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

ST-506/ESDI connecctor pinouts added to WikiPedia

by legalize＠xmission.com

I got these out of "Upgrading and Repairing PCs", 3rd ed., which is a wonderful source of information on all sorts of PC-related gear. In case others need them, I added the pinouts to WikiPedia. -- "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, 7 months

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Selling Intel 8096/196 Emulators,

by m.gedeon＠comcast.net

Hi Robo, I saw an old email from you, do you still have any of the VLS96 emulators for sale? I want to start learning about this chip. Thanks, MG

19 years, 7 months

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33C93 SCSI woes

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

> Two thoughts... SCSI IDs are send by a 1-of-N code on the data lines, > so > the fact that devices show up at the correct IDs means that the host > can > assert data lines. That's similar to what I was thinking > > But 191 is 10111111 (hex BF) IIRC. Now that seems to be a significant > bit > pattern, particularly as bit 6 is the '0' -- your host adapater > wouldn't > happen to be device 6 on the SCIS bus, would it? (it's a common address > for the host adapter). Do you have any idea what the 'Type' should be? SGIs all have the SCSI host adaptor at SCSI ID 0. Generally, the PROM matches known types to user-identifiable strings (e.g. SCSI Disk: dksc(0,1); SCSI Tape: dksc(0,4)) I know that CD-ROM devices were not included in the PROM, and they appear as "Unknown SCSI type 5 / removable: SCSI (0,6)" [or whatever the address is], which correlates to the decimal conversion of the "Perepheral Device Type" field returned in byte 0 by the inquiry command (CD-ROM=0x5). I'm not sure where 0xBF is coming from- that doesn't look like a valid type. So there must either be a spurious signal (or excessive skew) or a bad host controller. It sounds like the 0xBF is being reported for all types, including a tape drive (should be 0x1), ZIP, and something else that I can't find in an email right now, but I think it was a MO. bear made a suggestion that it might be a problem with the termpwr. Hmm- he says he's already desoldered the 33C93A and put in a socket, so I might just go ahead and scavenge another 33C93A from a board in the garage and send it to him (the PI owner, not bear).

19 years, 7 months

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Test, please ignore

by evan＠snarc.net

Sent from the Treo 700p of Evan Koblentz ... Evan at snarc.net

19 years, 7 months

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Archivin ESDI/ST-506 drives

by legalize＠xmission.com

OK, on closer look it appears as though these Eve drives might be ESDI/ST-506 and not SCSI. If they are ESDI, how could I archive them? -- "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, 7 months

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General Automation Zebra!

by g-wright＠att.net

Jay Wrote ..... > Jerry wrote.... > > My Zebra says 2510 on the botton sticker if I remember correctly > > has a 8" drive and a Qic Tape. > Nice to know there's 2500's around still. I sold a lot of 'em :) However, in > the entire history of General Automation's Zebra Pick line, I was pretty > confident none were ever sold with 8" floppy (or floppies at all for that > matter). How odd. I'd love to see a picture of this. The 2500's were > tabletop machines, perhaps around 20 inches wide, 25 inches deep, 8 inches > tall... had a creame/beige side & top (one piece) and a black plastic front. > I seem to recall only two buttons on front, power and reset. > Thats it, Very Nice machine I ment a 8" Hard drive not a Floppy > > Still Boots pick OS. I have > > the same tape you have but did not know how to to use it. > Are you sure it's a "dealer.sysgen" tape, and not just a tape that was MADE > by a dealer.sysgen tape? I did see a lot of folks label the output of the > dealer.sysgen account as a 'sysgen' tape which it really isn't. If you can > boot off the tape (BOOT CT from executive), it's not a dealer.sysgen. > Dealer.sysgen tapes were just account saves and useless without a machine > already running. You could always put it in and do a "dummy SEL-RESTORE" and > see what it pulls off. > Yes, It is The Dealer Tape. Label say Zebra/Pick Operatiing System, Revison 3.3b, 750/1350/1750/3760 Version 53a00124a01-a, Dealer Sysgen Tape Qic 24 Format Copyright 1980 Pick Systems with General Automation at the bottom The problem I have with booting is that it has Disk errors and I would guess it is no stable enough to make a bootable tape if that is even possible. Do you have any of the manuals on these or OS on how to Make a tape ?? I would like to try and see if this tape will even work. I was able to "DD" it with out errors > > My machine model did not show up on the label of the tape either. > I seem to recall there was something special/different about the QIC tape > drives in the oldest zebras vs. all the later zebras... a different > recording method or something making them bidirectionally incompatible. The > sysgen account could create tapes for these machines, but only if the target > machine was retrofitted with the newer style QIC drive. I'm sure the 2500 > was one of the old style drives normally. The 1750 could be either style. > Everything else was the later style I believe. > The tape drive I have will Only write to a DC300A. it errors on a DC600A > Jay > > Jerry Jerry Wright g-wright at att.net

19 years, 7 months

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33C93 SCSI woes

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

Another long-distance e-troubleshooting quandary: Machine: SGI Personal IRIS 4D/20 (WDC 33C93A SCSI, single channel) All disks pop up as unknown type, for instance the main system disk comes up under the PROM as Unknown SCSI type 191 / removable: scsi (0,1) drive settings: -ID: 1 -Time monitoring is disabled -Read-Ahead caching is enabled -Normal operational mode -LED active when drive connected to bus -CHECK CONDITION posted (unit attention response) -Unlimited 250ms, 128 retries (scsi time monitoring) -SCSI-2(scsi level) -SAVE DATA POINTER is issued for disconnection (message mode) -CHECK CONDITION status not posted(error report at mode select parameter rounding) -0 (PER default value) -Motor start on power up (motor start timing) -Executed by IDD (scsi bus parity check) -CHECK CONDITION status not posted (synchronous mode transfer rate) -Disabled (OPEN 1.2 to 2.67MB/s) -Power is supplied to the terminating resistor from the IDD and TERMPWR pin. Power is also supplied to the TERMPWR pin from the IDD. (Pin 26 of the interface) (scsi terminating power) new SCSI cable tried, terminator known working, drive visible from a different machine (Linux PC). The devices pop up at the proper SCSI IDs, but all are misidentified as Type 191 (I suppose this is a decimal representation of the hex SCSI identifier numbers.) Is this likely a dead 33C93A or is there somewhere else to look? P.S. - we love you, Tony- Don't leave.

19 years, 7 months

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Archiving workstation hard drives

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> Thanks for that! No macs here but I can source one easily enough so will have > to give that a go. That was only the subroutine for dealing with disc reading. It's part of a larger kludge I use for tape and disc reading. The point was just to show what low-level scsi commands you need to send to dump a disc. Would make more sense to translate that to something that would work with the generic SCSI driver under Linux.

19 years, 7 months

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Archiving workstation hard drives

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> This was necessary for archiving TI Explorer discs, which have 256 byte > blocks but are SCSI devices (MFM drive and ACB 4000 host adapter). Interesting. What OS platform and HBA was this for? -- TI Explorer Lisp Machines. The Eve should be readable, I was thinking of the Lilith. This is how I read 256 byte blocks under Mac OS9. Bad blocks are filled with 0x0bad /* * DoReadDiscBlocks.c */ /* */ #include "SCSISimpleSample.h" #include <stdio.h> /* * Read block zero from the indicated device.. */ void DoReadDiscBlocks( DeviceIdent scsiDevice /* -> Bus/target/LUN */ ) { char msg[256]; FILE *fp; int badblkcnt; int blklen; unsigned long count, maxblocks; unsigned char badBlockData[512]; ScsiCmdBlock scsiCmdBlock; SCSI_Capacity_Data getCapacity; unsigned long transferLength; for(count = 0; count<512; count+=2){ /* init the bad data */ badBlockData[count] = 0xb; badBlockData[count+1] = 0xad; } #define SCB (scsiCmdBlock) ShowSCSIBusID(scsiDevice, "\pGet Capacity"); CLEAR(SCB); SCB.scsiDevice = scsiDevice; SCB.command.scsi6.opcode = kScsiCmdReadCapacity; SCB.command.scsi6.len = 0; SCB.bufferPtr = (Ptr) &getCapacity; SCB.transferSize = sizeof getCapacity; SCB.transferQuantum = 1; /* Force handshake */ /* All other command bytes are zero */ DoSCSICommandWithSense(&scsiCmdBlock, TRUE, TRUE); blklen = getCapacity.len1; blklen |= getCapacity.len2 <<8 ; blklen |= getCapacity.len3 <<16; blklen |= getCapacity.len4 <<24; if(blklen != 256){ ShowSCSIBusID(scsiDevice, "\pBlock Len != 256!"); return; } maxblocks = getCapacity.lbn1; count = getCapacity.lbn2; maxblocks |= (count << 8); count = getCapacity.lbn3; maxblocks |= (count << 16); count = getCapacity.lbn4; maxblocks |= (count << 24); maxblocks++; /* * */ sprintf(msg, "%lu blocks", maxblocks); LOG(c2pstr(msg)); fp = fopen("discDump","wb"); ShowSCSIBusID(scsiDevice, "\pStarting Dump"); #define kLogicalBlockLength 256 #define kNumberOfBlocks 1 transferLength = 256; /* allways do a block at a time */ CLEAR(SCB); SCB.scsiDevice = scsiDevice; /* * The 6-byte read command can read up to 128 blocks of data (1-127 * reads that number of blocks, while zero reads 128 blocks). For more * flexibility, you should use the 10-byte Read command. */ SCB.command.scsi6.opcode = kScsiCmdRead6; SCB.command.scsi6.len = transferLength / kLogicalBlockLength; SCB.bufferPtr = NewPtrClear(transferLength); if (SCB.bufferPtr == NULL){ LOG("\pNo Memory for ReadBlockZero data buffer"); return; } SCB.transferSize = transferLength; SCB.transferQuantum = kLogicalBlockLength; badblkcnt = 0; for(count = 0; count < maxblocks; count++){ SCB.command.scsi6.lbn3 = (count >>16 ) & 0xff; /* set the blk # */ SCB.command.scsi6.lbn2 = (count >> 8 ) & 0xff; SCB.command.scsi6.lbn1 = (count ) & 0xff; DoSCSICommandWithSense(&scsiCmdBlock, TRUE, TRUE); if (SCB.status == noErr){ fwrite(SCB.bufferPtr, 256, 1, fp); /* write the data */ } else { badblkcnt++; fwrite(badBlockData, 256, 1, fp); /* write a bad block */ sprintf(msg, "blk %lx bad\n", count); LOG(c2pstr(msg)); } if((count % 256) == 0){ sprintf(msg, "blk %ld\n", count); LOG(c2pstr(msg)); } } DisposePtr(SCB.bufferPtr); fclose(fp); #undef SCB ShowSCSIBusID(scsiDevice, "\pDump Done"); sprintf(msg, "%d bad blocks\n", badblkcnt); LOG(c2pstr(msg)); }

19 years, 7 months

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Is MSX on topic?

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

IIRC the sound paraphenalia was the same or similar to that used in the TI home computer. --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > Witchy wrote: > >> I disagree on the "nothing new" part -- didn't it come with an > >> incredibly powerful music synthesizer as standard equipment? > > > > Not that I remember, apart from the Yamaha CX5M which was a dedicated > > music machine with full size keyboard > > Yes, I thought MSXes were just based around some common sound chip. Perhaps > the AY-whatever-it-was as used in the later Sinclair machines (and doubtless > countless others). > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Cheap talk? Check out Yahoo! Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call rates. http://voice.yahoo.com

19 years, 7 months

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macintosh retrospect 2.0 backup

by trag＠io.com

>Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 10:40:02 -0500 >From: Brad Parker <brad at heeltoe.com> >CRC wrote: >>> >>> good thing I saved that powerbook 145b :-) >> >>Probably too early to do any good... > >It has a scsi connector (I have the adapter) and 68040 (ec I think). Retrospect 2 ran fine on my Mac IIci back in the day. Ah, here are the "Minimum Requirements" off of the side panel on the box: Macintosh Plus, Hard Disk System 6.0.5 (2 MB RAM) or System 7 (4 MB RAM) So a PowerBook 145 should work fine. A PowerBook 100 should also work okay.... You might run into problems with a much later machine or OS and Retrospect 2, although as someone mentioned, later versions of Retrospect will probably read your older tapes just fine. I have a vague memory that when I went to OS 8+ and started using a PCI based Mac I had to upgrade my version of Retrospect, but I'm not certain any more whether that upgrade was necessary or just something I wanted to do--or maybe to get later tape drive support. Anyway, this came up in my emailed saved search for Retrospect on Ebay today <http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230081470236&ssPageName=…> which is a sealed version of Retrospect 2.0 with a $5 BIN and $5 shipping. Again, as someone else mentioned, the tough part is going to be coming up with a compatible (with your tape) working tape drive. Also, once you have everything hooked up you'll need to run the "Repair or Recreate a Storage Set" under the Tools menu. Under Retrospect 2 that's a "Tools" sidebar icon and the selection is "Repair/Recreate Catalog". Presumably you no longer have the "Storage Set" file that Retrospect created when it made the tape. So the first thing it will need to do is to scan through the tape and recreate the storage set files for that tape, I think. After that you'll be able to recover the contents. This always seemed like the most clunky aspect of Retrospect to me. Presumably, if you've had a complete hard drive failure, the catalog will be gone (absent multiple hard drives or server backup), so why doesn't it store the catalog file at the end of the tape where it could scan to the end and pick it up there instead of recreating the thing from all the contents of the tape? Perhaps tape can't work that way? Ah well, anyway, there's a copy of R. 2.0 available and it should work on any ancient Mac. They all had SCSI ports (except the very early 128K and 512K and KE but they don't have 2 MB RAM anyway) You just need to find a tape drive. Oh, and OS 6.08 and 6.05 are free downloads from Apple, as well as the version of 7 mentioned earlier, and any of those will work with R. 2.0. So really, you just need a Mac old enough to run early OSs, or find one with a later OS already on board or with OS media. Jeff Walther

19 years, 7 months

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Is MSX on topic?

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

there was at least one Brazilian made unit, with a detachable keyboard. Ive heard a rumor to the effect that they were somewhat common in Mexico. Anyone? --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote: > > Perhaps someone from Europe or Asia should chime in on how the MSX > > wave hit their corner of the planet. In the States, it was barely a > > whisper. > > They were not common in the UK as far as I remember, most people over > here had Spectrums or BBC micros. > > Based on the number of add-ons for them published as projects in Elektor > magazine, I would guess they were more common in the Netherlands. > > -tony ____________________________________________________________________________________ Get your own web address. Have a HUGE year through Yahoo! Small Business. http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/domains/?p=BESTDEAL

19 years, 7 months

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Looking for Kaypro 4/88 MSDOS 2.21

by j.e.vandergeest＠zonnet.nl

Hi I was surfing on the internet and saw your interest in kaypro co-power 88. I have a kaypro 10 and the co-power processorboard. My problem is that I only have a loader for the 256 kb Ramdisk but not the loader for running Msdos2.11 Are you willing to mail me a copy of the software . Thanks. Jos

19 years, 7 months

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Strange things found in a free SPARC 20

by ken＠seefried.com

I've had a couple of WTF moments from SS20s. Best one was when I got a retired SS20 that I cracked open to find one SM71 MBus CPU and one Dual Ross 100 MBus CPU. It had been in reliable production, as a 3 proc box, for a couple of years with one 70MHz, 1MB cache CPU and 2 100MHz, 256KB cache CPUs. Solaris reports that it's using all 3. That's some robust architecture.

19 years, 7 months

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Strange things found in a free SPARC 20

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

So, what's a VSIMM run in US$ currently?

19 years, 7 months

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Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994

by ray＠arachelian.com

Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 By Steven Goodwin <http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/user/39> /Online on: 2007-01-05/ /(Or, how to prevent the Dark Ages of computing through free software)/ In a few years time, it will be impossible to study the history of home computers since everything at the time was proprietary; both in terms of the physical hardware, and all the software that ran upon it since most of it is encumbered by software ?protection? to prevent copying. To compound the problem, the hardware is dying (literally) and (being proprietary) can?t be rebuilt in any equivalent manner. In some cases the software is physically disintegrating too since, in the case of many 8-bit micros from the 1980?s, the storage medium was cassette tape; a temperamental mechanism at the time, let alone now. It?s not that no computer innovation took place in the 1980?s, just that none of it will be recorded. <snip> http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/blogs/digital_archaeology_of_the_microc…

19 years, 7 months

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Is MSX on topic?

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

ah, charcoal gray, CX5. Models with or without the synthesizer. What about in Canada? --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote: > It was a Yamaha, but I don't remember what model. > > On Sat, 20 Jan 2007, Chris M wrote: > > > which one? > > --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org <cisin at xenosoft.com> > > wrote: > > > We bought an MSX machine from Mitchell Waite. > > > They were trying to decide whether it would be worth > > it to publish an MSX > > > book. > > > > > > > > > -- > > > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com ____________________________________________________________________________________ Don't get soaked. Take a quick peak at the forecast with the Yahoo! Search weather shortcut. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/shortcuts/#loc_weather

19 years, 7 months

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Is MSX on topic?

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

ah, charcoal gray, CX5. Models with or without the synthesizer. What about in Canada? ____________________________________________________________________________________ TV dinner still cooling? Check out "Tonight's Picks" on Yahoo! TV. http://tv.yahoo.com/

19 years, 7 months

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Is MSX on topic?

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

which one? --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote: > We bought an MSX machine from Mitchell Waite. > They were trying to decide whether it would be worth it to publish an MSX > book. > > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for earth-friendly autos? Browse Top Cars by "Green Rating" at Yahoo! Autos' Green Center. http://autos.yahoo.com/green_center/

19 years, 7 months

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A sneaky fault

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

Please forgive me for the marginal off-topic nature of this post. The machine in qurstion is an HP9820, which is, I think, a programmable calculator (the distinction being that it has a key-per-function type of keyboard, not a full alphanumeric one where you type out the keywords). But anyway... I'm working on an HP9220,. For those who know nothing about this series of machines, its one of the few common-ish bit-serial procesors (and is intereting for that reason alone). The processor has 2 accumulators (A and B), program counter (P), current instruction (Q -- stands for 'qualifier,' I am told), extension (E -- only 4 bits wide), I/O, memory address (M) and memory data (T) registers. It's microcoded (256 28 bit words). Binary operations are done bit-serially, BCD operations (which have to be between the A and T registers, with the result going into A) are done 1 nybble at a time. The ALU is actually a pair of programmed PROMs, not 'normal' logic. Oh, nnd to add to the fun, the memory system uses some odd voltages. The ROMs are HP custom chips with chip select lines that have to be driven to +12V (all other I/O line are TTL compatible). THhe RAMs are Intel 1103 DRAMs, they're PMOS and use 16V logic levels with a further 3V bius supply on top of that (so there are +16V and +19V lines to the RAM boards). Anyway, the fault was 'no display'. That is not a suprise. Since the display is software-scanned, almost all the machine has to be working to get a display. Well, I started off checking the PSU lines (actually with all the logic boards removed), they were all fine. Then it's worth knowing that the clock board will run on its own. If you power up just the clock board, you get a muclock pulse (microcode clock) for every 16 bitclock pulses (shift register clocks). That was fine too. Now there are 2 ways to procesed. The hard and sure way -- look at various signals, work out what the machine is doing, compare to what it should be doing, and figure out what must be causing the problem. And the easy and uncertain way -- it's a bit-serial machine so just about everything should be changing. If something is stuck, that's a likely place to start looking. The M and T register bits are brought out on a test connector on the memory box. So I looked there. It turend out that M(15) down to M(12) were all toggling, the remaining 12 M lines were all stuck low. Rememebr the M register is a 16 bit shift register, loaded from the MSB end. And it's built from 4 7495 chips. So it seemed 'obvious' that the chip that handles bits 11..8 had failed. It wasn't accepting data, it was providing 0's to the next lower chip. Getting a replacement was not easy, but I mamanged it. Soldering it in was trivial (pin-through-hole on a very well-made PCB). But would you believe the fault was the same. Of course I'd checked the clocks and mode control line were getting to all the chips in the M register. Puzzeled, I looked again and M(12). It was toggling alright, but when I sampled it with a logic analyser, I found high time of the pulses was only the bitclock pulse high-time width. Which clearly can't be right for a shift register made up of D-types clcokced form bitclock. Moreover M(12) as always low just before the active edge of bitclock. so the next shift register in the chain would always clock in 0's. Out came the most significant nybble of the M register, and it was replaced with the ship I'd removed ffrom M(11)..M(8). And the machine then sprang to life. So be careful. A signal can appear to be doing the right thing but can have nasty timing problems... -tony

19 years, 7 months

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Looking for OS/278 to boot up a DECmate I

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> I can put these on floppies or if you know of a known good RX01/RX02 > image for a DECmate I can use it. We have orig distribs for OS78 V4 and some DEC apps at CHM. I'll see about reading them.

19 years, 7 months

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Is MSX on topic?

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

TMK the only *commonly* found MSX unit here in the US was the Yamaha CX5, and I have that but never used it. An interesting topic thats mostly foreign here. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Want to start your own business? Learn how on Yahoo! Small Business. http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/r-index

19 years, 7 months

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Strange things found in a free SPARC 20

by ken＠seefried.com

From: "Teo Zenios" <teoz at neo.rr.com> > I was wondering what you people think about machines that have been > used as a latrine by animals, do you clean them up or toss them? Urine is very acidic (with acidity varying by type of animal), but by and large it's just like any other acidic corrosive (smell notwithstanding). If the damage isn't that bad, search the list archives for remediation. If it's corroded the traces of the PCB, well, in theory you can patch it...you make the call. Almost any board that my cats manage to whiz on are usually totaled > I hear rat excrement can carry some nasty deadly diseases. Possibly, but you're probably thinking of mouse urine, which for certain specific types of mice can carry hantavirus, at least in the Southwestern US. Not good.

19 years, 7 months

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Archivin ESDI/ST-506 drives

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> OK, on closer look it appears as though these Eve drives might be > ESDI/ST-506 and not SCSI. If they are ESDI, how could I archive them? 1) what were the drives connected to? If it is a custom controller you either have to have enough knowledge about the machine to write a block level dump program, or build something that can extract and then interpret the data stream off of the disc. BTW, ST-506 is no easier than ESDI if you are down at the bit level (other than the ESDI data separator was on the drive) 2) if it was a standard thing like a scsi to st506 or ESDI bridge board, things are much easier. ESDI was new enough that bridge boards like the Emulex MD21 had inquiry commands so you can get the drive geometry. older boards require the system to configure the board with that information, so you had to know in advance what kind of drive is out there.

19 years, 7 months

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macintosh retrospect 2.0 backup

by technobug＠comcast.net

On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 19:18:17 -0500, Brad Parker <brad at heeltoe.com> wrote: > Someone approached me about some "prior art" and I am now looking at > some 1/4" carts marked "quadra 950 retrospect 2.0 mac os" I made in > the > early 1990's. > > If somehow I could find a working 1/4" drive (scsi) and got it > connected > to a macintosh, > > Is there any hope I could find a copy of retrospect 2.0? I have a couple of early copies of Retrospect - they are from 95 and 97, but don't label their version. I also have 4 and 5 available. > > anyone else ever try this? You might want to find a SCSI tape deck that is currently supported and then try a recent version (4 or 5) to attempt to read the tapes. Dantz did a fairly good job of being able to read old backups with current versions and I've pulled off some really old stuff when I was using 4. > > it's probably hopeless, but it might be a fun ride. hard to say. > > good thing I saved that powerbook 145b :-) Probably too early to do any good... CRC

19 years, 7 months

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Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994

by c.murray.mccullough＠gmail.com

I agree. At least we're preserving some things. And we can! Experimenters of the 8-bit era are a hardy bunch and there still are 'artifacts' from that era still around. Will one be able to say the same thing about PCs of today 20 years down the road? Will they be worth preserving or saving from the scrap heap, hardware and software and such. Happy computing all! Murrray--

19 years, 7 months

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Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> A couple of decades down the line I think we're going to have real problems - > not just with computers, but with all sorts of modern gadgets We don't even have to wait that long. All of the consumer devices tied to backend services are a perfect example of devices that are absolutely useless once a company fails. Unfortunately, revenue models based on this model are on the increase.

19 years, 7 months

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Token Ring Hub

by teoz＠neo.rr.com

I have a few 16/4 Token Ring ISA cards and an EISA 100Mb one that I want to test out in a few 486 systems I have to compare it to 10Mb Ethernet that I currently run. Anybody have a super cheap hub for sale I can use (these are the RJ45 type cables)? Located in the US. Also what is a good way to bridge Token Ring to Ethernet so that these 486 machines can use my router/cable modem?

19 years, 7 months

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eBay idiocy

by vp＠drexel.edu

ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > > Well, as long as we're being petty, I tuned out your incessant (and often > > off-topic) jabbering long before I unsubscribed. > > Is this view wildly held? If so, I'll stop posting. No point in wasting > my time looking stuff up to post, and everybody else's time in reading > useless information. Let me just say that I for one enjoy reading Tony's postings. Sure a few are not interesting to me, but I can skip them. I much admire the technical insights in Tony's articles and the advice he so gladly gives. Keep up the good work Tony! **vp

19 years, 7 months

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Ebay idiocy

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

I thought I'd weigh in on the latest policy change on eBay. I didn't know about the new change until someone e-mailed me about it. The only change I've noticed recently is that one is not now allowed to randomly send a message to another user with whom they have not done business, which leads one to ask why they have the fucking contact link there in the first place? Through the years there have been these recurring bitch sessions over eBay's increasingly idiotic policies. In the meantime, I and Patrick set up an alternate for the computer collecting community that was tailored for our specific needs and desires, taking into account all the bitching and pissing and moaning over eBay's abominable system. We got the first implementation off and running with big plans to expand it further, which have yet to materialize, and I'll get into that in a second. But first I want to take the time to congratulate the community for the big fuck you they gave to the VCM. It has always been the intention that we would start charging at some point for using it, but we never got to that point. The usage was so minimal anyway that it didn't make sense to start charging until we could get a reasonably active user base. Granted, we could've done a lot more to promote and advertise the site, but the CC list community here damn well knew about it and was constantly reminded about it by myself and Marvin, and inspite of that the activity just never materialized. Patrick has since gone on to bigger and better things, having washed his hands of the CC list and community at some point last year when he couldn't take anymore of the petty bickering and flame wars that regularly erupt (this is paraphrasing what he told to me). He turned the site and its maintenance over to me and I've been running it solo ever since, mostly just approving all the new accounts and handling the very rare issues that crop up. For the most part, the VCM has been there processing transactions (for FREE) on autopilot, and running rather well considering. If it wasn't for Marvin--who was fed up enough with eBay but, more importantly, savvy enough to realize that the VCM is better for selling a lot of stuff, especially when there are no listing fees--the VCM would effectively be dead. I know people are using it, because I see you swooping in and grabbing some of the better stuff being offered for great prices (someone just bought a nice IMSAI 8080 for around $1,200, which is a pretty good deal). I buy a lot of stuff from Marvin, who is listing a lot of fantastic stuff for extremely reasonable prices. There are other people regularly selling there too and probably making a decent amount of money, COMMISSION FREE. Now, getting back to the expansion of the system. I do still have a lot of plans for the service, mainly in the area of making it a bit more friendly in the interface. When we launched it we had a service that I felt was superior to eBay's crap system. In the meantime, eBay used their billions of dollars of capitalization to make their system easier to use, integrated a lot of stuff, etc. Me, I'm still sitting on my IPO until the next irrational dot.com boom, so my funds are limited, as is my time, as is my ability to make any changes to the VCM since Patrick owns and controls the server and wrote all the code (based on a system he'd already designed for a past client of his). Now that Patrick is out of the picture, I'm faced with having to port the entire system over to my own server, which I would like to do so I can finally take it into Phase 2 and beyond. But quite frankly, why the fuck should I even bother? You guys don't use it anyway. You keep using eBay, and you keep bitching about how stupid they are and get all up in arms when they make yet another bone-headed policy change, and there sits the VCM doing everything you want, allowing you to communicate with whoever the hell you want without any over-bearing surveillance system in place to make sure you aren't doing something sneaky to deprive us of revenue, with the guys who built and run the system completely available directly via e-mail for any suggestions, complaints, praise(?) [hardly any, if you're wondering], and doing it without asking you for one god damn penny. So tell me, seriously, why should I bother moving forward with the VCM? You want an alternative? It's already there, and I'd like to continue to build on it and improve it and make it the premier place for trading in old computers, a de facto replacement for eBay, like I originally intended. But I'm certainly not going to waste my time unless people actually decide to USE IT. Is there a reason you don't use it? Is there something about the interface you don't like? Is there one or two or three or five reasons why you don't like it or don't want to use it? If so, why didn't you say so? You could've always e-mailed either myself or Patrick, and like the few people who did bother to give us feedback, your comments and suggestions would've resulted in immediate changes to the system. Try getting that from eBay. As O. Sharp pointed out, try even finding a fucking way to communicate with eBay!! They make it nearly impossible for you to get a hold of them because THEY DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOU. They just want you to buy shit from sellers to that they can get a cut of their money and they want you to shut the fuck up. I see now that I've been relegated to ranting about eBay it's time to start winding this up. In conclusion, I'm quite serious about my queries. The VCM has been out there for years and inspite of the lack of advertising 1,881 people have managed to find it and sign up for an account. Logically, that would make for a very strong and active user base. As far as I can tell, about 1,800+ of them don't actually do anything once they get an account. Why? Why didn't they spread the word to other collectors and to sellers on eBay so that they could convince them to sell their stuff on the VCM instead? I'll tell you one reason why: sellers make more money on eBay. And that's fine. eBay is good for making money selling crap. eBay is a crap market. The VCM is a marketplace for the serious trade of vintage computers for serious vintage computer collectors, hobbyists and afficionados. If you want to buy/sell/trade crap, continue using eBay, and give them your money and shut the fuck up because they don't care about you (only your money). If you want an alternative that caters specifically to the vintage computing community, use the VCM. Tell everyone you buy from about it. Sell your fine vintage computers on it (sell your crap on eBay). Use the god damn system. It's there and for the foreseeable future, it's free. Use it or lose it. In closing, many thanks to Marvin (whom I am also proud to count as a good friend) for utilizing the VCM to its fullest, and congratulations for the many thousands of dollars he's made COMMISSION FREE selling his stuff there for the past several years, and congratulations to the other sellers, and to the many people who have bought stuff in the simple and relaxed environment that is the VCM. Marvin and the others are the ones who deserve the credit for keeping it alive. YOU could be the one who helps to make it THRIVE if you would just USE IT. http://marketplace.vintage.org or http://www.vintagecomputermarketplace.com Please direct any replies to me via e-mail. I am not subscribed to the list and might not see any follow-ups you post. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

19 years, 7 months

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Sanyo MBC 55x

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 12:19:33 -0800 (PST) From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> Subject: Re: Sanyo MBC 55x On Fri, 19 Jan 2007, Rick Companje wrote: >> Hello Don, >> I just read your forum post from 2002 regarding a bootdisk image (MS-DOS >> v2.11) for the Sanyo MBC 555. >> Can you please send me a copy by email? I'm running 1.25. Do you know what >> kind of software is available for this machine besides Basic, Wordstar and >> Calcstar? >Don Maslin is dead. >There are no more bootdisks any more. -------------------------------------------------- As a matter of fact, the post he's referring to is probably the exchange between Don and myself in 08/02, when he was kind enough to send me that image. Here's my chance to pass it on; I've sent it to Rick off-list. Don is sorely missed... mike

19 years, 7 months

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eBay idiocy/vcf idiocy et. al.

by dm561＠torfree.net

From: "Jay West" <jwest at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: eBay idiocy/vcf idiocy et. al. >Please terminate this thread as of midnight 1/19/2007. Any posts pouring gas >on the flames of this post after that time will result in 2 week ban from >the list. -------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you, Jay, for once again stepping in to calm the troubled waters (i.e., settling down us unruly kiddies). Interesting that Sellam started this, while chastising us for the "bitching" that goes on here and which caused his VCM partner to leave... But if his aim was to publicize VCM, I guess it worked. mike

19 years, 7 months

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cqd220 jumpers

by aek＠bitsavers.org

got a follow up email from the person that the jumper list came from: While working with this new CQD220A document I found an error where "W6-5" is listed twice, and "W6-3" is skipped. Here is the original section: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- W6-1 OUT Adaptive DMA enabled (F) W6-2 OUT Adaptive DMA Dwell Time enabled (F) W6-4 W6-5 IN IN 0.8-ms DMA dwell time OUT IN 1.6-ms DMA dwell time IN OUT 3.2-ms DMA dwell time OUT OUT 6.4-ms DMA dwell time W6-5 OUT Block mode DMA enabled (F) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I expect it should be something like this: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- W6-1 OUT Adaptive DMA enabled (F) W6-2 OUT Adaptive DMA Dwell Time enabled (F) W6-3 W6-4 IN IN 0.8-ms DMA dwell time OUT IN 1.6-ms DMA dwell time IN OUT 3.2-ms DMA dwell time OUT OUT 6.4-ms DMA dwell time W6-5 OUT Block mode DMA enabled (F) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- But I am not sure. My card had a jumper installed on W6-3, and I am thinking it set the DMA dwell time to 3.2ms. Removing it, change to 6.4ms, seemed to help with a crashing problem.

19 years, 7 months

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macintosh retrospect 2.0 backup

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

* Brad Parker wrote: Someone approached me about some "prior art" and I am now looking at some 1/4" carts marked "quadra 950 retrospect 2.0 mac os" I made in the early 1990's. If somehow I could find a working 1/4" drive (scsi) and got it connected to a macintosh, Is there any hope I could find a copy of retrospect 2.0? anyone else ever try this? it's probably hopeless, but it might be a fun ride. hard to say. good thing I saved that powerbook 145b :-) -brad ------------------------------------------ Don't know if it helps or not, but I have a wheeled table in the garage with an 8600 that I use for testing SCSI drives, peripherals. Was working last time I fired it up. I used to use a 9500. It is still on the floor; was working when I pulled it out. It's yours if you want it. (This is in Pleasanton, California.) I think I kept both systems at 8.6, since that was last of the good SCSI support drivers. (If any interest, write me off line: billy.pettit at wdc.com - only good on week days. Weekends are for fun not computers!) Billy

19 years, 7 months

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Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> The machines and common cards will be, but drivers and exotic > hardware/software will be long gone. It is hard to find drivers for some > things now let alone in 20 years. So the question is what should be saved? Is there something about the 'exotic hardware/software' that is historically significant? Was enough information released that you could actually do something with the device in the future?

19 years, 7 months

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Sanyo MBC 55x

by rick＠companje.nl

Hello Don, I just read your forum post from 2002 regarding a bootdisk image (MS-DOS v2.11) for the Sanyo MBC 555. Can you please send me a copy by email? I'm running 1.25. Do you know what kind of software is available for this machine besides Basic, Wordstar and Calcstar? Regards, Rick Companje

19 years, 7 months

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eBay idiocy

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

M H Stein said: > I suspect that if he really did give eBay a run for its money and > someone offered him a bag full of money (not so ridiculous these days), > he just might say yes. Yeah, you know what? Under the right conditions I probably would, because I just can't see myself still running something like that when I'm your age. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

19 years, 7 months

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Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

William Donzelli wrote: OK, Mr. Curmudgeon, what can you tell us kids about the CDC Mass Store System? I got a couple of cartridges in the mail today from a buddy that used to be in the supercomputer business. Nearly everything on the web is about the IBM noodlepicker. -- Will ------------------------ Sorry, but I never worked on it. Saw it in action a few times and was fascinated with the picker arm moving so fast over the honeycomb. I don't believe a lot were sold. I saw one status report that only had 18 of them world wide. There may have been more sold, but I doubt it. The lack of compatibility with legacy tapes was a huge detractor. Pople who needed big tape libraries already had thousands of tapes and didn't want to convert them one by one. I do know that they were great job security. It required a full time field engineer. Don't think I have a manual on it, though I may have some Sales literature. I'll check the controlfreaks twiki and see if any info is there. Billy

19 years, 7 months

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VCM idiocy

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

> Ooh, good one. I'll bet he STILL feels that. Oh jeez, shut up already. > Starting a business is hard work, and success is difficult. Right, but what would you know about this, Donald Trump? > (By the way, while I feel it inappropriate for the list, or any other > civilized or pseudo-civilized discussion, anyone who wishes to see the > e-mail exchange between Sellam and myself should e-mail me off-list, and > I will be happy to send them a copy.) By all means, please do. But why not just post it here for all to see? It doesn't fall below the level of your Tourettes-induced outburst. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

19 years, 7 months

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dovebid is a good source for wire racks/shelving

by legalize＠xmission.com

FYI, There are scads of lots up there right now... dunno what they will sell for, but I'm guessing lots cheaper than the several hundred you would have to pay for these new. If you're not local to the sale location, you'll have to add shipping, but they are light and when disassembled can be shipped rather easily by a company like Craters & Freighters. -- "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, 7 months

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Need help Imsai Floppy disk system

by keith＠harrells.net

I now have a working Imsai now need to try to get the 8" Imsai floppy sub system working. I have a number of floppy disk controller but no Imsai FD controller. I have Cromemco 4fdc, Cromemco 64fdcCromemco 16fdc, dual systems FDC and some CCS fdc. I'm not sure of the cable connection from the Imsai disk to the controllers. I had heard the Caldisk pin out is not the same as the Shugart I do have CP/M working on another 64k Imsai using the CCS controller for 8" shugart and a Northstar controller for 5 1/4". Has anyone gotten the old Imsai drive working using CP/M? Thanks.

19 years, 7 months

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Lilith (was Archiving workstation hard drives)

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> Early Liliths use a 10MB Cartridge drive from Honeywell/Bull ( Mididisk > D120) I did not find any info on this drive Are copies of the hardware documentation around anywhere that could be copied/scanned for the system? I've searched the CHM archives, and we don't appear to have anything other than the user's manual (which I've put up on bitsavers) It would be nice to find this, since we have a Lilith.

19 years, 7 months

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Looking for OS/278 to boot up a DECmate I

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

Hello, fellow 12-bitters, I know this has been discussed recently (as in, "how can I boot my DECmate?"), but IIRC, the "easiest" way to get OS/278 to a DECmate I is by copying a boot floppy and putting it in the mail. Can anyone on the list assist me with this? I have NOS blank RX01s, so I can do a diskette swap, or a mail-and-return, or whatever arrangement is required; but at the moment, I have no way to hang an 8" floppy off of modern hardware, so I'm pretty much limited to solutions that are based on 100% DEC and DEC-compatible hardware. All I have for my DECmate I is WPS-8, not all that interesting, frankly. One of my goals, BTW, is to snarfle off images of my PDP-8 RX01 and RX02 disks for preservation and sharing. I have a few boxes of disks from the 1978-1985 timeframe, up to the time I stopped using a PDP-8 on a daily/weekly basis. Thanks for any assistance, -ethan

19 years, 7 months

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Archiving workstation hard drives

by legalize＠xmission.com

OK, suppose you have a workstation and it has stuff installed on its drives. You don't have the original distribution media for the OS and any installed applications and you don't have a spare system with the same stuff installed. What's the best way to make a backup of the entire hard drive so that the essential software doesn't get lost? The drives are SCSI. -- "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, 7 months

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eBay idiocy

by dm561＠torfree.net

Sellam: I'm sorry you took my reply (and others) as a "personal assault" and yes, perhaps I should have prefaced them with a paean to your indeed considerable contributions to the CC community; I did NOT say that you are "only" in it for the money, nor do I see any problem with your generating income that helps defray your costs and/or puts $$s in your pocket. More power to ya! I was just reminding Evan ("The man just wants some reassurance that his time and hard work will be appreciated. What's wrong with that? More people in our hobby should be that devoted!") that money was also a factor: >But first I want to take the time to congratulate the community for the >big fuck you they gave to the VCM. It has always been the intention that >we would start charging at some point for using it, but we never got to >that point. I wasn't offended by your language per se, but by the contempt and lack of consideration it expresses for the members of this list and the fact that you are blaming us for the VCM not becoming a viable revenue generator. I thought I was also offering you what I thought was constructive criticism, that perhaps your time and energy might be better spent in promoting VCM instead of alienating at least some of your potential customers by ranting at us for not beating a path to your door . FWIW, the same thing happened between you and me back when we were talking about some things I was going to send you; your talking to me in the same manner made me decide that I didn't really care to deal with you. But if it works for you to alienate people, good luck to ya. mike cc: Sellam

19 years, 7 months

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Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

William Donzelli wrote: Yes, I realize when...no, never mind...I think some of you guys were born with grumpy old man syndrome fully in place. -- Will --------------------------------------------- Can't speak for the others, but I worked hard to earn my right to be a curmudgeon. After 45 years of dealing with all the bullshit in this field, I relish my chance to be cynical and know-it-all. Let the kids be nice - I'm gong to have fun. Billy

19 years, 7 months

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NOS librascope heads for rpc4000

by aek＠bitsavers.org

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1247&item=2500753548… these appear to be for the RPC4000

19 years, 7 months

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Ebay idiocy

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> My two items of low-denomination currency, anyway. Which goes to everyone EXCEPT Sellam, since he DOESN'T READ THE LIST! I sent email to Jay asking that Sellam be banned from posting. I suggest others do as well.

19 years, 7 months

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Unrealistic price?

by cclist＠sydex.com

$148,995 starting bid for a 32GB AS/400 memory. http://auctions.yahoo.com/i:IBM%203017%2032GB%20CHIP:216674201 Cheers, Chuck

19 years, 7 months

2
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VAX Assembly question

by spc＠conman.org

I'm currently perusing _Computer Programming and Architecture: The VAX-11_ by Levy and Eckhouse and I come across the description of the CALLG and CALLS instructions. They go on to describe the stack frame created by the CALL* instruction: Condition handler (initially 0) <- FP SPA | S | 0 | MASK | PSW | 0 FP + 4 Saved AP etc ... Saved FP Saved PC Saved R0 . . . Saved R11 My question is about the condition handler. In the text, it's described as: A longword condition handler address. Here, the calling routine may store the address of an error-handling routine to be called if an exceptional error condition arises in the procedure. This is the only section (as far as I can tell) where this is described, and I'm curious as to how exactly it worked. It appears that while the CPU may set this location to 0, its purpose isn't really dictated by the hardware, but it a convention used by VMS. But then (as I was typing this), I was struct by this bit: ... the calling routine may store ... Huh? How? The calling routine either does a: argsize: .long 0 arg1: .long 0 arg2: .long 0 arg3: .long 0 arg4: .long 0 movl #4,argsize ; use fixed memory movl filehandle,arg1 ; for the arguments moval somememory,arg2 movl #0,arg3 movl #4096,arg4 callg argsize,dump_memory or pushl #4096 ; use the stack pushl #0 ; for the arguments pushal somememory pushl filehandle calls #4,dump_memory (forgive if my assembly isn't quite right, I'm going from the book rather quickly here). How can the calling code set the condition handler? The CPU creates the stack frame (as diagrammed above), not the calling routine. Am I missing something? -spc (Really curious about this ... )

19 years, 7 months

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Sellam

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

Since there have been many people asking about Sellam's posts: In the past he was a very active poster, and he has the collection and documents to be able to give very detailed answers. If I recall correctly, the major reason that he withdrew from the list was because he became a father and had very little spare time. Perhaps when his children require less time he'll come back. This is not to be read as an endorsement of his post, writing style, hairdo, or method of eating asparagus- just as an answer to the Sellam FAQ.

19 years, 7 months

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VCM, was Re: Ebay idiocy

by marvin＠rain.org

> From: "Michael B. Brutman" <mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com> > > I like VCM a lot. I've been browsing it for over a year. It's always > fun to speculate on what Marvin is holding onto based on what he has > listed. :-) That is *really* hard to do since I generally list things as I find them ... and there is a lot to find :). > Sadly, I haven't found anything I want to purchase. My particular weak > spot (the PCjr) doesn't show up there. Yet :). > If I were to unload something, VCM is the first place I'm going to go. > I'd rather sell to a group of like-minded individuals first. If it > doesn't sell there after a reasonably long period of time, then I would > consider eBay. One of the things I tried to do was to put enough stuff there that others would also start to list. And I do have another motive as well ... if something doesn't sell on VCM, depending on what it is, I already have the listing done to port it over to Ebay. It is unfortunately a fact of life that stuff will sell better on Ebay. It is also a *very* unfortunate fact of life that I either need to buy this house or move. VCM will not provide enough money to do that, and the reality is that Ebay will. But I still try and list somewhat uncommon items on VCM that are unlikely to generate ebay bids. > As for Sellam, > > I've never met the guy. I've heard a lot. :-) What I like about Sellam and a lot of other people here is that they *DO* rather than just talk. VCF started out as a thought here, but he was the one that took it and ran with it to create VCF. And ditto for Jay when ClassicCmp needed a new site. Jay didn't just say woe is us, but took the ball and ran. And with his hosting other classic computer related websites, all I can say is that I greatly respect the man ... and I've never met him :). And look at Al with what he has done with Bitsavers, and Erik, and Curt, and ... The amount of knowledge available on this listserver and what is being done is truly incredible. I've met quite a few people on this listserver, and at times it is fun to just talk and listen. It would be nice if everyone would just get along and not jump on every annoyance that comes along.

19 years, 7 months

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Scrap equipment and fraud (was Re: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 1/18/07, Billy Pettit <Billy.Pettit at wdc.com> wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: > It's not just manufacturers (who are trying to comply with various > regulations on scrapping equipment and taxes)... When I was at Lucent > in Columbus, they started drilling through the HDAs of discarded > drives, not to protect against data theft from a working drive, but > against employee harvesting of the scrap bins. > > There is another reason for this. Warranty fraud has become a 7 digit > problem for most OEM manufacturers. Get a good stock of scrap products, > take parts off a good product, replace them with the bad parts and send the > good product in for repair.... I did not witness this, but I heard at a DECUS that some time in the late 1980s, DEC had a different kind of scrap problem - they would scrap numerous things at the factory, load them into bins and sell them to gold scrappers. The problem came with a gold scrapper started selling bits and pieces (like MicroVAX CPU and memory boards) to other parties which would end up in the 3rd-party resale stream and end up in customers' hands. The damage was two-fold... 1) reputation, and 2) the IRS discovering that "scrapped" items were being bought and sold. The solution, I heard, was to get a chipper that could reduce boards, racks, etc., into postage-stamp-sized chunks before handing the waste over to the salvage companies. I understand that the first guys to get a bin of metal and PCB chips rather than boards and boxes they could cherry pick, were a bit surprised. OTOH, one of my co-workers from Software Results took a pile of boards >from the scrap bin and drilled and mounted them to make a 1.5m-tall PCB Xmas tree (the solder mask was green). The bean counters were initially upset until the drilled holes were pointed out to them - clearly the boards had been damaged sufficiently that nobody was going to be mistaking them for usable product. -ethan

19 years, 7 months

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Ebay idiocy

by dm561＠torfree.net

>Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 13:09:21 -0500 >From: "Evan Koblentz" <evan at snarc.net> >Subject: RE: Ebay idiocy >Sellam knows he's, shall we say, a "direct" communicator. That's why I like >the dude. :) Anyway, the fact remains that his auction site DOES address >all of the stuff we hate about ebay -- and if it's doesn't in some case, he >will quickly fix it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Interesting that you, who took offense when someone used the word "Jew" for its phonetic value without, as far as I can see, in any way casting aspersions on people of that faith, likes what you call "direct" communication, i.e. using the "F" word six times in 13 paragraphs without any consideration of whether that might offend some of the 2000 or so readers of this list, not to mention what it says about this list to someone stumbling across it through the Web. If he'd just reminded us that VCM was there and asked us for more support, fine; I'd probably have clicked on it right away and bookmarked it. As it was, however, I found his message quite offensive, FWIW. I assumed that his comment about the IPO was meant tongue-in-cheek (as he pointed out to me in a similarly "directly" worded, ("F"'ing) off-list reply), but I suspect that if he really did give eBay a run for its money and someone offered him a bag full of money (not so ridiculous these days), he just might say yes. Nevertheless, if he were truly as altruistic as you say, why is he ranting at us so forcefully for, essentially, not generating enough traffic for him to be able to justify charging for his service? I imagine that Jay and the moderators donate far more time gratis running this list than VCM demands of Sellam... Not that I see anything wrong with it, but perhaps it is relevant that he does make money from renting out equipment, sourcing obscure items, etc. I doubt that he will be able to address the stuff we grudgingly like about eBay: the wider selection of available items (and price range) for buyers, and the vastly larger number of potential buyers for the sellers; blaming us for that is pretty silly. Maybe good will isn't worth what it once was, but I don't think ranting at and offending potential customers has quite made it on the list of successful business tactics yet. m

19 years, 7 months

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Burroughs S40?

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> Al, would you like it to add to the > library? absolutely! I can forward my adr if you need it.

19 years, 7 months

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Burroughs S40?

by cclist＠sydex.com

I just came across a binder in my library with a (roughly) 200 page document labeled: Burroughs Confidential System Specification 3704 3833 S40 System Software Disk Subsystem Design Specification Release Rev B Burroughs Machines Ltd. Software Engineering Livingston, Scotland Date: 03 OCT 1986 It seems to describe the disk software interface to some system. Is this of interest to anyone? Al, would you like it to add to the library? I believe that I was sent this as part of a conversion program I did for someone. Exactly who escapes me. Cheers, Chuck

19 years, 7 months

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HP2645As.... again

by steerex＠mindspring.com

I may also be interested in one or two. Exactly what is a 2645A? SteveRob ---------- From: Bob Shannon Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 8:51 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: HP2645As.... again I'm game for a terminal or two, if there is a bulk-buy. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard" <legalize at xmission.com> To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 2:59 PM Subject: HP2645As.... again > Ebay item # 280070687500

19 years, 7 months

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Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994

by zmerch-cctalk＠30below.com

Rumor has it that William Donzelli may have mentioned these words: >>Perhaps I just have less faith than you in the technology being available in >>20 years to probe inside modern systems to figure out how they work and keep >>them running :-) > >Do you think that tools will not evolve in 20 years? Short answer: No. ;-) Heck, you can't get schematics, technical information, or anything on most newer hardware now, so one would need to reverse-engineer almost everything; and the tools that do evolve that are necessary to work on even today's stuff (fast oscilloscopes, etc.) are priced out of the hobbyist's pocketbook. Not to mention: Back in the day, there might've been more computer companies with more "different" computers and OSs back then, but at least each computer was "standardized" to a point. All CoCos ran a 6809, all Commies, Apples & 8-bit Ataris ran 6502s (or derivatives ;-)... Now, you get 10 people with PCs with an Asus motherboard, and you'll have 10 different motherboards, with 3 different CPUs, 2 different types of RAM, and gawd-knows-what for peripherals and interfaces. Even tho the OSs and whatnot are standardized, the underlying hardware is completely different >from machine to machine. >Am I the only optimist on this list? Cripes... I like to be an optimist, but I tend to be a *realist* and IMHO, realistically, today's PCs aren't "hobbyist quality..." read: with no available schematics, very little available information, expensive tools necessary for board/component rework, and whatnot, that to me anyway, it would be very hard to consider today's hardware platforms a good basis for a hobby[1]. Now software & whatnot, sure... Anywho, that's just IMHO and all that. Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger [1] And I say this with fairly decent "hobbyish" motherboard - Tyan 2462 Extended ATX Dual-Athlon w/Dual SCSI 160 & Dual Ethernet; takes up to 3.5G RAM (not bad for a 5-year-old board!) w/dual 2600+ AthlonMPs. A pretty rare critter in the home setting, and most servers with it are prolly still in service... 'Tis a workhorse to be sure - it's *still* a very viable machine even by todays standards... but if the sucker ever broke beyond leaky capacitors, I doubt I could repair it. -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Profile, don't speculate." SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | Daniel J. Bernstein zmerch at 30below.com |

19 years, 7 months

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Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

Ethan Dicks wrote: On 1/18/07, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com <http://www.classiccmp.org/mailman/listinfo/cctalk>> wrote: > Chalk that up to CDC's not-so-imaginative "asset disposal" policy; > things must be mangled beyond all usability before disposal. I saw > CE's take sledgehammers to disk drives. It's not just manufacturers (who are trying to comply with various regulations on scrapping equipment and taxes)... When I was at Lucent in Columbus, they started drilling through the HDAs of discarded drives, not to protect against data theft from a working drive, but against employee harvesting of the scrap bins. Saw a lot of things there I wish I could have saved, including a 3 cu ft box loaded with PDP-11 core memory, and other DEC items from the 1970s and 1980s. I would have happily have paid many times the gold scrap value of the boards, but, for obvious bean counter reasons, no mechanism exists for that. -ethan ---------------------------------------------------- There is another reason for this. Warranty fraud has become a 7 digit problem for most OEM manufacturers. Get a good stock of scrap products, take parts off a good product, replace them with the bad parts and send the good product in for repair. Whether very little effort, you can amass a huge stock of good parts and sell or assemble them in units for resale. There are even places on the internet where you can get labels made, or do it yourself. The best way to discourage this type of fraud is to physically damage the parts so they can't be reused. At Philips, we specified a hydraulic punch through the PCBA and the Optical Pick Up unit. But by time this was implemented, Philips had lost several million dollars to the fraudsters. So most OEM companies have explicit protocol for scrap destruction. There are just too many people out there trying to make a buck out of it. Billy

19 years, 7 months

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Early Unix micros; AT&T 3B5

by cclist＠sydex.com

This mention of the Lisa, M20, Onyx, etc. running some flavor of Unix around 1982-84 and my memories of the Hated Plexus reminds me of an experience that I had about that time (i.e. right about the time of the Ma Bell breakup). I'd read in one of the trade rags about the AT&T 3B5 and thought it would make a great development machine. To this day, I don't know if my hunch was right or not. I called AT&T computer sales and got the runaround for at least a week. Fortunately, most of the referrals I was given were 800 toll-free ones. I never could find someone who could sell me one. It seems that everyone thought I was talking about the 6300. It was very frustrating--"We have dollars; we like trade them for computer. Don't want 6300; want 3B5. Ugh" Did anyone on this list ever succeed in acquiring one around that time? If so, how was the service and performance? Cheers, Chuck

19 years, 7 months

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Early Unix micros; AT&T 3B5

by ken＠seefried.com

From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > I'd read in one of the trade rags about the AT&T 3B5 and thought it > would make a great development machine. ... > Did anyone on this list ever succeed in acquiring one around that > time? If so, how was the service and performance? AT&T carpet bombed Georgia Tech with 3B stuff around the time I got there (1985). There were at least 2 3B20s (rebadged control processor for a 5ESS) brutally overloaded with freshmen writing Pascal programs, lots of 3B2 + AT&T 5620s and as I recall at least one 3B5. Compared to the Sun gear I got to use at the time (3/160 & 3/50), they were slooooow, but built to last. Seriously physically over-engineered.

19 years, 7 months

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mouse for ATnT Unix PC

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

Does anyone here have a spare mouse for an AT&T Unix PC lying around? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

19 years, 7 months

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Compaq Portable III HDD replacement. (Was Re: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter)

by josefcub＠gmail.com

On 1/17/07, 9000 VAX <vax9000 at gmail.com> wrote: > > After one hour of surfing the internet, I finally bought 4 IDE-CF adapters > (laptop and desktop versions, $2 each). One for the laptop, one for the > pentium PC linux router, one for the 386 desktop. > As a pseudo on-topic aside, what do y'all think the chances are of this working in a machine like a Compaq Portable III or Portable/386? I've got one with the old 40MB Connor drive still ticking along, but I'd really like to make sure I can keep the old girl running after it finally spins down for the last time. Would I be stuck with a 32MB CF card, or would the BIOS not work with it at all? (I've currently got my rebadged P/386 running Linux, for various uses including serial and Ethernet telnet terminal). Josef -- "I laugh because I dare not cry. This is a crazy world and the only way to enjoy it is to treat it as a joke." -- Hilda "Sharpie" Burroughs, "The Number of the Beast" by Robert A. Heinlein

19 years, 7 months

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Latest eBay BS (OT?)

by lbickley＠bickleywest.com

If you're going to write the person at eBay responsible for this new policy, contact Rob Chesnut, Senior Vice President, eBay Global Trust & Safety. Here's his email address: Rob Chesnut <RChesnut at ebay.com> I have already sent an email to him - with this theme: "I hope you understand the gravity of this newly implemented change. It literally changes the entire character of eBay - and makes eBay a much less desirable auction site." Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

19 years, 7 months

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storage solution?

by legalize＠xmission.com

Its climate controlled and probably will end up being "priced to move" <http://www.dovebid.com/assets/display.asp?ItemID=tbd309906> -- "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, 7 months

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dovebid: Compaq 386 painting 29x40"

by legalize＠xmission.com

<http://www.dovebid.com/assets/display.asp?ItemID=tbd310965> -- "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, 7 months

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Lisa (was Re: Olivetti M20)

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

> Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 13:31:05 -0500 > From: Ray Arachelian <ray at arachelian.com> > Subject: Lisa (was Re: Olivetti M20) > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Message-ID: <45AE6B69.7020506 at arachelian.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > Roger Holmes wrote: >>> >> Well OK 5k dollars is not much, but in January the following year for >> 10k, Apple's Lisa had several of the above, though I have to admit I >> have seen some spectacular crashes as it was possible to corrupt the >> sound buffers and also to seriously derange the CRT scanning. > Erm, I'm not sure how this is possible as the Lisa had no sound > buffers > at all. All it had was a bunch of resistors hooked up to a latch in > order to act as a volume control for the VIA's shift register. It > beeped in the same way as the Commodore PET. That is by setting > timer2 > on the VIA and setting a value in the SR, then setting the ACR to loop > the data in the SR. There was no sound buffer, there was no way to > play > anything other than beeps. Oh, I must be getting confused then. After developing for Lisa we continued to use the Lisas as hosts to develop software for the Mac using a serial cable to send the software and to run the debugger on the Lisa screen and the target software on the Mac. I think at first we had Lisas with twiggy drives so we could not write Mac discs on the Lisa, but maybe I've got it wrong again. I do know that Apple loaned us a Mac with a 5 1/4 inch slot in it for a twiggy drive, though there was a 3 1/2 inch installed in it. That would probably be worth something now. Back to the crashes, I remember they really made you jump out of your chair, the screen went haywire and the horrible sound it made like hitting bone with a coarse circular saw. Though the Lisa was black and white, the phosphor must have been made of a mixture of two, as you could get a purple effect if you crash made the screen flash at a particular frequency, and on another time it seemed to make one flash of pale green, though maybe thats the 'Pink Elephant' effect. Even with only square wave output you can make more than beeps, my old mainframe built in 1962 can play crude music. Not that Handel and Bach wrote crude music, it was the rendition which was crude. > > Nothing is available to the OS to derange the CRT scanning. All > you can > do is enable interrupts on the vertical retrace, or disable said > interrupts, and you can also select which 32K of memory to use as the > framebuffer. That's it. Yes thats all the system routines allow anyway, I just checked (on Lisa). As both 128k Macs and Lisa had a single built in CRT I can't see why the refresh rates would have been programmable, but thats just how it appeared. The only other option I can think of is we had somehow managed to do something which had affected the power supply rails, but the machines rebooted OK so there was no permanent damage. Could switching the position of the framebuffer between frames full of ones and ones full of zeroes cause this perhaps? I remember you could get the spark gap capacitors to fire on old monitors on the Apple ][ when you rapidly changed the screen image. The screen image would expand and contract while this happened. > > >> The compiler generated some strange code to 'touch' the new top of >> stack on subroutine entry so the OS could allocate all the extra >> space >> in one go rather than in little bits. One enterprising British >> software house even got Unix running on a Lisa with the (then) >> optional 5MB profile hard disk. It wasn't C.A.P. but one of the other >> big ones of the time. > There were two. Microsoft/SCO Xenix, and UniPlus. I'd love to get my > hands on UniPlus, but it seems to be rare. If this was something > else, > it would be wonderful to get a copy of it. Maybe the UK firm was merely selling one of these under licence. > > I'm not sure what the strange code is about, I suspect something to do > with the MMU. If you'd access a page that wasn't mapped to your > process, the OS would either load it from disk, or allocate more MMU > pages to your process, thus getting more memory. The Lisa Pascal compiler had an option for "automatic stack expansion". IIRC, this was off when compiling for Mac and on when compiling for Lisa. Each routine started with something like LINK A6,#constant where the constant was the space for the local variables and maybe the parameters too. If automatic stack expansion was on, the compiler would then generate the weird instruction, which was not useful to the program but would apparently cause the allocation of more stack space if necessary. I have just found the reference in the manual: "6.6.1 The Run-Time Stack Automatic stack expansion code makes procedure entries a little complicated. To ensure that the stack segment is large enough before the procedure is entered, the Compiler emits code to 'touch' the lowest point that will be needed by the pocedure. If we 'touch' an illegal location (outside the current stack bounds), the memory management hardware signal a bus error that causes the 68000 to generate a hardware exception and pass control to an exception handler. ... then allocate enough extra memory to the stack that the original instruction can be reexectuted without problem. To be able to back up, the instruction that causeed the exception must not change the registers, so a TST.W instruction with indirect addressing is used." It then goes on to talk about a compiler fudge factor and what gets generated if more than 32k of extra space is needed on the stack, and what is needed if working in assembly language. Best regards, Roger Holmes.

19 years, 7 months

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cctalk Digest, Vol 41, Issue 52

by dm561＠torfree.net

>Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 12:58:14 -0500 >From: "Evan Koblentz" <evan at snarc.net> >Subject: RE: Ebay idiocy <snip> >The man just wants some reassurance that his time and hard work >will be appreciated. What's wrong with that? More people in >our hobby should be that devoted! >- Evan -------------------- A rather naive perspective, I think. Aside from whatever personal interest he may have in classic computers, he's also in it for the money and apparently wants to generate enough traffic for VCM to generate revenue and potentially sell it for some ridiculous (IPO) amount. As Warren points out, competing with eBay is a rather dubious business proposition anyway, but ranting at and offending his potential customer base with foul language for doing business with his "competition" does not strike me as a very effective way of creating the good will that a successful business venture needs; he should spend his time advertising and promoting VCM instead. mike (cc to Sellam)

19 years, 7 months

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Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994

by aek＠bitsavers.org

>> So the question is what should be saved? Is there something about the >> 'exotic hardware/software' that is historically significant? > Well, if you adopt the "only historically significant" things are to > be collected mantra, you never would have had something like the Henry > Ford Museum in Michigan. *All* of the stuff he amassed for that > collection was considered not historically significant at the time. > Now its amazing to be able to walk down an aisle and see the evolution > of the sewing machine, or the dishwasher or the clothes washer/dryer, > etc. > > I think there are some things you can say have obvious historical > value. Others aren't historically significant *by themselves* but > allow you to make a realistic historical portait because they > represent samples of devices over time. This is an argument that people in archives and museums have to confront every day when donations come in. If there was infinite conditioned storage space time/money to process donations, much more would be accepted than happens in the real world. As a curator, I have to make the decision to commit CHM's resources to preserve something in perpetuity. From the time I have spent talking to Doron Swane about the British Science Museum's collecting policies this is not unique. "You cannot save everything, where would you put it?" isn't a joke when you are talking about collections expected to last hundreds of years. One of the most serious responsibilies that I have, along with the activities of physical and electronic artifact preservation at CHM is making the decision to accept an artifact into the collection. Things created in the PC era and forward are especially difficult, since there was so much produced in a fairly narrow product niche (personal computers). Do you need to save EVERY version of a software package (and all of the documentation)? Remember, storage and processing isn't free.

19 years, 7 months

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Old Digital Disk Drives

by thomas.gardner＠sbcglobal.net

Hello: I'm working with the Computer History Museum, Mountain View CA, on a project to identify significant disk drives - the RP01 and RP02 have been so identified. Would anyone on this mail list have any knowledge of any such drives still in existence, operational or not? Tom Gardner Los Altos CA

19 years, 7 months

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Latest eBay BS (OT?)

by marvin＠rain.org

> From: Jim Leonard > > William Donzelli wrote: > >> their policies back. Nobody will notice if everybody from this list quit > >> ebay forever. > > Gee, I guess we ought to just give up then. > Yes. > > Why bother voting, too. > That's a terrible comparison. There are less than 1000 people on this > list, "voting" against a company of 90,000+ employees in a Fortune 100 > company. There are more efficient and useful ways to spend your time. Voting is a terrific comparison. For some reason, you think that the only uproar is taking place on this listserver ... you are wrong there. Perhaps you (and others on this list) are not aware that among other things, people have reported that they can find out what the bidders proxy bid is using apparently legitimate software. Shill bidding *is* a concern and Ebay is doing their very best to prevent users from detecting shills. I see nothing to indicate that Ebay is doing anything other than attempting damage control.

19 years, 7 months

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Olivetti M20

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

> >> 1) To prevent one process overwriting the memory belonging to another >> process. >> Segments did not HAVE to be 64k, that was their maximum size, the >> minimum >> was 128 bytes. >> 2) To provide virtual memory. >> 3) To protect the executive from processes. >> 4) To allow non contiguous physical address space to appear as a >> logical contiguous address space >> 5) To provide mapping out of faulty blocks of memory >> and probably as many reasons I have not thought of off the top of my >> head. > > Consider the time this was introduced. It was a $5K personal > computer from 1982 whose base configuration was 2 floppies and no > hard disk. Just about any of the above was probably held to be > superfluous by most manufacturers in that context. Well OK 5k dollars is not much, but in January the following year for 10k, Apple's Lisa had several of the above, though I have to admit I have seen some spectacular crashes as it was possible to corrupt the sound buffers and also to seriously derange the CRT scanning. The compiler generated some strange code to 'touch' the new top of stack on subroutine entry so the OS could allocate all the extra space in one go rather than in little bits. One enterprising British software house even got Unix running on a Lisa with the (then) optional 5MB profile hard disk. It wasn't C.A.P. but one of the other big ones of the time. Before I left Marconi in 1980, we had at least one Z8010, but I don't know what date they became commercially available. Fitting one might well have saved Olivetti money, depending on unit price of course.

19 years, 7 months

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HP2645As.... again

by legalize＠xmission.com

Ebay item # 280070687500 The seller has zero feedback, indicating to me that he stumbled across these terminals and liquidating them gave him the impetus to create an ebay account. Jay, shall we try again at a bulk purchase? He's got 30 of them, and its not clear if they are all 2645As and some of them might be 2648As. The seller says some are used, some are new, although I don't know how you could tell from his picture of the pile :-). Maybe the "new" ones are the ones with the little cover for the switches on the upper left of the keyboard? -- "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, 7 months

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Another super-useful find: single Sun 200-pin 128MB DSIMM

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

If you have an Ultra-class 200-pin machine with one broken 128MB DSIMM and you're wondering what to do with the other: 1 free 128MB DSIMM (no, it doesn't work in SPARCstation 20s) Renton, WA

19 years, 7 months

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General Automation Zebra!

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

In a prior life I owned a company that was a Pick dealer (Pick Systems, Microdata, GA, Ultimate, etc.), so all kinds of interesting Pick-related stuff still floats around the house and I rediscover things from time to time. Today one has surfaced that I thought was lost forever. My father sold his business recently and in cleaning out things he found a QIC cartridge tape I had left there for safekeeping as an off-site backup many years ago. It's a GA (General Automation) Zebra Pick OS Dealer Sysgen tape. This is a tape that was only provided to GA dealers (for dealers to replace an end-users lost or damaged boot tapes, or to sell with new systems {the licensing was in the terminal ports, not the OS}). It was an Account-Save format tape of an account called DEALER-SYSGEN. On that account was stored the monitor and ABS sections for every different system GA made. A menu ran when you logged on to the account and it asked you what system you wanted to make an OS load tape for (1700, 1750, 2820, 3820, 3000, 3500, 5500, 7820, 8830, etc.), and what tape media you want the tape created on (QIC or 1/2 mag tape). It then wrote a complete bootable tape with bootstrap, monitor, abs, and files sections for any of those systems. What a find!!! Of course, I haven't tried to read this tape, perhaps it's got some worthless datafile backup from something else on it. But it still has the original GA Zebra lable stating it's the dealer sysgen tape and the write protect is on.... so I'm hopeful. I happen to have a GA1750 and a GA2820 in my collection, so I'm thrilled to know that I can make new boot tapes for them now. More importantly, I can make boot tapes for any other GA Zebra system. Note that this tape is for rev 3.8, which was the last non-R91 Pick GA produced (I wasn't a fan of R91, so I'm really glad it's the pinnacle of the 3.8 train). I need to see if I can find my manual patch sheets that bring it up to 3.8T1. Anyways, if anyone has GA Zebra's in their collection and needs a new boot tape I can help you out. Now I just need to find the DEALER.ASSY account for 3.8 :) Jay West

19 years, 7 months

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Latest eBay BS (OT?)

by MGemeny＠pgcps.org

George wrote: I totally do not get your point. Sorry if I was not clear on that. I did my homework on the seller, the seller?s feedback, the types of items the seller deals in, the sellers other open auctions, and so forth, before I placed a bid. It all seemed to be quite consistent. The impression I was left with was that the seller (or an employee) messed up, and eBay or their policies helped to ?Fix it?. Don?t get me wrong here. I don?t have a problem with an auction being canceled if it was listed in error, nor do I have a problem with hijacked accounts being returned to the rightful owner. But I don?t think the latter is what happened here. I think that eBay may be trying too hard to accommodate sellers. (Could it be that the more money that changes hands the more money eBay makes?) Thanks, Mike Gemeny.

19 years, 7 months

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Latest eBay BS (OT?)

by MGemeny＠pgcps.org

eBay wrote: "As the internet evolves, eBay continues to strike a balance between preserving transparency and protecting our Community of members. eBay has decided to change how bid history information is displayed so bad guys cannot target bidders with fake offers using this information. In certain cases, some bidders will no longer be able to view Bidder User IDs on the Bid History page. Your User ID will be shown only to you and the seller of the item you're bidding on. Other members will see an anonymous name, such as Bidder 1, applied consistently to the Bid History page." Al replied: "So now, you can't see who you're bidding against. Frickin' wonderful." Yea, that would make it a lot easier for a seller to bid against their own buyers, now wouldn't it? Yes, eBay will argue that sellers bidding on their own items is a violation of their "Acceptable use policy", but then again "target bidders with fake offers" would also likely be a violation of the policy and they don't seem to be able to do anything about that, do they? On Jan 11 '07 I had placed a bid as the only bidder on an item with no reserve. eBay later told me that: "We're writing to let you know that eBay has ended the following item you were bidding on because the item appears to have been listed without the account holder's permission: ... We are now working to restore the account to its original owner as soon as possible. For privacy reasons, we can't share any further details regarding this member's account. ... As eBay removed the item, you are not obliged to send payment for it. Please don't send money or respond to any further emails regarding this listing. ..." Now we see who they are really trying to protect, don't we? Mike Gemeny.

19 years, 7 months

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Latest eBay BS

by korpela＠ssl.berkeley.edu

On the other hand, I have restrained myself from bidding against people I know unless the item was very rare. I guess I won't be able to do that any more.

19 years, 7 months

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Latest eBay BS

by marvin＠rain.org

This latest BS only applies to bidding over $200.00 ... or at least that is what they are saying. Personally, I would still *really* like to see a link on ClassicCmp.org to VCM as I think that might increase the traffic there. If I don't know the bidder on classic computer type stuff, I will generally make them aware of the site. Ebay has a lot of weaknesses, but so far, nobody has been able to successfully exploit them. > From: Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> > "As the internet evolves, eBay continues to strike a balance between preserving transparency and > protecting our Community of members. eBay has decided to change how bid history information is > displayed so bad guys cannot target bidders with fake offers using this information. In certain > cases, some bidders will no longer be able to view Bidder User IDs on the Bid History page. Your > User ID will be shown only to you and the seller of the item you're bidding on. Other members will > see an anonymous name, such as Bidder 1, applied consistently to the Bid History page." > > -- > > So now, you can't see who you're bidding against. > Frickin' wonderful.

19 years, 7 months

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Latest eBay BS

by aek＠bitsavers.org

"As the internet evolves, eBay continues to strike a balance between preserving transparency and protecting our Community of members. eBay has decided to change how bid history information is displayed so bad guys cannot target bidders with fake offers using this information. In certain cases, some bidders will no longer be able to view Bidder User IDs on the Bid History page. Your User ID will be shown only to you and the seller of the item you're bidding on. Other members will see an anonymous name, such as Bidder 1, applied consistently to the Bid History page." -- So now, you can't see who you're bidding against. Frickin' wonderful.

19 years, 7 months

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Draper article in Wall Street Journal

by marvin＠rain.org

A friend of mine who knew him gave me this URL: http://www.webcrunchers.com/crunch/Play/history/stories/nuke.html

19 years, 7 months

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Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> What follows is a ten-point plan outlining the primary issues of digital archaeology ... > I love it when someone publishes an article without doing any proper > research. His total lack of knowledge of the subject was obvious by what he thought the 10 primary issues were. He seems ignorant of the serious problem of verifying that a program was copied in its original form (as opposed to have been hacked, or with viruses) or the need for EVERY archival container to have something like an MD5 sum to detect corruption in the future. One of the problems I have as a CHM curator is trying to decide how much of the on line stuff that is out there from the pre-PC time period to snapshot (there's a LOT!). As someone else mentioned, the monoculture and proprietary systems are the real preservation problems, mid 80's or so and beyond. The best I've been able to come up with is to try to save as many SDKs as I can find, which at least gives some level of detail on how they worked.

19 years, 7 months

1
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General Automation Zebra!

by g-wright＠att.net

-------------- Original message ---------------------- From: "Jay West" <jwest at classiccmp.org> > In a prior life I owned a company that was a Pick dealer (Pick Systems, > Microdata, GA, Ultimate, etc.), so all kinds of interesting Pick-related > stuff still floats around the house and I rediscover things from time to > time. Today one has surfaced that I thought was lost forever. My father sold > his business recently and in cleaning out things he found a QIC cartridge > tape I had left there for safekeeping as an off-site backup many years ago. > > It's a GA (General Automation) Zebra Pick OS Dealer Sysgen tape. This is a > tape that was only provided to GA dealers (for dealers to replace an > end-users lost or damaged boot tapes, or to sell with new systems {the > licensing was in the terminal ports, not the OS}). It was an Account-Save > format tape of an account called DEALER-SYSGEN. On that account was stored > the monitor and ABS sections for every different system GA made. A menu ran > when you logged on to the account and it asked you what system you wanted to > make an OS load tape for (1700, 1750, 2820, 3820, 3000, 3500, 5500, 7820, > 8830, etc.), and what tape media you want the tape created on (QIC or 1/2 > mag tape). It then wrote a complete bootable tape with bootstrap, monitor, > abs, and files sections for any of those systems. What a find!!! Of course, > I haven't tried to read this tape, perhaps it's got some worthless datafile > backup from something else on it. But it still has the original GA Zebra > lable stating it's the dealer sysgen tape and the write protect is on.... so > I'm hopeful. > > I happen to have a GA1750 and a GA2820 in my collection, so I'm thrilled to > know that I can make new boot tapes for them now. More importantly, I can > make boot tapes for any other GA Zebra system. Note that this tape is for > rev 3.8, which was the last non-R91 Pick GA produced (I wasn't a fan of R91, > so I'm really glad it's the pinnacle of the 3.8 train). I need to see if I > can find my manual patch sheets that bring it up to 3.8T1. > > Anyways, if anyone has GA Zebra's in their collection and needs a new boot > tape I can help you out. Now I just need to find the DEALER.ASSY account for > 3.8 :) > > Jay West > > > > Hi Jay My Zebra says 2510 on the botton sticker if I remember correctly has a 8" drive and a Qic Tape. Still Boots pick OS. I have the same tape you have but did not know how to to use it. My machine model did not show up on the label of the tape either. Jerry Jerry Wright JLC inc. g-wright at att.net

19 years, 7 months

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PDP8 Diags on RX01

by useddec＠gmail.com

> Does anyone have PDP8 diags on a RX01available? Thanks, Paul Anderson 217-586-5361

19 years, 7 months

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Draper article in Wall Street Journal

by evan＠snarc.net

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB116863379291775523-_EQCu93LyjSommsN6J 7qiCozuu8_20070122.html?mod=blogs TinyURL: http://tinyurl.com/y8vquk I met the article's author at VCF 9. That is the Apple event he refers to in paragraph #8.

19 years, 7 months

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Draper article in Wall Street Journal

by evan＠snarc.net

The article covers that point.

19 years, 7 months

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Motorola chips

by iamvirtual＠gmail.com

I am trying to identify 3 Motorola chips. I searched on the 'net, but I didn't come up with anything. The markings are SCM10071L SCM10072L SCM10073L The chips were produced in mid 1973 and early 1974. All three chips are ceramic and have 28 pins. Thanks for any information you can supply. --barry

19 years, 7 months

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VAXstation 3100/76 configured as VAXserver and NetBSD

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

I have a old VAXstation 3100/76 I'm playing around with (it's surprising how much faster the VAX 4000/200 "seems" - guess it's better memory and I/O bandwidth). The beastie is not-quite-complete (running it as a VAXserver, and the external SCSI connector has been replaced with a HD-50 that isn't functional- not sure if that's bad wiring or bad SCSI chip), but it does have a full 32MB RAM and all the tests it fails are explainable (?? on the network (since it's not connected, that's expected), ? on the serial lines (no kb/mouse connected there) and the external SCSI (nothing connected and known issues). Anyway-to the question: Neither NetBSD 2.0 or 3.0 will install successfully. They both segfault, usually during install but once I got 3.0 installed and it was very limited functionality. Officially the 3176 is supported, but is NetBSD known to be tempermental? (I'm not sure if it's the VAX or the software - VMS boots fine, but if the system's wonky I won't bother with it anymore). Can't test NetBSD on my other VAX (4000-200), since SHAC isn't supported.

19 years, 7 months

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CMD QBUS SCSI

by rescue＠hawkmountain.net

I found the manual for CMD 220 on bitsavers... along with a txt file for the 220A/TM (which is what I have). Couple of things: 1. Does anyone have the full manual digitized (or a hard copy you don't want anymore) that covers the 220A (to be exact, CQD-BV220A/TM) ? 2. In the txt file, it has (formatting neatend... (for fixed point font anyway)): W1 OUT Reserved (F) W2 IN SCSI terminator power enabled (F) W3 OUT Reserved (F) W4 1-2 IN Eprom Size 512-Kbit or 1-Mbit (F) W5 OUT 0 Wait State for Eprom Cycles (F) W6-1 OUT Adaptive DMA enabled (F) W6-2 OUT Adaptive DMA Dwell Time enabled (F) W6-4 W6-5 IN IN 0.8-ms DMA dwell time OUT IN 1.6-ms DMA dwell time IN OUT 3.2-ms DMA dwell time OUT OUT 6.4-ms DMA dwell time W6-5 OUT Block mode DMA enabled (F) W6-6 W6-7 Auto-Boot for LSI-11 systems without Boot Roms OUT IN Auto-Bootstrap address = 773000 IN IN Auto-Bootstrap address = 771000 OUT OUT Auto-Bootstrap disabled (F) IN OUT Auto-Bootstrap address = 775000 W6-8 IN Reserved (F) The W6-4, W6-5 pair I believe should be labelled W6-3, W6-4, as W6-5 is documented twice ... and W6-3 is not documented. Anyone know if my belief/assumption is correct ? Anyone know what DMA dwell time should be used in a PDP11/83 ? Should this board be closest to the CPU, or furthest in a an 11/83 ? Thanks in advance, -- Curt

19 years, 7 months

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Datapoint 2200 software ?

by jos.dreesen＠bluewin.ch

Does anyone know of software repositories for the Datapoint 2200 I or II machines ? Jos Dreesen

19 years, 7 months

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VAXstation 3100/76 configured as VAXserver and NetBSD

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

> Adrian wrote > On Sun, Jan 14, 2007 at 01:12:11AM -0000, arcarlini at iee.org wrote: >> >> The wiring inside the VAXstation 3100-76 may well be "non-standard", >> but the external connector works perfectly well with any SCSI >> cable which physically connects. > > I'm a bit confused. I've got an M76 which I'd love to install a later > version of VMS on (it's currently on 5.5), but everything I've read > has said > that the external SCSI connector is DEC-specific and needs a DEC BC09J > cable > to attach normal SCSI devices to (a cable which I've not yet found at a > reasonable price). Is this not the case? The connector is proprietary to DEC (same one as used in the DECstations), but the SCSI that comes out of it is standard. Since that particular connector hasn't been picked up by anyone else (in that particular sex)- yes, any SCSI cable that physically connects will work. On mine I just pull the lid and connect up whatever I need to the internal bus, although I do have an InfoServer... hmm, possibilities that don't require a screwdriver.

19 years, 7 months

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Jumpers for a GSI 2.88MB floppy card

by cclist＠sydex.com

This is a little ISA card (made in USA!) with a separate 34-pin header for a 2.88MB floppy drive. There's a sticker marked "1133-11- 04-9 Model 11". There's a row of jumpers labeled 'B1 B2 B3 B4 PR SE". Anyone got the jumper settings for this thing? I think that PR=primary and SE=secondary and that B1-B4 may be drive types, but confirmation might save some work. Thanks, Chuck

19 years, 7 months

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Looking for board for 30GB Quantum Fireball Plus LM

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

While the drive is not strictly on-topic, the contents are - I have a 30GB Quantum drive that did not survive the rigors of the APO mail system. I have to admit I was in a bit of a hurry on my way out of Pole and while virtually all of my stuff survived travelling 12,000 miles in the mail system, something must have shifted in my box of hard drives and some of the components on the bottom of the drive are damaged and missing. Sufficient packing materials are hard to come by at the Pole, and I was counting on double-boxing and pink bubble wrap to be enough - it obviously wasn't. I think a neighboring drive must have shifted and rubbed on the circuit board of this one, causing a patch of visible component damage. The drive itself does spin up, and gives the expected pattern of blinks on its lone LED, but the machine does not see it. Given that there are 3 missing resistors of a size smaller than an 805 package (don't know the names of the really wee parts) and a few bent pins on a nearby 104(?) pin 0.5mm pitch QFP, the lack of responsiveness doesn't really surprise me. If anyone on the list happens to have an unhappy 30GB Quantum drive, I'd be interested in its board. The P/N on the lid sticker is an LM30A011. Worst case, if I can find another similar drive and a scan of the area of the board near the LED on an intact drive of the same model, I can probably harvest a replacement chip and some SMT resistors and transplant them. The damaged chip in question is badged Lucent/Quantum, P/N "MS24C13 34". There's no horrible noises from the HDA - typical spin-up/spin-down noises, so I think there may be a chance to get at this drive, if I can repair/replace the board. Yes, I know that drives are cheap these days - I would just like to get at what's on this one. Naturally, the other drives in the box, including the blank 18GB workstation drives, are fine... only my boot drive gets dinged. :-/ Thanks, -ethan

19 years, 7 months

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Victor 9000 archive

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

http://www.issue.org.uk/ Loads and loads and loads of V9K stuph. You'll be like a kid w/a Vic9K in a candy store. be sure and read the "personal note". ____________________________________________________________________________________ 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, 7 months

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cpu world

by legalize＠xmission.com

I haven't seen anyone mention this here before.... <http://www.cpu-world.com/index.html> -- "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, 7 months

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Victor 9000 boot floppy, was RE: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives?

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> I've seen mention of a Hardware Technical Reference for the Victor. > If anyone has a copy I'd be interested in hearing from you. I've just uploaded scans of the Tech Ref and several other tech docs to http://bitsavers.org/pdf/victor/victor9000

19 years, 7 months

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Heathkit H77 Case

by marvin＠rain.org

I have the Heathkit H77 case where the pieces that hold the front panel to the chassic got broken off. With JB Weld to the rescue, I went ahead and fixed it only to find out a "small" problem. It seems that the label on the front of the case covers the screw holes and I *really* don't want to poke holes in it as it is in excellent condition. Has anyone tried to remove that front label, and if so how? My first thought was to take a heat gun and warm up the adhesive to the point where the label might come off without damage. My second thought was to ask here :).

19 years, 7 months

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Olivetti M20

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

On 15 Jan, 2007, at 18:00, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > Message: 1 > Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 10:58:12 -0800 > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Subject: Re: Olivetti M20 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Message-ID: <45AA0CC4.14431.CE01A94 at cclist.sydex.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII > > On 14 Jan 2007 at 16:17, Roger Holmes wrote: > >> Can anyone please tell me if the Olivetti M20 used a Z8010 memory >> management unit? > > What would have been the point on a system that can accommodate at > most, 512K? 1) To prevent one process overwriting the memory belonging to another process. Segments did not HAVE to be 64k, that was their maximum size, the minimum was 128 bytes. 2) To provide virtual memory. 3) To protect the executive from processes. 4) To allow non contiguous physical address space to appear as a logical contiguous address space 5) To provide mapping out of faulty blocks of memory and probably as many reasons I have not thought of off the top of my head. Best regards, Roger. > > Cheers, > Chuck

19 years, 7 months

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Olivetti M20

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

On 15 Jan, 2007, at 18:00, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: >> Can anyone please tell me if the Olivetti M20 used a Z8010 memory >> management unit? > ---snip--- > > Hi Roger > No, it didn't use a 8010. It could have but I believe that when > the project was started, the 8010 wasn't ready yet. > They used a ROM instead. They do a number of interesting > logical to physical mapping but these could have been done > with a 8010 just as easily ( and more flexibly ). > Most of the mapping is to handle the holes that the video > causes. Some is related to the dual mapped memory. > Even with the full 512K of memory, I don't know of any > application that needed more than 384K. > Dwight Many thanks Dwight. A pity they did not at least use RAM instead of ROM. Roger.

19 years, 7 months

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Parting out Teletype model 43

by wdonzelli＠gmail.com

I am going to part out a somewhat junky model 43 Teletype. Anyone need parts? Let me know soon, as I reach for my tools tonight... -- Will

19 years, 7 months

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