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

by gtoal＠gtoal.com

On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 at 22:54:55 Gordon JC Pearce <gordon at gjcp.net> wrote: > On Thu, 2007-03-15 at 16:09 -0500, Graham Toal wrote: > > I've run out of address to try for Fred van Kempen... > > > > does anyone have an idea where he is nowadays? I know he dropped > > off the net once before, and I'm afraid he may have done so > > again. Unfortunately he has an old PDP11 disk of ours and I > > need to talk to him to decide what to do about it. Email me > > his current address please, or pass on to him that I'm trying > > to contact him please, if you're in touch with him. > > We were discussing this in the IRC channel recently. I don't know what > became of the attempts to contact him. > > > Thanks > > > > Graham Toal (Edinburgh Computer History Project) > If you're stuck for PDP11ish bits, I'm just a short drive along the M8 from you ;-) > Gordon I wouldn't bet on that :-) I'm actually based in Edinburg, Texas; and the drive is wherever Fred is in the Netherlands. But it sounds like Henk is liable to bump into him tomorrow at the Hamfest, so we could be in luck. What I may be looking for, however, is someone to read a very old RK05 that hasn't been spun up in 30 years. And someone to bring it back from .NL. (My old Dad took it over the first time on his bicycle! But he's had a small stroke since then and although he still cycles I wouldn't like to send him off on a long trip like that on his own again...) Graham

19 years, 5 months

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Outbound Laptop

by northerndancer2000＠mac.com

Hi: I got your name when I googled Outbound laptop and for sale. Did you ever sell your Outbound? If you did, could you please tell me who you sold it to? Thanks. Jennifer

19 years, 5 months

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Austin, Texas Computerworks Goodwill

by trag＠io.com

>Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 15:33:46 -0400 >From: "Teo Zenios" <teoz at neo.rr.com> >I don't understand why people donate complete and working vintage machines >to places that just recycle them, why not offer them in the forums of >websites where people collect them or on freecycle or ebay? In many cases the older equipment which is donated comes from institutions or businesses which either have too many machines to handle on a one at a time basis, or just have no mechanism for giving to entities other than Goodwill or similar. Jeff Walther

19 years, 5 months

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Austin, Texas Computerworks Goodwill

by trag＠io.com

>Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 12:18:05 -0700 (PDT) >From: Chris M <chrism3667 at yahoo.com> > My advice is to make known to the folk in your >area (the area being as big as you're willing to >travel) that you salvage these items for donations and whatnot. That might work at stores other than Goodwill ComputerWorks. There have been times when I could *see* older machines in the back sorting area. I asked the clerks if they ever get any of 'X' and they say no. I have done this multiple times including with the manager at the store. They have no interest in fulfilling requests. For some reason they are bound and determined to only sell newer stuff even when they have a customer standing in the store and the items in the sorting area. Jeff Walther

19 years, 5 months

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old terminals...

by jwest＠ezwind.net

Ya know... this recent talk of terminals got me thinking..... It would be a good idea IMHO to preserve the functionality of all these classic old terminals. After all, sooner or later the real ones will disappear or at least stop working. After all, some systems are picky about only working with certain terminals (or some only work WELL with certain terminals)... Then I started thinking... most modernish "good" terminal emulation packages don't support all the old venerable classics. Sure, many do VT100 (sort of). But when was the last time you saw a terminal emulation package that faithfully reproduced a beehive minibee? Or a Heath H19? I think it might be helpful for the future if there was a "collectors" terminal emulation program that really did strive to get emulations for all the old terminals, and get it dead right. I know it'd be nice to have one emulator for my systems that "did the right thing(tm)" on my HP mini's, my DECs, DGs, and my Heathkits, GA Zebras, TI990's, etc. etc. all with one program. Instead I have to have many different terminal emulation programs (because one that does HP2624 emulation wont do my TI terminal emulation...)... or the real thing (which of course I'd prefer). So then my unix-centric brain said... Oh, well, there's always termcap/terminfo. Surely that will document old terminals for posterity and future emulation. So I just popped in to my local copy of terminfo and sure enough, there's even an entry for the beehive minibee and superbee. BUT... I then noted the comments that say "hey, this termcap entry is pretty wrong and doesn't work right". So relying on terminfo for preservation is probably not a great idea. But it's a start. Just thinking out loud... would be nice to have a terminal emulation program that was easily extensible for any terminal, already had all the ones defined that we here are familiar with... and ran on everything from MS/DOS to Vista to *nix. A classiccmp'ers terminal emulator :) Maybe a good start would be those of us that have particular terminals at least going in and correcting the terminfo entries that are incorrect. Perhaps this is a silly idea and I just need my morning coffee! Jay West

19 years, 5 months

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cctech Digest, Vol 43, Issue 43

by marvin＠rain.org

> Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2007 12:19:29 +0000 (UTC) > box with the proper length loop. They worked, but were so dried out > from age/storage that the print wasn't any darker!! I even tried > drilling a small hole above the inkpad roller and squirting in some X- > stamper (handheld stamp) ink, but that didn't help much. > > So I've about given up on my 43, unless someone can tell me where to > get a ribbon that actually works! A re-inker works pretty well. Basically it is a device that applies new ink to the ribbon.

19 years, 5 months

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Austin, Texas Computerworks Goodwill

by trag＠io.com

>Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 13:57:40 -0500 >From: Jim Battle <frustum at pacbell.net> >I've had it with the Computerworks in Austin. Please let me rant; >nobody else will appreciate it. > > http://www.austingoodwill.org/crs/store%20locater%20pages/ComputerWorks.html > >When I moved to Austin a couple years ago, I had high hopes. > In >Austin (and San Antonio, and probably some other cities) Goodwill sends >all of their computer donations to a specialized goodwill, marketed as >"ComputerWorks"; the theory is that most goodwill's don't have skilled >employees to know what is interesting or not and how to price it; I >agree that is the case. > >The Austin Computerworks even has a vintage computer museum, so that led >me to believe the appreciated vintage computers. >Bzzt. Not so. >What makes this even more insidious is that when I go to the local run >of the mill goodwills and inquire about what they do with old computer >donations, they say they ship them to computer works to deal with them. > >So essentially it is a vintage computer magnet attached to a wood chipper. My main interest is in old Macintosh and clone machines. I mostly lost interest in the Computer Works store when it became obvious that they would no longer put anything older than a Beige G3 on the shelves. But just to rub it in, they keep a Macintosh 128K up on a top shelf in the sales area which is not for sale. Why display such a collectable, when they will never offer anything remotely similar for sale ever again? Before they changed locations they had a nice little collection of SE/30s on one of the top shelves. Before they changed policies, I picked up a PM9150, a bunch of old unobtainium NuBus cards, and similar bits and pieces. Now, phsssst. I flap my tongue and direct spittle in their general direction. Jeff Walther

19 years, 5 months

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teletype model 43 value (Richard)

by charlesmorris＠hughes.net

>From: Richard <legalize at xmission.com> >In article <m1HRzUm-000J1EC at p850ug1>, > ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes: > >> It uses an odd ribbon that is probably unobtanium now > > What's so odd about the ribbon? The ribbons aren't impossible to obtain but not everyone carries them. Usual quantity is at least a box of five. I think I already posted this (check the archives), but I'll recap briefly for those interested: Last year I bought a nice 43 in a transit case. Print was very light. So I ordered a box of five ribbons ($40+ with shipping) and promptly discovered that they had been made incorrectly (ribbon loop too long, so the ribbon was too slack and would not move across the re-ink roller during carriage return). After taking one apart, having a dialogue with the design engineer at Dataprint(?) and sending them for his inspection, he agreed that they were incorrectly made and sent me a new box with the proper length loop. They worked, but were so dried out >from age/storage that the print wasn't any darker!! I even tried drilling a small hole above the inkpad roller and squirting in some X- stamper (handheld stamp) ink, but that didn't help much. So I've about given up on my 43, unless someone can tell me where to get a ribbon that actually works! -Charles

19 years, 5 months

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cctech Digest, Vol 43, Issue 43

by charlesmorris＠hughes.net

>From: Richard <legalize at xmission.com> >In article <m1HRzUm-000J1EC at p850ug1>, > ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes: > >> It uses an odd ribbon that is probably unobtanium now > > What's so odd about the ribbon? The ribbons aren't impossible to obtain but not everyone carries them. Usual quantity is at least a box of five. I think I already posted this (check the archives), but I'll recap briefly for those interested: Last year I bought a nice 43 in a transit case. Print was very light. So I ordered a box of five ribbons ($40+ with shipping) and promptly discovered that they had been made incorrectly (ribbon loop too long, so the ribbon was too slack and would not move across the re-ink roller during carriage return). After taking one apart, having a dialogue with the design engineer at Dataprint(?) and sending them for his inspection, he agreed that they were incorrectly made and sent me a new box with the proper length loop. They worked, but were so dried out >from age/storage that the print wasn't any darker!! I even tried drilling a small hole above the inkpad roller and squirting in some X- stamper (handheld stamp) ink, but that didn't help much. So I've about given up on my 43, unless someone can tell me where to get a ribbon that actually works! -Charles

19 years, 5 months

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sparc powerlite

by silvercreekvalley＠yahoo.com

Hi, I'm using a sparc powerlite which is a sparc laptop and it works great in stand alone mode. However, when I use an external monitor (plugged into the back) the screen shakes significantly whenever there is disk activity. Its pretty major interference - any ideas as to what that might be - or if there is an easy cure (maybe replacing the HD?) Thanks Ian. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Need Mail bonding? Go to the Yahoo! Mail Q&A for great tips from Yahoo! Answers users. http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=list&sid=396546091

19 years, 5 months

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Data General DG/500 - Help

by g-wright＠att.net

-------------- Original message ---------------------- From: Robert Borsuk <rborsuk at colourfull.com> > > Hi All, > I just got in a Data General DG/500 (this is the PC style computer > based on the microEclipse chip set). > Unforturnately, no docs or software can with the unit. Does anyone > have any info on this unit, or can > point me in the right direction. Even the connectors on the back are > non-standard. > > Thanks > Rob > > > Robert Borsuk > rborsuk at colourfull.com > -- > (\__/) > (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your > (")_(") signature to help him gain world domination. > > I have the same problems here but did get some of the manuals >from bruce @ "Nova's are Forever" He does read this list and sends links if he has time. I can E-mial what I have if needed. I did figure out the pin-outs for the connections on the back. Have not been able to locate the cables or the OS tapes. - Jerry Jerry Wright

19 years, 5 months

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ftp archives disappearing?

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 17:35:19 -0400 From: Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> Subject: Re: ftp archives disappearing? <snippage> ... >The massive influx of clueless morons has changed the >Internet considerably, to be sure, but the core of what it was is >still there and still works just fine, IF you choose to make use of it. -------- Well, I think that the biggest change, at least in a negative sense, is the malware and security problems so prevalent today, and in my opinion many of the people ultimately responsible for the trojans and virii and keeping the spam ahead of the filters are not clueless morons at all. In fact, they're probably a lot like you, computer literate, elitist and contemptuous of anyone who chooses to invest his or her time and intelligence in areas other than the arcane intricacies of computers and just uses them as tools (and runs Microsoft software of course ;-). ===================== On Mar 14, 2007, at 12:44 PM, Jules Richardson wrote: >> (I had exactly the same issues with VCRs the other day - they're >> still useful *to me*, but planet-wide they're dead as a dodo, >> superseded by DVD and PVR technology, so I had to bite my tongue >> when someone declared them obsolete :-) Dave: > Indeed, I know how you feel...the same thing happens to me with a >few things that I use that just happen to be "not new" (which, to the >99% of our society that doesn't think, now means "old"). Jules: >> [and there's a real danger with people confusing obsolescence with >> "no longer any good" - to my mind they're often totally different >> things] Dave: > Yes, that is infuriating. I emailed a question to the >manufacturer of a piece of test equipment that I have here, and the >response was "that product is obsolete". Well that's interesting...I >use it every day, it works great, and the company hasn't released >anything better since then. > Despite what corporations seem to think, true obsolescence is >determined by the USERS and the CUSTOMERS, not the vendors. There's >a big, big difference between "this is obsolete" and "we'd like to >sell you something different now". > Now, of course there's the matter of unreasonably expecting a >company to spend the resources to support a product long after it has >been discontinued. But again, that's not "that product is obsolete", >that's "we don't make that product anymore and we can't spend the >resources to support it". BIG difference. > Infuriating. > -Dave ----------------------------------- Sorry to hear that the word "obsolete" troubles you both so. As one of the 99% that (in Dave's opinion) doesn't think, I'd certainly consider something that's no longer manufactured or supported "obsolete" and, in comparison with something new, even "old." Whether it's still useful or, like Tony, you or I accept or even prefer its limitations in the current context and continue to use an AT to browse the 'Web is not really relevant. Sorry to say, it's the rest of us who prefer the convenience and extra features of DVDs & PVRs and enjoy full colour and motion video and audio on the 'Web (and of course the manufacturers who give us what we want) who decide what's obsolete. And you should be grateful: if DECs, HPs etc. weren't considered obsolete you probably wouldn't be able to afford 'em. And Jules, the next time someone you know buys a DVD player to replace that "obsolete" VCR, instead of biting your tongue just take the VCR off their hands and smile because you just got a free spare. m

19 years, 5 months

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ftp archives disappearing?

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

Dave McGuire wrote: Yes, that is infuriating. I emailed a question to the manufacturer of a piece of test equipment that I have here, and the response was "that product is obsolete". Well that's interesting...I use it every day, it works great, and the company hasn't released anything better since then. Despite what corporations seem to think, true obsolescence is determined by the USERS and the CUSTOMERS, not the vendors. There's a big, big difference between "this is obsolete" and "we'd like to sell you something different now". Now, of course there's the matter of unreasonably expecting a company to spend the resources to support a product long after it has been discontinued. But again, that's not "that product is obsolete", that's "we don't make that product anymore and we can't spend the resources to support it". BIG difference. Infuriating. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL Billy: I agree that "obsolete" has different meanings for different people. For you, if it still functions, then it is not obsolete. So a model A is not obsolete because it still works. But for a manufacturer, more than just supporting a product - does it still generate revenue? That is what "works" means to a business. The product may be great, it may last for 50 years. But if it doesn't generate revenue, it is obsolete. You look for functionality - OEMs look for revenue. Obsolete then has multiple meanings depending on your viewpoint. I consider the Apple II obsolete - yet my machine still works great. I think you are saying that to you, the Apple II is not obsolete. By your criteria, is there ANY machine, computer or otherwise, that is obsolete? Can you give us an example or two of an obsolete machine? This is of great interest to me, because I'm in the middle of a new market (TVs with hard drives). All hard drives made today are regarded by the manufacturers as obsolete after 5 years max. (The parts are no longer made, the interface is different, the tooling is gone, etc.) There is no PRACTICAL way to extend the obsolescent point and still stay in business. But TVs are expected to have a normal life of 15 years before becoming obsolete (in the eyes of the industry, not the user). It's a big dilemma for us. Billy

19 years, 5 months

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ftp archives disappearing

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

? Ethan Dicks wrote: On 3/14/07, Billy Pettit <Billy.Pettit at wdc.com <http://www.classiccmp.org/mailman/listinfo/cctalk> > wrote: > But TVs are expected to have a normal life of 15 years before becoming > obsolete (in the eyes of the industry, not the user). It's a big dilemma > for us. Try buying an analog (non-HD) TV and trying to get 15 years out of it in the US. It'll make a fine monitor for a cable box or a DVD player or a VCR, but it won't work as a TV after 2009. Would that not be "obsolete" well before 15 years? -ethan To me, certainly. But then I regard any analog TV as obsolete already, even if it is still in production. And I don't know anybody trying to put a hard drive in an analog TV. It really serves no useful purpose. Billy

19 years, 5 months

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Philips Micom 2001 in Rochester NY - pick-up only

by tosteve＠yahoo.com

Do not respond to me, please contact townmike at yahoo.com if interested. ------------------------------------------------ > Dear Sir or Madam: > > I have a Philips Micom 2001 that I no longer need > and I am wondering if you know someone who could use > it. I don't want to simply throw it away. I have > the operating software and the manuals, as well as > the printer that came with it. Everything worked > the last time that I used it. I don't have the two > countertops, but I may be able to get them. > > The computer is in Rochester, NY, USA. > > Please contact me if you know of someone who would > like this computer system. > > Thank you - townmike at yahoo.com > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Finding fabulous fares is fun. Let Yahoo! FareChase search your favorite travel sites to find flight and hotel bargains. http://farechase.yahoo.com/promo-generic-14795097

19 years, 5 months

1
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Darkhorse Systems SIMM tester

by doc＠mdrconsult.com

Does anyone have a manual for the Darkhorse Systems, Inc. SIGMA LC SIMM tester? Specifically, I'm most interested in the "COMM" port. What's the pinout, what's the protocol, and what are the speed/stop-bit/parity settings? Is it for attaching to a printer only, or can I connect it to a computer? Thanks! Doc

19 years, 5 months

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Introduction And Questions About Media Preservation? "MostlyDecStuff"

by fsmith＠ladylinux.com

On Thursday 15 March 2007 03:01:05 am cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: Dwight Wrote .. > There is at least one SA851 on eBay right now. One also > just sold for about $30. Yep I have my eyes on a couple. I am loathe to pay 30.00 for a untested drive though. -- Kindest Regards, Francesca Smith "No Problems Only Solutions" Lady Linux Internet Services Baltimore, Maryland 21217

19 years, 5 months

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SWTPC craze

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

Richard wrote: Dude. 10 years ago I don't know if this "hobby" was on anyone's radar. Did ebay even exist 10 years ago? At any rate, 10 years seems like such a long time for this hobby that I don't know how you could compare 10 years ago to now. Billy writes: Oh come on! SWTPC kits were all the rage 30 years ago. Ever see one of their calculators? Ever use a KIM or SYM? 10 years is for the newbies to the hobby. Long before eBay, we had Ham Fests, fleas markets, government auctions, bankruptcy sales, etc. Some very serious scrounging and repairing took place. Maybe there were no terminals in mile high piles. But we sought out Teletypes, Flexowriters, Dura Machines, etc. I guess it hinges on what you mean by "hobby". Before the 1975 Mark 8 article, there were clubs around the US and England for homebrew computers. Most used TTL. Many had home made ROMS made from diode arrays. Quite a few copied instruction sets from DEC, DG so they could use the software. But these were true computers and true computer hobbyists. If you were extremely lucky, you found an entire computer. My first PDP-8 was dropped off a truck and sold by the pound by the insurance company. This was well before microprocessors were available. My first home built used DTL logic and serial shift registers for memory, circa 1965. And I had several friends who also were active computer hobbyists and built their own designs. Okay, so we're old farts and now that the dinosaurs went extent, we don't count as part of the hobby any more. But dammit, 10 years is nothing. I know a few other survivors who have been playing with home computers for 50 years! Billy

19 years, 5 months

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11/45 progress

by jwest＠ezwind.net

A darlington (Q1) and a zener (D3) later... and my +15v (as well as -15v) has returned to the requisite spots on the backplane. Thanks a TON for the schematics Christian & Al, extra thanks to Al for the entire 11/45 printset!! Oh, and Tony, the description of the power supply circuit and test points was most helpfull. Thank you! I understand the supply itself, but I'm not sure I understand the control circuits just after the darlington that will shut it down. The machine now springs to life and passes all the front panel tests I would normally do. I did manual store/recall of various patterns in core. "clr pc" in loc 0 loops as does "br ." in any location. The box also passes a trap catcher program. Lastly, it passes a memory address test (puts the address of each memory location in each memory location and then verifies). Next I would like a way to test interrupts in this minimal configuration (that was where the problem was before, no matter what device interrupted it would always trap to the same address). I would assume I have to put something like an M7856 in next in order to test this. Sound like a reasonable next step? Remember, in the config I have right now I've just got 3 quad SPC slots... hex cards are not an option (yet). On another note... the power control board (5409730) was well... really poorly soldered. I'm not an expert solderer, but those joints looked awfull. Not to mention I had a difficult time getting any of the old solder to be absorbed by my solderwick. Is this a characteristic of old solder? My iron was at 750f, I'd think that'd be plenty (it is for my own new solder). Thanks for the input folks! Jay West

19 years, 5 months

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SWTPC craze

by legalize＠xmission.com

Clearly SWTPC is a brand that is just as desirable as CompuColor. ebay Item # 190088674069 CT-64 terminal with minor case damage and no matching monitor. 12 bids, closed at $625.25 Another item out of my price range... I had to fight really hard to get my Cromemco Beehive -- I imagine the Cromemco OEM label is the only thing that kept it out of the scrappers hands. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

19 years, 5 months

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the Tandy 2000 and GIFs

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

according to this: http://www.preterhuman.net/texts/computing/general/format.txt there is a program by which the T2K can display gif images. The only graphics package (besides Autocad) that was graphics oriented was Lumena, and that was so old I sincerely doubt gifs were around then. If anyone happens to know if this is true, please inform. That site seems to have a number of text files archived, some possibly vintage oriented. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Bored stiff? Loosen up... Download and play hundreds of games for free on Yahoo! Games. http://games.yahoo.com/games/front

19 years, 5 months

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ftp archives disappearing

by blstuart＠bellsouth.net

> From: Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> > Yeah, and I just ran a Nessus scan against a web server at work, > and it recommended that I close port 80 because it's a potential > security risk. The only way the data on a machine is 100% secure is > if the machine is disconnected from the network, powered off, and > sitting in a closet. If one requires more usefulness than that > configuration provides, there is going to be some element of risk. > There's just no way around it. "It is easy to run a secure computer system. You merely have to disconnect all dial-up [network] connections and permit only direct-wired terminals, put the machine and its terminals in a shielded room, and post a guard at the door. - F.T. Gramp and R.H. Morris BLS

19 years, 5 months

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OSI networking (was Re: FTP)

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

Andrew Back wrote: > I vote we dispense with both, set up an FTAM responder, build an OSI > network, and bury this pesky Internet. This is sort-of like taking the most virulent strain of smallpox there is, bottling it up, and then deciding what to do with it. Some things were cool and are worth saving and continuing to use. Certainly talk, finger, etc., all the wonderfully simple TCP/IP services fall into this category. Other things (OSI networking and its implementation in DECNET Phase V) should be preserved in the computer industry's equivalent of the Holocaust Museum, or the CDC's smallpox samples, lest we ever forget. They literally sucked and wasted billions of dollars of otherwise useful effort from projects that could've used creativity and simplicity rather than seven layers of crappy beauracracy on crappy beauracracy. Tim.

19 years, 5 months

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ftp archives disappearing?

by legalize＠xmission.com

Has anyone else noticed that ftp search services like archie seem to have disappeared, that the content on ftp sites isn't indexed by google very well and that large software archives seem to be disappearing? Try searching for old copies of fractint and they are hard to find, even though they were everywhere as recently as 10 years ago. What's happened to FTP? Should we be working to archive large FTP software repositories? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

19 years, 5 months

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UNIX 'file' command (was Re: PDP-11/40 videos)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 3/15/07, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote: > Try this experiment on pretty much any UNIX-likesystem: > > apophis$ cat > foo.txt > GIF89a is a half-decent file format. > apophis$ file foo.txt > foo.txt: GIF file, v89 Nice demo. I already knew about how file works, how the "database" is structured, and I've even tweaked it once or twice to handle new files (Infocom game files, FWIW ;-), but I'd never tried a simple little thing like that. I can see how it would work, but it just never occurred to me to try that. -ethan (who uses 'file' several times a week)

19 years, 5 months

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Upgraded my VAXstation 3520...

by technobug＠comcast.net

On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 00:36:59 -0400, Patrick Finnegan <pat at computer- refuge.org> wrote: > The VAXstation 3520 (and 3540) are dual and quad processor pedestal > vaxes > (BA213-sized chassis) that DEC breifly tried to sell, with a weird > (only > used on those models) processor/memory bus called the "M bus". I was > hoping that I could get more than 4 CPUs to function in the > machine, and > after a lot of effort (module order did matter!), I got some > encouraging > results. I bet no one else here can claim that they've got a > "VAXserver > 3560"... [...hack...] Okay, you have my interest. I assumed you sacrificed the graphics card slots for the additional CPU and memory. Pray tell the order. I'm running a 3540 with the second box kept as running spares less the processors and memory. At one time, after one beer too many, I had thoughts of repopulating my second box to a 3540 level and building a M-buss extender to come up with a 3580. However, the hangover and the light of day squashed those thoughts :-)) CRC

19 years, 5 months

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ADDS terminal trash talk

by spectre＠floodgap.com

So, Jay and Richard, er, Bidder 6 and Bidder 1, are you guys going to put down some real money on that ADDS terminal or just dance around all night? ;) (noticing the back and forth on the top of the bidder list) -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Apparently I am not very good at being tricky. -- John Hughes --------------

19 years, 5 months

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Data General DG/500 - Help

by rborsuk＠colourfull.com

Hi All, I just got in a Data General DG/500 (this is the PC style computer based on the microEclipse chip set). Unforturnately, no docs or software can with the unit. Does anyone have any info on this unit, or can point me in the right direction. Even the connectors on the back are non-standard. Thanks Rob Robert Borsuk rborsuk at colourfull.com -- (\__/) (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your (")_(") signature to help him gain world domination.

19 years, 5 months

1
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Vintage terminals (was Re: PDP-11 available in New Zealand

by ken＠seefried.com

>From: der Mouse <mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > >>>>> See ftp.rodents.montreal.qc.ca:/mouse/X/mterm.src/ [...]. >> I will grab mterm and check it out. > >Do please let me know if you have any problems with it (this applies to >anyone else interested in mterm, too, which is why the post to the >list). It hasn't been built on that many systems other than my own.... > I used mterm *ages* ago, and it worked well. I *think* I got it to compile on SunOS 3 and a locally molested BSD 4.x on an VAX.

19 years, 5 months

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SWTPC craze

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: SWTPC craze > From: Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> > Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 03:04:44 -0400 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org> > >On Mar 14, 2007, at 10:37 AM, Jay West wrote: >> To which Richard replied.... >>> Dude. 10 years ago I don't know if this "hobby" was on anyone's >>> radar. >> I beg to differ. There's quite a few listmembers here that were >> active in the hobby 10+ years ago. I'm also certain there were a >> good number of people doing it well over 10 years ago that still >> aren't on this list. A relative newcomer to the hobby wouldn't >> usually be aware of this. Just because this list wasn't around 15 >> years ago doesn't mean there wasn't a lot of people collecting. > > >10 years ago, I was adopting and hacking on PDP-8 and PDP-11 >systems because it was fun, and I thought it was important to >understand and preserve the technology. I don't think I ever really >considered the notion of it being "a hobby" or any other structured, >labelable/quantifiable thing. I just *did* it, because I wanted to. >Just like today...except now it has a name. > > -Dave Wow! Ten years ago I'd been at it collecting that is for more than 20 years. So yes collecting computers is far older than that. DEC had a computer history collection in their MRO facility going back to before 1983. Allison

19 years, 5 months

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Imagedisk 1.15 posted

by dave06a＠dunfield.com

I've just posted an update to ImageDisk to my site. 1.15 includes the ability to have write/format operations pause so that you can manually change the TG43 line state. It also includes a couple of minor fixes to IMD, and some less minor fixes and enhancements to IMDV the new ImageDisk Viewer. I've also updated the source code archive with the latest of everything, including the viewer source code. Enjoy, Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html

19 years, 5 months

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Report on vintage "Programmer Electronnic Control" alias "RAF Tornado Computer"

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

> >>>>>> 13 Divide >>>>> HMMM, the command takes very long but the results are >>>>> very strange. I thought it might be some type of >>>>> random number generation by an irreducible polynomal, >>>>> but it is definitively not Divide. Maybe here is something >>>>> different or wrong with the microcode. >>>> This divides a signed DOUBLE LENGTH number in the A and Q registers >>>> by a signed memory operand. IIRC the A register gets the result and >>>> the Q register the remainder. >>> OK, I will verify this in the coming days. Now I >>> know what to look form but according to my records >>> the results of this command always have been junk. > > Did the experiment on the real unit: > > Memory operand had always value 0x003, executed > several of the (with index register zero at > the start) broken-divide: > > Akku before: 001 005 010 020 050 100 120 150 200 500 fff > Q before: fff 500 200 150 120 100 050 020 010 005 002 > > Akku after: 2ab d55 ff5 fe5 fb5 f05 ee5 eb5 e05 b05 d57 > Q after: 000 000 001 001 002 002 003 003 004 004 005 Hmm, difficult to spot a pattern, but then with these large 24 bit values you will be getting overflow when dividing by such a small number and try to fit the result into a 12 bit register. I would try with a much larger number as the memory operand, say 0x100. Another thing you can try is using the 12 order to do a multiply and then using the 13 order to do a divide by the same memory operand and see if you get anything like the numbers you started with. > > So honestly speaking I cannot see the system behind > these numbers ;-) In repeating the experiment I get > the same numbers. Changing the memory operand to > 0x234 I get the following: > > Akku after: 003 013 03b 075 123 3a1 415 4c5 743 f2f ffd > Q after: 000 000 001 001 002 002 003 003 004 004 005 > > So... ...big questionmark ... Ah that's better. Except I still can't see any pattern except that the Q register is counting up every other time. I wonder if it is doing one step in the division each time and you are supposed to loop and stop when Q reaches a certain value. This would improve maximum interrupt latency. But you say this order takes a long time. Maybe it is just broken as you thought. I'll see what I can come up with. > >>> "MTA - Move To Accu" is one of two "two-read-cycles" >>> instructions. Up to now I did not fugire out, what >>> the other instruction does with the data read. Do >>> you remember any "two-read" instructions in the Elliotts? >> Only the instruction I invented. The first word had the address of a > Hey, you where active in the design of these beasts! > Really great! So I am proud, that you join this > discussion so actively! > >> a call without lots of special literals. We reused /3 I think, anyway >> the original instruction was corrupt the Q Register with B-Line >> indexing, but B-Line indexing corrupted the Q register at the start >> of the instruction, so a totally useless opcode. > Interesting story! In my opinion and in modern > times using VHDL to implement everything into hardware > very easy, the true heroes are the people like you > who implemented microcode with the solder iron or > the hand wired type of core-ROM! Really great! Actually I was employed a junior programmer and eventually became responsible for the Coral 66 compiler and utility software for the 920. Later on I became a 'Senior Systems Engineer' and made some suggestions to the engineers here and there. I really learned about hardware as a hobby with my ICT1301 mainframe. After I left I designed interface cards for micros and my most complex hardware design was a NuBus card for the Macintosh which could transfer up to 64k of data to wide format Versatec Plotters at a million BYTES a second without any intervention from the CPU (i.e. by Direct Memory Access). While that was going on the CPU was imaging the next chunk of data to be sent. It had to be real time because if the plotter ran out of data it would stop and the liquid toner would soak into the paper and spoil the image. > >>>> I suspect the big plug is for the OMP (Operator's Monitor >>>> Panel), and >>> Some kind of blinking-light console? Something like >>> this exists for the Rolm 1666b, too. This would be >>> cool to have! ;-) >> Yes, but these were of course much rarer than the computers >> themselves. > > Sniff... > >> For a level 1 interrupt when the processor is on level 2, it stores >> the SCR in location 2, and the B in location 3. Then it loads the SCR >> from location zero and the B from location 1. > That is a clever concept and should be easy to detect. > So I will have to do some hardware work in supplying the > signals to the appropriate lines and than I will be > able to test this hypothesis. Good. > >>> BTW: Have there been timers on the Elliotts you >>> know about? >> Yes bit not within the CPU box. > Ah OK, so there is some kind of external data bus on the > Elliotts. In the case of PEC it consists of a multiplexed > open collector bus with a strobe line: address is > applied, than the strobe line is set low by the CPU. > Shortly afterwards address is removed by the CPU again > and the memory unit applies the data to the bus if > read is compite and signalizes this to the CPU. This > bus runs quite stable even with the 75cm of ribbon > cable of my setup attached to it. The shortest instructions > which read only onw word are executed within 1.2us > independent of the value of the index register. Yes the CPU and some memory was in one box and extra memory in others, and lots of peripherals too. Not commercial things of course, things like compasses, gyros, special digital radio receivers and transmitters, custom keyboards and vector and raster monitors, chart recorders and much more. > >> No, when I started working for Elliotts, all computers were out of my >> reach, but then I was offered an old mainframe (which originally cost >> 247,000 pounds, for scrap value, 150 pounds). It was built in 1962. I >> now have two of them in a barn at home. LOTS of lights and switches, >> each has a card reader, card punch, line printer and one has a paper >> tape reader and punch. Oh they both have drum stores and ten track >> magnetic tape. > Wow - that is a really great setup!!!! Do you > have got any photos???? How much space offered > the drum memory?? Recently I saw a card reader > in action at the cray-cyber.org and I know that > this is really great stuff!! A chap who used to be a service engineer on my computer many years ago contacted a while back and kindly agreed to help me bring my computer back into a useable state. He has a web site describing the project, and there are some pictures of him and my machine at http:// ict1301.co.uk/13010510.htm . The rotary switches can be used to put data into registers, including the three instruction registers, so you can enter programs from the keys if all else fails. The green squares have four indicators in each one, so can display one decimal digit (it is primarily a decimal machine, 12 digits * 4 bits) The machine can be run at full speed, or at three instructions per second, or at one instruction per keypress, or at three clock cycles per second or at one clock cycle per keypress. There are 6 tape decks see http://web.onetel.com/~rodritab/mtani.htm The bigger picture of a complete machine is here: http:// ict1301.co.uk/13012006.htm though it is actually a model and has the earlier one inch tape decks. An actual machine is the lower picture at : http:// www.milsom100.freeserve.co.uk/1301/1301f.htm Oh for all that space! I have two machines in less space they use for one. Mind you one of mine is not assembled. It makes taking pictures very difficult. Roger.

19 years, 5 months

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Classic computing as a hobby when rocks were still soft (was Re: SWTPC craze)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 3/14/07, Lyle Bickley <lbickley at bickleywest.com> wrote: > Count me in as an old fart as well... > > I had the following home/hobby computers: > > PDP-8/L in 1971 > PDP-8/I in 1972 Wow... those were relatively fresh, then. My recollection was that a PDP-8/L was $10K USD in 1967 or 1968. Any peripherals, or just TTY? > PDP-12 in 1975 Very nice. I've seen one up close, but never got to play. -ethan

19 years, 5 months

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Report on vintage "Programmer Electronnic Control" alias "RAF Tornado Computer"

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

> >>> not know how long development of such an aircraft takes but >>> the first take-off was in 1974 I think, so this would match >>> the design of this box wuite well - what do you think? >> Aircraft development takes a long long time. To make it worthwhile >> the aircraft has a long service life. Whilst the computers are bullet >> proof in an office/home, the temperature extremes, vibration, high G >> forces etc in service means that many failures occur and PCBs could >> be replaced many times over the years, so do not pay too much notice >> of the dates on components of the boards currently installed. > OK, I understand this. I do not know much about these > issues, but on the internet often the COTS strategy > is mentioned and in using standard components, I think > moderen aircraft swap technology more often than was done > in the 60s and 70s, right? I am no longer in the Avionics field so I don't know anything about modern practice. > >> There were at least four 12 bit versions, and one 13 bit apparently. >> Then 12 bit models were the 902, 102C, ARCH 105 and Minim or 12/12. > Thank you - I will try to find information on the > web in the next days. Compared to the Elliott machines > the DECs are very common stuff ;-) I doubt you will find much apart from the names in timelines. Specialised machine will always be rarer than general purpose ones. The design considerations for a harsh environment plus the need to save weight means much more expense, so they are not affordable for normal use. Every extra Kg in the Avionics adds a lot to the overall takeoff weight. For a helicopter, I think the ratio was somewhere around six. Then there's the power, every extra watt needs bigger alternators/generators and a bigger engine to drive them, and more fuel to carry, which means more engine power and so on. > >>> Yes, that matches - the core memory module already has the >>> label GEC. So this is (as I suspected) older than the CPU and >>> taken maybe from a different design?! >> You have it the wrong way around. The GEC name replaced the Marconi >> name, which had earlier replaced Elliott. Core memory was very > Thank you for this hint. I checked wikipedia and obviously > GEC got involved very early and the name was changed to GEC > later (1984). Sorry for my misunderstanding, now I got it. > >> convenient for military applications and was in use long after it was >> replaced in commercial applications. Think of a missile or torpedo >> held in stock for many years, stick a power plug into it and program >> the target, pull out the plug and then launch it. Only then does the >> internal power supply come up, the processor boots up and does its >> thing. > The internet claimes sometimes, that core memory is less sensitive > to radiation, too. This might have been an advantage in certain > military applications (really bad applications, honestly speaking). DEAD right! > Data retenttion of the core memory should be quite good, > but since reading is always destructive, there is the > rist, that bad data gets written back. In the case of > Programmer Electronic Control, they did quite a lot > to adjust the core memory's dirver current automatically > according to a temerature measurement of the core. As > my experiments show, you have to reduce the current if > temperatuere goes up. This physically understandable > (1/T). My old mainframes also have a temperature sensor in the core store, and they are only allowed to be used in a narrow temperature band, about 10 to 30 degrees C. > >>>> bit 920s before moving on to the Zilog Z8001. >>> Hey, than you are a valuable expert on these - do you have >>> got any source of intormation about the 920s? >> Not directly but I may be able to help. > Hey, that is even better. I highly appreciate, that > you spend time in sharing your information! Thanks > a lot in advance! > >>> >>>> 9 Jump if negative >>> RIGHT - all three jumps are relative ones >> On the 18 bit machines these were relative to the start of the 8k >> memory module the instruction was in. An interesting modification. > In my case they are relative and you can jump > +/-127 words (crossing any border). Here again, the > box uses 1complement and thus jump 0x00 is the same > as jump 0x80: An infinite loop! If 0x00 is the same as 0x80, then it is not one's complement. Sounds like sign/absolute. In ones complement, the two representations of zero are all zeroes and all ones. On the 920, a jump to itself was referred to as a 'Dynamic Stop', and was the standard was to stop the computer as there is no stop instruction. I try to avoid doing it on my mainframes as continually accessing the same word in core might make it overheat. > >>>> 11 Store program counter (for function return) >>> SIMILAR - This stores PC and then does a >>> table jump >> On the 18 bit machines, it actually stored the program counter + 1 >> and the following instruction was either an 8 or a "/8", i.e. 24. > Hmm, I do not understand fully what you mean by "the following > instruction was either an 8 or a "/8", i.e. 24". In 920 assembler, instructions did not have mnemonics, you used their decimal operation code values. To indicate 'B Line modification' in the assembler you wrote a / before the operation code. The assembler simply added 16 to the opcode, so /8 = 24, but you don't have the B-Line bit on your machine - its always on. > > The Programmer Electronic Control (Let's call it PEC in the future) > stores PC+1 (as your 18bit) to the specified location into > core. The new address is taken from the position in memory > where the index register points to. So in my case this is > a perfect table jump. Ah, so you do this ? 0 word with address of routine 11 link word > >>>> 12 Multiply >>> RIGHT, unsigned multiplication >> This should multiply the signed accumulator and the signed memory >> operand giving a double length result in the A and Q registers. > Results are as you mention, but if either operand is > negative, the result contains wrong values. But maybe > I check whether this depends on the content of the > index register prior to the operation... > >>>> 13 Divide >>> HMMM, the command takes very long but the results are >>> very strange. I thought it might be some type of >>> random number generation by an irreducible polynomal, >>> but it is definitively not Divide. Maybe here is something >>> different or wrong with the microcode. >> This divides a signed DOUBLE LENGTH number in the A and Q registers >> by a signed memory operand. IIRC the A register gets the result and >> the Q register the remainder. > OK, I will verify this in the coming days. Now I > know what to look form but according to my records > the results of this command always have been junk. > >>>> 14 Shift >>> In PART: Here exist many subgroups of commands including >>> shift left/right. Also the Q as you call it can be transferred >>> to Accu and vice versa. There als is a MTA (MoveToAccu as I >>> call it) >>> which is a two-word instruction (most others are one-word) and >>> transfers the word following this command into Accu. About >>> 16 bit patterns have (at least to me now) the same meaning in >>> this segment. >> Shifting by the entire word length does transfer Q to A or A to Q > Right. But here again, the bit 11 is the sign bit and > thus the shift does not affect the bit 11 of the > destination. I.e. bit 0 of A is moved to bit 10 of Q > in shifting right for example. I see. The Q register was always a bit weird. > >> (but the data disappears from the source). A load immediate >> instruction would have been very handy. > Yes, the load immediate is really nice. A block > move does not exist on PEC. Essentially the immediate > "MTA - Move To Accu" is one of two "two-read-cycles" > instructions. Up to now I did not fugire out, what > the other instruction does with the data read. Do > you remember any "two-read" instructions in the Elliotts? Only the instruction I invented. The first word had the address of a link word (in page 0) and the whole second word was the address of where to jump to. So this was convenient for the compile to generate a call without lots of special literals. We reused /3 I think, anyway the original instruction was corrupt the Q Register with B-Line indexing, but B-Line indexing corrupted the Q register at the start of the instruction, so a totally useless opcode. > >> orders were encoded in the 14 order on the 12 bit machines with only >> 256 numbers available compared with 8k on the 18 bitters. > Yes, this seems to be absolutely correct! > >>>> 15 Input/Output and special (like interrupt return) >>>> 16 to 31, as above but indexed by B register. >>> >>> NOPE - The box is 12-bit and does not have got this block. >>> EVERYTHING is done via the index register I as I called it. >> >> Do you mean you cannot turn the B-register modification off? > Correct: Everything is modified by the index register. > Exceptions are the jumps, MTA for example. > >> Does it get cleared automatically somehow? > You are clever - that is exactly what appens: > Every instruction which is affected by this > register (ADD, SUB, LDA, STA, ...) clear > the register. So you have to load it right before > each instruction. A severe constraint in my > opinion is, that the index register can only > be loaded from words 0-127 in the lower 4k. So > this might be a bottleneck in memory since the > table jump (I called it IDXCALL since it used > the index register to get ne new address from) > requires memory for each routine called, too. > >>> perhaps studying the Elliot would help to solve the remaining >>> problems??!?!?!! >> I am willing to try. > Great! T H A N K S a L O T! > >> By the way, there are two 't's in Elliott. > Thanks - is stored into my brain now ;-) > > >>>> bootstrap, in later versions, this was just copied into core >>>> when the >>>> machine was initialised. >>> Interesting. The Programmer Electronic Control starts execution >>> at 0x0a0 after reset. >> Could it be that there is a value of 0x0A0 at location 0? > No, if the machine is held in reset state, > the PC is forced to 0x0a0 since the reset line > is connected to the Set/Clear pins of the flip-flops > making the program counter. Immediately after reset > is set high, the first word is read and executed > from this address. > >>> But of course the application was different >>> and the operation software was completely loaded via the big plug >>> boefore operation. >> I suspect the big plug is for the OMP (Operator's Monitor Panel), and > Some kind of blinking-light console? Something like > this exists for the Rolm 1666b, too. This would be > cool to have! ;-) Yes, but these were of course much rarer than the computers themselves. > >> yes the program would be loaded via this once, probably in the >> factory or at a maintenance depot, and the machine would probably be >> rebooted many times afterwards. > If data gets corrupted, than the complete aircraft has > to return to a maintenance depot for reprogramming > the machine? So if there are 10 or 20 of these boxes in > one aircraft, they need service quite often I think. > Roger, how was your experience - was this reliable with > the Elliotts or did you have to reporgram the pater tape > loader quite often? > > In my case, the transputer setup generates some spikes > doring it bootup. If PEC is already turned on, this > corrupts the data in core memory. So I always do a > memory-test on PEC after turn on (to adjust the core > driver current) and than freshly program my test > routines. > >> The 920 was unusual in that it booted into the highest level >> interrupt, level 1, so no interrupts will be serviced until you go >> down an interrupt level or two or three. > So 15 7168 increases the interrupt level and > after executing this once, the interrupt 1 can be > serviced, right? Thats it. > > What happens in the Elliott, if an interrupt occurs? > Is there a jump to a certain address in core or is the > new program counter itself read from core? For a level 1 interrupt when the processor is on level 2, it stores the SCR in location 2, and the B in location 3. Then it loads the SCR >from location zero and the B from location 1. > > I have to think how to figure this out for PEC.... Of > course I have to apply signals to all possible interrupt > sources, load a program trying the yet unknown instructions > and watch wheter any irregularities or jumps occur. I will > have to trap PEC if the idle-loop is left. This is a bigger > project and I will need some weeks to check this. > >> The 15 order is coded thus: >> >> 15 0 to 2047 Input >> 15 2048 Shift A register left 7 places and OR in a character >> from the >> paper tape reader (via OMP) >> 15 2052 (IIRC) Wait until character pressed on teletype and >> read into >> A register (via OMP) >> 15 4096 to 6143 Output >> 15 6144 Output character to paper tape punch (via OMP) >> 15 6148 Output character to teletype (via OMP) if I remember >> correctly >> 15 7168 Terminate current program level i.e. return from >> interrupt >> 15 7169 Test if standardised IIRC, skip the next instruction >> if the >> accumulator is zero or top two bits are different >> 15 7170 Increment B and skip the next instruction if bottom >> 13 bits >> are zero >> 15 7171 Read the value of the control keys on the OMP >> 15 7172 Move l.s. 17 bits of A to the m.s. 17 bits of Q. >> Bottom bit >> of Q is zeroed >> 15 7173 Move m.s. 17 bits of Q to l.s. 17 bits of A. Top bit >> of A is >> zeroed >> 15 7174 Move A to B >> 15 7175 Move B to A >> 15 7176 Set relative addressing mode >> 15 7177 Set absolute addressing mode > > Thank you very much for this list. This gives me > valuable hints and ideas what to try out next. > > BTW: Have there been timers on the Elliotts you > know about? Yes bit not within the CPU box. > > Since you are such an expert I am sure you > have a nice collection of vintage hardware, > right? Perhaps you even have got an Elliott > up and running? No, when I started working for Elliotts, all computers were out of my reach, but then I was offered an old mainframe (which originally cost 247,000 pounds, for scrap value, 150 pounds). It was built in 1962. I now have two of them in a barn at home. LOTS of lights and switches, each has a card reader, card punch, line printer and one has a paper tape reader and punch. Oh they both have drum stores and ten track magnetic tape. Roger Holmes.

19 years, 5 months

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Upgraded my VAXstation 3520...

by pat＠computer-refuge.org

The VAXstation 3520 (and 3540) are dual and quad processor pedestal vaxes (BA213-sized chassis) that DEC breifly tried to sell, with a weird (only used on those models) processor/memory bus called the "M bus". I was hoping that I could get more than 4 CPUs to function in the machine, and after a lot of effort (module order did matter!), I got some encouraging results. I bet no one else here can claim that they've got a "VAXserver 3560"... ------------------------ KA60 V1.2 F..E..D..C..B..A..9..8..7..6..5..4..3..2..1..0 7 01010004 L2003 3 ? V1.3 1 SSC 00000001 2 DZ 00031200 ? 3 NI 19210770 ? 4 SCSI 00000901 5 SYS 00000001 Tests completed. 08-E1,P1 0B-E1,P1 0C-E1,P1 0F-E1,P1 14-E1,P1 17-E1,P1 08 <snipped OpenVMS 7.2 boot> $ show cpu VS3200, a VAXserver 3560 Multiprocessing is ENABLED. Streamlined synchronization image loaded. Minimum multiprocessing revision levels: CPU = 3 FBIC = 1. PRIMARY CPU = 08 Active CPUs: 08 11 12 15 20 23 Configured CPUs: 08 11 12 15 20 23 --------------------------------------------- Note that "VS3200" is the name of the system as the disk was supposed to go into a VAXstation 3200. Also, the system doesn't seem to be completely reliable in bringing up all 6 processors, but that may be related to a firmware version mis-match between processor boards (and/or timing issues when you've got 3 CPU boards). I set out to try to do this 3 years ago now, and finally have managed to obtain enough spare parts (via ebay) to try it out. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org

19 years, 5 months

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Introduction And Questions About Media Preservation "MostlyDecStuff"

by fsmith＠ladylinux.com

On Tuesday 13 March 2007 12:47:04 pm cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: Dwight Wrote .. > Are you looking for single sided or double sided? If single sided, > the SA800's that were on ebay should work fine. If double sided, > you'll need that SA851. These have two heads. > If your connector is a 50 pin, you need a the SA800 and SA851's. > The SA900's have a 44 pin edge connector but are otherwise > similar to the 800's. Double sided would be preferred since It would be more flexible in the long run. Although I could get by with a single sided drive if I had to. I will read up on this. I have come across some tables of the differences of each type of 8 inch drive but nothing all encompassing enough to give me a good decision. -- Kindest Regards, Francesca Smith "No Problems Only Solutions" Lady Linux Internet Services Baltimore, Maryland 21217

19 years, 5 months

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trying to think of a terminal brand

by spectre＠floodgap.com

The ADDS auction made me try to remember the serial terminals (connected via Xylogics Annexes) that I used at UC San Diego. There were two: big boxy green ones sitting under H&SS lecture hall, and then the orange screen ones in AP&M 2337. The green screen ones were good solid VT-100 emulation, with double height and width support, but not a whole lot else. They were all-in-one white units with black keys and a very boxy form factor. The orange screen ones could do Tektronix 4014 emulation and had a small configuration menu you could get at with the function keys. I seem to remember the model number having four digits in it, and they were grey with detached keyboards. Anyone have any idea what model terminals these were? -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Aibohphobia, the fear of palindromes. -- Brian Braunschweiger --------------

19 years, 5 months

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ftp archives disappearing?

by adamg＠pobox.com

The Internet used to have a number of useful features that it no longer does today -- for example, the finger and talk protocols. These protocols no longer exist on the Internet, mostly due to valid security reasons. As an example of how 'talk' differs from today's instant messaging systems, one time I was having trouble with some Internet site -- maybe their FTP server was down or something, I don't remember. I fingered the host, found an active user, and 'talk'ed him. He was happy to fill me in on what was up. You can't do that any more. And if you could, it would surely be abused into oblivion by spammers and phishers. Usenet, which is decentralized, requires no access credentials, and has a programmatic interface that allows for sophisticated filtering and offline reading, has largely been displaced by the network prisons known as web forums, which require a separate account for each forum, have a clunky and slow user interface, and are prone to vanishing when their operator loses interest. In general, Internet services which were designed to be accessed programmatically have been replaced with Web services which can only be used manually. On the other hand: HTTP actually isn't that bad as a replacement for FTP, except that uploads are much harder. There's also the problem of machine parsing the directory listings, but FTP had that problem too, to some extent. And the network itself is much faster and more reliable than it used to be. -- Adam

19 years, 5 months

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8" drive variations

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

As hinted at in another post a few days ago, I'd like to add an 8" drive (or possibly more than one if necessary) to my Imagedisk machine in order to be able to archive 8" media. My knowledge of 8" drives is practically non-existent, so what are the gotchas involved? Things like: Do 8" drives exist in both hard and soft sector variants? Is one far more common than the other (as with 5.25")? Do 8" drives exist with wildly different track counts (40, 77, 80 etc.) and again is any one particular flavour far more common than the others? Are there any problems with some particular drives that'll make interfacing them to a '765 type FDC more difficult? etc. etc. I suppose the real big question is: Is there a particular flavour (i.e. geometry and interface, not specific brand) of 8" drive I could use that will mean that I can read and write the majority of 8" floppies found in vintage hardware? That would at least seem like a good initial step, and I could worry about the minority formats later on. cheers Jules

19 years, 5 months

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ImageDisk Viewer

by dave06a＠dunfield.com

Necessity has been inventing again .... FYI, I have just added a new small utility to the ImageDisk package - this is called "ImageDisk Viewer" (IMDV). It is essentially a simple HEX editor that lets you easily poke through .IMD images with HEX displays accompanied by either ASCII or EBCDIC translations. Addtional features include the ability to search the image for specific strings, and to extract and view all printable strings from any arbirary location in the image (including scanning the whole image) - this is VERY handy when you are trying to figure what the heck a particular disk image contains. It's a simple viewer, but it's advantage over fancier dump utilities is that it knows about the .IMD format and can search/scan in the correct order for interleaved sectors (or not if you don't want), and scans/searches transparently across sector boundaries. If you have a reason too (or even if you don't), you can also use it to patch the content of individual sectors within the image (I take no responsibility...) Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html

19 years, 5 months

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Fwd: Featured Offer of the Month: Free FD100 Terminal!

by blstuart＠bellsouth.net

> Depends on your point of view. Absolutely. That's one of the great things about our hobby. There is enough variety of backgrounds and systems that almost every system can find a champion. I guess the Brother-type WPs fail to catch my attention because they're so much like other things I've designed or worked with. Of course, that doesn't mean I don't still have claim to the Brother we got my mother about 12 years ago. That sounded weird. Does that make it my uncle???? > The Brother floppies are interesting-- > 240K single-sided 80 (sometimes 40) track 3.5" SS2D using GCR. The > drives were really gutless wonders. IIRC, many were Z80/64180 based > systems. I've not tried to get CP/M running on one but it might well > be possible. Hmmm. There's an idea. Maybe there's more hack value than I had thought. BLS

19 years, 5 months

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Embedded devices vs "real" computers (was Re: Fwd: Featured Offer of the Month: Free FD100 Terminal!)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 3/14/07, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote: > Personally, I find little widgets with embedded processors > fascinating. <AOL> Me, too. </AOL> > Consider a credit-card terminal--it has a modem, > display, keyboard, can interface to a printer and most have some non- > volatile memory. The difference between many word processors and > general-purpose computers is one of nomenclature more than anything. > Yet no one's really interested in them. An old Artec, CPT or AES WP > box has the same basic components and vintage as most early > microcomputer systems, but no one's interested in collecting them. For me, at least, the difference is that a word processor or credit card terminal or a gas pump, or whatever, does what it does and is difficult to have it do something it was not designed to do. If it were possible to get developer-level documentation on the internals of said embedded devices, that might be something different entirely. The one class of devices like this that _is_ thoroughly explored is Internet/e-mail appliances like the Audrey, the WebPal, the iOpener, etc. Many of these, of course, are just Intel PCs with a UNIXy OS in FLASH ROM, but at least they are inexpensive enough and powerful enough to attract attention from the contemporary hardware hacker community. Older devices, while interesting in their own right, aren't as easy to come by, or, prior to the advertiser/subscription business model, were paid for by the end user, not heavily subsidized. ISTR IOpeners were costing the company $400 each, but were marketed at $99 (later $99 plus a mandatory 4 month sub.) For a 200MHz PC w/USB, 16MB Flash, 800x600 LCD, single-DC-voltage power (19VDC), $99 was a *scorching* price, so lots of hackers picked them up and figured out how to dump the OS and replace it with Linux or Windows (yes... people _did_ put Windows98 on them). For your money, you get a nice little toy that's easy to reverse engineer, and when you do, the machine becomes quite useful for a variety of applications. A used credit card terminal for $20 (or whatever the going rate is) can still be turned into something else, but it's not going to capture the attention of an army of curious hackers. I guess the other thing is... for as much work as it would be to delve the secrets of a credit card terminal, I can whip together an LCD display and a microcontroller for a few bucks and have 100% control over its innards. If I don't care to start from scratch, I can begin with any number of Atmel/LCD projects already out there (and I've done just that recently). At that point, the advantage of an existing CC terminal diminishes rapidly. It still has the benefit of being mass produced and potentially abundant, but anyone can order an ATtiny2313 for a couple of bucks and hang a 2x20 text LCD or a 128x64 graphic LCD off it and make it display some sensor input or whatever. The CC terminal has to have some pretty cool stuff in there to pull into the lead for a hardware project - I'd most likely gut the LCD and possibly keep the plastic case for some other project than hack the microcontroller that's already in there, and that's presuming it's not a mask-programmed part and that I can reflash the chip. So while I might not turn down a box of embedded devices like a credit card terminal, hacking a lone terminal isn't as appealing as building a similar device from scratch and knowing exactly how that new device works. As I said, though, having developers' docs might tip the balance, but the chances of that are rather low. -ethan

19 years, 5 months

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Fwd: Featured Offer of the Month: Free FD100 Terminal!

by blstuart＠bellsouth.net

> Form factor? Looks just like another "box with a monitor and > keyboard to me". The Sony SMC-70 of the same time was a lot smaller. > Could you be thinking of the PX-8? I may well be suffering bit rot. I thought that was the one that had a similar form factor to those Sharps that Radio Shack rebadged as the PC-1 and PC-2. (Of course those designations may also be the result of neurons going the way of dynamic RAM not refreshed fast enough.) At least in that space the Tandy Model 100 is a fairly interesting example. There weren't many like it and it clearly was a step toward the laptop. And one of its biggest applications was as a WP for reporters to prepare their stories in the field. The dedicated WPs that I was getting at were things like the Brothers that you could buy at Walmart 15 or 20 years ago. I'll agree that office systems in general from before say 1980 are in the realm of interesting. It's the high volume appliances that briefly supplanted typewriters that come to mind when I think of dedicated WPs, and I don't see much in them that's interesting. BLS

19 years, 5 months

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classiccmp.org operational costs?

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

Jay, Out of curiosity (and to the list in case others are interested), do you have an estimate for the yearly cost of providing classiccmp.org and all the services it provides? I gather you've got the ISP already, so presumably the infrastructure doesn't come into it - and likely the same with things like backup hardware (but not media) etc. as they'll already be in place for other non-classiccmp services. I think what I'm asking is, how much of "your" money do you put into it per year in order to provide the mailing list, hosting for those of us who have data on the classiccmp server(s) etc.? [is there just "a" classiccmp.org server, or is it all spread across several machines?] cheers Jules

19 years, 5 months

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Fwd: Featured Offer of the Month: Free FD100 Terminal!

by blstuart＠bellsouth.net

> That's mostly a matter of will. There were several interesting > applications (such as VEDIT) ported to the Displaywriter. That is a good point. The only argument that I'd have with it is that since so much of the software we'd find interesting was ported from general-purpose platforms, the particular machines aren't really a part of it. > As far as > architecture, an old AES 800 WP is about as exciting as architecture > of the time gets--a custom ECL CPU supported by several 8080's doing > the peripheral I/O. I'd love to own one of those. I would too. That's a good example of the exceptions. I guess I was thinking more of the later generation devices. So many of them were just Z80s or 80186s with pretty conventional video and disk controllers. Not really any different from many general-purpose designs of the era, but much less hackable. But as you point out, there are certainly gems to be found in every corner of the computing world. > And let's not forget that "computers" like the QX-10 weren't all that > far from being word processors, what with integrated Valdocs and > whatnot. But is it really the WP aspect that makes it interesting or the form factor as an evolutionary step to PDAs? I'd even suggest that there may have been something of an unholy marriage between those little things and the suitcase luggables that built the image of a laptop in some minds. BLS

19 years, 5 months

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Fwd: Featured Offer of the Month: Free FD100 Terminal!

by blstuart＠bellsouth.net

There are several element of the phenomenon that reduces the collectability of embedded devices and things like word processors. For context, here are the characteristics that, for me, make a machine interesting: interesting hardware design, interesting software design, ability to do something cool/geeky with it, and the influence it had on other designs. So with that in mind here's why I think we see the phenomena that Chuck describes. > Personally, I find little widgets with embedded processors > fascinating. I suspect a lot of the problem is that they often aren't really so little. Many embedded devices are pretty much just a board unless they're connected to some other hardware, which is often so large that it inhibits collectability. Of course, no one here would turn down an AGC regardless of whether it was connected to a spacecraft. But most embedded systems only go so far without the other hardware. > The difference between many word processors and > general-purpose computers is one of nomenclature more than anything. Personally, I think this is exactly why they aren't very interesting. Because they are so much like a general-purpose system, they don't have a particularly interesting hardware design, almost by definition. Their software is usually not particularly interesting either. But you are captive in that software. You can't really do anything interesting with them, except type letters. And for the most part, they didn't have much influence on the rest of computing. So, there's not much to draw me, or I suspect a lot of others, to them. As in all matters of opinion, YMMV. I certainly don't condemn anyone who does find those interesting and wants to collect them. For that matter, I do have a few embedded devices in my collection. But a lot of them are actually ones that I worked on in former lives. That's really why they're interesting to me. BLS

19 years, 5 months

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New version of LisaEm up for downloads

by ray＠arachelian.com

http://lisaem.sunder.net/downloads.html This includes OS X PPC, win32, Linux binaries, PDF documentation, as well as source code. I didn't get a chance to build the OS X Intel version, I'll do that tonight and post it up tomorrow. (Or you can just compile it yourself.) A ROM dumper will be available in about a week. (Thanks James!) Enjoy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ LisaEm Known current Bugs for 2007.03.14 version ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * Native printing is still broken * Serial port option TelnetD crashes/locks up * Skins on/off option sometimes needs to be forced. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lisa Emulator Change History http://lisaem.sunder.net/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2007.03.13 - found a fixed config bug: serial b options copied from port a. - added a switch to turn off power to the virtual Profile before power on. This allows you to prevent the boot ROM's Power on self test to automatically boot from the Profile. It's useful when you need to repair the Profile since it allows you to boot from "Lisa Office System 1/5" and then power on the Profile drive to repair the file system. 2007.03.11 - Proper BMP's are now generated for printing, conversion to PNG format works, but is a little bit off - background is gray, should be white as in paper white. - added command line ability to load preferences file when launching. i.e. ./lisaem ~ray/macworks.lisaem will open the macworks.lisaem preferences file from user ray's home. 2007.03.10 - getting closer on proper BMP generation for printing - added throttle setting to global preferences. - added ROM checksum failure warning on power on. If the ROM is broken, it can crash the emulator. 2007.03.09 - skins on/off added to Display menu. - found IW linefeed pixel bug (lack of initialization) 2007.03.08 - video modes are a bit smarter - if display size is too small, will refuse to change video modes and will instead switch to lower mode, or shut off skins. - re-enaled 2Y and 2X3Y video modes (skinless of course.) with checks for display size. - skin/less mode switch no longer requires restart of emulator. Extra space past display region is blackened to ameliorate window sizing bugs. - Preferences "Apply" button (was save in preview versions) closes Preferences window. 2007.03.06 - added skinless option (bug: size of window is too small/off). One blit less during skinless mode so it's a bit faster on older machines. - NMI key can be forced now. 2007.03.02 - Video mode, sound effects, asciikeyboard as globally saved prefs. - added Sound Effects checkbox. - debugging printing - somehow all pages show up black. 2007.03.01 - added NMI key to keyboard menu. 2007.02.28 - new IW code printouts sort of works. 2007.02.21 - Added Preferences panel for printer settings. 2007.02.20 - added size dialog box when creating profile (5/10MB, etc) 2007.02.18 - unified build.sh 2007.02.05 - I/O ROM version was getting clobbered by code in floppy.c to 0xA8 via a #define. 2007.02.03 - cheat_ram_test now a preference. - if starting without ROM, dialogbox is shown, then preferences are shown asking for config. - bug fix: after closing preferences, re-opening caused segfault. - finer speed control - much closer. 2007.02.02 - fixed floppy insert on power off - fixed floppy trapping on insert of non-DC42/bad disk image. - fixed "Clock is not set" dialog box - fixed ContrastTrails (linx/win32) 2007.02.01 - fixed raw kb entry - but CPU clock is still too fast. 2007.01.31 - fixed bug causing random crashes, mostly during LOS install. Was off-by-one array overflow related to ReDraw_* fn's.

19 years, 5 months

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SWTPC craze

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 07:40:29 -0600 From: Richard <legalize at xmission.com> Subject: Re: SWTPC craze In article <45F76433.87F015DD at cs.ubc.ca>, Brent Hilpert <hilpert at cs.ubc.ca> writes: <snip> ... >> I know you're interested in anything terminal, Richard, but I have to say >>from a strictly functional perspective you're not missing anything. >Yeah, I know, but people are clearly not bidding on this for the >functionality. Its the brand. >This can be a double eded sword. For instance, my Beehive terminal is >branded Cromemco and that's the *only* thing that kept it out of the >hands of the scrappers. Cromemco is a brand near and dear to people's >memories and Beehive is a "WTF is that?" brand (or worse, "what a >POS!" brand) to most people. ---------------- Good tip; I'm busy printing Cromemco stickers to put on my Falcos... ;-) mike

19 years, 5 months

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Value of a PDP/8?

by andy＠smokebelch.org

OK, so this is a pretty dumb question, but what is the 'value' of a typical PDP/8? Now I appreciate that configuration can vary wildly and beyond that it is a matter of one what can be located for or what your prepared to pay, luck and circumstance etc. In terms of basic model I was thinking either a Straight-8 or PDP8/E. Now I know only a few years ago a reseller had a number of the latter in stock, tested, for about 400 UK pounds each. Albeit likely with no peripherals, just the card cage and some sort of base config. I've always wanted to own an 8 and have recently been considering the idea of trading some less easy to run equipment. Cheers, Andrew ---------------- Andrew Back a at smokebelch.org

19 years, 5 months

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Fwd: Featured Offer of the Month: Free FD100 Terminal!

by hexstar＠gmail.com

Not sure if this is the right kind of terminal :P but I thought you guys might find this offer interesting... :-) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: WebProNews <webpronews at ientrynetwork.net> Date: Mar 9, 2007 9:15 AM Subject: Featured Offer of the Month: Free FD100 Terminal! To: hexstar at gmail.com [image: counter][image: counter] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This is a WebProNews Sponsor Update Please see the bottom of this mailing for subscription information. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Find out how you can get the FD100 Processing Terminal for FREE* - Click here for more information<http://aj.600z.com/aj/23363/0/cc?z=1&b=22970&c=23361> <http://aj.600z.com/aj/23363/0/cc?z=1&b=22970&c=23361> <http://aj.600z.com/aj/23363/0/cc?z=1&b=22970&c=23361> The First Data FD100 terminal accepts PIN-secured and signature debit cards, credit cards (including *American Express*(r),* Discover*(r), and *Diners Club*(r)), contactless reader payments, gift cards, and much, much more. *Click here for more information <http://aj.600z.com/aj/23363/0/cc?z=1&b=22970&c=23361>or call 1.800.426.6413.* *Benefits of the First Data FD100 Terminal Include:* ? Accepts all major bank and credit cards; debit cards; gift and loyalty cards; and checks using TeleCheck ECA or paperless solutions. ? Secure Internet Protocol (IP) capability with dial-up as connectivity backup. ? Quiet, fast printer for speed at checkout lines ? High speed capability for quick transactions ? Intuitive touch screen with 128 x 64 graphic LCD display ? Terminal and printer combination to keep infrastructure costs low ? 64 MB RAM standard memory allowing an average 1000 transactions before batching out terminal ? Access to on-line reporting 24 x 7 right from your PC <http://aj.600z.com/aj/23363/0/cc?z=1&b=22970&c=23361> Unsubscribe<http://attrack.ientrynetwork.net/CLK=1024083-13578967-297713191-21-22>from iEntry Mailings on behalf of FirstData. To unsubscribe from WebProNews regular editions or any other iEntry mailings send an email request to: support at ientry.com -- WebProNews <http://www.WebProNews.com> is an iEntry, Inc.<http://www.ientry.com>publication -- iEntry, Inc. 2549 Richmond Road, Lexington, KY 40509 (c) 2007 All Rights Reserved Privacy Policy<http://www.iEntry.com/page/corp/privacy.html> Legal <http://www.iEntry.com/page/corp/legal.html>

19 years, 5 months

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Fw: TRS80 model 4 available

by tim＠tim-mann.org

I'm just passing this on -- reply to Mr. Rhoades directly if you're interested. ------- Forwarded Message Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 06:32:45 -0800 From: "William Rhoades" <wwrseb at hotmail.com> Subject: TRS80 model 4 available I am settling my brother's estate. In his old office is a complete TRS Model 4, floppy drives, software, etc. Hasn't been used in years. This should be of interest to hobbiests. His widow and I want to get all this stuff in the hands of some club or individual with bona fides. I haven't got time or interest in ebaying it. Location of equipment is Asheville, NC. If you have any suggestions, I will get in email contact during the next 10 days that I am in Asheville. Thanks. Bill Rhoades ------- End of Forwarded Message -- Tim Mann tim at tim-mann.org http://tim-mann.org/

19 years, 5 months

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PDP-11/40 videos

by feldman.r＠comcast.net

Get Media Player Classic from SourceForge instead. It can replace Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, and QuickTime Player. Bob Message: 3 Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 15:26:17 -0700 From: woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> Subject: Re: PDP-11/40 videos To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <45F72509.8090107 at jetnet.ab.ca> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed <snip>. Well I better upgrade windows media player --- sigh. <snip

19 years, 5 months

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PDP-11/40 videos

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

>> As a slightly more helpful remark, if you don't mind I'll download these >> and recode as a couple of different formats. Personally I recommend Ogg >> Theora, because it's an entirely free as in (beer|speech) format, with >> picture quality and compression roughly equivalent to MPEG4. > >It is nowhere near equivalent to MPEG4 (disclaimer: I am a video >compression author/nerd). But yes, it is free. But hardly anything >will play it. > >If you want cross-platform, there really is no choice other than MPEG >(MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4). I have yet to see convincing arguments for >formats other than those for simple media distribution. > >Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ When I get around to making some more (and better) videos, where I can actually take my time and do some good stuff, I will post them to my web site in both MPEG-4(.mp4) and MPEG-1(.mpg). The MPEG-4 seems to have much better compression than any of the other 5 or 6 formats I've tried. .WMV seems to be comparable, but is more Microsoft oriented. Now, back to my original question.... Are there any particular things that people would like me to video? My system is a PDP-11/40 with RK05, RL01, RL02, RX01, RX02, VT05, VT52, VT100, LA36, LA120, ASR33. I also have a couple TU56 units but have not yet hooked them up to the 11/40. It may be another year before I am in the mood to boot up my system and do this kind of thing. I get distracted by lots of other things this time of year with spring planting, etc. I just know that it would have been helpful for me to see visuals of some things back when I was putting my system together. Ashley http://www.woffordwitch.com

19 years, 5 months

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ftp archives disappearing?

by ken＠seefried.com

From: Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> >On Mar 12, 2007, at 5:45 PM, Adam Goldman wrote: >> These protocols >> no longer exist on the Internet, mostly due to valid security reasons. > > Hmm, that's an interesting assertion: > >apophis$ which finger >/bin/finger >apophis$ which talk >/bin/talk > > ...looks to me like they're still there. > He said "exist on the Internet". As someone who looks at such things for a living, he's right for all practical purposes. N.B. - "Practical purposes" means something more than "a couple of cc'ers doing it for nostalgia".

19 years, 5 months

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speaking of terminals...beauty is up on ebay

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

This is not only a very rare terminal, it is in absolutely gorgeous condition. Heck it would be gorgeous even if it was beat up & dirty. But it's rather pristine. Bet this goes for real money.... http://tinyurl.com/2xalbc Pretty much defines retro-computing-beauty. Jay West

19 years, 5 months

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Introduction And Questions About Media Preservation

by doug＠stillhq.com

> >Cool to me it was like catching time in a bottle. Getting to the files >I worked with perhaps will bring me back in a small way to those days. >You never know how much you miss something till its gone. I really did >not appreciate those early awkward days until much later in life. > Yep, I recently brought back to life a Z80 based "Pulsar Little Big Board" STD bus CP/M system - It was surprising the lack of bit rot that the system had suffered since 1986, when I moved to my shiny new XT. In any case, there were all of my old projects in all of their glory - That got me going, and I spent an entire weekend moving data from various older archive format (from 360K 5.25" disks, to QIC-02 tapes) onto spinning platters... I found huge numbers of projects from firms that I worked for that no longer exist - And even remembered that I was actually paid (in $$$) to write pascal code... Never would have believed that! Backups are much more regular now days, and all onto optical media - as well as onto raid disks, so it is unlikely that they will be lost again. -- Doug Jackson, MAIPM, MIEEE Senior Information Security Consultant EWA-AUSTRALIA PO Box 6308 O'Connor ACT 2602 Level 1, 214 Northbourne Ave, Braddon ACT 2612 Tel: +61 (0)2 6230 6833 Fax: +61 (0)2 6230 5833 Mob: +61 (0)414 986 878 http://www.ewa-australia.com ============================================ IMPORTANT: This email remains the property of Electronic Warfare Associates - Australia. If you have received this email in error, you are requested to contact doug.jackson at ewa-australia.com or Ph +61 2 62306833 and delete the email. This message is not to be copied or distributed to other parties without the express permission of the author. Any personal information in this email must be handled in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). ============================================

19 years, 5 months

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FOR SALE: TI-99/4A EXPANSION SYSTEM w/ SPEECH, RS232, TRIPLETECH

by guy.harrison＠comcast.net

I have a TI-99 system up for auction on eBay right now: link to: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem <http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&Item=230103019092> &Item=230103019092 clipped from auction listing: Enormous Texas Instruments TI-99/4a Expansion System! Base unit Includes: * TI-99/4a base unit, serial number 2340598 - LTA3082 * TI AC power adapter, model # AC9500 * TI Video Modulator, model #UM1381 * TI Wired Remote Controllers [joysticks], model #PHP1100 * TI Cassette Interface Cable, model #PHA2000 * PEC Electricord standard computer power cable, model #107-2 * Extra 300-75ohm switch box, part #003643 [no mfg mark] * Model #PHP100 owner's manual * Model #UM1381 owner's manual * Model #PHA2000 owner's manual * TI-99/4a User's Reference Guide * TI-99/4a Quick Start Guide Expansion System includes: * TI Peripheral Expansion System, Model #1200, serial# 409652 - HTA0883 * TI Peripheral Expansion System quick-remove case lid * TI Disk Memory System and Disk Memory Drive, model #PHP1240 & PHP1250 * TI 32Kx8 Memory Expansion, Model #1260 * TI serial extender ribbon cable, model #1050212-1 * TI Flex Cable Interface * Model #1200 owner's manual * Model #1240 owner's manual * Model #1250 owner's manual * Model #1260 owner's manual * CorComp RS 232 Serial Interface Card * CorComp TripleTech card w/ TI Speech Synthesizer card, model #PHP1500 installed! * CorComp RS232 owner's manual * CorComp TripleTech owner's manual * Model #PHP1500 owner's manual Peripherals included: * Personal Peripherals Super Sketch graphic input tablet, model #G2400 * Super Sketch instruction book * Super Sketch Starter Kit Software cartridges included: * A-Maze-Ing w/ book * Addition and Subtraction 2 w/ book * Alpiner w/ book * The Attack w/ book * Beginning Grammar w/ book * Blackjack and Poker w/ book * Blasto w/ book * Car Wars w/ book * Chisholm Trail w/ book * Disk Manager 2 [no book] * Early Learning Fun w/ book [X2] * Hangman w/ book * Hunt the Wumpus w/ book * Jawbreaker II / book * *MASH w/ book * *Microsurgeon w/ book * Multiplication 1 [Scott, Foresman] no book * Munch Man [Pac Man] w/ book * Parsec w/ book * Scholastic Spelling-Level 3 w/ book * Scholastic Spelling-Level 5 w/ book * *Superfly w/ book * Tax/Investment Record Keeping w/ book * TI Invaders [Space invaders] w/ book * TI Extended BASIC w/ 222 page programming manual & reference cards * Tombstone City w/ 2 books * Video Chess w/ book * Yahtzee w/ book * Cartridges marked with an asterisk are Solid State Speech Cartridges for use with the TI99 Speech Synthesizer, which IS included in this lot, installed on the CorComp TripleTech card. Cassette Software included: * **Draw Poker w/ book * **Personal Financial Aids w/ book * **Teach Yourself BASIC Part One w/ book * **Teach Yourself BASIC Part Two w/ book ** Cassettes marked with double asterisks are for use with a generic cassette tape player, which is NOT included in this lot. However, the Extended BASIC Command Module, also required for use with this software, IS included. Floppy Diskette Software included: * Andrew Tobias - Managing Your Money, 2 diskettes / no book * Endless Mt. Software - Par Fore / no book * R.A. Green - Macro Assembler / no book * Clint Pully - C99 Compiler / no book Software Suites included: * DataBioTics - Super Space II, 1 diskette & 1 Cartridge / no book * Microsoft - Multiplan, unused copy! SEE: Complete contents! * TI-Writer Word Processor. SEE: Book, binder, disk, cartridge. * TI Logo II. SEE: Book, binder, disk, cartridge and cassette. * Editor/Assembler - Book, binder, 2 disks, cartridge & quick-ref Books, catalogs and magazines included: * SAMS COMPUTERFACTS - Technical Service Data * Texas Instruments HomeComputer Program Library w/ Bill Cosby cover * Frederick Holtz - Using and Programming the TI-99/4A * Beginner's BASIC * Ralph Molesworth - Introduction to Assembly Language * Steve Davis - Programs for the TI Home Computer This lot also come with a 3M head cleaning diskette kit and a box of 10 unused Polaroid floppy diskettes: As you can imagine, this is going to be a very heavy lot. I weighed it at about 88 pounds! So check the shipping calculator to see the damage before you bid! I will allow pickup from Minneapolis by anybody who wants to avoid shipping charges.

19 years, 5 months

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HP items on Gov Liquidation 2645A 79XX Disk / Tape

by glen.slick＠gmail.com

Close Time: 03/22/2007 http://cgi.govliquidation.com/auction/view?auctionId=1161597 Warner Robins, GA 31098 1304A 2645A (bad screen rot) 7900? disk drive 85 http://cgi.govliquidation.com/auction/view?auctionId=1126700 Jacksonville, FL 32212 1631D 7980 tape drive

19 years, 5 months

3
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Introduction And Questions About Media Preservation

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

>>> I looked at the stack on the shelf at the sale and said to myself, >>> why, those look just like the ones we used to use... and I reached >>> for them, and they were. A few bucks and they were mine. >>> Soon after, a list member helped me read them. They were a set >>> of RSTS backups from when I was working there. >> >> Cool to me it was like catching time in a bottle. Getting to the >> files I >> worked with perhaps will bring me back in a small way to those >> days. You >> never know how much you miss something till its gone. I really did not >> appreciate those early awkward days until much later in life. > > I know *exactly* how you feel! Restoring the old backups from my >first PDP-11 (RSTS/E) and flipping through those files...it was a >very powerful experience. > > -Dave Ditto that. <RAMBLE> I had saved all of my PDP-11 stuff from 1978 on a buggy RK05 pack that started having problems mounting back in 1978. Several of us pooled our money back then to pay about $100 for that refurbished pack. It seemed like a fortune, but we were tired of saving our programs on paper tape on the ASR-33. After the pack started having problems, we were forbidden to ever mount it again on our college's system. My friends and I carried it around and traded it back and forth for 26 years. One time one of the guys wanted to turn it into a wall clock. I quickly took it to my house. Then one day I got a PDP-11/40. Then I got an RK05 drive that worked. Then in 2004, I attempted to mount my old RK05 pack by typing MOUNT DK1:JEFF. The system responded with READY. My heart was beating fast!. I did DIR DK1:(*,*)*.* and it printed the directory of the entire pack, exactly as we left it back in 1978. I managed to salvage everything from that pack to disk images on my PC. As Dave said, it was a powerful experience. </RAMBLE> Ashley http://www.woffordwitch.com

19 years, 5 months

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PDP-11/40 videos

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

>> When I get around to making some more (and better) videos, where I >> can actually take my time and do some good stuff, I will post them to >> my web site in both MPEG-4(.mp4) and MPEG-1(.mpg). The MPEG-4 seems to >> have much better compression than any of the other 5 or 6 formats I've >> tried. .WMV seems to be comparable, but is more Microsoft oriented. >Well I better upgrade windows media player --- sigh. I think the MP4 files play on my system in QuickTime, which I got either from Apple's web site or with my iPod. >> Now, back to my original question.... >> Are there any particular things that people would like me to video? > >Playing the the TTY version ... Boy the fans on the PDP-11 is >loud, one can hardly hear the TTY. What hardware is running? All that background noise is from: * the small fans (5 ot 6?) in the 11/40 chassis * the big fans in the top of the H960 racks * the blowers in the THREE RK05 drives * some minor sound from the two RL02s and the RL01 * some minor humming from the two DecWriters >Thanks for the downloads ... > Only another 24 meg to for the windows media upgrade... >I remember when you could install Windows/95 from floppy. Yeah I remember that too. And I remember when you could install all of RSTS onto a 2.5mb RK05 pack.... and support 16 users on the system.... well, we did have a second RK05 drive for some overflow. :-) Ashley http://www.woffordwitch.com

19 years, 5 months

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Introduction And Questions About Media Preservation "Mostly DecStuff"

by fsmith＠ladylinux.com

On Tuesday 13 March 2007 12:47:04 pm cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: John Wrote .. > Lightning strikes. ?Chance favors the prepared mind. ?Or at least the > obsessive mind with time on its hands. ?I have a stack of nine-tracks > I bought at the university surplus that must've stayed in limbo from > a department I once worked at - at least fifteen years before. > > I looked at the stack on the shelf at the sale and said to myself, > why, those look just like the ones we used to use... ?and I reached > for them, and they were. ?A few bucks and they were mine. ? > Soon after, a list member helped me read them. ?They were a set > of RSTS backups from when I was working there. Cool to me it was like catching time in a bottle. Getting to the files I worked with perhaps will bring me back in a small way to those days. You never know how much you miss something till its gone. I really did not appreciate those early awkward days until much later in life. -- Kindest Regards, Francesca Smith "No Problems Only Solutions" Lady Linux Internet Services Baltimore, Maryland 21217

19 years, 5 months

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baud modifier

by dm561＠torfree.net

----------------Original Message: Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 13:24:49 -0700 (PDT) From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> Subject: Re: baud modifier In addition to the speed, are the protocols the same? For example, if you were to just slow down a Bell 212 (1200 bps) modem to 300 bts per second while still using the same frequencies and encoding, that would NOT enable a Bell 103 to be able to communicate. It would ALSO be necessary to switch the encoding to a FSK using the Bell 103 frequencies. I could certainly feed 10 characters per second through a V.90. But that would NOT provide the CCITT V.18? protocol needed for most 110 baud devices. --------------Reply: And then there may be the little matter of RS-232 <> current loop conversion... m

19 years, 5 months

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ftp archives disappearing?

by ken＠seefried.com

From: Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> >It's a shame that there wasn't a widely-adopted data transfer protocol that >was truly bi-directional. True, though there are and have been many good not-so-widely adopted solutions. >Both FTP and HTTP largely revolve around moving data >in one direction only. Even given the predominant client/server model of the >time, it's a shame that the "main" protocols weren't designed with the >foresight that one day we might want to move just as much stuff *to* >a site as we were taking *from* it. Client/server is still essentially the model for the vast majority of internet use: it's almost all asymmetric. As in, depending on the site, 100 to 1000 times or more as much data going one way than the other. Even profiling sites like YouTube, where people actually do upload large amounts of data, individual clients download far more. HTTP was designed for the common case in it's problem space. It shouldn't be surprising that it's not optimal for other cases.

19 years, 5 months

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Report on vintage "Programmer Electronnic Control" alias "RAF Tornado Computer" (fwd)

by erik＠baigar.de

Hi Roger, I am sorry, I just discovered a new "feature" of the PEC - so please ignore the "divide data" of the last email. Perhaps you can explain this. My test porgram for the DIV was implented as loop using the index register (B) to save the results to the core as follows: load values DIV/MUL load index register from pointer store accu to core with index move Q to accu load index register from pointer store accu to core with index increment pointer do next values And I noticed, that loading the index register (B) influences the Q register! In the abouve example my multiply failes, too. If I do it in the following way: load values DIV/MUL store accu to core-tmp move Q to accu load index register from pointer store accu to core with index load accu from core-tmp load index register from pointer store accu to core with index increment pointer do next values Than the MUL works as desired (with 0x23 as memory operand): Akku before: 001 005 010 020 050 100 120 150 200 500 fff Q before: fff 500 200 150 120 100 050 020 010 005 002 Akku after: 000 000 000 000 001 004 004 005 008 015 fff Q after: 023 0af 230 460 2f0 300 760 5f0 600 700 7dd Especially, you can see, that 0x50*0x23 leads to 0x12f0 which is caused be the fact, that bit 11 is not used in the shift operations and thus bit11 of Q is not valid and the MUL is in fact 11bit*11bit unsigned. So now let's repeat the experiment with the "DIV" instruction using the proper code (again memory operand is 0x23): Akku after: 03b 125 3a9 751 ff5 f43 f23 ef1 e3f b31 fc5 Q after: 01d 092 1d4 3a8 7fa 7a1 791 778 71f 598 7e2 Still I cannot see the divide instruction behind these numbers. Now I an sure, that the framework is OK since I checked it with the logic analyzer. Below I show you the list file of my assembler, do you think, this helps in out communication or would you prefer to get listings in your 8/23 you kindly explained in your last email. It would not be a problem to teach my assembler to generate such output, too. Best regards and good evening, Erik. LISTING OF DIV-Test: 13 @ 0019 ORG 0 ; 14 @ 0020 ; 15 @ 0021 0000 023 data: DW 0x23 ; 16 @ 0022 0001 000 Index: DW 0 ; 17 @ 0023 0002 FF3 Counter: DW 0xfff-12 ; 18 @ 0024 0003 000 a1: DW 0 ; 19 @ 0025 0004 000 b1: DW 0 ; 20 @ 0026 ; 21 @ 0027 ORG 0x20 ; 22 @ 0028 ; 23 @ 0029 0020 001 accu: DW 0x1 ; 24 @ 0030 0021 005 DW 0x5 ; 25 @ 0031 0022 010 DW 0x10 ; 26 @ 0032 0023 020 DW 0x20 ; 27 @ 0033 0024 050 DW 0x50 ; 28 @ 0034 0025 100 DW 0x100 ; 29 @ 0035 0026 120 DW 0x120 ; 30 @ 0036 0027 150 DW 0x150 ; 31 @ 0037 0028 200 DW 0x200 ; 32 @ 0038 0029 500 DW 0x500 ; 33 @ 0039 002A FFF DW 0xfff ; 34 @ 0040 ; 35 @ 0041 ORG 0x30 ; 36 @ 0042 ; 37 @ 0043 0030 FFF ssr: DW 0xfff ; 38 @ 0044 0031 500 DW 0x500 ; 39 @ 0045 0032 200 DW 0x200 ; 40 @ 0046 0033 150 DW 0x150 ; 41 @ 0047 0034 120 DW 0x120 ; 42 @ 0048 0035 100 DW 0x100 ; 43 @ 0049 0036 050 DW 0x50 ; 44 @ 0050 0037 020 DW 0x20 ; 45 @ 0051 0038 010 DW 0x10 ; 46 @ 0052 0039 005 DW 0x5 ; 47 @ 0053 003A 002 DW 0x2 ; 48 @ 0054 ; 49 @ 0055 ORG 0x50 ; 50 @ 0056 ; 51 @ 0057 0050 000 resultACCU: DW 0 ; 52 @ 0058 ; 53 @ 0059 ORG 0x60 ; 54 @ 0060 ; 55 @ 0061 0060 000 resultSR: DW 0 ; 56 @ 0062 ; 57 @ 0063 ORG 160 ; Programmstart 58 @ 0064 ; 59 @ 0065 ; ----------------------------------------------------------------- 60 @ 0066 ; 61 @ 0067 00A0 001 reset: LDI Index ; 62 @ 0068 00A1 430 LDA ssr ; 63 @ 0069 00A2 EA0 MATSR ; 64 @ 0070 00A3 001 LDI Index ; 65 @ 0071 00A4 420 LDA accu ; 66 @ 0072 00A5 D00 DW 0b0110100000000 ; DIV? 67 @ 0073 00A6 503 STA a1 ; 68 @ 0074 00A7 E20 MSRTA ; 69 @ 0075 00A8 504 STA b1 ; 70 @ 0076 00A9 001 LDI Index ; 71 @ 0077 00AA 560 STA resultSR ; 72 @ 0078 00AB 403 LDA a1 ; 73 @ 0079 00AC 001 LDI Index ; 74 @ 0080 00AD 550 STA resultACCU ; 75 @ 0081 00AE A01 INC Index ; 76 @ 0082 00AF A02 INC Counter ; 77 @ 0083 00B0 990 RJAN reset ; 78 @ 0084 00B1 800 stop: RJMP stop ; 79 @ 0085 ; 80 @ 0086 ORG 4095 ; Freeze to prevent jump-over 81 @ 0087 0FFF 800 looi2: RJMP looi2 ; in free running mode

19 years, 5 months

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8" drive variations

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

8" drives do exist in both hard and soft sector formats, but soft-sector is overwhelmingly dominant (probably more than 97%). There is only one rotational speed (360RPM), and they all have 77 tracks. Some have one side, some have two sides. But after that, all hell breaks loose, because the density as well as both the number of sectors per track and the sector size can take on almost any values (and some formats have track 0 in single density with all other tracks in double density). Sector size can be any of 128, 256, 512 or 1024 bytes per sector, and the number of sectors is also not well standardized. Some early drives will not interface to a 765 well; later drives should not be a problem. However, the western digital chips had more flexibility and can do formats that the 765 cannot do.

19 years, 5 months

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PDP-11/40 videos

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

> Tom Peters said: >I'd like to see the blinkenlights on the front panel. > >-T Videos in Apple Quicktime format are at: http://www.woffordwitch.com/videos.asp *** WARNING - I have not downsized these videos *** THEY ARE HUGE - you'll be waiting a while if *** you are on dial-up. I'll downsize them later and/or *** put them in another format (wmv?). Ashley

19 years, 5 months

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Using DECmateI RX02 drives in the pedestal

by fsmith＠ladylinux.com

On Tuesday 13 March 2007 12:47:04 pm cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: Ethan Wrote .. > You don't have to pull the drives - the DB25 connector on the back of > your pedestal is a DEC-standard way of externally cabling RX02s - it > was done the same way with the table-top RX02 shell for the MINC-11. > If you get your 11/73 together, you could aquire or make a cable to go > from the RXV21 to a DB25, then use a DB25-to-DB25 cable from the 11/73 > to the back of your DECmate pedestal. ?No removal required. Really I was wondering about that connector. Sorry for the ignorance. I guess I better read up on this. This could be quite workable. Thank you very much for this tip. > Personally, I maintain an older box with a 5.25" floppy that reads and > writes RX50s just fine. ?Haven't had occasion to fire it up lately, so > I should probably do that to see if the heads have glued down to the > platters or if the CMOS battery as died. ?It's an old 486DX2/66 VLB > box - too old to run a modern OS, but powerful enough to run an OS > capable of capturing diskette images and squirting them over an > Ethernet card to something "modern" for burning and archiving. I will have to read up on the archives. I was not so sure if the drives were interchangable. I have a couple old servicable PC's around here. Certainly I can explore this intriging option. Good tips ... Very Helpful Thank You :-) -- Kindest Regards, Francesca Smith "No Problems Only Solutions" Lady Linux Internet Services Baltimore, Maryland 21217

19 years, 5 months

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Introduction And Questions About Media Preservation "Mostly DecStuff

by fsmith＠ladylinux.com

On Tuesday 13 March 2007 12:26:16 am cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: Jay Wrote .. > If you have RK05/6 & RLxx & RXxx drives that you completely trust as being > good working drives, load up vtserver and make images of the packs over a > serial port to your PC. Then you can put the images up online (or I can put > the images up on classiccmp.org under /PDP-11). Yep I am not real trusting of the drives I have. I have two RL02's one RL01 and two RK05's coming. The RK05's are known working good. But .. until I actually get a "scratch pack" I am not mounting anything in any of these drives. The RL's I need to test with media I don't care about and also I need to find a qbus or unibus controller in any case. I have about 75 or so RL02's/RL01's and about 20 RK05's. Two of the RK05's are extremely precious to me. I used these in the early 80's with a 11/45 and 11/70 I had in a lab in California. The thing is that they stayed behind at the place I use to work at while I moved on to work on other exciting things like VAX's. Then about a year or so ago. I saw these RK05's on E-Pay. I WAS absolutely Floored when I opened up the box and they were my packs looking just like when I left them. What is the chance of that happening. ??? (Now I have to find the 11/70 and 11/45 :-) ) So I want the data off these and I want them back since well ... They are in a way a part of my first love :-) Ok well as far as computers go that is :-) > I'd be happy to do the RL01, RL02, RX01, and RX02 media for you. My RK05 > isn't working yet, don't have an RK06, and haven't tested my TU81+ yet. Ok cool. Most the RL02's and RL01's are actual factory dec labeled software packs. Let me get a list together. It will take a while to transcribe all of them. I have about 15 RK05's coming in a week that contain DEC software also. Soon after this I will have the drives and should be able to work the stuff off them after finding a couple blank scratch packs. Floppys I have GADS of as in huge huge amounts of software and archives. Most of its from some long forgotten Xray spectroscopy program. (From a rescue not anything I was working on nor have a clue about) But there is quite a few with working RT11 and RSX11 and layered products on them. This may be easier once I get that 11/73 going. I am close to having some working Shugart 8 inch floppys. And I got about 5 or so RX50 drives floating around here. -- Kindest Regards, Francesca Smith "No Problems Only Solutions" Lady Linux Internet Services Baltimore, Maryland 21217

19 years, 5 months

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PDP-11/40 videos

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

>> Videos in Apple Quicktime format are at: >> >> http://www.woffordwitch.com/videos.asp >> >> *** WARNING - I have not downsized these videos >> *** THEY ARE HUGE - you'll be waiting a while if >> *** you are on dial-up. I'll downsize them later and/or >> *** put them in another format (wmv?). > > >FWIW, DivX/MPEG4 or MPEG2 are much better (portable!) formats than the >garbage that is WMV. > >Pat I'll do something better later today. I just dumped those out there as they were in my camera's native format. I should be able to get something good in just a meg or two. Ashley

19 years, 5 months

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Interesting Book

by marvin＠rain.org

I picked up "Future Mind" by Edward Lias, (c)1982 at UCSB, and the first skimming shows it to be a pretty interesting book. Things I found interesting were in the chapter titled "How Many Would You Like?", that included marketing research type information. A couple of examples are Small Business Computer Census and Minicomputer Census for 1980 that give the number of installations for a number of computer vendors. Included are some that are not well known, Modular Micro, Artronix, Bytronix, New England Digital Corp., etc. One of the charts was a table showing the speed in operations per second for about 100 computers. This is a pretty expensive book, but well worth the $1.00 or so that a number of online bookstores are selling it for.

19 years, 5 months

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Components & Tools (Was: Re: baud modifier)

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

Try Maplin http://www.maplin.co.uk/ (Components Tab) They still stock 74 and 4000 series devices. Rod Smallwood -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tony Duell Sent: 12 March 2007 23:06 To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Components & Tools (Was: Re: baud modifier) > H. Gee's in Cambridge is a real blessing in comparison - wide range of > > components and still staffed by people who know what they're talking > > about Having spent a few years studying and then working in Cambridge, I can confirm hhat H Gee was a place I spent far too much money :-) There's nothing much in London either. There's Cricklewood Electronics who have an amazing range of old ICs in stock (heck, they had a TTL chip I could find listed _nowehre_ else, not even on the web). > You lucky fellow, nothing like that in northwest UK that I know of > About the best I seem to be able to do is CPC (ex Farnell), but as Tony > commented the other day, the website is a disaster area for finding I'm lucky. I have a friend who runs a small electornics company and he gives me old RS and Farnell catalogues from time to time. I can find what I need there, type the order codes in on the website to se eif they're still available (of if the RoSH directive has caused them to be replaced), and if not to see what alternatives there are. > That's a cracking idea. Anyone know of good suppliers in the UK? RS seem to > be useless these days too. RS and Farnell are both fine once you've found what you want. The have a reasonable range, and are reliable. Mind you, there are some odd things that I can't find a single UK supplier for (top of the list at the moment is a 36 pin microribbon socket, cable mounting -- think of a socket that mates iwth a Centronics plug and which goes on a cable, not a chassis). -tony

19 years, 5 months

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Using DECmateI RX02 drives in the pedestal

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 3/13/07, Francesca Smith <fsmith at ladylinux.com> wrote: > The funny thing is that I have RX02's here. But they are part of > a semi mint Decmate I have. I really did not want to pull them out to do this > work rather leaving them in the cart as they are. You don't have to pull the drives - the DB25 connector on the back of your pedestal is a DEC-standard way of externally cabling RX02s - it was done the same way with the table-top RX02 shell for the MINC-11. If you get your 11/73 together, you could aquire or make a cable to go >from the RXV21 to a DB25, then use a DB25-to-DB25 cable from the 11/73 to the back of your DECmate pedestal. No removal required. > And RX02's drove me nuts > when they were new. I always prefered the DSD440's and Shugart drives. Can't help you there. I've used DSD drives, Heathkit drives, and, on a Dataram PDP-11 clone, a Shugart drive with a 3rd-party controller that emulated the RXV21 at the register level (no bizarre drivers, at least). I don't have anything really bad to say about the RX02s except they are somewhat physically large compared to other offerings. > Same thing goes for the Rainbows I have. I really am loathe to pull out the RX > drives in them either. You don't have to. > I suppose that I could archive the RX50 stuff using the Rainbows. ?? You could, but then you need a way to get the files off the Rainbows. We've been discussing RX50s recently here - with the right PC-compatible drive, you can just read RX50 media in a modernish box (one old enough have proper floppy support, so, _in general_, something with a Pentium-I or older is probably a safe bet, but the only way to know for certain is to know the capabilities of your hardware and most likely to run a few quick tests) Personally, I maintain an older box with a 5.25" floppy that reads and writes RX50s just fine. Haven't had occasion to fire it up lately, so I should probably do that to see if the heads have glued down to the platters or if the CMOS battery as died. It's an old 486DX2/66 VLB box - too old to run a modern OS, but powerful enough to run an OS capable of capturing diskette images and squirting them over an Ethernet card to something "modern" for burning and archiving. You can use a Rainbow if you want, but that way would seem to me to be adding difficulty to the task without a corresponding payback, especially given how sloppy the tolerances are with real RX50 drives. -ethan

19 years, 5 months

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cctalk Digest, Vol 43, Issue 31

by fsmith＠ladylinux.com

On Tuesday 13 March 2007 12:26:16 am cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: Dwight wrote .. > Although, I'm not the one to help you read your disk, there > are others here that are setup to handle DEC media. > I thought I'd write to ask why you were looking for a SA900 > disk drive? Most applications use SA800/801's. Not being a > DEC person, I'd not know about DEC applications. > Still, a SA800 can be wired to look like a SA900. It is just > a different connector. > I have a machine that does use SA900's and I've been watching > for one for some time. Ahh well I was trying to get two of the 851's that were up at the Vintage Computer Market recently. The rest of my E-bay Thrashing has been of the same variety and knowing I can hack them up to do my archiving. I really messed up a year ago and did not buy two perfectly working DSD440's when I could had them cheap. The funny thing is that I have RX02's here. But they are part of a semi mint Decmate I have. I really did not want to pull them out to do this work rather leaving them in the cart as they are. And RX02's drove me nuts when they were new. I always prefered the DSD440's and Shugart drives. Same thing goes for the Rainbows I have. I really am loathe to pull out the RX drives in them either. I suppose that I could archive the RX50 stuff using the Rainbows. ?? Thats another thing I have a pile of stuff for .. Rainbows since I have a weird affinity for them. Maybe its unlike my 11/70 or 11/45 wanting .. They don't take up 1/2 a basement. :-) I am rambling. Sorry for the "Winded" posts. -- Kindest Regards, Francesca Smith "No Problems Only Solutions" Lady Linux Internet Services Baltimore, Maryland 21217

19 years, 5 months

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PDP-11/40 videos

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

>> I have loaded MPEG-4 videos to my site. I have also added a "Videos" >> link on the left-hand nav. >So, since MP4 isn't a valid standard file association, any chance you could >make those files .mpg or .mpeg ? > >Jay Jay, I've added .mpg versions. They are quite a bit larger than the mp4 files. Ashley

19 years, 5 months

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Reconstructing Fastback Plus Backups from floppies

by GaryDFisher＠shaw.ca

Hi everybody, I haven't posted for a long while but I have a nasty little problem to submit to you. I recently got a bunch of diskettes that I believe contain Fastback Plus archives as they are called (for example) 881123_B.005 which I believe to be the fifth disk of a backup on drive B taken Nov 23, 1988. I poked around in the files and the last disk has directories of the original drive backed up and there is a \FASTBACK subdirectory with the FB.exe of Feb 4, 1988 so I think it is version 2.xx I do have a Fastback Plus version 2.11 and for the life of me I can't find a way of reconstructing the catalog for those disks. It keeps looking for a .FUL file for the catalog. Unlike MSBACKUP of DOS 6.22 vintage (and probably before) there doesn't seem to be a re-construct catalog option. Damn, it seems pretty silly that the .FUL file isn't with the diskettes or no way to get the catalog back. Of course the files are mostly compressed but there is enough ASCII to see some of the directories and text. Can anybody give me some sage advice as there seems to be no info that I can get through a pretty exhaustive Google search so far. Thanks, GF This was a message from Gary Fisher GaryDFisher at shaw.ca

19 years, 5 months

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Introduction And Questions About Media Preservation "Mostly Dec Stuff"

by fsmith＠ladylinux.com

Hello, I been lurking here for a while and figure I come out of my shell to say hi and say how much I love reading most all the posts here. Now as to my question/questions and or dilemma. I have a bunch of old media. RK05's , RK06's, RL02's, RL01's , 8 Inch Floppies, RX50 Floppies , 9 track tapes among other things. Now before I run off and do something real stupid (Like damage the media by not properly handling it when archiving off) I figured I ask some advice. I know all about Bitsavers "Al Kassow I am so sorry but I bid up against you a few times and now that I have gotten to know you by lurking here It won't happen again." Bitsavers is a awesome resource and yours and others efforts there are VERY much appreciated and admired from my lil corner of the world. I have some sentimental attachment to some of this media as in its from my "PDP" days of the late 70's and 80's. But most of this stuff I just rescued. Lots of it has actual Dec Labels indicating multiple versions of RT11, RSX11, Older Vms etc. To get this stuff out there for all of you. What should I do ?? Put up a list with my best guess of the contents and see if anyone will help me and all of you out by getting the bits off the platters/media for people for years and years to enjoy ?? Or is this stuff so garden variety that I should just hook up my 11/34 , 11/73 and Microvax and get busy pulling off the bits and bytes before they become star dust or whatever old magnetic bits and bytes go to when they vanish from the media. ?? I don't have everything in place to read off all this stuff yet. I am having a dickens of a time getting someone to send me a BA23 I won on E-Pay so I can put together franken pdp (11/73 from many parts :-)) And I certainly don't have a RK06 laying around and or controller for example. All I ask is that anyone taking any of this media understand that some of it I want back after analysis and in every case if anything valuable turns up that it be posted publically. Sorry for the long winded post. Had a lot to say I been holding back now for months. I won't even touch on my piles of documentation that I need to start scanning in this post. Perhaps in the future :-) -- Kindest Regards, Francesca Smith "No Problems Only Solutions" Lady Linux Internet Services Baltimore, Maryland 21217

19 years, 5 months

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ftp archives disappearing?

by aek＠bitsavers.org

>> The web as subsumed all of this, in an inferior fashion, IMHO. > Yeah, but I think of the things I used to easily find with archie and > now I can't find them at all with google even with targetted searches > for specific filenames. Google doesn't spider for filenames, just content. If a list of filenames doesn't show up on a web page, Google won't see it. As an example, I just did a search for "adsMstr_6-76.log" which can be found at http://bitsavers.org/bits/Datapoint/cassetteDumps/ and there were no hits from google, yahoo, altavista, or google code search. It is odd, though that Google doesn't find the page from http://bitsavers.org/bits/Datapoint/cassetteDumps/, so apparently it won't index content that is a directory. It would be interesting to know if there is a search engine that can in fact find a file by name. There are several files I have been searching for that I know the name of, but not where they might exist on the web.

19 years, 5 months

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PDP-11/40 videos

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

>> MPEG is good. I don't think anyone will have objections to that. > >MPEG seconded. > I have loaded MPEG-4 videos to my site. I have also added a "Videos" link on the left-hand nav. The sound of the 11/40 fans running is pretty loud on the videos, but you can hear the hardcopy terminals as they are printing. You can see short videos (with sound) of the following: * 11/40 front panel lights blinking while running RSTS/E * SYSTAT on VT05 * SYSTAT on LA120 * SYSTAT on LA36 * SYSTAT on ASR33 * SYSTAT on VT52 I will do some better quality stuff later. These were done yesterday in a hurry while I had my digital camera in my hand. If anyone has anything they would like to see, I will try to handle your requests. Ashley http://www.woffordwitch.com

19 years, 5 months

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PDP-11/40 videos

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

>Tom Peters said: >Can't *.MP4 be dropped into Quicktime for playback? Yes, it's not always >associated to QT, but I think it worked on everything I tried. .MP4 files play on my QuickTime player. They also were the smallest files of any format I've tried so far, except maybe the 5:36 wmv file that I just added from our Wofford Witch reunion back in 2005 when I got many of the old college crew and our professor together for a cookout and to play with the PDP-11/40 and talk about the "old days" 30 years ago.

19 years, 5 months

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Components & Tools (Was: Re: baud modifier)

by stimpy.u.idiot＠gmail.com

On 12/03/07, Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > > Rob wrote: > >> [1] Maplin, the company, are still going, but their range of components > >> is a joke. They now mostly sell electornic toys, Lo-Fi, etc. > > I totally agree with you - if the stores exist to sell the same gimmicky > junk > that can be had cheaper elsewhere, then I'm not sure why they have the > stores > at all and can't put the huge rental / staffing costs to better use. These days, they seems to be dedicated to the (seemingly) infinite number of young men who want to put blue lights on and under their cars :) H. Gee's in Cambridge is a real blessing in comparison - wide range of > components and still staffed by people who know what they're talking about You lucky fellow, nothing like that in northwest UK that I know of About the best I seem to be able to do is CPC (ex Farnell), but as Tony commented the other day, the website is a disaster area for finding anything. I've had to resort to buying from Futurelec (Singapore?) for some ICs, mainly due to RoHS making some lines unavailable while the replacements haven't appeared yet. Hmm, which makes me wonder if we shouldn't have a section on the classiccmp > website for recommended places to get spares/components from? That's a cracking idea. Anyone know of good suppliers in the UK? RS seem to be useless these days too. -- Pete Edwards "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future" - Niels Bohr

19 years, 5 months

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Future Domain docs?

by doc＠mdrconsult.com

Does anyone have documentation for Future Domain TMC-870 and TMC-885 ISA SCSI adapters? They both have 2 floppy headers, which I find extremely interesting. Unfortunately, they both have a lot of jumpers/DIP switches, which I'd like to ID. Adaptec has drivers and tools, but no info. Doc

19 years, 5 months

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PDP-11/40 videos

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

> >Please not WMV. Please please please. > I won't do WMV!!! What do you prefer? Ashley

19 years, 5 months

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Old terminal and some AES stuff.

by jrr＠flippers.com

I have two items here for free (you pick up) or the cost of shipping and handling/packing up. ADM-31 Terminal and User Reference Manual AES: Word Processing #103-2004-02 (2 floppies) and some other discs that I intend to wipe as they have "sermons &..." penciled on the covers (1983ish). BASE2, Inc Model 800 Printer Operators reference Manual (only) AES training for using the Word Processing program (looks like) - a bunch of single sided pages... John :-#)# PS - forgot to add signature with address - sigh! -- John's Jukes Ltd. 2343 Main St., Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 3C9 Call (604)872-5757 or Fax 872-2010 (Pinballs, Jukes, VideoGames) www.flippers.com "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out"

19 years, 5 months

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Xerox 850 / 860 hardware differences

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

Out of interest, does anyone know how much hardware commonality there is between the Xerox 850 and 860? We've got an absolutely beautiful 860 at the museum, with all the trimmings documentation and software-wise. We've just been offered an unknown-working-status 850 main unit though, and I'm not sure what's best in terms of fate: a) Pass on it and offer it here in the hope that someone can use it [1], b) Pull boards, PSU, drives etc. as source of spares if they're transferrable to the 860, c) Just consign it to landfill [2]. [1] There's no keyboard, no display, and no printer. I'm not sure what chance someone would have of simulating those with modern hardware, even assuming that the main unit is working / can be made to work. [2] The drives are doubtless useful to *someone* for non-Xerox things I would have thought. It's in Welwyn, UK. Shouts of "I'm close to there and desperately need an 850 base unit to go with my 850 peripherals" will of course be gratefully received :-) I'd much rather a complete system be restored than a partial system be stripped for spares! [I don't actually know yet that the current owner's happily to release it to anyone other than the museum, though - but can find out if needed] cheers Jules

19 years, 5 months

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baud modifier

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 01:17:07 +0000 From: Pete Turnbull <pete at dunnington.plus.com> Subject: Re: baud modifier >On 11/03/2007 09:53, David Griffith wrote: >> I'm thinking of a device that would step down the speed of an rs232 >> connection from, say, 9600 to 110. The idea is to allow a computer that >> can't do 110 to talk to an ASR33 teletype. Does such a device exist? >> What's it really called? Does anyone have any schematics for one? >I have a device called a MicroFazer that will do this. It was actually >sold as a printer buffer, but it has serial as well as parallel input, >and serial and parallel output, with several hundred K of buffer in >between. >-- >Pete =================================== I have a few of these as well (in case anybody wants one), but mine do NOT do 110 baud (150 minimum); are you sure yours does? Also AFAIK they were all unidirectional (except for XON/XOFF of course). Mine are serial to serial, 150 to 19200bd, 64K buffer BTW. mike

19 years, 5 months

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Xebec Winchester controller

by aek＠bitsavers.org

What I have are the docs for the MSC-9305 ST506-GPIB interface which used the Xebec module. At one point it looked like the commands were compatible. http://bitsavers.org/pdf/msc/MSC-9305_ST506-GPIB_1980.pdf

19 years, 5 months

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Report on vintage "Programmer Electronnic Control" alias "RAF Tornado Computer"

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

I showed the pictures to someone who worked on Tornado at Marconi Avionics. He said the box is definitely not part of either the CSAS (Command Stability Augmentation System) nor AFDS (AutoPilot & Flight Director System). He thought it was physically much too big for the HUD (Head Up Display). Roger Holmes.

19 years, 5 months

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Report on vintage "Programmer Electronnic Control" alias "RAF Tornado Computer"

by erik＠baigar.de

Hi Roger, thank you for your detailed information. By accident I nearly missed your email since I was not listed to the cctalk mailing list. But this is solved now ;-) I will comment some points of your email now and hopefully I will find the time next week to investigate your other suggestions and hints on the machine. I will give an update next weekend. > > not know how long development of such an aircraft takes but > > the first take-off was in 1974 I think, so this would match > > the design of this box wuite well - what do you think? > Aircraft development takes a long long time. To make it worthwhile > the aircraft has a long service life. Whilst the computers are bullet > proof in an office/home, the temperature extremes, vibration, high G > forces etc in service means that many failures occur and PCBs could > be replaced many times over the years, so do not pay too much notice > of the dates on components of the boards currently installed. OK, I understand this. I do not know much about these issues, but on the internet often the COTS strategy is mentioned and in using standard components, I think moderen aircraft swap technology more often than was done in the 60s and 70s, right? > There were at least four 12 bit versions, and one 13 bit apparently. > Then 12 bit models were the 902, 102C, ARCH 105 and Minim or 12/12. Thank you - I will try to find information on the web in the next days. Compared to the Elliott machines the DECs are very common stuff ;-) > > Yes, that matches - the core memory module already has the > > label GEC. So this is (as I suspected) older than the CPU and > > taken maybe from a different design?! > You have it the wrong way around. The GEC name replaced the Marconi > name, which had earlier replaced Elliott. Core memory was very Thank you for this hint. I checked wikipedia and obviously GEC got involved very early and the name was changed to GEC later (1984). Sorry for my misunderstanding, now I got it. > convenient for military applications and was in use long after it was > replaced in commercial applications. Think of a missile or torpedo > held in stock for many years, stick a power plug into it and program > the target, pull out the plug and then launch it. Only then does the > internal power supply come up, the processor boots up and does its > thing. The internet claimes sometimes, that core memory is less sensitive to radiation, too. This might have been an advantage in certain military applications (really bad applications, honestly speaking). Data retenttion of the core memory should be quite good, but since reading is always destructive, there is the rist, that bad data gets written back. In the case of Programmer Electronic Control, they did quite a lot to adjust the core memory's dirver current automatically according to a temerature measurement of the core. As my experiments show, you have to reduce the current if temperatuere goes up. This physically understandable (1/T). > >> bit 920s before moving on to the Zilog Z8001. > > Hey, than you are a valuable expert on these - do you have > > got any source of intormation about the 920s? > Not directly but I may be able to help. Hey, that is even better. I highly appreciate, that you spend time in sharing your information! Thanks a lot in advance! > > > >> 9 Jump if negative > > RIGHT - all three jumps are relative ones > On the 18 bit machines these were relative to the start of the 8k > memory module the instruction was in. An interesting modification. In my case they are relative and you can jump +/-127 words (crossing any border). Here again, the box uses 1complement and thus jump 0x00 is the same as jump 0x80: An infinite loop! > >> 11 Store program counter (for function return) > > SIMILAR - This stores PC and then does a > > table jump > On the 18 bit machines, it actually stored the program counter + 1 > and the following instruction was either an 8 or a "/8", i.e. 24. Hmm, I do not understand fully what you mean by "the following instruction was either an 8 or a "/8", i.e. 24". The Programmer Electronic Control (Let's call it PEC in the future) stores PC+1 (as your 18bit) to the specified location into core. The new address is taken from the position in memory where the index register points to. So in my case this is a perfect table jump. > >> 12 Multiply > > RIGHT, unsigned multiplication > This should multiply the signed accumulator and the signed memory > operand giving a double length result in the A and Q registers. Results are as you mention, but if either operand is negative, the result contains wrong values. But maybe I check whether this depends on the content of the index register prior to the operation... > >> 13 Divide > > HMMM, the command takes very long but the results are > > very strange. I thought it might be some type of > > random number generation by an irreducible polynomal, > > but it is definitively not Divide. Maybe here is something > > different or wrong with the microcode. > This divides a signed DOUBLE LENGTH number in the A and Q registers > by a signed memory operand. IIRC the A register gets the result and > the Q register the remainder. OK, I will verify this in the coming days. Now I know what to look form but according to my records the results of this command always have been junk. > >> 14 Shift > > In PART: Here exist many subgroups of commands including > > shift left/right. Also the Q as you call it can be transferred > > to Accu and vice versa. There als is a MTA (MoveToAccu as I call it) > > which is a two-word instruction (most others are one-word) and > > transfers the word following this command into Accu. About > > 16 bit patterns have (at least to me now) the same meaning in > > this segment. > Shifting by the entire word length does transfer Q to A or A to Q Right. But here again, the bit 11 is the sign bit and thus the shift does not affect the bit 11 of the destination. I.e. bit 0 of A is moved to bit 10 of Q in shifting right for example. > (but the data disappears from the source). A load immediate > instruction would have been very handy. Yes, the load immediate is really nice. A block move does not exist on PEC. Essentially the immediate "MTA - Move To Accu" is one of two "two-read-cycles" instructions. Up to now I did not fugire out, what the other instruction does with the data read. Do you remember any "two-read" instructions in the Elliotts? > orders were encoded in the 14 order on the 12 bit machines with only > 256 numbers available compared with 8k on the 18 bitters. Yes, this seems to be absolutely correct! > >> 15 Input/Output and special (like interrupt return) > >> 16 to 31, as above but indexed by B register. > > > > NOPE - The box is 12-bit and does not have got this block. > > EVERYTHING is done via the index register I as I called it. > > Do you mean you cannot turn the B-register modification off? Correct: Everything is modified by the index register. Exceptions are the jumps, MTA for example. > Does it get cleared automatically somehow? You are clever - that is exactly what appens: Every instruction which is affected by this register (ADD, SUB, LDA, STA, ...) clear the register. So you have to load it right before each instruction. A severe constraint in my opinion is, that the index register can only be loaded from words 0-127 in the lower 4k. So this might be a bottleneck in memory since the table jump (I called it IDXCALL since it used the index register to get ne new address from) requires memory for each routine called, too. > > perhaps studying the Elliot would help to solve the remaining > > problems??!?!?!! > I am willing to try. Great! T H A N K S a L O T! > By the way, there are two 't's in Elliott. Thanks - is stored into my brain now ;-) > >> bootstrap, in later versions, this was just copied into core when the > >> machine was initialised. > > Interesting. The Programmer Electronic Control starts execution > > at 0x0a0 after reset. > Could it be that there is a value of 0x0A0 at location 0? No, if the machine is held in reset state, the PC is forced to 0x0a0 since the reset line is connected to the Set/Clear pins of the flip-flops making the program counter. Immediately after reset is set high, the first word is read and executed >from this address. > > But of course the application was different > > and the operation software was completely loaded via the big plug > > boefore operation. > I suspect the big plug is for the OMP (Operator's Monitor Panel), and Some kind of blinking-light console? Something like this exists for the Rolm 1666b, too. This would be cool to have! ;-) > yes the program would be loaded via this once, probably in the > factory or at a maintenance depot, and the machine would probably be > rebooted many times afterwards. If data gets corrupted, than the complete aircraft has to return to a maintenance depot for reprogramming the machine? So if there are 10 or 20 of these boxes in one aircraft, they need service quite often I think. Roger, how was your experience - was this reliable with the Elliotts or did you have to reporgram the pater tape loader quite often? In my case, the transputer setup generates some spikes doring it bootup. If PEC is already turned on, this corrupts the data in core memory. So I always do a memory-test on PEC after turn on (to adjust the core driver current) and than freshly program my test routines. > The 920 was unusual in that it booted into the highest level > interrupt, level 1, so no interrupts will be serviced until you go > down an interrupt level or two or three. So 15 7168 increases the interrupt level and after executing this once, the interrupt 1 can be serviced, right? What happens in the Elliott, if an interrupt occurs? Is there a jump to a certain address in core or is the new program counter itself read from core? I have to think how to figure this out for PEC.... Of course I have to apply signals to all possible interrupt sources, load a program trying the yet unknown instructions and watch wheter any irregularities or jumps occur. I will have to trap PEC if the idle-loop is left. This is a bigger project and I will need some weeks to check this. > The 15 order is coded thus: > > 15 0 to 2047 Input > 15 2048 Shift A register left 7 places and OR in a character from the > paper tape reader (via OMP) > 15 2052 (IIRC) Wait until character pressed on teletype and read into > A register (via OMP) > 15 4096 to 6143 Output > 15 6144 Output character to paper tape punch (via OMP) > 15 6148 Output character to teletype (via OMP) if I remember > correctly > 15 7168 Terminate current program level i.e. return from interrupt > 15 7169 Test if standardised IIRC, skip the next instruction if the > accumulator is zero or top two bits are different > 15 7170 Increment B and skip the next instruction if bottom 13 bits > are zero > 15 7171 Read the value of the control keys on the OMP > 15 7172 Move l.s. 17 bits of A to the m.s. 17 bits of Q. Bottom bit > of Q is zeroed > 15 7173 Move m.s. 17 bits of Q to l.s. 17 bits of A. Top bit of A is > zeroed > 15 7174 Move A to B > 15 7175 Move B to A > 15 7176 Set relative addressing mode > 15 7177 Set absolute addressing mode Thank you very much for this list. This gives me valuable hints and ideas what to try out next. BTW: Have there been timers on the Elliotts you know about? Since you are such an expert I am sure you have a nice collection of vintage hardware, right? Perhaps you even have got an Elliott up and running? Thanks again, best regards, Erik.

19 years, 5 months

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Turning a VAX 11/750 into a workstation (Re: VMS for MicroVAX II/III (was Re: Value of a PDP/8?))

by pechter＠gmail.com

Nope... I did the install on the hardware in my DEC Field Service days... It was a VS11/VSV11 subsystem. Had a raster graphics box hung off an interface on the Unibus. Perhaps it was a CSS (special systems) item. The box was at Fort Monmouth in Central New Jersey. There were diags and manuals in the Fiche under that name. Bill On 3/11/07, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote: > > At 10:37 PM -0500 3/10/07, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > >Bill Pechter wrote: > >>The DEC VS11/VSV11 kind of did the earliest "Vax workstation." > >> > >>It was a Qbus graphics subsystem with 20 inch monitor which hooked up to > a > >>Unibus interface. > > > >I'm reasonably certain there was an earlier workstation > >configuration for VAXen. I think the earliest was a UNIBUS-attached > >graphical console for the VAX 11/780. > > > >Peace... Sridhar > > I believe you're thinking of the VAXstation 100 terminal (aka VS100). > > Zane > > > -- > | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | > | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | > | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | > +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ > | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | > | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | > | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | >

19 years, 5 months

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PDP-11/40 videos

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

I just looked at my message in "digest mode", and the word wrapping was bad, so I am reposting. I've been out in my shop this morning getting some VT52 DecScopes out of the back corner to prep them for shipping. I decided to boot up the old Wofford Witch PDP-11/40, since it has not been booted since November. While it's up and running, I think I am going to set up my camcorder and take some videos of the front panel as the lights blink, the LA120 Decwriter III console during the RSTS/E V7 startup process, the ASR-33 teletype as it clanks away running SYSTAT, the VT05 terminal during a video display, as well as the LA36, VT52, RL02, RK05, etc. I will hopefully find time to put these videos on my web site http://www.woffordwitch.com later today. I will show how to load an RL02 pack, an RK05 pack, etc. Is there anything in particular anyone is interested in while I am making videos? Hopefully someone will find these little video clips interesting or useful. I know that there have been times in the past where somebody would acquire an RL02 drive or RK05 drive and wish that someone could show them how to load a disk pack properly. Let me know if there is anything else that might be of interest while I have a few minutes and am not being summoned by "she who must be obeyed". :-) Ashley http://www.woffordwitch.com

19 years, 5 months

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PDP-11/40 videos

by tpeters＠mixcom.com

At 11:25 AM 3/11/2007 -0500, you wrote: >I just looked at my message in "digest mode", and >the word wrapping was bad, so I am reposting. > >I've been out in my shop this morning getting Um, no, actually the other message was preferable, this one is wrapped to a little tiny fraction of the width. I'd like to see the blinkenlights on the front panel. -T ----- 106. [Computing] B can be thought of as C without types; more accurately, it is BCPL squeezed into 8K bytes of memory and filtered through Thompson's brain. --Dennis Ritchie --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB: http://www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531

19 years, 5 months

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baud modifier

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 09:47:28 -0700 From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> Subject: Re: baud modifier >Terminal switchers that accommodate baud rate differences are still >made: >http://www.networktechinc.com/srvsw-term.html# >Cheers, >Chuck ------------------------------------------- I've still got a few NC-16 Net Commanders that are similar to those units in case anyone's interested. Same as the one Tony mentioned, but single board, RS-232 only, 110 to 19200 baud. mike

19 years, 5 months

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Meiko pictures.

by andy＠smokebelch.org

So I went into the erm, server room, and pulled apart the Meiko nodes and took some pictures. Apologies for the poor quality, all I had was a camera phone, not so great lighting (and an unsteady hand)... CS/860 (a.k.a. Concerto) : MK083 x 1 (Sparcstation 1+ host and link adapters etc) MK086 x 1 (Twin i860 + transputers) http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/CS860.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/CS860b.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/MK083.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/MK083b.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/MK086.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/MK086b.jpg CS/1 : MK009 x 4 (Quad transputer compute element w/256K) MK021 x 1 (8MB 'mass store', not sure if it has SCSI option) MK014 x 1 (Local host with monitor/boot ROMs, RS232 & GPIB) MK015 x 1 (RGB+S display element w/32K) http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/CS1.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/CS1back.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/CS1back2.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/CS1cage.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/MK009.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/MK014.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/MK015.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/MK015b.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/MK021.jpg And also an MK026 PC ISA link adapter. http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/MK026.jpg All of which I have no software for, yet... (fingers and toes crossed) And can anyone tell me which IBM mainframe I removed this CPU from (I've forgotten!) ? : http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/IBM.jpg And for nosey folks some shamefully dull photos of the server room/workshop, and floor of artists studios block (almost rerelict building) where it's located : http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/workshop.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/floor.jpg (where I get to stash more stuff amongst other folks crap) Andrew ---------------- Andrew Back a at smokebelch.org

19 years, 5 months

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VMS for MicroVAX II/III (was Re: Value of a PDP/8?)

by glen.slick＠gmail.com

On 3/11/07, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote: > Cool! is this the Caddy 6x drive? I collect the Plextor caddy drives > whenever I can find them. I think I'm up to 3 6x drives, and 1 8x > (which is the drive in my PDP-11). The Plextor PX-6XCS is indeed an external SCSI CD-ROM Caddy 6x drive. I'll keep my eye out for more of these if find them cheap locally. I just checked the Plextor manual for the PX-32CSi/e (Caddy) and PX-32TSi/e (Tray) series and they still have 512-byte Block jumpers. Those models don't seem to be too hard to find locally. There are some on Craigslist locally right now. > That is correct. Do you have the Hobbyist Licenses yet? You'll > probably want to start working on that first. > > Zane I don't have the Hobbyist Licenses yet. I'll take care of that after making sure the MicroVAX II/III hardware seems to be working. -Glen

19 years, 5 months

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can someone here host mono?

by legalize＠xmission.com

If someone can provide me with an environment that will host mono and its asp.net clone, then I can build some web site tools for us faster than if I just have access to raw PHP/MySQL. This is currently in the "test" debian distribution, which XMission will move to when it comes out of test, but who knows how long that will be. At that time I'll have the environment available to me on my xmission account. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

19 years, 5 months

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Turning a VAX 11/750 into a workstation (Re: VMS for MicroVAX II/III (was Re: Value of a PDP/8?))

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 3/10/07, Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: > > I think a 11/750 makes a fine single-user VMS "workstation" ;-) > > Never trust a workstation that couldn't roll over you and smash you flat? I almost had an 11/750 land on me, but I was able to coax it out of the side door of a Chevy Astro mini-Van (alone) without getting squished or pinched. That was a fun experience. Thinking about the whole "11/750 workstation" concept - I wonder if one could take a qbus mono framebuffer and hang it off of some flavor of Qniverter? It'd be glacial compared to a real VAXstation II or VAXstation 2000, but presuming the framebuffer doesn't depend on anything peculiar to POST on a MicroVAX II, it'd be slick to see. For "real" work on an 11/750, any flavor of DMA-capable Unibus comms interface (DEC DMF-32, Emulex CS21...) and an authentic ANSI-compatible dumb terminal (VT100, VT220...) is just fine (but back in the day, the "power users" had two terminals on their desk, along with a serial switch box to manage "multiple sessions" in hardware). -ethan

19 years, 5 months

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Value of a PDP/8?

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

Speaking as a youngster (I was in the sort-of midrange bracket, my elementary/middle school had a reasonably well equipped Apple IIc (& clone)/ IIgs lab that we actually learned programming on, then high school had 2 XT clones and 2 Mac Pluses for general use, and about 25 386s kept under lock and key for learning typing, then when I got to college I missed the VAX years-we were on Suns) the DEC bit was due partially to reputation and, perhaps, partially due to advertising (after the children's programming on PBS they ran McNeil/Lehrer, and right at the start they did the "brought to you by Digital Equipment" with the Digital logo. Still remember that). Anyway- I was old enough to remember the technical buzz about Alpha when it came out, and of course I later learned how 4BSD was written on and for VAXen. I don't have a huge DEC collection (VAX 4000/200, VAXstation 3100/76 (cobbled together, it seems to mostly work) DEC 3000, AlphaServer 1000a, Multia (my first machine, I was getting desparate...) Haven't found any PDPs in the area/within my price range, but based on my experience there are two manufacturers who do really nice console firmware, one of them is DEC (SRM/later VAX consoles), and the other is Sun. DEC marketing was terrible, though (arbitrary hardware limits, extreme proprietariness, random direction changing (sounds a bit like SGI...) It's a testament to DEC engineering, though, that HP hasn't been able to kill off the Alpha after several years of trying. It's back, at least for another month. It will be interesting to see what today's children are interested in. AFAIK few school districts do programming now, and most are running PCs.

19 years, 5 months

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baud modifier

by cclist＠sydex.com

Terminal switchers that accommodate baud rate differences are still made: http://www.networktechinc.com/srvsw-term.html# Cheers, Chuck

19 years, 5 months

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PDP-11/40 videos

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

I've been out in my shop this morning getting some VT52 DecScopes out of the back corner to prep them for shipping. I decided to boot up the old Wofford Witch PDP-11/40, since it has not been booted since November. While it's up and running, I think I am going to set up my camcorder and take some videos of the front panel as the lights blink, the LA120 Decwriter III console during the RSTS/E V7 startup process, the ASR-33 teletype as it clanks away running SYSTAT, the VT05 terminal during a video display, as well as the LA36, VT52, RL02, RK05, etc. I will hopefully find time to put these videos on my web site http://www.woffordwitch.com later today. I will show how to load an RL02 pack, an RK05 pack, etc. Is there anything in particular anyone is interested in while I am making videos? Hopefully someone will find these little video clips interesting or useful. I know that there have been times in the past where somebody would acquire an RL02 drive or RK05 drive and wish that someone could show them how to load a disk pack properly. Let me know if there is anything else that might be of interest while I have a few minutes and am not being summoned by "she who must be obeyed". :-) Ashley http://www.woffordwitch.com

19 years, 5 months

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Value of a PDP/8?

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

Here's my six cents... I worked for DEC (twice). Better engineering and nicer group of people you would not find again. Rod Smallwood DEC Badge No 45083 -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ethan Dicks Sent: 10 March 2007 02:26 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Value of a PDP/8? > > Someone (Jules? broken attribution?) wrote: > > I feel the need to ask - what is it that makes DEC stuff so popular > > and collectible, versus other machines of the same time period? > > > > So... why? More of a community? Better documentation? Better > > hardware or software availability? What do collectors *do* with > > their running DEC systems anyway? Familiarity - for me, as well as many members of this list, it's a matter of accumulated experience on DEC boxes when they were new or recently retired. > I can only speak to my own reasons. It really comes down to 2 issues. > > When I started collecting DEC hardware it was pretty cheap on the > surplus market. My 11/05 cost $50.00 US and was runnable. Another $150 > and I had a pair of RX01's. The most expensive part was RAM. Nice start. As I've posted in the past, my start with DEC hardware was a $35 PDP-8/L in 1982 from the Dayton Hamvention. It took me 2 years of fiddling around with it until I ran across a copy of the module list and got it working. From there, it was to a PDP-8/a to which I added an RX8E/RX01 then an RL8A and RL01 and a VT52. Coincident with the PDP-8/a, I was using PDP-11s and VAXen at work, so I was pretty well established as a DEChead between High School and my Freshman year of College. I never got paid to program a PDP-8, but I'm happy I barely made the cutoff to program the PDP-11 for a living (1986-1987). Besides early access to the hardware, I'd say the appeal was how much cooler 12-bits and 16-bits and 32-bits was compared to my little 6502 and 1802 machines were at home. I could write "real" programs on a minicomputer at work or poke around with noddy stuff in BASIC and 6502 assembler at home. No contest. It didn't hurt that while I was learning PDP-11 machine language at work (typing in diagnostics with console ODT emulators), I was also working on Unibus and Qbus hardware. I got to learn all the low-level stuff _and_ get a paycheck for it. I never saw an HP or Data General in the flesh until several years after I was repairing PDP-11 boards and writing programs in MACRO and C. Speaking of C, I learned it on an 11/750 running 4BSD in 1985. A venerable platform if ever there was one (back in the days of "all the world's a VAX"). I learned the One True Brace formatting standard in that environment and retain that style to this day. So... in short - early exposure and access, then the chance to pick up older stuff on the surplus market for cheap or free. When nobody wanted 5MB RL01s, I was buying cheap RL01s. Later it was RL02s, then it was entire MicroVAXen, etc. So much of it was backwards and forwards compatible, I could play with what I could afford at home, then take my results to work and run stuff on really expensive iron ($100K+). Shame it's all so hard to find now. -ethan

19 years, 5 months

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test-drb