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

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

On 3 Jul, 2007, at 23:35, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > From: Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> >>> I probably have enough to make a very close approximation on a FPGA, >>> but there doesn't seem to be a survivng operators Exec for a 1900, >>> only George 3 stuff. >> >> Oh, from which I presume there are no surviving 1900s? > > There looks to be one at the Science Museum's Wroughton facility > (and a 1500) > - trouble is it's hard to judge from the asset listing how complete > it/they > are. And of course, even if they are complete, how many years of > effort it > would take to make operational. And of course, what software they > have even > assuming the hardware could be made to run. :-( I should of course said operational 1900s. Nice to know the hardware is around anyway. I never came across a 1500, though there is a description of one in the programming notices folder I got with my 1301. I understand they were ICL badged RCA machines and that RCA and ICL used the same 'standard' interface so presumably 1302, 1500 series, 1900 series and modified 1301s could all use the same peripherals, if they had suitable driving software of course. Back to the original post, does anyone know if there is a difference between the "operators Exec for a 1900" and the executive used by engineers and recorded on 7 track mag tape? Would this be of any use? Roger.

19 years, 1 month

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Urgent action - rescue needed, Manchester England.

by robert＠irrelevant.com

Hi all. anybody near Manchester want to take a risk? My ex-wife has posted on the local freecycle list a "pile of electronic gubbins". Unfortunately we're not speaking, and she's not going to let me within a mile of the place. But from the posting, a message passed by a friend, and reading between the lines, it looks like it's going to be everything I ended up leaving behind when I left, about 8 years ago (and which I'd subsequently been told had been disposed of). It therefore /may/ include: complete act sirius 1 and external hard disc apricot xen and external isa expansion chassis microfive 8088 based multi-user system amstrad pc512 in bits SUN 600Mb external scsi drive (was huge!) composite colour monitor plus the usual pc junk, but probably nothing under 10 years old! and it may incude none of those... she's insistant on an all-or-nothing pickup as she's moving, and knows nothing of whats there and cant describe it. However if anybody is nearby and fancies taking a chance on getting some classic kit, let me know and I'll pass on contact details. I don't know how much interest she'll get from the freecycle list direct so best be quick... Rob

19 years, 1 month

3
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Nice - SCSI to IDE converter (eBay Australia)

by trag＠io.com

>Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2007 10:02:19 -0700 (PDT) >From: Chris M <chrism3667 at yahoo.com> >Subject: Nice - SCSI to IDE converter (eBay Australia) >http://cgi.ebay.com/SCSI-to-IDE-converter_W0QQitemZ170126238112QQihZ007QQca… > >are these hard to come by (or make even!). Seems like >a darned handy thing to have around. They are fairly easy to get, but the list price on the ones with which I am familiar is in the neighborhood of $70. It kind of guts the economy of putting affordable IDE devices on your SCSI chain. Acard makes a variety of adapters, with the variation being different flavors of SCSI. The narrow ultra-SCSI adapter is the AEC-7220U. If you visit Acard's website you will find that their price on it is $69, but I think they ship from Taiwan or some such. It is better to find the US distributers and buy from them (if you're in the USA). IIRC the USA distributers are getlaptop.com and microlandusa.com. Newegg sells some Acard products, but I don't know if they carry the SCSI to IDE adapters. The Acard models have (?) extended LBA support or whatever it is called when disks larger than 137 GB are supported. It might be kind of funny to put a 500 GB IDE drive ($90 w/ free shipping at Frys.com; Seagate 5yr warranty) on some machine from the late 80's with an unenhanced SCSI port. How long would it take to write the whole disk at 3 MB/s? Jeff Walther

19 years, 1 month

2
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unibus geeking; udisk update

by brad＠heeltoe.com

[keywords: unibus, pdp-11, disk controller emulation] If anyone has an interest in low level unibus, I scanned in some screen shots from my simple HP1650 and updated my udisk page. Nothing exotic, just basic register reads, npr & br5. http://www.heeltoe.com/retro/udisk/index.html I finally put the async cpld aside and started debugging the simple synchronous state machine. The sync version works much better and is (as you'd expect) much faster. I have some more debugging to do but basic register i/o and dma work well and the cpu can now easily keep up. I hope to prove out the prototype this summer and do a spin modulo work load. (last week all 3 of my 'real jobs' stalled simultaneously - woo hoo! this week i have a pcb board stuck in customs in boston, so my fun work is getting a time slot or two :-) -brad

19 years, 1 month

1
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LISA - Roms from original machine, not LISA2?

by jzg22＠drexel.edu

In a somewhat related question, does anyone here have an original LISA with the twiggy floppy drives? The MESS team is looking for a dump of the LISA firmware ROMs of that version (the 'LISA 1'). Jonathan Gevaryahu jzg22 at drexel.edu

19 years, 1 month

2
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Tandon TM 502

by classiccmp＠memory-alpha.org.uk

Hi, > Well, all you actually need to be accessible is the inteface >cabling to the drive. So leving the drive accessible (and even >using longer cables to link it hup) might be enough. It's pushing 10 years since I got rid of my Sirii, but IIRC the hard drive and controller board are mounted in such a way that the cabling between them is inaccessible when they are mounted in the machine. The only way to work on the hard drive is to remove it from the metal assembly carrying the drives and prop it up somewhere close bye; in fact there should be no problem with removing the entire "drive carrier" and reconnecting the hard drive alone (I'm sure I did this with mine when I was tinkering with it). Unfortunately I also gave away all of the documentation I had when I got rid of the machines and I'm pretty sure that most if not all of it came from the long defunct FidoNet "Apricot Technical Support BBS" (and/or other Fido BBSs). Where you'd find it now though? It's just possible that I *may* have backups somewhere, but they're likely either on tape or somewhere on one of my many MFM/RLL drives so are pretty inaccessible. One day I must look through all that stuff. TTFN - Pete.

19 years, 1 month

3
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Drum vs. Core

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

On 5 Jul, 2007, at 18:02, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > From: Pete Turnbull <pete at dunnington.plus.com> > >>> After a few panicky minutes, we realised it was the aircon. >>> Normally it works hard to cool the room, but it's designed to >>> maintain a >>> certain temperature. With all the servers switched off, it was >>> trying >>> for the first time in years to heat the place up, and of course the >>> heating coils were full of dust. >> >> Almost >> back to topic, air conditioning systems are supposed to filter out >> dust, >> so if there was dust in the heating coils, does this means it was not >> working properly? > > I think the small ones, which are a few kW apiece, do, but the two big > ones (about 60kW) in the machine room don't really filter the air > much. > They're really just meant to keep the temperature and humidity in > reasonable bounds. Wouldn't have been up to spec back in the old days of reel to reel tape and exchangeable disk drives but I suppose that's all you need now. If it were legal, the equipment wouldn't mind people smoking there, or eating, though of course liquids don't mix too well with electronics. Especially gassy drinks which explode when you open them. Roger

19 years, 1 month

1
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Boat-load Free in Chicago

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Boat-load Free in Chicago > From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> > Date: Wed, 04 Jul 2007 15:10:46 -0700 (PDT) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On Wed, 4 Jul 2007, Chris M wrote: >> the idea was that if someone reasonably close was >> willing to grab the stuff, and perchance didn't want >> some of the items (as said they was obligated to take >> it all), those that had interest in particular pieces >> might score. Nobody said it was written in stone (that >> they would get any of it), just that it wouldn't hurt >> to express their interest... > >OK >that makes sense > > >> Are there any chicky-poos on this list. I had to go >> back and change *he* to "they" for fear of offending >> the weaker sex. Wouldn't want to do that. > >Well, Allison is a woman, but I'd be scared to call her a "chicky-poo", >since she definitely does NOT seem weaker. Thanks Fred, never fear. Though some may want to "check their six". ;) Two things. There are a few women maybe two or three on this list. However a few I know of are not on the list. The reason maybe references like "chicky-poos", "skirts"! Whoda thunk in 2007 someone would write that! One would hope that was said with a smile on that face to a friendly crowd. ;) Likely those women that are not on the list don't even know of it! There is also the the kids standard that the list thing may be a bit 90s with PHP and Blogs replacing that old thing. ;) > >> Seriously >> there seems to be so few gals in this hobby >> (understandably). I did catch one skirt bidding on an >> Amiga (how fitting) 1000 on one of the auction sites a >> while back. > >A lot of it is because a significant part of the motivation for this hobby >is memories of bygone days, and there were very few women involved with >computers in those days. Roger that. Many women were not technical level and were there to punch the cards or other "more womanly" tasks. It's one of the computing dark chapters. There were women in the forefront as well. It's part of the not so nice general history of women in the workforce. As to "Amiga (how fitting) 1000", I'm perplexed why a woman bidding on that would be fitting? I always though Amigas were cool and out ahead but I have no desire for one, guess it's our history of things we worked with that flavors what we collect or like to play with. I do have a collection of very sharp knives, humm, is that fitting? On a more serious note there are many women in archeology and old computers reflect society and it's tools. So noe sould spculate that the study of old computers, their users, companies and all the related bits are a form of sociology or archeology. So there is as good a possibility that personal "memories of bygone days" are not a factor but reconstructing or at least understanding some fraction of computings history or the technology is a sufficient reason for those people involved. >In my company, people chose their own job titles. When my VP (self >inflicted title) hired a woman to work in our Comdex booths, she gave >herself the job title of "bait" ;) Obviously has a finely tuned sense of humor. Also a great message to others. Allison > > >-- >Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

19 years, 1 month

5
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Best solvent to remove sticky tape residue.

by austin＠ozpass.co.uk

I picked up a Silicon Graphics Crimson at the weekend. It?s in working order and the skins are in rather good nick as well. Unfortunately, at some point in the past it has had sticky tape wrapped around it, presumably to prevent the front access door from opening whilst it was transported. This has (predictably) left sticky bands around the computer. I was wondering what the most appropriate solvent might be to remove this crud, given that the skins themselves are some form of plastic. Thanks in advance! -Austin.

19 years, 1 month

30
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Wanted: SGI Sirius Digital Video cables

by legalize＠xmission.com

Hi all, I've got an Onyx2 and the Sirius Digital Video breakout box, but no cables to connect the two. Any tips/pointers on where I could get some (or order connectors and cabling suitable for building some) would be much appreciated! -- Richard -- "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/>

19 years, 1 month

1
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Free: pair of Accuride slide rails

by pete＠dunnington.plus.com

I have a spare pair of Accuride slide rails, complete, with all the fixings. I don't know what their load capacity is but they're nice ball-bearing slides that came off a large Fujitsu drive which has long since moved elsewhere, so it must be quite high. Because of the weight, I'd rather not post them (but PayPerDrop might be an option in the UK) but they're free to the first respondent. I also have a pair of what look like the cabinet parts of the rails for a DEC PDP-11/34 or similar. Only the parts that fir the 19" rack, though, not the parts that fit on the BA-11 box. These are going to the scrap metal collection at the weekend if no-one stops me. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

19 years, 1 month

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Free for postage: AUI drop cables

by pete＠dunnington.plus.com

I've found two more cables that might be useful to someone. First is a 2-metre AUI Ethernet drop cable, with right-angle 15-pin slide-latch connectors, second is about 6 metres and has straight slide-latch cxonnectors. Both are the beige "office" type. Free for collection in York (UK) or for cost of postage. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

19 years, 1 month

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A little levity: "computerized FRPG"

by spectre＠floodgap.com

And not only that, it is most definitely on topic. http://www.studiofoglio.com/cgi/growf.cgi?date=20070520 -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- If you're too open-minded, your brains will fall out. ----------------------

19 years, 1 month

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Free for postage: 13W3 cables

by pete＠dunnington.plus.com

Tidying out the workshop, I found a couple of SGI 13W3 video cables. One is a grey one for an Indy (4 mode sense pins in each plug) which looks almost unused, and the other is a longer beige one for an Indigo (3 mode sense pins in each plug). Also a black VGA cable probably for a KVM switch, about 2m long, one end male, one end female; brand new (but the poly bag looks a bit scruffy now). Anyone want these? -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

19 years, 1 month

1
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Drum vs. Core

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

On 3 Jul, 2007, at 23:35, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > From: Pete Turnbull <pete at dunnington.plus.com> > >> Seems reasonable. I remember one day the 1900 at QMC went down and we >> users were getting annoyed at the delay and we asked what was up, and >> were told the air conditioning system had failed and under the raised >> floor they had found nearly a foot of water. This was on the fifth >> floor! Thinking about it now it's not feasible. The false floor had >> ramps up from the normal floor at the computer room entrance, so the >> water would have flowed out under the ramp and down the stair well >> and >> lift shaft. Still, the story kept us quiet for a while. > > Our false floor is actually at normal floor level, so the subfloor > is of > course about a foot lower, and I have actually seen it flood. One > time > the aircon went wrong; it's a type that dries the air and then > re-humidifies it by passing it over a tray of warm water. The valve > controlling the level failed and so did the drain. Nice. Fortunately > we noticed before it rose high enough to hit the electrics. Well the QMC maths building was new enough to have been designed to have the computer, so yes maybe it was true. > We had a different incident on Saturday after we had shut down all the > power in the main machine room for safety testing. About lunchtime, > when the engineers had restored some of the power, we realised > there was > a smell of burning -- not really what you want in your central machine > room. After a few panicky minutes, we realised it was the aircon. > Normally it works hard to cool the room, but it's designed to > maintain a > certain temperature. With all the servers switched off, it was trying > for the first time in years to heat the place up, and of course the > heating coils were full of dust. I get the same thing every Autumn, both in my car and with the Dimplex night storage radiators. With the latter, they also give off fumes from the epoxy resin which are quite nasty. For the first few years, for the first day or two there is a layer of air up to 3 feet >from the ground when I get up in the morning which I would not want to breath. The cat comes upstairs but the dog suffers it when I forget to expect it. Almost back to topic, air conditioning systems are supposed to filter out dust, so if there was dust in the heating coils, does this means it was not working properly? Roger Holmes.

19 years, 1 month

2
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Nice - SCSI to IDE converter (eBay Australia)

by classiccmp＠memory-alpha.org.uk

Hi, > That looks specific to a CD-ROM.... Actually, that what I was thinking. One of my Yamaha CD writers (I think the CRW-2200E) comes in EIDE and SCSI flavours, the SCSI one being merely the EIDE drive with and adapter according to the docs I have. I'm wondering if this is the adapter I need for mine, though I think the 2200E adapter adapts to 68-pin SCSI (this looks like 50)? TTFN - Pete.

19 years, 1 month

1
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Sirius connectors

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

For the benefit of the chap with Sirius hard disk problems, and indeed for anyone else who's got a Sirius, here are some connector pinouts on the mainboard Hope that's of some use (and I've not mistyped anything...) -tony ------------------------------------------------------------------- PSU input (J10 1 +12V (for video monitor) 2 +5V 3 +5V 4 Gnd 5 Gnd 6 keyway 7 +12V 8 -12V Monitor J13, DE9) 1 Video Output 6 Chassis ground 2 Ground 7 VSync 3 +12V supply 8 Ground 4 Ground 9 HSync 5 Brightness Control out Expansion Slot (J1 ... J4) AD0 --25 26-- AD1 AD2 --24 27-- AD3 AD4 ==23 28-- AD5 AD6 --22 29-- AD7 BusRdy --21 30-- IODis/ Phi2 --20 31-- Gnd MotIOEn --19 32-- -12V HLDA --18 33-- LatchDin Hold/ --17 34-- +12V IRQ3/ --16 35-- Gnd NMI/ --15 36-- +5V Wr/ --14 37-- +5V Rst --13 38-- CPUClk/ DT/R/ --12 39-- Gnd Rd/ --11 40-- MCLkA IO/M/ --10 41-- Ready ALE --9 42-- IRQ5 DEN/ --8 43-- IRQ4 SS0/ --7 44-- Gnd A8 --6 45-- A9 A10 --5 46-- A11 A12 --4 47-- A13 A14 --3 48-- A15 A16 --2 49-- A17 A18 --1 50-- A19 Floppy Disk controller (J7) D0 --1 2-- Gnd D1 --3 4-- Gnd D2 --5 6-- Gnd D3 --7 8-- Gnd D4 --9 10-- Gnd D5 --11 12-- Gnd D6 --13 14-- Gnd D7 --15 16-- Gnd CS1/ --17 18-- Gnd CS0/ --19 20-- Gnd IRQ3/ --21 22-- Gnd IRQ0 --23 24-- Gnd DskCLk --25 26-- Gnd CPUCLk /--27 28-- Gnd 29 30-- Gnd 31 32-- Gnd Wr/ --33 34-- Gnd CS2/ --35 36-- Gnd Phi2 --37 38-- Gnd Test/ --39 40-- Gnd A0 --41 42-- Gnd A1 --43 44-- Gnd A2 --45 46-- Gnd A3 --47 48-- Gnd Rst/ --49 50-- Gnd Note : CS0/ - Spindle Motor Control VIA CS1/ - Status VIA CS2/ - Data VIA User port (J5) -12V --1 2-- -12V 3 4 +12V --5 6-- +12V +5V --7 8-- +5V 9 10-- Light Pen Gnd --11 12-- CA1 Gnd --13 14-- CA2 Gnd --15 16-- PA0 Gnd --17 18-- PA1 Gnd --19 20-- PA2 Gmd --21 22-- PA3 Gnd --23 24-- PA4 Gnd --25 26-- PA5 Gnd --27 28-- PA6 Gnd --29 30-- PA7 Gnd --31 32-- PB0 Gnd --33 34-- PB1 Gnd --35 36-- PB2 Gnd --37 38-- PB3 Gnd --39 40-- PB4 Gnd --41 42-- PB5 Gnd --43 44-- PB6 Gnd --45 46-- PB7 Gnd --47 48-- CB1 Gnd --49 50-- CB2 Note : PB7 is also used as the clock for the sound system, otherwise this is an uncommitted 6522 VIA Audio In (J17) 1 +12V 2 Gnd 3 Gnd 4 N/C 5 Audio Input 6 +6V (Audio reference) Printer Port (Centronics _and_ GPIB, 36 pin Microribbon J14) DAV --1 19-- Gnd D0 --2 20-- Gnd D1 --3 21-- Gnd D2 --4 22-- Gnd D3 --5 23-- Gnd D4 --6 24-- Gnd D5 --7 25-- Gnd D6 --8 26-- Gnd D7 --9 27-- Gnd NRFD --10 28-- Gnd SRQ --11 29-- Gnd 12 30 NDAC --13 31 E27 --14 32-- NDAC EOI --15 33-- Gnd Gnd --16 34-- REN Chassis --17 35-- ATN 18 36-- IFC Keyboard 1 +5V 2 Gnd 3 Gnd 4 Keybd Ready 5 Keybd CLock 6 Keybd Data 7 +5V 8 Chassis RS232 Ports (DB25, J8 and J9) 1 Chassis 2 TxD 3 RxD 4 RTS 5 CTS 6 DSR 7 Gnd 8 DCD 15 Tx Clk In 17 Rx Clk In 20 DTR 22 RI 24 Clcok Out

19 years, 1 month

1
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Boat-load Free in Chicago

by tosteve＠yahoo.com

Hope this hasn't been posted yet. Do not respond to me - see email at bottom: 3 Apple II computers. 2 disk drives 2 green screen monitors w/RCA connectors Epson desktop computer Otrona portable computer Osborne Executive portable Radio Shack TRS-80 desktop Radio Shack TRS-80 portable 500 pieces 64k memory chips (20 tubes of 25 each) 1 box 8 inch disks w/software 5 Boxes original vintage software (apple, cpm and others) 3 Boxes of cables, boards and chassis 7 Boxes manuals and vintage magazines Misc. printer stands, ribbons, covers, computer stands 22 Boxes of 5 ? diskettes (approximately 1000) many with software 7 Boxes of 3 ? disks (approximately 1000) many with software Pay shipping or arrange for pick up near O?Hare airport ? Chicago About 120 cubic feet in all WILL NOT BREAK UP, WINNER TAKES ALL. Respond to 847-299-3264 ASAP Stan Sharman stan_sharman at hotmail.com Des Plaines, Illinois --------------------------------- Don't pick lemons. See all the new 2007 cars at Yahoo! Autos.

19 years, 1 month

7
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Tandon TM 502

by javickers＠yahoo.co.uk

Tony Duell wrote: > > It spins up, by the sounds of it, but is not talking to the computer. > > There's no head noises of any description. > > Is it old enough to be a stepper motor positioned? Some of those do not > restroe to cylinder 0 at power-on, so the heads won't move unless told to do > so by the controller board. It's possible there's a problem with the > controller, therefore. I'm guessing it is: There's an external motor in one corner of the unit; I can't read most of the label, but the "0.9 deg./st" that I can see would suggest it's a stepper. > > > > Where would I start in trying to diagnose & fix this drive? I have an elderly > > oscilloscope, but little else in the way of diagnostic tools (no logic > > analyser, for example). Or am I better off considering it scrap & trying to > > find a working replacement? Personally, I'd prefer to resurrect this one if I > > can. > I assume this is a normal ST506 interface. I'd start by looking at the > signals there -- is the machine trying to select thr drive, does it send > STEP pulses, and so on. At lest then you'll know which drvice (controller > or deive) has the problem OK, that will give me something to work on, once I've figured out how to re-assemble the thing whilst leaving the control board accessible.... I couldn't tell you if this was a normal ST506 i/f. The control board on the drive has "TM600 uP 187345" printed on it; the Sirius' controller board has only "XEBEC SYSTEMS INC." and "Assy 104526 rev-07" as identifying marks. Does any of that help at all? I've not looked for any schematics yet, I guess that's the next thing to do. Cheers, Ade. ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Mail is the world's favourite email. Don't settle for less, sign up for your free account today http://uk.rd.yahoo.com/evt=44106/*http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/mail/winter07.ht…

19 years, 1 month

2
1
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Nice - SCSI to IDE converter (eBay Australia)

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

http://cgi.ebay.com/SCSI-to-IDE-converter_W0QQitemZ170126238112QQihZ007QQca… are these hard to come by (or make even!). Seems like a darned handy thing to have around. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better Globetrotter. Get better travel answers from someone who knows. Yahoo! Answers - Check it out. http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=list&sid=396545469

19 years, 1 month

3
2
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Classiccmpers in WI?

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

Hi, all, I'm back in Madison, WI, for the summer, starting another South Pole tour by coming into the office, ordering a bit of this and that, and doing a bit of training. I have wheels, and potentially some free time here and there. If there's anyone in the area, especially anyone into DEC hardware, Commodore hardware (PET and/or Amigas), or 1970s micros (1802, 6502...), perhaps we can connect. Either way, I'm still in striking distance for VCFmw and should see a number of you there. -ethan

19 years, 1 month

2
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[Somewhat OT] Extra-terrestrials and 1980's printers

by pdp11＠saccade.com

Here's an odd one for you: Coast To Coast AM (UFOs, Ghosts, ETs etc.) has been running a story about strange spacecraft buzzing around (where else?) California. Recently somebody claimed to have spent the 1980's working at a secret lab in Palo Alto trying to "commercialize" the extra-terrestrial technology: http://isaaccaret.fortunecity.com/ Now, veracity-wise, these photos and "documents" have problems: - Nobody is coming forward and identifying themselves. - In the top-left and top-right photos, if the camera exposed the sky for a neutral blue, the underside of the craft would be very under-exposed (almost black) like the middle photo and the underside of the leaves and power pole. - If the lab was as secure as the author claims it is, "TOP SECRET" or somesuch classification would be clearly stamped on every(!) page. - The final problem is with the look of the documents. While there are some nice touches (three-hole punch marks on the cover...remember those ubiquitous binders?) the documents have nice fonts and formatting, and look laser-printed. Now, in 1986, the number of systems available capable of producing such documents "in house" was fairly limited. You did have the LaserWriter, but it had just come out and the document doesn't look like it's using one of the original LW fonts. The other options were Scribe, TeX, Xerox, maybe InterLeaf...and not much else. Integrating a digital photo into a document was a royal pain back then, and scanners were still exotic equipment. I'm curious - does anybody recognize which system produced the documents? I'd be impressed if hoaxers went to the trouble of tracking down vintage equipment to produce them. Overall the story the web page tells is pretty entertaining. One wonders if this is a viral marketing campaign for a sci-fi movie next year. Cheers, jp

19 years, 1 month

3
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govliquidation policy?

by technobug＠comcast.net

On Tue, 3 Jul 2007 20:16:20 -0500, "Jay West" <jwest at classiccmp.org> wrote: > One small item I want is in a lot with 700 pounds of stuff I > definitely > don't want (pipe fittings, valves, etc.). If I bid on the lot and > win, I'm > guessing I need to take it all though and pay to have the metal junk > shipped. Anyone delt with this before? Does govliquidation allow > you to say > "please throw the rest away" or do I need to approach the shipper? If > someone has done this before, I guess the shipper would charge a > disposal > fee to cart off the unwanted stuff? Suggestions? The local scrapper I deal with does a fair amount of business picking up the remainders of local auctions for folks that only want an item or two. You might check to see if there are any liquidators in the area and see if they will take what you don't want - this will save you the cost of hauling it to some scrap yard. > Thanks! > > Jay West > CRC

19 years, 1 month

1
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More stuff

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

Found some more stuff that I'm unlikely to use (1) the free stuff: Anyone need a LaserJet Series II for parts? It's having fuser problems, but if anyone needs other parts it's here. I also have some (EP-S?) cartridges for LJII and similar modules. (2) the probably not-so-free stuff: One Multibus SkyFFP-M-03 FPA card. As it is currently it has the IRIS extender on the back (IRIS Multibus cards are almost twice as deep as the "standard" multibus so they have a aluminum plate to extend the eject levers). Preference given to IRIS 1000/2000 owners, but I think it's the same part used in Sun-2 Multibus machines. Weitek WTL1516AJC based. Renton, WA again

19 years, 1 month

2
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govliquidation policy?

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

Does anyone know the policy of govliquidation.com is on partial auction disposal? One small item I want is in a lot with 700 pounds of stuff I definitely don't want (pipe fittings, valves, etc.). If I bid on the lot and win, I'm guessing I need to take it all though and pay to have the metal junk shipped. Anyone delt with this before? Does govliquidation allow you to say "please throw the rest away" or do I need to approach the shipper? If someone has done this before, I guess the shipper would charge a disposal fee to cart off the unwanted stuff? Suggestions? Thanks! Jay West

19 years, 1 month

3
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Drum vs. Core

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

On 3 Jul, 2007, at 18:09, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > From: "Andy Holt" <andyh at andyh-rayleigh.freeserve.co.uk> > Initially most were printing terminals with > lights inside, not Teletypes, can't remember the maker's name. > <<< > Probably Trend Maybe, though it doesn't ring any bells in my head. > >>>> > There was also just two CRT terminals, on which you typed a load of > lines > and told the computer to read it. > <<< > Could well have been "genuine" ICL block-mode terminals Yes they we ICL badged IIRC, I think the two shared a box on the floor with the character generator in it. > >>>> > Do you think the drum got kicked out when we went over to the 4S? > <<< > Probably when they went to a dual '4S configuration - > they really tried to have a resilient system - each 4S had its own > motor-generator set and _all_ the peripherals were "Y"-switched. > > The flaw in the configuration only appeared when the power-supply > to the Y switches failed :-( > > [actually, they could have kept running even then, but the Engineers > naturally refused to work on that without turning the power off] Seems reasonable. I remember one day the 1900 at QMC went down and we users were getting annoyed at the delay and we asked what was up, and were told the air conditioning system had failed and under the raised floor they had found nearly a foot of water. This was on the fifth floor! Thinking about it now it's not feasible. The false floor had ramps up from the normal floor at the computer room entrance, so the water would have flowed out under the ramp and down the stair well and lift shaft. Still, the story kept us quiet for a while. > > >>>> > Was it really that slow! We really put up with a lot back then. > <<< > > I've still got the timings from the acceptance benchmarks and > have run the same benchmarks on many machines since. > ** the most important of these benchmarks was the original "Whetstone" > benchmark - Fortran carefully crafted to not be optimisable*1 - in > fact > in ran slower on the optimising compiler than on the standard one. > > *1 eventually (20 years later) compiler technology did manage to > optimise away much of the code. As an ex-compiler writer (Coral 66) working for a computer manufacturer, I can say that we considered running the program up to the first input/output at compile time and starting execution from there. We figured the resulting benchmark timings would get us called cheats. Could have calculated the real runtime and halved it I suppose. My 1301 simulator now runs faster than real time so I'm thinking about yielding the CPU whenever simulated time gets ahead of real time. > >> (I think they were still, however, written in engineers assembler >> which used >> numeric op-codes rather than the mnemonics of PLAN or GIN5). > >>>> > Interesting. Maybe it was like my school maths teachers who forced us > to use fountain pens instead of ball points because it slowed us down > so we thought more about what we were doing and so made less > mistakes. > <<< > No - it was that the engineers _knew_ the ciruit diagram of the > processor > and "000 3 100" was more meaningful to them than "LDX 3 base", say. I see. I had to write a microprogram assembler once and that was similar. The words were 72 bits wide and most of the bits just directly controlled gates in the processor. There was an address field for jump instructions though, which was more traditional, and I gave them the facility to define macros for any field, so they could have defined their own mnemonics for commonly occurring patterns. For instance some of the bits selected the function in some AMD2900 bit slices, which could have used the names assigned by AMD. >>>> > > Very difficult. I had always assumed the executive lived at a fixed > position in memory. Maybe it used relativisers, 1300 style, where > every instruction could specify what block start address should be > added to it, but maybe that would slow down loading the overlays too > much. > <<< > The fixed part of Exec loaded at 0 - but the overlays could be on any > 64-word boundary.(actually, probably 128 word - but the code would > have > worked > on a 54 word boundary) > >>>> > I wonder if any of the concepts in the 1302 executive got re- > used on 1900. > <<< > I don't know, but I doubt it - wasn't the 1300 series a Stevenage > design, > while the earliest 1900s came from West Gorton (well, actually the > earliest 1900 was the Canadian FP6000). > Different parts of ICL had very much a "not invented here" attitude > and > the previous West Gorton product was Atlas. 1300/1301 was designed by Raymond Bird who worked for British Tabulating Machines at Letchworth (starting with adapting someone else's design to make the HEC / ICT200 series), then presumably moved to the joint BTM / GEC subsidiary Computer Developments Ltd at Kenton where he did the 1300/1301 design. I am not sure who/where adapted it to make the multi-programmed 1302 (maximum 4 programs at once). Am I right in thinking Atlas did not have an executive? > >>>> > Maybe ICL had been bumping up the maintenance charges for old kit > they really did not want to support any more. > <<< > That wouldn't have affected us - we had our own engineers and did > our own maintenance. I suspect we were the only none-MOD site > in that position. I wish I had saved more of the engineering > documentation - > I probably have enough to make a very close approximation on a FPGA, > but there doesn't seem to be a survivng operators Exec for a 1900, > only George 3 stuff. Oh, from which I presume there are no surviving 1900s? Can you run George 3 without an executive? I only got involved as a user (Maximop/George 2 at QMC and IIRC, George 4 at RAE Fanrborough) so know almost nothing about operating the machine. Odd facts did trickle down though, switch 9 was used to disable the overflow exception, and SWON 9 and SWOFF 9 in software around the place where I was packing characters into a word would make my program run. Funny how the most trivial things stick in your head for decades.

19 years, 1 month

4
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Apple IIe's available

by dave06a＠dunfield.com

Just received this - I have no idea where the machines are located, nor any other information not present in the quote below: -------------------------------------------------------------------- I have 8 apple IIe computers, plus power strips, cards, and software that are headed for the dumpster. Do you know anyone who would like to have them? Iknow this stuff sells on e-bay but I don't want to bother. Please call me (530) XXX XXXX. I don't have e-mail at home and am no longer at this school site. I hope to hear from you about possible options. Thank you. Toni -------------------------------------------------------------------- I have sufficient IIe's - if anyone else wants to follow this up, please contact me off-list and I will forward the phone number. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html

19 years, 1 month

1
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LISA

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> given the historical importance Preservation of Lisa software is a particularly sore spot with me. I tried to find someone who would permit releasing it for many years while I was there. It is dead, dead, dead. People who worked on it didn't really want to admit they even worked on it. Any hope of it ever being released died when Steve came back.

19 years, 2 months

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What are the really unusual or weird computers?

by lproven＠gmail.com

I never cease to be amazed by the level and depth of knowledge of obscure machines on this list. Knowledgeable discussions of machines I've never even heard of in 20y in the business and a good while longer as a hobbyist. So I thought I'd ask a question on a slightly different tack. What are the most bizarre, way-out or just plain *different* machines that folks have seen? The basic von Neumann computer is well-established, but most of them have a lot more common ground than that. Uniquely-identified disks, an OS with a command line that lets you create, rename, execute, edit and delete files on those disks. Maybe graphics. Maybe dumb terminals. Maybe a teletype. But set aside the cosmetic differences, they are, to a large degree, much of a muchness. From a PDP/11 to a VAX to MS-DOS, the actual overall CLI experience is very similar. Unix is a bit different - cryptic commands, one big virtual directory tree - but it's really more of the same underneath. The Mac was pretty different when it was new: no CLI at all, for example. Otherwise, though, it's not that remarkable. But I keep reading about Lisp machines. No good general-purpose introduction for the interested computer-literate reader who's never seen one and doesn't speak Lisp, though, but from what I've read, they sound unique. The Canon Cat had a unique UI as well, from what I've seen. What else was there? What other machines - general-purpose desktop (or desk-side or whatever) computers were there that Thought Differently? I'm not really thinking of embedded systems and the like here, but thinks you sat in front of and worked upon. -- Liam Proven ? Blog, homepage &c: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508

19 years, 2 months

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[Absolutely OT] Extra-terrestrials and 1980's printers

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> a secret lab in Palo Alto > Overall the story the web page tells is pretty entertaining. uh huh.. No one who wanted to stay anonymous would say "first exposure to a Tixo during grad school". There only was ONE TX-0 and it was at MIT, so it is "Tixo" or "the Tixo" not "a Tixo". Even if it was a typo, the grad students who used TX-0 and were living near Palo Alto in the mid-80's is pretty small. I can actually only think of one person, but I doubt he was involved with this :-) Besides: How do you build a "secret" 5 story underground facility in Palo Alto with and 1) have the right number of cars in the parking lot and 2) not hit the water table. The industrial parts of PA are either in the flats next to 101 and the SF Bay or are near Foothill Expressway where almost all of the industrial parks are owned by Stanford.

19 years, 2 months

1
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PERQness...

by dkelvey＠hotmail.com

>From: Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> ---snip--- > > 1) The hard disk (Shugart SA4008) drive belt seems to have a habit of >running 1mm or so out of line at startup, resulting in it rubbing against >the chassis beneath the spindle pulley. Once it picks up speed it sorts >itself out, but I was wondering whether there's any adjustment in either >the spindle pulley or drive motor in order to get it to run a little >better? > Hi This is an indication that the belt is slipping. Three things. Either the belt is loose, it has dust on it or the belt has taken a set >from the crown. You should try cleaning first. If the drive doesn't retract the heads, be vary careful to not rotate the disk pull backwards. If you do, it will trash the disk if the head is on the disk. The motor is usually on a slotted mount to adjust tension. The belt can be flipped over if it shows too much deforming >from the crowned pulley. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ http://imagine-windowslive.com/hotmail/?locale=en-us&ocid=TXT_TAGHM_migrati…

19 years, 2 months

2
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giveaway

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

>>> Sun Carrera Memory >> >> What on earth is a "Sun Carrera"? > > "Carrera" is the Sun 3/100 CPU, sold in systems as the 3/75, > 3/140, 3/150, 3/160, and 3/180 depending on the chassis it's plugged > into. It's built around a 68020 at 16MHz, and has 4MB of RAM onboard. > > -Dave This is just the memory expansion board- 2 or 4 MB (not sure right now) with the proper P2 wiring to expand a "Carrera" CPU (or the 3/110 CPU, I think.) I can ship some stuff if I need to, but for now it looks like the Sun stuff (sans SS5) and the Diablo are claimed (not sure if the Diablo desirer is local or not, it's a bit big.).

19 years, 2 months

1
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Apollo (was LISA)

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> The DOMAIN OS sources were released outside of Apollo to certain > favored customers (we had a copy of it at our university). If you are still in contact with the sysadmins, ask if they have archived copies. It may actually be easier to ask permission for an old archived copy than to try to dig it up internally from an aquired HP product line.

19 years, 2 months

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PERQness...

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

Spent a fun morning messing around with a PERQ 1, which is the first time I've ever got the chance to actually sit in front of a working example... A few questions: 1) The hard disk (Shugart SA4008) drive belt seems to have a habit of running 1mm or so out of line at startup, resulting in it rubbing against the chassis beneath the spindle pulley. Once it picks up speed it sorts itself out, but I was wondering whether there's any adjustment in either the spindle pulley or drive motor in order to get it to run a little better? 2) From PNX, Is there an official way of logging out a user on the console other than ^Z? (^D, logout, exit etc. don't work) 3) Shutdown procedure - is 'bye' sufficient or do I need to be doing something else first? The manual's a little ambiguous on this (and 'bye' alone executes so unbelievably quickly that it made me worry it wasn't correctly flushing files, parking heads etc.) (I seriously love that hard disk - it's got a wonderful backyard-engineering made-from-washing-machine-parts feel to it :-) cheers Jules

19 years, 2 months

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Panasonic luggable

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

While looking for another part (actually a replacement door for a Tandon 5.25" drive) in the depths of my workshop, I came across a machine I'd half-forgotten owening, and wondered if anyone recognises it. It's made by Panasonic, and is a luggable. The carrying handle is one one side (not the back, as is usual for such machines). The front of the machine comes off, and is an XT-layout keyboard (alas F9 and F10 are missing on my unit, but I'll bet that's what the missing keys should be). The front of the main unit has a 9" monochrome CRT, and to the right of it 2 vertical half-height 5.25" drive bays. On my machine the left one contains a floppy drive, the right one a Seagate hard drive. To the left of the CRT is a pull-out stretchy cable ending in a mini-DIN plug that fits the hack of the keyboard On the back are the normal mains connnector, switch and fuse. A DE9 connector marked RGB (CGA pinout?) a 36 pin microribbon printer port and a DB25 serial port. On top of the unit is a thermal printer. It comes apart by removing numerous screws. In the bottom of the machine, accessible from under the chassis is a large PCB. It contains an 8088 with a 40 pin DIL socket alongside it (8087?), 256K DRAM, 8250 serial chip, 8255 parallel chip, 6845 CRT controller, a PQFP surface=mount device alongside it (video circuitry), 8257 DMA chip, etc. Basically, what you'd expect to find on a PC/XT motherboard. Theere are 2 62 pin expansion slots, one of which contains the hard disk controller (looks to be a generic PC/XT part), the other contains a PCB with 512K RAM (I would guess only 640K of the totla memory is useable) and a real time clock chip. The printer has its own cotnrol electronics based round a 8050 microcontroller. The keyboard contians an 8048. Does anyone recognise this machine? -tony

19 years, 2 months

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Tandon TM 502

by javickers＠yahoo.co.uk

Hi fellow classiccmpers... I recently picked up an old Act Sirius 1 machine (I've been looking for one for years), which has a Tandon TM 502 harddisk in it. Unfortunately, the HDD doesn't seem to work :( It spins up, by the sounds of it, but is not talking to the computer. There's no head noises of any description. Where would I start in trying to diagnose & fix this drive? I have an elderly oscilloscope, but little else in the way of diagnostic tools (no logic analyser, for example). Or am I better off considering it scrap & trying to find a working replacement? Personally, I'd prefer to resurrect this one if I can. Cheers, Ade. ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Answers - Got a question? Someone out there knows the answer. Try it now. http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/

19 years, 2 months

3
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TM100 doors

by dkelvey＠hotmail.com

>From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> >>On Mon, 2 Jul 2007, dwight elvey wrote: > > I have a solution that might help keeping it from failing in the future. > > I have had a number of drop flags fail on pinball machines. I found > > that a thin piece of poly foam would protect them. I put it where > > the impact was. Unlike other foams, the poly foam seems to last > > forever ( not always a good thing ). > >. . . but do it to ALL of the drives! >We did that with the A: drive of the dean's computer. He noticed that it >wasn't opening quite as far as the other drives, and forced it, . . . > > H Fred I guess there is always someone that is just too educated. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ http://newlivehotmail.com

19 years, 2 months

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giveaways

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

Xylogics 451 SMD controller (Multibus) Sun VME SCSI board (Sun-II, includes 9U-6U adaptor) Sun Carrera Memory Diablo 630 serial daisywheel printer (includes extra ribbons) Wyse WY-150 serial terminal Sun SPARCstation 5/110 256MB (will run NeXTSTEP! Wohoo!) any number of AT-style keyboards and now, for something completely different: an AT&T daisy-wheel typewriter. I think these all work, but I don't have the time to test them. Renton, WA.

19 years, 2 months

4
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Making disk images of NorthStar hard sector floppy disks with sector errors

by lynchaj＠yahoo.com

Hi, I am restoring an old NorthStar Horizon I bought a few months ago. It came with many hard sector floppy disks I am trying to archive by making disk images. I have used Dave Dunfield's excellent NorthStar transfer utilities to make images of the disks which do not contain sector errors. Fortunately, the majority of the disks can be read error free, however, there are several disks which have sector errors I would like to recover the data from. There is a technique I have found to make disk images of hard sector floppy disks with sector errors. I boot the NorthStar Horizon using the NorthStar CP/M disk and use its "COPY" utility to make a copy of the original disk but without the sectors containing errors. I can then make a disk image of the copy. I often lose some data but am able to recover most if not all the files on the disk. If anyone knows of a better way to recover data from damaged NorthStar hard sector floppy disks, I would certainly like to hear from you. In addition to using Dave Dunfield's NorthStar disk imaging program, I recently purchased a MatchPoint PC card and Uniform PC software to read NorthStar CP/M hard sector floppy disks on a PC. The MatchPoint PC card and Uniform PC software work great for copying files from NorthStar CP/M disks -- *ONLY*. I have even been able to get a sector editor (ZIPZAP) to work once the Uniform PC software has recognised a NorthStar CP/M disk and mounted it as a drive. However, these tools are limited to NorthStar CP/M disks and files only. I would like to be able to read and copy other NorthStar disk formats such as NS DOS, etc. Here is a link for ZIPZIP utility: http://www.bookcase.com/library/software/msdos.util.binedit.html Does anyone know of any software other than Uniform PC which uses the MatchPoint PC card for reading NorthStar hard sector floppy disks? Even a modified version of Uniform.sys to allow reading of any NorthStar hard sector floppy disk format would be good. A PC based utility like MS-DOS "DISKCOPY" using the MatchPoint PC card would be a good alternative. My ideal solution would be to use a MS-DOS disk imaging utility like RAWREAD to make a binary disk image of the NorthStar hard sector floppy disks directly into the PC. Unfortunately, every disk imaging tool I have tried on the PC will not do this. Most likely due since MatchPoint/Uniform only provides a "device driver" interface and not a real hardware disk drive. Maybe there are some of the original MicroSolutions developers on this list? Thanks in advance Andrew Lynch

19 years, 2 months

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A wealth of misinformation

by aek＠bitsavers.org

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170127828046 After reading this, I wondered if the seller had any idea at all of what he actually had. It's too bad most people won't recognize the plastic ends on the patchboard wires place this at bit later (like 50 years) in time than seems to be implied by the listing.

19 years, 2 months

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giveaways

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> What on earth is a "Sun Carrera"? 68020 cpu board (3/140, 3/160, etc.)

19 years, 2 months

1
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"Oddball"

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

Christian Corti wrote: And don't forget the LGP-30 (450 built in total, 45 built in Germany) and compatibles (LGP-21, ...). Its word size is officially 32 bits, with only 31 bits usable (only the accumulator can hold all 32 bits, once stored on the drum the LSB is forced to zero). So I call it a 31-1/2 bit machine. And its design is marvelous, a CPU with all four basic arithmetic functions (fixed point) that contains only 15 flip-flops. Christian Billy wrote: Delightful machine wasn't it? To accomplish so much with so little logic. Those were the days when an engineer would be consider a genius and could get a big bonus for eliminating one flip-flop! Billy

19 years, 2 months

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RiscOS hardware in the US?

by ian_primus＠yahoo.com

In one of my mental wanderings, I remembered that I had always wanted to play with RiscOS, but never had found a machine that would run it - so I did a little web hunting and turned up nearly nothing. Even eBay had no listings for such gear. I know the Acorn Archimedes runs RiscOS, but what else? I'm not sure that the Acorn was ever even sold in the US. I know, I can probably just go get an emulator, but I'd still love to play with a real computer. Did any US-available computer run RiscOS? -Ian

19 years, 2 months

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Diehl Combitron

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> It's not clear yet how much data is available on the architecture of the > Combitron. However, I am working with contacts to try to get as much > information as possible. If enough data can be found, and an > operational example of one of these machines can be found, it shouldn't > be too hard to "dump" the microcode there's a working one here: http://www.technikum29.de/en/devices/combitron.shtm It's also possible there may be one in the artifacts CHM received from Germany last year.

19 years, 2 months

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Apricot MS530 (was: Apricot F1 software needed)

by Arno_1983＠gmx.de

Richard <legalize at xmission.com> wrote: > "Ensor" <classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk> writes: > > I gave away almost all of my Apricot collection (and software) some > > time ago, however you should find something useful over > > at "www.actapricot.org". > > Thanks! That looks like just what I need... > > Anyone got an Apricot Xi? Sorry no, but I found some interesting stuff on that page as well so I'd like to thank too. I recently was given the remnants of an Mitsubishi Apricot MS530, which is (was?) a PC-inside-a-monitor solution similar to the Apple Performa 5200. You guessed it, the interesting innards (mainboard and addon cards) were missing and what I have here now is a VGA monitor with a somewhat overgrown power supply, (speakers?) and lots of extra space in the housing. It was used as such by the previous owner and is supposed to be working. It's not of much use to me in this state, so if anybody has the missing innards (or an identical machine with dim/fried/otherwise unsatisfactory monitor portion), there are the usual two possibilities: -You want to build yourself a working machine, you can have the case/monitor for free, or -you want to get rid of the loose parts, I'll take them off your hands, provided we can figure out to get the stuff where it needs to go (to or from my place in Germany). Hoping for something to work out, -- Arno Kletzander Studentische Hilfskraft Informatik Sammlung Erlangen www.iser.uni-erlangen.de Psssst! Schon vom neuen GMX MultiMessenger geh?rt? Der kanns mit allen: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/multimessenger

19 years, 2 months

1
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Old Modems and Telephony switches

by Arno_1983＠gmx.de

"Bob Bradlee" <caveguy at sbcglobal.net> wrote: > On Fri, 29 Jun 2007 08:28:07 +0200, Arno Kletzander wrote: > > On the ISDN side, just two phones (one missing its local power supply > > too - duh), one or two PC cards and an NTBA so far. BTW, I forgot to mention the built in ISDN ports in some of my Sun kit - SS10 and SS20, I think. > Somewhere in storage I have an old Adtran box that takes a T1 (pri) line > in and breaks out a bunch of POTs ports and 2 ISDN BRI lines that will > source other equiptment. > > I know the MAX 4004 boxes will source a PRI out on the second channel if > you want to to put one inline with a PBX and skim some channels off the > top for data or dialup. At one point in time I had a ISDN PRI split out > to 7 pots lines, 8 private dialup lines, and a 512k data channel with a > class c address block (256 IP addresses) assigned before I gave up the > office about 5 years back. If I understand correctly, the equipment mentioned above will still require some sort of dedicated hookup to a telco provider in order to transport packets between two local devices. We don't have that and we don't need/want to get it (we have POTS service and DSL over POTS). I was/am just looking for a simple solution for interconnecting my packratted ISDN devices for some testing and fooling around, like room-to-room intercom, using ISDN between computers (like a slow-speed LAN) or playing back audio from a computer through an ISDN phone. Thanks for your suggestions anyway... -- Arno Kletzander Stud. Hilfskraft Informatik Sammlung Erlangen www.iser.uni-erlangen.de Ist Ihr Browser Vista-kompatibel? Jetzt die neuesten Browser-Versionen downloaden: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/browser

19 years, 2 months

1
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Billy Pettit real disappointment

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

On 28 Jun, 2007, at 04:59, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > Message: 3 > Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 15:23:32 -0700 > From: "Billy Pettit" <Billy.Pettit at wdc.com> > Subject: What are the really unusual or weird computers? > To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Message-ID: > <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C6E2 at wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > This thread has been a real disappointment. Almost all of the > responses > have been about computers using standard microprocessors - off the > shelf > components. Yes a few had non-vanilla flavored OS's, or idiotic I/O > schemes. A few were even painted different colors from PC Beige. Then you are not reading all the replies. > But nobody got into the really weird internals that have made the > industry > so fascinating. Go back to the real early days, like the Atlas, > that let > you build your instruction set from scratch using micro-code. > Nobody seemed > to remember that most of the late 50's and early 60's used 40 bits > as a > standard. MOST????? STANDARD????? Rubbish! IBM 7094 - 36 bits. ICT 1301 - 48 bits. CDC 6600/7600 60 (or was it 64?) bits. CDC SC17 (not sure exact era) - 16 bits. Elliott 903/920B/905/920C/920ATC - 18 bits. Many of the BCD machines used 4 bit words I believe. Mid 60s ICL 1900 - 24 bits. What used 40 bits? > What about the MicroData machines with a build your own > instructions on the fly? Tell us more please. Microcoded or 'Extra code' ? > And then there were the ultra-strange like the G-15 - 29 bit word > size, all > instructions were modified moves through arithmetic logic or I/O > devices. > The I/O devices were actually part of the internal logic - no > channels. Actual physical memory, access my DMA from the device or just memory mapped I/O ? > Burroughs had some fascinating ideas on virtual memory in the 5500 > series. > Seymour Cray lived weird and unusual in most of his designs. > Several people > have developed machines to run high level languages in native mode: > ADA at > Rational, APL on the Star 100, LISP, COBOL, etc. > > > > There's not much unusual about putting some glue logic around a $3 > micro > chip. We've all done it. How about the truly weird machines? > Doesn't > anyone remember when logic didn't come in million transistor packages? Remember? I am restoring/maintaining an ICT 1301 which has individual Germanium transistors, wire-OR, four and gates to a PCB, one flip- flop one a PCB, a clock derived from the timing track of the last addressed drum store, a core store unit weighing half a ton an stores just 2000 x 48 bit words (plus 2000 x 2 parity bits). Its got Ampex TM4 mag tape drives (not industry standard 7 or 9 track, these are ten track units with hubs the same design as professional audio tapes and the 2 and 3 inch wide video tapes once used by TV broadcasters). Its got readers and punches for 80 column cards and 5, (6 or 7?) and 8 track paper tape, its got a 600 line per minute barrel printer with 120 print positions. The mag tape transfers are done by DMA but the rest and unbuffered peripherals, if you want to print a line on the printer, you check to see what character is in line with the hammers, see if you have any of them in your line, and fire those print hammers which match, then wait until the print barrel moves on then repeat until you have printed the whole line. Then you look up where the paper advance mechanism currently is and select the next sprag and release current one. If you want to page feed, release all the sprags and count the 60 lines as they go past. To punch a card, in software, turn the 3 phase contactor on to start the motor, wait until its at the correct speed, activate the picker knives to start the card in motion (sideways), look to see which if any of your 80 columns need a hole in the first (10) row, wait until that row is under the punch bail, fire those interposers, repeat for the 11 row, then the 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9 rows. Then feed the next card and at the same time get ready to verify the card you just punched. Wait until the 10 row is under the check reading wire brushes, read them in and see if they match, repeat for all the other eleven rows, if anything fails to verify, send the card (and the following one) to the reject hopper, stop the punch and inform the operator. > Come on people: there were computers long before there were > microcomputers. And some of them still work and have 'design council' award winning control consoles 4 feet wide and 2 and a bit feet tall, consume 13KVA three phase and weigh about 5 tons. > And many of them were wonderfully different and creative. Indeed. And some of them almost make you cry because so much more could have been done with the same amount of electonics. My machine has been modified to implement an index instruction. Previously all indexing and indirection had to be done by program modification, and even now subroutine return is done that way (see my previous e-mail). I have one machine in 'conserved' state, unmolested, unrepaired non- runner, and one with extra tweeks and darn right mass rewiring which runs and I can't stop thinking about how it could be improved, yet somehow manage to stop myself doing so. There are so many gaps in the instruction code and spare bits in the instructions etc. The only modification I am working on plugs into an extension port lashed up by a previous owner. This is to capture the data from the machine onto modern media. May replace with an RS232 interface later to drive a teletype and/or pen plotter, and/or a parallel inteface for a Friden Flexowriter. Anyone got a spare plug for the i/o port of the Flexowriter, or for an IBM keypunch (model 836) or spare patch leads for the patch panel (4mm with a ball in them). Anyone got a spare Ellliott paper tape reader, preferably 1000 characters per second but a 300cps unit would do. My machine originally had two readers but somehow I only ended up with one of them. Anyone got any spare 'ICL Standard Interface' peripherals I could plug into the vacant port on the machine? Anyone in the UK want an Elliott surface grinder which leaks hydraulic fluid or want an Alba shaper (a planing machine for steel, a brutal thing, takes out about 1/16 - 1/8 at every stroke, comes off bright red). Or a really old pillar drill, large capacity, looks prehistoric. All three phase of course. Again in the UK, anyone got any punched card trays, the steel type, preferably with the racks too, but the trays only would be a help. Willing to pay (reasonable) price for any of the above. Roger Holmes. Classic computer collector, classic car collector, machine tool collector/user (for the prior mentioned hobbies), and for a job, programmer of CAD and graphic software and printer/plotter drivers for Apple computers. > > > > Billy > >

19 years, 2 months

25
70
0 0

conehead-speak for a mouse

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

Lately I've been tinkering with a Commodore SX-64 and I found this little gem in the manual: SPECIAL DESKTOP CONTROLLER Commodore will soon introduce a special device that controls the screen as you move the controller across a desktop. This new controller will be an optional enhancement for Commodore Software products, such as the MAGIC DESK Series. -- 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?

19 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

(no subject)

by alhartman＠yahoo.com

> "NewTek" was an Amiga company, "NewTech" was the Mac clone company. > > - John For those interested, I put up all the information I have several years ago on my website... I'd love to own one of these. I hope I come across one in my travels. http://www.geocities.com/macemulist/nutek.html Al Phila, PA

19 years, 2 months

3
2
0 0

Selling my DECmate III on ebay

by fireflyst＠earthlink.net

Hi all, Just wanted to let anyone know who's interested I'm selling my DECmate III on ebay. Auction is http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ViewItem&item=300126794061 Cheers, Julian

19 years, 2 months

2
1
0 0

Drum vs. Core

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Drum vs. Core > From: Kevin Handy <kth at srv.net> > Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2007 14:04:24 -0600 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Chuck Guzis wrote: >> On 2 Jul 2007 at 19:51, Roger Holmes wrote: >> >> >>>>> That processor benchmarks about the same as an IBM PC/AT (!) >>>>> >>>> [somehow I cannot see running 100 terminals off an AT] >>>> >>> Was it really that slow! We really put up with a lot back then. >>> >> >> Terminal speed can mask a lot. How many ASR33's did IIT run IITRAN >> to using what, a 16K foreground partition on a 128K 360/40 running >> DOS? >> >A lot of the increased speed has been eaten up by the >Graphical Interfaces. Consider that most home >PC's today operate faster and have more memory than a >Cray-1, and can barely keep up with e-mail. > >We used to have 30+ users on a PDP-11 with max 4Mb >memory, and now dedicate a Dual Core system with more >than a Gb to a single web surfer. And using an 8 core CPU >machine (PS3), just to play games. > >How large would a PDP-10 system have been that had >anywhere close to the disk/ram/... of a single PlayStation3? >Technology has really shrunk things down. The BOCES LIRCS system (LINY Ca1970) was a PDP-10 running tops-10 64kW then later 128W of core with a 128K swapping drum. Number of users on an average day was 300 (TTYs) with a PDP-8i handling switching and a few other tasks. Disks were four of the removable multiplatter washing machines (RP03) three active and the fouth holding the backup pack. It was a very reponsive machine unless there was contention for the disks (reads/writes). It's size in an airconditioned false floor room was 5 "racks" wide for the back row (mostly core boxes) and the front row was CPU, and PDP-8. Spent better part of a year there as a student just hacking on the machine like most fo the other students that had access with one little difference, I was hacking via a Hazeltine 1200 glass TTY and had access to the programmers console and tty(asr35). Allison

19 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

RiscOS hardware in the US?

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> Are you talking about RISC/os, the SysV/BSD hybrid sold by MIPS No, this is a ROM-based operating system sold with Acorn RISC personal computers.

19 years, 2 months

1
0
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Drum vs. Core

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

On 2 Jul, 2007, at 18:02, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: >> When I was at university (71-74), the college's mainframe >> still used a drum from program overlays (probably really the virtual >> memory backing storage, but possibly just dumping and restoring the >> whole program between time slices. The machine was no slouch, it was >> serving about a hundred terminals and running a couple of batch >> streams as well (Maximop and George 2). > > I take it that this was an ICL 1905E (probably at Swansea or QMC). Yes, QMC. It got upgraded to a 1904S whilst I was there. Maybe it was the 4S which had 100+ terminals, there was certainly a large increase whilst I was there. Initially most were printing terminals with lights inside, not Teletypes, can't remember the maker's name. There was also just two CRT terminals, on which you typed a load of lines and told the computer to read it. You could edit small programs on screen but on the priniting terminals you had to give it commands to change character and to step through your code. Later on we got Data Dynamics terminals, an acoustic box (to save the ears) around a naked ASR33 or KSR33 Teletype. Then we got the fairly standard 'glass teletypes', though by then I was mostly using the IMLAC graphics terminal. Do you think the drum got kicked out when we went over to the 4S? I never got to see the 4S. It was all hands off. All changed when I got to Marconi-Elliott Avionics, the training consisted of - there's the computer, here's how you turn the thing on, there's the mylar tape library, the bootstrap is at 8181, get on with it. > That processor benchmarks about the same as an IBM PC/AT (!) > [somehow I cannot see running 100 terminals off an AT] Was it really that slow! We really put up with a lot back then. > > Originally on the 1900 series the drum was considered a different > peripheral > type (ie needed different programming) from an Exchangeable Disk > (EDS) or > Fixed Disk (FDS), but, by the time we at City acquired Swansea's old > 1905E and drum (and some EDS30s), new Executives appeared with > UDAS (Unified Direct Access) where the drum was programmed just the > same as a disk. These Execs, unlike the previous versions, were > overlaid > (I think they were still, however, written in engineers assembler > which used > numeric op-codes rather than the mnemonics of PLAN or GIN5). Interesting. Maybe it was like my school maths teachers who forced us to use fountain pens instead of ball points because it slowed us down so we thought more about what we were doing and so made less mistakes. At Marconi, the hardware test programmers/engineers always used a different language than those of us in the utility software group, and we provided the higher level language compilers for the applications writers to use. > Each overlay was (most of) a 128 word disk sector ... tight modular > code > was rather forced! ... it also had to be position independent on a > machine > with no real architectural support for such - and you had only > minimal use > of the Datum/Limit registers in Exec mode. Very difficult. I had always assumed the executive lived at a fixed position in memory. Maybe it used relativisers, 1300 style, where every instruction could specify what block start address should be added to it, but maybe that would slow down loading the overlays too much. I wonder if any of the concepts in the 1302 executive got re- used on 1900. Obviously not the code itself, very different architectures, just sharing the 'standard interface' and the concept of the executive itself. > The drum was, I think, 512K characters (128K 24-bit words). We put the > Exec overlays and the Maximop overlay file on the drum - I'm not sure > what else. It probably was too small for the Maximop swap file. > George II > and the main compilers and consolidator (ICL's name for the link > editor) > were probably also on the drum. George had little to gain fromsuch a > location > as it did not use overlays except that job wrap-up and start > reloaded the > full code, some of which got overwritten during processing - British > operating > systems of the era tended to use a "job description" at the start > rather > than > the interspersed "control cards" typical of IBM. Right. > We got rid of the drum at the start of our transition from ICL to > Honeywell - > it took up too much space in the machine room and the Level 66 was a > BIG machine (physically). Maybe ICL had been bumping up the maintenance charges for old kit they really did not want to support any more. Keeping engineers trained up on kit for a handful of customers is not very cost effective, and the older engineers who knew the old kit keep getting 'promoted' into management.

19 years, 2 months

4
3
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Free for Pickup in Phila, PA - TOPS Networking stuff

by alhartman＠yahoo.com

I have a box full of TOPS networking software and some hardware (Flash Cards for the PC, and connectors for the Mac) that I don't want to put in the dumpster. If you would like this box, and can come pick it up in Philadelphia PA.... It's yours!!! Email me off list. Al Phila, PA

19 years, 2 months

1
0
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Aerco Easie-ST RAM Upgrade for Atari-ST

by alhartman＠yahoo.com

Hi all, I have one of these beasts in my Atari-ST and it's not working. I haven't been able to find the manual for it. If anyone out there has the manual, and can make a copy for me, I'd reimburse the copy fee, postage and send you something for your trouble. Or... If anyone knows any of the principals of Aerco (from Texas if I remember) who can put me in touch with one, who might have the manual would be great! Thanks!! Al Phila, PA

19 years, 2 months

1
0
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Apricot F1 software needed

by classiccmp＠memory-alpha.org.uk

Hi, > Speaking of Apricots... I've got an F1 I purchased from ebay >and it came with a full set of manuals, but no software. Can >anyone help me out? I gave away almost all of my Apricot collection (and software) some time ago, however you should find something useful over at "www.actapricot.org". TTFN - Pete.

19 years, 2 months

2
1
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Drum vs. Core

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

> > Core was available by 1952, most of the big machines after this > date (on this side > of the pond at least) were core based. The IBM 650 was actually one > of the smaller > machines, at least inasmuch as IBM was already making much larger > machines > (the 700 series). Wasn't core memory very expensive in the beginning? It had to be hand assembled, at least in the early days. I think there was a more gradual take up than you suggest. Of course the more expensive machines which used it first saw a huge speed increase over drum main memory. When I was at university (71-74), the college's mainframe still used a drum from program overlays (probably really the virtual memory backing storage, but possibly just dumping and restoring the whole program between time slices. The machine was no slouch, it was serving about a hundred terminals and running a couple of batch streams as well (Maximop and George 2). Mid 1970s I remember seeing a small plastic pot about the size of a 35mm film canister, which was full of about 100,000 unstrung cores, they were tiny! They were used in the Marconi-Elliott 920ATC computer and also in the early Cruise missiles and some torpedoes. Ever wondered why a British submarine used a WW2 type torpedo to sink the big Argentinian Cruiser? My theory is that they were too worried about the modern torpedoes coming back and blowing themselves up, so they used one they trusted to go where it was pointed. Hopefully 25 years on, they've sorted out the terrible guidance system. Not related, but apparently the programmers were in a quandary as to what the program should do after it had issued the order to detonate. Like the old TV series 'Waiting for God'. The first machine which ICT introduced with core memory was in 1962, though physically large, the 1300 was a medium power machine, seen more as a versatile tabulator for accounts rather than scientific work, though it had a structural frame analysis package and even PERT, though I suppose that is just up market accounting in a way. Customers did all sorts of other work on it too, helping to design 'planes and even playing music on the built in speaker. There's a wonderful program called Ghost, only a half a dozen instructions, which uses the variable length of the multiply instruction to make a ghostly sound on the speaker. Its a good test of the CPU too, and can be keyed in through the control panel if need be in a minute or so. Also has drums - each one 12000 words x 48 bits run by a 3/4 horsepower motor and occupying 2ft x 2ft x 5 ft. Compared to the 8GB SDHC card for my 12MP camera which is about an inch by an inch by a sixteenth and stores 100,000 times as much in about 1 / 500,000 times the volume. And the core store is one sixth the capacity of the drum in a greater volume.

19 years, 2 months

6
6
0 0

[Fwd: Jim Butterfield passes away]

by brain＠jbrain.com

Jim Butterfield of TPUG and PET SW fame, in case anyone is interested: -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Jim Butterfield passes away Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2007 19:51:37 -0400 From: Robert Bernardo <rbernardo at IGLOU.COM> Reply-To: COMMODORE COMPUTERS DISCUSSION <COMMODOR at LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU> To: COMMODOR at LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU --- Forwarded message --- I regret to advise the Commodore community that Jim Butterfield has passed away. Jim died at 1:30 AM on June 29 after battling cancer which infected many parts of his body. His family advises that there will not be a funeral as such but a commemoration of Jim's life is planned in the next month or two. At the moment that is all the detail that I have to report. We have all lost a truly wonderful friend and teacher. Ernie Chorny -- Jim Brain, Brain Innovations (X) brain at jbrain.com Dabbling in WWW, Embedded Systems, Old CBM computers, and Good Times! Home: http://www.jbrain.com

19 years, 2 months

1
0
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Bob Rosenbloom <bobalan@sbcglobal.net>

by brad＠heeltoe.com

Bob Rosenbloom wrote: > >5. DEC RA81 disc drive, with cables. > >6. DEC RL02 cartridge drive, this one may be for parts, it's missing the >door latch parts, > but otherwise looks complete. > >7. DEC PDP/11-44 computer. This has the following boards and came with >the RA81 drive: Just curious, where are you located? (I'm on the east coast) -brad

19 years, 2 months

7
10
0 0

VTL Listing Altair 680

by grant＠stockly.com

I just typed up the listing for VTL but I'm missing a few lines. I need to know what line #179, #239, and #529. I'd like to know the entire line. If anyone has access to the VTL manual I would love to get the missing lines. : ) I will provide the EPROM set to anyone interested for cost. This is what I have so far. There are probably some mistakes but I can't ever finish without the missing lines. Grant FC00: 8E 00 F1 4F CE FE FB 8D 42 4F 97 4A 97 4B BD FE | GS FC10: A3 24 3B 8D 24 27 E9 8D 65 27 E5 EE 00 DF 4A DE | GS FC20: 42 08 08 08 8D 13 27 0D DE 42 EE 00 9C 4A 27 05 | GS FC30: 08 DF 46 20 E2 8D 5A 20 E0 DF 72 BD FD EC 08 A6 | GS FC40: 00 8D 03 DE 4A 39 81 22 26 4E 08 7E FD 75 DF 74 | GS FC50: 97 4A D7 4B DE 4A 26 69 CE 01 08 9C 50 27 BA DF | GS FC60: 42 A6 00 E6 01 BD FD 20 DE 42 08 08 BD FD 58 BD | GS FC70: FE F2 20 E7 DE 42 08 08 6D 00 26 FB 08 39 CE 01 | GS FC80: 08 DF 42 9C 50 27 10 A6 01 90 4B A6 00 92 4A 24 | GS FC90: 04 20 EC 86 FF 39 BD FD 80 37 36 DE 72 BD | GS FCA0: FD FF 32 C1 24 26 04 33 7E FF 81 C0 3F 27 70 5C | GS FCB0: 33 26 01 3F A7 00 E7 01 DB 52 99 53 97 52 D7 53 | GS FCC0: 39 8D BB 27 18 EE 00 9C 4A 26 12 8D A7 9E 42 9C | GS FCD0: 50 27 08 A6 00 36 08 31 31 20 F4 9F 50 DE 74 C6 | GS FCE0: 03 6D 00 27 31 5C 08 6D 00 26 FA 4F DB 51 99 50 | GS FCF0: 97 3C D7 3D D0 59 92 58 24 22 DE 50 9E 3C 9F 50 | GS FD00: 08 09 E6 00 37 9C 42 26 F8 9E 4A AF 00 9E 74 34 | GS FD10: 08 33 E7 01 26 FA 83 00 F1 7E FC 09 7E FC 00 33 | GS FD20: CE 00 82 DF 6C CE FE 5B DF 6E EE 00 DF 70 CE 00 | GS FD30: 70 BD FE 65 36 DE 6C 96 69 8B 30 A7 00 08 DF 6C | GS FD40: DE 6E 32 08 08 6D 01 26 DF CE 00 81 63 05 03 E6 | GS FD50: 00 C1 30 27 F9 73 00 86 4F 97 87 E6 00 08 D1 87 | GS FD60: 27 05 BD FF 81 20 F4 BD FF 24 24 5B 8D 04 C1 03 | GS FD70: 27 AA 7E FF 00 8D E2 A6 00 81 3B 27 5D 7E FE F2 | GS FD80: 8D 46 36 A6 00 27 02 81 29 32 27 4E 8D 04 DE 64 | GS FD90: 20 F0 36 37 A6 00 36 03 8D 2E 97 6A D7 6B DF 64 | GS FDA0: CE 00 6A 32 33 81 2A 26 6E 32 97 68 D7 69 69 10 | GS FDB0: D7 66 4F 5F 74 00 68 76 00 69 24 02 8D 5E 68 01 | GS FDC0: 69 00 7A 00 66 26 ED 39 BD FE A5 24 0E C1 EF 26 | GS FDD0: 0B DF 76 BD FE D6 8D A8 DE 76 08 39 C1 24 26 05 | GS FDE0: 8D 90 4F 08 39 C1 28 26 03 08 20 94 8D 11 A6 00 | GS FDF0: E6 01 DE 70 39 8D 89 58 49 DB 51 99 50 20 0E 36 | GS FE00: 00 08 37 C1 3A 27 EE 4F C4 3F CB 02 58 DF 70 97 | GS FE10: 6C D7 6D DE 6C 33 39 81 2B 26 06 32 EB 01 A9 00 | GS FE20: 39 81 2D 26 06 32 E0 01 A2 00 39 81 2F 26 0C 32 | GS FE30: 8D 33 97 4E D7 4F 96 68 D6 69 39 80 3D 26 0C 32 | GS FE40: 8D E4 26 03 5D 27 02 C6 FF 20 0D 4A 32 27 07 8D | GS FE50: D5 59 4F C4 01 39 8D F7 53 20 F7 27 10 03 E8 00 | GS FE60: 64 00 0A 00 01 7F 00 66 7C 00 66 63 01 69 00 24 | GS FE70: F7 66 00 66 01 7F 00 68 7F 00 69 8D A9 24 04 8D | GS FE80: 9B 0C 9C 0D 79 00 69 79 00 68 7A 00 66 27 12 64 | GS FE90: 00 66 01 20 E6 E6 00 C1 3A 2A 04 C1 30 2C 02 0D | GS FEA0: 39 0C 39 8D 31 8D EE 25 F9 4F 5F EB 00 89 00 C0 | GS FEB0: 30 82 00*87?66*D7 67 08 37 8D DA 33 25 E3 58 49 | GS FEC0: 58 49 DB 67 99 66 58 49 20 E1 C1 40 27 06 08 8C | GS FED0: 00 4A 26 08 8D 1C CE 00 02 09 27 F8 BD FF 00 E7 | GS FEE0: 87 C1 5F 27 F4 C1 0D 28 F3 26 DF 6F 87 CE 00 33 | GS FEF0: 20 04 C6 0D 8D 02 C6 0A 7E FF 31 0D 0A 4F 4B 00 | GS

19 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

HP FAB boards

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

Would anyone happen to have a spare FAB board or two for the 21MX/1000 boxes? One of mine is physically damaged and I'd like to keep that particular box running. I'll gladly trade or buy for one.... Jay West

19 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Telephony switches - is there anyone out there collecting these?

by classiccmp＠memory-alpha.org.uk

Hi, > I have a couple of the old GPO [1] Modem 2B units.... Brings back memories....the 2B was my first modem back in '85. Lots of fun, but not as convenient as one which responds to Hayes "AT" commands. I may still have some documentation somewhere if it's any use to you? TTFN - Pete.

19 years, 2 months

6
9
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What are the really unusual or weird computers?

by classiccmp＠memory-alpha.org.uk

Hi, >>....The earlier assertion that it was miles away from an IBM PC >>just isn't true.... Oh, but it is....just take a look at the Apricot Technical Reference manual. > Thinking about it more, my statement about peripherals might be >stretching it. I don't *recall* any problems with 3rd party >peripherals like modems and whatnot.... Well, the Apricots had a bog standard RS232 connector and the printer interface was standard "Centronics" (though it used a female Centronics connector rather than a DB-25 as many other machines used). Also, since the thing didn't have an ISA bus, any internal expansion options would be designed specifically for the "Apricot bus" and have the appropriate drivers.... >....The F1 doesn't look like it has compatible connectors for standard IBM >PC peripherals, but ISTR that the Xi *did* have ISA slots.... No, the "F" series machines use the same "Apricot" expansion bus as the earlier PC & Xi and the later Xen series. The first Apricot machine to have an ISA bus inside was the "Xen-i", which was also Apricot's first (mostly) IBM compatible machine. >....The F1 wasn't intended to be expanded very much.... That's because the "F" series machines were primarily intended to be "home" machines. TTFN - Pete.

19 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Modem 13A

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

I also came across that Modem 13A that I mentioned a few days ago, the one that's a plinth under a normal 746 telephone. The phone part is pretty normal, apart from having 2 buttons on top, in front of the handset rest, labelled 'TELE' and 'DATA'. They are interlocked so that presing one releases the other, and both are released buy the heandset rest. The 'TELE' button operates a microswitch, the connections of which go nowhere, the 'DATA' buttom operates a multi-pole changeover switch, again most of the contacts aren't used. The rest of the phone is what I'd expect in a rotary-dial 746. The base of the plinth comes off by 4 captive screws. Inside is a PCB, component side down (so you can see the components when the base is removed), also hald in by a further 4 captive screws. There are 8 wires >from the modem PCB up into the phone sectionm and a label inside the base seems to indicate that 2 of them are used to externally power the modem (it can be line-powered) -- these wires go to 2 otherwise unused terminals on a terminal strip, 4 of the wires are to be linked in 2 pairs (again done on said terminal strip) and the remaining 2 wires go to the line (presumably via that DATA switch. There are 4 terminals on the PCB that go to a cable that comes out the back. The label gives the 'CCITT circuit numbers' for each terminal, I've not looked them up yet, but they're going to be normal RS232 signals. The PCB contians a number of discrete transistors, a number of 8-lead TO99 cansm which I susepct (from the part number and connections) to be 748 op-amps and a single 14 pin DIL device, which might be something like a 7403 (???) And a lot of pot-core inductors and strange-value poiystyrene capacitors, presumably for filtering. -tony

19 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Tandy 2000 hack

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

any thoughts? And although he claimed the 2000 never generated a NMI, won't a parity error always do this? Irrelevant maybe cuz that's a catastrophic fault thing, not something typically encountered... Maybe he provided more details, but I'm tired... > > I was working on a mod, never completed, for the T2K > > that would make it > > after the O/S was loaded, 100% PC-compatible. > > Required 1 hardware chip, > > and a customized IO.SYS. Whereupon any DOS > > application would run on the T2K, > > even stuff doing serial-port manipulation, direct > > video-memory writes, DMA, > > etc. The one-chip mod was a PAL that monitored the address lines from the CPU, when It saw an I/O instruction in 'low' address-space, it generated an NMI (not used at all by the T2K), then the software service routine for NMI unwound the stack to find the offending I/O instruction, and re-mapped the "PC" functionality to the T2K hardware. Coupled with a timer-tick 'refresh' routine that copied data from "PC video memory" to the T2K video memory (remapping attributes, etc. as required.) The chip actually had 2 modes of operation -- NMI active, as described above, and 'NMI inactive', where it pretty much did nothing -- except listen for the 'magic words' that made it go active, that is. :) This enable/disable mode switching was necessary, to allow "T2K DOS" internals (and/or the 'sofware service routine) to access the T2K hardware directly. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Moody friends. Drama queens. Your life? Nope! - their life, your story. Play Sims Stories at Yahoo! Games. http://sims.yahoo.com/

19 years, 2 months

7
12
0 0

(no subject)

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

> At 09:46 AM 7/1/2007, Scott Quinn wrote: >> For a brief period, NewTek did have a Macintosh clone with a 68030 >> and system software that was a hybrid of System 6 and System 7, > > "NewTek" was an Amiga company, "NewTech" was the Mac clone company. > > - John Hmm-the reviewer in the magazine I have must have had spell-check on, as it came out "NewTek Duet" every time. Explains why I couldn't find much else on it.

19 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

S-100 and other items looking for a new home

by w6nct＠arrl.net

Greetings, I am new to this group, so I hope that I am doing this correctly. I have a bunch of computer parts looking for a new home, many are from vintage computers. Most of the initial things I have posted are S-100 PCBs (memory, I/O, interfaces,...), many of which include documentation, and some even include software. I also have a NorthStar Horizon chassis (including linear P/S, motherboard, but no top cover or drives). There are other items as well, including a VME chassis; and I expect to have several Heathkit items posted soon. Unless specified, I believe that all of these items were operational prior to being boxed (several years ago), and still appear to be in good condition. I am enquiring with several people I have found on the Web, hoping to find one or more interested parties. I have considered posting them on eBay; but thought that I'd offer them directly first. These items are located in Southern California; so shipping outside that area may be a (minor) concern (for larger or heavier items). At the very minimum, I am interested in recovering the cost for S/H; but would prefer to get a bit more to help with my purchasing a new laptop. I have set up a temporary Yahoo Group to help with showing and describing the items; that way, it won't impact the bandwidth of sites such as this one. The Group is called "Verns_Stuff" (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Verns_Stuff). If you have any interest in S-100, VME, or Heathkit computer items, please drop by. If you are not interested, but you are aware of other individuals or groups that might be, please feel free to forward this information on to them. Thank-you. Vern.

19 years, 2 months

1
0
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What are the really unusual or weird computers?

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

> > From: "Mike Hatch" <mike.hatch at mclennan.co.uk> > >> Its got Ampex >> TM4 mag tape drives (not industry standard 7 or 9 track, these are >> ten track units with hubs the same design as professional audio >> tapes >> and the 2 and 3 inch wide video tapes once used by TV broadcasters). > > Our SDS9300 had TM4 drives but I don't remember them being 2 and 3 > inch > wide, I thought they were 0.5 inch, but then that was 35years ago. Yes they are half inch. What I meant was that they are not 'industry standard' half inch tape with large expanding hubs with the write protect ring in a groove in the reel. Instead the centres are much smaller, allowing 3200 feet on the same outside diameter spool as a 2400 foot reel using the same thickness tape (not the ultra thin tape). The reels are aluminium, not plastic, their centres have three notches which three matching 'fingers' within the hub fit into, holding the reel onto the hub. Some TM4s were fitted with small expanding hubs (the ones on the Leo and maybe others), but this did not fit 'industry standard' reels. The same design of hub is used on tapes of quarter inch, half inch, one inch, two inch and three inch, maybe other sizes too. I do not mean domestic quarter inch tape recorders, these use a simple nut on a stud. The write protect ring protrudes from the back of the reel, and three projections on the ring fit into three holes in the reel. The tapes themselves have a metalised leader which is electrically sensed by the deck. They also have a reflective early end of tape marker like later tapes, and I think they have a metalised leader at the end of tape, though I've never unreeled 3200 feet of tape to find out.

19 years, 2 months

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Fwd: [acug0447] Fwd: Jim Butterfield passes away

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

FYI: Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk rbernardo(at)iglou.com wrote: To: acug0447 at yahoogroups.com,auscbm at yahoogroups.com From: <rbernardo at iglou.com> Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2007 19:53:12 -0400 Subject: [acug0447] Fwd: Jim Butterfield passes away --- Forwarded message --- I regret to advise the Commodore community that Jim Butterfield has passed away. Jim died at 1:30 AM on June 29 after battling cancer which infected many parts of his body. His family advises that there will not be a funeral as such but a commemoration of Jim's life is planned in the next month or two. At the moment that is all the detail that I have to report. We have all lost a truly wonderful friend and teacher. Ernie Chorny Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/acug0447/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/acug0447/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:acug0447-digest at yahoogroups.com mailto:acug0447-fullfeatured at yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: acug0447-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

19 years, 2 months

2
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Drum vs. Core

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Drum vs. Core > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 13:49:22 -0700 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >While the main store on the IBM 650, didn't most of the installed >base (eventually) also have 50 words of core as sort of a >"scratchpad" memory? > >Cheers, >Chuck This was common. The problem with rotating memory, mercury delay, magnostrictive delay and even shift registers is they are not random access they are sequential access They all have a fixed delay and you wait for what you want to "come around". Programmers had to program around that if speed was required. Allison

19 years, 2 months

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Semi-OT: Interesting or unusual PC Compatibles?

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

> Now, of course, such an effort would be in violation of DMCA, but it > worked back then. I'm surprised that no one did that with the Mac > ROMs--anyone know why not? Probably because they would also then need to clone the system software as well, a much bigger task for a much smaller (potential) market. Apple would have been much less likely to deal with clone makers than Microsoft was. While the system software was made freely available in the early years, it is unlikely it would have stayed that way if clone makers had been successful. For a brief period, NewTek did have a Macintosh clone with a 68030 and system software that was a hybrid of System 6 and System 7, with a user interface based on Motif. It suffered the same problems as the 1st - gen IBM clones as far as compatibility.

19 years, 2 months

2
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Rare Commodore 8296 on EBay?!?!?

by gmanuel＠gmconsulting.net

Is this really as rare as he thinks it is? http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130128193985&ssPageName=M ERC_VI_RCRX_Pr3_PcY_BID_Stores_IT&refitem=130128166016&itemcount=3&refwidget loc=active_view_item&usedrule1=CrossSell_LogicX&refwidgettype=cross_promot_w idget Greg

19 years, 2 months

3
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Drum vs. Core

by cc＠corti-net.de

On Fri, 29 Jun 2007, Brent Hilpert wrote: > Indeed, according to http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/650.html there was > 60 words of core used as a buffer between the drum and tape drives to account > for their different data rates, but which could also be used for other stuff. Well, then you have to count the LGP-30 as computer with core memory, too, because the interface to the (apparently extremly rare) magnetic tape drives (yes, there were tape drives for the LGP-30!) contained core memory as buffer. The drive would buffer the block in core so that the LGP-30 could read it with its own speed (and vice versa). Christian

19 years, 2 months

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stuff on ebay

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

Now that I have some more time to do it, I've listed some stuff on Ebay. My name there is "frotz661". -- 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?

19 years, 2 months

1
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imsai ram4 board

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

What sort of fun could one have with an IMSAI ram4 board? I don't think I want to sell it. -- 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?

19 years, 2 months

1
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Drum vs. Core

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

On 29 Jun, 2007, at 20:37, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > The TDC is almost as impressive as the Arma Mk 1 fire control > computers of the same era, used to calculate the problems of putting a > 16 inch shell on the deck of a ship 20 miles away. PAMPANITO in the > Bay Area (Fisherman's Wharf) has completely restored working TDC, the > result of many many hours of work from a dedicated volunteer. It is up > in the control room, and very hard to see without appointment. In 1986 or 87 I walked through her - usual tourist thing. About the only thing I still remember was the story of the tons of gold brought back in (that?) submarine.

19 years, 2 months

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Billy Pettit real disappointment

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

On 29 Jun, 2007, at 20:37, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > From: "Billy Pettit" <Billy.Pettit at wdc.com> > > > ----------------- > > Billy replies: This was a serial machine using a magnetic drum for > memory. > So the registers and memory were all bit serial and on the drum. I/ > O was > accomplish by moving data from one line to another. The logic at > each end > of the line was in peripheral but the bits were on the drum. So it > really > doesn't fit the standard definition of memory mapped I/O, though > that is the > closest description. There were no channels per se. > > Al has just posted most of the G-15 manuals. Have a look. It > certainly > qualifies for the weirdest machine I ever worked on. Yes that's reasonably weird. I particularly like the weirdness of drum where the data spins faster than the drum and it stores even faster rotating data on the same band. Makes my 1301's drums with one read/write head on each bit track seem boring, though the tracks are grouped in fours as it is a 4 bit parallel by 12 digit serial architecture. The 1301 has a neat trick for its day, to transfer an entire band (four tracks, 200 x 48 bit words), it did not wait for the start of the track to come round, it started at the next decade (ten word) boundary to come around, worked up to the end of the band, set its core address back to the original start address (which had to be a multiple of 200) and worked up to the start of the data already transferred. > > ---------------- > > Roger Holmes: > > Remember? I am restoring/maintaining an ICT 1301 which has individual > Germanium transistors, wire-OR, four and gates to a PCB, one flip- > flop one a PCB, a clock derived from the timing track of the last > addressed drum store, a core store unit weighing half a ton an stores > just 2000 x 48 bit words (plus 2000 x 2 parity bits). Its got Ampex > TM4 mag tape drives (not industry standard 7 or 9 track, these are > ten track units with hubs the same design as professional audio tapes > and the 2 and 3 inch wide video tapes once used by TV broadcasters). > > [Snip] > > --------------------- > Billy: I salute you. I wish more people on this list had your > energy and > love of old metal and were restoring it. I enjoy hearing about your > efforts. Thank you very much. The plan is to get one of my two machines into a museum one day, hopefully both when I am too old to use it/dead. Almost ten years ago the Computer Conservation Society had plans to get one into the Bletchley Park museum and one into the 'Science Museum' but both of them dropped out - I suspect its because a 1301 takes up too much floor space. > > I'm also working on a germanium transistor wired-AND core memory > machine. Ah! Wire-AND. Would this be negative power rail germanium by any chance? If so I suspect the circuits are basically similar but the nomenclature is different. On the 1301, a logic 1 is -6.3 volts and a logic 0 is 0 volts. When fault finding we usually have one person at the console operating the machine and looking at the logic diagrams calling the circuit references to be checked and one on an oscilloscope out of sight describing the display on the 'scope. Most of us are of course familiar with silicon logic and we get confused by calling out 'high' and 'low' because it is so natural, and we find it so difficult to remember high is 0 and low is 1, so we TRY to call out logic 0 and 1 instead, but it so hard to break old habits. > It used TM2's not TM4's. And I've been unable to find any tape units. The 1300s had four different tape subsystem options. The 'High Speed' (90kc/s) system, called tape type 1 (because it was the first developed) was a one inch system using Ampex drives, and IIRC, they were TM2s. They had 16 tracks (8 data and 8 CRC), and ran at 150 ips. My machines TM4 system (4 data 6 CRC tracks) was tape type 3 (22.5kc/ s) and was basically the same electronics with some parts removed and the minimum changes to make it store two frames where the high speed system saved one frame. It runs at only 75 ips. It uses Thyrotrons to turn the pinch rollers on and off. It has small vacuum chambers plus swing arms to buffer and measure the amount of buffered tape, the (air damped) sensors on the swing arms being the only things which control the reel motors - too much slack and the reel motor winds some in, too little and it winds some out. > Did > find the original card reader, a modified Burroughs. > > Still, I consider what you are doing to be the true goal of classic > computers. I read, enjoy and participate with the microprocessor > based list > threads. Me too, though much of it is too much like my everyday job. Its like in the winter I drive my reasonably modern Jag or BMW to work but in the summer I enjoy driving my 1960s Daimler or Rover, and sometimes it feels like an achievement just to get to work, and if I stop for petrol I have to allow an extra ten minutes to chat to people who come over to admire the car. "They don't make them like that any more" or "My uncle used to have one of those". I even had someone who seemed to offer me 30k for a car insured for only 11.5k. > But my real love is in truly "classic" computers like yours. Good. I was lucky enough to buy not just the computers but a load of spares. As yet I've not needed to do much component level repairs. Its the Ampex decks which cause most problems because they are American made, they don't use British components. For the CPU things like light bulbs, the same type were telephone exchanges and cars of the period, which are now classic and hence there is an industry still supplying them. The telephone exchange bulbs crop up on eBay, even sometimes the rarer voltages like 17 volts, and I recently bought almost a hundred 28 volt ones which produce an identical intensity plugged in in place of 24 volt ones. Its the things like the bulbs for the virtual address display (12 miniature projectors, one for each digit 1-8, and letters 'E','L' and 'U' and an underline) which are a problem. They are 6.3 volt 6 watt. I thought I'd cracked it when I picked up some 6 volt car ones rated at 6 watts, assuming that like a 12 volt car system, the charging circuit would run them up to 15 to 20% over-voltage. But they only last about 30 seconds. I've checked the supply and it is only 6.3 volts, I can only assume it must be the enclosed space require a higher operating temperature. Googling has found the GE part number listed as microscope illumination lamps, but it doesn't give the voltage or amperage ratings, and the price was horrendous, so I'm not even sure they really are the right ones, and too tight fisted to take a chance. Maybe if we have a lot of people paying admittance to see the old girl (if she's works on the day) at classic car show I hold at my home in a couple of weeks time. Still, I've bought an old 4 trace HP storage scope (via ebay) on that expected income already, and after only one day's operation it now works for 20 seconds after turning on and the goes clip-clop, clop-clip, repeatedly and so I may have to spend more money and time trying to repair it. Better go to bed now, its 1am, got carried away! > > ---------------- > > Roger Holmes: > >> And many of them were wonderfully different and creative. > > Indeed. And some of them almost make you cry because so much more > could have been done with the same amount of electonics. My machine > has been modified to implement an index instruction. Previously all > indexing and indirection had to be done by program modification, and > even now subroutine return is done that way (see my previous e-mail). > I have one machine in 'conserved' state, unmolested, unrepaired non- > runner, and one with extra tweeks and darn right mass rewiring which > runs and I can't stop thinking about how it could be improved, yet > somehow manage to stop myself doing so. There are so many gaps in the > instruction code and spare bits in the instructions etc. The only > modification I am working on plugs into an extension port lashed up > by a previous owner. This is to capture the data from the machine > onto modern media. May replace with an RS232 interface later to drive > a teletype and/or pen plotter, and/or a parallel inteface for a > Friden Flexowriter. > > [sni] > > Roger Holmes. > Classic computer collector, classic car collector, machine tool > collector/user (for the prior mentioned hobbies), and for a job, > programmer of CAD and graphic software and printer/plotter drivers > for Apple computers. > > > >

19 years, 2 months

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Fw: more...

by jrkeys＠concentric.net

----- Original Message ----- From: "Tim Deaton" <timdeaton at yahoo.com> To: "Keys" <jrkeys at concentric.net>; "Al Kossow" <aek at bitsavers.org> Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2007 7:36 PM Subject: Re: more... > John, > > Send me a number were I can call U after 9PM or on > weekends when the cell phone (NEXTEL) is 'free'. > > I am in Indiana - Eastern Time Zone. We can discuss. > > You can call me free any time if you have Sprint or > Nextel. > > My incoming calls are all free. > > Tim Deatom > 317-716-8807 > > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ > Park yourself in front of a world of choices in alternative vehicles. > Visit the Yahoo! Auto Green Center. > http://autos.yahoo.com/green_center/ He has tons of doc's, 15 Televideo terminals, 100+ monitors, 100+ printers, 100's of new parts, tons of software (OS's, WP's and no games), many more things than I can list. If you live in his area please try and rescue this stuff, it's all free to good homes. I wish I could get some of the tons of documentation and service manuals that he has from his old business. He's in Indiana. Thanks for reading, John Keys

19 years, 2 months

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C= LED watch on epay...

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

I think someone will be disappointed; it looks like an LCD watch, not an LED watch.

19 years, 2 months

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HP-IL sighting!

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

HP-IL interfaces turn up in the oddest places. This sound level meter on eBay looks to have an HP-IL interface, shown in the pics: http://shorterlink.org/2335 -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

19 years, 2 months

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LARGE IN RESCUE NEEDED Was Fw: more...

by jrkeys＠concentric.net

Sorry for double post but wanted to clear up message subject ----- Original Message ----- From: "Keys" <jrkeys at concentric.net> To: "cctalk at classiccmp" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2007 10:27 AM Subject: Fw: more... > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Tim Deaton" <timdeaton at yahoo.com> > To: "Keys" <jrkeys at concentric.net>; "Al Kossow" <aek at bitsavers.org> > Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2007 7:36 PM > Subject: Re: more... > > >> John, >> >> Send me a number were I can call U after 9PM or on >> weekends when the cell phone (NEXTEL) is 'free'. >> >> I am in Indiana - Eastern Time Zone. We can discuss. >> >> You can call me free any time if you have Sprint or >> Nextel. >> >> My incoming calls are all free. >> >> Tim Deatom >> 317-716-8807 >> >> >> >> ____________________________________________________________________________________ >> Park yourself in front of a world of choices in alternative vehicles. >> Visit the Yahoo! Auto Green Center. >> http://autos.yahoo.com/green_center/ > > He has tons of doc's, 15 Televideo terminals, 100+ monitors, 100+ > printers, 100's of new parts, tons of software (OS's, WP's and no games), > many more things than I can list. If you live in his area please try and > rescue this stuff, it's all free to good homes. I wish I could get some of > the tons of documentation and service manuals that he has from his old > business. He's in Indiana. > > Thanks for reading, > John Keys

19 years, 2 months

1
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Drum vs. Core

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Drum vs. Core > From: Roger Holmes <roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk> > Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 19:27:10 +0100 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > > >> >> Core was available by 1952, most of the big machines after this >> date (on this side >> of the pond at least) were core based. The IBM 650 was actually one >> of the smaller >> machines, at least inasmuch as IBM was already making much larger >> machines >> (the 700 series). > >Wasn't core memory very expensive in the beginning? Yes and new. It was also temperature sensitive as the required ferrites and circuits were not fully developed. > It had to be hand >assembled, at least in the early days. I think there was a more >gradual take up than you suggest. Of course the more expensive >machines which used it first saw a huge speed increase over drum main >memory. When I was at university (71-74), the college's mainframe >still used a drum from program overlays (probably really the virtual >memory backing storage, but possibly just dumping and restoring the >whole program between time slices. The machine was no slouch, it was >serving about a hundred terminals and running a couple of batch >streams as well (Maximop and George 2). Actually core appeared in two places in machines. TX2 was an exellent example where core was used as main store and also there was a far smaller "fast store" using core that was really for use as registers. >Mid 1970s I remember seeing a small plastic pot about the size of a >35mm film canister, which was full of about 100,000 unstrung cores, >they were tiny! They were used in the Marconi-Elliott 920ATC computer >and also in the early Cruise missiles and some torpedoes. Ever >wondered why a British submarine used a WW2 type torpedo to sink the >big Argentinian Cruiser? My theory is that they were too worried >about the modern torpedoes coming back and blowing themselves up, so >they used one they trusted to go where it was pointed. Hopefully 25 >years on, they've sorted out the terrible guidance system. Not >related, but apparently the programmers were in a quandary as to what >the program should do after it had issued the order to detonate. Like >the old TV series 'Waiting for God'. > >The first machine which ICT introduced with core memory was in 1962, >though physically large, the 1300 was a medium power machine, seen >more as a versatile tabulator for accounts rather than scientific >work, though it had a structural frame analysis package and even >PERT, though I suppose that is just up market accounting in a way. >Customers did all sorts of other work on it too, helping to design >'planes and even playing music on the built in speaker. There's a >wonderful program called Ghost, only a half a dozen instructions, >which uses the variable length of the multiply instruction to make a >ghostly sound on the speaker. Its a good test of the CPU too, and can >be keyed in through the control panel if need be in a minute or so. >Also has drums - each one 12000 words x 48 bits run by a 3/4 >horsepower motor and occupying 2ft x 2ft x 5 ft. Compared to the 8GB >SDHC card for my 12MP camera which is about an inch by an inch by a >sixteenth and stores 100,000 times as much in about 1 / 500,000 times >the volume. And the core store is one sixth the capacity of the drum >in a greater volume. I remember the fixed head (head per track) word parallel swapping drums on PDP-10s. Those were 128kW but fairly small and motors were on a 1/4hp scale. That and the PDP-8 32k fixed head platter (RS08) that were often used for swapping as they were fast using multiple fixed heads and working as word parallel. Around the time of the Altair you could buy surplus drums most fixed head that were fairly small physically and techically easy to interface though the amount of repeated circuits were large in quanitity. Allison

19 years, 2 months

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Billy Pettit real disappointment

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

Here's my five cents worth. I see computers and computing as different things. We discuss a lot about old hardware and to some extent and rather less about old software. What's in short supply is how the hard/soft combinations were used practically. "Are there any interesting old applications out there?" As to the on/off topic issue. I don't see any problem with comparing and contrasting the old with the current. If one topic arises out of another and is of interest to others on the list and gets a response so be it. If there is no response then the silent majority have voted. I am concerned that difference between moderation and censorship could, at some time in the future, (present situation excepted) become less distinct. Rod Smallwood -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jay West Sent: 28 June 2007 13:58 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Billy Pettit real disappointment Billy wrote... >> Come on people: there were computers long before there were >> microcomputers. I seem to remember a recent post complaining that this list was nothing but minicomputer and big-iron talk, no microcomputer discussion. Apparently that was wrong, as now there is a complaint it's just micro talk? ;) Jay `

19 years, 2 months

2
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LISA

by pdp11_70＠retrobbs.org

So... I've got *the* lisa emulator set up and can (at last) play with that computer that I wanted when I was 12 (I still remember seeing one at Computer Pro and being amazed!) So, does anyone know what happened to that 90,000+ lines of (Pascal) Source Code for LOS? It would sure been neet to be able to look at it. It would be even more need to write a TCP/IP stack for the thing, and some how hook up a scsi asanti ethernet adapter to a real Lisa and put it on the web without using Macworks. But as I don't have any of the real equipment... I guess that's just a pipe dream. Wow. mark -- "Well, Steve, I think there's more than one way of looking at it. I think it's more like we both had this rich neighbour named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it." -Bill Gates to Steve Jobs On Windows --

19 years, 2 months

3
3
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Diamond Rio PMP-300 (was Re: What didn't happen in the future)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 6/27/07, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote: > At 8:04 AM +0100 6/27/07, Rob wrote: > >Almost on topic(only a year to go), > > Actually I'm not sure what the stance is on > peripherals, but if it was a computer it likely > would be fully on topic. I would think there would be no difference made between peripherals and CPUs of a given vintage or "coolness". I think what's at issue here is that technically, the PMP300 is nine years old, so it has to squeeze in by nature of its place in history, not its mere age. > IIRC, it was the first > commercially available MP3 player, at least it > was the first widely available one. AFAIK, it was the second model to market, but the first widely available one. > I bought one new as well, though I paid $300 and > got it when it first came out. Ow! FLASH sure was expensive then... but so were all of Diamond's other products. > I actually had my Rio working with WinXP at one > point, and I believe I also had it working with > Linux. Here's what I've been using for years to pump and dump music on my Rio PMP300 (from the README) RIO utility v1.07 - The Snowblind Alliance (c) 1999 I did run into a parallel-port permissions issue with RedHat WS3 last year, but under RedHat 9, the ancient Rio utility worked perfectly. I think it's just a matter of tweaking the rio.cpp to open the parallel port with a more modern technique - the port banging code should work fine after that. If not, then there's a reason to stick with an "obsolete" version of Linux - to get unfettered I/O port access. :-/ > I still have the original box, and should have > everything that goes with it. My intention is > that one day it will be a museum exhibit along > with a lot of my other computer equipment, that > is the only thing it has ever been good for. > Personally I wish I'd never wasted the $300 on it. Your feelings about it reminds me that I'm glad I didn't get one when they were _totally_ new. I paid at least $100 for mine, since, ISTR, I was concerned that the RIAA lawsuit over potential violations of the 1992 Home Recording Act might make them unavailable. Fortunately for us all, that one was settled in favor of Diamond. I still use mine. I was given an iPod Shuffle that I don't use much because embedded non-user-replaceable Li-Ion batteries annoy me. I have a removable NiMH AA in my PMP300, which means it won't be dying of battery fatigue anytime soon (I use my Palm III in favor of my Palm V for the same reason). I do have a half-dead one, that I'd love to repair... it was free from the previous owner because as far as we can determine, one of the FLASH chips is defective. I think it stores songs, but not the full amount - there's a dead zone in the internal 32MB map. Simple fix once one identifies which chip it is, and locates a spare. -ethan

19 years, 2 months

4
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Drum vs. Core

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> haven't checked into > when UNIVAC took up with it. 1103A (Williams Tubes in orig 1103) in MN UNIVAC II (UNIVAC I was mercury delay lines) in PA I'd have to dig a bit more for the Univac military systems.

19 years, 2 months

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What are the really unusual or weird computers?

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

This thread has been a real disappointment. Almost all of the responses have been about computers using standard microprocessors - off the shelf components. Yes a few had non-vanilla flavored OS's, or idiotic I/O schemes. A few were even painted different colors from PC Beige. But nobody got into the really weird internals that have made the industry so fascinating. Go back to the real early days, like the Atlas, that let you build your instruction set from scratch using micro-code. Nobody seemed to remember that most of the late 50's and early 60's used 40 bits as a standard. What about the MicroData machines with a build your own instructions on the fly? And then there were the ultra-strange like the G-15 - 29 bit word size, all instructions were modified moves through arithmetic logic or I/O devices. The I/O devices were actually part of the internal logic - no channels. Burroughs had some fascinating ideas on virtual memory in the 5500 series. Seymour Cray lived weird and unusual in most of his designs. Several people have developed machines to run high level languages in native mode: ADA at Rational, APL on the Star 100, LISP, COBOL, etc. There's not much unusual about putting some glue logic around a $3 micro chip. We've all done it. How about the truly weird machines? Doesn't anyone remember when logic didn't come in million transistor packages? Come on people: there were computers long before there were microcomputers. And many of them were wonderfully different and creative. Billy

19 years, 2 months

11
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Apricot F1 software needed

by legalize＠xmission.com

Speaking of Apricots... I've got an F1 I purchased from ebay and it came with a full set of manuals, but no software. Can anyone help me out? I've got manuals for: - Apricot Software GEM Desktop - Apricot Software GEM Paint - Apricot Software GEM Write - Apricot Async User Guide - Microsoft Pack (MS-DOS 2.00, apparently) Since this machine only has a floppy drive, its not very functional until I get the right OS for it... -- "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/>

19 years, 2 months

1
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HP7202A Schematics questions

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

I've taken some pictures of the inside of the plotter and close-ups of the interface assembly card, which is where most of the wires from the interface connector go to. Perhaps someone will see something that makes sense to them. I also opened up an ASR-33 teletype and looked at the connector where the plotter interface cable plugs in. It is a 9 pin molex connector, with 8 pins being used. I *can* find documentation on that somewhere in one of my teletype manuals. Pictures can be seen at the bottom of: http://www.woffordwitch.com/HP7202.asp Ashley http://www.woffordwitch.com

19 years, 2 months

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C= LED watch on epay...

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

Hi folks, An official C= LED watch is up for grabs. But with the current bid at ?20 I think I'll opt out. Just 20 hours to go though... http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/COMMODORE-LED-WATCH-RETRO-CLASSIC-AMIGA-C64_W0QQitemZ… >From the description: "The watch is brand new, never been worn, the leather strap has never been used. The strap is black on the upper side and tan on the reverse. I have seen this style watch on the web for upwards of ?150. There is a low no reserve auction. There is no box just the watch. The watch battery is dead, but that can be changed by any local shop it is not a specialist job. However the watch is sold as seen as i cannot guarantee it because of the age, however >from what i know it is in perfect working order. On the reverse of the watch is incribed: Commodore Hong Kong Case Stainless Steel Back Base Metal Bezel" Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

19 years, 2 months

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Dialling up in 1982 (was Re: old modems (was Telephony switches))

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 6/28/07, Jason T <silent700 at gmail.com> wrote: > On 6/28/07, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote: > > > I still have my bought-new-in-1982 VIC modem that I used to use to get > > on CompuServe when I was in High School... > > The second big mistake my parents made was signing up for CompuServe > with the offer found in the VicModem box. Ohh the credit card bills > that followed! I don't know why I was ever allowed near a computer > again. Oh, yeah. I'm not sure how I survived that summer. > (OK, there were those RLE weather maps on CIS. At 300bps, even!) Hmm... I know that RLE pictures existed (before GIF), and were monochrome, not color, but I don't recall experiencing them in 1982. I'm positive that my BASIC terminal program knew nothing about them. Perhaps the VidTex client I tested knew what to do with them, but I don't remember ever viewing any on a C-64. Does anyone have any RLE files or know more about when and in what context they appeared (besides, obviously, just "on CIS"). -ethan

19 years, 2 months

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What are the really unusual or weird computers?

by classiccmp＠memory-alpha.org.uk

Hi, > One possible input device was a pressure switch operated by >blowing or sucking. > Maybe the OP has to use such a device, in which case all power >to him ;-) 8-D TTFN - Pete.

19 years, 2 months

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Linux PCB CAD software?

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Linux PCB CAD software? > From: "Ethan Dicks" <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> > Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 14:25:56 -0400 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On 6/28/07, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote: >> ... The current incarnation of PCB bears no >> resemblance to the version that I first used about five years >> ago...it is *fantastic* now. > >Far out... I'll have to take another look at it - two years ago, it >looked promising, but not enough for me to switch. > >> To bring this at least slightly on-topic, I am midway through >> doing a board layout for Chuck Dickman's RX01/02<->parallel port >> interface in gschem and PCB. Where is this information on the net? Allison >Excellent. You beat me to it. I was just looking at that circuit >yesterday to see about cranking one out. > >> I did one layout for that circuit about >> a year ago, but with through-hole parts, and I'm nearing the point of >> swearing off through-hole...this board uses surface-mount components. > >Hmm... I still have enough through-hole parts to fill several >bathtubs, so I'm not sworn off, and I'm quite handy with manual SMT >work, but for overall cost to me, I'm still fond of through-hole where >possible. Commercial projects, of course, have different financial >parameters, but my own stuff, I frequently get 80% or more of the >parts right off my shelves. > >I'll be interested to see how your layout turns out, and, SMT or >through-hole, probably be interested in picking up one or two on a >group buy, presuming blank boards are an available option. I was >going to build at least one adapter on a perfboard, just to play with, >so a prefab PCB would be most welcome. > >-ethan

19 years, 2 months

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HP7202A Schematics questions

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

>The interface has a 15 pin male adapter, with >8 pins on top and 7 on bottom. > >I have added a link to the schematics at the bottom of >the HP7202A Plotter page on my web site. > >Go to: > >http://www.woffordwitch.com/HP7202A.asp > >and click on the link at the bottom of the page. Can someone help me understand these old HP schematics? I see the 15 adapter pins shown at the top right of the page, and see where one of the pins (# 5) appears to go to something labeled EIA IN on the "Logic Mother Board" section. Some pins (3, 4, and 6) appear to not be connected to anything. Most of the others seem to go to the Analog Mother Board, but I am not sure how to follow them from there. What would be nice is if I could get enough of an understanding from this schematic to figure out how to construct both a 20mA adapter and an EIA (RS232) adapter, or an adapter that has the 15 pin connector on one end, and two connectors on the other end (one for 20mA and one for EIA). Thanks, Ashley http://www.woffordwitch.com

19 years, 2 months

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Classic HP forums?? - plotter questions

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

>Does the service manual contain schematics? If so, it should >be easy to find out which pins are used. I am scanning the schematics right now and will post them shortly. If somebody can take a look at them and decipher them for me, that would be GREATLY appreciated! Ashley

19 years, 2 months

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(another) Floppy disc reader status update and RFC

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> I'm also thinking about an extension to the ImageDisk file format to allow > storage of raw MFM data, though I'm not sure how to go about doing this... > creating a whole new format may be a better idea. A common low-level format would be a good thing. I don't beleive it exsits in the Catweasel world.

19 years, 2 months

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Dialling up in 1982 (was Re: old modems (was Telephony switches))

by jfoust＠threedee.com

At 09:20 PM 6/28/2007, Ethan Dicks wrote: >Hmm... I know that RLE pictures existed (before GIF), and were >monochrome, not color, but I don't recall experiencing them in 1982. >I'm positive that my BASIC terminal program knew nothing about them. >Perhaps the VidTex client I tested knew what to do with them, but I >don't remember ever viewing any on a C-64. >Does anyone have any RLE files or know more about when and in what >context they appeared (besides, obviously, just "on CIS"). Before researching, my memory was that they were first used for CIS weather maps. In my CCC archive, I found a '98 message between Merch and I that mentioned RLE files stored in his Tandy 600 archive, so I bet the Model 100 and CoCo people have archives, as they certainly have decoders. The Wikipedia entry for Compuserve isn't specific about when they released RLE. The run-length-encoding entry doesn't even mention it. Maybe I'll put it on my to-do list. For perspective, "medium" res was 128 x 96, "high" was 256 x 192. I was surprised to see that the O'Reilly Encyclopedia of Graphics File Formats (of which I was contributor and editor to the second edition) didn't even mention CIS RLE files. RLE is a common technique, so there's a chapter about RLE in general. You can certainly google a number of other references to RLE-based file formats from that decade (Utah Raster Toolkit, Wavefront .rla, etc.). GIF dates to 1987. I would guess RLE was at least three years older. - John

19 years, 2 months

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The late, great TRS-80

by classiccmp＠memory-alpha.org.uk

Hi, > Why? The 8080 has all the processing functions on one chip. The >other chips used with it are the clock generator and bus interface >which IMHO are not processing functions.... I know you can get by without the clock/bus interface chips, but *technically* the 8080 is a 3 chip solution which, by his definition, makes it a mini.... I've also got a vague recollection that the F8 came in 2 seperate packages? I'm just saying, it isn't always quite as cut and dried as it might seem. BTW Although the 8080 can do without the bus interface chip, it does generate a number of fairly important control signals which you would otherwise have to latch and generate yourself "manually" as it were. As such I consider it an important, albeit external, part of the processor (as in, the only reason they made it external was because there weren't enough pins on the processor package to accommodate all the required signals). >> Likewise, would you consider a processor made from bit-slice devices >>to be a mini? > Actually, I would. Those chips are not only used to make that particular >processor. Sorry, bad example....I must've been suffering from severe brain-fade when I wrote that....I've got a mini downstairs, which I think contains a CPU made of bit-slice processors. D'Oh! What I specifically had in mind when I wrote that was the "mathbox" inside my Atari BattleZone (and now I come to think of it, the FPF11). Never mind... ;-) TTFN - Pete.

19 years, 2 months

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Dialling up in 1982 (was Re: old modems (was Telephonyswitches))

by zmerch-cctalk＠30below.com

Rumor has it that Ethan Dicks may have mentioned these words: >(who never once did long-distance modem dialling, especially after >that first CIS bill) Ah, see, it was the opposite for me - Michigan's wide areas & weird laws (I'm guessing, IANAL ;-) made for strange bedfellows in the telecom industry... IIRC, my late-nite long-distance calling options when I was running 300baud on my CoCo2, in the '84-'86 time frame were (closest to farthest): Soo Canada, 2 miles away - IIRC, it was about $1.50+/min "Inter-LATA" calls (which for me, was anywhere in the Upper Peninsula of MI - the part most people think is either Wisconsin or Canada ;-) the closest connection being the city of Marquette 150 miles away, would be about $0.50-0.55/min, "Out of LATA" but still in Michigan (to the Lower Peninsula, "Land of the Trolls" [1] ;-) the closest being Traverse City, also about 150 miles away was around $0.75-0.80/min. Out of State calls depending on distance - Cali was much more expensive than Ohio, but Wisconsin was cheapest of all, so I called Green Bay, WI - 300+ miles (depending on how tired the crow was ;-) was around $0.35-0.40/min. So, for me, out of state was actually cheaper! Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger [1] Until about 5 years ago, the Mackinac Bridge[2] was the longest single-span suspension bridge in the world, and really defines our area. Us'n yoopers (UPers) define "those that live below the Bridge" trolls... think "Three Billy Goats Gruff." It's a term of endearment. Really! ;-) [2] For those who like "Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe" - he was just up here a week or two ago shooting a segment for a few days -- all about the constant (summertime, anyway) job of painting the steel segments of the bridge. -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Profile, don't speculate." SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | Daniel J. Bernstein zmerch at 30below.com |

19 years, 2 months

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HP7202A Schematics questions

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

>> Can someone help me understand these old HP schematics? >> I see the 15 adapter pins shown at the top right of the >> page, and see where one of the pins (# 5) appears to go >> to something labeled EIA IN on the "Logic Mother Board" > >FWIW, 'EIA' was commonly used at that time (particularly by HP) to mean >what we'd normally call 'RS232; > >> section. Some pins (3, 4, and 6) appear to not be >> connected to anything. Most of the others seem to go >> to the Analog Mother Board, but I am not sure how to >> follow them from there. What would be nice is if I > >Given the one sheet of schemaatic that I've seen, you can't. You need >detailed schematics of the motherboards to trace the signals to pins on >the plugin cards (I assuem) and then scheamtics of the approprtiate cards >to see where they go in the 'real' electronics. > >Do you have that information? I have spent a little more time looking at the information that I have. My documentation does not include detailed board schematics. However, these boards do not look extremely complex. I have figured out how the pins on the interface are numbered. The top left pin is #1 and the second (lower) row contains pins 9 thru 15 (left to right). I have followed these wires from the adapter to the board, where they are connected. At the point of connection, there is a number like 901, 902, 905, etc. I also found a page in another manual that shows how to hook the interface cable to an ASR-33. It has an "in-line" molex style adapter. I need to look at that connector on the ASR33 and see how many wires it contains. Tony probably knows that answer off the top of his head. It's suppertime. I'll do more digging later. I also will photograph the boards that these wires run into on the plotter. Ashley http://www.woffordwitch.com

19 years, 2 months

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