienced, my apologies and I'll be more careful in future. mike

18 years, 9 months

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Teaching kids about computers...

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

Perhaps not right now, but the biggest "leap forward" I had from books was looking at the 8080/Z80 microcomputer design and operation books (such as Ciarcia's "How to Build Your Own Z-80 Computer" and "Microcomputers and Microprocessors" (8080, 8085 and Z-80) from the hardware standpoint. Probably not a good book until Junior High or High School, though. When I was learning S/W, I remember starting with Logo in 4th grade and using Brainpower ChipWits at home. the ChipWits manual had a small section on programming theory, perhaps I can find it. That's a good game if you have an older Macintosh around (I had issues on machines with over 1MB of RAM - it was written for the 128K, 512K and XL per the disk. Some other people don't seem to have the issues, perhaps there was a revision). In middle school we moved on to BASIC (because it was in the ROMs of Apples). Perhaps not the ideal progression, but nowadays students in the elementary schools don't seem to be learning programming at all- it's more "how you use application software on the computer". In the early '90s Macworld had a 3-part article on how computers work that wasn't too in depth. If you want I can find it and scan it., but it's probably not too much more in depth than David Macaulay's "The Way Things Work" in the new edition. (actually it is)

18 years, 9 months

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Documentation for the AT&T Sceptre Videotex terminal

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 17:43:31 -0700 From: woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> Subject: Re: Documentation for the AT&T Sceptre Videotex terminal Richard wrote: > Ack! Yes, the keyboard looks painful. I don't think they envisioned > that people would actually type on this thing, more like hunt & peck. That has to be the 2nd worst keyboard I have seen. The 1st is any keyboard with 'windows' keys. Considering Videotex was ment as information setup it was more like press 1 to display ... 9 to return to menu type stuff. Ben alias woodelf --------------- You're not really a big PC & Windows fan, are ya? The 'windows' key's never bothered me; how does it disturb you? m

18 years, 9 months

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Falco Terminal

by dm561＠torfree.net

Speaking of keyboards etc.: Anybody have a use for a Falco VT5220e, as used by many DECcies whose budgets couldn't afford a 'real' VT200? Looks just like the picture of the Infinity (amber CRT) at: http://williambader.com/museum/vax/vaxhistory.html Might also have one of the older TS-100SPs somewhere (VT100). And a L-S ADM-11... Unfortunately, although I have boxes of Falco docs the 5220 manual seems to have gone missing from the pile (at least I haven't found it yet), although I do have docs for the ADM-11, and the TS-100 if I can find it. m

18 years, 9 months

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Documentation for the AT&T Sceptre Videotex terminal

by jeffj＠panix.com

Re: Documentation for the AT&T Sceptre Videotex terminal (Richard) > http://steinbeck.ucs.indiana.edu/~mmeiss/sceptre/ Wow, those photos bring back memories! I was just thinking about those: a friend had one and google didn't help me. ebay lists Sceptre flat monitors (totally unrelated but a source for confusion). I have something similar: I think it's Zenith. A thick keyboard with the terminal inside the keyboard, it attaches to tv-as-monitor, phone line (internal modem). My Olivetti PR2300 spark-jet printer has line-drawing characters that I don't recognize. Was that intended for teletext/videotext? Yes, I bought it from the DAK catalog after reading the glowing ad how it was a wonderful printer for the low low price. Nowhere did it mention it was a ONE PIN DOT MATRIX PRINTER! It made the dots by creating sparks (ozone!) that fused the powder to form ONE DOT on the paper. Somewhere I have some floppy disks with teletext/videotext software so one could use a PC instead of a dedicated terminal. I remember the computer show around 1990 when several companies /truly believed that Videotex would be the future in the USA/ so they were trying to get customers and data-suppliers/stores online. Also being tried at that time: phones with built-in teeny terminals for folks who didn't want the cost or responsibility of a PC. Geez, those were re-invented how many times: as the CIDCO email only terminal, thin clients, Network appliances (I-opener), ...

18 years, 9 months

1
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Fwd: My Relay Computer

by grant＠stockly.com

>Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:44:43 -0800 >From: Harry Porter <harry at cs.pdx.edu> >Subject: My Relay Computer >X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.912) >X-Greylist: Sender succeeded SMTP AUTH authentication, > not delayed by milter-greylist-2.0.2 (ehlo.cat.pdx.edu [131.252.208.106]); > Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:45:33 -0800 (PST) >X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.91.1/4853/Mon Nov 19 19:05:00 2007 on >ehlo.cat.pdx.edu >X-Virus-Status: Clean >X-pstn-levels: (S:77.05695/99.90000 R:95.9108 P:95.9108 M:97.0282 C:98.6951 ) >X-pstn-settings: 3 (1.0000:1.0000) s gt3 gt2 gt1 r p m c >X-pstn-addresses: from <harry at cs.pdx.edu> [34/2] >Original-recipient: rfc822;grant at cmosxray.com > >As you may recall, I built a computer out of relays. > >My records indicate that, at one time, we exchanged email about this computer. > >I wanted to let you know that I have recently added to the webpage >for the computer. > >First, I added a thorough document describing the design in detail: > ><http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~harry/Relay/RelayPaper.pdf>http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~harry/Relay/RelayPaper.pdf >http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~harry/Relay/RelayPaper.htm > >Second, I produced an educational video, which can be accessed >through this page: > ><http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~harry/Relay/VideoTutorial/index.html>http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~harry/Relay/VideoTutorial/index.html > >The main page, with all the photos of the machine, is still at: > ><http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~harry/Relay/VideoTutorial/index.html>http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~harry/Relay/index.html > >Be well, > >Harry Porter > >HarryAndMachine.jpg > > >RegCloseUp.jpg >

18 years, 9 months

1
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Keyboard layouts

by dm561＠torfree.net

------------Original Message: Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 12:00:19 -0700 From: woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> Subject: Re: Documentation for the AT&T Sceptre Videotex terminal Richard wrote: >> Well, yes, obviously the location is the issue, but it is still just another >> tedious MS-bash; I've got an APL keyboard here, and I think every >> "classic" terminal or computer keyboard I have here is different in >> some "improved" way but I don't hear complaints about that, or all the >> different PC layouts, especially the enter, backspace and \ keys. > > Exactly. I did ... see windows keyboards. But then I am cheap, I don't spend money on a real keyboard. Not that I have seen a modern keyboard I did like. -------------Reply: Different keyboard layouts have been a fact of life since the very first one that wasn't the same as a typewriter; deal with it. Find yourself an old one that you *do* like (if such a thing exists) and spare us your bitching and moaning. Back to our regular programming... m

18 years, 9 months

1
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keyboard layouts

by dm561＠torfree.net

----------Original Message: Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 09:57:37 -0800 (PST) From: Cameron Kaiser <spectre at floodgap.com> Subject: keyboard layouts was Re: Documentation for the AT&T Sceptre Videotex terminal > Don't you also have trouble switching from a C64 to a Mac? Yup. Fortunately most of the emulators let you either use 64 or Mac layouts and map the keys appropriately. ---------Reply: There ya go. Like most of the bitching about MS, Windows, keyboards, etc. here and elsewhere, if you don't like it just shut up and use something else; lots of alternatives like Linux & KBs w/o WIN keys out there and we've heard it all K times. (Meant for the OP, not you Cameron). m

18 years, 9 months

3
3
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"intelligent" disk drives

by dkelvey＠hotmail.com

> From: tshoppa at wmata.com > Chuck wrote: >>Micropolis floppy drives were very well-made. I wish that modern >>drives could be as well-built. All of mine are still operational. > > I think that like CDC/Imprimis, Seagate, Shugart, etc., Micropolis > built drives to different price points for different markets. > > The ones built for the mini and mainframe market in the late > 80's/very early 90's are true tanks and stand up very solidly > here 15 or 20 years later. > > But by the mid-late-90's when capacity was the craze I think that > some industrial-duty Micropolis drives were a little too bleeding > edge. > > The MFM ones built for PC-clones, however, seem to simply be "above > average", which is pretty good but not stellar. > > In the late 90's, we were using Micropolis drives in our HaL computers. Many wouldn't even finish our 24 Hour burn-in. When they were making choices as to which drive to use, I was surprised when I was told that they'd go with the Micropolis drive. By that time, they'd already earned a bad name. I was told that the decision was made, based on that fact that they would give us any engineering support we needed. I saw this as a red flag but the upper people didn't. I couldn't understand why we would need any support for something as mature as hard drives of the time. I suspect that bad marketing decisions were made at Micropolis, like the ones that were made at HaL. Engineering didn't have there act to gether before the products were in production. I've seen it happen at otherplaces. Schedule is king and at some point the engineers will just stand and nod their heads ( as they get their resumes ready ). Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Share life as it happens with the new Windows Live.Download today it's FREE! http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_Wave2_sharelife_112007

18 years, 9 months

7
11
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Teaching kids about computers...

by James＠jdfogg.com

> So the boy (9yr. old) was asking last night about how > computers work... any recommendations for good books for > learning the basics from? I think I started out with a > Sinclair Spectrum and its BASIC manual, but I really don't > recall now where I found out about the fundamental building > blocks of [typical] computers and how a CPU worked. There > must be a good 'classic' "how computers work" type of book > which avoids going on about PCs and Xboxen... One weekend my parents wanted to get away from the kids so I went to work with my older brother. I was in a lab at P.R. Mallory Corp. with a supply of chips and a few books. Worked for me. At 12 I built an 8080a based something or another (I wouldn't call it a computer, but it had a bit of memory, a numeric keypad and 6 A/N LEDs for display). After that I had accounts on about 6 minis of the DEC and DG variety. Are you sure the kid is interested in computers or just trying to keep up with the alphageeks at school?

18 years, 9 months

1
0
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Access to IOPAGE Registers using PDP-11 Opearting Systems

by dave＠mitton.com

>Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 21:17:18 -0500 >From: "Jerome H. Fine" <jhfinedp3k at compsys.to> ... >I doubt that RSX-11 or RSTS/E allow a user access to the IOPAGE >even via PREVIOUS DATA space. Can anyone confirm this assumption? >Is there any fast method (only a few extra instructions) that would allow >a user to reference a specific IOPAGE register from a user program? Are >VIRTUAL arrays allowed in FORTRAN under RSX-11? If so, how >is access to the MMU registers controlled and allowed? > ... >Sincerely yours, >Jerome Fine >-- Ouch, you're straining dead neurons.... As the KMC-11 Development Tools developer for RSX-11M and VMS, I know it's possible. I just don't remember the all the hoops we jumped through to do it. (this was circa 1978/79) The basic approach required us to map the IO registers and peek and poke values in the registers to control execution. Of course this was all written in MACRO-11, not un-manly FORTRAN. ;^) You probably had to be an RSX admin user ( UID below [10,*] ) to run the tools (loader and debugger). On VMS I had to learn the very new facility (I don't think it was in V1.0) of Page Frame Mapping and allocate a page map to get to UNIBUS IO space. This required a specific privilege too. I ported the tools code from Macro-11 to VAX Macro by doing semi- mechanical find/replace on the opcodes, and other tweaks. I even created a few macros to mimic the missing PDP-11 instructions, like SWAB. It needed very little needed rewriting to get working. Dave.

18 years, 9 months

2
1
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Teaching kids about computers...

by evan＠snarc.net

There is a good book called "The Chip" by T.R. Reid. Mostly it's the story of Noyce and Kilby (which is well-told and worth reading on its own), but there's a chapter for laypeople about how a chip actually adds two numbers together. Way too simple for cctalk'ers, but great for a 9-year-old. -----Original Message----- From: Scott Quinn <compoobah at valleyimplants.com> Subj: Re: Teaching kids about computers... Date: Wed Nov 21, 2007 11:09 am Size: 1K To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Perhaps not right now, but the biggest "leap forward" I had from books was looking at the 8080/Z80 microcomputer design and operation books (such as Ciarcia's "How to Build Your Own Z-80 Computer" and "Microcomputers and Microprocessors" (8080, 8085 and Z-80) from the hardware standpoint. Probably not a good book until Junior High or High School, though. When I was learning S/W, I remember starting with Logo in 4th grade and using Brainpower ChipWits at home. the ChipWits manual had a small section on programming theory, perhaps I can find it. That's a good game if you have an older Macintosh around (I had issues on machines with over 1MB of RAM - it was written for the 128K, 512K and XL per the disk. Some other people don't seem to have the issues, perhaps there was a revision). In middle school we moved on to BASIC (because it was in the ROMs of Apples). Perhaps not the ideal progression, but nowadays students in the elementary schools don't seem to be learning programming at all- it's more "how you use application software on the computer". In the early '90s Macworld had a 3-part article on how computers work that wasn't too in depth. If you want I can find it and scan it., but it's probably not too much more in depth than David Macaulay's "The Way Things Work" in the new edition. (actually it is)

18 years, 9 months

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Access to IOPAGE Registers using PDP-11 Opearting Systems

by jhfinedp3k＠compsys.to

When I run under Ersatz-11, John Wilson allows INSTALL EMEM.DLL (this was under V3.1 of E11 and hopefully soon with EMEM32.DLL under V5.1 of E11) to access many MegaBytes of PC memory via an IOPAGE register. For example: BaseReg = 177100 BaseRe2 = BaseReg+2 BaseRe4 = BaseReg+4 BaseRe6 = BaseReg+6 Mov @#BaseReg,R0 ;Get the current value from PC memory Mov R0,@#BaseReg ;Put the current value into PC memory BaseRe4 / BaseRe6 are used as a 32 bit address into the PC memory allocated during the INSTALL process. Under RT-11, direct access to the IOPAGE (address above 160000) is allowed even using VBGEXE by a reference to PREVIOUS DATA space. I have written FORTRAN IV/77 interface subroutines to allow a user to easily access that memory rather than use VIRTUAL arrays which are much slower and have much less capacity. I doubt that RSX-11 or RSTS/E allow a user access to the IOPAGE even via PREVIOUS DATA space. Can anyone confirm this assumption? Is there any fast method (only a few extra instructions) that would allow a user to reference a specific IOPAGE register from a user program? Are VIRTUAL arrays allowed in FORTRAN under RSX-11? If so, how is access to the MMU registers controlled and allowed? Johnny has helped with such RSX-11 questions in the past and the answers were appreciated very much! Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine -- If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the 'at' with the four digits of the current year.

18 years, 9 months

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TTL input Trinitron monitor

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

I've found the Torch XXX hardware docs, which cover that little Trinitron monitor I mentioend It's quite small, probably a 12" CRT. Inside are the following PCBs : FA (PSU), with a control daughterboard. This gives 120V DC from the mains (SMPSU), all other voltages come from the flyback transformer DA (Scan) with a convergence daughterboard. CRT base (icnludes video output stages) BA (Video) H (rear panel controls) Input socket (not Sony, this is a Torch PCB) The input socket PCB connects to the video PCB by a 10 wire jumper. 4 of the wires are grounds, the 6 siganls are R, G, B, Y(== I on a CGA interface), HSynch and Vsync. The Torch socket PCB doesn't connect to the Y signal at all, but then Torch machines had analgue RGB outputs and the BBC micro had 3-bit TTL video, so this would be no problem for the intented applications. Tehre's a 3 position slide swtich on the back to select the input mode. The possiblities are analogue RGB, 3-bit TTL RGB (8 colours) and 4-bit TTL RBGI (CGA compatile, it does get the brown colour right). It's strictly TV-rates only (not EGA or VGA), but it does work with both US and European rates. -tony

18 years, 9 months

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VAXmate for Windows

by jba＠sdf.lonestar.org

> VAXmate was a 286 clone, I forget if it was 100% pc or off by a little > from the PC AT. I used to have a VAXmate when it was actually in production, but it was just our home computer. It was 100% AT compatible, and ran just about everything fine DEC did skimp, however, on the graphics. It did not fully implement CGA. I beleive it would only display 8 monochrome shades, while CGA implemented a full 16 shades. While it was compatible with all CGA software, the display sometimes left something to be desired. The ridiculous form factor left something to be desired as well. I've never liked all-in-one designs. And the VAXmate's plastics and construction could best be described as "cheap." I think the idiotic door hiding the disk drive broke off after about a month of use. jba at sdf.lonestar.org SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org

18 years, 9 months

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*updating* 8088's

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: *updating* 8088's > From: Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> > Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 19:35:14 -0600 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Chris M wrote: >> --- Alexis <thrashbarg at kaput.homeunix.org> wrote: >> >>> You might run into an issue of minimum clock speed >>> too. I don't know what >>> the minimum for the 386/486 is. I know RISC >>> microcontrollers can go down to >>> DC, but the 8386/486 might not. Correct they are dynamic internally. The minimum clock is far slower than most would tolerate (under 1mhz). >> Presumably the boards these things come with have >> their own crystals. I would not expect a '486 upgrade >> for a '286 to run at 8mhz or anything comparable (but >> Tony could tell us). > >They did indeed. Which brings us to why these were stopgaps at best: >The processing may have been faster, but the memory/bus interface was >the same, so you were not truly getting the overall performance of the >real machine (that's why the advertised benchmarks were careful to >demonstrate how much faster the upgraded machine was compared to how it >was before, and NOT to a "real" 386). Some resorted to PLL chips top multiply the existing clock to something fast. Allison >-- >Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ >Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ >Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ >A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/

18 years, 9 months

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*updating* 8088's

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: *updating* 8088's > From: "Ensor" <classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk> > Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 00:49:26 +0000 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Hi, > > >....but the 8088/86 was available as high as 20mhz IIRC, > >or possibly even a bit higher.... > >Hmm, I don't ever recall seeing an XT running at anything like that sort of >speed. The higest teh 8088 got in PC or clone was 12mhz. The faster parts appeared later and for the embedded cpu market. >Most "Turbo XT" motherboards which I saw topped out at 10MHz, though I have >a vague recollection of hearing about a manufacturer which produced a 14MHz >(or possibly even 16MHz) board and then had to quickly withdraw it due to >MAJOR instability problems. the biggest problem with XT and fast was teh ISA-8 bus was 8Mhz max and many older cards would get unhappy at another over that. So you set the bios for lots of waits slowing the system. >If you wanted anything faster you generally had to go to a '286 or better. more or less th case. Allison > > TTFN - Pete.

18 years, 9 months

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*updating* 8088's

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: *updating* 8088's > From: Chris M <chrism3667 at yahoo.com> > Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:41:39 -0800 (PST) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >"I ran a Leading Edge model D (PC XT clone) with an >Intel Inboard-386. >It gave me 2MB ram and a 16mhz CPU (beats 4.77!) and a >bottleneck of >the 8bit ISA. However it ran winders3.1 and was a >whole lot faster >than the 4.77mhz V20. At the time it was far cheaper >than a real 386 >and much better than the 8088." > > 3.1 needed at least a 386, no? Actualy no. However it was so crippled in that mode it was near useless. It was really 386 minimum. There was Win3.0 >(prolly same requirements) and Windows/286. This >wouldn't get you the ability to run any of the above, >but the 8088/86 was available as high as 20mhz IIRC, >or possibly even a bit higher. I don't know what the >'186 capped off at (40mhz at least). > I thought you didn't like throwaway PCs Allison. What >did you finally do with that box? Let me guess, you >threw it away LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL As a matter of fact I kept the Inboard and tossed the D. Allison > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ >Get easy, one-click access to your favorites. >Make Yahoo! your homepage. >http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

18 years, 9 months

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Documentation for the AT&T Sceptre Videotex terminal

by chaosotter76＠gmail.com

I've just gotten my hands on a working AT&T Sceptre system, which is a 1983 Videotex terminal that implements the NAPLPS standard for vector graphics transmission (the same sort of graphics that was used by the Prodigy online service, if you remember that). It powers up fine and generates the welcome screen, which includes a "Press [Data] to login" message. Once you press [Data], the screen blanks, and I presume that it's trying to establish some sort of connection over the RS-232 port. I've just started poking at the thing and haven't gotten far, as I need to grab a null modem from elsewhere, but I thought there might be a chance that somebody out there has the documentation for one of these things. Through searching about, I'm fairly certain that it's hardwired to speak 1200/7E1 on the serial port, but what it's expecting to hear is the question. Just a stream of NAPLPS-encoded data? Or is there more negotiation to be done? I have at least found an online source for the NAPLPS encoding itself: http://netghost.narod.ru/gff/vendspec/naplps/naplps.txt

18 years, 9 months

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Access to IOPAGE Registers using PDP-11 Opearting Systems

by bqt＠softjar.se

"Jerome H. Fine" <jhfinedp3k at compsys.to> skrev: > When I run under Ersatz-11, John Wilson allows > INSTALL EMEM.DLL > (this was under V3.1 of E11 and hopefully soon with EMEM32.DLL > under V5.1 of E11) to access many MegaBytes of PC memory via an > IOPAGE register. > > For example: > > BaseReg = 177100 > BaseRe2 = BaseReg+2 > BaseRe4 = BaseReg+4 > BaseRe6 = BaseReg+6 > Mov @#BaseReg,R0 ;Get the current value from PC memory > Mov R0,@#BaseReg ;Put the current value into PC memory > > BaseRe4 / BaseRe6 are used as a 32 bit address into the PC memory allocated > during the INSTALL process. > > Under RT-11, direct access to the IOPAGE (address above 160000) is > allowed even using VBGEXE by a reference to PREVIOUS DATA > space. I have written FORTRAN IV/77 interface subroutines to allow > a user to easily access that memory rather than use VIRTUAL arrays > which are much slower and have much less capacity. > > I doubt that RSX-11 or RSTS/E allow a user access to the IOPAGE > even via PREVIOUS DATA space. Can anyone confirm this assumption? > Is there any fast method (only a few extra instructions) that would allow > a user to reference a specific IOPAGE register from a user program? Are > VIRTUAL arrays allowed in FORTRAN under RSX-11? If so, how > is access to the MMU registers controlled and allowed? > > Johnny has helped with such RSX-11 questions in the past and the answers > were appreciated very much! You assume correctly, in that normal, unprivileged programs cannot normally access the I/O page on a mapped RSX system. There are some different answers to how to do this in RSX. I'll try to keep it short. First of all, we have unmapped and mapped RSX systems. Unmapped systems don't use the MMU, so obviously you can access the I/O page on those systems. When we get to mapped systems, it gets trickier. First of all, privileged programs normally do have access to the I/O page. It's mapped in at APR 7 in D-space, unless you explicitly don't want it (that's something you specify when you do the task build (linking in RT-11)). Second, RSX manages memory in the form of partitions. Programs can map in memory regions which are located in partitions, as long as they have the right access privileges (they are protected by a normal protection mask, just as files). The system manager can create a special partition, which maps onto the I/O page, and then user programs can map in that region anywhere in their programs, and thus have access to the I/O page that way, if they want to. Virtual arrays in FORTRAN is mapped to a file unless I remember wrong, which means they don't have anything to do with the MMU. However, in RSX you can manipulate and remap your address space from a program if you want to. There are services in RSX to do that in a controlled way. You attach to a memory region, and then you map whatever part of that region to whatever part of your virtual address space you want to. But as I said before, in order to get access to the I/O page in this case, the system manager must have created a region which is located in the I/O page, and which users are allowed access to. With all this said and done, the "normal" way in RSX is to have a privileged program. After all, fooling around in the I/O page is likely something that "normal" programs shouldn't do, and for which privileges are a sensible way of distinguishing if a program may. I can't really say for sure about RSTS/E, but I think it's atleast somewhat similar to RSX. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

18 years, 9 months

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cctalk Digest, Vol 51, Issue 62

by dm561＠torfree.net

-------------Original Message(s): Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 17:05:46 -0800 From: "Eric J Korpela" <korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu> Subject: Re: *updating* 8088's On Nov 20, 2007 5:34 AM, Cameron Kaiser <spectre at floodgap.com> wrote: > > > On the other hand, the 386SX could execute 32-bit code. That is, if > > > you had any to run in 1989. > > > > There was plenty of 32-bit code being written in 1989... just not for MS-DOS. > > What about games, DOS/4GW, ... ? I got my 386DX in 89. Very few, if any, MS-DOS games relied on 32bit extenders at that point. It cut out too much of the market that still had 16bit processors. It would have been nice not to push so hard to have 635k low memory free in order to run the latest game. The most used feature of the 386 was V86 mode, and it was mostly used to free up memory for 16bit MS-DOS programs. Eric ---------------Reply: And then there were the MMUs that gave your PC/XT/AT almost the entire 1MB for DOS, and up to 10MB or so of extended memory for running Unix, PC-MOS386 and the like on your XT (if you really wanted to)... m m

18 years, 9 months

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VAXmate for Windows

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

I have seven 5.25" floppies labeled as RX33K which contain: VAXmate MS-Windows v1.03 (two disks) VAXmate Info System v1.1 VT240 Emulator Update VAXmate S/A Install v1.1 VAXmate MS-DOS v3.10 All of these are labeled "For VAXmate operating environment v1.1". I don't remember where it came from, but there's been some recent talk about VAXen. Who wants these? -- 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?

18 years, 9 months

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Micropolis

by blstuart＠bellsouth.net

From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> > > > > > 3) What happens if you copy a -2G file to an otherwise almost full disk? > > On Tue, 20 Nov 2007, Brian L. Stuart wrote: > > It gets you another 2 gig of space, of course. This is the > > ... > > But, what is the resistor color code for negative ohms? > (Octarine?) A pigment that reflects only infrared? BLS

18 years, 9 months

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Micropolis

by blstuart＠bellsouth.net

> > 3) What happens if you copy a -2G file to an otherwise almost full disk? > > Beats me. It gets you another 2 gig of space, of course. This is the little secret of drive manufacturers. For the chip guys, it's the magic smoke. For the drive guys, they have the fabulous increases in capacity by copying files of negative size. They just want us to think it's a lot of hard work devising new ways of packing magnetic domains tighter. (Just in case the tounge-in-cheek nature fails to get throught: :-) BLS

18 years, 9 months

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Museum in St. Louis?

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

"Appropriate Resources" in St. Louis may potentially be available to start a public Museum of Computation History.... there are discussions going on with people who could easily make it happen in any case, but it's far too early to say anything definite. One of the things I was asked as part of a what-if scenario - Could I anticipate that some collectors on this list would be willing to loan items on an extended term for such an effort? Only top notch museum quality pieces would be sought. We'd pay 100% of the costs to have it crated, shipped, insured, etc. and also full return costs. The length of the loan might be open-ended at your preference. Surely some of you have really nice items that you don't have room for and wouldn't mind it being stored elsewhere for a while so that the public can enjoy it. If anyone has such things, could you let me know off-list? I need to find out if enough artifacts are available, how much floor space may be needed, etc. Thanks! Jay West

18 years, 9 months

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Fwd: [comp.sys.dec] four VT100 terminals free

by legalize＠xmission.com

This message has been forwarded from Usenet. To reply to the original author, use the email address from the forwarded message. Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 18:22:32 -0600 Groups: comp.sys.dec,comp.sys.dec.micro,alt.sys.pdp11,comp.os.vms From: "Lee K. Gleason" <lee.gleason at comcast.net> Subject: four VT100 terminals free Id: <ZvGdnUBzY_35td_anZ2dnUVZ_hWdnZ2d at comcast.com> ======== I'm narrowing the scope of my collection (translation - no room for everything anymore). I have four VT100s, in pretty good shape, and a few additional extra keyboards as well. Free to whoever wants to pick 'em up in Houston Texas, near TC Jester & the North Loop. First come, first served.... -- Lee K. Gleason N5ZMR Control-G Consultants lee.gleason at comcast.net

18 years, 9 months

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*updating* 8088's

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: *updating* 8088's > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 00:47:51 -0800 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On 19 Nov 2007 at 23:03, Allison wrote: > >> Actually it's teh other way around the 386 was more efficient than >> 286 for the same clock speed. > >In 16-bit mode, I seem to recall that the 386SX was a travesty of a >CPU; a 16 MHz SX ran nowhere near as fast as a comparably-clocked >286. Early 386 boxes were nothing to crow about in 16-bit mode--and >a 32-bit software base pretty much didn't exist early on--and the >386SX was limited to 16MB of external memory, just like the 286. Overall it was faster if the ISA bus was 16bits. problem was at that time the code had a lot of 8088 and 286isms in it so there was often no advantage other tha internally the 386 was bit faster. In practice and I have a SIIG 3000 box (386sx) with 5mb to test on the 386 was faster but going from 12 to 16 mhz is not a large increment. >Doubtless the 386SX board designs were low-budged also, which >probably figured into things. Some 286 vendors made a big thing of >the fact that a 286 could execute 16-bit real mode code substantially >faster than the 386SX. For example: Indeed. to save money in that still expensive ram there were a lot of wait states inserted to accomodate 85ns simms. That tended to sharply nullify any internal advantage. >http://www.intersil.com/data/an/an121.pdf > >On the other hand, the 386SX could execute 32-bit code. That is, if >you had any to run in 1989. ; there in lies the point. CPUs as we well know generally run ahead as Moore predicts with software lagging behind. However, in 1989 the 386 as a huge leap ahead and sometimes over the 286 that not every one had. I did that. I went from 8088/4.77mhz XT to INboard386/16 and from there to 486DX/33. However... I didn't "buy in" to the PC world until after the WWW as CP/M z80, PDP-11 and VAX wer faster, easier or on hand where the PC offered limited or no advantage. Allison >Cheers, >Chuck >

18 years, 9 months

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What CBM Monitor is this?

by silent700＠gmail.com

I though I knew most of the CBM models, but I don't recognize this one: http://www.shopgoodwill.com/viewItem.asp?ItemID=3167507 I wrote to the seller and he gave me a part# from the back which returns nothing in Google.

18 years, 9 months

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cctalk Digest, Vol 51, Issue 59

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 14:44:19 -0600 From: "Jason T" <silent700 at gmail.com> Subject: What CBM Monitor is this? I though I knew most of the CBM models, but I don't recognize this one: http://www.shopgoodwill.com/viewItem.asp?ItemID=3167507 I wrote to the seller and he gave me a part# from the back which returns nothing in Google. ------------- Looks like my 1702 except for the colour... Isn't there a number on the front? m

18 years, 9 months

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cctalk Digest, Vol 51, Issue 59

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:58:13 -0800 (PST) From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> Subject: Micropolis (was: "intelligent" disk drives >Micropolis made excellent floppy drives. It is too bad that their hard >drives sucked. I guess I've just got some bad ones then; speed's all over the place on one (belt's OK) and another one stopped altogether; when they were still working a couple of months ago, read errors were pretty common, even with cleaned heads, lubed helix screw, refreshed disks, etc. >Did anybody ever use their OS? (bundled with some of their 5.25" floppy >drives) MDOS? I've got a copy for my Vectors; boots, but I haven't gotten it to do anything; could be that the diskette doesn't have anything on it of course... Anybody know anything about this OS? Anything special that I need to do to get it to accept commands? One that I know about is DIAG, but that doesn't work either; just "Invalid command"s. m

18 years, 9 months

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*updating* 8088's

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: *updating* 8088's > From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> > Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 18:31:39 -0800 (PST) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On Tue, 20 Nov 2007, Alexis wrote: >> I'd like to see an 80286 to 80486 upgrade card. It would need to somehow >> multiplex the 32-bit bus onto the 16-bit bus, perhaps running the >> multiplexing process at double the CPU clock speed. The SX wasn't 16-bit was >> it? Or am I thinking of the 386SX. If it's 16-bit it wouldn't need >> multiplexing. > >Depending on how you DEFINE "16 bit", the 80386SX is a 16 bit version of >the 32 bit 80386[DX]. It therefore is "relatively" easy to retrofit it to >replace a 80286. The 386SX was 32bit core with 16bit databus (modified BIU). While it was cheaper to build systems around and smaller too the performance cost was high compared to the DX. >The 80486SX and 80486DX are the same bit sizes. Their differences involve >whether or not the math FPU is included. > >I ran an 80386 board in a 5150 (8088) machine. There didn't seem to be >much point to it. > I ran a Leading Edge model D (PC XT clone) with an Intel Inboard-386. It gave me 2MB ram and a 16mhz CPU (beats 4.77!) and a bottleneck of the 8bit ISA. However it ran winders3.1 and was a whole lot faster than the 4.77mhz V20. At the time it was far cheaper than a real 386 and much better than the 8088. Allison

18 years, 9 months

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IBM PC boards offered

by wpileggi＠juno.com

Anyone interested in the following boards? If so, please email ME and make arrangements for shipping or pickup. Bill/KA3AIS Hard Card - hard disk mounted on 8 bit ISA card with controller. BSM Karddisk 20 (presumably 20 Mb.). AST RAMpage AT=Pak. "Turns your 2MB expanded memory board into a full featured multifunction product". Looks like daughter-card with manual in generic AST box. INTEL Aboveboard/PC boxed. 256kb. >> 2Mb. CGA card with composite connector RCA phono jack. 8 bit ISA. Columbia Data products. Everex Color/Monochrome card. Dual 9 pin connectors + composite RCA phono connector - switch selected. 8 bit ISA. Compaq PLUS Luggable computer...Built-in 9 inch monitor, 5.25 inch floppy, HDD. Very Dirty. _____________________________________________________________ Click now for low cost, approved defensive driving courses! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2111/fc/Ioyw6iieYCwbKw0PVYD4ROXPC8VNfhT…

18 years, 9 months

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"intelligent" disk drives

by dm561＠torfree.net

---------Original Message: Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 21:21:22 -0800 (PST) From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> Subject: Re: "intelligent" disk drives > >As an aside, IMHO one of the worst mistakes commodore made was that the > >8050 could not at least read the disks of the earlier drives. On Sat, 17 Nov 2007, M H Stein wrote: > Sort of unavoidable because to get the 500MB/side they went to 100TPI drives. Well, 96tpi drives would give pretty much the same capacity as 100tpi ones, with only "half" as many incompatabilities. 'course, if they HAD gotten 500MB/side (v 400-500KB), then it would have been well worth it. -- Fred Cisin cisin at xenosoft.com ---------Reply: Someone actually reads my drivel? Another dent in my forehead ;-) My fingers are typing 500K and the brain, such as it is, is thinking 1/2MB... Yeah, tell me about 100TPI; a couple of us with Vector Graphics are cursing the day Micropolis came up with those; to top it off, they used hard sector diskettes (Vector - the 8050 didn't care) so the disks are almost as scarce as the drives... m

18 years, 9 months

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Micropolis (was: "intelligent" disk drives

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Micropolis (was: "intelligent" disk drives > From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> > Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:58:13 -0800 (PST) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Micropolis made excellent floppy drives. It is too bad that their hard >drives sucked. > > >Did anybody ever use their OS? (bundled with some of their 5.25" floppy >drives) > It was called MDOS. Never got a chance to. Allison

18 years, 9 months

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"intelligent" disk drives

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

Chuck wrote: >Micropolis floppy drives were very well-made. I wish that modern >drives could be as well-built. All of mine are still operational. I think that like CDC/Imprimis, Seagate, Shugart, etc., Micropolis built drives to different price points for different markets. The ones built for the mini and mainframe market in the late 80's/very early 90's are true tanks and stand up very solidly here 15 or 20 years later. But by the mid-late-90's when capacity was the craze I think that some industrial-duty Micropolis drives were a little too bleeding edge. The MFM ones built for PC-clones, however, seem to simply be "above average", which is pretty good but not stellar. Tim.

18 years, 9 months

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what the heck is it

by rescue＠hawkmountain.net

I 'rescued' a unique piece of computer equipment... Here is the data: Raytheon RDS-201E (on badge on front/top) P/N G246101-3010 (from badge on rear) Model VT302 (from badge on rear) This has 2 5.25" full height floppy drives (like the original IBM PC) likely Tandon mechs ? Has a 'built in' (more like 'built on') screen. Has switches for 10 pitch/12 pitch 1/1.5/2 spacing and another I forget (they are on the monitor piece). I don't have a floppy. Ports on the back look like possibly a printer port and the other likes similar like a short printer end centronics interface. So... internet searches have turned up nada.... So.... what the heck is it ? Is it a computer ? Is it some sort of terminal ? I have no media for it... so if it is a computer, I'm doubtful I'll turn up anything for it. Same goes for the keyboard. It is a unique looking enclosure though... very very retro Help me identify what this is, and what I should do with it (if a computer and I can get media, will probably at least play with it, then if no interest find a new owner for it... if some sort of wacked out terminal... if there is no interest, I'm going to yank the drives and anything else useful and scrap it, or if feasable... maybe use it as a 'case mod' for a PC (I usually loath this... but got to admit, this would make a highly unique PC :-) ). -- Curt

18 years, 9 months

11
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Apple Lisa Handbook

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

This cat Michael Posner compiled a book called, "The Apple Lisa Handbook". He's an attorney by day and a geek by night. The introduction is amusing: "In the beginning there was this: 'c:\', and it was hard. But there was an answer, and it came from.....Xerox, yes Xerox. And one day Steve Jobs came to Xerox and said, 'This is great'. So Steve went back to Apple and said, let there be Lisa (allegedly his young daughter out of wedlock). And Apple labored for three years and then (without Steve, who was now raising a pirate flag over at the Macintosh Group) there was Lisa. And Lisa was cool, like no other computer ever made, before or since. But Apple lost heart and Lisa was discontinued. This hurt many people (especially those with vision and a wallet $10,000 lighter). But Lisa lives for those dedicated users. This book is dedicated to them." It's a compilation of articles and announcements from various sources including notes from Apple and magazine reviews. It has a History of Lisa section in chapter one, and includes repair and maintenance tips (towards the middle). It also has an interesting note about Lisa 1 upgrades to the Lisa 2, info I've never seen before: "Upgrades from Lisa 1.0 *To Lisa 2/5, free until June 1, 1984, $595 thereafter *To Lisa 2/10, $2495 until June 1, 1984, $2795 thereafter" The Lisa was announced in January of 1983, so this gives us a small datapoint as to when the upgrades occured (or didn't). Here's an interesting bit: "Sun Remarketing specializes in selling discontinued Apple hardware. It is the only major provider of systems and support for the installed base of 77,000 Lisas." So there were 77,000 Lisas out in the wild according to this. If correct then it was not a very rare machine by any stretch of the imagination (I literally got like 8 in one haul one time, which was distributed between several people) but they are certainly less common these days, now that all the collector's have bought them up. I wonder how many Lisa 1's sold? And then how many were upgraded to Lisa 2's? I wonder if that data still exists at Apple? I like the sell Apple in the product discontinuation letter on page 3. One section has some comments from a CompuServe forum. This one is interesting: "Sb: #121368-#Apple Drops Lisa? 05-Nov-84 18:21:55 I got my INFOWORLD last week and indeed there was a random rumor (not Dvorak) indicating that they heard from a reliable source inside Apple that Apple will drop the Lisa line in '85. Since I got my Lisa in August this year I've been very happy, but now I'm worried. I bought an IMSAI a few months before they dropped their S-100 machine, and she's still working. But it is annoying! Any info would be greatly appreciated." Ah, the good old days, when a juxtaposition between an Apple Lisa and an IMSAI 8080 was normal. Here's a really interesting tidbit: "Infocorp's Gilman estimates that the easy to use computer that inspired Lisa's development--the two year old Xerox 'Star'--has had total sales of only 2,400 units so far. But the Star has only some of Lisa's features and initially costs customers $50,000, or five times as much as Lisa, he points out. Nevertheless, 'because Apple is changing its product and its customer base with Lisa, I would expect it to get of to a slow start,' predicts E. David Crockett, a computer industry analyst at Dataquest, Inc." Wow, I didn't know the Xerox 8010 cost $50K when new. 2,400 units sold by 1983. I would say there are not that many 8010's out there based on this. They are more scarce than I thought. Read Larry Tesler's post-mortem on page 51. Really net. Anyway, an interesting read. Worth spending a few minutes going through it. BTW, check out the author's other interests: http://www.mjposner.com/ He seems to be a pretty interesting guy. -- 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 ]

18 years, 9 months

3
2
0 0

Remembering the IBM PC | The Register

by woyciesjes＠sbcglobal.net

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/17/tob_ibm_personal_computer/

18 years, 9 months

2
1
0 0

VAXmate for Windows

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: VAXmate for Windows > From: "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com> > Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2007 22:54:12 -0800 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >At 9:23 PM -0800 11/18/07, David Griffith wrote: >>I have seven 5.25" floppies labeled as RX33K which contain: >> >>VAXmate MS-Windows v1.03 (two disks) >>VAXmate Info System v1.1 >>VT240 Emulator Update >>VAXmate S/A Install v1.1 >>VAXmate MS-DOS v3.10 >> >>All of these are labeled "For VAXmate operating environment v1.1". >> >>I don't remember where it came from, but there's been some recent talk >>about VAXen. Who wants these? > >I assume these will only run on a VAXmate? I've only seen one >VAXmate and that was nearly 10 years ago. How good was the VT240 >emulation? VAXmate was a 286 clone, I forget if it was 100% pc or off by a little >from the PC AT. VT240 em was decent, I forget if there were any differnces. Allison > >Zane > > >-- >| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | >| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | >| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | >+----------------------------------+----------------------------+ >| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | >| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | >| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

18 years, 9 months

1
0
0 0

UNSUBSCRIBE CLASSICCMP sachaturgeon@hotmail.com

by sachaturgeon＠hotmail.com

From: postmaster at mail.hotmail.comTo: sachaturgeon at hotmail.comDate: Sun, 18 Nov 2007 23:38:30 -0800Subject: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification. Delivery to the following recipients failed. bcw at u.washington.edu --Pi?ce jointe du message transmise--From: sachaturgeon at hotmail.comTo: bcw at u.washington.eduSubject: UNSUBSCRIBE CLASSICCMP sachaturgeon at hotmail.comDate: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 07:37:45 +0000 From: postmaster at mail.hotmail.comTo: sachaturgeon at hotmail.comDate: Sun, 18 Nov 2007 23:34:57 -0800Subject: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification. Delivery to the following recipients failed. bill at booster.u.washington.edu --Pi?ce jointe du message transmise--From: sachaturgeon at hotmail.comTo: bill at booster.u.washington.eduSubject: UNSUBSCRIBE CLASSICCMP sachaturgeon at hotmail.comDate: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 07:34:56 +0000 From: postmaster at mail.hotmail.comTo: sachaturgeon at hotmail.comDate: Sun, 18 Nov 2007 23:33:10 -0800Subject: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification. Delivery to the following recipients failed. classiccmp at u.washington.edu --Pi?ce jointe du message transmise--From: sachaturgeon at hotmail.comTo: classiccmp at u.washington.eduSubject: UNSUBSCRIBE CLASSICCMP sachaturgeon at hotmail.comDate: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 07:33:02 +0000 From: postmaster at mail.hotmail.comTo: sachaturgeon at hotmail.comDate: Sun, 18 Nov 2007 23:29:49 -0800Subject: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification. Delivery to the following recipients failed. listproc at u.washington.edu --Pi?ce jointe du message transmise--From: sachaturgeon at hotmail.comTo: listproc at u.washington.eduSubject: UNSUBSCRIBE CLASSICCMP sachaturgeon at hotmail.comDate: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 07:29:48 +0000 UNSUBSCRIBE CLASSICCMP sachaturgeon at hotmail.comRemoves you from the list. Envoie un sourire, fais rire, amuse-toi! Employez-le maintenant! Envoie un sourire, fais rire, amuse-toi! Employez-le maintenant! Envoie un sourire, fais rire, amuse-toi! Employez-le maintenant! Envoie un sourire, fais rire, amuse-toi! Employez-le maintenant! _________________________________________________________________ Envoie un sourire, fais rire, amuse-toi! Employez-le maintenant! http://www.emoticonesgratuites.ca/?icid=EMFRCA120

18 years, 9 months

2
1
0 0

UNSUBSCRIBE CLASSICCMP sachaturgeon@hotmail.com

by sachaturgeon＠hotmail.com

From: postmaster at mail.hotmail.comTo: sachaturgeon at hotmail.comDate: Sun, 18 Nov 2007 23:38:30 -0800Subject: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification. Delivery to the following recipients failed. bcw at u.washington.edu --Pi?ce jointe du message transmise--From: sachaturgeon at hotmail.comTo: bcw at u.washington.eduSubject: UNSUBSCRIBE CLASSICCMP sachaturgeon at hotmail.comDate: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 07:37:45 +0000 From: postmaster at mail.hotmail.comTo: sachaturgeon at hotmail.comDate: Sun, 18 Nov 2007 23:34:57 -0800Subject: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification. Delivery to the following recipients failed. bill at booster.u.washington.edu --Pi?ce jointe du message transmise--From: sachaturgeon at hotmail.comTo: bill at booster.u.washington.eduSubject: UNSUBSCRIBE CLASSICCMP sachaturgeon at hotmail.comDate: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 07:34:56 +0000 From: postmaster at mail.hotmail.comTo: sachaturgeon at hotmail.comDate: Sun, 18 Nov 2007 23:33:10 -0800Subject: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification. Delivery to the following recipients failed. classiccmp at u.washington.edu --Pi?ce jointe du message transmise--From: sachaturgeon at hotmail.comTo: classiccmp at u.washington.eduSubject: UNSUBSCRIBE CLASSICCMP sachaturgeon at hotmail.comDate: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 07:33:02 +0000 From: postmaster at mail.hotmail.comTo: sachaturgeon at hotmail.comDate: Sun, 18 Nov 2007 23:29:49 -0800Subject: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification. Delivery to the following recipients failed. listproc at u.washington.edu --Pi?ce jointe du message transmise--From: sachaturgeon at hotmail.comTo: listproc at u.washington.eduSubject: UNSUBSCRIBE CLASSICCMP sachaturgeon at hotmail.comDate: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 07:29:48 +0000 UNSUBSCRIBE CLASSICCMP sachaturgeon at hotmail.comRemoves you from the list. Envoie un sourire, fais rire, amuse-toi! Employez-le maintenant! Envoie un sourire, fais rire, amuse-toi! Employez-le maintenant! Envoie un sourire, fais rire, amuse-toi! Employez-le maintenant! Envoie un sourire, fais rire, amuse-toi! Employez-le maintenant! _________________________________________________________________ Envoie un sourire, fais rire, amuse-toi! Employez-le maintenant! http://www.emoticonesgratuites.ca/?icid=EMFRCA120

18 years, 9 months

1
0
0 0

Compaq PLUS luggable computer offered

by wpileggi＠juno.com

Anyone interested in this unit? Please email ME and make arrangements for pickup or shipping. Bill/KA3AIS Compaq PLUS Luggable computer...Built-in 9 inch monitor, 5.25 inch floppy, HDD. Very Dirty. _____________________________________________________________ Click to learn about options trading and how to make more money from the pros. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2111/fc/Ioyw6iifU9d9smPnJ04sgcu5i2BolMF…

18 years, 9 months

1
0
0 0

"intelligent" disk drives

by classiccmp＠memory-alpha.org.uk

Hi, >....I think he was joking, of course, given the >horrendous bottlenecks in its software and its bus >protocol. To be fair, the only thing wrong with the CBM serial bus was the speed it ran at....or rather the lack of it.... TTFN - Pete.

18 years, 9 months

3
2
0 0

"intelligent" disk drives

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2007 15:24:28 -0800 From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> Subject: Re: "intelligent" disk drives <snip> >Micropolis floppy drives were very well-made. I wish that modern >drives could be as well-built. All of mine are still operational. <snip> >Cheers, >Chuck ----------- Ummm... well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion... I congratulate (and envy) you! ;-) m

18 years, 9 months

1
0
0 0

Variations on Commodore monitors

by classiccmp＠memory-alpha.org.uk

Hi, > Maybe looking at the main PCB will reveal something. The typical >Philips monitor this is likely to be based on -- the CM8883 and >related models.... As I recall, there were either 3 or 4 models based on the same design/PCB. They differed in whether they were stereo or mono, what video inputs they supported (TTL and/or analogue RGB and composite) and the tube "resolution" (dot pitch). I still use an 8833 to this day as my TV.... TTFN - Pete.

18 years, 9 months

1
0
0 0

TTL RGB ==> PC

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

Eventually I'll be shipping various 8-bit machines to the US, and was thinking of using a PC with a TV card as a display (most of the machines have UK PAL RF outputs, and I could add modulators to the ones that don't). However: - All TV card software I've seen has been utter crap, when it even works at all. - Typically there seems to be no scaling of the picture to fill the PC screen. - There's an obvious quality drop in the RF stages. - I'm warned that the digital tuners in TV cards often have problems locking on to the weaker signal produced by home micros. So... how about hooking straight to the TTL RGB outputs of the vintage machines and somehow sampling lines of data into the PC for display in a window (with appropriate scaling in software as/when necessary so that the image more or less fills the PC display)? Surely someone's homebrewed something like this already? I presume the speeds at which things need to work can be pretty high - but in theory it's just an RGB framegrabber but without all the analogue-type circuitry needed to decode a picture? I'm planning on shipping a few TTL RGB displays to the US, but maintaining them is going to be more difficult than maintaining the machines (and I imagine there are all sorts of pitfalls in taking a US-designed TTL RGB display and trying to use it with a UK-designed micro, as the frequencies involved won't be quite the same) thoughts welcome... Jules

18 years, 9 months

16
52
0 0

Multibus prototyping card (going soon on eBay)

by wmaddox＠pacbell.net

Augat pin-board show up with some regularity on eBay, but this one is particularly interesting because it looks to be Multibus form-factor. As of this moment, a gold scrapper is the high bidder. One of you multibus fans must certainly want it. It needs to have some wiring stripped, but it looks to be in good shape. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320181330426 MILITARY AUGAT WIRE WRAP PCB - GOLD SCRAP 1.125 LBS - (eBay item 320181330426 end time Nov-18-07 08:15:18 PST)

18 years, 9 months

1
0
0 0

Early U.S. Robotics modems

by swtpc6800＠comcast.net

I have updated my web page on the first U.S. Robotics modems. http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/USR/USR_Modem.htm A 300 baud acoustic coupler USR-310 was only $139. The USR-330 with originate and auto answer was $324. (February 1978 prices.) I recall that someone on this list worked there in the early days. Michael Holley

18 years, 9 months

2
1
0 0

S-100 Memory Card Design Input

by grant＠stockly.com

I posted a few minutes ago on usenet in comp.os.cpm about a big fancy S-100 memory card. If anyone in here would like to add to the feature list or suggest a change, now is the time to do it. We should probably keep the discussion in one place, and its already at comp.os.cpm, so maybe reply there? Here is the text: THIS is your chance to get in any requirements. The board will have quite a few QFP and fine surface mount parts. Hardware modifications at a later date may be hard. : ) I am designing the board around MITS S-100 specifications. I do not have any other S-100 machines or experience with them. If your IMSAI or whatever has additional I/O, then please tell me if its I/O, I, O, the pin, and what it does. For example, I really have no idea how PHANTOM works. I'm not really interested in digging up the details on how these things work since the have no meaning to an Altair. The I/O question is a biggie. Timing is not an issue since that can be worked out at a later date in the CPLD. If there is an Altair signal that is only an input and you want/need it to be I/O, I would also need to know that now. The board will have a landing for 128kbyte ($2.80) or 512kbyte ($5.10) SRAM. It will also have a landing for 512k of FLASH ($4.62). The price difference between 64kx8 and 512kx8 is $2, so it hardly makes sense to choose 64kx8... Bank swapping can/will be worked out later in the CPLD code. This board MAY have a landing for a bunch of other optional functions, but for those of you who don't care about those options, you don't need to install them. For example, two 6850 type serial ports, 4x SD cards to emulate Altair disk drive systems, mp3 decoder and ethernet ; ). Another point to discuss is if its worth having an 8MByte 8 pin soic (very small, like pinkey finger nail sized) FLASH chip tied directly to the CPLD. This would allow the 8080/Z80 to access the serial flash without AVR interference. The 4 SD cards for Altair disk emulation are not available directly to the 8080. Is it also worth having a 5th SD card also directly connected to the CPLD? How many of the 8MByte data flash chips should there be? The poor things are $2.70 a piece and we could have 4-8 and hardly notice. All of the chips will be tied together with a Xylinx MAX II CPLD, and buffered to the S-100 bus with 8T97 or equivalent ICs. As you can see I am very flexible. My goal is to create a "SuperAltair" card with a lot of universal appeal. Sort of "add the chips you want and nothing more" card. Should I throw in the functionality of the GIDE while I'm at it? Let me know what you want and I'll see if I can fit it in. The entire card will be open source, except for the ROM monitor which is IP to a fellow enthusiast. I will sell the PCBs for around $35. The CPLD is $10, SRAM/FLASH as priced above, add a few $ for heat sinks and voltage regulators and you could be started for under $60. I will be soldering the crazy surface mount parts for those who are not brave enough. ; ) Grant

18 years, 9 months

1
0
0 0

Timex-Sinclair 1000 with chicklet keyboard

by billdeg＠degnanco.com

>Message: 8 >Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2007 18:48:14 -0800 (PST) >From: Sellam Ismail <sellam at vintagetech.com> >Subject: Timex-Sinclair 1000 with chiclet keyboard >To: Classic Computers Mailing List <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > > >I found the oddest thing over at my friend James' ACCRC (Alameda County >Computer Resource Center) operation. > >Walking through his office I spotted a Timex-Sinclair 1000. But this was >no ordinary TS1000. Instead of a membrane keyboard (i.e. the flat, >plastic piece of shit) it had a chiclet keyboard (i.e. the rubberized, >raised key type). I have never seen this before. > >It seems to be an aftermarket add-on. It has an adhesive on the bottom >perimeter that sticks over the original membrane keyboard. On the bottom >of each key are circular pads that press against the membrane key when the >chiclet key is depressed. It's pretty damn cool. > >Has anyone else ever seen one of these before? > >-- > >Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival Suntronics had a kit for a keyboard and chassis cover that fit over the original unit: http://vintagecomputer.net/sinclair/suntronics_sinclair1000_kit.jpg In addition to Suntronics Co. here is a list of other manufacturers that I know of who made add on keyboards, but some of these you also had to buy an upgraded motherboard kit: Kayde Dk'Tronics Haven Hardware Memotech Microcomputers Plus, Inc The Full Spectrum Synergistic Design Fuller Gladstone E-Z Key Research Applications Prod. -Bill Degnan

18 years, 9 months

2
1
0 0

Commodore PET first shipemnt in mid October 1977.

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:32:47 -0800 From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> Subject: Re: Commodore PET first shipemnt in mid October 1977. <snip> >I've still got a National Semiconductor LCD watch, but the guts are >rotted out from perspiration leaking into the case. On the other >hand, the Seiko self-winder I purchased the year before still works >just fine. <snip> You do mean L*C*D, right? Too bad, I've still got some National L*E*D watch modules somewhere. >I sometimes wonder if we'll have any operating 30-year old cell >phones? >Cheers, >Chuck Last time I looked, people were still buying & selling analog phones, so I suspect that in some parts of the world analog may be around for a while yet; wanna buy a dozen or so, cheap? Have I got a deal for you... I've got an old Motorola mobile phone that sits in the trunk, nice Contempra (?) handset with a number display; does that count? m

18 years, 9 months

2
1
0 0

TTL RGB ==> PC

by melamy＠earthlink.net

Princeton Graphics did a true brown in their cga and ega monitors... at least the ones I owned. >We've been here before. The IBM color display as well as the EGA >version contains a PROM to correct the "dark yellow" color to brown. >It was duplicated on few, if any third-party units.

18 years, 9 months

2
1
0 0

Handling an documentation archive.

by quapla＠xs4all.nl

Hello all, This may be somewhat off topic, but it certainly is a serious request. A little history first. About a year ago, I got a call from a company close where I live and asked me if I was interested in some old DEC documentation. I collected about an office cupboard full of usefull and less usefull material. Since July this year I work for them, and they now know me and what my hobby is (PDP-11's). I just got a call from the head of the repair dept (they repair a lot of weird things, including old DEC stuff). Basically he told me that management is considering to get rid of most of the older technical documentation archive. I have seen this archive, and it is about 100 meters of documentation, not only DEC stuff, but also some Sun Microsystems, HP and Dell material. Some of the manuals are available in several revisions, some not. All in all about 40 office cupboards in total....... One of the options is just to get rid of it, but another option is more favoured, which is to find a company or someone willing to scan it in. There is a budget, and one very likely possibility is to make the scanned material available for everyone except maybe those documents which are still considered valuable by the respective owner of this docu. So, now I'm looking for leads to individuals or organisation who have the capacity to scan this amount of material in and convert it into PDF formatted documents. If you have any lead or info, please contact me off-list. Thanks, Ed

18 years, 9 months

5
5
0 0

Timex-Sinclair 1000 with chiclet keyboard

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

I found the oddest thing over at my friend James' ACCRC (Alameda County Computer Resource Center) operation. Walking through his office I spotted a Timex-Sinclair 1000. But this was no ordinary TS1000. Instead of a membrane keyboard (i.e. the flat, plastic piece of shit) it had a chiclet keyboard (i.e. the rubberized, raised key type). I have never seen this before. It seems to be an aftermarket add-on. It has an adhesive on the bottom perimeter that sticks over the original membrane keyboard. On the bottom of each key are circular pads that press against the membrane key when the chiclet key is depressed. It's pretty damn cool. Has anyone else ever seen one of these before? -- 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 ]

18 years, 9 months

5
4
0 0

more OT sorry: anyone own a Stylistic 1000?

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

e-mail me thanks ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

18 years, 9 months

1
0
0 0

"Barn" finds - Victor 9000, Rex Microcomputer and Intersil DevelopmentSystem

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: "Barn" finds - Victor 9000, Rex Microcomputer and Intersil DevelopmentSystem > From: JP Hindin <jplist2007 at kiwigeek.com> > Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2007 10:03:04 -0600 (CST) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Snippage>>>>> > >The next is a 'Rex Microcomputer System', model REX-1032, "Manufactured by >Realistic Controls Corporation of Davenport, Iowa". I'm guessing this is a >kit computer that's been put together by this local company, but "Rex >Micrcomputer" gets me nothing via google and breaking it down gives me >screeds of irrelevancies. The machine has a Z80 microprocessor, although >it might have another (ala Rainbow) and I just haven't dug far enough. REX was late like 1979 to early 80s not later than 1985 time frame. They were not seen around my travels and I wondered if they were really vaporware. It's a Z80 CP/M crate. More like Robin not Rainbow. >The last is quite a beasty, weighing plenty thanks to its significantly >hefty linear power supply. Intersil Development System, ISB 80DS 3020-120. >Got six apparently serial ports on the back with what I think is a console >cable hanging out one side. What I like best is the socket mounted in the >front plate for reading/writing 24 pin DIP chips. Two 8" drives with >diskettes in them, God only knows if they're still good after sitting out >for this long. Likely a 6100 (PDP-8 in cmos) powered deveopment system though they sold 1802, 80c85 and 80C88 too. With some TLC they sould still run if rust or corrosion are not evident. Allison

18 years, 9 months

6
9
0 0

dying DSHD 3.5" floppies

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

Whilst going through my box to separate the wheat from the chaff in the 3.5" DSHD diskette department I remembered a tip from ages ago, and durned if it didn't work. Shake the diskette and put it back in the drive. Sounds silly, but it does work sometimes.

18 years, 9 months

1
0
0 0

Variations on Commodore monitors

by chaosotter76＠gmail.com

As part of the process of getting a second C128 system set up and running, I recently ordered another Commodore 1084 monitor from an eBay seller. The one I have is nice and bright and lets me switch quickly between the composite (40-column) and RGBI (80-column) outputs of the 128, so I was happy to stumble across another one for a reasonable price. It arrived last night, and it's a great little monitor, in even better shape than the one I already had. To my surprise, though, it's also completely different. The case is different, the form factor and positioning of the controls are different -- and, most relevantly, even the connectors are different. My older one (made in 1989) has a DB-9 input for RGBI input. The new arrival (made in 1988, if I recall correctly) has an 8-pin DIN input for RGBI input. Thankfully, I already had a DB-9 to DIN-8 cable in the Big Box of CBM Scraps, so I didn't have to order any cable-making parts from Mouser, but it does bring up a question: how many potentially problematic variations on the same model number did Commodore make? I know that they did a lot of this sort of thing, given the ever-changing appearance of the C2N and 1541, but is there a quick and easy question I can ask a seller to find out exactly what ports to expect on the back of a 1084 (or similar monitor)? "DB-9" and "8-pin DIN" are already way too difficult to explain to somebody just trying to clean out their attack, but if there's a guide out there with a breakdown by manufacturing date or serial number for some of this Commodore equipment, that would be lovely...

18 years, 9 months

5
8
0 0

Speaking of multiple processors...

by dm561＠torfree.net

---------Original Messages: Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2007 08:57:12 -0500 From: Allison <ajp166 at bellatlantic.net> Subject: Re: Speaking of multiple processors... > From: M H Stein <dm561 at torfree.net> > Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 11:29:05 -0500 >Cromemco also had Z80s on their I/O processor boards, and when the later 680x0 >CPU boards dropped the Z80 you could still run your Z80 programs on the I/O card. > >mike This is not uncommon. H89 had two, one for the terminal and the other was the processor for the computer. My NS*Horizon had two when I added the Teletek HDC(hard disk) as that has a local z80. When I added a smart FDC of my own design and later smart printer spooler and other IO with local cpu the nuber fo cpus grew. The Compupro system can easily have three, ZPB, Their mux board and any of the hard disk controllers. I have one that has 68000, 8085 and Z80 (maincpu, mux and Disk3). It's something that isn't unusual as it would seem. Allison ----------Reply: Well, I didn't say or imply that dual-CPUs like Cromemco's DPU and XPU or intelligent I/O co-processors like their IOP and Octart were uncommon; in fact I was just adding Cromemco to the list under discussion which ranged >from CDC big iron down to C-64s, and both C-64s and Cromemcos could easily have 4 or 5 CPUs talking to each other one way or another. But now that you mention it, I did think what Cromemco did when their XXU 68010/20 CPU board finally dropped the Z80 _was_ a little unusual; although the Z80 was gone from the processor board, your Z-80 CDOS or CP/M application could still use the Z80 on the existing I/O board when it wasn't handling I/O traffic. Did anyone else run *application* programs like a word processor or spreadsheet (as opposed to applications like the C-64's disk utilities) on an I/O co-processor board? And that's not quite the same either as e.g. an Apple or the SuperPet, which effectively just used the main system as console and memory for an *added* co-processor. Admittedly, at some point the distinctions do get a little blurred. m

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cctalk Digest, Vol 51, Issue 53

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2007 22:38:20 -0000 From: "Jim Attfield" <james at attfield.co.uk> Subject: Re: Speaking of multiple processors... <snip> >Absolutey. I have a couple of IOP cards here complete with Z-80, Z80-SIO and >firmware - very nice cards. <snip> >Jim -------- And 16K of RAM; also, that firmware is actually a monitor program which you can access from either side (you can use a terminal on the 'output' side or use the IOPEX program to turn the main computer into a "terminal" talking to the monitor over the S100 bus), and play around in the IOP's memory etc.) Essentially a small SBC in its own right. m

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NorthStar disks

by dm561＠torfree.net

20 HS North Star disks in binder on eBay, item # 140179267172 (nothing to do with me)

18 years, 9 months

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BBC coverage: Colossus vs. Modern hardware

by cclist＠sydex.com

Here's an interesting little segment I just heard on the Beeb about the Colossus reconstruction at Bletchley Park: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7094881.stm Cheers, Chuck

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Speaking of multiple processors...

by james＠attfield.co.uk

> Message: 24 > Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2007 08:57:12 -0500 > From: Allison <ajp166 at bellatlantic.net> > Subject: Re: Speaking of multiple processors... > To: cctech at classiccmp.org > Message-ID: <0JRL00BZ4QQMNPW2 at vms042.mailsrvcs.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 > > >Cromemco also had Z80s on their I/O processor boards, and when > the later 680x0 > >CPU boards dropped the Z80 you could still run your Z80 programs > on the I/O card. > > > >mike > > This is not uncommon. > > H89 had two, one for the terminal and the other was the processor for > the computer. > > My NS*Horizon had two when I added the Teletek HDC(hard disk) as that > has a local z80. When I added a smart FDC of my own design and later > smart printer spooler and other IO with local cpu the nuber fo cpus grew. > > The Compupro system can easily have three, ZPB, Their mux board and > any of the hard disk controllers. I have one that has 68000, 8085 and > Z80 (maincpu, mux and Disk3). > > It's something that isn't unusual as it would seem. > > Allison Absolutey. I have a couple of IOP cards here complete with Z-80, Z80-SIO and firmware - very nice cards. Further, way back in the early '80s the Comart Communicator had an intelligent FDC sporting a Z-80 - formatting was just a matter of setting up the command and executing asynchronously, the host CPU could then go off and do something else. This was way ahead of the common-or-garden FDC's of the time, even Cromemco's FDC's at the time. A much under-rated system... Jim

18 years, 9 months

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Speaking of multiple processors...

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Speaking of multiple processors... > From: M H Stein <dm561 at torfree.net> > Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2007 14:30:25 -0500 > To: "'cctalk at classiccmp.org'" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >---------Original Messages: >Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2007 08:57:12 -0500 >From: Allison <ajp166 at bellatlantic.net> >Subject: Re: Speaking of multiple processors... > >> From: M H Stein <dm561 at torfree.net> >> Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 11:29:05 -0500 > >>Cromemco also had Z80s on their I/O processor boards, and when the later 680x0 >>CPU boards dropped the Z80 you could still run your Z80 programs on the I/O card. >> >>mike > >This is not uncommon. > >H89 had two, one for the terminal and the other was the processor for >the computer. > >My NS*Horizon had two when I added the Teletek HDC(hard disk) as that >has a local z80. When I added a smart FDC of my own design and later >smart printer spooler and other IO with local cpu the nuber fo cpus grew. > >The Compupro system can easily have three, ZPB, Their mux board and >any of the hard disk controllers. I have one that has 68000, 8085 and >Z80 (maincpu, mux and Disk3). > >It's something that isn't unusual as it would seem. > >Allison > >----------Reply: >Well, I didn't say or imply that dual-CPUs like Cromemco's DPU and XPU or >intelligent I/O co-processors like their IOP and Octart were uncommon; in >fact I was just adding Cromemco to the list under discussion which ranged >from CDC big iron down to C-64s, and both C-64s and Cromemcos could >easily have 4 or 5 CPUs talking to each other one way or another. They were not alone doing that. >But now that you mention it, I did think what Cromemco did when their XXU >68010/20 CPU board finally dropped the Z80 _was_ a little unusual; although >the Z80 was gone from the processor board, your Z-80 CDOS or CP/M >application could still use the Z80 on the existing I/O board when it wasn't >handling I/O traffic. Did anyone else run *application* programs like a word >processor or spreadsheet (as opposed to applications like the C-64's disk >utilities) on an I/O co-processor board? I guess it could. Never messed with Cromemco but they had nice hardware. >And that's not quite the same either as e.g. an Apple or the SuperPet, which >effectively just used the main system as console and memory for an *added* >co-processor. > >Admittedly, at some point the distinctions do get a little blurred. Way fuzzy. Allison >m

18 years, 9 months

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New acquisitions (PDP 11/40 DecDataSystem and 11/10)

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

This morning I moved some newly acquired PDP-11 items into my shop. Among the items were a beautiful PDP-11/40 DecDataSystem in a yellow / red color scheme along with a TU10, PC05, and RK05F, another standard PDP-11/40, a PDP-11/10 with a Laboratory Peripheral System, RX01, and TU60 DecCassette unit, and a pieces parts PDP-11/20. Also included in this shipment was an LA36 DecWriter II that has a phone handset modem unit. You can check out some pictures at: http://www.woffordwitch.com/PDP1140-DecDataSystem.asp http://www.woffordwitch.com/PDP1140-FourthOne.asp http://www.woffordwitch.com/PDP1110-2.asp http://www.woffordwitch.com/LPS-11.asp I have not done anything with these items besides move them into my shop. The 11/20 is in pieces in a box, and I have not evaluated the completeness of it yet. I did see the toggle switch front panel, but do not see the plexi that goes with it. I have the CPU box, but some boards are loose in another box. I need to take inventory to see exactly what I have. Ashley Carder http://www.woffordwitch.com

18 years, 9 months

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dovebid: Onyx2 Reality Monster (Hazelwood, MO)

by legalize＠xmission.com

<http://www.dovebid.com/assets/display.asp?ItemID=cse2741> -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

18 years, 9 months

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Need HP75 Manual

by silent700＠gmail.com

Hi all - wondering if anyone has a scan of the manual for the HP75 portable computer. If not, I'd like to talk to anyone that has operated theirs with the card reader and can give me some help re: the command syntax? I've finally gotten a power supply for mine (thanks to the big junkpile at VCF!) and I have a whole stack of magstrips and no idea how to read them. I found a page with partial docs that allowed me to catalog a strip, but that's where I'm stuck. Thanks in advance -j -- silent700.blogspot.com Retrocomputing and collecting in the Chicago area: http://chiclassiccomp.org

18 years, 9 months

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PDP by the pound

by tponsford＠rnsmte.com

HI All A friend mentioned to me he saw what looked to be some DEC equipment at a local scrap yard. Looking through the scrap I saw a really sad looking rack with some RA81 and 82's. They looked too damaged and too hard to dig out, but as I was leaving, out of the corner of my eye, I spied another "buried" cabinet with 8" floppy drives. Curiosity got the best of me and a closer look the cabinet said KEVEX 1600. The floppies looked to be in good condition so I removed the cover plate and lo and behold, a Qbus 11/03 greeted me! I yanked the third-party qbus chassis out and also the *" drive cabinet, which turned out to be a DSD 210! The scrap yard charged me by the pound, around $20! Cheers Tom Ponsford

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Fwd: 1979 CGI on PDP-11/70 w/Tektronix 4014

by legalize＠xmission.com

>From a friend of mine from Project DELTA. Watching Ralph do his thing with the Tektronix terminal is what kept me interested in programming and made me want to study computer graphics. Hi Guys, I finally got around to having some old Super-8 movies converted to QuickTime, and then posted them to YouTube. These show some wireframe computer graphics I developed in high school thanks to project Delta. A bit crude but bear in mind that it's 1979 and I didn't refer to any literature and wrote it all in Basic+2 spaghetti code ;-) Graphics shot directly from Tektronix display (stop-motion used to get animation effect) using high-speed B&W film. Note many of the scenes are stereoscopic: if you have a viewer you'll see the stereoscopic image or if you cross your eyes you will see the image with reverse perspective. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue4Yo_a34XM Music video for Pink Floyd's "Welcome to the Machine". This is primarily pastel on paper, but there is a portion in the middle using printouts from the Tektronix display which I colorized by holding a match under the paper. There's also a shot of a Beehive (?) terminal at the end running a rasterized Game of Life. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAfK1rL9fCw -Ralph -- Ralph Gonzalez ralphgonz at gmail.com -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

18 years, 9 months

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Tarbell is making me insane

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Tarbell is making me insane > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:50:34 +0000 (GMT) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> >This faster signal might be better for the disk drive? >> >> Potentially. Remember FM floppy recording was passe' by the early >> 80s with every one needed far greater space. It want even a >> consideration buy time PC 3.5" floppies hit the street. > >As I understand it, FM at 125bps has (only) pulse spacings that can occur >in MFM at 250kbps. The latter has some other spacing too, of course, but >the point is that unless you're trying to be awkward, it's impossible to >make a drive that will correctly handle any MFM data at 250kbps that will >not also correctly handle FM data at 125kbps. (About the only way you >could do it is if the drive tries to decode the data back to user bytes >and then re-encodes them onto the disk in a totally different way. I know >of know floppy drive that ever tried something like that!). > >There should be no problem at all in using a 3.5" DD floppy drive with >the FM data stream that uou'd have sent to an SA400. Doesn't completely work that way. If it were bandwidth only maybe. The problem is it's timing and that causes peak shifts that increase with jamming those bits in a more confined space (flux tranistions per inch) and that makes 3.5" track 000 an approximation of SA400L track 41ish. That doesnt' factor the lower S/S+N ratio of 135 tpi against 48TPI. Will it work, I may but if it doesn't work well it may not be broken. Reason is the DD FDCs (both 765 and 1793/2793) have additional hardware to add a timing shift based on pattern written and better feature extraction for read. This is not present on 1771 based boards. Allison >-tony

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Speaking of multiple processors...

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Speaking of multiple processors... > From: M H Stein <dm561 at torfree.net> > Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 11:29:05 -0500 > To: "'cctalk at classiccmp.org'" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >-----------Original Message: >Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 08:32:02 +0000 >From: Gordon JC Pearce <gordonjcp at gjcp.net> >Subject: Re: Speaking of multiple processors... > >On Thu, 2007-11-15 at 00:32 -0500, Roy J. Tellason wrote: >> Didn't that "Superbrain" computer use a couple of Z80 chips in there? IIRC, >> one was the "main" CPU and the other one handled I/O tasks of some sort >> (disk?). ><snip> > >It does. I believe one handles disk accesses, while the other does the >rest. Once I get mine working, I'll tell you more.<snip> > >Gordon > >----------Reply: >Cromemco also had Z80s on their I/O processor boards, and when the later 680x0 >CPU boards dropped the Z80 you could still run your Z80 programs on the I/O card. > >mike This is not uncommon. H89 had two, one for the terminal and the other was the processor for the computer. My NS*Horizon had two when I added the Teletek HDC(hard disk) as that has a local z80. When I added a smart FDC of my own design and later smart printer spooler and other IO with local cpu the nuber fo cpus grew. The Compupro system can easily have three, ZPB, Their mux board and any of the hard disk controllers. I have one that has 68000, 8085 and Z80 (maincpu, mux and Disk3). It's something that isn't unusual as it would seem. Allison

18 years, 9 months

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BBC coverage: Colossus vs. Modern hardware

by rdawson16＠hotmail.com

> Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 19:14:48 -0500 > From: wdonzelli at gmail.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: BBC coverage: Colossus vs. Modern hardware > > > AFAIK there's no transmission equipment as part of the SZ42 itself though, so > > something would still need to be hooked between that and a giant aerial in > > order to do the transmission; I think it was this bit that Will was interested in. > > No, I am interested in the thing that modulates the bitstream, before > the transmitter. The modem, basically, not the transmitter. > > -- > Will Will, I did some fairly bizarre modem design for a downhole well logging camera, transmitting power and digital video over 5 miles of coax. I can probably answer any modulation questions you may have, or point you to the literature I used in my research and design. Randy _________________________________________________________________ Peek-a-boo FREE Tricks & Treats for You! http://www.reallivemoms.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM&loc=us

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Colossus code-breaking again (Jules Richardson)

by mike＠brickfieldspark.org

> Nice article up on the BBC news website about the Cipher Challenge that's > going on today: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7094881.stm > ... I've not been involved in that side of things, but it's been > interesting > watching Tony and his crew running around the last few weeks trying to get > everything put together (there was a huge amount to do on the > reception/intercept side of things in particular) > Saw that on BBC 1 news last night, would have liked a bit more info but at least they actually covered it on national news. Do we know how the test went and who gor there first, BBC quoting them at finishing about the same time. Mike.

18 years, 9 months

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Heathkit 89 in Seattle

by tosteve＠yahoo.com

Do not contact me, contact Patrick below: ------------------------- I have a heathkit I think H89, not sure how to tell. Should I dump it or is it worth something to someone? If so feel free to contact me. Patrick Seattle WA p_miceli at hotmail.com --------------------------------- Be a better sports nut! Let your teams follow you with Yahoo Mobile. Try it now.

18 years, 9 months

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BBC coverage: Colossus vs. Modern hardware

by rdawson16＠hotmail.com

> Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 19:14:48 -0500 > From: wdonzelli at gmail.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: BBC coverage: Colossus vs. Modern hardware > > > AFAIK there's no transmission equipment as part of the SZ42 itself though, so > > something would still need to be hooked between that and a giant aerial in > > order to do the transmission; I think it was this bit that Will was interested in. > > No, I am interested in the thing that modulates the bitstream, before > the transmitter. The modem, basically, not the transmitter. > > -- > Will Will, I did some fairly bizarre modem design for a downhole well logging camera, transmitting power and digital video over 5 miles of coax. I can probably answer any modulation questions you may have, or point you to the literature I used in my research and design. Randy _________________________________________________________________ Boo!?Scare away worms, viruses and so much more! Try Windows Live OneCare! http://onecare.live.com/standard/en-us/purchase/trial.aspx?s_cid=wl_hotmail…

18 years, 9 months

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MIT provides MULTICS source and documentation

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

On Nov 15, 2007, at 2:28 PM, Chuck wrote: > How about ATAoAL? ATA over Aldis Lamp? Should be doable... > The standard should include a bridge to either Bongo drums or smoke signals. The smoke could be produced by old tantalums to bring it back on-topic.

18 years, 9 months

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Drive sizes (WAS Re: MIT provides MULTICS source and documentation)

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

On Nov 15, 2007, at 2:28 PM, Roy wrote: > I mentioned it in here because it came up in conversation with > somebody in the > list a while back and they said something about the 1-2G range of > sizes being > particularly useful for some things, though I can't recall at the > moment > just what those things were offhand. > IRIX 4D1-3.3 seems to not like drives much over 1GB, many VAXstations don't like drives over 1.05GB for VMS, SCSI Apollo/DOMAIN systems don't like drives much over 2GB. I know there's more but can't recall right now. There should probably be a "disk size limits FAQ" somewhere to hold all of this

18 years, 9 months

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VAX 11/750 Config and Diagnostics, anyone?

by oldcpu2＠rogerwilco.org

Just wanted to update everyone on the status of the Montpelier, Idaho VAX 11/750 that was rescued last month without much in the way of included modules, except for the Systems Industries 9700 controller...and, to ask for some help. After a little effort, I think I now have the minimum boardset required to fire this baby up. But just to make sure that yours truly, a complete Unibus and big-iron VAX noob, has it figured correctly, I wanted to run my configuration by you guys before I shoot off my right foot (which would, of course, leave me with only a wrong foot). I've now got the following installed in the backplane: <nothing> in CMI slot 1 (still looking for the optional L0001 FPU) L0002 (DPM) in CMI slot 2 L0003 (MIC) in CMI slot 3 L0004 (UBI) in CMI slot 4 L0008 (PCS) in CMI slot 5 L0006 (RDM) in CMI slot 6 (optional, I guess, but came with other boards) <nothing> in CMI slot 7 (I pulled the SI9700 from this slot) <nothing> in CMI slot 8 <nothing> in CMI slot 9 L0016 (CMC2) in CMI slot 10 M8750 (1MB RAM) in 'extended' slots 11-18 (8MB total) M9202 (Unibus 'joiner') in slots 19 and 20 M7485 (DZ11) in Unibus slot 21 <nothing> in Unibus slot 22 <nothing> in Unibus slot 23 <nothing> in Unibus slot 24 <nothing> in Unibus slot 25 <nothing> in Unibus slot 26 <nothing> in Unibus slot 27 M9313 (Unibus Term) in Unibus slot 28 I still don't have any mass storage interfaces (to support my RA81 and/or x2 Fujitsu SuperEagles...still looking for UDA50, Dilog DU256, and/or Emulex UD33), but I was hoping that I have enough modules to start testing the CPU, anyway. I do need to review Ethan's earlier comments about properly jumpering the now empty CMI slot 7, but I'll do that before I power up. Does this look like a reasonable config for now, at least to start testing the CPU? Also... I have successfully cobbled a cable between the onboard TU58 drive (using external power) and a PDP-11/23+. (Yes, I could have used a PC with John Wilson's PUTR, but the PDP was handy...the cable works either way.) I have managed to image the four carts that were part of the rescue. So at least I know that the TU58 is operational. They're probably already 'out there', but for what it's worth, if anyone wants a copy of these images, let me know... BE-J844Q-BE VAX FORTRAN V4.4 BIN TU58 1/2 BE-M873G-BE VAX FORTRAN V4.4 BIN TU58 2/2 BE-CJ51E-BE VAX FORTRAN V4.4 BIN TU58 1/1 [help files, I think] Systems Industries 9900 VAX/VMS Installation Package v4.0 After reading through the various docs found on bitsavers.org and vt100.net/manx it appears that a standard set of TU58 DECtape II carts were included with each system. Several of these carts contained CPU and system diagnostics. I'm hoping someone has a set of these tapes imaged somewhere that I could download and give a try. According to the VAX 11/750 HW Installation and Acceptance manual, the tapes with diagnostics are: Tape 5: - ECKAL - Cache/TB - ECKAX - Cluster Exerciser - ECKAM - Memory Diagnostic Tape 6: - ECSAA - Diagnostic Supervisor - ECCBA - UBI/DW 750 Diagnostic Tape 7: - EVKAA - Hardcore Instructions Tape 8: - EVKAB - Architectural Instructions - EVKAC - Floating-Point Instructions - EVKAD - Compatibility Mode Instructions - EVKAE - Privileged Architectural Instructions Can anyone help me out? Thanks. - Jared

18 years, 9 months

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cctalk Digest, Vol 51, Issue 47

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

On Nov 15, 2007, at 3:22 AM, Chuck Guizis wrote: >> Which reminds me of a comment I saw somewhere about the possibility >> of having >> a SCSI bus with more than one host adapter on it. Is that even >> possible? Supported on (some? all?) Alphas for clustering.

18 years, 9 months

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What is an Epson BM5?

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

Can anyone tell me anything about the Epson BM5 floppy drive unit? Perhaps a little description will help. Physcially it's about the size of an Epson TF20 and has one vertically-mounted half-height floppy drive on the front, along with a power LED. On the back are the usual mains connector and switch and a DB25 socket. The unit splits into 3 main sections, PUS, controller and drive The PSU consists of a mains transformer and a PCB cotnaining an STK7561 hybrid chip. It claims to give out 5V at 2A and 12V at 3A. I guess there's nothing to add about that. The controller claims to be a 'Rabbit Board'. The main chips are a Z80A, 24K of SRAM, 8K of EPROM, an 8237 DMA chip and a 7261, which seems to be a _hard_ drive controller. And of course a lot of TTL glue. The DB25 socket is fixed to this board, it's clearly a TTL level parallel intefave, possibly SCSI-like. The drive links to the cotnroller by a pair of ribbon cables, 1 20 way and 1 34 way. I'm seriously suspecting an ST506/ST412 interface -- yes, on a floppy drive. The drive is Hitachi FDD541. The mechancial side looks conventional, a stepper motor postiioned (it desont _seem_ to be servo-trackedm, although I guess it could micro-step). Spindle motor, etc seem normal to, there is a head-load solenoid. The disks are clearly of the normal 5.25" form factor, but I suspect of a much higher coercivity. There's a logic board fixed to the drive, full of ICs I've never heard off, including a 637B01X0P (Microcontroller?), and an ASIC in a PGA opackage). The contorller interface really does look like ST506/412. Anyone got any ideas? What was it used with, what is the host interface? -tony

18 years, 9 months

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Commodore 65 = $5,000

by jvdg＠sparcpark.net

> Tony Duell wrote: > >> However, I am saddened by a classic computer that will never be turned on >> again. Computers are not fine art, they are machines that should be run >> (and for that matter, I feel that fine art should be viewed, not stored >> in a vault). > > As much as Tony is a hardware guy, I'm a software guy on the other end > of the spectrum. And yet I wholeheartedly agree with this, to the point > where pretty much all of my hobbyist programming is done on old iron. > It's not enough that I use my old machines; I have to make them jump > through new hoops :-) I agree, in principle, but there are exceptions. I *prefer* a machine to work, but some machines are of such beauty that I wouldn't part with them for the world even if they didn't work. My SGI Crimson Jurassic Classic is one such example. Even if it were just an empty shell, I'd still stick it in my living room as a side table. That monster is just too beautiful not to have on display, and my particular machine has enough of a history attached to it that it makes a historic artefact and a prime conversation piece. ,xtG tsooJ

18 years, 9 months

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DDC Fixed Head Disks

by leeib＠sequan.com

I was reading your thread about DDC head-per-track drives. I had a friend around 1980 that had one of these drives which he had obtained as surplus from the US Air Force. It used helium atmosphere around the disks to reduce friction. The disk was 12" in diameter and spun at 33,000 RPM (not a typo), and so it would produce considerable heat from friction if ordinary air were used, at least that's what I heard at the time. It was intended as a substitute for magnetic core (RAM) for mainframes. The disk latency was around 30 microseconds. Because the driving electronics were a lot slower then, the rated random access speed was (as I recall) 50 microseconds. Lee

18 years, 9 months

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Tarbell is making me insane

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Tarbell is making me insane > From: Grant Stockly <grant at stockly.com> > Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2007 00:43:21 -0900 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Allison, thanks a lot for the detailed response! A lot of that info >can be used to help other people too! > >I've written this e-mail from the "bottom up", so some things may >seem out of order in the time line. > >I think that I'm to the point where I've narrowed the problem down to >inside the tarbell card, but I don't think the problem is the >1771. Any further hints are well appreciated. : ) I've seen bad 1771s out of the box (WD was not allways a qualaity house) but I've never seeen one fail in service excluding overvoltage or reverse polairty. One little nasty. The 1771 has a basic ability to do data seperation. I havent' looked at a tarbel board in a very long time but I do hope that they didn't do the TRS80 save a buck trick and try to use that internal seperator, it does NOT work. It has zero jitter tolerence. >I think we're getting closer! > >> >I can't speak for the exact combination of the Tarbell, but the >> >system has been running all day long with: >> >-16k static card >> >-8k static card >> >-4k static card > >The disks are 24k CP/M 1.4, the 4k is for the monitor. Forgot to say >that... Included on my source disk (which is read by the flaky >tarbell) is a BIOS for 48k CP/M, but I have never had it going long >enough to patch, movcpm, or whatever it is that has to be done to get >the new CP/M onto the disk... Just making sure. >>Ok you have 28k ram. Is the image sized and booting in that? >>If the image is sized for say 32 or 48K it will crash, likely >>as a bounce back to rom monitor. > >See previous response for a description. When it runs, it >runs. When it doesn't...it doesn't : ( The fact that it runs is good. You have a viable image but a systemic problem. >I spent all day long writing my own tarbell driver / monitor program >that would select, reset, seek, read, write, etc. When I tried the >read monitor command for the first time I didn't get an error. I >tried booting CP/M and it worked... Then I swapped to the more >troublesome tarbell card to get errors (I know, stupid) The problem >appears to be within the tarbell card. I can reliably get my tarbell >monitor to report this: > >Reading A Sector >ERROR: Record Not Found! >" Data is comming from the disk, however it's not readable. Possible reasons: NOISE, ground the drive, insure it has good power that the system case and it's grounds are common. Also common error is long drive cables (stay short for now) and cables (and drives) that get near CRTs. Jitter: EXTERNAL: This can come from noise as above. Also drive mechanical issues. Internal: 1771 requires a data seperator to recover clock and nice(cleaned up some) read data. The common circuits are oneshots and PLLs. Tarbel used oneshots. Generally they work well enough if set right. LOGIC: problem with read/wait hardware not working or possible data path corruption. > >When I swap to the "better" tarbell, the basic sector read command >passes. (BTW, the reliably bad one above did boot CP/M once and gave >me a few good sectors!!! And I've swapped the 1771 between boards >and the bad stays bad and good stays good!) Basically I use the >monitor to clean the memory, load my program, and then I flip the >reset switch on the Altair. The Altair runs my program which starts >at 0000 and then jumps back into the rom monitor. Here is the >tarbell being good: your shotgunning. I've seen this for 30+ years. Doesn't work, swap out the big hairy chip as they must be flaky or why else put it in a socket? Rare if ever is that the case. FYI: certain brands of sockets of the side wipe style tend to fatigue with insertion/removeal and some do it over time leading to failures where the chips are 100% good but nothing works and may be flakey if wiggled or moved. >" >MON85 Version 1.1 > >Copyright 1979-2006 Dave Dunfield >All rights reserved. > > > F0000 3000 00 > > L > > > >Reading A Sector > >MON85 Version 1.1 > >Copyright 1979-2006 Dave Dunfield >All rights reserved. > > > m2000 >2000 1E 0A 31 00 01 21 00 45 16 33 0E 02 06 04 79 CD ..1..!.E.3....y. >2010 2A 00 15 CA 00 5A 06 00 0C 79 FE 13 DA 0F 00 3E *....Z...y.....> >2020 53 D3 F8 DB FC 0E 01 C3 0C 00 D3 FA CD 41 00 3E S............A.> >2030 88 B0 D3 F8 DB FC B7 F2 41 00 DB FB 77 23 C3 34 ........A...w#.4 >2040 00 DB F8 E6 9D C8 1D C2 02 00 32 80 00 2F D3 FF ..........2../.. >2050 C3 50 00 00 5A 80 04 19 00 02 00 45 80 04 15 01 .P..Z......E.... >2060 01 80 51 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ..Q............. >2070 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C3 00 00 ................ >" > >I have to pull the card out to enable the boot rom...guess what, it >boots...but at the moment it is only reading "real" DD media. The HD >media with the tape "works" but BDOS complains about "bad >sectors". This HD disk on another day works just fine. DD or HD with tarbel?????? >I ran one of the programs: >"A>disktest > >TARBELL MINI-FLOPPY DIAGNOSTIC OF 8-1-80 >STANDARD VERSION 1.8 >40 TRACKS 18 SECTORS > >SELECT DRIVE. (A/B/C/D) a >HOW MANY RETRYS? (0-9) 4 >SELECT STEP RATE. (S=40MS,M=20MS,F=12MS) m >FULL TRACK SEEK? (Y/N) y >TO START TEST TYPE RETURN. > >0 READ ERRORS DETECTED. > >REPEAT TEST? (Y/N) >" > >Maybe that gives you a clue as to what I'm working with. > >And if I try my HD disks it does this: (to every sector on every track) >" >READ RECORD NOT FOUND ERROR. >TRACK 0 SECTOR 1 > >READ RECORD NOT FOUND ERROR. >TRACK 0 SECTOR 2 > >READ RECORD NOT FOUND ERROR. >TRACK 0 SECTOR 3 >" >Last weekend that was my boot disk and I had several basic programs >compiled with basic-e on it. HD media is incompatable in every way with older drives and lower data rates. Drives used for HD media are 96tpi and track pasing ansd width are different, incompatability is oftenn the case or at best it gets by. Don't have Tarbell schematics handy to check. Does the read loop test a status bit or hang/wait on read? If it's hang wait on read is that also tied to interrupt?? If it's read a status bit two things: CPU MUST complete the read a byte loop in 32us (64 for mini floppy) and CPU speed makes this in some cases difficult. can you supply the sector read code? ( should be fairly short) >>Is the boot image set up for MITS 2SIO and does it set it up? > >I have a session captured from "once upon a time" when it booted >(which is more random than anything I can think of) > >"TARBELL 24K CPM V1.4 OF 7-20-79 >2SIO MINIFLOPPY VERSION. >HOW MANY DISKS? 2 >A>dir >A: CPM COM >A: SYSGEN COM >A: DDT COM >A: COPY COM >A: PIP COM >A: ASM COM >A: STAT COM >A: ED COM >A: FORMAT COM >A: DISKTEST COM >A: DUMPDSK COM >A: BASIC COM >A: RUN COM >A> >" Yeeha! >>I assume thse are in high memory and not below the address the image will >>try to boot to. CP/M wants from 0000h to system size as configured. > >My bytesaver is at C000 and 4k of sram for the monitor is at >E000. There is 24k of contigous memory at 0000. > >>Doesnt assure the FDC is set right for the drive and media. >>Also doesnt assure the media is SD or even bootable. >>Further is the media is not using a 2sio as the IO the system could >>boot and crash or appear to. > >The drive, tarbell, and boot disks were mailed to me from a fellow >enthusiast. He made all of the modifications, made the disks, >etc. He has tested the setup in an IMSAI (kind of) with my (kit) >CPU, a SSM 8080, and a ZPU at 2MHz. Kind of and exactly are differnt things. >To add to that, I have myself booted off the setup, formatted disks, >made copies, ran the basic compilier, ran asm, etc. But something >(and I think its IN??? the tarbell card does not like me, Alaska, my >Altiar... I don't know! : ( Could be an interaction of both. > >A quote: >"My Imsai has a standard front panel with a factory suggested mod. to >do a power-on halt at zero. It has two 16K Industrial Microsystems >static ram boards, a SIO2 serial board and a SSM 8080 CPU. The prom >on the Tarbell is turned off to let the front panel operate properly >at power on. The Tarbell is then booted by using a MITS eprom board >and the 1702A eprom you burned for me. The power supply is a >Industrial Microsystems switching supply which powers both the drives >and the backplane But you don't have "that". You sorta have something like that. >Following is the different configurations I have used in the test >unit to boot the Tarbell; > 1. With a Z80 Cromemco ZPU set at 2Mhz, power-on jump set to >zero and no front panel. The Tarbell boots at power-on and will do a >cold boot every time you push the reset button. > 2. With a ZPU and Imsai front panel the Tarbell boots >only when the run switch is pushed. > > 3. With the Altair CPU and no front panel the Tarbell will not >boot at power on or after a reset! No suprize, the MITS CPU has no POJ, nada. It must be reset, load address and then run. > 4. With the Altair CPU and the Imsai front panel the Tarbell >will boot after you push reset and then push the run switch. Says the MITS FP is causing some pain. > >After the Tarbell boards boot I have never had a problem or dropout >in CP/M with any CPU- front panel configuration. The static ram >boards use low power chips and run cool. thats good but getting there is an issue. >Remember my Altair CPU board uses a 8224 in the oscillator circuit >and I replaced the 8T97 with 74LS367's. >" The 8t97s worked fine for me. It has 8224? your mod or 8800B? >This is some info on the mod: >"The modification we have on our Tarbell boards was designed for the >5.25 Tandon TM-100 single sided. single density 48tpi drive which was >one of the first 5.25 drives produced. It might be that some of the >new 3.5 drives just won't work with the setup we are using." The only media that should go in that drive is the brown SD/DD floppies. If the media was written on a 96tpi drive the noise and jitter _will_ be higher due to track width differences. IF the FDC oneshots are not quite on that makes a huge differnence. The hub clamps sometimes off center the media and still media will sometimes drag the motor speed down. Watch for that. >>Could even be a simple bad IDC crimp on the cable. > >I have tried a few FDC cables. Maybe I should make a new one. Suggestions of the obvious. > >Time for bed. : ( > >Grant Don't know if it helps Allison

18 years, 9 months

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Speaking of multiple processors...

by rtellason＠verizon.net

Didn't that "Superbrain" computer use a couple of Z80 chips in there? IIRC, one was the "main" CPU and the other one handled I/O tasks of some sort (disk?). I had a guy come into my shop one time wanting a couple of those fixed, but I could find *no* data on them at the time and therefore couldn't do too much for him... Are there docs out there for this beast? I'm just wondering how they divided things up between the two CPU chips, and how they interfaced things... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin

18 years, 9 months

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Tarbell is making me insane

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Tarbell is making me insane > From: Grant Stockly <grant at stockly.com> > Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2007 22:57:55 -0900 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org> > > >>FYI: 3.5" disks were never meant to run at 125khz. The >>720k mode is 250khz and the 1.44mh is 500khz. The read >>amps just may not work well down that low. > >Do you think that it would be better if I were to get the Tarbell to >run at 4MHz (250kHz)? > >I'd have to make a new BIOS and modify the format program. I don't >have source for the format program. Does anyone off hand know where >source to the Tarbell CP/M utilites could be found? Or utilities for any FDC based on 1771 could be modified. >I should be able to format the disk as 36 sectors 80 tracks and >possibly configure it to use both sides. That would be formatting it >to capacity... > >I'm going to write a disk image tool that dumps the disk to my >computer. I could write one that also writes an image to a disk. > >What do you think would happen if I were to try to use the disk at >250kHz but only put half of the sectors? Will the 1771 handle the >extra time or give me errors? Take the time to read up on 1771 and FDC formats before you just plunge in. You will arrive at a better solution and spare yourself wasted time. Not all 1771s where shipped as full speed parts too. >This faster signal might be better for the disk drive? Potentially. Remember FM floppy recording was passe' by the early 80s with every one needed far greater space. It want even a consideration buy time PC 3.5" floppies hit the street. >It may seem strange I'm fighting with this so hard, especially since >I'm working on Altair disk drive system emulator using SD cards, but >nothing beats real live hardware. : ) I can understand wanting a floppy, a real floppy. However I'd expect a goal such as being able to read 8" SSSD (cp/m standard) or other widely used format for archival or transfer. Another controller that ended up in altairs very often was the NS* MDS. It's hard sector but there is a lots of media and programs for it's DOS and also CP/M. Getting floppies is a pain however. Allison >Grant

18 years, 9 months

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Colossus code-breaking again...

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

Nice article up on the BBC news website about the Cipher Challenge that's going on today: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7094881.stm ... I've not been involved in that side of things, but it's been interesting watching Tony and his crew running around the last few weeks trying to get everything put together (there was a huge amount to do on the reception/intercept side of things in particular) cheers Jules

18 years, 9 months

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"Bally Astrocade"

by rschroeder＠satx.rr.com

I have a Bally Computer System,Astrovision Arcade Model ABA-1000-2. 7-controllers,1-video touch pad,11-games,2-Arcadian Cassettes,1-TV adaptor,2-key pad over lays,1-Bally Basic Computer Programming Cartridge With Built-In Audio Interface,and a complete set of manuals.

18 years, 9 months

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Speaking of multiple processors...

by dm561＠torfree.net

----------Original Message: Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 21:32:19 +1300 From: Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at usap.gov> Subject: Intellegent peripherals (was Re: MIT provides MULTICS source and documentation (DPS-8 simulation)) <snip> The DOS for the 2040/3040/4040/8050/8250 drives had a "copy drive N to drive M" command (I'd quote chapter and verse, but I don't have access to the 'net right now). <snip> You could then, say, use your IEEE-488 acoustic coupler to logon to a BBS while disks were copying, or print to a printer, or whatever, since the IEEE bus was not involved in that disk-to-disk copy. <snip> -ethan ---------Reply: And if there was an error during the copy or backup the drive merely lit an error LED (which some people supplemented with a piezo beeper because it was easy to miss) and you had to ask the drive what the error was (and clear the error condition). That way whatever you were doing in the meantime would not be interrupted with an error message. You could also defragment (collect) the disk while doing something else, although for some reason the format (header) command tied up the computer until it finished. m

18 years, 9 months

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Variations on Commodore monitors

by cfox1＠cogeco.ca

At 10:40 AM 11/15/2007, you wrote: >As part of the process of getting a second C128 system set up and >running, I recently ordered another Commodore 1084 monitor from an >eBay seller. The one I have is nice and bright and lets me switch >quickly between the composite (40-column) and RGBI (80-column) outputs >of the 128, so I was happy to stumble across another one for a >reasonable price. > >It arrived last night, and it's a great little monitor, in even better >shape than the one I already had. To my surprise, though, it's also >completely different. The case is different, the form factor and >positioning of the controls are different -- and, most relevantly, >even the connectors are different. My older one (made in 1989) has a >DB-9 input for RGBI input. The new arrival (made in 1988, if I recall >correctly) has an 8-pin DIN input for RGBI input. > >Thankfully, I already had a DB-9 to DIN-8 cable in the Big Box of CBM >Scraps, so I didn't have to order any cable-making parts from Mouser, >but it does bring up a question: how many potentially problematic >variations on the same model number did Commodore make? I know that >they did a lot of this sort of thing, given the ever-changing >appearance of the C2N and 1541, but is there a quick and easy question >I can ask a seller to find out exactly what ports to expect on the >back of a 1084 (or similar monitor)? "DB-9" and "8-pin DIN" are >already way too difficult to explain to somebody just trying to clean >out their attack, but if there's a guide out there with a breakdown by >manufacturing date or serial number for some of this Commodore >equipment, that would be lovely... I also have two 1084S Monitors, 1989 with Din, and 1991 with the DB connector. Both came with Amigas. Charlie Fox Charles E. Fox Video Productions 793 Argyle Rd. Windsor, Ontario 519-254-4991 N8Y 3J8 www.chasfoxvideo.com

18 years, 9 months

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