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

%20Storage%20for%201/2"%20open%20reel%20tape

by jlw＠jlw.com

> >>/I hit on the idea of using 16mm move film plastic "cans". Much to my />>/surprise, I found that there is still an active market for these things. / > On Mon, 8 Apr 2019, Kevin Monceaux via cctalk wrote: > >/My small 16mm collection is stored on an open reel tape cart. / > I wonder how tape rings would do on 16mm reels? You mean the write rings?? They're fixed at the hub size.... As for write rings, most sites had more than they actually need, many times over.? You really only need as many as you have tape drives... I've always wanted to make an Olympics logo out of write wrings, but never could find all the right colors. I have a couple black ones around the gearshift in my car (like horseshoes). -- Jeff Woolsey {{woolsey,jlw}@jlw,first.last@{gmail,jlw}}.com Nature abhors straight antennas, clean lenses, and empty storage. "Delete! Delete! OK!" -Dr. Bronner on disk space management Card-sorting, Joel. -Crow on solitaire

6 years, 8 months

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George Comstock

by aek＠bitsavers.org

https://www.almanacnews.com/news/2019/03/25/george-comstock-silicon-valley-…

6 years, 8 months

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Tape Storage Rack WAS: RE: 1/2" tape storage

by jlw＠jlw.com

> While on the subject of tape storage anyone know if it is still possible to get desktop/table top wire bins to hold tapes in canisters and/or reels? Not that I have that many tapes or anything like that. This would be more for display purposes than anything else. > > Something akin to this: ibm51xx.classiccmp.org/CCTalkPics/taperack.png > > Do they still make things like this or do I have to find it at university junk sale? > > Those are exactly the "dish rack" things I have two of.? Of course, I can't remember where I got them. FWIW, I also have a small rack that holds, uh, 2x4x25 8mm data tapes in their cases.? Said "dish rack" won't fit on top, though. -- Jeff Woolsey {{woolsey,jlw}@jlw,first.last@{gmail,jlw}}.com Nature abhors straight antennas, clean lenses, and empty storage. "Delete! Delete! OK!" -Dr. Bronner on disk space management Card-sorting, Joel. -Crow on solitaire

6 years, 8 months

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Pleas ID this IBM system....

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Adrian Stoness > someones bid on them eh hopefully not a scraper Well, a scrapper would want to pay as little as possible, so anyone who wanted to actually save the system should be able to get it. There are a couple of bids on it, but the amounts are derisory. I hope Christian's museum can get it! Noel

6 years, 8 months

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Tektronix Keyboard

by dj.taylor4＠comcast.net

This I didn't know. I bought a Tektronix 4207 color graphics terminal without a keyboard recently.? Finding the correct keyboard part number seemed to be a process with great uncertainty, the VintageTEK folks said the correct one was a 2468.? One of these was for sale on ebay for $300 - no way was I paying that much! So I tried one that looked like the keyboard in the TEK catalog of that period, but with a different part number. The connector looked like the right one though.? I got one off ebay, and I thought it was kind of expensive, but it did work with the 4207 terminal. What I didn't understand was a fascination with the black mechanical Cherry switches the keyboard used.? These turn out to be extremely popular with the 'gaming' community.? I don't know if the tektronix keyboard can be used with a modern PC, I haven't looked at the interface signals yet.? The modern PS/2 keyboard has a clock and data line, the DEC LK201 used rs232, so what Tektronix used is anybody's guess.

6 years, 8 months

5
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%20 nonsense

by jlw＠jlw.com

> whats with the weird tag on this thread? Oops, sorry. Clicking on an address in the mailing list viewed as a web page via http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctech/2019-April tries to fire up MacOS X Mail, which I don't want because I use Thunderbird.? So I "Copy Email Address" and paste it into a Thunderbird compose window To: field, and it has cctech at classiccmp.org?Subject=Re:%20'd_subject_line_mess&otherjunk.? I copied that into the Subject: line, and thought something would do the right thing with them upon receipt.? Oh well, there I go overestimating the intelligence of software again. -- Jeff Woolsey {{woolsey,jlw}@jlw,first.last@{gmail,jlw}}.com Nature abhors straight antennas, clean lenses, and empty storage. "Delete! Delete! OK!" -Dr. Bronner on disk space management Card-sorting, Joel. -Crow on solitaire

6 years, 8 months

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Re: Storage for 1/2" open reel tape

by jlw＠jlw.com

> I've noted earlier that the vinyl "hanger strips" for 1/2" magnetic tape > have been degrading, becoming brittle and simply breaking away, > sometimes in small particles. I have about a hundred tapes from various contributors, and have noticed no age-related [1] deterioration of the seals, probably because mine don't get handled very much.? About 1/3 of mine have the vinyl hanger strips, another third the autoload seals, and the remainder are in the bulky canisters (with several different closures).? I also have a couple of tape racks (think "dish rack") that hold maybe thirty tapes, but the canisters are too thick to fit in. The tapes hang pretty well from the front lip of the wall-mounted wire shelves (that you can get at most big-box-home-stores) I installed not for that purpose. The thing is, I've read and photographed most of them, so I don't need [2] them anymore.? Their owners, like me, only wanted the data online, not the media back. Most museums have more than they want or can use, as well.? Some tapes have common-sense restrictions on redistribution (Personally Identifiable Information, I think they call it nowadays). I've even got some new, never-written ones.? But it pains me to trash them, so I'm open to suggestions. = [1] I have dropped and broken a couple of them, but that was due to insufficient age of the handler...? Some did not survive the reading process due to oxide-binder aging, but the seals are fine. [2] In many cases, usually by repurposing extra copies of software distribution tapes, the most recent data is shorter than the original, so the tails of older things past the EOF1 label and double tapemark can be read without much difficulty.? The thing is, I didn't figure this out until I'd been reading tapes a while, so the earlier ones may yield to re-examining. -- Jeff Woolsey {{woolsey,jlw}@jlw,first.last@{gmail,jlw}}.com Nature abhors straight antennas, clean lenses, and empty storage. "Delete! Delete! OK!" -Dr. Bronner on disk space management Card-sorting, Joel. -Crow on solitaire

6 years, 8 months

2
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Sticking RL02 positioner

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

One of my RL02 drives (that sat for a long time) has developed what appears to be a sticky head positioner. But it's only a problem going from the full-retracted position to loading track 0. Once it's loaded, the drive will pass all seek and read/write tests. It takes a surprising (to me) amount of force to pull the heads out into the disk area (power off, no pack). When they're out there, the arm slides back and forth easily. Sometimes it won't load at all - push the load button, light goes out, disk spins up to what sounds like normal speed, but the heads never move and the Ready light doesn't come on. There's supposed to be a Fault after 40 secs but that doesn't happen - it'll sit there forever spinning but not ready. If I turn off the power and remove the pack, and pull the positioner out just enough to avoid opening the Heads Home microswitch (which causes a Fault light), then it'll spin up, load track 0, and work fine the rest of the day. The manual (as usual) only recommends replacing the bad assembly for ease in field servicing, which is deliberate. But I don't have a DEC repairman and a warehouse full of parts handy... Is there some kind of adjustment or lubrication I can do? If I replace the positioner then I have to realign the heads (not too bad a job on this drive, though). Any ideas? thanks Charles

6 years, 8 months

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Storage for 1/2" open reel tape

by cclist＠sydex.com

I've noted earlier that the vinyl "hanger strips" for 1/2" magnetic tape have been degrading, becoming brittle and simply breaking away, sometimes in small particles. So I set off looking for a low-cost substitute--any hangers that I could rustle up would probably be on their last legs at this late date. I hit on the idea of using 16mm move film plastic "cans". Much to my surprise, I found that there is still an active market for these things. After getting a few samples, I've discovered that the 800' cans fit a 10.5" reel (virtually all of the tape that I get) quite well. I'm not yet finished evaluating samples, but here's a photo of a can from Tuscan Corporation holding a reel of tape: https://i.imgur.com/KPKg75s.jpg The cans are vented, so not hermetically sealed. In the case of film, this is apparently done intentionally, as the acetate base of older film outgasses acetic acid, which only hastens degradation. If anyone's interested, I'll continue to post updates. I've got some >from Larry Urbanski coming in Monday. Larry seems to have the lowest price on these--about $5.75 each. --Chuck

6 years, 8 months

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Game of Life for PDP-8

by kylevowen＠gmail.com

Back at VCF PNW, the subject of the Game of Life came up among some peers. I recall messing with the BASIC version that supported 32 by 32 cells, and there's also a FOCAL version that can do a whopping 11 by 11 cells. This was simply not enough. So, I wrote my own implementation and came to the realization of why more cells may not actually be better...it's freaking slow! https://github.com/drovak/pdp8life I've improved the performance a bit using some caching and other tricks to skip extraneous processing and twiddling of bits, but running in SimH for lots of cellular life still takes a while. I haven't been able yet to try it on the real hardware, and I can't say I'm looking forward to the speed of the real machine either! I'm working on a few new versions, which may get wrapped up into some conditional assembly soon. One version will support both storage and non-storage oscilloscopes with a VC8E. Another version may work to actually reduce the size of the bitmap to increase speed; it's all a tradeoff, I suppose. Would love to hear some comments if anyone plays with this. And, if someone significantly speeds things up while keeping the large playing field, I'll be very happy to hear how! Kyle

6 years, 8 months

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IBM 360? on eBay.de

by u.tagge＠gmx.de

I'm not affiliated with the seller. https://www.ebay.de/itm/seltene-Anlage-Puma-Computer-IBM-2020/202646831828?…

6 years, 8 months

1
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More stuff looking for a good home

by bill.gunshannon＠hotmail.com

Here's a list of some more stuff if anyone is interested in making reasonable offers. Probably the last I will have before my demise when my wife will likely send everything that's left to the skip. MODULE Description QTY NUMBER M9202 UNIBUS connector 3 M9302 UNIBUS TERM 2 ADAC 1632TTL 3 ADAC 1616/32HCO 1 Plessey Peripherals 703185-100C & 701877-100 with Cable 1 Data Translation DT2769/EP057 REV F 1 Data Translation DT2769/EP057 REV J 1 Data Translation DT15150/EP075 Dual D/A Converter Module M3106 4 Line Async Mux 1 M3106 4 Line Async Mux (w/broken handle) 1 M9060 LOAD MODULE 1 M8017-AA Async Line Interface 1 M8017 Async Line Interface (w/broken handle and berg socket) 1 G7273 NPG AND BUS GRANT CONTINUITY 5 RL Disk Drive Terminators 4 MV-II Function Select / SLU Module 1 A few modules that I ecpect are rare but of limited interest. Terak 8510 Memory and Video module w/bulkhead connector 1 Terak 8510 Floppy Module w/bulkhead connector 2 Terak 8510 Floppy Module wo/bulkhead connector 2 Terak 8510 RS-232 Serial Module w/bulkhead connector 4 Terak 8510 RS-232 bulkhead connectors 3 Terak 8510 Video bulkhead connectors 2 Condition of the Terak Modules can not be verified. They were functional at the time they were removed but I no longer have any functional Teraks to test them. Shipping would be the smallest size USPS "If it fits it ships" box so you can plan accordingly. bill

6 years, 8 months

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VCF PNW 2019: Photos and Survey. Please?

by couryhouse＠aol.com

a pity there are not? name? captions? ? ?for? those of? us that? do? not? travel? well to be? these in person. Great photo? collection though!? Ed# In a message dated 3/31/2019 8:46:29 AM US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at classiccmp.org writes: One last spam from VCF PNW 2019 ... Send us your Photos!? We want to put together a shared photo album so thatpeople can see the event from different perspectives.? It's a Google Photosalbum, so if you are a Google Photos user sharing is easy.? If you are nota Google Photos user or you have concerns/questions please let me know andI'll work out an alternative. The shared album can be found at:https://photos.app.goo.gl/e2rzk4iT4aHrQUoy6 Help us make VCF events better!? If you were at the event last weekend Ihave a quick survey that I'd like you to fill out.? The survey will help usshape future events.? The survey is anonymous; we are not collecting emailaddresses unless you want to get a chance at a free t-shirt.? (And eventhen, we are only using the email address for that single purpose.) The survey link is: https://goo.gl/forms/V3DiyxwkpbIOCKn73 Direct feedback by email also works well. Thanks,Mikemichael at vcfed.org or mbbrutman at brutman.com

6 years, 8 months

1
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Yes there is a PDP 10 front panel and Kenbak on Ebay

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Guy Dunphy > What I want to know is, how do front panels of historic computers so > often get separated from the rest of the computer? I suspect it probably happened a while back, before the start of the vintage computer movement; you need to look at the decisions from the perspective of back then. (As an example, back then, I was offered the complete PDP-11/45 of my old group. I was up to my neck in contemporary, important, alligators - I was on the IESG of the IETF at the time - and didn't have the time to deal with saving it and moving it to my house; so I let it go - a loss I regret terribly now.) Here's what probably happened: the machines were about to be scrapped, and saving the whole machine wasn't practical - often, in part, because those machines were _huge_. (The CPU _alone_ of a KA10 would fill an entire room of a normal house.) So, one has a limit to what one can do. So the choice is to save the front panel alone... or to save nothing. Noel

6 years, 8 months

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More old stuff incoming

by sales＠elecplus.com

I talked to a recycler today, who said he told his workers to throw out 2000 Model F keyboards last week, but he doubts they did it. I also asked him about 8088, 2086, and 386 computers. He said they go straight to the grinder. I told him I will buy them. Then an HP dealer contacted me, wants to know if I buy old HP stuff. I told him Apollo and earlier. Let me know if there is something specific HP you want. Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

6 years, 8 months

33
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PDP-8: count number of set bits in a word

by kylevowen＠gmail.com

Just wondering if anyone has come up with a fast way to count the number of 1s in a word on a PDP-8. The obvious way is looping 12 times, rotating the word through the link or sign bit, incrementing a count based on the value of the link or sign. With a small lookup table, you can reduce the total number of loops by counting multiple groups of bits at a time, but this of course comes with the cost of using more memory. Any other suggestions? Much appreciated, Kyle

6 years, 8 months

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PDP-8: count number of set bits in a word

by guykd＠optusnet.com.au

At 08:49 PM 5/04/2019 +0000, you wrote: >Hi Kyle, > >hat's a really interesting problem, and the government (NSA) wanted this badly and done FAST. > >they asked Seymour Cray to create a specific instruction for this and they called it 'population count' > >Anybody know the why and how it is useful? > >I am deep in matrix math books and 'classification algorithms' in statistics math, looking into electronics reliability WCCA, so this is an interesting topic. > >Randy If we're considering hardware solutions, then the best way is to build a simple I/O device, with a writeable latch for the data word, fed as address into some nonvolatile memory like a big EPROM or flash, the output of which can be read via a port. Fill the NV memory with the required lookup table (derived by some code written in anything. BASIC for lols.) So the required code is just one write and one read. See the size chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPROM The biggest EPROM made was ST M27C322, 32 Mbit, 2Mx16. 21 Address bits, 16 data bits, 80nS access time. http://pdf.datasheetcatalog.com/datasheet/stmicroelectronics/6184.pdf Wasteful though, since the result only needs 5 bits. For an 8 bit result, 27C4001, 512K x 8 bit, 19 Address bits. http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs150/fa02/docs/M27C4001.pdf If the argument is only a 16bit word, then use a 27512. 64K x 8 bit Guy

6 years, 8 months

1
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Yes there is a PDP 10 front panel and Kenbak on Ebay

by mark＠matlockfamily.com

Subject: Re: Yes there is a PDP 10 front panel and Kenbak on Ebay > > From: Guy Dunphy > > > What I want to know is, how do front panels of historic computers so > > often get separated from the rest of the computer? > The other thing that happened on PDP-11/70s was that if your system was maintained by DEC, the field service group would want to install the KY11-RE Remote Serial Console Control which replaced the beautiful front panel with a more or less blank panel with only a key switch. It let DEC dial in and run diagnostics, and the Blinkin' Light panel was set aside often in the collection of someone. However the blank panel still needs the bezel for a good display of it. So unfortunately, there are more console panels than bezels which often did not get salvaged at the time the PDP-11/70 was taken out of service. Mark M.

6 years, 8 months

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Yes there is a PDP 10 front panel and Kenbak on Ebay

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Al Kossow > because it's $125 lower than the last one that sold. > https://www.ebay.com/itm/113190860596 Wow - somebody got a real deal! Looks like the seller listed it as a BiN with a low (for what it was) price; bet they're kicking themselves now, seeing what this one is going for, that they didn't go the auction route. Noel

6 years, 8 months

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FTGH - Compaq laptop LTE 5280

by Richard.Sheppard＠telus.com

Worked last time powered (no guarantees), with expansion dock. Free for pickup only in Toronto, Canada. Richard Sheppard

6 years, 8 months

2
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Retaining file-modified timestamps

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

The following, which I just sent to TUHS, might be of intererest to some here. Noel ---- So, a while back I mentioned that I'd done tweaked versions of 'cp', 'mv', 'chmod' etc for V6 which retained the original modified date of a file (when the actual contents were not changed). I had some requests for those versions, which I have finally got around to checking and uploading (along with 'mvall', which for some reason V6 didn't have). I've added them to a couple of my V6 pages: http://www.chiappa.net/~jnc/tech/V6Unix.html#mvall http://www.chiappa.net/~jnc/tech/ImprovingV6.html#FileWrite Note (per the page) that the latter group all require the smdate() system call, which was commented out in 'vanilla' V6 (because using it confused the backup system); the page gives instructions on how to turn it back on.

6 years, 8 months

1
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Yes there is a PDP 10 front panel and Kenbak on Ebay

by billdegnan＠gmail.com

Yes there is a PDP 10 front panel and Kenbak on Ebay and no, a "best offer" of $250 for the front panel will not be accepted. :-) Bill

6 years, 8 months

8
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H786 power supply help wanted

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

I have a PDP-11/23+ and the power supply (H786) "last ran when parked" a year or so ago. But there's no DC output at all today, and the fans are running so there is AC power... I also have the original H7861 that came with it, which had a blown chopper transistor. I couldn't find anything else bad, so I replaced the transistor and within a few seconds of running, it blew again. :( So I need some help - I've never been good at fixing switching supplies, not to mention the high-side hazards. The simplest solution would be just to replace it with a working unit. Anyone got one to sell, hopefully cheap? :) If not, can anyone fix one or both of mine? thanks! Charles

6 years, 8 months

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Yes there is a PDP 10 front panel and Kenbak on Ebay

by couryhouse＠aol.com

any? relation? to? marlys nelson? at? river falls? Ed#In a message dated 4/3/2019 12:40:06 PM US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at classiccmp.org writes: I mean that semi-sarcastically as this list probably knows better already. =] -- Anders Nelson +1 (517) 775-6129 www.erogear.com On Wed, Apr 3, 2019 at 3:37 PM Anders Nelson <anders.k.nelson at gmail.com> wrote: > My god people, stop bidding! There are 6 days left. > -- > Anders Nelson > > +1 (517) 775-6129 > > www.erogear.com > > > On Wed, Apr 3, 2019 at 2:51 PM Bill Degnan via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > >> Yes there is a PDP 10 front panel and? Kenbak on Ebay >> >> and no, a "best offer" of $250 for the front panel will not be accepted. >> :-) >> >> Bill >> >

6 years, 8 months

2
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2.11 BSD on an 11/93 with an CMD SCSI Module

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Bill Gunshannon > when I get it done I will be glad to provide you with a dump of the > root and usr partitions. I may be able to do SIMH disk images as well, > but I have been working mostly with E11. E11 disk images in files aren't anything odd, just a straight bit-bit copy of what would be in the parititon. (When I transfer RK05 partitions on E11 to SD cards for use in the QSIC, I just 'dd' the file holding the partition to the appropriate blocks on the SD card, and it comes out fine.) Dunno about SIMH disk imaages (I know the tapes images are tweaked). Noel

6 years, 8 months

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2.11 BSD on an 11/93 with an CMD SCSI Module

by bill.gunshannon＠hotmail.com

Anybody had any luck with this configuration? I used VTServer to install it and everything works fine except for the very last step. It installs completely and boots from within VTServer with ra(0,0,0)unix. I issue the "dd if=/mdec/rauboot of=/def/rra0a count=1" and it completes successfully. But the disk still won't boot. I have tried it three times now with the same results. Suggestions? bill

6 years, 8 months

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Burroughs BU4400 tape drive. What is it?

by mike＠fenz.net

Hi all, I just bought this Burroughs BU4400 tape drive: https://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=1999913439 As the seller says, Google comes up empty. Seems strange, I would have expected some reference somewhere. Does anyone know anything about it? I'm going to pick it up this evening. It'd be superb as a display piece, but I'd be really keen to drive it with something and get it reading and writing. On that topic, are there any suggestions on how I could get my hands on a few tapes, preferably with a format this drive can read? The actual contents aren't important; even blanks would be OK, though not being able to get it reading before moving on to writing would make the project more difficult. Cheers, Mike

6 years, 8 months

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The Retro Search is back up

by trash80＠internode.on.net

This will mostly interest TRS-80 enthusiasts on this list. Being a TRS-80 enthusiast myself it has been a long-time dream of mine to create a specialised TRS-80 search engine but creating a web facing search engine to crawl numerous sites, index and categorise was quite difficult on a low budget. For some time I used Google's Custom Search, the ad free paid version, but Google withdrew that product so it took be back to my starting point. I could have continued with the ad version but somehow I didn't want a page full of ads for users of this site. In any case doing it in my own right gave me a lot more granularity and control. So after much experimenting and trialling I finally produced the site in its own right and have just relaunched it. It is, in fact will always be, work in progress and I'm always on the lookout for more TRS-80 resources to add to the site and for any advice on omissions, corrections, additions etc. If you know any sites that I haven't included please use the contact form on the site to let me know. Check it out at theretrosearch.com Thank you!! Kevin Parker

6 years, 8 months

3
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MV II help

by aek＠bitsavers.org

can anyone help this guy out? From: Benjamin Carlson <bcarlson at northpointdefense.com> Sent: Tuesday, April 02, 2019 9:12 AM Subject: Fwd: Re: MicroVAX Greta, my name is Ben Carlson and I am attempting to restore an old DEC MicroVAX II for the University of Oklahoma's collections department (see email below, Kerry is their curator). At this point, I believe I can get the hardware operating but I have no operating system for itas the Air Force insisted on destroying the hard drive. I have been able to replace the hard drive and the system has a tape drive and CD-ROM. Do you have any idea where I might find the OS? Also, any documentation would be great as well. Thanks for your help! Benjamin Carlson, PhD, CISSP Senior Research Engineer North Point Defense Rome, NY (315)571-0221 x 1010

6 years, 8 months

5
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The story of... PDP-1

by lproven＠gmail.com

DEC archival docs tell the story of the genesis of the PDP-1: https://gordonbell.azurewebsites.net/digital/timeline/pdp-1story.htm -- Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

6 years, 8 months

3
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IBM 360 Model 50 information?

by ken.shirriff＠gmail.com

I'm writing a S/360 Model 50 emulator that runs at the microcode level, in order to drive a Model 50 front panel accurately. I'm about 80% of the way there, but there are some microcode operations that I haven't figured out. So I figured I'd ask if anyone has obscure Model 50 manuals that aren't on bitsavers, or perhaps even the ALDs. I was surprised at how extremely different the microcode is from the 360 instruction set. I've figured out a bunch of the strange micro-instructions, such as S47?E, which ORs the emit field into flags 4 through 7. But there are many micro-instructions that still puzzle me, like F?FPSL4 which maybe a floating point shift left 4 and 1?BS*MB which does something with byte stats. So if anyone happens to have a Model 50 microcode programming manual sitting around, please let me know :-) Thanks, Ken

6 years, 8 months

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ISO: Docs for Dilog DQ100

by derschjo＠gmail.com

Hey all -- Trying to track down technical info for a Dilog DQ100 controller. This is a QBus controller compatible with the RK11 (or RKV11, in this case) that works with various RK05-compatible drives. (See the brochure here: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dilog/brochures/DQ100_Brochure_Aug1980.pdf) At minimum, I'd like to know the connector pinout so that I might wire up a Diablo 31 to it. Thanks as always, Josh

6 years, 8 months

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IBM 360 Model 50 information?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: William Donzelli > It is very likely IBM does not have the information anymore - at least > not in the archives. ... they simply did not keep much from that era. > It was probably disposed of back when IBM was in trouble 30 years ago. Which emphasizes that it's important to make the point to IBM that we wouldn't be asking for IBM to supply the information; rather, this is about being able to reproduce info that IBM itself may no longer have. Is anyone up for tackling IBM? If so, and we need support, I can ask my Master, Jerry Saltzer, if anyone he knew at IBM is still there - he used to have a lot of influence inside IBM (he's the person who got FS killed, I was informed). But that was a long time ago... > From: Jay Jaeger > I suspect, but do not know of course, that the reasons that the owners > would not part with their copies was ... concern over their value > becoming diminished by having scanned copies around. One easy way to test that is to have Al ask the person with the ALD's if they'd be OK with having that stuff scanned if we got an OK from IBM. Noel

6 years, 8 months

2
1
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VCF PNW 2019: Photos and Survey. Please?

by mbbrutman＠brutman.com

One last spam from VCF PNW 2019 ... Send us your Photos! We want to put together a shared photo album so that people can see the event from different perspectives. It's a Google Photos album, so if you are a Google Photos user sharing is easy. If you are not a Google Photos user or you have concerns/questions please let me know and I'll work out an alternative. The shared album can be found at: https://photos.app.goo.gl/e2rzk4iT4aHrQUoy6 Help us make VCF events better! If you were at the event last weekend I have a quick survey that I'd like you to fill out. The survey will help us shape future events. The survey is anonymous; we are not collecting email addresses unless you want to get a chance at a free t-shirt. (And even then, we are only using the email address for that single purpose.) The survey link is: https://goo.gl/forms/V3DiyxwkpbIOCKn73 Direct feedback by email also works well. Thanks, Mike michael at vcfed.org or mbbrutman at brutman.com

6 years, 8 months

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VCF/PNW Exhibit & Trip Report - The Old Calculator Museum

by rickb＠bensene.com

Hi, everyone, Myself and my friend Mike, representing the Old Calculator Museum, exhibited the line of Wang Laboratories electronic calculators at the Vintage Computer Federation's Vintage Computer Festival/Pacific Northwest edition, at the Living Computer Museum+Labs in Seattle, Washington this past weekend. This was the 2nd annual VCF/PNW, and it was clearly a success, as it was significantly larger than the first event last year (which I went to, but didn't exhibit at). There were 30 exhibits, all of which were really interesting, and a good-sized consignment area, as well as quite a group of guest speakers who had interesting topics to present. Of course, being held in the Living Computer Museum+Labs was a bonus, as the museum is an amazing place, with lots of vintage computers up and running and accessible for people to actually use and experience. The Old Calculator Museum exhibit consisted of a Wang LOCI-2 and punched card readers (1st and 2nd-generation card readers), a Wang 360E w/320K keyboard/display unit;362E with 370 Programmer and 371 Punched Card Reader; 360SE 4-terminal timeshared calculator package with two 360KT trig keyboards, 360K, and 320K keyboards, all running simultaneously off the 360SE electronics unit; a Wang 720C; Wang 600-14TP; Wang 500-14TP; Wang 462 and 452 Programmable calculators; and a Wang C-52. These are representatives of all of the lines of calculators that Wang Laboratories made during its years in the electronic calculator market (1965-1974). All of the machines were running and available for visitors to play with, with the exception of the LOCI-2 (which has a thermal issue that manifests after about 3 minutes of operation) and the 500-14TP, which has some kind of problem that renders it catatonic that I've not yet had a chance to try to diagnose/repair). Also shown was an original Wang Labs factory spare parts kit for the 300-series calculators & peripherals, another Wang 360SE electronics package opened up so people could see the insides, a number of circuit boards from Wang 300-series keyboard/display units, as well as core memory boards from 300-series electronics packages, core memory and circuit boards from Wang 700-series calculators, and original sales documentation for Wang's 700, 500, and 600-series calculators. The exhibit turned out pretty well, though I didn't have time to make up signs to identify the stuff until we actually got there and made hand-written signs, which turned out to be good enough -- it seems that people could actually read my chicken-scratch handwriting. The signs included the retail price at the time the machine was introduced, and people were stunned that in 1971, a Wang 720C outfitted as the exhibited machine retailed for $7,000. A lot of people asked how much that would be in today's dollars, and I was able to use my phone to find out...about $50,000. The exhibit was almost constantly busy both days for the whole time the museum was open, (10 AM - 5 PM), and the folks were all very careful with the old machines, and had really great questions about them. I was pretty surprised at how much interest there was in these old beasts. The crowd was pretty mixed in age, from folks who actually used examples of the machines in school, to youngsters who were totally shocked that this is what calculators were like 50 years ago. The machines ran the whole time the exhibit was open, and amazingly, despite the old Germanium-based transistors in the Wang 300-series calculators, as well as fussy magnetic rope ROMs and core memory in the 700 and 600-series machines, they ran trouble-free. A lot of folks had trouble getting the machines to give answers they expected because of Wang's unusual math entry method. Once they were given a simple explanation of the way the machines worked, they caught on quickly, and got answers they expected. It was a lot of fun to explain and demonstrate the machines to the visitors. The Wang 370 Programmer hooked up to the 362E electronics package was popular. I had a little program punched up on a card that would perform an iterative approximation of Pi. It'd run for 100 iterations, then stop and display the approximation it had come to thus far. People were fascinated by the "spinning" Nixie Tubes as the machine churned away on the iterations. People also liked the 360KT keyboards hooked up the 360SE simultaneous timeshared calculator electronics package. They enjoyed it when I demonstrated the two 360KT keyboard/display units running the Sine of 45 degrees at the same time. The timesharing between the two terminals was obvious as the calculator switched back and forth between each of the keyboards as the calculation, which takes about 25 seconds, was being performed. Nixie tubes were a big attraction. Many younger folks had never seen them in person before, but almost everyone knew about them. I think that the popularization of Nixie tubes in the form of clocks using Nixie tubes for display has brought Nixies to the attention of folks that didn't experience them in the day, but have seen stuff online about Nixie tubes. I did get a little time to wander around the event and look at the other exhibits (there were 30 this year!), and the stuff the folks had was amazing. I was really impressed by Josh Dersch's exhibit of PERC workstations...it was truly amazing to see these rare machines running! I really liked Vince Slyngstad's PDP 8/e with a custom Omnibus board that replicates the vintage (and rare) X/Y analog output board using a CPLD and a couple of DACs such that the PDP 8/e was running actual SPACEWAR code and displaying on a Tektronix display tube. There were a lot of other really great exhibits, including a very complete Atari 800 systems running office productivity tools that made what was considered a gaming computer into a true office machine that was ahead of its time. There was a great exhibit of some classic Silicon Graphics machines running, an exhibit of just about every type of floppy disc and optical media ever produced (some of which are very rare), and a couple of exhibits related to accurately emulating classic computers using contemporary microprocessors to either run vintage "lights & switches" front panels, or even miniaturized front panels built to look and run like the original computers. All of the exhibits were well presented and truly interesting. Just before the event closed, I took a few minutes so I could go upstairs to the computer room and take some photos of the KA-10(which I'd have to say is my favorite vintage computer), when my friend and exhibit helper Mike came through the doors of the computer room, pointed at me, and motioned for me to come with him. I had been talking to two very nice young gentlemen who had a lot of questions about the KA-10, and had to beg their forgiveness as I had to leave. I followed Mike down the stairs, and a big crowd of people was there. I didn't realize it, but the awards ceremony was going on while I was upstairs. Mike guided me to Mike Brutman, the event organizer, and he presented me with "The Most Interesting Presentation" award! I was completely stunned. I never would have thought that a couple of tables of old calculators with hand-written signs would merit such an award, but I was very honored and humbled to receive it. The event was very well-organized. The Living Computer Museum+Labs staff and volunteers did an amazing job getting the museum set up for the exhibits, with tables, tablecloths, and chairs all in place and ready to go when we arrived Friday. Mike Brutman was fantastic! He was so nice, accommodating, and supportive of my exhibit (which, by definition, was somewhat outside the "Vintage Computer" realm), as well as doing a completely amazing job of organizing such a complicated event. Everything went off smoothly, from the set up Friday night, through the two days of the event, awards Sunday after the doors closed to the public, and tear-down and haul out. Our exhibit was the last one out the door, as it's rather tedious packing these old machines up, making sure that they are cozily packed within the crates with a lot of padding in between them. It took my about 2 days to get everything packed to head up there, and we had a little over two hours to repack it all after the event closed...we were running like banshees to get everything packed safely and loaded into the van. The trip home went smoothly with no problems. I was totally exhausted Monday afternoon when we got home. Mike and I unloaded all the crates and stuff from the van into the museum building, and Mike headed home. I went to the house, sat down on the sofa and turned on the TV, and was dead to the world when my wife got home from work a few hours later. I don't remember anything from the time I sat down until she got home. I haven't unpacked anything yet...I needed a day yesterday to get a bunch of errands done, and reply to a backlog of Emails that stacked up while I was away and didn't have time to tend to them. Later this afternoon, I'll get everything unpacked and back on the display shelves, and test 'em out. Hopefully everything will work fine after the trip home. I want to take this opportunity to thank my long-time and cherished friend, Mike Weiler, for taking three days off work to come help with the exhibit. He was a real trooper, helping people understand how to use the machines, manning the exhibit when I wanted to wander around and look at the other exhibits and the new machines at the Living Computer Museum+Labs (including the awesome KA-10 PDP-10 running in the machine room upstairs...what a treat!), as well as fielding questions when I'd get engaged with a visitor discussing these old calculators. Not to mention all of his help packing the stuff up before we left, hauling all the stuff into the museum when we arrived Friday afternoon, helping get the exhibit set up and organized, tearing everything down and packing it up after the event closed and hauling it out to the van and getting it all packed in for the trip home, and helping to unload it all once we arrived home. Along with all of that, Mike was a godsend in terms of helping me keep my cool when I'd get stressed out about stuff. There's not a ghost of a chance I could have done all of this myself. I'd also like to thank Mike Brutman for all of the effort and determination it takes to successfully pull of an event like this. It was all stunningly well-done! My thanks also go out to the other exhibitors at the event, many of which who came over to visit the Old Calculator Museum exhibit and compliment us about having these old machines running and available for visitors to touch and operate. Last, but certainly not least, thanks to the Living Computer Museum+Labs staff and volunteers for all of the work and support that they provided for this event. The venue amazing, and makes a perfect place for a vintage computer festival. With the success of this year's event, only its second time in the Pacific Northwest, it is sure to grow even more next year. I am looking forward to next year's VCF/PNW, where I plan on doing a similar exhibit of old electronic calculators from the Friden Calculating Machine Co., with an example of every line of calculator that Friden/Singer made available for visitors to play with. I just hope my friend Mike will be up to doing again it next year. Just before we left, Erik Klein, the organizer of VCF/West, held in Mountain View, CA at the Computer History Museum during the first week in August, came to me and invited me to bring the Wang exhibit down to the event his summer. I was surprised that there'd be interest, but he was emphatic that it'd be wonderful to have the exhibit there. I was honored by this request, and told Erik I'd do all I could to try to make it to this event. Perhaps if I make it, I'll actually have printed signs to identify the stuff rather than hand-written signs that I made "on the fly" as we were setting things up, because I ran out of time to make decent signs. :-) It's a long trip down there from the Portland, Oregon vicinity, but I'm going to do all I can to make it if at all possible. The experience was amazing. I've never done anything like this before. I discovered that there's really something special about seeing people amazed by how much things have changed since the 1960's. The calculators really make it so clear just how amazing it is to have an HP calculator emulation running on a smartphone...and that the smartphone has far more compute power, storage, and capability than all of the Wang calculators on display together, with the emulated HP calculator running far faster than the original calculator it emulates. It's really crazy just how far we've come in 50 years...and I just can't even begin to envision what we'll have 50 years from now. I wonder if the tech we use today will be on display at vintage computer events in 2069? A funny note. The whole time I was there on Saturday and Sunday, I was wearing on my wrist a classic HP-01 wristwatch/calculator. A total of five people noticed it and commented, and of the five, three knew what it was, and two were just curious about it because it caught their eye, but they didn't know what it was. The two that were curious were completely blown away when I demonstrated it to them. I would have expected that more folks would have noticed this big gold hunk on my wrist. So, that's my "trip report". To all the ClassicCmp'ers that came to the event, thanks for coming. See you maybe down at VCF/West, and, fates willing, next year at VCF/PNW. Rick Bensene The Old Calculator Museum http://oldcalculatormuseum.com

6 years, 8 months

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Byte Magazine

by wrcooke＠wrcooke.net

In a previous thread I asked for a couple of specific pages from Byte magazine, which I got (thanks to all, especially Peter, for helping out!) But that brings up a bigger issue (no pun intended.) About a year ago I found the Byte scans on americanradiohistory.org and started reading from the start. I found that those scans were less than great, with many missing pages, pages out of order, pages scanned at resolutions too low to read, and a few other problems. I went searching the web for other scans and, with a few exceptions for individual issues, found that ALL the collections of scans seemed to be the same ones, with the same bad pages. I certainly appreciate the considerable effort of whoever did those scans, but I think Byte is too important to not have good scans available. Perhaps a project to get those good scans created would be something worthwhile for the members of this list to take on. I realize what a huge project it is. Just going through the currently available scans to find which pages are bad or missing is a large and time-consuming effort. But my opinion is that it is important and worthwhile. Any thoughts? Thanks, Will "He may look dumb but that's just a disguise."? -- Charlie Daniels "The names of global variables should start with? ? // "? --?https://isocpp.org

6 years, 8 months

6
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Using PC power supply in BA-11S

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

Regarding my earlier request for help repairing an H786 and H7861, it occurred to me that I could instead use a desktop PC power supply, having several in the junkbox. It's even small enough to fit in there once the H786 is removed. So I patched the wiring harness from the PC supply to the screw terminals on the backplane... 5 and 12 volts at the terminals, Fault lights on the RL's went out, but no green light on the KDF-11B. After a look at the schematics, the simple solution was just to pull the power monitor daughter-card from the H786, so the power OK lines (8640 buffer inputs, DC OK and Power OK) are not being pulled down. Green light on, memory test ran, and boots RT-11 from RL02 :) A better fix will be to drive the DCOK and POK lines from the PC supply, which appears to have a "P.G." orange wire (I'm betting "Power Good" but will check it out first). TSX-Plus won't run though, because there's no real-time clock. Looks like a small transformer and a bit of buffer circuitry is needed to generate a 60 Hz TTL pulse. Or a dongle with a 555 or crystal oscillator. I may have a try at fixing the original supply before going to the trouble (including mounting the PC supply in the chassis and jumpering the two ribbon cables together). Speaking of trouble, today I learned that the "Restraining Cable Stud" mentioned in the 11/23 user manual is not just there for decoration. For the first time (ever), the BA-11S chassis overbalanced and fell out of the front of the cabinet. It hit the floor with a crash while yanking all the ribbon cables off (without breaking anything, incredibly, including a near miss to my feet in socks!) Perhaps installing that cable is a good idea ;) -Charles

6 years, 8 months

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PDP-8 signed overflow detection - Apollo guidace computer

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Ben Bfranchuk > Now they seem to have have found a SCRAPPED Apollo guidance > computer and am rebuilding the missing pieces. Wow. What a great site (and that guy has mad skills, everything from repairing old Teletypes, through designing boards, to repairing analog stuff). Just 'wasted' a good chunk of the morning reading back through it; tons of really neat things (including recovery of the very first FORTH, along with a lot of Diablo drive - from the Alto - repairs). As a shortcut, here: http://rescue1130.blogspot.com/2018/11/ is the backstory on the AGC; about 1/3 of the way down, in "Restoring an Apollo Guidance Computer, part V". Noel

6 years, 8 months

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IBM 360 Model 50 information?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Al Kossow > Decades later, people are still afraid to release them. I tried to get > 2065 ALDs from someone that had them and they wouldn't give them to me. Sounds like it's time to have someone high up at the CHM talk to someone at IBM to get an OK; if you only ask for permission, not for IBM to cough up the info themselves, that might be doable. I'd try and get a blanket OK for anything more than 20 years old, i) that should be long enough that they'd be OK with it, ii) a moving thing like that would mean you wouldn't have to go back again. Noel

6 years, 8 months

3
3
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Apollo Ethernet EPROM mystery

by aek＠bitsavers.org

Does anyone have a working Apollo 3C505 ISA ethernet board handy to look at? The MAME guys are trying to figure out if the boot prom and the firmware eproms are populated. There is conflicting information on the net. https://jim.rees.org/apollo-archive/photo-gallery/ether-505.jpg shows no boot prom, but I dumped a boot prom from a board a while ago with 68000 code in it, but didn't dump any firmware eproms, which would have been an odd thing to forget to do.

6 years, 8 months

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VCF/PNW Exhibit & Trip Report - The Old Calculator Museum

by bygg＠cafax.se

Noel Chiappa wrote: > > It has been in use at STACKEN at least since the beginning of the 80ies > > I was meaning before that; somewhere in Scandanavia, I expect? Eh, not that > important, I guess. >From Finland. Sold used by DEC Sweden to Stacken, for 1 SEK (aound 20 cents at that time). > Noel --Johnny /\_/\ ( *.* ) > ^ <

6 years, 8 months

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VCF/PNW Exhibit & Trip Report - The Old Calculator Museum

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Mattis Lind >> Ah. I wonder where it came from originally? > It has been in use at STACKEN at least since the beginning of the 80ies I was meaning before that; somewhere in Scandanavia, I expect? Eh, not that important, I guess. >> And it's odd (to me, at least) to see TU56's on a KA10. > It is TU55s as far as I can see. Ah, I was confused by an aspect of the pictures on that page which I hadn't noticed before! The fourth picture in that set: https://mobile.twitter.com/LivingComputers/status/1102063746019549184/photo… which is where I saw the TU56's (along with at least one TU55), shows a different machine! I just assumed all four were of the KA, but the last shows them in front of a KI. Although one has to look carefully to notice that, though, as the size, colours, etc are very similar; it thus looks _very_ similar to the KA in the first ones. I'd still love to find out if there are any other KA's left - does anyone know of any? Noel

6 years, 8 months

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Looking for Byte Jan 78 missing page

by wrcooke＠wrcooke.net

In the Jan 78 issue of Byte magazine a series of articles titled "The Brains of Men and Machines" (also the issue title on the cover) started. EVERY single scan I can find on the web is missing pages 96 and 97, right in the middle of that article. They all (including archive.org) appear to be the same scan. Does anyone have an electronic copy of those pages or a paper copy they would be willing to scan for me? Thanks, Will "He may look dumb but that's just a disguise."? -- Charlie Daniels "The names of global variables should start with? ? // "? --?https://isocpp.org

6 years, 8 months

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VCF/PNW Exhibit & Trip Report - The Old Calculator Museum

by mattislind＠gmail.com

torsdag 28 mars 2019 skrev Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu>: > > From: Mattis Lind > > > It is KATIA. Peter Lothbergs collection. > > Ah. I wonder where it came from originally? It has been in use at STACKEN at least since the beginning of the 80ies until maybe mid nineties. STACKEN is the computer club at KTH in Stockholm. https://techworld.idg.se/2.2524/1.454545/the-stacken-story I think that some pictures are from the big computer hall I visited when studying at KTH. But it might be Collosal Cave Computing Center. > That looks like a relatively 'new' one; the older KA10's had black panels. > And it's odd (to me, at least) to see TU56's on a KA10. It is TU55s as far as I can see. > > I wonder how many KA10's are left in the world? I have this vague memory > that > MIT-AI might have gone to Sweden, but I also have a memory that that was > the > plan, but some how it didn't happen? /Mattis > > Noel >

6 years, 8 months

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VCF/PNW Exhibit & Trip Report - The Old Calculator Museum

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Mattis Lind > It is KATIA. Peter Lothbergs collection. Ah. I wonder where it came from originally? That looks like a relatively 'new' one; the older KA10's had black panels. And it's odd (to me, at least) to see TU56's on a KA10. I wonder how many KA10's are left in the world? I have this vague memory that MIT-AI might have gone to Sweden, but I also have a memory that that was the plan, but some how it didn't happen? Noel

6 years, 8 months

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VCF/PNW Exhibit & Trip Report - The Old Calculator Museum

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Rick Bensene > upstairs to the computer room and take some photos of the KA-10 Wow! That's a rara avis indeed; I wasn't sure there were any left. Does anyone know where this one came from? Noel

6 years, 8 months

2
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Need some Sun VME boards... (and if someone has a power supply...)

by earl＠baugh.org

Folks, I have been able to get the Sun 3/110 to boot using the SCSI2SD board as I had asked about earlier (if you want to see the details of what I did, I posted to the sun-rescue list...) However, I can't seem to get more that 4mb to work in the 3/110 chassis ( the 2nd chassis I have is 240v, and so far that doesn't look like it's switchable for use in 115v land...) I've tried the two 4mb boards I have ( both 501-1132 boards ) one has a gouge in the ground plane but the bulk of the ground plane is intact and one says Parity Error 3/17/16 ( not my writing, from the person I got it from ) so I'm assuming that would work but generate an error, similar to Clearpoint board I have that I can't figure out jumpers for. However I can't get the machine to even boot with the boards in. In both cases the lights on the CPU board all light up. Which indicates some form of reset. I've checked the boards dip switches. They are set according to the FEH as 3 on U3118 and 4 on U3119. Jumper J3102 is jumped as well. I've tried them with the VME Bus Px03 and Px04 both jumpered and unjumpered. Same results in all cases. I don't think it's a power issue, as the machine boots with 3 cards ( I.e. 8mb incompatible sun board or Clearpoint SNXRAM card, with SCSI card in both cases ). I've tried with and without SCSI card. All same results. Soooo, question is, do I just have two bad 4mb cards? Am I missing some setting? I don't see anything to set on CPU board. If so anybody got memory cards they're willing to trade that would work in a 3/110? I've got an 8mb 501-1102 or a 32mb 501-1254 32 mb card to trade, memory wise. I am trying to build up 2 3/110 machines, so would like 2 4mb boards at least. I've also got a 3/110 cpu board that has a blown cap to replace but otherwise works, and a couple SMD drive controller boards. I also just realized I have a a Sun 2 VME SCSI board - ( 501-1149 * combo: 501-1045 "Sun-2" SCSI in 270-1059 6U/9U VME ) And of course if anybody has a spare 3/1xx power supply that is configured for 115v also be interested in that. ( and another SCSI card with an external connection would be useful ) Earl

6 years, 8 months

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AW: 50Hz Pulley for 8" Floppy Drive Mitshubishi M2894-63B

by guykd＠optusnet.com.au

Ok. Those are quite small. So you have one? Or those are not yours? If you have one, and a way to accurately measure it, making more will be easy for anyone with a lathe. I could do it, but surely you can find a machinist closer to home? Guy At 01:03 PM 10/11/2018 +0000, Riesen Thomas wrote: >Guy, >I am looking for small motor pulley ... see pic ... >Regards >Thomas > >-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht----- >Von: Guy Dunphy [mailto:guykd at optusnet.com.au] >Gesendet: Samstag, 10. November 2018 13:25 >An: Riesen Thomas <thomas.riesen at predata.ch>; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> >Betreff: Re: 50Hz Pulley for 8" Floppy Drive Mitshubishi M2894-63B > >At 12:03 PM 10/11/2018 +0000, you wrote: >>Hi all >> >>Any suggestions where to find two 50Hz-Pulleys for the 8" Floppy drive >>Mitsubishi M2894-63B? >> >>If there also the appropriate ribbon gummies available, I would be very >>happy. >> >>Regards >>Thomas > > >Do you know what they look like, and the dimensions? >Because I have these. http://everist.org/pics/misc/IMG_1655_pulley_800.jpg > >_Maybe_ they were off Mitsubishi drives, not sure. Had them in a box of floppy drive related bits for a loooong time, and have no recollection of where they came from. >These are 49.0 mm OD, hole 4.7 mm dia. And this is Australia, with 50Hz mains. > >Guy > > >Attachment Converted: "f:\email\attach\Pully_8Zoll_02.jpg" > >Attachment Converted: "f:\email\attach\Pully_8Zoll_01.jpg" >

6 years, 8 months

6
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Computervision CADDS distribution carts are weird

by aek＠bitsavers.org

I ran into an interesting problem. Eric Smith's copytape program assumes two tape marks in a row is logical end of tape and stops reading. I've had problems with this before with MPE store tapes, because they put two file marks at the start of tape so I just keep reading until I get 10 errors in a row. That also lets me read anything after a logical EOT on 1/2" tape. Well.. CV is even weirder. One some CV software distribution carts EVERY file has two file marks between them. I don't expect anyone to have to archive any of these, but I wanted to get this written down somewhere.

6 years, 8 months

1
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What 6502 macro assembler was used for the AIM-65 Monitor ROM?

by glen.slick＠gmail.com

Anyone know what 6502 macro assembler was used for the AIM-65 Monitor ROM, as shown in the AIM-65 Monitor Program Listing manual, document number 29650N36L ? Some of it's identifying features are using .BYT and .WOR (or .WORD) directives for declaring data, and .MACRO and .ENDM directives for declaring macros. Use of the macro directives can be seen in the RM65-5101 Floppy Disk Controller (FDC) Module User's Manual, document number 29801N02 There are countless 6502 assemblers available now, the exercise here is to identify the macro assembler that was used at the time. If it is available to run now the goal would be to run it to assemble source code exactly in the format that it used and produce identical listing output. (Modifying the source code to be accepted by a different assembler to produce identical binary output is not the goal of the exercise).

6 years, 8 months

8
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50Hz Pulley for 8" Floppy Drive Mitshubishi M2894-63B

by thomas.riesen＠predata.ch

Hi all Any suggestions where to find two 50Hz-Pulleys for the 8" Floppy drive Mitsubishi M2894-63B? If there also the appropriate ribbon gummies available, I would be very happy. Regards Thomas

6 years, 8 months

4
3
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eBay: CDC 6600 modules

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

So, if anyone wants a CDC 6600 module for their mantle/shelf/etc, here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/283426116822 is someone selling some for a non-ridiculous amount of money (the latter being common with this type of thing). No connection with the seller, other than buying one myself. Noel

6 years, 8 months

2
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Craigslist: RP05 drive cable in Indiana

by silent700＠gmail.com

No affiliation with the seller, just a strange item to come across randomly. Digital BC06S cable, which is mentioned in the manual for the RP05 and possibly others: https://chicago.craigslist.org/nwi/ele/d/multi-pin-digital-cable/6835150645… The ad shows updated two days ago so they likely still have it. J

6 years, 8 months

2
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PDP-8 signed overflow detection

by kylevowen＠gmail.com

What is the shortest subroutine on a PDP-8 which will add two variables in RAM and return the saturated sum (that is, returning 2047 or -2048 upon overflow, otherwise the sum) in the accumulator? Kyle

6 years, 8 months

5
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Epson PX8 disk emulator

by wrcooke＠wrcooke.net

Hello all, I have built an emulator that uses an Arduino and SD card to provide four "floppy drives" for an Epson PX8.? It may also be usable with a PX4, but I have no way of trying it. If you would like to build one yourself, or just read about it, the details are here:?http://wrcooke.net/projects/pfbdk/pfbdk.html Any feedback is appreciated (I already know the page is crummy.)? Especially if you build it I would like to know good or bad experience. Thanks, Will "He may look dumb but that's just a disguise."? -- Charlie Daniels "The names of global variables should start with? ? // "? --?https://isocpp.org

6 years, 8 months

13
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Matching paint on DEC monitors, cases and cabinets

by abacos_98＠yahoo.com

Has anyone ever found a source for aerosol spray cans that are a close matchto the colors that DEC used on their cases and such? I remember seeing touch up colors mentioned in the past. Specifically the ivory/almond colorof VT100's, DECservers, etc. Brian

6 years, 8 months

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atex system in Houston

by fritzm＠fritzm.org

Hmmm, are these the atex racks seen lurking in the background of that recent storage space trawl down near Houston? https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-DEC-PDP-11-34-Minicomputer-With-Kennedy-Ta…

6 years, 8 months

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middle-aged APL terminal

by turing＠shaw.ca

Hi All: This is my periodic request for technical details on a Cybernex APL-100 terminal - the only documentation that I have for it is the sales brochure...

6 years, 8 months

1
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Opening old DEC files

by curt＠atarimuseum.com

I have many DEC files that I?ve recovered from old VMS backups to a PC. Many are Word-11, ALL-IN-1 WPS and VMS Mail MAI files. They don?t open well in programs like the Windows Text editors Is there a program on Windows that can open these files and recognize all of the formatting and control commands so they can be properly viewed?

6 years, 8 months

7
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Opening old DEC files

by jfoust＠threedee.com

At 02:54 PM 3/22/2019, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: >Years ago, there was a program for the Mac that would convert a TON of different file formats. Trying to figure out what that was, MacLinkPlus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacLinkPlus_Deluxe http://www.sonic.net/mnitepub/pccafe/reviews/dataviz_maclinkplus/dataviz_ma… - John

6 years, 8 months

1
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Rk611 controller

by abacos_98＠yahoo.com

I just acquired an RK07 drive and disk packs. I am looking for the 5 Unibus boards and back plane to add to my 11/84.? Brian. Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

6 years, 8 months

3
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ISO: Sanders Associates 720 hardware docs / parts

by derschjo＠gmail.com

Hi all -- I picked up a Sanders 720 terminal -- well, the display/keyboard portion anyway -- and I'm looking for actual hardware documentation so I can maybe someday replicate the 701 control unit (or heck, maybe someone has a 701 sitting around somewhere...). Anyone out there have docs (apart from the brochures already on bitsavers) or any parts lying around? Thanks as always! Josh

6 years, 8 months

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HP 1000 Series board available.

by jesse＠cypress-tech.com

I have a bunch of these boards for the 1000 A class servers... I have plenty of each of the following. If anyone wants or needs and of the following, let me know. 12040x? Asynchronous Multiplexer - $50.00 each 12009A? HP-IB Interface - $75.00 each 12103D? 1MB Memory board - $65.00 each 12103C? 512kb Memory board - $65.00 each 12220A? 768kb Memory board - $65.00 each Thanks Jesse Cypress Technology Inc

6 years, 8 months

1
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Link MK1 and GP4

by aek＠bitsavers.org

Josh scanned some Link Mark I documentation, and I found a pdf describing some of the history of early Link digital flight simulators uploaded to: http://bitsavers.org/pdf/generalPrecision/Link_Mark_I

6 years, 8 months

4
3
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SCSI2SD: Is it worth a try?

by chd＠chdickman.com

What is the experience with the SCSI2SD with old computers? It looks to be SCSI-1 and SCSI-2 compatible and I see a lot of reports of usage on this list. I am curious about how well it works and which version to get. Versions up to 5 seem to be GPLed and reasonably available. V6 does not seem to have schematics or boards open sourced and I haven't seen a supplier for them. The web page lists some sources, but they don't have the V6 available. It looks like the V6 is not open because someone used the design without following the GPL. V6 claims synchronous transfers, but I don't think most of my hardware supports it. That consists of VAXstations and qbus scsi cards. If I was after speed I wouldn't be using old hardware, but the speed has to be consistent with the era. Chuck

6 years, 8 months

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VCF PNW 2019 is this weekend

by mbbrutman＠brutman.com

One last short reminder ... VCF PNW 2019 is this weekend! We have 30 exhibits, 6 presentations, and the consignment area. Admission is free with paid admission to the museum, so come check out both the event and the museum! Details can be found at http://vcfed.org/vcf-pnw . -Mike

6 years, 8 months

1
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POP-2 silver book

by dstalk＠execulink.com

Is there anyone out there who could scan page 261 of "Programming in POP-2" by Burstall, Collins, and Popplestone for me? Also, does anyone have a copy of POP-10? Thanks, Don

6 years, 8 months

3
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DECimage questions

by jzatar2＠illinois.edu

On Tue Mar 19 01:49:08 CDT 2019 >On 2019-03-17 20:36, Chris Hanson via cctalk wrote: >>/I recently acquired a DECimage X terminal, which is theoretically a VXT-2000 with an add-on 2D accelerator. Unfortunately while the terminal is badges as a DECimage it didn?t include the board, just a frame buffer. / >>// >>/Does anyone have a spare DECimage board they?d be interested in parting with, or know a reasonable place to obtain one? / >>You have the board number? >>Sometimes if we discuss something here, magically boards show up on ebay. >>Just an observation ;-) Does MA-0270-92A help? got that number out of the VXT 2000 Installing and Getting Started Guide (EK-VXT20-IN), but it might be a two-part kit (accelerator board + DECimage sticker). The VXT 2000 Windowing Terminal and DECimage 2000 Option Service Guide (EK-VXT20-SV) lists VX20A-OP for the DECimage 2000 module. For the twisted pair ethernet module, the same manual lists 54-20482-01.

6 years, 8 months

1
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HELP needed on a vocabulary problem ;-)

by gerardcjat＠free.fr

The TECHNICAL problem : I am repairing a not so old electric typewriter. I need to replace what I call : a flexible printed circuit ( strip / ribbon / what's the "correct" word ??? ) *** AND *** the associated connector I searched Mouse, Digikey, Arrow, etc ... catalogues and find absolutly nothing !! I think I DO NOT use the correct WORD(s) for my search. What are the "usual" words for the TWO items I describe ?? Many thanks for your help, Guys

6 years, 8 months

4
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POP-2 silver book

by dstalk＠execulink.com

Thanks, page 261 has been found! Now for POP-2 or POP-10. Don

6 years, 8 months

1
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DECimage questions

by cmhanson＠eschatologist.net

I recently acquired a DECimage X terminal, which is theoretically a VXT-2000 with an add-on 2D accelerator. Unfortunately while the terminal is badges as a DECimage it didn?t include the board, just a frame buffer. Does anyone have a spare DECimage board they?d be interested in parting with, or know a reasonable place to obtain one? How about other components for this machine? I have the AUI/thin Ethernet card and wouldn?t mind replacing it with the AUI/twisted-pair card, and I?d also like to max out the RAM: It has 2MB onboard and I have the riser card with SIMM slots and one SIMM for an additional 4MB. It uses what I?m told are DEC MS200-AA (2MB) and DEC MS200-BA (4MB) modules, which look like regular 72pin SIMMs. Are they special or are they compatible with anything common? ? Chris Sent from my iPad

6 years, 9 months

3
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Any intel UPP-103 personality boards for sale?

by andrewsofbg＠gmail.com

I am in the market for a UPP-816 and a UPP-878 personality boards if anyone is thinking of selling theirs. Please message me. Thanks Craig

6 years, 9 months

1
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DECimage questions

by jzatar2＠illinois.edu

>I recently acquired a DECimage X terminal, which is theoretically a VXT-2000 >with an add-on 2D accelerator. Unfortunately while the terminal is badges as a >DECimage it didn?t include the board, just a frame buffer. That's unfortunate. My VXT2000 doesn't have that board either, I've always wondered how much it helps. I'm not too sure if the bottleneck is usually the 10mbit networking or the graphics. Probably depends a bit on whether you're using modern X11 applications or not. Modern stuff all likes to assume true-color (24bit or thereabouts) and render stuff locally and send it again to redraw, rather than rendering on the (remote) xterm it seems... >Does anyone have a spare DECimage board they?d be interested in parting with, >or know a reasonable place to obtain one? Unfortunately, as I already stated I don't, and my only idea where to get one is ebay and similar sites, which I'm sure you already know. >How about other components for this machine? I have the AUI/thin Ethernet card >and wouldn?t mind replacing it with the AUI/twisted-pair card, and I?d also >like to max out the RAM: It has 2MB onboard and I have the riser card with >SIMM slots and one SIMM for an additional 4MB. No clue where to get a twisted pair module, but mine has one. I currently have it hooked up to our thinnet segment though, and I've had it on our thicknet segment previously (now we have a proper VAXen occupying that transceiver). >It uses what I?m told are DEC MS200-AA (2MB) and DEC MS200-BA (4MB) modules, >which look like regular 72pin SIMMs. Are they special or are they compatible >with anything common? > >? ? Chris > >Sent from my iPad Here's where I can help you. The SIMMs aren't really anything special, you can use 2MB and 4MB modules. The VAX SOC in the VXT is slow enough that you probably don't have to worry about access time, so 60 or 70ns modules are probably both fine. If you don't have a 4MB module laying around, you can use an 8MB or 16MB module, but you have to install a wire from a ground pin to A10 on the SIMM connector and fix the presence detect bits, IIRC. (A0-A9 gives 1024 rows and columns, 1M-word per bank, 4 bytes per word, so 4MB SIMM. DEC left the unused address lines floating, and that causes issues with bigger SIMMs). You can also install a single jumper IIRC to make 16MB SIMMs appear as 4MB, and 8MB SIMMs appear as 2MB (it's just grounding one of the PD lines, I don't remember which). The most you can fit into a VXT2000 is 18MB IIRC, that's 3 4MB SIMM, + 4MB on the riser itself + 2MB on the motherboard. Lastly, you'll need the VXT2000 SW, which I extracted from some VMS (infoserver?) CDs several years ago. Someone put them up on terminals-wiki.org, so you can grab them there: http://terminals-wiki.org/collections/DEC/vxt2000.zip VXT021KT10.SYS is the full blown VXT software including local side applications, like DECWindows etc. VXTLDR021.SYS is some intermediate loader you can use to get an NFS swap file or something like that if you have an infoserver or VMS running the infoserver software IIRC. VXTEX020A.SYS is *just* the X server IIRC, missing the local side applications but having a smaller memory footprint. This doesn't even have a window manager, so you'd have to use it with a remote one and set up XDMCP. The terminals boot from MOP or TFTP/BOOTP with late enough firmware. MOP has a daemon available for linux and BSDs, if you'd like to go that route, but otherwise TFTP/BOOTP is probably better supported by modern infrastructure Hopefully this was helpful. If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to ask. I'm probably one of a few people who bothers to keep a VXT around running, so I can probably answer most questions you might have about setup and operation. Best Regards, Joe Zatarski

6 years, 9 months

3
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Clearpoint SNXRAM/12 VME

by earl＠baugh.org

Hey, Anybody happen to have any documentation for a Clearpoint SNXRAM card? I?ll take any version ( though I have the /12 card ). I?m trying to figure out the jumpers on this board. It generates a memory error in my Sun 3/110 but not sure if that?s because of overlapping addressing. I?ve tried searching for the doc for years ( this year I?m trying very hard to get my Sun 2/120 and Sun 3/110 running correctly. Got my Sun 1/100 and Sun 4/110 booting correctly, disk images are almost ready for them ) Earl Sent from my iPhone

6 years, 9 months

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Fwd: Sun 3/XXX 240v power supply — switch to 115v — is it possible?

by earl＠baugh.org

Howdy, I?ve recently gotten a second Sun 3/Xxx 3 slot VME chassis, however the power supply is a EU version, 240v. I know on a number of ?newer? power supplies there is a switch to go from 240 to 115. I?ve taken this one apart ( at least to the point where it comes off the bottom of the VME chassis ? but left the thick cables still connected. ) I haven?t found any switch or any indication that it can switch. Googling and looking at the FEH hasn?t yielded any info either. Anybody know if it?s possible to switch this type of PS? Thanks Earl Sent from my iPhone

6 years, 9 months

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Fwd: Sun 3 with SCSI2SD

by earl＠baugh.org

Howdy, Wondering if anyone has used a SCSI2SD card with a Sun 3 class machine. I know Walter B has had success with the Sun 2( that?s next on my list after I get the Sun 3/110 working with one. ) I have some Version 5 of the card. (I also have a version 3 card that I tried long ago, with little success). The new current firmware is much more understandable in terms of setting it up. However with a known good image ( obtained from Walter B) I can?t get it to go past the message ?Waiting for disk to spin up...? followed by ?Please start it, if necessary , ? OR ? press a key to quit.? I know the card doesn?t need to spin up ? so question is, what is the boot prom waiting for? I expect it?s just something off in my config but so far everything I?ve tried yields the same result. Anybody have a config.xml that works that they could share? ( and which firmware version it works with? ) Thanks Earl Sent from my iPhone

6 years, 9 months

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Sun 3/50

by fedorkow＠mit.edu

I have a Sun 3/50 diskless workstation in the Boston area, which I'd like to see go to a good home.? I no longer have the monochrome monitor that went with it, but I do have the original keyboard and mouse.? It hasn't been powered up in some time, but worked without problems until I took it out of service. ? Contact me at guy.fedorkow at gmail.com if you're interested? Thanks /guy

6 years, 9 months

1
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searching for TEAC MT-2R tape deck documentation

by henk.gooijen＠hotmail.com

Hi guys, Today I found a TEAC MT-2R cassette tape drive on a radio amateur flee market. These tape drives use a tape cassette similar to the audio tape cassette. The MT-2R tape deck has servo control logic for tape motion and a CPU with firmware taat makes the tape unit a block-addressable device (AFAIK). However, I can only find doc of the MT-2ST, but that is another MTU. Does anybody have doc of the TEAC MT-2R ? Thanks, Henk, PA8PDP

6 years, 9 months

1
0
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SCSI2SD on VMS 5.4

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

I have been experimenting with a SCSI21SD V6 card trying to get it to work on a VAX 4000-200 running VMS 5.4 using a KZQSA. It seems to recognise that there is a SCSI device there, but any attempt to access the device from VMS 5.4 results in a Fatal Drive Error. I tried booting a VMS 7.3 image from the SCSI2SD card and that worked. Obviously I have played with some of the settings, like SCSI2 mode etc, but I have not found anything that works. Has anyone succeeded in getting this board to work on VMS 5.4? Thanks Rob

6 years, 9 months

3
3
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ISO: Docs for Andromeda VDC-11

by derschjo＠gmail.com

Hi all -- Anyone happen to have any documentation for the Andromeda VDC-11? This is a dual-height qbus board that provides 512x256 graphics and can act as the PDP-11's console device (it emulates various different terminals, depending on the model of the VDC-11). I'm interested in programming information as well as jumpers and connector pinouts. Thanks! Josh

6 years, 9 months

1
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Latest batch of items from Sellam's Collection

by sellam.ismail＠gmail.com

Greetings! The Ides of March brings another list of stuff from Sellam's warehouse: Toshiba T3200SX documentation and software Microsoft Serial - PS/2 Compatible Mouse ADDS ViewPoint dumb terminal SGI CD-ROM Library Oki Data Microline 184 Turbo Dot Matrix Printer Xerox WP7700 Word Processor Reference Manual TRS-80 Disk & Other Mysteries PMMI Communications MM-103-9 Communications Adaptor General DataComm Industries GDC 1001A Data Coupler (RBS-3) Commodore Model 6400 Word Processor Printer User's Manual MITS DV1600 Digital Volt Meter Assembly Manual MicroMint SB-180 Rev 2.0 Monitor ROM Coactive Connector for DOS/Windows Macintosh SE/30 system MacTerminal MacDraw Teletype Corporation Model 33 Teletypewriter documentation set AMPRO Little Board/PC Technical Manual AMPRO Little Board/PC Model 4B documentation AMPRO Little Board/PLUS documentation Radio Shack TRS-80 8" Single/Double-Sided Diskettes (Box of 10) Citizen iDP-560-RSL Dot Matrix Printer VAX DEC/Test Manager DEC LA324 Multiprinter Installation and Operator's Guide VMS DECwindows Desktop Applications Guide VMS User's Manual HP Infiniium Oscilloscope Model HP 54835A/45A Service Guide IBM PC Network documentation Utilities Unlimited, Inc. EMPLANT Emulator Board North Star Computers external 5.25" floppy drive enclosure kit Opus SS/SD 5.25" floppy diskette 10-pack GoldStar GS520 Laptop Xerox 2-button Mouse Find the links to these and other fine vintage computing items here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1I53wxarLHlNmlPVf_HJ5oMKuab4zrApI_hi… Please do contact me directly by e-mail via <sellam.ismail at gmail.com> to make an order or an offer. Thanks! Sellam

6 years, 9 months

1
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Old terminal photos with Frotz running

by dave＠661.org

I was wondering if I could get some photos of assorted old terminals displaying Frotz running Infocom games. I'm particularly interested in seeing the VT52, VT100, LA36 / LA120, ASR33, and TVI-910 like this. -- David Griffith dave at 661.org

6 years, 9 months

1
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PDP 11/60 Print Sets

by g-wright＠att.net

Message: 10 Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2019 15:56:51 -0500 From: David Williams <nospam212-cctalk at yahoo.com> To: CCTech <cctech at classiccmp.org> Subject: PDP 11/60 Print Sets Message-ID: <da0952f4e4e517d579246b0194465201 at yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Many years ago I gave away some PDP 11/60 hardware to someone on this list but don't recall who it was (Ethan maybe?). Anyway, I have recently discovered a stack of various print sets that I believe went with that system and would like to send them along. If you recall that long past transaction (10 years ago maybe? More? Less? Don't recall exactly, old age is killing my memory) please contact me so I can make arrangements for these. And if you aren't interested please let me know so I can see if anyone else is interested in them. Thanks. David Williams www.trailingedge.com David, If you need a home for these,? I have 2 complete 11/60's and would dearly like to have them. Thanks, Jerry

6 years, 9 months

1
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Looking for 12016-60002 HP Single Ended Cable

by jesse＠cypress-tech.com

12016-60002 - SE Cable - card edge connector to 50-pin low density bail lock (M) - 2m (6.6ft) long If anyone has any of these, let me know, I can use about 4 of them. Thanks Jesse Cypress Technology Inc

6 years, 9 months

2
1
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Pioneers of computing

by c.murray.mccullough＠gmail.com

Thanks for the info on chip made by Texas Instruments. It was used in a pocket/plug-in calculator I had while working as a payroll clerk back in the early 70s. The link is: http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/ti_cal-tech1.html I?ve written in my book on the History of the Microcomputer a history of the processing chip as the timeline follows an approximation of: Late *1950*s ? patent on integrated circuit by Texas Instruments *1950*s to *1960*s ? move from vacuum tubes to TTL technology programs/functions in ROM *1970*s ? 4004 to 8008 to 8086 -> This begins the era of electronic computerization of society. -> programmable by user and/or firmware We are now in the early human era of the electronification-computerization of society. *Classic Computing* takes us back to the very early years. Happy computing!

6 years, 9 months

5
6
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Pioneers of computing

by c.murray.mccullough＠gmail.com

Back in 1965 Jack Kilby, Jerry Merryman and James Van Tassel at texas Instruments created an integrated circuit designed to replace the calulator. Historians, though not all, credit this development as the beginning of the electronic-computing revolution that was truly underway by the mid-70s. Vintage/classic computing our hobby goes back that far as us baby-boomers can attest to. Happy computing all!

6 years, 9 months

11
15
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PDP 11/60 Print Sets

by nospam212-cctalk＠yahoo.com

Many years ago I gave away some PDP 11/60 hardware to someone on this list but don't recall who it was (Ethan maybe?). Anyway, I have recently discovered a stack of various print sets that I believe went with that system and would like to send them along. If you recall that long past transaction (10 years ago maybe? More? Less? Don't recall exactly, old age is killing my memory) please contact me so I can make arrangements for these. And if you aren't interested please let me know so I can see if anyone else is interested in them. Thanks. David Williams www.trailingedge.com

6 years, 9 months

2
1
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DECnet License for older VAX VMS

by abacos_98＠yahoo.com

Hello,I have a current hobbyists license for OpenVMS 7.3 and a handful of simulated VAXen. I wanted to add my simulated 11/780 and 11/782 to my DECnet and wondered if there was a (legal of course) license workaround to install networking on an older version such as 4.4. The current PAKS will not work.Brian. Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

6 years, 9 months

6
8
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VAX 4000-100 Free to a good home

by ken.s.moser＠icloud.com

I have one, with some disks and other misc gear. Headed for the dump if I cannot find a home. Would prefer to find a home for my old friend... Ken Moser 703.587.3868

6 years, 9 months

7
7
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VAX 4000-100 Free to a good home

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Zane Healy > Based on his area code, he's in Virginia, near Washington DC. So far > enough that I can't be tempted That's a small enough machine that it wouldn't cost much to ship (via Pak-Mail or similar, if the current owner's not up for dealing with shipping). I'm not too far from DC, but it's still 6 hours on the road for a round-trip, so not too resource-effective for me to go get it. Noel

6 years, 9 months

1
0
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DEC RC25 / CDC 9457 lark disc

by shadoooo＠gmail.com

Hello, I always have been amazed by the complexity and peculiarity of fixed/removable hybrid discs like DEC RC25 and CDC 9457. Looking at some specifications found on the web, these drives look quite similar each other, even if these are completely different on an exterior / interface point of view... Maybe there's some compatibility between the two products? Thanks Andrea

6 years, 9 months

2
1
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Old Macs available

by nospam212-cctalk＠yahoo.com

I am clearing out a storage space and will be offering up some of the old systems and miscellaneous peripherals currently stored there as I clear and sort things.? To start with I have the following available. If anyone is interested or knows where else to offer the various items contact me off list.? If I can't find anyone interested I'll probably just send things on to recycle as I need to clear and close the space. All of the following are base units, no keyboards or other external peripherals although I suspect there may be keyboards somewhere in the storage space but can't guarantee it. If I do find some I can pass them along with the units if interested. 1) Macintosh SE/30 - Appears to have some expansion card of some sort inside with with a 15 pin connector and what I think was a BNC connector? 2) Macintosh SE/30 - Has a ribbon cable coming out the expansion slot in the back but no idea what it connects to inside or anything else about it.3) Macintosh Plus 1Mb - This sounds like there might be something loose inside if you turn it over. All systems are in unknown state and unopened so I have no idea what is inside or what condition they may be in. Systems are located in Houston, TX. Contact me off list if you need any more info or interest in these systems. Thanks. David Williamswww.trailingedge.com

6 years, 9 months

4
5
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Rainbow 100 PSU capacitor list

by aperry＠snowmoose.com

Hi, I think that I need to re-cap the power supply in a Rainbow 100. Does anyone here know if anyone has put together a list of capacitors used in the power supply that I can use to order parts? alan

6 years, 9 months

6
19
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Tape reading question

by pat＠vax11.net

Since I'm going to be out in Seattle for a week to participate in VCF/PNW, I was wondering if anyone in the area could lend me a hand with help reading in an old QIC-24 25MB tape cartridge or two? One has the TurboDOS backup/install media for a Televideo TS-816 that I got >from Don Maslin back in the day. I think the other one is related too, but it was unmarked. I would like to at least try to get images off of them. At least one of them has a working belt.. the other ones fell apart when i tried removing the belt to reform it. Thank, Patrick Finnegan

6 years, 9 months

6
15
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Parts source

by wrcooke＠wrcooke.net

This may or may not be new or useful to anyone here, but I came across this website by accident today. They have a considerable selection of rather hard to find parts for old home computers, game consoles, and even arcade machines. Figured I would send along the link. http://www.arcadecomponents.com/index.html "He may look dumb but that's just a disguise."? -- Charlie Daniels "The names of global variables should start with? ? // "? --?https://isocpp.org

6 years, 9 months

2
1
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Thinking about PDP11 PC05 Emulation

by cube1＠charter.net

I have several PDP-11's in my collection (among other things), and not enough PC05 tape readers (or enough room) to go around. But most if not all of my machines have M7810 PC11 interfaces, and I have one I could move from machine to machine as needed. Moving a PC05 around would be a lot more work, and not every rack has room. ;) So, I took a look at what it might take to interface with an M7810 (or, down the road, a PDP-8/L or PDP-12. It looks like the emulator would have to accept as input just 3 lines (Initialize L, IOP2(1)/Select, IOP4(1)/Read) [It would not need the redundant Initialize H, IOP1(1), Qualify or Skip], and would have to drive 11 lines into the pullups on the M7810 (8 Data lines, IO Bus INT L/Reader Done L, Outtape/Error and RDR RUN L/RDR Busy L). So, a total of 14 interface lines. (The 8 or 12 would take a few more lines). The pullups average about 470 ohms (1 is 1K, 1 is 220, the rest are 470), so at 5V the output has to sink a bit over 10ma, and all total 120ma. An Arduino Uno with an Ethernet shield would have 20 minus 5 lines available, in theory, but if one wants serial I/O as well for debugging, that sucks up 2 more lines - so only 13 available. And sinking 120ma would be a bit much though I could likely sprinkle inputs among the outputs to make it work so as to stay within the recommended sink limits, and at least initially have it never run out of tape, and tie Error down. http://playground.arduino.cc/Main/ArduinoPinCurrentLimitations So, I am thinking about an Arduino Mega, as it has more output groupings to sprinkle the sink current around, and 5V interface capability, and more pins to eventually support my PDP-8/L and PDP-12. (I could do it with a PIC - did that for a Documation card reader to PC interface, but I am really tired of fighting Microchip's IDE.) BUT - it also occurs to me someone may have already done something like this? Any leads / ideas? JRJ

6 years, 9 months

6
10
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Pioneers of computing

by r_a_feldman＠hotmail.com

>Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2019 17:18:26 -0400 >From: Murray McCullough <c.murray.mccullough at gmail.com> >Back in 1965 Jack Kilby, Jerry Merryman and James Van Tassel at texas >Instruments Merryman died on February 27. >From the New York Times (March 7, 2019): Jerry Merryman, Co-Inventor of the Pocket Calculator, Dies at 86 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/07/obituaries/jerry-merryman-dead.html Bob

6 years, 9 months

2
1
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Pioneers of computing

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Brent Hilpert >>> Back in 1965 Jack Kilby, Jerry Merryman and James Van Tassel at texas >>> Instruments created an integrated circuit designed to replace the >>> calulator. Historians, though not all, credit this development as the >>> beginning of the electronic-computing revolution that was truly underway >>> by the mid-70s. >> Scotty, more power to the Reality Distortion Field! > It's not an out-to-lunch suggestion. > The digital pocket calculator was the first mass-market digital electronic > device to be put in the hands of the consumer. It's not clear which element of the original post that Al was referring to; I saw several things I might disagree with: - Unless you look at the date carefully, the notion that TI's work developing chips was intended to replace the calculator. - The notion that it was calculators that drove the development of micros; Intel had actually started work on a micro for Datapoint, which was eventually released as the 8008, _before_ they started on the 4004 for Busicom. I'd have to think long and hard before I rendered a judgement on how important digital pocket calculators were to where we are today. My initial reaction is to say 'not very', though - early personal computers, centered on Silicon Valley, were mostly driven by having, well, a personal computer. It's not clear that widespread ownership of personal calculators did anything to drive that. Noel

6 years, 9 months

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Trio laboratories inc PSU schematic?

by mattislind＠gmail.com

Does anyone have schematic for a Trio Labs PSU made in 1975 https://i.imgur.com/MTwcpRA.jpg It is a primary side switcher made in 1975 outputting 100 Amps 5Volt. Quite early for being primary switcher I would guess.

6 years, 9 months

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Unix tools, Bill Webb, UBC, TRIUMF

by boris＠summitclinic.com

I used to work at UBC in Pharmacology in the 1980's and had a few talks with Bill Webb about Unix but, unfortunately, for the data acquisition we were doing Unix was far too slow and I did everything in optimized PDP-11 assembler. Of course, we didn't have a PDP-11/45 like Bill had and had to make do with a slower PDP-11/34. Bill had hacked Unix considerably and it was locally known as Webbix on campus. Played around with Unix and Webbix back then but don't think I have the tapes anymore. One of the RL01 or RLO2 disks I picked up at SERF in the 1990's (along with a MINC system) contained a copy of Webbix but I'm not sure I copied it. Gave away the MINC and 2 RLO1 or RLO2 drives to a guy in Seattle about 2006 and hopefully he's copied them. Boris Gimbarzevsky >I recovered several pieces of Unix media ? all >of whichh I think made it into TUHS/PUPS >collection - at UBC in the mid-1990???s while I was working at TRIUMF. > >Those Unix disks and tapes came from a SERF sale >(Surplus Equipment Recycling Facility) on UBC >main campus, not from TRIUMF. Bill Webb was a >common thread for Unix use in the biology department at UBC. > >TRIUMF extensively used Data General Nova, then >Eclipse (both 16 and 32 bit), computers from >opening through the 1990???s for both cyclotron >control systems and data acquisition for >experiments. They also had a fair number of >PDP-11???s and VAXen running RSX-11, RT-11, and >VMS. I myself had an Alpha workstation on my >desk for the two users I was at TRIUMF. > >One of my favorite connections between TRIUMF >and UBC, was the underground pneumatic tube used >to rapidly carry short lived isotopes produced >in the cyclotron to the main campus for biology >and medical uses. It should not come as a >surprise to anyone that I still work in moving >things and people through underground tunnels ???? > >Tim N3QE

6 years, 9 months

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