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

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Unknows S-100 System > From: "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at verizon.net> > Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2007 14:17:43 -0400 > To: cctech at classiccmp.org > >On Sunday 23 September 2007 09:12, Allison wrote: >> >Subject: Re: Unknows S-100 System >> > From: "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at verizon.net> >> > Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2007 23:44:57 -0400 >> > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" >> > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> >> > >> >On Saturday 22 September 2007 19:35, Barry Watzman wrote: >> >> All commercial software used 8080 instructions, >> > >> >Well, no. Two that I know of that did require a z80 were Turbo Pascal >> > and Mix C. >> > >> >-- >> >> What I wrote something similar I used the word "most" as I knew there was >> some CP/M software that required z80. However from a business user >> perspective most of the deireable and likely used software like word >> preocessors, spreadsheets and databases 8080 was just fine save for >> speed and the 8085 solved that. Also the 8085 was more of a bridge >> than the ultimate application cpu. Somebody else used all. I used most, you have the series of posters crumped.. >Yup, but the word used there was "all". :-) By someone that posted before me. You have a bunch or people and me munged together. I've been at it long enough to know and have delt with the transistion >from 8080 to z80 and on. My first system was Altair (8080) upgraded to NS* (z80) and in '79 I bought a Netronics Explorer 8085 all of which I still have and all work. The amount of software that eould ran on 8080 was sufficient to keep 8080 users going into the 16bit world. >And then there was software that was good enough to test what it had, and go >from there... Yes, some of the stuff was adaptive. There was also a version of ZCPR that was "trimmed" to run on 8080 so that at least a few improvements were available. Allison

18 years, 11 months

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Old mini computer (B80)

by zmerch-cctalk＠30below.com

Rumor has it that Mr Ian Primus may have mentioned these words: >Now, what I'm wondering, is how big of a hassle is it >to bring this across the border? I've never picked up >a computer from Canada. Is customs going to raise a >stink about a 25 year old minicomputer? Whatever you do, *don't* say *collectible*!!! "Museum piece" would be another bad term to use. Customs will hear these terms and think $$$. Tell the customs agent that you have a giveaway (and seriously hint that fact being equatable to "worthless" if asked) hardware rack, obsolete wouldn't be a bad term to use... Keep responses short, sweet & to the point. Don't be a smartass[1]. Don't give 'em your life story, as they're busy folk and don't need to hear it. *Especially* don't "hum and haw" when asked a question, the Customs agent will smell fear and pull you over to inspect your cargo, asking more questions than you'd prefer. Go over your story in your head several times, and try to be prepared for any question they might ask, like "Why'd you drive to BFE to get this thing?" or "What's this thing actually worth?" A good story to use is: Part A) "I used one in high school/college but no-one uses these anymore... " and choose either Part B: Part B1) "... and this person was going to throw it away anyway, so I saved it from the dumpster." or Part B2) "... and this person said it didn't work anymore and I wanted the challenge to try to fix it." and if asked to elaborate, try: "it's a hobby just like restoring Model 'T' cars, but for geeks." Something to that effect anyway should work fairly well. Also, if the units "country of origin" was the USA, there shouldn't be any duty for it to return to the USA, no matter how much it's worth, so if there's a tag on the machine or a manual with it that states "Made in the USA" then they shouldn't give you any hassle. A good piece of advice to keep in mind WRT Customs: You are *guilty* until proven innocent. If you're thinking of making a weekend out of it, get a gas receipt, buy a candy bar, etc. once you get into Canada, because if you're looking to hit the Duty Free on the way back, if you can't *prove* you were in Canada as long as you say, you haven't. Period. I worked at a Duty Free for 3 years or so when I was a young lad, and learned quite well the powers (which are considerable) of US Customs. HTH, Roger "Merch" Merchberger [1] It only takes once to get the "wrong officer" (read: Didn't get any the nite before) to make your life hell crossing the border. 3 years ago going to VCF East (the one in Bahston), I crossed from Port Huron, MI to Sarnia, Ont.... made the trip quite a bit shorter for me. No worries... until on the way back. The guy asked me for my passport (which wasn't necessary at the time) and then for my birth certificate (also not necessary, not to mention mine had been destroyed and I'd hadn't gotten it replaced yet at the time) so the guy accused me of a) being a terrorist, and b) never having crossed the border before. I broke my own rules, as I a) rather forcefully reminded him that I was a veteran, b) I grew up on a border town and had prolly crossed into Canada more (by the time I was 20) than he ever had, and c) I knew the crossing rules better than he did. [2] Needless to say, my civil rights were violated that day because of my outburst... but remember, you're not technically in the US until *after* customs, so they can get away with it. Most don't abuse the power, but a few can & do... [2] I (barely) stopped short of both vulgarity and questioning his parentage... thank goodness! -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | Anarchy doesn't scale well. -- Me zmerch at 30below.com. | SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers

18 years, 11 months

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[SPAM(date)] Re: Old mini computer (B80)

by stevew＠ka6s.com

Al Kosow Wrote: >I would be a good thing to save. I think RSC/RI has one as well >(W.D. would know for sure) > >Also, no software has been archived for this machine, so any >surviving copies would be a good thing. If I recall correctly - this machine will run the Burroughs CMS software. This OS worked from the B80 upto the B1800 systems. Steve Wilson

18 years, 11 months

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Old mini computer

by mouse＠Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA

About that B80, in case anyone is interested, I wrote to the poster saying >>> 450-454-5631 >> This number is in St-Remi, according to the NPA-NXX tables I have. >> Is that where the B80 is? and got a response saying > You have the right town. /~\ 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

18 years, 11 months

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pen plotters?

by renevr＠unitedtelecom.be

Hi Erik, I have the same problem. Is it possible to copy the book again?? Rene

18 years, 11 months

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case cracker

by jvdg＠sparcpark.net

Tony: >> Can someone point me to somewhere where I can get a case cracker of some >> sort? I don't think I'm going to score an official Apple one, so I'll >> settle for one that looks like the one on this page: > > I've heard the term 'case cracker' or 'Mac cracker' applied to 2 > different tools : A long TX15 Torx driver to fit the screws in the > handle of classic Macs; and a thing to fit in the groove between the > front and hack parts of the case to force them apart after you've removed > the screws. > > For the formsr, the Xcellite System 99 drivers work well. You need a > handle, X5 extension and TX15 blade (the parts should all be available > separately, you don't need to buy a set). With the extension, the tool is > long enoguh to easily remove those screwsm and the blade itself is long > enough so that the joint between it and the extension bar is in the > larger part of the handle. > > For the latter, I've always found that if you remove the battery cover > (needed to get at one of the screws), you can press on the battery and > the I/O connectors to get the case free.. My preferred method is to place the Mac face-down on a towel (to avoid scratching), and then give the sides a good whack with the palms of both hands. This will split the case right open with a very satisfying "PHLOOMPH!" type of sound. ,xtG tsooJ

18 years, 11 months

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CTX Panoview 630 power supply pinout?

by gilbert.vandevelde＠telenet.be

Hello Looking around for power supply pinout for my touchscreen device, I met your message. Please is it possible to send me that pinout (panoview 630). Thanks x 1000 ! Gilbert Van de Velde

18 years, 11 months

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case cracker

by tsw-cc＠johana.com

While other have mentioned the "shaking over a couch" method, I used a similar method by pushing on the connectors (the DB25 used for SCSI, and the Mini DIN-8's used for the serial ports. After you loosen the Torx screws (I got a long Torx driver from Fry's for this purpose), it was an easy matter to put the CRT down on a soft surface (I think I did it on my lap as I remember) and just push on the connectors while holding the case. Plop it went. Pretty easy if you ask me. I never did buy a "case cracker". Little use given my success at pushing on connectors. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for a deal? Find great prices on flights and hotels with Yahoo! FareChase. http://farechase.yahoo.com/

18 years, 11 months

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Looking for a Depraz mouse.

by jos.mar＠bluewin.ch

Subject says it all, I am looking for a Depraz mouse, a.k.a. swiss mouse. It is a very early mouse, around 1982, with straigth quadrature output and three Shadow switches for mouse buttons Jos Dreesen

18 years, 11 months

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DEC hardware in Houston

by shumaker＠att.net

publicsurplus.com has two DEC lineprinters listed in Houston if anyone is interested.. www.publicsurplus.com item 212610 Digital LG01 item 212614 Digital LG02 back to lurking now... ss

18 years, 11 months

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Unknows S-100 System

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Unknows S-100 System > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:43:29 -0700 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On 23 Sep 2007 at 9:12, Allison wrote: > >>> What I wrote something similar I used the word "most" as I knew >there was >> some CP/M software that required z80. However from a business user >> perspective most of the deireable and likely used software like word >> preocessors, spreadsheets and databases 8080 was just fine save for >> speed and the 8085 solved that. Also the 8085 was more of a bridge >> than the ultimate application cpu. > >We ran into a few vertical apps that required Z80--and I think one of >the better word processors (maybe a late Spellbinder?) required a >Z80. BASIC dialects were different enough back then (and today) that >an application written with a specific Z80 BASIC in mind would get >you into trouble with an 8085. Never said there weren't Z80 apps, there wer lots of them some very good. It was more suprizing that the core stuff stayed with the 8080 model. It was the early adoptors that had and use dmuch of the 8080 stuff and where the z80 stuff was used they were alrady looking for 16bit cpus as they'd grown out of it. So like I said the 8085 was "enough" to run CP/M allow porting stuff to 8086 and keeping 8085 or even z80 stuff running as at best an interum thing as teh goal was to get off 8bit totally. >It wasn't enough to make us consider developing a Z80 card, since we >were marketing our own OS and applications anyway. But I'm certain >that the lack of a Z80 cost a few sales. No kidding. One thing was certain while the 8085 was ok cpu the market had decided that anything less than Z80 was not going to fly on the 8bit CPU alone. Allison

18 years, 11 months

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Modernish Honeywll-Bull computers available in North Carolina

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

These are totally uninteresting to me, but perhaps someone here finds them worthy of preservation? They a 1980s-1990s era 68000-based beasts as far as I'm told. Not in the best condition. Parts is probably the best description. Contact Jerry <theskyrider at gmail.com> for details. -- 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, 11 months

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FREE: Long Island, NY, full-sized Printronix dot matrix line printer

by spector＠zeitgeist.com

I am de-cluttering in advance of a move to the bay area... and need to give away some excess classic hardware. Available is a full-sized Printronix line printer. In pretty good shape; with extra ribbons. Works pretty well given it's ~25 yrs old. Please contact me via email ONLY. This printer is in the Huntington, LI area, and for pickup only. You'll need a small truck or a pickup, it will NOT fit into a station-wagon or SUV. _DHMS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David HM Spector spector (at) zeitgeist (dot) com http://www.zeitgeist.com/ ~ ~ ~ "New and stirring things are belittled because if they are not belittled, the humiliating question arises, 'Why then are you not taking part in them?'" --H . G. Wells

18 years, 11 months

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Quick & Timely Single Board Computer 2/4

by lynchaj＠yahoo.com

Hi. ?Does anyone own any of these boards and can send me a ROM dump? The documentation speaks of multiple versions supporting various FDC boards so I would like to include as many as possible with the documentation bundle. I recently bought a "Quick and Timely" (Q&T) Single Board Computer (SBC) 2/4 for the S-100 bus. ?Fortunately it came with documentation because there does not appear to be any at the usual S-100 documentation archives like bitsavers.org, Howard Harte's, or Majzel's. http://bitsavers.org/pdf/ http://www.hartetechnologies.com/manuals/QT%20Computer/ http://maben.homeip.net/static/S100/quick%20timely/index.html So I have scanned the documentation which came with the card and will send it to the archives for them to include. The problem is my board did not come with a monitor ROM as mentioned in the documentation. ?This is not a huge problem as I can probably just write one or modify the Dave Dunfield RAMless monitor, burn an EPROM, and plug it in. However, if anyone has one of these boards and would be so kind as to send me a hex dump of their ROM or better yet, a commented assembler source, I will include it in the documentation I am preparing for the archives. ?I would just as soon use the one which came with the Q&T SBC rather than re-invent another one. Thanks! Andrew Lynch

18 years, 11 months

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Unknows S-100 System

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Unknows S-100 System > From: "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at verizon.net> > Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2007 12:35:38 -0400 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> snippage>>>>>>>>> >> What irritated me was that Intel never documented the additional 8085 >> instructions, even though they seemed to be present on every version >> of the chip Intel (and second sources) ever produced. Because they >> weren't "officially" documented, we adopted a policy that they should >> not be used to avoid possible future "surprises". > >What are these? I remember some stuff in the magazines early on (probably >Byte, in its first year of publication or so) and have run across some stuff >on the 'net about undocumented z80 opcodes, most of which don't seem to be >terribly useful, but this is the first I've heard of undocumented 8085 >codes. >from my compendium of acient history and useful junk: Hex 8085 Meaning --------------------- 08 SUB HL-BC 10 RRHL ;Rotate HL right. 16-bit rotation, flags unchanged. 10 Shift right HL 18 RLDE Rotate DE left. Bit 15 to Carry. No other flags. 18 Rotate right DE 28bb ADI HL,bb ;Add 00bb immediate to HL, setting flags. 28 Add HL and Immidiate nnnn into DE 38bb ADI SP,bb ;As above but to Stack Pointer. 38 Add SP and Immidiate nnnn into DE CB RSTV8 ;RST 8 (to 0040) if the V flag is set. CB ReSTart on Overflow(V) to 0040h D9 SHLDE ;LD (DE),HL D9 Load [DE] from HL DDaaaa JNK aaaa ;Jump to location aaaa if K flag is reset. DD Jump on 'Not X5' ED LHLDE ;LD HL,(DE) ED Load Hl from [DE] FDaaaa JK aaaa ;Jump to location aaaa if K flag is set. FD Jump on 'X5' bit 8085 7(MSB) S sign 6 Z Zero 5 X5 4 AC aux carry 3 0 2 P parity 1 V overflow 0(LSB) C carry Intel did not further specify the undocumented 8085 instructions. This however means that other assemblers might use different mnemonics for the same function. DSUB 08 10cy HL <- HL - BC Instruction : DSUB [reg] (DSB BC) Function : HL HL - reg (double subtract) Flags : CY, S, X5, AC, Z, V, P Arguments : reg = B for BC (optional) ARHL 10 7cy HL <- HL/2, CY <- L0 Instruction : ARHL (SHRL) Function : HL,CY HL >> 1 (arithmetc right shift) Flags : CY Argument : none RDEL 18 10cy DE <- DE*2, E0 <- CY, CY <- D7 Instruction : RDEL (SLDE) Function : CY,DE DE << 1 (arithmetic right shift) Flags : CY, V Arguments : none LDHI imm 28 dd 10cy DE <- HL + imm Instruction : LDHI d8 (LRI HL,D8) Function : DE HL + d8 (HL + 8bit >DE) Flags : none Arguments : d8 = 8-bit constant LDSI imm 38 dd 10cy DE <- SP + imm Instruction : LDSI d8 (LRI SP,D8) Function : DE SP + d8 (SP+ D8 >DE Flags : none Arguments : d8 = 8-bit constant RSTV CB 6/12cy if(V) push PC, PC <- 40H Instruction : RST flag (RSTV) Function : restart to 40h if flag=1 Flags : none Arguments : flag = V SHLX D9 10cy (DE) <- HL Instruction : SHLX DE Function : DE < [HL] Flags : none Arguments : reg = DE LHLX ED 10cy HL <- (DE) Instruction : LHLX DE Function : [DE] > HL Flags : none Arguments : reg = DE JNX5 addr DD al ah 7/10cy if(!X5) PC <- addr Instruction : JNX5 addr Function : jump to addr if X5=0 Flags : none Arguments : addr = absolute 16-bit address JX5 addr FD al ah 7/10cy if(X5) PC <- addr Instruction : JX5 addr Function : jump to addr if X5=1 Flags : none Arguments : addr = absolute 16-bit address X5 is the otherwise unused bit 5 in the PSW register Allison

18 years, 11 months

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Unknown S100 system

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Unknown S100 system > From: "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at verizon.net> > Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2007 12:56:42 -0400 > To: cctech at classiccmp.org > >On Saturday 22 September 2007 08:29, Allison wrote: >> >With regard to what little programming I've done, the thing I like most >> > about the z80 is relative jumps, which makes relocatable code easy to >> > do. The other big deal is the alternate register set and the index >> > registers, which I really haven't used all that much. >> >> The items that make z80 desireable for programming to me are the repeat >> instructions (LDIR) and the loop (DJNZ) > >Aside from making source a bit more compact, those seemed to, like a lot of >other stuff, require the use of particular registers, etc. that I might >have other uses for at the time. And didn't seem to offer that much of a >speed advantage. I never got into them all that much. They made the source easier to read as well. As to use of registers for block moves in 8080 your likely to use the same set and the same way so no biggie. In balance I like Z80 and it does add some nice expansions. >> plus some of the smaller instructions that make the CPU more symetrical. It >> always bugged me that 8080 can load the SP but storing it required clearing >> the HL and adding SP to HL. > >Yes! It also bugged me that you could swap HL and DE easily enough, but not >HL and BC, or DE and BC. That being a single-byte instruction that executed >fairly quickly, as I recall... Yep, 8080 was very lopsided but I'd guess leaving out some fo the instructions simplified matters back when it meant something. >> 8088/86, hardware around it was easy, hated programming it. Always felt >> it was an 8080 with a bag on the side and borrowed the worst z80 features. >> It's big cache was it's was 16bit and had the ability to address 1mb. > >That approach to things struck me as an abomination the first time I looked at >it, and I never really got all that interested in doing much of anything >with it at the assembler level -- if I need to program something that has one >of those in it I'll do it in c or whatever, so I don't have to be bothered >with all those messy details. It's unfortunate that this is the chip family >that the industry seems to have settled on, mostly. Any 808x or 80x86 I program in high enough level language as to totally obscure the crap underneath. Lowest being database stuff like SQL or maybe Pascal. PC hardware I code for only when people are paying. >I feel the same way about a lot of the intel-type (and similar) peripheral >chips -- write-only registers? WTH? I suppose that some aspect or other of >chip design pushed things in that direction, but looking at it from just the >perspective of programming the things, I don't see where I/O address space >was all that scarce a resource, really. Write only makes sense when you consider it saves addreses and logic in there and likely most will never read it. Some the write is one register and read is another but they share a common address. All in all I've seen better and worse. Allison

18 years, 11 months

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ISA 16-bit extender card

by tpeters＠mixcom.com

I've come across an ISA 16-bit extender card, JDR Microdevices model EXT-80286, http://www.jdr.com/interact/item.asp?itemno=gr-ext Is this worth anything to anyone on the list? -T ----- 702. [Intelligence] The intellect is not a serious thing, and never has been. It is an instrument on which one plays, that is all. --Oscar Wilde --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB: http://www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531

18 years, 11 months

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Moto MVME121 paper

by mnusa2＠hotmail.com

Hi Chuck, I have a lot of interest, do You still have it?. Please continue with email mnusa2 at hotmail.com. BR Matti >Under the heading of "where did *that* come from?", I've stumbled on >a loose leaf binder from Motorola titled "MVME121 System Hardware >Manual". There are several publications within, but the bulk of the >binder's taken up by a document called "MVME319 Intelligent Disk/Tape >Controller User's Manual", which contains all sorts of detail, >including principles of operation, command layouts and schematics. >Circa 1986.>>A customer must've sent it to me; I have no use for it. Anyone want >it for the cost of shipping?>>Cheers,>Chuck _________________________________________________________________ Lataa NYT Windows Live Messengerin uusin versio! http://get.live.com/fi-fi/messenger/overview

18 years, 11 months

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case cracker

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

Can someone point me to somewhere where I can get a case cracker of some sort? I don't think I'm going to score an official Apple one, so I'll settle for one that looks like the one on this page: http://www.answers.com/topic/case-cracker -- 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, 11 months

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Unknown S100 system

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Unknown S100 system > From: "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at verizon.net> > Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2007 16:35:41 -0400 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On Friday 21 September 2007 16:01, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> On 21 Sep 2007 at 14:07, Roy J. Tellason wrote: >> > I wonder why they went with that part? I seem to remember some others >> > that used it as well, though specifics are not coming to mind at the >> > moment. I have a bunch of those on hand, and think about doing >> > something with them from time to time. It's a fairly easy chip to use, >> > with an eprom and a ram chip and a single address latch, I just haven't >> > decided yet what I'm gonna do with it. >> >> Compupro 85/88 board; my own Durango F-85 and a host of others. If >> you can find some of the support chips (8155, 8755), the parts count >> can be very low, given the vintage of the 8085. > >Compupro was the one that was hanging out there at the edge of recall... There was a really nice 8085 system on a board that ran CP/M from Autocontrol the AC-85. Its featurees were a 5mhz 8085, DMA, 64k ram, FDC, 3 serial channels and a real time clock interrupt. What made it unique is the DMA was there to support the FDC for full DSDD 8" and it also unburdened the cpu for background tasks and interrupt servicing. >I may have some of those support chips, too. 8155 (and 8156, which is the >same part with a different select pin polarity if I'm remembering right) >sound real familiar. I have the 8085 Cookbook and a few others that Sams put >out, one covering this text editor and assembler (which I didn't really care >for, but...). No interest in the ROM-based 8355 and I've never seen the >EPROM-based 8755. The relative i/o and RAM address mapping of those parts >gets a little confusing, though, and the book is a bit less clear than it >could be on that aspect of it. I have tubes of the 8085 support chips (8155, 8156, 8755) they can also be used with 8048, 8051, 8088 or pairs for the 8086. The Eprom 8755 is easy to find and still available from various sources. A system using an 8085, 8155, 8755 has the following: 2k Eprom 256bytes ram 1 Timer (8155) 38 io lines (8755 and 8155) 3 maskable interrupts 1 trap (non maskable interrupt) SID and SOD lines (serial IO) It is/was popular in embedded systems and robotics. They were also available in CMOS and Rad-hard CMOS making them useful for extraterrestrial systems. >> I suspect that the reason 8088/8085 pairs were fairly common in >> comparison to Z80/8088 pairs was that timings and buses on the 8088 >> and 8085 are *very* similar and getting them to work with 8000-series >> peripherals was very easy. IIRC, one could even replace an 8085 with >> an 8088 (assuming you were restricting it to 64K addressing) with a >> minimum of "glue". Both multiplex the data lines on A0-A7 the same >> way. Exactly. Also the 8085 was available to at least 6mhz. The 64k/1m addressing differnce was taken care of with a simple address mapping scheme for the 8085. Compupro used it as most using the 8088 and later boards wer more interested in the 16bit cpu rather than any of the 8 bitters so z80/8085 was not an issue as it was a migration tool and allowed the use of older CP/M software. Most CP/M commercial software ran the 8080 programming model. >> I suspect it might be easier to substitute an NSC800 for an 8085 if >> Z80 functionality is needed than trying to shoehorn in a Z80. > >That's another part I have no familiarity with at all at this point in time, >though of course I've heard of it. Not easilly done as the NSC800 is both scarce and it's timing is different enough to complicate matters. > >With regard to what little programming I've done, the thing I like most about >the z80 is relative jumps, which makes relocatable code easy to do. The >other big deal is the alternate register set and the index registers, which >I really haven't used all that much. > The items that make z80 desireable for programming to me are the repeat instructions (LDIR) and the loop (DJNZ) plus some of the smaller instructions that make the CPU more symetrical. It always bugged me that 8080 can load the SP but storing it required clearing the HL and adding SP to HL. What makes the 8085 appealing is in small systems it has hardware advantages like internal clock oscillator, multiple maskable interrupts, two pins for single bit IO (SID/SOD), easier timing compared to z80. It doesnt hurt that it's an upward 8080. it also doesnt hurt that faster parts (6mhz) had far less difficult memory timing than 6mhz z80. It's also common as house flies still. NSC800, had a short product life, I don't think National ever got it faster than 4mhz, production volumes were small and I rarely ever see one. 8088/86, hardware around it was easy, hated programming it. Always felt it was an 8080 with a bag on the side and borrowed the worst z80 features. It's big cache was it's was 16bit and had the ability to address 1mb. Allison

18 years, 11 months

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govliq pooling?

by legalize＠xmission.com

How many of you are located near government liquidation preview areas? I'm wondering if we can't pool our efforts a little in evaluating lots on govliquidation.com by helping each other preview stuff that is local to us but not to someone else. I'm local to Hill Air Force Base in Ogden, UT. Anyone else? -- "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, 11 months

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case cracker

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 9/23/07, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote: > At 10:46 PM -0700 9/22/07, David Griffith wrote: > >Can someone point me to somewhere where I can get a case cracker of some > >sort? I don't think I'm going to score an official Apple one, so I'll > >settle for one that looks like the one on this page: > > > >http://www.answers.com/topic/case-cracker > > I've used a clamp like you would use for holding up a tarp while > welding. Yes, this is a really bad explanation. You shove the tip > in the crack, and as you squeeze the clamp open, it pries the case > apart. That is, essentially, what at least the third-party crackers were - a flat-metal A-frame spring-clamp with a tip about 3/4" wide, and thin enough that the tips on both sides would fit in the groove around the Mac case. They are commonly made of chromed sheet metal with red plastic-dip handles. Hopefully that description will help you spot one in a hardware/home improvement store. They shouldn't be expensive. -ethan

18 years, 11 months

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Unknows S-100 System

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

Using the 8085 instead of a Z-80 was absolutely the right decision (and if you are wondering, who made that decision ..... it was me). The objective was to do a dual processor system with an 8088 and some 8-bit CPU that would run CP/M. It would have been extremely difficult to have done that with a Z-80, it was trivial with an 8085 (using a Z-80 would probably have taken an additional almost 2 dozen ICs ... the external hardware and bus interfaces and signals were just totally different). Further, the performance of the 8085 was (ok, arguably) higher .... true, we were stuck with the 8080 instruction set, but the 8085 ran at 5MHz (later 6MHz) with FAR better timing margins than a 4MHz Z-80. There were things that, in retrospect, we might have done differently (strapping the 8088 for "min" mode instead of "max" mode, for example), but using the 8085 wasn't one of them. All commercial software used 8080 instructions, and the machine was primarily for running MS-DOS anyway. From our perspective (as the manufacturer) we never felt a downside to that decision. Barry Watzman Former computer product line director Heathkit and Zenith Data Systems On Friday 21 September 2007 13:56, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Unlike the Rainbow, the use of the 8085 was probably not such a great > idea after Heath/Zenith had been producing Z-80 systems. I wonder why they went with that part? I seem to remember some others that used it as well, though specifics are not coming to mind at the moment. I have a bunch of those on hand, and think about doing something with them >from time to time. It's a fairly easy chip to use, with an eprom and a ram chip and a single address latch, I just haven't decided yet what I'm gonna do with it.

18 years, 11 months

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Help identifying a PDP-11

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

> Can anyone help me identify my latest PDP-11 rescue. Not been able to > get a good look at it yet as it is in a room packed (and I mean packed) > with junk. Machine consists of a DEC Datasystems cab (about 35-40U with > a blue bottom panel, pretty similar to light blue cabs here: > http://www.computermuseum.li/Liste/Digital/PDP11.70.4.html) > I'm not familiar with the DEC Datasystems versions of PDP-11s. Does > anyone have any background information on them? > Also, I'm pretty sure I've not lucked out and found an 11/70 as no > toggle switch console, any ideas on what other models were fitted to > these cabs. I'm guessing 11/34. That is an 11/70, but with the "remote diagnostics console". You will find a M8255 KY11-RE in there to connect up a modem to give remote console access. Probably hooked up to a modem that was owned by DEC maintenance org and leased as part of the maintenance agreement. I'm sure that sometimes they asked for the modem and console back if the maintenance contract was terminated but as a practical matter I find that they hardly ever reclaimed the equipment. Tim.

18 years, 11 months

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Unknown S100 system

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

Your description fits PERFECTLY a Heathkit / Zenith Data Systems Z-100 series computer (actually, Z-110 or Z-120 series). I am sure, from you description, that this is what it was. It's actually a very common system as S-100 systems go .... about 100,000 were built, five to ten times more than Imsai or SOL-20 systems. > >All of the S100 systems I've seen to date have comprised a backplane >and then cards for various system components - including CPU and >memory. However, I unearthed one today which held much of the system >logic on the backplane itself (i.e. more like a modern-day PC >motherboard - I'd heard such things existed, but this is the first one I've actually seen). >Unfortunately I forgot to bring the thing home with me, so I'm a bit >light on remembered details (but can get more tomorrow if needs be). >However, it appeared to have both an 8088 and 8085 CPU on board, >memory, what is probably ROM, a handful of S100-bus [1] connectors, >parallel port, a light-pen port (unusual!), plus a few other ports (at >least one was serial I expect). There were a few other IDC-style pin >headers too - perhaps for some sort of storage, but none of them were obviously labeled as to function. > >Sound familiar to anyone?

18 years, 11 months

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Unknown S100 system

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

Kind of posting on a whim that this might be something obvious... All of the S100 systems I've seen to date have comprised a backplane and then cards for various system components - including CPU and memory. However, I unearthed one today which held much of the system logic on the backplane itself (i.e. more like a modern-day PC motherboard - I'd heard such things existed, but this is the first one I've actually seen). Unfortunately I forgot to bring the thing home with me, so I'm a bit light on remembered details (but can get more tomorrow if needs be). However, it appeared to have both an 8088 and 8085 CPU on board, memory, what is probably ROM, a handful of S100-bus [1] connectors, parallel port, a light-pen port (unusual!), plus a few other ports (at least one was serial I expect). There were a few other IDC-style pin headers too - perhaps for some sort of storage, but none of them were obviously labeled as to function. Sound familiar to anyone? [1] Of course the only thing to make me think it's S100 is that the connectors are the right type; there's a possibility that it's some totally random bus specific to whatever system this is :-) cheers Jules

18 years, 11 months

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Kaypro keyboard cable pinout

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

Can an ordinary modular handset cord be used for a keyboard cable on a Kaypro? I forget if one can be used as-is or if one plug needs to be attached upside down. -- 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, 11 months

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Kaypro keyboard cable pinout

by melamy＠earthlink.net

the problem is that a regular modular handset cord is a smaller gauge wire than what came with the Kaypro. You may be able to get away with it, but the current draw of the keyboard is a bit much for the regular cord and may not be reliable. -----Original Message----- >From: David Griffith <dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu> >Sent: Sep 22, 2007 10:37 AM >To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >Subject: Kaypro keyboard cable pinout > > >Can an ordinary modular handset cord be used for a keyboard cable on a >Kaypro? I forget if one can be used as-is or if one plug needs to be >attached upside down.

18 years, 11 months

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Apple Quicktake 150 disk image anywhere?

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

Hi, all, This is a repeat of a 7-year-old topic, but I find myself in front of a CD full of Quicktake photos and no software. One of the strange things about the Apple Quicktake 150 was that it compressed its images with a special codec that was only available if you loaded the software that came with the camera. Once you loaded that software, any Mac app could view and manipulate the image, but you had to have the right little tidbit from the disk to do _anything_ with the pictures. The "problem" is that there was other, non-Apple, software on the disks for image manipulation, and according to the Apple ancient download page, the Quicktake disks are unavailable for download from them due to "licensing restrictions" (and there's a specific note from Apple in their info archives that there is no OS X software to handle Quicktake photos, so I'll be using some emulator, but that's an easy problem to solve). I can use ImageConvert or any other tool to process what I have once I have the camera software, but I don't happen to have those disks on hand (the camera was borrowed, 12 years ago). Does anyone happen to have image files of those floppies? Please respond off-list if you can help. Thanks, -ethan

18 years, 11 months

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Any good/bad experiences with Forward Air?

by curt＠atarimuseum.com

I've used Forward Air for about 10 years, mostly shipping Video Arcades and they've been quite good about Hub to Hub shipping, the only downside is you have to go and get Money orders from a local shop near the hubs to pay unless you have an account which is next to impossible to obtain from them. I've used North American Van Lines for most big computer gear and they have been fairly good, some stuff has gotten roughly handled, but they have been okay. I prefer FA, but you just have to deal with the hassle of dropping off and picking up at the hubs. FA pricing is obviously a little better too. Curt -----Original message----- From: "Ethan Dicks" ethan.dicks at gmail.com Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2007 23:49:11 -0400 To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Any good/bad experiences with Forward Air? > Hi, All, > > I'm looking at moving a medium quantity of DEC gear from a friend's > house in Denver to Columbus, and he suggested Forward Air. I checked > their web site and just learned that their National Hub is 8 miles > from my Farm (that a couple of you have seen). As such, it sounds > like a good plan, and I remember that I've heard chatter about Forward > Air, but I'm a bit fuzzy about the nature of the chatter and if it was > mostly good, mixed, mostly bad, or what. I'm planning on shipping > things like an LA180, most or all of an -8/a enclosure and boards, and > perhaps a DECmate I or VT100 (I'll get to see the stuff this > Sunday)... so we are looking at probably a single pallet between 100 > and 200 lbs. > > I'd rather this not turn into a flame-fest or a "why don't you try > *this* method" discussion. I specifically want to hear about any > experiences or recommendations for or against Forward Air. I know my > other options; this one is new to me. > > If you feel your comments are not quite on-topic, please, by all > means, feel free to send to me off-list. Other mini-collectors might > be interested in pertinent comments, though. > > Thanks, > > -ethan

18 years, 11 months

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Kaypro 4 keyboard problem

by redodd＠comcast.net

Hello again Kaypro fans, I've got a Kaypro 4 with a PC81-240A motherboard and 81-232 rom. The machine boots and shows the disk directory on startup. The problem is that the keyboard makes the audible clicks but no characters are shown on the screen. I've tested with other known good keyboards so that's not the problem. I've swapped all the socketed chips. A Google search found another person who had the same problem but he never got an answer. I sent him an email but I haven't gotten a response yet. I've also resoldered the keyboard jack to the mobo. Jiggling the keyboard connector doesn't help. It looks like the wires in the jack are OK. Anyone got any ideas? TIA Ralph

18 years, 11 months

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Any good/bad experiences with Forward Air?

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

Hi, All, I'm looking at moving a medium quantity of DEC gear from a friend's house in Denver to Columbus, and he suggested Forward Air. I checked their web site and just learned that their National Hub is 8 miles >from my Farm (that a couple of you have seen). As such, it sounds like a good plan, and I remember that I've heard chatter about Forward Air, but I'm a bit fuzzy about the nature of the chatter and if it was mostly good, mixed, mostly bad, or what. I'm planning on shipping things like an LA180, most or all of an -8/a enclosure and boards, and perhaps a DECmate I or VT100 (I'll get to see the stuff this Sunday)... so we are looking at probably a single pallet between 100 and 200 lbs. I'd rather this not turn into a flame-fest or a "why don't you try *this* method" discussion. I specifically want to hear about any experiences or recommendations for or against Forward Air. I know my other options; this one is new to me. If you feel your comments are not quite on-topic, please, by all means, feel free to send to me off-list. Other mini-collectors might be interested in pertinent comments, though. Thanks, -ethan

18 years, 11 months

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anyone near Phoenix 85040 to grab some pdp parts ?

by stephane.tsacas＠gmail.com

Hi, Anyone near : 4439 South 38th Place Phoenix, Arizona, USA 85040 and interested by a some pdp 11/34 (heavy) parts (chassis, psu) ? thanks regards, -- Stephane Paris, France.

18 years, 11 months

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ibm

by mcmsolutions＠sbcglobal.net

still interested? http://inlandempire.craigslist.org/sys/400141802.html Later

18 years, 11 months

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Qualstar 9 track

by davzimm＠excite.com

I picked up an old Qualstar model 1054 9 track scsi tape drive for reading old data tapes. It is missing the Users Guide, document #500100, that I need to correctly set the dip switches so that I can use it on my old RS6000. I've found a reference to the guide (http://www.qualstar.com/pan003.pdf) telling me what to do but not how. As it is, when I try to read a tape it rewinds and unloads. Dave _______________________________________________ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web!

18 years, 11 months

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Unknown S100 system

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Unknown S100 system > From: Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> > Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2007 16:22:08 +0100 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > > >Kind of posting on a whim that this might be something obvious... > >All of the S100 systems I've seen to date have comprised a backplane and then >cards for various system components - including CPU and memory. However, I >unearthed one today which held much of the system logic on the backplane >itself (i.e. more like a modern-day PC motherboard - I'd heard such things >existed, but this is the first one I've actually seen). I have at last one that qualifies. Netronics Explorer 8085. The base board mas a8085 cpu, space for 8K Eprom and 4k ram plus the 256bytes ram for the monitor and the 2K (8755) Eprom monitor. What makes it different is you could add the bus interface and two sockets for 2 S100 sockets and there was an exptension backplane that stacked on it for another 5 S100 slots. >Unfortunately I forgot to bring the thing home with me, so I'm a bit light on >remembered details (but can get more tomorrow if needs be). However, it >appeared to have both an 8088 and 8085 CPU on board, memory, what is probably >ROM, a handful of S100-bus [1] connectors, parallel port, a light-pen port >(unusual!), plus a few other ports (at least one was serial I expect). There >were a few other IDC-style pin headers too - perhaps for some sort of storage, >but none of them were obviously labeled as to function. > >Sound familiar to anyone? No, very few systems I've seen carry both 8085 and 8088 and those were mostly Compupro S100. > Allison

18 years, 11 months

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Fibre Channel-related items up for grabs

by KenO＠tescomusa.com

Do you still have XMT1300-1.2 fo transmitter? I need some. They go in Tektroniix/agilent test equipment. Ken Owen Technical Manager Tescom keno at tescomusa.com

18 years, 11 months

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Next EPROM Question - Sizes

by healyzh＠aracnet.com

I was happy to find earlier today that while I gave away most of my tubes of chips and other parts about 3 years ago as I wasn't doing anything with chips, I still have a 4 partial tubes of 27256's and 27C256's. IIRC, thankfully I'd thought they might be useful to hang onto. So the question of the minute is this, is it possible to substitute a 27C256 for a smaller 27C128? If so I should have all the pieces I need for the first project with the exception of the EPROM programmer and EPROM eraser. 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, 11 months

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Is there a way to post without a fee to newsgroups?

by jhfinedp3k＠compsys.to

This request is in respect of support for 20 year old DEC computer software and hardware, specifically for running RT-11 on PDP-11 hardware. So I hope it can be considered to be on topic I am using a newsgroups server that allows free read only access, but once or twice a year, I would like to reply. The newsgroups that are moderated allow me to send an e-mail directly to the moderator who then posts the e-mail to that newsgroup. I would like to post to vmsnet.pdp-11 and alt.sys.pdp11 - can anyone suggest a server that is available? By the way, I only use Netscape under Windows 98SE since other browsers don't seem to offer the same flexibility in saving incoming and outgoing e-mails. If either of these two newsgroups allow an e-mail to be sent to a moderator to then have that e-mail posted to the newsgroup, I would appreciate the e-mail address. I have heard that google allows posts to newsgroups, but the interface is so impossible to use as compared with Netscape that I have not even tried. Any suggestions would be appreciated! Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine

18 years, 11 months

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Apps with other functions, was: Re: Is there a way to post without a fee to newsgroups?

by joachim.thiemann＠gmail.com

On 17/09/2007, Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > Golan Klinger wrote: > It actually got me wondering when apps started really pushing (or forcing) > functionality on users outside of their core reason for existing (such as a > web browser trying to be an email client, or an email client trying to be a > usenet client etc.) > > I suspect that aspect *is* on topic :-) Netscape circa mid-90's is one of the > first culprits I can think of, but doubtless there were others long before > then? (Note I'm not talking about small bundled utility apps or functionality > which is related to the central purpose of an application - more the cases > where something that was recognised as doing one job suddenly branched out and > started offering something completely different) How about that editor (or rater, originally a set of macros for an editor) that implements a LISP interpreter, which can be an e-mail client, news reader, ELIZA, ftp client, play tetris, be an IDE, etc, etc... Somewhat older that Netscape. Caused more flamewars, too. (Hope I'm not starting one here!!!) Joe.

18 years, 11 months

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Cromemco & Persci drives (was PS/2 interface &c)

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2007 16:23:01 -0400 From: "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at verizon.net> Subject: Re: Cromemco & Persci drives (was PS/2 interface &c) >On Wednesday 19 September 2007 03:55, M H Stein wrote: >> Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2007 22:56:31 -0400 >> From: "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at verizon.net> >> Subject: Re: Cromemco & Persci drives (was PS/2 interface &c) >> >> <snip> (Re: Cromemco System 3) >>> >>>It's been a really long time since I played with it, but I remember the >>> rest of the system working okay, more or less. There's a CPU board and >>> a 64K RAM board in there, besides the FDC (which if I'm remembering >>> right also has the printer port on it). Does 16FDC sound right? >> >> 16FDC sounds right but this takes us back to the original topic: that DB-25 >> is the RS-232 console port, not a printer. >I seem to remember a whole bunch of DB25 cutouts in the rear panel of that >machine... For the real printer port(s) and extra RS-232 ports for I/O or multi-users. <snip> >Speaking of which, I just discovered handy a loose-leaf binder >labeled "Cromemco Systems Documentation" which has everything I might >possibly need in there, including data on all the cards, the drive, and so >forth, including schematics and other pertinent technical details. Wouldn't >it be nice to get that sort of info with other stuff! :-) Cromemco were one of the most professional of the computer makers of the day and sold many systems to labs, educational and government users, especially the army, navy & air force, and a big multi-box installation at the NYSE IIRC; mind you, their prices reflected that... Also one of the few who, at least in name, are still around... m

18 years, 11 months

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Help identifying a PDP-11

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

Hi I take it you are also in said area. I'm Near READING so M4->M3->M25 an hour and a bit would do it! (see direct email re 11/94's) The 11/94 has a short Qbus followed by a unibus backplane. It needs a KDJ11 but the -B from an 11/84 is rumoured to run. Rod -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tobias Russell Sent: 20 September 2007 09:06 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts; General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only Subject: Re: Help identifying a PDP-11 Hi, Its near Reigate in Surrey. If we can get video that would be great, could go on my www.pdp11.co.uk site. Is the 11/94s CPU UNIBUS or does it have a QBUS backplane for CPU and a qbus/unibus convertor? If its QBUS would an 11/73 CPU be of any use, have a lot of them in my spares stack. Cheers, Toby ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rod Smallwood" <RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org> Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 10:33 AM Subject: RE: Help identifying a PDP-11 > Hi > Now that sounds interesting. Where is it? > The reason I ask is I have a retired friend who has more video equipment > than the BBC. > A nice video of it getting craned out would interesting. > A couple of points re craning. > If there are no eye bolt holes in top of the cabs you need to have a > strong base to put it on and then a stretcher bar four rope sling down > to the base. Any side pressure will collapse the cab and crush anything > inside. I'd tend towards pulling the drives (and anything else fragile) > out of the cab. > > The fact that there's no lights and switches front panel is probably due > trying to stop the end user doing something nasty. > If I read the runes correctly on other posts then light and switch front > panels are around and are a straight swap. > > I have no fewer than four 11/94's but the KD11J CPU boards were stolen > before I got to the machines. > An 11/84 CPU (KDJ11-B) + Memory would do but I cant find one at a good > price. > > Rod > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tobias Russell > Sent: 18 September 2007 20:47 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts; General > Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only > Subject: Re: Help identifying a PDP-11 > > Hi, > > Yes it was indeed a DIBOL based machine. I think it was used as a > business administration system of some sort, possibly for the printing > industry. > > When I viewed the machine, it was deeply buried under boxes of paperwork > and so I've not had a chance to fully inspect the CPU cabinet. The > reason for having to crane it out is that the machine is on the first > floor of the office building it is stored in and I decided the few > hundred pounds it would cost to hire a crane were considerably less than > the back surgery I would require if I attempted to get it down the > constricted stair cases I was faced with. Plus I could get it out in one > piece rather than having to dismantle. Luckily the build has a nice > large (reinforced) flat roof, so should be a case of wheeling it out and > craning it down. > > I'm still suspecting the machine to be an 11/34 as I couldn't see any > sign of a full switched console so suspect there is a keypad hidden away > somewhere. Regardless it will be a nice machine to add to my growing > haul of PDPs and VAXes (upto 40 now) > > Out of interest, how many UK PDP-11 owners are there on this list? Might > be worth assembling a little SIG to allow us to swap parts etc > > Thanks, > Toby > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Rod Smallwood" <RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk> > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org> > Sent: Monday, September 17, 2007 5:38 PM > Subject: RE: Help identifying a PDP-11 > > >>A couple of other things have come to mind. >> >> DEC DataSystem usually indicated that it supported *DIBOL running > under >> OS/8, RT11 or VMS >> >> They were intended to be a business package system ready run and often >> included training, installation >> and maintenance. >> >> There's a possible confusion here 'DEC System' refered to a DEC10 or >> DEC20 and DEC DataSystem to one of these package jobs. >> >> *Program Structure like COBOL. Syntax like Fortran/BASIC. BCD > Arithmetic >> >> >> Rod Smallwood >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org >> [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tim Shoppa >> Sent: 17 September 2007 13:50 >> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >> Subject: Re: Help identifying a PDP-11 >> >>> Can anyone help me identify my latest PDP-11 rescue. Not been able to >>> get a good look at it yet as it is in a room packed (and I mean >>> packed) with junk. Machine consists of a DEC Datasystems cab (about >>> 35-40U with a blue bottom panel, pretty similar to light blue cabs >> here: >>> http://www.computermuseum.li/Liste/Digital/PDP11.70.4.html) >> >>> I'm not familiar with the DEC Datasystems versions of PDP-11s. Does >>> anyone have any background information on them? >> >>> Also, I'm pretty sure I've not lucked out and found an 11/70 as no >>> toggle switch console, any ideas on what other models were fitted to >>> these cabs. I'm guessing 11/34. >> >> That is an 11/70, but with the "remote diagnostics console". You will >> find a M8255 KY11-RE in there to connect up a modem to give remote >> console access. Probably hooked up to a modem that was owned by DEC >> maintenance org and leased as part of the maintenance agreement. I'm >> sure that sometimes they asked for the modem and console back if the >> maintenance contract was terminated but as a practical matter I find >> that they hardly ever reclaimed the equipment. >> >> Tim. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> -- >> This message has been scanned for viruses and >> dangerous content by MailScanner, and is >> believed to be clean. > > > -- > This message has been scanned for viruses and > dangerous content by MailScanner, and is > believed to be clean. > > > > > > -- > This message has been scanned for viruses and > dangerous content by MailScanner, and is > believed to be clean. -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

18 years, 11 months

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UK PDP11 oweners

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

Me for two (11/94's) Rod -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tony Duell Sent: 19 September 2007 23:10 To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: UK PDP11 oweners > Out of interest, how many UK PDP-11 owners are there on this list? > Might be worth assembling a little SIG to allow us to swap parts etc Me, for one. I've got (from what I rememebnr (!)) : PD11/10 (5.25" box) PDP11/45 PDP11/34 (3 off) PDP11/24 PDP11/44 LSI11 MINC-11 MIOC23 York Box (BAA11V + SBC21 + RAM + I/O) At least one other Q-bus machine -tony

18 years, 11 months

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Subject: Re: 8-bitters and multi-whatever

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

As Student Apprentice in the 1960's I rewired a big (Great Western Railway) wartime eletromechanical PABX. Now that was interesting. You could see the precursors to modern computing. There really was relay logic in there. Rod Smallwood -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of woodelf Sent: 19 September 2007 22:01 To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Subject: Re: 8-bitters and multi-whatever Roy J. Tellason wrote: > I never could understand how they managed to do all of that with what > was basically electromechanical stuff... Some very tricky relays. That is why you have 1 for long distance. I had a book about that -- 1940's ( but it got lost ) and the big thing was automatic dialing. I am not sure but I think on the old non dial phones you could even back then dial your number by tapping the hook on the phone. Ben.

18 years, 11 months

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Help identifying a PDP-11

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

Hi Now that sounds interesting. Where is it? The reason I ask is I have a retired friend who has more video equipment than the BBC. A nice video of it getting craned out would interesting. A couple of points re craning. If there are no eye bolt holes in top of the cabs you need to have a strong base to put it on and then a stretcher bar four rope sling down to the base. Any side pressure will collapse the cab and crush anything inside. I'd tend towards pulling the drives (and anything else fragile) out of the cab. The fact that there's no lights and switches front panel is probably due trying to stop the end user doing something nasty. If I read the runes correctly on other posts then light and switch front panels are around and are a straight swap. I have no fewer than four 11/94's but the KD11J CPU boards were stolen before I got to the machines. An 11/84 CPU (KDJ11-B) + Memory would do but I cant find one at a good price. Rod -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tobias Russell Sent: 18 September 2007 20:47 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts; General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only Subject: Re: Help identifying a PDP-11 Hi, Yes it was indeed a DIBOL based machine. I think it was used as a business administration system of some sort, possibly for the printing industry. When I viewed the machine, it was deeply buried under boxes of paperwork and so I've not had a chance to fully inspect the CPU cabinet. The reason for having to crane it out is that the machine is on the first floor of the office building it is stored in and I decided the few hundred pounds it would cost to hire a crane were considerably less than the back surgery I would require if I attempted to get it down the constricted stair cases I was faced with. Plus I could get it out in one piece rather than having to dismantle. Luckily the build has a nice large (reinforced) flat roof, so should be a case of wheeling it out and craning it down. I'm still suspecting the machine to be an 11/34 as I couldn't see any sign of a full switched console so suspect there is a keypad hidden away somewhere. Regardless it will be a nice machine to add to my growing haul of PDPs and VAXes (upto 40 now) Out of interest, how many UK PDP-11 owners are there on this list? Might be worth assembling a little SIG to allow us to swap parts etc Thanks, Toby ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rod Smallwood" <RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org> Sent: Monday, September 17, 2007 5:38 PM Subject: RE: Help identifying a PDP-11 >A couple of other things have come to mind. > > DEC DataSystem usually indicated that it supported *DIBOL running under > OS/8, RT11 or VMS > > They were intended to be a business package system ready run and often > included training, installation > and maintenance. > > There's a possible confusion here 'DEC System' refered to a DEC10 or > DEC20 and DEC DataSystem to one of these package jobs. > > *Program Structure like COBOL. Syntax like Fortran/BASIC. BCD Arithmetic > > > Rod Smallwood > > > -----Original Message----- > From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tim Shoppa > Sent: 17 September 2007 13:50 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Help identifying a PDP-11 > >> Can anyone help me identify my latest PDP-11 rescue. Not been able to >> get a good look at it yet as it is in a room packed (and I mean >> packed) with junk. Machine consists of a DEC Datasystems cab (about >> 35-40U with a blue bottom panel, pretty similar to light blue cabs > here: >> http://www.computermuseum.li/Liste/Digital/PDP11.70.4.html) > >> I'm not familiar with the DEC Datasystems versions of PDP-11s. Does >> anyone have any background information on them? > >> Also, I'm pretty sure I've not lucked out and found an 11/70 as no >> toggle switch console, any ideas on what other models were fitted to >> these cabs. I'm guessing 11/34. > > That is an 11/70, but with the "remote diagnostics console". You will > find a M8255 KY11-RE in there to connect up a modem to give remote > console access. Probably hooked up to a modem that was owned by DEC > maintenance org and leased as part of the maintenance agreement. I'm > sure that sometimes they asked for the modem and console back if the > maintenance contract was terminated but as a practical matter I find > that they hardly ever reclaimed the equipment. > > Tim. > > > > > > > > -- > This message has been scanned for viruses and > dangerous content by MailScanner, and is > believed to be clean. -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

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Help identifying a PDP-11

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

A couple of other things have come to mind. DEC DataSystem usually indicated that it supported *DIBOL running under OS/8, RT11 or VMS They were intended to be a business package system ready run and often included training, installation and maintenance. There's a possible confusion here 'DEC System' refered to a DEC10 or DEC20 and DEC DataSystem to one of these package jobs. *Program Structure like COBOL. Syntax like Fortran/BASIC. BCD Arithmetic Rod Smallwood -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tim Shoppa Sent: 17 September 2007 13:50 To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Help identifying a PDP-11 > Can anyone help me identify my latest PDP-11 rescue. Not been able to > get a good look at it yet as it is in a room packed (and I mean > packed) with junk. Machine consists of a DEC Datasystems cab (about > 35-40U with a blue bottom panel, pretty similar to light blue cabs here: > http://www.computermuseum.li/Liste/Digital/PDP11.70.4.html) > I'm not familiar with the DEC Datasystems versions of PDP-11s. Does > anyone have any background information on them? > Also, I'm pretty sure I've not lucked out and found an 11/70 as no > toggle switch console, any ideas on what other models were fitted to > these cabs. I'm guessing 11/34. That is an 11/70, but with the "remote diagnostics console". You will find a M8255 KY11-RE in there to connect up a modem to give remote console access. Probably hooked up to a modem that was owned by DEC maintenance org and leased as part of the maintenance agreement. I'm sure that sometimes they asked for the modem and console back if the maintenance contract was terminated but as a practical matter I find that they hardly ever reclaimed the equipment. Tim.

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Subject: Re: 8-bitters and multi-whatever

by aijones2＠bsu.edu

> > I don't see why not; serial comms (over whatever medium) connecting two > machines is still 'networking' in my book. I the case you mention it may well > be only point-to-point rather than "lots of machines on the same line", but I > still think it qualifies. > Then let's go a step further. When/where did the first internetworking gear come onto the market? Not multi-protocol routing, just routing in general: segmented networks with nodes that moved traffic towards remote nodes on the behalf of local ones.

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PS/2 Interface (was: Wang 300 Calc]

by dm561＠torfree.net

-------------Original Message: Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2007 10:40:49 -0700 From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> Subject: Re: PS/2 Interface (was: Wang 300 Calc] On 15 Sep 2007 at 13:02, M H Stein wrote: > Funny how on the one hand I read the sentiment here that people should be required > to pass a course in advanced computer science before being allowed to plug in a > computer, and then that they should be so simple to hook up that a retarded^H^H^H^H > mentally-challenged blind^H^H^H vision-impaired chimpanzee could do it; > just no pleasing some folks... I dunno, Mike. I'm generally capable of operating most any computer, but my eyesight is terrible (and not getting any better with age). I'd sure as heck would like the assurance that whatever plug I'm sticking into a receptacle at least isn't going to result in "magic smoke" (see my earlier comment on wall wart perversion) even if I didn't quite read the label on the box correctly. ------------Reply: I know exactly what you mean about eyesight, so I probably wasn't very clear... What I meant was that of all the things that *are* dumb like the PC printer connector and Tony's AC plugs "criminally" used for other purposes, the PS/2 mouse & keyboard ambiguity is as harmless as L & R audio connectors. Mind you, IBM didn't "invent" that printer connector; lots of S-100 boxes used DB-25s for RS-232 *and* parallel printers and, what's even worse, they were usually all female; almost makes sense, actually, since there were stock DB-25M<>CEN cables around at the time whereas you usually wound up making your own serial cables anyway. And wasn't a male connector a sort of "standard" for DTE equipment? Nevertheless, since Compaq could use the same port for a mouse or a keyboard, I can't see either why when there are two separate ports they couldn''t be interchangeable. Some modern PCs even have interchangeable audio connectors; you can plug in line in and out either way and it sorts out which is which. And don't talk to me about wall-warts; what's really annoying is when the equipment doesn't state the voltage & polarity. m

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Anybody in Las Vegas?

by dm561＠torfree.net

Anybody in Las Vegas who'd be willing to help a nice lady doctor who's trying to read some old 5 1/4 WP5.1 disks on her 386 with a flaky FDD? Please? Contact me off-list for her info if you think you can help. Mike in Toronto (a little too far away ;-(

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Goodwill Computerworks Museum Pictures

by daultman＠tx.rr.com

I just found a post about visiting the Goodwill Computerworks from Aug 2000 while seearching for information on an IBEX 7202 CP/M I have. I have looked at vintage-computer.com and vintage.org, EBay, and general searches many times. Yours is the first I've found referencing this computer I have. Can you tell me more about it? Who might be interested in it and the many programs I have with it?

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Seven segment display history

by pdp11＠saccade.com

One thing I've always been really curious about is who invented the seven segment display. Not a particular implementation of it, but the graphic design concept that seven bars are all you need to display the digits 0 - 9. I'd always assumed it was something that originated from the creation of electronic calculators. The first Friden EC-130 for example, uses seven segment patterns on a CRT (machines prior to that used Nixie tubes). Well, leave it to Don Knuth to dig up a much older reference. While browsing his web pages, I noticed a reference to patent 974,943 by F.W. Wood, issued in 1910(!). It describes an electro-mechanical "Illuminated Announcement and Display Signal" with a segmented display. Wood actually uses eight segments (so his "4" has a slanted top), but other than that, it's exactly the same design as the digits today's cheap watches and calculators. Patent (you may need to register first): http://www.freepatentsonline.com/0974943.pdf Cheers, jp

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IBM 4865 (External 3.5" floppy) power pigtail connector

by mbbrutman-cctalk＠brutman.com

I've acquired an IBM 4865 drive for my 5160 XT - it is a 3.5" external drive. I've got the 1.44MB version which is wrong for the XT, but with the correct media (1MB diskettes) it might work. Besides the normal 37 pin D shell connector that goes to the back of the floppy controller this drive has a little 4 connector pigtail to provide operating voltage for the drive. I've picked the drive apart and I think I know what the pins on the power pigtail are supposed to be. I'd like to find a nice matching socket for the pigtail instead of just hacking it, but after an hour into the world of Molex and Amphenol I've decided to ask for help ... The picture can be found here: http://brutman.com/dscf6030.jpg Thanks in advance, Mike

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Cromemco & Persci drives (was PS/2 interface &c)

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2007 22:56:31 -0400 From: "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at verizon.net> Subject: Re: Cromemco & Persci drives (was PS/2 interface &c) <snip> >> it's sometimes convenient to hook up a known good 5 1/4 drive to check out >> the rest of the system and get it up & running before you dig into the 8". >> Also makes it easier to make disks from PC images if you need them. >It's been a really long time since I played with it, but I remember the rest >of the system working okay, more or less. There's a CPU board and a 64K RAM >board in there, besides the FDC (which if I'm remembering right also has the >printer port on it). Does 16FDC sound right? 16FDC sounds right but this takes us back to the original topic: that DB-25 is the RS-232 console port, not a printer. >> If there's no HD you might have trouble finding 12V though & need a >> separate supply or regulator; an external powered 5 1/4 disk in a nice >> enclosure is a useful peripheral for a System3. >I suppose I could rig one up, but I don't know about hacking together a BIOS >for that machine. I never did get into that stuff all that much. Well, you wouldn't have to hack the BIOS but (assuming you're running CDOS) you'd need a 5 1/4 CDOS image; I think Dave D has some on his site. Good luck. mike

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Apple IIc+ boot disk for DOS3.3

by HGoff＠2-10.com

Do you stock this diskette?

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did anyone else go to MIT?

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

that show is not what it used to be. Certainly not worth the ~300 mile drive. It used to be in a different location and was at probably 2x as big. Did talk w/some interesting people. I met a guy who has 3,000 computers, including some VERY big iron. Can you say you know anyone w/this many puters? Can you? I think not. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better Heartthrob. Get better relationship answers from someone who knows. Yahoo! Answers - Check it out. http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=list&sid=396545433

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EPROM Erasers?

by trag＠io.com

>Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2007 06:57:40 -0700 >From: dwight elvey <dkelvey at hotmail.com> > A carbon arc would work as well but I've not seen these >since they've stopped using these in search lights. >Dwight Back in elementary school one of the library books had interesting projects in it. One project was to remove the carbon rods from four 'D' cells. They're about 1/4" - 3/8" in diameter and run the length of the cell. It's a bit of a trick to extract them without breaking them. Once you have four carbon rods, suspend two in a jar of salt water. Grip the other two, each with its own wooden clothes pin (the spring type, not the slot type). Now steal a heavy duty electrical cord from something like Mommy's clothes iron. Attach one lead of the cord to one of the carbon rods in the jar of salt water. Connect the other lead to one of the carbon rods held by a clothes pin. Now use a spare length of heavy wire to connect the remaining two carbon rods together. Plug the cord into the wall. Now carefully touch the tips of the two clothes pin carbon rods together and then slowly draw them apart. TADA! Carbon arc. Vary the salt content in the jar to adjust the power. I don't recall the instructions saying anything about not looking directly at the arc. Perhaps this method doesn't generate enough UV to be useful/harmful? I spent a fair bit of time staring at the thing. Thirty-five years later I haven't noticed any vision impairment, but maybe I was young enough for my retina to recover. It was quite the attention getter at the ES science fair. I suspect books in grade schools don't contain cool/dangerous projects like this any more. I only electrocuted myself once or twice by touching the live bits of the contraption... Jeff Walther

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Repro Cromemco joysticks...

by wh.sudbrink＠verizon.net

Hi All, I want to build a couple of reproduction (work alike) Cromemco joystick consoles for two reasons: 1) I don't have any real ones. 2) I'll be able to let the "unwashed masses" (my children included) play various games with worrying about them getting destroyed. To this end, I've looked at the pdf of the manual and (to my delight) discovered that I have all of the required parts. Well, almost. Two things: 1) The manual calls for a 45 Ohm QUAM speaker. All I have are plain old run-of-the-mill 8 Ohm internal PC speakers. My ignorance of basic electronics shines through... 30 minutes of googling and I'm not sure what QUAM means. Anyway, can I substitute the speaker? With some modification to the schematic? 2) The manual does not specify the pot values on the joystick. The joysticks I have have 100K Ohm pots (thanks Tim Shoppa!). Is that value correct? Is the value important? Can I adjust for it on the D+7A or in the circuit on the joystick side? Also, an esthetic question: are the joysticks on the original self-centering? Thanks for any help! BTW: Both manuals (joystick console and D+7A card) are in the Harte repository. No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.487 / Virus Database: 269.13.22/1013 - Release Date: 9/17/2007 1:29 PM

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Calcomp 1043GT plotter in Salem, OR

by cclist＠sydex.com

Just saw this one on Craigslist: http://eugene.craigslist.org/sys/425978406.html Cheers, Chuck

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EPROM Erasers?

by dkelvey＠hotmail.com

> From: arcarlini at iee.org> > Jeff Walther wrote:> [snip description of carbon arc, mains power and hand-held clothes pegs> :-)]> > > I don't recall the instructions saying anything about not looking> > directly at the arc. Perhaps this method doesn't generate enough> > UV to be useful/harmful?> > Perhaps the odds of surviving long enough for UV exposure to be an issue> turned out to be quite low :-) At least over here in the 240Vac world.> > Antonio> Hi I see people talking about looking into a UV light source. If you are worried about the internals of your eye, don't worry. The cornea will absorb the UV for you. Then, you may need cornea surgery to replace your damaged cornea. It doesn't matter if you are looking directly into a UV light source, it is just if there is a direct line between your eye and the UV source. People don't understand microwave ovens either. It isn't looking into the microwave that is the problem, it is getting your eyes close to a leaky microwave seal. You can look into a microwave oven as much as you like as long as you don't get too close. With microwaves it is the inside of the eye that is damaged. As was pointed out, the instructions didn't mention electrical shock either. As I stated before, it is the temperature that creates the UV. If it looks blue-white, it is most likely producing UV as well. If it is yellow or orange, it is most likely not. Also remember that little UV is reflected from surfaces. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Gear up for Halo? 3 with free downloads and an exclusive offer. It?s our way of saying thanks for using Windows Live?. http://gethalo3gear.com?ocid=SeptemberWLHalo3_WLHMTxt_2

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Handheld VAX and System/370.

by andy＠smokebelch.org

OK I realise this is cheating slightly but I still thought it was quite cool that it worked... SimH on a Nokia N800: http://carrierdetect.com/?p=39 VM/370 R6 under Hercules on an N800: http://carrierdetect.com/?p=40 Just wish the thing had a CF slot and thus could take a Microdrive, in order that I wouldn't have to worry about frequent writes to flash storage. Speaking of which does anyone know if VMS can live without page and swap files? Somehow it doesn't seem likely... Trying to work out how I could make it do as little writes as possible to the FS, e.g. by disabling opcom, auditing and so on. And is there a 'noatime' mount option equivalent for ODS? Andrew ---------------- Andrew Back a at smokebelch.org

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cctalk Digest, Vol 49, Issue 50

by wdg3rd＠comcast.net

This message has been processed by Symantec's AntiVirus Technology. Unknown00000000.data was not scanned for viruses because too many nested levels of files were found. For more information on antivirus tips and technology, visit http://ses.symantec.com/

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Cromemco & Persci drives (was PS/2 interface &c)

by dm561＠torfree.net

-----------------Original Message: Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 19:50:25 -0400 From: "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at verizon.net> Subject: Re: PS/2 Interface (was: Wang 300 Calc] On Monday 17 September 2007 18:57, Tony Duell wrote: <snip> > I have an S100 amchine called a CASU Super C. It contains a Cromemco CPU > board, some other stnadard 64K RAM bvoard, a Micromation Doubler disk > controller and CASU-designed boot ROM and seiral interface boards. > > The disk drive (a Persci) is in a separate box. The 50 wire interface > cable is split down the middle adn connected to a pair of DB25s... I have a Cromemco "System 3" (?). It also has a Persci drive in it, a dual. Is that what yours is? There's apparently some sort of a problem with mine, as the floppy which was in it when I got it had been tried so much and for so long that the initial tracks were completely worn away, and you could see through it. On perusing the service data for it, I notice that the drive uses a bunch of _incandescent_ light bulbs for things like index sensor, etc. I would imagine that one or more of these is likely to be the problem. I'd deferred working on it because you can't do much with it in the computer case, and I needed to make some sort of extension for the power cable to the drive, which was a rather odd connector... Nice machine, in that the S-100 card cage pulls out like a drawer. Too bad it's not working. ------------Reply: Lots of luck with that Persci; nice and fast when they worked, but... My 3s all have Tandon singles; slower but infinitely more reliable. You probably know, but the controller can use both 5 1/4 and 8" drives; it's sometimes convenient to hook up a known good 5 1/4 drive to check out the rest of the system and get it up & running before you dig into the 8". Also makes it easier to make disks from PC images if you need them. If there's no HD you might have trouble finding 12V though & need a separate supply or regulator; an external powered 5 1/4 disk in a nice enclosure is a useful peripheral for a System3. Relevant to the original discussion: Cromemco's external 5 1/4 FDDs and tape drives used a standard Amphenol IEEE connector as used on parallel Commmodore FDDs &c (not IEEE protocol though ;) mike

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Magazines on ebay

by silent700＠gmail.com

For those who collect old Byte and Interface Age mags, I've begun posting my duplicate issues on the 'bay. If you're interested, here's the link to my listings: http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZdev*null -- jht

18 years, 11 months

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Help identifying a keyboard?

by sethm＠loomcom.com

Hi folks, Can anyone help identify the keyboard in these photos? (apart from the obvious, that it's made by Stackpole and has a part number of 86-90-0048 ;) http://www.loomcom.com/junk/stackpole1.jpg http://www.loomcom.com/junk/stackpole2.jpg I picked it up for fifty cents at a swap meet in the hopes that it might be an ASCII keyboard that I could use in an Apple I replica, but given that it has a 40-pin DIP socket, it's clearly not (it was very early in the morning, what can I say). It has a five-pin power header on the top left, two red LED indicators, the aforementioned 40- pin DIP socket, and only one IC, an SN7414N, so it's obviously not doing much logic. -Seth

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Ancient 8086/80286 unixes?

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

Surely any publisher of an article past or present and where software is an important part of the design and who does not print a listing is only doing half the job. If they are doing this to sell a few preprogrammed chips then shame on them. For old designs we may come across and wish to restore and are prevented by this practice lets have a 'Wall of Shame' to identify those people who left us a legacy like that. Rod Smallwood -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tony Duell Sent: 14 September 2007 20:41 To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Ancient 8086/80286 unixes? > > On Thursday 13 September 2007 01:30:39 Ensor wrote: > > > I first came across this myself in the mid-90s. I'd picked up a copy > > of "Elektor" for the first time in almost 10 years and was surprised > > that they didn't provide any listings of any form for the projects > > based around PICs, you had to send away for pre-programmed parts. > > That's about when I remember seeing it happen; also with an article in > (possibly) PE&EE about building a Z80-based SBC that ran Forth. Actually, Elektor have been rather better about this recently, and in a lot of cases the _source_ code for the microcontroller firmware is available as a free download from their web site. Alas, in some cases (often for the projects I am most interested in :-(), this is not the case, often becasue the author gets a royalty from each pre-programmed chip sold. > > These days when you can build a simple PIC or ATMEL programmer from a > couple of components, or buy an EPROM programmer off eBay for about a > tenner, there's not really an excuse. I suspect the reason (not an excuse...) was that they made money selling pre-programmed chips. Certainly when you boughht the pre-programmed chip, it came copy-protected. > > Ob. on-topic: does anyone remember the Forth SBC article I was talking > about, and does a copy of it exist online anywhere? No, and as a Forth (and stack based languages in general) lover, I would be interested. -tony

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did anyone else go to MIT?

by dkelvey＠hotmail.com

> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org---snip--- > > > > My collection's size isn't primarily due to the number of machines, but > > instead because of the size of my machines. And there are a few people > > on this list whose collections are the size of mine or larger, at least > > that I know of.> > > > Hmmm.. A new way to define ones collection - by the space it takes up! :)> Hi I have a 20 foot container with shelves and a small walk space. about 15 percent is old radios. The reset is computer related. I'd estimate that about 75% of my computer collection is inside the container. As I recall, the container is 8X8X20. I have stiff to the ceiling as well as some across the top of the walk way such that one has to duck in places. One can do the math. Not as big as many but still a nice collection. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Kick back and relax with hot games and cool activities at the Messenger Caf?. http://www.cafemessenger.com?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_SeptWLtagline

18 years, 11 months

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New acquisition

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

The Dec20 is good but get a load of that DS570. Now that is really nice Rod -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Zane H. Healy Sent: 18 September 2007 05:00 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts; General at shiresoft.com Subject: Re: New acquisition At 8:47 PM -0700 9/17/07, Guy Sotomayor wrote: >Hi, > >I just wanted to let y'all know that I recently acquired a DEC 2065. >I put up a quick web page of how my shop is being reorganized to >accommodate the new "toy". Warning this is not a permanent location >(ie if you link to it you may not find it in a month). > >http://web.mac.com/ggs17/site Drop the site from the URL and it will work... http://web.mac.com/ggs17 I'm not sure, if I'm jealous, or relieved that I'm not the one trying to take care of that BEAUTIFUL system! What are you going to run on it? What were you running on the KL10? 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, 11 months

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Handheld VAX and System/370.

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Handheld VAX and System/370. > From: Andrew Back <andy at smokebelch.org> > Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2007 08:23:06 +0100 (BST) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On Mon, 17 Sep 2007, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > ><<SNIP>> > >>> Just wish the thing had a CF slot and thus could take a Microdrive, in >>> order that I wouldn't have to worry about frequent writes to flash storage. >>> Speaking of which does anyone know if VMS can live without page and swap >>> files? Somehow it doesn't seem likely... Trying to work out how I could >>> make it do as little writes as possible to the FS, e.g. by disabling opcom, >>> auditing and so on. And is there a 'noatime' mount option equivalent for >>> ODS? VMS cannot live without page and swap. What you can do is maximize the memory it has to reduces the need to psge/swap. >> Wasn't there someone making an outboard adapter for SD that holds a CF? I >> have something similar that holds a CF and plugs into a SmartMedia slot. can't help on that. Allison

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Help identifying a PDP-11

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

Look further down the list for a post entitled "Re: New acquisition" This guy has the the most boo-ti-ful DS570 Decdatasystem I have ever seen. All the right periperials, LA36 console priner, VT crt and what looks like an LP11 line printer. Get a load of that lights and switches front panel. I think the DS570 is the 11/70 version. Rod -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Rod Smallwood Sent: 17 September 2007 17:39 To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only Subject: RE: Help identifying a PDP-11 A couple of other things have come to mind. DEC DataSystem usually indicated that it supported *DIBOL running under OS/8, RT11 or VMS They were intended to be a business package system ready run and often included training, installation and maintenance. There's a possible confusion here 'DEC System' refered to a DEC10 or DEC20 and DEC DataSystem to one of these package jobs. *Program Structure like COBOL. Syntax like Fortran/BASIC. BCD Arithmetic Rod Smallwood -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tim Shoppa Sent: 17 September 2007 13:50 To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Help identifying a PDP-11 > Can anyone help me identify my latest PDP-11 rescue. Not been able to > get a good look at it yet as it is in a room packed (and I mean > packed) with junk. Machine consists of a DEC Datasystems cab (about > 35-40U with a blue bottom panel, pretty similar to light blue cabs here: > http://www.computermuseum.li/Liste/Digital/PDP11.70.4.html) > I'm not familiar with the DEC Datasystems versions of PDP-11s. Does > anyone have any background information on them? > Also, I'm pretty sure I've not lucked out and found an 11/70 as no > toggle switch console, any ideas on what other models were fitted to > these cabs. I'm guessing 11/34. That is an 11/70, but with the "remote diagnostics console". You will find a M8255 KY11-RE in there to connect up a modem to give remote console access. Probably hooked up to a modem that was owned by DEC maintenance org and leased as part of the maintenance agreement. I'm sure that sometimes they asked for the modem and console back if the maintenance contract was terminated but as a practical matter I find that they hardly ever reclaimed the equipment. Tim.

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New acquisition

by ggs＠shiresoft.com

Hi, I just wanted to let y'all know that I recently acquired a DEC 2065. I put up a quick web page of how my shop is being reorganized to accommodate the new "toy". Warning this is not a permanent location (ie if you link to it you may not find it in a month). http://web.mac.com/ggs17/site -- TTFN - Guy

18 years, 11 months

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cctalk Digest, Vol 49, Issue 51

by dm561＠torfree.net

----------------Original message: Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 23:57:59 +0100 (BST) From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Subject: Re: PS/2 Interface (was: Wang 300 Calc] >> When I think about it, the MITS 8800 had connector punchouts for DB25 >> *only* in the back panel. DB25 seemed to be the lingua franca back >> then for hobbyist interfaces. If one had an 8" floppy drive, one ran >> the ribbon cable right through the crack between the back panel and >> the case cover directly to the controller card(s). No DD50s. >I have an S100 amchine called a CASU Super C. It contains a Cromemco CPU >board, some other stnadard 64K RAM bvoard, a Micromation Doubler disk >controller and CASU-designed boot ROM and seiral interface boards. >The disk drive (a Persci) is in a separate box. The 50 wire interface >cable is split down the middle adn connected to a pair of DB25s... >-tony ---------------Reply: Cromemco did the same thing with their external 8" IMI hard disks; the Z-2 could have one internal (sacrificing half the slots to make room) but if you wanted more you got a 2-drive HDD cabinet the same size as the Z-2 connected through 2 DB25s. mike

18 years, 11 months

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[SPAM(date)] Tore's website

by toresbe＠ifi.uio.no

http://gunkies.org/stuff/CV.html

18 years, 11 months

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Catweasel Mk1-3 not suitable for archiving - why?

by lynchaj＠yahoo.com

Hi, I've been doing some more work on the FDD reader/writer, and I came across an interesting note on the Software Preservation Society website: > We cannot yet support the Catweasel for technical reasons, primarily because > it does not yet enable us to read disks in sufficient detail for dumping, nor > does it allow writing IPF files back to disk. And while it does seem that the > Mk4 would be suited to the job, current models are still running Mk3 firmware > and drivers, meaning that we are still no closer forward in this regard. > > As soon as Mk4 firmware is available for these cards, we will do our best to > obtain one with a view to support it for these purposes. Until then, our hands > are tied. [http://www.softpres.org/glossary:catweasel] Now what I'd like to know is, what part of the Catweasel's design prevents it >from being used for archiving discs? From what I remember, the Amiga FDD controller is a bog-standard raw reader with an MFM sync detector. All it does is sync up to a bitstream and read it >from the disc as a raw stream until it gets told to A) shut up or B) receives another MFM sync. From what I've read, the Catweasel differs only in that it measures the timing between bits, and can do MFM pre-decoding. So what part of its design makes it such a bad choice for this kind of work? FWIW, I'm almost at the point where I can start thinking about doing the PCB designs for the USB floppy disc reader/writer. I've found a solution to the lack of I/Os on the microcontroller (which involves adding a second CPLD to act as an bus expander - probably over I2C). I'm going to do some testing on the bus expander Verilog code tonight, and update the schematics, then any spare time I get next week will probably be spent working on the PCB artwork. My intention is to take a weekend off work at some point in the next month to build up the prototype and do some coding and testing. If all goes well, I might do a small production run in November, depending on interest. -- Phil. | (\_/) This is Bunny. Copy and paste Bunny classiccmp at philpem.me.uk | (='.'=) into your signature to help him gain http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | (")_(") world domination. Phil, I have seen the SPS website you mentioned and read this thread but for the life of me I cannot understand why the Catweasel would be unsuitable for archiving vintage computer floppy disks. If fact, I think a Catweasels raw "bit dump" would be the idea archiving format since it records all the details found on the track. Maybe wrap the raw data in a container format with metadata like the DMK. With Catweasel, you can see everything on the track clock, data, junk, etc. Whatever is there you can see it in the raw data. Once you have the raw bit dump you could make near identical copies or write programs to extract the data files, work with emulators, etc. Regardless of the SPS position, I know some people are already using the Catweasel for archiving vintage computers. Tim Mann's software pretty much covers the almost the whole soft sector disk format spectrum and Jim Battle made a SOL-20/PTDOS hard sector disk imaging program. I think someone else made a program to archive Data General disks. Catweasel seems like the way to go to me. If there is something else out there as good, especially for the hard sector disks, I would certainly like to hear about it. Has anyone tried Disk2FDI on any hard sector formats? It sounds interesting and inexpensive if it works. Thanks! Andrew Lynch

18 years, 11 months

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cctalk Digest, Vol 49, Issue 46, Message 18, PS/2 Interface (was: Wang 300 Calc]

by mike＠brickfieldspark.org

Try www.bulgin.co.uk and go for the General Connectors page (http://www.bulgin.co.uk/Products/GenPurpose_Connectors/GenPurpose_Connector…) Many type on that page but I think you should see what is described towards the bottm. Mike. > Anyway, the connectors I am thinking of were part of as series. They were > circular, most of them were chassis mouting plugs and cable sockets. The > plug was recessed into the panel, and the socket part fitted into it. > There were 1.5A and 5A versions with 2, 3, or 6 pins. Polaraision was > acheaived by a groove down the side of the socket part and a > corresponding ridge in the recessed plug. In many cases the wire > terminals on the socket part were covered by a simple screw-on cap which > means they're not not approved for use above 50V (since you can unscrew > said cap and get access to live parts without the use of a tool). There > were later mocels of some of the sockets with the cover held on by > screws, AFAIK those are still OK for mains use. > > If you like I can tey to find the part numbers for them. > > -tony > >

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PS/2 Interface (was: Wang 300 Calc]

by dm561＠torfree.net

--------------Original Message: Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 21:09:17 +0100 (BST) From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Subject: Re: Wang 300 Calc > > On 13/09/2007, Gordon JC Pearce <gordonjcp at gjcp.net> wrote: > > > It still doesn't excuse having a physically-but-not-functionally > > interchangeable connector for PS/2 mice and keyboards, though. That is > > where USB has a big win. > > Absolutely 100% concur. That was criminally stupid. IIRC, the PS/2 mouse interface and PS/2 keyboard interface are very similar. Both are TTL level interfaces with clock and data lines, both have 4 signals on the connector (+5V, ground, clock, data), and the data transfer protocol is much the same. IIRC, the pin assignemts of the 2 interfaces is the same too, and it's possible to make a device where you can plug the mouse and keyboard into either connector, and detect what sort of device is plugged into a given socket. The fact that most PCs didn't let you do that is not the fault of the interface. So why not use the same connector for the 2 interfaces? -tony -----------------Reply: Why not indeed; old Compaq laptops have a single connector which will accept either a mouse or an external keyboard (an external key_pad_ used a submini earphone-type connector). IBM allowed for both together; a mouse or external keypad connected directly to the single connector while an external keyboard required a Y adapter which routed the keyboard clock & data signals to the two unused pins. And then there are the dual-mode mice which put RS-232 on the unused pins and came with an adapter so they could be used either way... Laptops were probably also a reason for reducing the size of the connector. "Criminally stupid"? I suppose you'd also want incompatible connectors for the right & left channels of your stereo? ;-) Funny how on the one hand I read the sentiment here that people should be required to pass a course in advanced computer science before being allowed to plug in a computer, and then that they should be so simple to hook up that a retarded^H^H^H^H mentally-challenged blind^H^H^H vision-impaired chimpanzee could do it; just no pleasing some folks... m

18 years, 11 months

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Computer rescue -- Honeywell DDP-116 pictures

by wmaddox＠pacbell.net

I've put up some more pictures of the Honeywell DDP-116s >from my recent rescue at www.ddp116.org . --Bill

18 years, 11 months

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Catweasel Mk1-3 not suitable for archiving - why?

by aek＠bitsavers.org

>> The FDI format (google "Disk2FDI") is open and complete, and there's a >> few emulators supporting it (WinUAE, others that are also non-Amiga). >> Doesn't require a catweasel either. > > Wow, looks like it can handle both raw bitstreams, and decoded bitstreams too, > not to mention fully decoded sectors... It doesn't appear they've ever has do deal with anything but soft-sectored formats though.

18 years, 11 months

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Catweasel Mk1-3 not suitable for archiving - why?

by classiccmp＠philpem.me.uk

Hi, I've been doing some more work on the FDD reader/writer, and I came across an interesting note on the Software Preservation Society website: > We cannot yet support the Catweasel for technical reasons, primarily because > it does not yet enable us to read disks in sufficient detail for dumping, nor > does it allow writing IPF files back to disk. And while it does seem that the > Mk4 would be suited to the job, current models are still running Mk3 firmware > and drivers, meaning that we are still no closer forward in this regard. > > As soon as Mk4 firmware is available for these cards, we will do our best to > obtain one with a view to support it for these purposes. Until then, our hands > are tied. [http://www.softpres.org/glossary:catweasel] Now what I'd like to know is, what part of the Catweasel's design prevents it >from being used for archiving discs? From what I remember, the Amiga FDD controller is a bog-standard raw reader with an MFM sync detector. All it does is sync up to a bitstream and read it >from the disc as a raw stream until it gets told to A) shut up or B) receives another MFM sync. From what I've read, the Catweasel differs only in that it measures the timing between bits, and can do MFM pre-decoding. So what part of its design makes it such a bad choice for this kind of work? FWIW, I'm almost at the point where I can start thinking about doing the PCB designs for the USB floppy disc reader/writer. I've found a solution to the lack of I/Os on the microcontroller (which involves adding a second CPLD to act as an bus expander - probably over I2C). I'm going to do some testing on the bus expander Verilog code tonight, and update the schematics, then any spare time I get next week will probably be spent working on the PCB artwork. My intention is to take a weekend off work at some point in the next month to build up the prototype and do some coding and testing. If all goes well, I might do a small production run in November, depending on interest. -- Phil. | (\_/) This is Bunny. Copy and paste Bunny classiccmp at philpem.me.uk | (='.'=) into your signature to help him gain http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | (")_(") world domination.

18 years, 11 months

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DEC vr299

by emu＠e-bbes.com

working, for pick up only, 80433 colorado usa ;-)

18 years, 11 months

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4 VAX workstations (no HDs) (St. Louis, MO)

by legalize＠xmission.com

3 VAX 4000-100A 1 VAX 4000-60 <http://www.dovebid.com/assets/display.asp?ItemID=cpt67366> -- "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, 11 months

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EPROM Erasers?

by healyzh＠aracnet.com

Is there anything I need to look out for when purchasing an EPROM eraser? As part of my current project I'm looking to purchase one. 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, 11 months

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Kaypro movcpm.com

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: RE: Kaypro movcpm.com > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2007 09:50:08 -0700 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On 15 Sep 2007 at 6:49, dwight elvey wrote: > >> My understanding of movcpm.com is that it needs to be the >> exact one that comes with that version. I beleive it has >> tables of addresses to replace. > >Just so. Since MOVCPM contains a copy of CP/M itself, said copy also >contains a serial number, which must match the one of the system >you're executing MOVCPM on. If you've got a debugger, the point >where the check is made is easy to find and disable, however. I don't know about a copy of CP/M but it does ahve a table of all the addresses inside CP/M (CCP, BDOS and BIOS)that get relocated. If the system and MOVCPM are from differnt systems (say kayII and a 4/84) it's very likely the BIOS varies enough that the BIOS will get mashed. The serial numbmer (besides copyright) was to keep the two matched or prevent a mess. >Part of DRI's OEM agreement was that each copy of CP/M had to be >serialized. There is that but it's a seperate issue. Allison >Cheers, >Chuck

18 years, 11 months

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8-bitters and multi-whatever

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: 8-bitters and multi-whatever > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2007 15:59:59 -0700 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On 13 Sep 2007 at 17:36, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > >> > And I'd also disqualify device-sharing, such as a MAC (multiple >> > access controller) between an I/O device and two computers. Those go >> > WAY back... >> >> I'm not familiar with such stuff. > >Ah, showing my age. "Back in the day" you might have two otherwise >independent mainframes and, say, two printers. To have a system do >nothing but wait for a print job to finish while only one of the >printers was busy is a huge waste of resources. A card punch might >be an infrequenly used piece of equipment, so why have two? Or a >printer could be offline for maintenance, but why take the machine it >was attached to down also? Or, instead of having two banks of 8 tape >drives for two machines, why not whittle that down to, say 12, and >allow the drives to be shared? IIRC, most vendors offered some sort >of a MAC facility, even if it was a QSE. CDC certainly did. Most MAC setups again were master/slave. An example was BOCES/LYRICs PDP-10/TOPS-10 timeshare system that had a PDP-8I as the comms frontend (switch). The PDP-8 served as an intelligent peripheral but it's dectapes were not available to the 10. >Of course, direct coupling of computers was also done, either via a >special I/O device or even shared bulk core. But we never called >that "networking". Mostly because it was a clear master slave lashup. Generally/loosely networking implied more than two machines and a more general ability to transfer/communicate as needed be it files, shared devices or some combination of both with any machine being able to initiate and communicate as a peer to others that could do same or similar. Allison

18 years, 11 months

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Help identifying a PDP-11

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

Hi Lots of systems got packaged in those corporate cabs. You imply that its just one Cab. Is that so? The only real way to tell is to get the model numbers off of the back's of the units inside. Where is this system located? A crane sounds bit much. You might want to check under the cabinet for wheels. Has it really been there since 1977? If so there are a lot things that degrade with time. Do not under any circumstances turn it on. All of the power supplies will need overhauling and the capacitors replaced / reformed. If you have looked inside the cab what did you see? If it dates to 1977 then it is in the time frame when I worked at DEC. A bit more detail may ring a (very old) bell with me. Rod Smallwood The DecCollector -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tobias Russell Sent: 15 September 2007 21:01 To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Help identifying a PDP-11 Hi, Can anyone help me identify my latest PDP-11 rescue. Not been able to get a good look at it yet as it is in a room packed (and I mean packed) with junk. Machine consists of a DEC Datasystems cab (about 35-40U with a blue bottom panel, pretty similar to light blue cabs here: http://www.computermuseum.li/Liste/Digital/PDP11.70.4.html) I'm not familiar with the DEC Datasystems versions of PDP-11s. Does anyone have any background information on them? Also, I'm pretty sure I've not lucked out and found an 11/70 as no toggle switch console, any ideas on what other models were fitted to these cabs. I'm guessing 11/34. Machines is fantastic condition having been stored for last 30 years. Comes with 2 x RK07s (in floor standing cabs) and a tape drive. Only downside is I'm having to hire a crane to remove the machine (as its on 1st floor). Any advice on moving RK07 drives? Do I need to lock heads? Many thanks, Toby -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

18 years, 11 months

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EPROM Erasers?

by dkelvey＠hotmail.com

> From: mcguire at neurotica.com> > This is very true. EPROMs store their bits in "floating gates", > which are conductive areas which are totally surrounded by an > insulating material. Exposure to UV light causes that insulating > material to become partially conductive, allowing the charge to drain > from the floating gate...and that charge has to GO somewhere. Hi The charge is really small. Once it is connected to the rest of the chip, it is discharged enough. You don't need to pass the charge to the outside. I have small eraser that doesn't even have uniform contact and it erases just fine. In any case, the gate is like a capacitor. You put a charge on one side and an equal but opposite charge will exist on the other side. When the leads are connected together, there is rarely any static charge left. This is because the ability to hold charge is related to the capacitance. The capacitance of an object to the rest of the world is small but across the plates it is orders of magnitude larger. The same is true for the floating gate. The problem is that you are thinking of the charge on the gate as though it were completely isolated from the rest of the world. This isn't true or it would be useless to control current in the transistor. It has to have a relatively large capacitance to transistor. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Capture your memories in an online journal! http://www.reallivemoms.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM&loc=us

18 years, 11 months

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Next EPROM Question - Sizes

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Next EPROM Question - Sizes > From: "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com> > Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2007 19:34:43 -0700 > To: classiccmp at classiccmp.org > >I was happy to find earlier today that while I gave away most of my >tubes of chips and other parts about 3 years ago as I wasn't doing >anything with chips, I still have a 4 partial tubes of 27256's and >27C256's. IIRC, thankfully I'd thought they might be useful to hang >onto. > >So the question of the minute is this, is it possible to substitute a >27C256 for a smaller 27C128? Yes, with the exception that it's larger and has one more address pin. Allison

18 years, 11 months

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Help identifying a keyboard?

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Help identifying a keyboard? > From: woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> > Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2007 17:48:36 -0600 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Seth Morabito wrote: >> Hi folks, >> >> Can anyone help identify the keyboard in these photos? (apart from the >> obvious, that it's made by Stackpole and has a part number of 86-90-0048 ;) >> >> http://www.loomcom.com/junk/stackpole1.jpg >> http://www.loomcom.com/junk/stackpole2.jpg >> >> I picked it up for fifty cents at a swap meet in the hopes that it might >> be an ASCII keyboard that I could use in an Apple I replica, but given >> that it has a 40-pin DIP socket, it's clearly not (it was very early in >> the morning, what can I say). It has a five-pin power header on the top >> left, two red LED indicators, the aforementioned 40-pin DIP socket, and >> only one IC, an SN7414N, so it's obviously not doing much logic. >Well it is a nice keyboard ... better built than todays 39 cent keyboards. >You could be missing the keyboard encoder chip ( the 40 pin socket). >But that still leaves where do you get output from. > >> -Seth >> Sounds like similar to a keyboard I have but the chip is an 8048 not a keyboard encoder. The data was output on the 5pin connector in serial format. The 8048 micro did the key scanning and serial IO. Allison

18 years, 11 months

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Kaypro movcpm.com

by redodd＠comcast.net

----- Original Message ----- >From: <cctalk-request at classiccmp.org> >To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org> >Sent: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 20:22:26 -0400 >From: "Ralph E. Dodd" <redodd at comcast.net> >Subject: Kaypro movcpm.com >Hello Kaypro fans, >I'd like to put a Kayplus83 rom into a Kaypro II so I can add double sided >drives and have all the other nice stuff that the >rom provides. It's the >early model with an 81-110B1 motherboard that needs the wiring for the >floppy side 2 added. The >Advent Turborom manual has the wiring mods >needed for side 2 access. The Kaypro II comes with a 2K eprom and the > >Kayplus83 is an 8K. Again the Turborom manual tells how to access a 4K >rom and adding access to the A12 line should >make the 8K rom work. I >think that I've got that part all worked out. To make the Kayplus boot >disk, you have to have a >system size of 62K or smaller. My Kaypro II disk >has a 64K system. When I run movcpm.com to change the system >size, the >program hangs. I also tried the version of movcpm that comes with the >Kaypro 4 and that hangs also. So >question (1) is, has anyone gotten this >program to work or is there another easy way to do this? There's a blurb >on the net >about the Kaypro 1 movcpm not working ! >right but I didn't see anything about the Kaypro II version. Question (2) is, should the movcpm program from another >Kaypro model work on a II or are they all specific to 1 model. TIA. >Ralph I was using a boot disk made from a downloaded image. After a long search, I found a copy of the original SBasic boot disk that I got when I bought the Kaypro II. Movcpm worked properly and I was able to sysgen a 60K system so the KayPlus configuration program worked. Thanks for all the help. Ralph

18 years, 11 months

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Early networking (was Re: Subject: Re: 8-bitters and multi-whatever)

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Early networking (was Re: Subject: Re: 8-bitters and multi-whatever) > From: "Ethan Dicks" <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> > Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2007 17:34:47 -0400 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On 9/16/07, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote: >> On 16 Sep 2007 at 13:10, ajones wrote: >> >> > Then let's go a step further. When/where did the first internetworking >> > gear come onto the market? Not multi-protocol routing, just routing in >> > general: segmented networks with nodes that moved traffic towards remote >> > nodes on the behalf of local ones. >> >> Does Usenet UUCP-type networking count? > >The routing in classic UUCP was manually done, but I would say it >counts, but then I used UUCP on a nearly daily basis from about 1985 - >1996, so I could be biased. I was a digit from '83 to 93 and was used to DECnet PhaseIV which had adaptive routing. Phase III did not. So going from a phase III node (usually PDP-11) generally required specifying the path to the first routing node. IP networking was later in my expereicnce and had it's own flavor. To answer the question, Networking gear was already around by 1980 and likely well before that. Allison

18 years, 11 months

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Early networking (was Re: Subject: Re: 8-bitters and multi-whatever)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 9/16/07, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote: > On 16 Sep 2007 at 13:10, ajones wrote: > > > Then let's go a step further. When/where did the first internetworking > > gear come onto the market? Not multi-protocol routing, just routing in > > general: segmented networks with nodes that moved traffic towards remote > > nodes on the behalf of local ones. > > Does Usenet UUCP-type networking count? The routing in classic UUCP was manually done, but I would say it counts, but then I used UUCP on a nearly daily basis from about 1985 - 1996, so I could be biased. -ethan

18 years, 11 months

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Help identifying a PDP-11

by toby＠coreware.co.uk

Hi, Can anyone help me identify my latest PDP-11 rescue. Not been able to get a good look at it yet as it is in a room packed (and I mean packed) with junk. Machine consists of a DEC Datasystems cab (about 35-40U with a blue bottom panel, pretty similar to light blue cabs here: http://www.computermuseum.li/Liste/Digital/PDP11.70.4.html) I'm not familiar with the DEC Datasystems versions of PDP-11s. Does anyone have any background information on them? Also, I'm pretty sure I've not lucked out and found an 11/70 as no toggle switch console, any ideas on what other models were fitted to these cabs. I'm guessing 11/34. Machines is fantastic condition having been stored for last 30 years. Comes with 2 x RK07s (in floor standing cabs) and a tape drive. Only downside is I'm having to hire a crane to remove the machine (as its on 1st floor). Any advice on moving RK07 drives? Do I need to lock heads? Many thanks, Toby -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

18 years, 11 months

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DEC Alphaserver 1000A simm choices

by danieldsnyder＠gmail.com

I seem to recall somewhere in cctech archives having read a discussion about Alphaserver 1000A simm configuration choices. Maybe it was in a newsgroup.. The question is can I use 128M simms in a 1000A? I recall someone tried this size in a Alphastation 250 and all simms were recognised. I know 64M simms work as the SOC shows kits containing this size were available. I realize the simms are the 36 bit type. I currently use a mixture of 32M and 64M in the various banks in my 1000 and 1000A, the simms are a mixture of original DEC and HP simms. I did search the cctech archives and nothing returned. Dan Snyder

18 years, 11 months

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Parts for C64 Hardware Hacking

by healyzh＠aracnet.com

Does anyone have a list out there that details what the part numbers are for the various pieces of hardware you would want to order when building stuff for the C64? As an example the Digi-Key part number for a User Port connector is EDC307240-ND. 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, 11 months

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Kaypro movcpm.com

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: RE: Kaypro movcpm.com > From: dwight elvey <dkelvey at hotmail.com> > Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2007 06:49:28 -0700 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > > >Hi > My understanding of movcpm.com is that it needs to be the >exact one that comes with that version. I beleive it has >tables of addresses to replace. Correct. there is a serial number thats easy to take care of but the real problem is that MOVCPM has to be valid for the BIOS in use. Reason is that MOVCPM is a relocator that operates by adjusting the various Jumps and Calls in the code and if the BIOS and MOVCPM do not match that reloc will make hash of the BIOS. > If you have ROMs, it is unlikely that it is a 64K CPM. One >would need to allow some space for the ROMs. It may already >be a 62K. Likely less for a lot of reasons. Roms can be mapped out of the ram map or transient. I'd bet more like 56K is the case. > You might try moving to something you know is safe like >32K. Good idea and then if you sysgen that code to a disk use a fresh disk to avoid crunching a working one. Allison

18 years, 11 months

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EPROM Erasers?

by dkelvey＠hotmail.com

> From: dave06a at dunfield.com>> > I don't think it's necessary to use a conductive surface - Given that> most devices being erased are used - ie: have been inserted and removed> multiple times, it is highly unlikely that all the pins would contact> a flat conductive surface. Same for a slotted holder - unlikely that> all pins would be connected. Also, none of the data sheets I've seen on> programming mention connecting the pins together. Can anyone provide a> reference?> The conductive foam is only about static when first inserting the EPROM to the eraser. If the UV light has been on for some time, it is unlikely to have any static on surfaces exposed the the UV light. UV erases static just as it does EPROMs. For static handling precautions always make sure to touch the surface before picking up or putting down the IC. Although, it is not desired from a contamination point of view, one shouldn't touch the leads of an IC, the best Faraday shield is enclosing the IC in your fist. I've used this method for handling such sensitive parts as 4051s and 4052s. If your hands are freshly cleaned, you won't have much oil and salts on your skin. From a manufacturer point of view, one should only move an IC from point A to B in a static safe enclosure. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Gear up for Halo? 3 with free downloads and an exclusive offer. It?s our way of saying thanks for using Windows Live?. http://gethalo3gear.com?ocid=SeptemberWLHalo3_WLHMTxt_2

18 years, 11 months

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Looking for Cards

by jrkeys＠concentric.net

I just got a hand punch used with the McBee Keysort system and would like to get a couple of the punch cards used with this system. From what I have read on the Internet these were out before IBM produced punch cards but they look very much like the 80-Col cards from IBM. If anyone has some please contact me off list. Thanks John Keys

18 years, 11 months

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PDP H7864 PSU schematic

by stanb＠dial.pipex.com

Hi, Does anyone know whre I can find a schematic for the above, in a Micro 11/73. Mine just went bang - very loudly! I can fix it, but it would be easier with all the data available. Google turned up a few people selling PSUs and other people looking for the schematics too, but nothing else. -- Cheers, Stan -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com The future was never like this!

18 years, 11 months

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DG Nova 820 for trade

by iamvirtual＠gmail.com

Hi, I recently acquired a Vax-11/750, and I need to free up some space. I have a Data General Nova 820 (circa 1973) and a Diablo 30 Disk drive to trade. I do not have any cables, disk packs, documentation, etc. for the equipment. I have not tried to get the machine going. The machine is as-is, where is, in Langdon Alberta Canada (10 miles east of Calgary Alberta). I estimate the weight of the equipment to be 100 pounds or so. The Nova 820 contains the following cards: 107-000088-13 CPU1 107-000194-01 CPU2 107-000030-03 BASIC 107-000137-04 8K Memory 107-000116-07 Quad Multiplexor 107-000137-04 8K Memory 107-000137-04 8K Memory 107-000107-04 Logic Interface 107-000063-06 Basic I/O Control 107-000094-03 Disk Pack Control I am looking to trade the DG equipment for a reasonably powerful DEC/Compaq/HP Alpha server which is capable of running the latest OpenVMS and Tru64 UNIX operating systems and which has a sufficiently large quantity of memory and disk space. If interested, contact me offlist at ia35mv5i4rtu5al at gmail.com <- remove all numbers from email address I can send photos upon request. Cheers! --barrym

18 years, 11 months

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EPROM Question

by healyzh＠aracnet.com

I've been trying to google up an answer, but have had no luck. What is the difference between a 27256 and a 27C256 EPROM? Can a 27C256 EPROM be substituted for a 27256? Zane

18 years, 11 months

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Wang 300 Calc

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

der Mouse wrote: > Second, the user interface is, at least in my experience of calculators > and programs that can serve for similar purposes, substantially > better-designed for the task. Part of this is the physical > portability, but not all; a general-purpose keyboard is not the best > input device for calculator functionality. I think older calculators actually do a better job than many modern calculators. With modern calculators, I feel like I do with modern DVD player remote controls: way too many buttons, way too many suboptions and menus to do what I actually want. Bit-mapped LCD screens with their ability to do menus and option lists are part of the evil. Go back to devices before them, and you find the core functionality (and all functionality for that matter) directly accessible. After them, everything is on a menu on a submenu on a ... You'd think there'd be fewer buttons with all the menus, but you'd be wrong! Of course I am often frustrated with modern digital scopes. Several of the better brands actually bring out onto knobs (well, they're probably really shaft encoders now) all the traditional analog knobs that should be on a scope. But other brands and lesser models put everything behind a menu. Arggghhh! As for the perfect user interface for VCR's, I think back to the first home units: to record a program in advance, you turn the channel knob to the channel you want, and turn some dials to set the timers for start and stop times. Wonderful! Here we are, decades later, and some of the low-end VCR's are actually approaching this functionality with one or two record buttons. But it's still not as good! Tim.

18 years, 11 months

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