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

by staylor＠mrynet.com

I have a PDP-11/34a UNIBUS system, and the RL11 controller just died on me. I haven't a spare RL11 to diagnose it with, so I've been toggling in whatever test programs I can find. The RL02 drives I have, the cables and the packs are all verified good by booting and testing them on an 11/53 system. The symptoms are as follows: o No drive will boot. CPU halts. o Using vtserver, I can copy the first 8 blocks from any drive back to the vtserver host, but then fails on block 8 with HNF (Header Not Found) in the CSR. Always block 8 (blocks 0 thru 7 always read fine). o A toggle-in oscillating head positioner test code (from the manuals) seems to audibly indicate the head carriage is moving back-and-forth continuously. o The machine seems otherwise unaffected. I can toggle in and test basic machine functionality for memory, CPU, interrupts, etc. It seems quite certain that I have a RL11 controller that has stopped working properly. Not having any other UNIBUS disk systems or any way to boot XXDP, I can't do any further testing. The machine and disk were working fine, and I was even running diagnostics on it when the failure occured. My question is this: Is such a sector addressing failure at all common enough that someone could suggest replacing one or more components on the RL11 controller before I try to obtain a replacement and chuck this one into the trash? Perhaps someone has a working controller they could sell? Thanks in advance, -scott staylor (at) smedley (dot) mrynet (dot) com

19 years, 10 months

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Collections of (physically) large computers

by ygehrich＠yahoo.com

At 05:37 PM 10/28/2006 William Donzelli wrote: >>OK, so how much floor space does his largest computer use? I worked with he IBM 7030 (stretch) many years ago and it took up a very large room certainly much more than 500 sq ft. It was enormous.

19 years, 10 months

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I'm back! (plus power component questions)

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

Hi folks, I unfortunately lost access to the net last Sunday/Monday when my Dreamcast (model HKT:3010 (Hong Kong)) started resetting itself randomly (usually every 5-10 seconds). Despite having another one (partially broken - the GD disc drive doesn't work), a model HKT:3000 (Japanese), I was unable to sort the problem out. I did opened up the spare one as a test run and gave it a good clean out. I checked it still worked and, apart from the GD disc drive, it did. I opened up the one I had been using and, apart from a dead spder in there, it wasn't at all dirty. I looked over the connections and did everything I could to try and get it working again. It still resets itself randomly, making it pretty useless other than for spare parts. I have borrowed my dads one (model HKT: 3030 (UK/Europe?)) so I can get back online and get a new one from eBay :) While poking around inside the Dreamcast games consoles I noticed some familiar components which I has seen similar versions of in my Amiga. The first one is what I have dubbed the "power towers" and they look like vertical batteries. Usually come in groups of 5. Can anyone tell me there name and/or what they do? The second thing is the erm... plastic(?) "polo mint" that has what appears to be copper wire wrapped around it. Can anyone give me (or send me in the right direction to find) any information on it. Thanks in advance, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

19 years, 10 months

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Origins of DOS

by gstreet＠indy.net

As far as the origins of DOS: How many of you have read the chapter on Gary Kildall in "They Made America," by Harold Evans? A used copy can now be had for cheap (bookfinder.com or amazon.com). Evans used Kildall's unpublished memoir as one of his source documents. Of course, folks can always take issue with Kildall's memory (or slant on things), but in the book, Kildall claimed that he _did_ strike a deal with the IBMer's (including a hand shake -- after returning from his prior engagement with Godbout[iirc]). If Gary's story was accurate, well, then this story would be one of the largest cover-up's in the latter 20th Century. Like someone was kind enough to mention on this discussion group, a year and a half ago, Paterson is suing Evans. Grab a copy of the book. It's an amazing story. I cherish my copy... And while we are on the topic of rumors(or perhaps, facts): It's rumored that the Caldera suit (the one that started out as primarily a complaint about M$'s "aard code" (which was pretty much the death knell for DRI) -- ended up morphing into something far greater. It's alleged that the original complaints (by Kildall) were contained in the documentation that Ray Noorda got when he purchased rights to DR-DOS (and related software. eg: CP/M). It's alleged that it was incredibly damning evidence that M$ wanted to keep surpressed at all costs. In very early 2000, Caldera did win its case for a undisclosed amount (I know that there are readily available figures of the award, but some have stated that those figures were intentionally low-balled). True? I don't know, but I sure wish I had access to the 937 _BOXES_ (not pages) of documents that were shredded. It does seem a little _odd_ that these historic documents would be so conveniently turned into toilet paper. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/05/22/sco_pulps_calderams_trial_archives/ I hope the truth eventually comes to light, but I'm not counting on it. Meanwhile, it sure is interesting... Regards, Robert Greenstreet

19 years, 10 months

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Cleaning out the garage.

by jim.isbell＠gmail.com

On monday I am having 100 gallons of anti-fouling paint and two Killowat linears delivered to the house. There is no room in the garage. Today we are cleaning it out. My wife sais, "you havent used it in 5 years junk it." I agreed. Then I started picking things up and saying, "This is a good computer" My wife says, "you havent used it since 1962, junk it." She is right. I have boxes of software and software and hardware manuals which I estimate it would take me 3 days to catalog and put on ebay or offer on this list. It will take less than 4 hours to carry it all to the curb. AND I need the space monday, not a month from now. I have boxes of laser printer parts and VGA cards and all manner of CPUs and chips. They are all going. I have boxes of pin feed paper that its easier to haul to the curb. I have boxes of books that weigh to much to ship. How do I quiet my consience that keep screaming at me, "Someone would really like this."? If there ia anyone in the Corpus Christi area that is interested, the trash man wont be here till Wed and if it doesnt rain, some of this stuff has value. I have a 10 car garage and there are only 5 cars in it and I dont have space for 100 gallons of paint!!! -- Jim Isbell "If you are not living on the edge, well then, you are just taking up too much space."

19 years, 10 months

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The Origins of DOS

by alanp＠snowmoose.com

> > >From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> > >Tim Patterson never denied that QDOS ("Quick and Dirty OS") was based >closely on CP/M. > > Just FYI. Tim's last name is spelled 'Paterson'. alan

19 years, 10 months

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Looking for details on battery-backup ECO for IOB-6120

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

Hi, all, I've posted on the Spare Time Gizmos Yahoo Group, and I've written Jim Kearney twice and no responses yet - I have a couple of IOB-6120s that, due to the nature of the ECOs, I haven't yet installed SRAM on. I'm having problems with the fix between the 74ACT138 and the BQ2201 - what instructions I do have say to lift certain pins before installing both chips, and I've done that; what I'm lacking is the specific directions about how to connect the two with a green wire (where it goes, possible track cuts, etc). I have the directions for the resistor-and-FET fix to the SRAMs themselves. I've decided to skip the 1/8W 10K resistors in favor of 1206 SMT resistors mounted flush to the SRAMs (I'm worried about snagging something and busting off a pin). Unfortunately, without the BQ2201 portion of the fix, my IOB-6120 is somewhat inert. Thanks for any pointers, -ethan P.S. - I already have the info at http://www.jkearney.com/sbc6120/kit-A.htm

19 years, 10 months

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The Origins of DOS

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: The Origins of DOS > From: "Jim Isbell, W5JAI" <jim.isbell at gmail.com> > Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2006 10:27:19 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >TRS DOS market was prety big at the time. To begin with it was the >ONLY desktop computer available in the mass marked....almost two years >if memory serves me well. There were several "mini" computers around, >but nothing like the RS computer with 8k of memory and a tape system >for probgam loading/saving and BASIC. >From inside Tandy (at that time) te most common units sold had 16k and the L2 (12k) Basic with the 16k L1 basic using being a close second. Rare was the 4k with L2. As to 8k that was either a user hack or one of a short lived flavor using halfgood 16k parts both of which were far less common. >From experience and being active in computer world of the time S100 was the workhorse systems as were early Apple][ with disk and RS had volumes of (>200,000 first year of sales) of the basic 4kl1 systems. That was the 1978 view. By 1980 Apple][ with disk, TRS80 with EI and disk were by far very prevelent though S100 crates were still being used widely. Apple and RS were dualing for the then infant personal desktop computer market and had put a lot (n > 50,000 with disks) of machines out there. The market from what I'd seen went from near 0 (under 10,000 home computers existed) in 1974(december) to somewhere over 1,000,000 (possibly far more) by December of 1979. Explosive growth! Several things drove this. Lower cost of hardware that included some mass storage(minifloppy). Availability of more user friendly packaged systems(no soldering or kits). The availability of software applications editors, high level languages, software development packages and of course the killer apps of early desktop word processing [Electric pencil, Wordstar] and spreadsheets [visicalc]. Allison > >On 10/28/06, Chandra Bajpai <cbajpai at comcast.net> wrote: >> >> How big was the TRS-80 Market to support all thoses DOSes? >> >> I remember when NewDOS/80 and I just remember it being fast. Any idea who >> wrote that? >> >> -Chandra >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] >> On Behalf Of Fred Cisin >> Sent: Friday, October 27, 2006 10:24 PM >> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts >> Subject: Re: The Origins of DOS >> >> On Fri, 27 Oct 2006, Warren Wolfe wrote: >> > [TRS-DOS] >> > It was its own universe, Jim. The links and questionable parentage >> > of the original version of DOS are tied directly to CP/M, which was the >> > first O/S for personal computers that any significant number of >> > businesses embraced. And, Windows came out of the DOS world, and now >> > dominates as few products have dominated before. (Note: I am NOT >> > claiming this is a GOOD thing.) >> > >> > From what I can tell, TRSDOS was not a rip-off of anyone's software, >> > and nobody bothered to rip it off, so it's pretty much out of the world >> > of O/S scandal. >> >> There WERE several imitators of TRS-DOS (although still for TRS-80), >> including NEWDOS, DOSPLUS, and the semi-legitimate offspring LDOS. >> >> > It actually was pretty decent, and had a few ideas of >> > merit that didn't make it into the mainstream world for a while. It was >> > just totally tied to Radio Shack computing, and suffered a mortal wound >> > when IBM came out with their PC. No fault of its own. >> >> Rasio Shack AVOIDED expanding TRS-DOS into other semi-related hardware >> platforms. >> >> -- >> Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com >> >> > > >-- >Jim Isbell >"If you are not living on the edge, well then, >you are just taking up too much space."

19 years, 10 months

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[Off-topic] Anyone from St. Louis available?

by tony.eros＠machm.org

I'm a very happy Cardinals fan stuck on the East Coast. Are there any St. Louis folks on the list who might be willing to pick me up a copy of the Post Dispatch for Saturday and Sunday? I would be happy to pay for the papers, shipping, and a little for your trouble... Thanks! -- Tony

19 years, 10 months

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RA6800ML

by mcsinternet＠mcsinternet.net

I am looking for the Space Voyage program made by TSC back in the 70's. I would like to port it to the 68hc11. Do you know where I could get a copy of the listing. I had the book but lost it years ago. I have found the s19 files but the I/O and the ram location will have to be changed. Thanks for your time Sam Ammons

19 years, 10 months

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Craziest ebay price EVER

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

On 27 Oct, 2006, at 07:41, ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > It's not that hard to trace out schematics of a classic computer [1], Not all classic computers are micros. Fancy tracing the schematic for my 500 square foot second generation mainframe? Fortunately I have most of them, along with the 'address book' which lists every logic signal, its sources (think wire-OR) and destinations. Its on roughly A3 paper and is in two volumes four inches thick. Welcome to the new chap. BCD is not just a bit coding, its a card code as well. It lacks things like parentheses and brackets but has things like 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4. My 1301 uses it, though strangely there is not a one to one mapping >from characters from the card reader to characters on the line printer! The old Friden Flexowriters used a similar code too, though they seem to have varied too. The old Elliott 920 code was different >from the code used by my own Flexowriter (which could punch and read 8 paper tape, or using the same mechanism, along the edge of a punched card size medium which I think could be fan-folded. I guess this allowed the operator to write on the rest of the card). Roger Holmes (Who has at home what might be a collection of the largest computers in private ownership - unless you know different as Esther Rantzen used to say on "That's Life").

19 years, 10 months

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486 EISA system

by teoz＠neo.rr.com

Another Ebay find came in today, a 486 EISA motherboard and 5 cards. The motherboards seems to be this model: http://artofhacking.com/th99/m/U-Z/31111.htm , but I can't find a company name on it anywhere. It has 8 EISA slots seems to be setup for a 486 DX. it looks like there are 2 DALLAS real time clocks on it, and the machine complains the eisa config battery is low. Are there any cheap hacks to get around this? The cards that came are the following (all EISA): HP 10Mb and 100Mb network card has a HP/AT&T 100VG chip Aview 2e Video card, 1MB VRAM Adaptec AHA-2740 and AHA-2740A SCSI 50 pin (no floppy controller) SCSI cards Mylex DAC960-1/2 caching controller card with what looks like 16MB (maybe 4MB) of RAM installed (4x30 pin). The card has a nice big Intel i960 chip (first one I have). When the machine boots I don't see any info on what processor the system has like you would normally see on a 486 system, and no BIOS screen for the SCSI cards comes up either (not that there is anything connected to them). The caching controller is odd looking because of the large SCSI connectors ( there appears to be a 50 pin SCSI internal , and 2 68 pin SCSI (one looks like a normal 50 pin but its long and has 68 pins, the other looks like a 68pin connector on newer cards but the pin spacing makes it look 3x longer). Is this a raid only card and do I need special cables for the 68 pin connectors or are there adapters for these? I never used an EISA machine before (one of the reason I snagged these) and was wondering if there is anything special about them. Is there a standard configuration utility for EISA cards or do you need to find one for each card? Also since this machine is all EISA slots would putting an ISA card in one of them slow the BUS down? I need to find an EISA floppy and I/O card to complete this, anybody have one they don't need? TZ

19 years, 10 months

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DEC Spare parts

by william.berkeley＠yahoo.com.sg

Hi, I just noticed there was a small typo-error in the list. Item#26 should read as TQK50 tape controller (M7546) instead of the DEQNA which is listed in item #1 MicroVax II board set Also item#31 should read as Emulex DH01 thanks and rgds william --------------------------------- What is the internet to you? Contribute to the Yahoo! Time Capsule and be a part of internet history.

19 years, 10 months

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Still Looking for Parts to Complete Omnibot 2000

by karentompsett＠sbcglobal.net

i have two omnibot 2000. one only needs gear in right sholder the rest like new in org. box.#2lights lt&rt head fw rev ok tape does not work rt arm goes up but not down .make me fair offer and you can both.ihave no idea of shiping coast.tim 501 362 8069 9am too8pm Thank you Tim

19 years, 10 months

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DEC spare parts

by william.berkeley＠yahoo.com.sg

Hello Henk, You were right, my mailbox have been swampped and it will take me a while to sort out who needs what and how to cut the deal. some of the items I would gladly be "contributing" towards charitable cause with shipping cost covered, but certain items that are still of commercial value and purpose will have to be negotiated. I am impressed by what I saw on your web site and the efforts in building a pdp museum. Will revert to you soonest, pls bear with it for a while. Thanks to everyone for sending me your request, I promise to respond to your emails but can't be sure if I can accommodate all your needs! Rgds William Hello William, I read your post yesterday, but did not reply as I expect that you will get *many* replies. This morning I re-read your message and thought "Well, if I don't try I will sure not get lucky" :-) So, I give it a try and send an e-mail ... I am sure you will get plenty interest for the SCSI stuff, but to maintain my collection (see www.pdp-11.nl ) I would love to get the following boards: > 3. PDP-11/34 UNIBUS board sets: > --------------------------------- What will the world find in 2020? Leave a part of your 2006 in the Yahoo! Time Capsule. Contribute now!

19 years, 10 months

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Yet Another Old Cyber-Coot

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Yet Another Old Cyber-Coot > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2006 00:08:13 +0100 (BST) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> > >> > I am not sure what you mean by 'in one package'. I personally think the >> > Epson QX10 is one of the nicest CP/M machines ever, but that has a >> > separate monitor and keyboard so it might not be 'one package'. >> >> >> What I mean by "one package" is that the machine is a complete >> computer -- monitor and keyboard built in. One plug, one diskette, and >> you're off... My personal preference is for separates, in computers, > >Well, the Epson QX10 meets the second of those criteria. It's 3 units >(processor box, keyboard, monitor), but there's only one mains cable (the >monitor, and obviously the keyboard [1] take power from the PSU in the >processor box). Visual 1050, main box has two floppies and the monitor sits on top of it. If you have the hard disk (sasi interface) then it's three. Z80, 128k with 6502 to do monochrome text and graphics. Runs CP/MV2.2 and CP/M+. For an all in one box, North*Star Advantage Z80, 128k One or two floppies and hard disk Runs NS*dos, CP/M2.2 or UCSD PASCAL. For laptop, PX8 with 120k ramdisk wedge. For totable Kaypro 4/84 with 360k 5.25 floppy, 720/781k 3.5" floppy, Turborom with personality card, Handyman and Advent 1mb ramdisk. In the range of sperates, will S100 do? I also have others. > >[1] Although I do have a keyboard from a Ramtek graphics unit which does >have it's own internal mains PSU. > >> > I'm also partial to the RML380Z, but mainly becasue that was the first >> > CP/M machine I used )at school).. And to be honest, CP/M was a let-down >> > after the LDOS I used at home on my TRS-80 Model 1. My $.02 is LDOS was later and had some good ideas but the software base of applications was smaller. >> >> Perhaps... But CP/M was a hobbyist O/S that sort of became the >> industry standard. Cool, in a way. The closest thing to THAT today is >> Linux, and that's a tad bit complicated (and too good) for hacking it to >> be much use. > >I've always thought the analogy is between CP/M and MSDOS (and not >because of the obvious technical similarities). Both are pretty minimal >OSes, both became industry standards, and in both cases there were often >better choices available. The biggest reason CP/M succeeded was it was good enough, easily ported to new hardware and inexpensive. Because I abstracted the hardware sufficiently the base of software grew as it ran on any machine that could run CP/M. >> And, truth be told, it's clear that a lot of the people I've seen >> post in the last 24 hours obviously know a lot more than I do about >> quite a few things. That is as it should be. Normally, I'm the alpha >> geek wherever I am, so it's refreshing to think I'll be LEARNING things >> for a change. So far, it reminds me of the Aloha Computer Club back in >> the 70s... Everybody is knowledgeable, and some VERY much so, but all >> experienced in somewhat different areas. Seems like a friendly group, >> too. I'm a painfully honest person (I know, I know, liars say that, >> too) so I'll let people know when I don't know something. But, I have > >I think you are going to fit in here. I certainly consider that the day I >stop learning is the day I die. And I think everyone here is basically >very honset (certainly all the classic computer collectors I've met face >to face are). Roger That! Clipped off the Monroe discussion. Nice machine but memory serves they were not simple hardware! Allison

19 years, 10 months

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Waduzitdo?

by charlesmorris＠hughes.net

Does anyone have a copy, or preferably a scan, of the Byte article c. 1976 entitled "WADUZITDO"? (It's an interpreted "high-level" language so named by the author since everyone looked at his Altair or IMSAI sitting there and asked, "So what does it do"?) There were two versions (for 6800 and 8080) each of which occupied a whopping 256 bytes! I recall toggling it into my homebrew 8080 machine back in '79 and it actually worked and ran simple programs as promised. I can't find the funny-smelling "wet" photocopy I made at the Computer Science Center at U. of Md., last seen 25 years ago... thanks Charles

19 years, 10 months

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EBCDIC

by sdc695＠yahoo.com

EBCDIC had all sorts of representations. The most variation was in the area of control characters (0x00 to 0x3F). Most of the alpha symbols were pretty standard. The best help was if you knew how cards were punched. That helped quite a bit, but there were all sorts of wierdnesses. The most blantant one was the translation of 0-2-8 (it is labeled that way on an 029 keypunch) into 0xE0. It didn't match the "pattern" at all. I helped design (with logic gates) a converter from card code to EBCDIC and it wasn't fun. It was before roms were wide spread which would make the job MUCH easier. Proper card codes had only a single punch in rows 1-7 (or none) which can be coded as three bits. The other rows (12, 11, 0, 8, 9) made up the other 5 bits. Shuffle that thru a 1702 ROM (256 addresses, 8 bits) and you could (with proper programming) get EBCDIC out the other end. The proper programming of the ROM is left as an excercise to the reader. Another observation: A long time ago I wandered into the DMV to do some menial task, and they had a big thick book of "taken" vanity plates. Having some time to waste, I looked thru it and saw the plate "E2C5E7" listed, and also the plate "E2C5E7Y" listed. Their interpretation is also left as an excercise to the reader. So EBCDIC lives on in wierd ways, where numbers need to be collated AFTER letters. -- Tom Watson tsw at johana.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

19 years, 10 months

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looking for SCSI cable, angled CN50M to HD50M

by vax9000＠gmail.com

Centronics 50 pin male to HD50 male (lock, not screw). Pay from paypal $10 shipping included, thank you! vax. 9000

19 years, 10 months

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RX02 controller?

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

Apparently now that I actually need them, I can't find any of my RX02 controllers. Anyone have a spare RX211? Board is M8256, for a unibus box. If you do have one available I'd be happy to trade for it or pay reasonable sums of cash. Thanks! Jay West

19 years, 10 months

1
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Fabio

by bpope＠wordstock.com

http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/fabio-on-technology-a-brief-intervie… Fabio is an Amiga fan *and* a nerd... Cheers, Bryan

19 years, 10 months

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Intel MDS and Mohawk

by sdc695＠yahoo.com

Scribed by "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>: > I was going over some old 8" Intel diskettes and discovered some that > have the legend "MDS is a registered trademark of Mohawk Data Science > Corporation" > > Does anyone remember when Intel started adding the asterisked text to > "MDS"? > > Cheers, > Chuck All I know is some history: Mohawk Data Sciences did all sorts of things in the 60's and 70's. Their main "claim to fame" was a key-to-tape machine that was to replace keypunches (remember 029 keypunches) with something more "modern". They did find some place, but I never used one. On the other hand I was (un)fortunate to interface a Mohawk printer (a model 4330 to be exact) to a larger computer (A Xerox Sigma 5) and it had (still has on the case) a nice MDS logo. I suspect that Intel started using MDS as a marketing term and the lawyers from Mohawk made a nice call on the phone. Another observation: Later Xerox Sigma CPUs had a sticker (inside the control panel door) indicating that the term "Sigma" was used under license from some corporation (Sigma Relays?). They probably got a lawyer call as well. Sometimes these things take a while (years), but eventually it all works out. A recent (very bad) example was a guy called Mike Rowe (I think) who wanted to sell software on the web. He got a "nastygram" from the guys in Redmond who didn't appreciate it too much. I'm sure you can search for the end result. Note to wise: If you think you have a trademark, do a little search. It might save some real money at a later date. -- Tom Watson tsw at johana.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

19 years, 10 months

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DEC spare parts

by william.berkeley＠yahoo.com.sg

I have a bunch of spare parts sitting in my house for quite a while, all are good and many unused as these were formerly support spares or inventory left over. anyone interested pls contact me directly, main constraint is all these are located in Singapore so have to find a good way to get them over to whichever corner in the world! 1. MicroVAX II modules: KA630-AA CPU board with 1MB memory MS630-BB 4MB Memory Emulex QD21 ESDI disk controller DEQNA Ethernet controller KDA50 SDI disk controller KFQSA-AA DSSI-to-Qbus adapter 2. Digital VAXstation 3100 model 30 with: 52MB internal SCSI disk 1.3GB external SCSI disk 8MB memory 3. PDP-11/34 UNIBUS board sets: M7891 (set of 2) M8265/M8266 M7485/M7486 Emulex SC12 disk controller Emulex TC13 tape coupler 4. SUN 4/65 SPARCstation 1+ with: 16MB memory external Shoebox with 150MB QIC tape 327MB SCSI disk external CDROM drive, Toshiba external 4GB Baracudda Disk 5. Clearpoint DNX4RAM/8MB 8MB memory for Apollo DN4000 (unused) 6. Clearpoint DNXRAM/2MB 2MB memory for Apollo DN2000 (unused) 7. Clearpoint DCME-V88/16MB 16MB memory for VAX85XX 8. Clearpoint DCME-V78/8MB 8MB memory for VAX780 (unused) 9. Clearpoint DCME-V75/1MB 1MB memory for VAX750 (unused) 10. Clearpoint SNX2RAM/8MB 8MB memory for SUN 4/2XX, 3/2XX, 3/4XX (unused) 11. Camintonn CMX-1211D 12MB memory for MicroVAX 3100 (unused) 12. Camintonn CMX-871 8MB memory for DECstation 5000 200/240 (unused) 13. DATARAM DR650/32MB memory for VAX63X0 - VAX66X0 (unused) 14. DATARAM DR650/64MB memory for VAX63X0 - VAX66X0 15. DATARAM DR650/128MB memory for VAX63X0 - VAX66X0 16. DATARAM DR3100VS/16MB 16MB memory for MicroVAX 3100 (unused) 22. Clearpoint DCMS-TSB VAXBI-to-SCSI Diff tape controller for 8mm (unused) 23. CMD CQ0220A SCSI host adapter for Qbus, single ended 24. CMD CDI4000/SC DSSI-to-SCSI bridge adapter for 5.25" SCSI drives 25. Digital RQDX3 disk controller for Qbus 26. Digital DEQNA Ethernet controller for Qbus 27. Digital DPV11 single line sync comm controller for Qbus 28. Emulex UC06 SCSI host adapter for Qbus, Differential 29. Emulex UC07 SCSI host adapter for Qbus, single-ended 30. Emulex UC08-III Dual SCSI host adapter for VAX4000 Qbus 31. Emulex DA01 SDI Disk Channel Card for HSC controller 32. EXCELAN EXOS1219-08 Intelligent Ethernet controller for MVIII (unused) 33. Emulex P3000 4 port Print Server (unused), LAT/TCP with: P3KDP Dataproduct I/F P3KCEN Centronics I/F P3KPC DB25 I/F P3KSER Serial I/F 34. Emulex NJ01B-NT+ NetJet Print Server for HP MIO Printers (new), LAT/TCP 35. Emulex NJ01B-NT+ NetJet Print Server for HP MIO Printers, LAT/TCP, used --------------------------------- What is the internet to you? Contribute to the Yahoo! Time Capsule and be a part of internet history.

19 years, 10 months

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HP boards? eBay # 160042744617

by tothwolf＠concentric.net

Just saw these listed as "gold scrap", not sure if they are indeed HP boards, but thought I'd pass it along. Looks like only about an hour and a half to go on them, unfortunately. -Toth

19 years, 10 months

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8" disk drives and modern PCs

by kelly＠catcorner.org

I have a qustion about powering the 8" disk drives I have connected to my disk duplicating computer. Specifically, what is the "best" power on sequence? The drives I use are the Tandon TM848-2E. It requires 24V @ 750mA and 5V @ 450 mA to operate. Pretty easy so far. I use an external power supply to power the drives. I want to add a relay powered by one of the diskette drive lines from the standard PC supply to turn this power supply on. Again, faily simple. My question is what is the best order to turn things on. I've always turned the drive on before powering up the PC, and turned the drive off after powering off the PC. Does this really matter? I always make sure there is no disk in the drive before doing any power cycling. To simplify matters, I could always just put everything on one big switch on the mains. You know, like using the power strip to power on/off. Any opinions about this? Any suggestions? Thanks, Kelly

19 years, 10 months

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CD-ROM archiving

by adamg＠pobox.com

Seth J. Morabito wrote: > Does anyone have any guidelines about making archival images of > CD-ROM media? For years, I've been using dd on Solaris or Linux > to dump the raw bytes of CD-ROMs, and cdrecord if I want to make > a copy from the raw image, but I don't know if this is considered > "good enough" to preserve all the associated filesystem and partition > structures of the disc. It has been for me, so far, but I'd like to > hear other opinions on the matter. How do you archive CD-ROM images? As long as there's only one track on the CD, dd on Linux will grab everything. On Solaris you might have to be careful to pick the right device node so you grab the whole thing. On MacOS X you definitely have to pick the right device node -- the one time I tried it, I picked wrong and only got one partition. Multi-partition discs usually have just one track containing all partitions. If you want to be sure you can "cdrecord -toc", if there's just one data track, you're good. Some discs actually do have more than one track. The SunCD demo disc is an example. It has a data track (probably with multiple partitions, I don't remember) and a few audio tracks. Some combination of dd (or readcd -- see below) and cdparanoia should be able to copy discs like this. I usually use dd, or even cat, on the first try reading a disc, just out of laziness. But there's a program 'readcd' (part of the cdrtools suite, IIRC) which is a little more sophisticated. In particular, if a disc has a marginal sector or two, dd will give up, but readcd will retry until it gets a good read. Another note, if you are reading CD-Rs which were written in TAO mode, you will get some empty sectors appended to the end, then an I/O error as your drive tries to read past the leadout. But you're not actually losing any data. -- Adam

19 years, 10 months

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(no subject)

by drb＠msu.edu

Anyone have a rev. E or later ROM for an Emulex QD21? Thanks, De

19 years, 10 months

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EBCDIC

by ygehrich＠yahoo.com

At 08:22 PM 10/26/2006 Ethan Dicks wrote: >I used to use EBCDIC on a regular basis when I made HASP/3780/SNA >gear... now, I think I can only remember 'space' and the numbers.* Yes but do you remember good old BCD

19 years, 10 months

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looking for the HP Vectra ('286) and Televideo Telecat

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

Thanks __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

19 years, 10 months

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looking for the NCR PC4, PC6, PC8

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

please inform. Thanks. I do have 2 PC4's in *very* questionable condition if anyone is interested (for shipping). I'm primarily looking for the color version of the 4. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

19 years, 10 months

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TRS-80 Model 16

by kelly＠catcorner.org

> Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2006 5:41 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: TRS-80 Model 16 > > > I've got a TRS-80 Model 16 that I'm going to put on ePay, but I'd > like to clean some of the grunge out of the half-height Tandon 8" > diskette drives. > > In a nutshell, can someone tell me the easy way to remove these > drives from the case? > Model 16 or 16B? The procedure is different. If it is a 16b: Remove slot access cover in back. Turn the computer over (feet up) Remove the 10 or so screws from around the case Turn back over, being carefull to keep it together. From the front of the unit, lift top shell and rotate left the CRT stays attached to that piece of the case you lift up You should now see the floppy cage on the right Remove all the screws from around the cage and the two drives should come out as a unit. If it is the original 16: Remove the two back screws from the case cover. Remove this. Remove all the screws from around the front (CRT) bezel. It should drop off, with the CRT attached. You should now be able to get to all of the screws If this is an original 16, please let me know when you list it. If you're interested in private sale, let me know. I'll send an offer that you can either accept or ignore. I wouldn't even ask you to clean the drives. If you need it, I can scan in an exploded diagram from the two service manuals. Kelly

19 years, 10 months

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TRS-80 Model 16

by cclist＠sydex.com

I've got a TRS-80 Model 16 that I'm going to put on ePay, but I'd like to clean some of the grunge out of the half-height Tandon 8" diskette drives. In a nutshell, can someone tell me the easy way to remove these drives from the case? Thanks! Chuck

19 years, 10 months

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Floppy drive box thingie; was: Re: Wow; $192 for a 5.25

by cclist＠sydex.com

As long as we're talking about it; here are a few more ideas to consider. 1. The Catweasel uses a selectable clock rate to obtain a clock count that will fit in 7 bits. My gripe with this is that I have to read a track or two (if different densities on the same disk) to determine the correct clock rate. There's little worse than finding out that you've guessed wrongly and your image is worthless. If we're going to employ a dedicated MPU/MCU to handle this stuff, why not go with a 10- or 11-bit clock rate and get rid of the rate selection? One of the spare bits could be used for index detection on hard-sectored disks. 2. Some drive diagnostics should be incorporated. Particularly with 5.25" drives, old sticky floppies can really drag the rotational speed down. I'd really like to know that it's happening. 3. I can envision this device as a small box, powered by a wall wart with an RJ-45 ethernet connector and on or two DC-37 female connectors for drives. Given that this thing's going to be used for all manner of drives, there's no compelling reason to provide drive power as part of it. 4. DHCP is a nice feature, but not all vintage networks support it. The option of a fixed IP address (192.168.x.x) would be a plus. 5. Should the box also supply the drive for older 8" drive 3-phase steppers? How about the head-load signal? That's it for now--I'm sure I'll think of something else! Cheers, Chuck

19 years, 10 months

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Wang 2200

by wb6blv＠inreach.com

Looking for a WANG 2200 MVT system or anything that will read Wang 5 meg removable platters; 8 inch floppy drive also needed; have many of the Wang terminals but a spare mpu might be nice. Thanks John WB6BLV at inreach.com

19 years, 10 months

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Intel BPK-72A-4

by cclist＠sydex.com

For collectors of arcana out there, I've listed an Intel bubble memory development kit on ePay: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320042426869&ssPage Name=ADME:L:LCA:US:31 I never got around to using it--after I discovered the power requirements of the thing, I moved on to battery-backed SRAM instead. :) Cheers, Chuck

19 years, 10 months

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HP CP/M system - [WAS Re: Craziest ebay price EVER]

by Glen.Heiberg＠gijima.com

Warren wrote: ================== Oh, yeah, the GPIB reference reminds me... I've got an HP CP/M machine, too, that looks like their old brown monitors, with a standalone dual diskette drive that connects via HPIB. I forget the model number... Cripes, I've got old computers stashed all over the place. ================== Must be an HP 125; if it's a 3.5" disk drive, chances are it's an HP 9121D.

19 years, 10 months

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CD-ROM archiving

by sethm＠loomcom.com

Hey folks, Does anyone have any guidelines about making archival images of CD-ROM media? For years, I've been using dd on Solaris or Linux to dump the raw bytes of CD-ROMs, and cdrecord if I want to make a copy from the raw image, but I don't know if this is considered "good enough" to preserve all the associated filesystem and partition structures of the disc. It has been for me, so far, but I'd like to hear other opinions on the matter. How do you archive CD-ROM images? Does anyone use any special software or have any tips? -Seth

19 years, 10 months

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Intel MDS and Mohawk

by cclist＠sydex.com

I was going over some old 8" Intel diskettes and discovered some that have the legend "MDS is a registered trademark of Mohawk Data Science Corporation" Does anyone remember when Intel started adding the asterisked text to "MDS"? Cheers, Chuck

19 years, 10 months

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Western Union self-winding clock

by jedwards4＠cinci.rr.com

Saw your note re self winding clocks on the net and that your dad had one. I am also in possession of one and trying to find the value of it. Have you or your dad ever come across a book(s) or web site that provides some type of value to these clocks. I have tried using the web search engines without any success. Matter of fact that is how I found your request. Any assistance or help you could provide would be appreciated. Jerry Edwards

19 years, 10 months

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Western Union self-winding clock

by jedwards4＠cinci.rr.com

I am a former Western Union employee and while there I got my hands on one of the self winding advertising clocks WU offered with its time service. Saw your articles on the web and wondering if you could point me in the direction of a web site or book(s) that I might be able to find the value of this clock. As information, I have already tried using most of the web search engines such as Google, MSN, Yahoo etc., without much success. Matter of fact that is how I found your articles. Any help or assistance you could provide would be very much apprecated. Jerry Edwards

19 years, 10 months

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Wanted: OS / diag media for Altos 886

by rescue＠hawkmountain.net

I have an Altos 886 that apparently has corrupted boot blocks... and need to locate a copy of Xenix and probably of the SDX ? diagnostics in order to get it back up and running again. As I understand it, this system ran Xenix 3.2f, and it had to be the Xenix specifically for the Altos 886 (i.e. not 'generic' SCO Xenix). So, anyone out there have installation media that they care to part with or make copies of ? (copying may be difficult as these are Quad density 5.25" media as I understand it... 720K I believe (80 tracks double sided double density)). Thanks, -- Curt

19 years, 10 months

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Faraday cages ( was Re: staticy plastic tubs )

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

--- Ray Arachelian <ray at arachelian.com> wrote: > aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk wrote: > > > > err... what's a Faraday cage? > > > When in doubt, google it. :-) Here's a good answer : > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage > Ahh, thanks. I had forgotten about Google (not surprising since I have been working 8.5 hour days for the past week and only getting 6 hours sleep each night). I don't like to rely too heavily on Wikipedia as (like alot of information online) you can't be sure what's right or wrong, unless someone knowledgeable in the subject can confirm it. So if I understand correctly, the outer casing of a harddrive acts as a Faraday cage? My (4GB) Toshiba ones I use in my Amiga 600 have circuitry on the underside, but I suspect that may stop it being a Faraday cage, unless it's stuck onto the outside of the unit. Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

19 years, 10 months

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vax 1000 matching monitor

by ying6926＠ureach.com

We had one monitor Phillips C1435-AS that goes with a DEC Vax 1000, but the monitor is dead now and it has DB9 female connector. Does any one know the specification of this so that I can find a match or does anyone know of video card on vax 1000 computer? I was told it is typically EGA signal out of vax1000 and I was told by some people it is actually analog signal with DB9 connector with special pin match. Any help would be appreciated. Henry

19 years, 10 months

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RL02 latch cable

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

Does anyone have some experience with the best way to "lubricate?" the cable in the top cover of an RL02 drive? I can't tell for sure if the cable is wire or plastic or plasticoated wire or fiber..... The issue is probably typical... when you release the hand operated slide the clasp on the top cover at the front doesn't slide back all the way to latch the top closed. I am sure that it is not the spring in the front latch. Moving that by hand, there is plenty of spring tension left. The problem is definitely that the cable between the front latch and the hand operated slide isn't "sliding" in the channel. What good way have people found to address this. If it's fiber I was thinking of sliding the cable through wax once or twice. Is there a better way? Graphite would seem a bad idea.... Jay

19 years, 10 months

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Kennedy 96xx series docs on line

by aek＠bitsavers.org

I was able to obtain copies of most of the 96xx series manuals last Friday, so they are now on line on bitsavers.org/pdf/kennedy including the docs for the SCSI interfaces. They were a challenge to find.. Still looking for the schematics for the HP 88780

19 years, 10 months

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OT: GONE! Items looking for new home - DEC PCs, MV3100, BA350, misc SCSI drives and cables (MA, USA)

by jpeterson＠chinalake.com

All gone! Wow, I thought it would take days, not seconds. If I ever need an organ transplant, I am posting here first. Cheers, -Jim

19 years, 10 months

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Classic hardware at the bottom of the world (was Re: Anyone have a datasheet for a Datel MX-1606?)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 10/25/06, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote: > I am green with envy, Ethan. Yes I'd freeze my butt off (hey I'm a > Florida boy) but man it'd be worth it to see that place. Our low is typically around -100F to -110F (the record is somewhere around -117F, IIRC) This time of year, -60F to -75F is common. > What cool (non-work-related) hardware do you have down there? I brought plenty of cool non-work-related hardware... my SBC-6120 w/FP-6120 and IOB-6120, a Spare Time GIzmos Embedded Elf w/disk interface, an Elf-2000 w/STG1861, a STG mp3 player, an RB5X robot (INS8073-based), an MC-1N microcontroller (also INS8073-based), several LCD and VFD displays for LCDproc (http://www.lcdproc.org), a "Real Console" 6809 board, a MicroElf, a couple of binary clocks, some Atmel microcontrollers, and a modernish (2002) 6502 SBC. I think that's most of the toys I brought to get through the night. I also have Amiga Forever, simh and klh10 for emulation of various boxes (I used to bring an Amiga down, but now it's just too large to justify). Plenty of toys here. Now I just have to pack them up and take them home. -ethan

19 years, 10 months

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11/34 rails sought

by jwest＠ezwind.net

My last PDP11 restoration to do yet is a 11/34 in an H960 cabinet (I'm skipping the /45 for now, jumping over it to maintain sanity and until help strikes me upside the head). I believe the only thing I'm missing to start the /34 project is a set of the "tip up and lock" rails for the /34 cpu itself. Anyone have a set they'd like to trade or sell? I have to get back to classic computing restoration or the basement will continue to decrease in space instead of increase ;) Jay

19 years, 10 months

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OT: Items looking for new home - DEC PCs, MV3100, BA350, misc SCSI drives and cables (MA, USA)

by jpeterson＠chinalake.com

OT: not actually classic systems but interesting and/or useful as DEC hardware I am working my way through storage. Several DEC PCs need a new home as well as an MV3100-80, several DEC SCSI drives and cables, etc. The PCs are not 'classic' but are part of the DEC story. All free with the caveat that you will not turn around and sell off the systems or memory--people with sharp pointy oscilloscope probes will visit you in the night if you do. I will, however, never turn away donations of cash or Guinness, to support body and soul. The units have been in climate managed storage for what that's worth. I am in metro-west Boston, MA and will deliver within a reasonable distance. I will also ship anything if you cover costs. Photos of systems avail at: http://chinalake.home.comcast.net/decstuff/index.html . Queries to whatpdp at chinalake com. Cheers, -jim ------------------------------ DEC PCs: No keyboards or external cables unless noted. If there is some special cable needed, I can dig around in the boxes. Digital PCP12 386/25 laptop (~1992/93?) Also seen w/ Panasonic label in RS stores Interesting note is the integrated mouse Have docs, power, spare battery, and util disk DEC Celebris Pentium 166/133 Slim case design w/ 16 bit ISA (AT) and PCI Removable cache card and processor power factor card Have the green/blue "Celebris" label - Removed when evaling and never got back on. Have docs and disks. DEC Workstation 200i2 Dual PPro/180 or 200 Could come configured either as intel or Alpha by swapping a good chunk of the system board. Not as neat a design as the 486/ST intel/Alpha. Friction latch for front is broken off--mostly a cosmetic issue. Docs and disks. Orig shipped with the two RZ28D scsis below, but now had IDE on built in controller. Collector has first dibs on the drives. Controller when I can locate it (apaptec 2940W). This system's last job was running some flavour of S/370 via Hercules on Linux. DEC DECpc 486 Workstation "Clam Shell" PCW10-A2 Slim design. Connected via a short SCSI cable to its SCSI storage unit. Together it had a clam-like appearance. Support for LK keyboard and had a large Appina video board DEC DECpc Storage box for the DECpc PCWXE-A2 Two HH 5.25 openings and one hidden (holding RZ24-LE) Have the connecting cable for this unit. The unit is generic SCSI, but I will only dispose of it with the PC. There is also a VAXMate if I can find it. In a month or two, two SOLs and Helios drives will be up on ebay. --------------------------- MV 3100-80 RAM: 72 megs Storage: Two RZ25 Ext SCSI (AMP 50 connector) w/ term DWS41 Usual three MMJ ports, etc. AUI-10-baseT adapter (not the term shown, I still need him) White DEC T + 2 50-ohm thinnet terms NON-DEC SCSI CR-ROM in external box if you want it ---------------------------- Misc: -New DEC 15 foot thinnet + 2 T and 4 terms (this is the white molded cable and connectors) -Grey 5' BNC RGB cable - maybe off the GIGIs and/or from BARCOs -DEC BC09J-03 MV 3100 SCSI cable - This the funky HD68 Female to AMP50 -DEC BCO6P-06 - six foot M-M AMP50 Right Angle SCSI -4-32 MEG (128 megs) SIMMS from an old Jensen box Alpha. 72-PIN 70NS Two are DEC and two are DATARAM -3-button workstation mouse VSXXX-GA (7-pin critter, rectalgular body, not the mickey version) -BA350 storage cab, with term, dual power supplies, two fans + spare, 4 covers--I have the rest someplace -TZ87 in cartridge for BA350 (will test) -Locating my box of internal SCSI CR-ROM drives-any takers when I do? -Gigatrend SL Turbo DAT (DDS1 me thinks) external scsi box --------------------------- 3.5 SCSI drives: (2) RZ28D (wide) (1) RZ28 (1) RZ28B Numerous of 50 pin SCSI ribbon cables 2,3,5 connectors Some Wide also ---------------------------EOF---------------------------

19 years, 10 months

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Anyone have a datasheet for a Datel MX-1606?

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

>From my googling, I can see that this is a 16-channel CMOS multiplexer. I have 3 here, harvested from a university-built bit of laboratory hardware and I'm wondering if I can put them to use in something. What I lack is a pinout or any detailed specs. Anyone have any in-depth info on the MX-1606? Thanks, -ethan

19 years, 10 months

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just for fun: Strong Bad isn't a vintage computer collector

by spectre＠floodgap.com

Strong Bad blows up his Apple-esque first computer and his "COMPY 386" that uses a Commodore typeface to preserve the 486 laptop that they took hostage. http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail159.html -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION! ------------------------------------

19 years, 10 months

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VCF 9 plans...

by evan＠snarc.net

I know this is a bit early, but I'm arriving for VCF 9 on Thursday, Nov. 2 if anyone's looking to hang out in the evening. Cell is 646-546-9999.

19 years, 10 months

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VZ200 available

by shawn.t.rutledge＠gmail.com

Anybody interested in one of these? Was going to put it on ebay but thought I'd ask first. It seems to work, too, and comes with the BASIC manual.

19 years, 10 months

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Odd 8-bit ISA CD-ROM interface?

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

I have this board here, marked "Reveal / Part No. 14-004-008" with an FCC ID if BEJGCD-R420B. It is an 8-bit ISA card with a few jumpers (1-4 and 1-9) and a single 40-pin IDC connector. >From a bit of googling, it seems to be an ancient CD-ROM interface. That would be interesting as it's 8-bit and AFAIK, ATAPI devices are 16-bit only. There's not much on the card - a couple of buffers ('244, '245), an address comparator ('688), and a wee bit of logic ('32 x 2, '08, '00)... nothing to, say, latch two 8-bit writes into a 16-bit register. Anyone recognize this beast? Is it useful in anything besides a DOS/Win3.1 box? -ethan

19 years, 10 months

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PCW's 25 worst tech products of all time

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

>Has anyone ever compiled a list of IBM PC and PC/XT >compatibles for >historical purposes (outisde of the no-name Taiwanese >clones, that is)? There are sites that attempt to enumerate all of the things that used 8088s or 8086s. I purpose to start a website one of these days. Perhaps some space could be reserved to host submissions which would attempt to do that very thing. Ick who cares about compatibles though? ;) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

19 years, 10 months

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TD Systems Viking QBUS SCSI adapter info?

by pat＠computer-refuge.org

I've got a TD Systems Viking "VIK/QDA" QBUS SCSI controller, which I'm trying to use. Does anyone have documentation for this thing? It's properly configured to be at the primary (disk) MSCP controller address, and looks OK from the QBUS side, but I can't talk to any SCSI disks that I connect to it. This is what "show qbus" gives me on my VAX 4000/300: >>>show qbus Scan of Qbus I/O Space -20001468 (772150) = B440 RQDX3/KDA50/RRD50/RQC25/KFQSA-DISK -2000146A (772152) = 0B40 -20001600 (773000) = 0A0F -20001602 (773002) = 01FF -20001920 (774440) = FF08 DELQA/DEQNA/DESQA -20001922 (774442) = FF00 -20001924 (774444) = FF2B -20001926 (774446) = FF32 -20001928 (774450) = FFA6 -2000192A (774452) = FF9E -2000192C (774454) = 8400 -2000192E (774456) = 1030 -20001F40 (777500) = 0020 IPCR And, this is what "show uqssp" gives me: >>>show uqssp UQSSP Disk Controller 0 (772150) -DUA0 (@0) -DUA1 (@0) -DUA2 (@0) -DUA3 (@0) -DUA4 (@0) -DUA5 (@0) -DUA6 (@0) So, it's there, and responding to the CPU (and yes, it's the only MSCP device in the system, so it's not conflicting with anything else). I've tried setting the SCSI drive to several different SCSI IDs, and I've used drives from 540MB to 6GB in size, with no luck. When I try a "show uqssp" or a "boot dua0", the controller blinks its red LED, but the activity light on the drive doesn't light up at all (the SCSI ID on the drive was set to "0" when I tried booting from it). Any ideas? Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org

19 years, 10 months

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8-inch substitutes

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

So, back to my 8-inch drive problem... Would a Shugart 851 be an acceptable substitute for a Qume 842? The client tells me that any of the following will work in his Fairlight CMI synthesizer: Qume 242 YE Data YD174 YE Data YD180 Mitsubishi M2896-63 I'm not clear where he got this list. I'm looking at the manual for the Qume and it claims that it's an electrical and mechanical match for the Shugart 850. Is this a close enough match? Also, the client is in the zipcode 53153. Is there someone near there who I can coax into taking a look? -- 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, 10 months

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Houseclening - 3.5" drive trays

by cclist＠sydex.com

I've got about 15 of these to dump or give away. These are the gizmos that fit in a 5.25" HH drive opening and hold a removable tray with a 3.5" hard drive in it. Mostly IDE, a couple are SCSI-I and a few have built-in-fans. Some are still NIB. These do not work with the UDMA4 80-conductor cables (well, they do, just not in UDMA mode). The lot is yours for the shipping cost. Cheers, Chuck

19 years, 10 months

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Housecleaning - "Monitor misers"

by cclist＠sydex.com

I've got 4 or 5 of these little boxes for 120v operation that hook in series with a PC keyboard cable (5 pin DIN) and the mains supply for the monitor (3 prong line cord; female IEC cord). They've got a 4- position DIP switch on the back to vary the time between 10 and 40 mintues. The idea is that if the DIPswitch selected time goes by without any keyboard inactivity will turn the monitor mains supply off. Some are the "Monitor Miser" brand; others are the IBM Options "Display Miser" brand--they're identical internally. Free to anyone who wants the lot and pays postage. Cheers, Chuck

19 years, 10 months

2
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Housecleaning - Cipher 525 NIB

by cclist＠sydex.com

I've got a Cipher 525 full-height 5.25" QIC floppy tape drive-- writes DC600A tapes. New, in original bag and box. Free to anyone for the cost of postage. Cheers, Chuck

19 years, 10 months

2
1
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DEC boot rom image sought

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

Yup, I know it's been asked for here time and again, but I'm going to try and keep it in folks minds ;) Would anyone have the DEC boot rom for the M9312 that boots off TMSCP TK50 & TU81 (MU)? Please check your M9312 boards and your PDP-11/44 boot roms for rom "E39A9" or part number "23-E39A9". If you have it, I (and a few others) would love if I could borrow it to make an image. Best regards, Jay West

19 years, 10 months

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On the subject of boot ROMs...

by gordon＠gjcp.net

... does anyone else have a Baydel STBC multifunction card that they could read the ROMs off for me? I contacted Baydel, but sadly they'd just pitched the last of their QBus stuff prior to a move a few months ago :-/ Gordon.

19 years, 10 months

1
0
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LCD TV's with Home computers

by vp＠drexel.edu

roger pugh <rogpugh at mac.com> wrote: > Does anyone have any experience running home computers, Commodores, > Sinclair's, Apple II's and the like on one of these modern LCD TV's. > Can they lock on to the cheap modulator signals or work with the > composite or RGB. > I'm thinking of getting rid of a bulky tv set and various rgb and black > and white monitors and use a modern solution. Because of space constraints I use a Samsung LCD-TV for my HP 86B, HP 9915A/B computers and my HP-IL video coverters. The display quality is very good, but the LCD-TV does not have the same flexibility in adjusting the display as analogue monitors, so the leftmost 1 or 2 characters are missing. On a Dell LCD monitor with composite input the display appears correctly, so results may vary between LCD panels. **vp

19 years, 10 months

2
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looking for an M8637 module

by henk.gooijen＠oce.com

Hi all, I am looking for an M8637 PMI memory module to make my 11/84 happy. 1 Mb or 2 Mb, it's not really important. Who has a spare board and is willing to sell or trade it? thanks, - Henk. This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation.

19 years, 10 months

1
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VAX 8600

by bqt＠softjar.se

Adrian Graham <witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk> wrote: > Aaaand done! > > http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/Museum/Digital/VAX8600/index.php > > :) Hey, nice machine! As a person who actually still keep one of these beasts alive, I have a few comments that might, or might not help you. First of all, it's a fairly loaded machine. You have atleast three unibuses, and since you have a TU79, I would think you also have massbus. Really nice. (First time I've actually seen a TU79, btw. Only seen TA79 before.) However, the buts... There is no memory in the machine. Do you keep those cards in a box somewhere, or are you missing them? Also, if you look at the bottom of the large cabinet, there is a box there, with a TOY in it. That TOY contains four lead batteries, that should not be left unattended for more than six months, or they will probably go bad. Without batteries, the machine will not boot. I think I have some document somewhere on how to bypass this if you don't have the batteries. Let me know if you ever get as far as trying to fire the machine up. Also, the smaller cabinet for the machine, that holds the first unibus box, the console Q-bus, and the RL02 drive is a very important item. The RL02 drive holds the console medium. This pack is extremely valuable for you. Without it, you'll have a inoperative machine, since the frontend boots from the RL02, and the frontend then loads the machine with all the microcode also read from the RL02. Almost all diagnostics are also on the RL02. Store it in a good place, and try to make copies of it. Oh, and is it an ASR-35 I see in the background? :-) The 86x0 machines are wonderful, and loads of fun to play with. As long as you have the power and cooling for them. Oh, and make sure you hook the power up right to it, since the fans for the machine are real 3-phase motors, and will run backwards if you get the phases wrong. And that will soon damage the machine as well. Johnny

19 years, 10 months

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VAX 8600 (was Re: the last MIT ITS dec-20 (AI.MIT.EDU) is up for sale)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 10/18/06, Witchy <witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk> wrote: > On Tue, October 17, 2006 11:25 pm, Jules Richardson said: > > > > There's always the DECSystem 570 and the VAX 8600 to get your teeth into - > > *looks for picture of VAX8600, fails* Google Image search is your friend... http://hampage.hu/vax/e_1984.html I never ran one, but I used to walk past one in a semi-stripped condition at Lucent in Columbus, OH, c. 1997. -ethan

19 years, 10 months

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ZRQC formatter issue

by drb＠msu.edu

Esteemed DEC Wizards, I'm trying to format a Seagate ST251-1 (40 MB MFM drive) connected to an RQDX3 using ZRQCH0 from XXDP25. The formatter runs for over two minutes, stepping the heads steadily, and announcing completion of over 50,000 LBNs written. It seems to write all of the low level format, then dies with this error: ZRQC SYS FTL ERR 00007 ON UNIT 00 TST 01 SUB 000 PC: 105472 Controller has reported a fatal error in the format program Status: FCT nonexistent The drive was originally used with WD controllers on 486 class MS-DOS machines. How do I get an FCT onto the drive? Do I need to somehow wipe some additional space on the drive to trick ZRQC into thinking this is a raw drive, or something? Thanks, De

19 years, 10 months

3
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HP stuff on ebay

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

I noticed this in a different category than usual... ebay item # 250040699675 It's an HP 13037C rackmount controller. Doesn't power up, but, there's one day left at 14 bucks. Since it has a complete set of cables it's worth $14 just for that. This item is required for 7905/06/20 disc drives. There's also a 7970E in case no one noticed in the usual category. Jay

19 years, 10 months

1
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Wow; $192 for a 5.25" floppy disk drive

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

Doing this with RS-232 is just dumb. It's clearly a USB application. I really believe that there is a relatively large market for such a device (USB to 5.25 (and possibly 8") interface). I'm thinking tens or hundreds of thousands of units (not a significant market penetration in a world with hundreds of millions of PCs in use and an additional 100 million sold annually, but enough to make design and manufacture easily justifiable). Because I think that this has much wider application than just "us classic computer collectors", I think that size, aesthetics and ease of use matter. Sure, the functionality can be achieved with a whole PC, and an old PC can be nearly "free". But that's not what the CPA firm that needs to access a client's old records on 5.25" diskettes wants. They want a nice, small, not too expensive box that plugs into a USB port and has a CD of drivers and file transfer software (including file transfer programs for non-Microsoft OS' ... even, in fact in particular, CP/M). I personally don't care about a cat-weasel type device that tries to capture every flux transition on the disc. I don't care about hard sector formats either (Heathkit, NorthStar) unless I can do them with no great extra effort. Being able to handle "any" soft-sector format with 128, 256, 512 or 1024 byte sectors, single or double sided, 5.25" (360k or 1.2MB) {and POSSBILY 8" (ok, for me, preferably)) is good enough and is relatively easy to do. A USB interface, a microprocessor and a floppy controller. And some software on the PC side for file transfer. Keep it relatively simple, relatively cheap, and still meet the needs of the vast majority of people who might have a use for such a device. While I might want to use this for CP/M (and the device should allow that, even if the extent of this is that it allows arbitrary read and write I/O to specific side/track/sector, and let software on the PC deal with the file system), the primary use of this is going to be for 5.25" PC diskettes (both 360k and 1.2MB) now that PCs no longer have 5.25" floppies. And, if it wasn't for the fact that there are USB 3.5" floppy drives, we'd soon need it for those as well, as floppy drives of all types and sizes are in their "end days".

19 years, 10 months

3
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**for grabs** power supply H7868B fro R215F

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

Not sure about the power supply, but I would encourage you to consider putting the RF72s for sale on E-bay or something similar. When I was looking to outfit my VAX about a year and a half ago, DSSI drives were quite expensive for their size (generally at least US$40 for a RF72 (I wound up using a HSD05-AA and SCSI drives built into the BA440).

19 years, 10 months

2
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Wow; $192 for a 5.25" floppy disk drive

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

Don't know if any of you saw this, but a 5.25" floppy disk drive just went for $192 on E-Bay tonight (Wed., 10/18). It was a "backpack" external parallel port drive, New Old Stock in Box, still shrink wrapped. I am strongly of the opinion that there is a far bigger market than is generally perceived for a USB floppy disk controller that will support 5.25" and even 8" drives, if only someone would develop the product.

19 years, 10 months

13
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**for grabs** power supply H7868-B fro R215F

by henk.gooijen＠oce.com

Hi all, I am disposing some stuff I really don't want to keep. Most of it is of no interest, but parts may be ... So, if anybody want the PSU of the R215F pedestall it's available for shipping cost (from The Netherlands). Also the two RF72 drives, but they weigh a few kilos ... I will throw the pedestal in a collect bin, so the metal inside (heavy!) will get recycled. - Henk. This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation.

19 years, 10 months

1
1
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Specific DEC diagnostic questions (FKTG & ZDLD)

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

The /34 passes FKAA, FKAB, FKAC, ZKMA, ZQMC, - and boots RT11. So it can't be totally hosed. Two diags give me odd results, and I'm not sure if they are saying something is failing or if I'm just not understanding what they're trying to say. ZDLDI0 - DL-11W diagnostic - It prints the following: CZDLDI0 DL11-W 11/44 MFM SLU 01 Devices Under Test --------this line is the complete ascii character set (A-Z, a-z, 0-9, !-+, etc.)----------- --------the above line (complete ascii character set) repeats here a 2nd time---------- ND PASS The odd part is the ND PASS. Where did my E go? It thinks it ended ok, but something seems amiss. I tried this on a VT100, and then on an ADDS VP to make sure it wasn't the terminal. Both gave identical results, both set to 8-1-N which is what the DL11 is set at. This MAY be related to the following... When I run FKTGC0 (11/34 memory management excerciser) it loops on a character set display similar to the ZDLD diag above. But it's not the exact same line every time. About once every 2 seconds it prints the character set line, then prints it again, and this goes on for long enough that I just halt the processor. The only docs I can find on FKTG show a switch option to inhibit TTY output. I select that and run the diag again, and it just prints an * on a new line about once every 12 seconds. I see no documentation telling me if you inhibit TTY output that it's supposed to print a * every so often, it doesn't seem to ever stop (maybe I'm not giving it long enough) so I'm a bit clueless as to if it is completing this diag and * means a pass, or does each * mean a test phase, or does a * mean "fail"? I'd appreciate any input on the two issues above! Thanks! Jay West

19 years, 10 months

4
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General DEC diagnostic questions

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

I assume these are probably silly questions, but hey, it's just not clear to me :) In the PDP11 diagnostic handbook (1988) on bitsavers, some of the diagnostics mention setting CSR at 174, and SWR at 176 for various options to a given diagnostic. I am assuming that SWR is the console switch register. I thought on a /34 this was off in location 777050 (or something like that). So do I put those options in the keypad and hit LSR (which I thought put them in 777050) or do I need to put them in 176 before starting the diag? Also, is there something special about 174 that I'm not getting? Some of the docs say a particular diagnostic prompts "SWR=000000 NEW="... I assume the diags are querying if I even HAVE a switch register, and if I do, they don't print that question. Correct? Thanks for any education :) J

19 years, 10 months

3
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Specific DEC diagnostic questions (FKTG & ZDLD)

by dundas＠caltech.edu

> On Saturday 21 October 2006 20:39, Jay West wrote: > > Tim wrote... > > > > I'd feel better if someone having a similarly configured 34 could run > > the same diagnostic and see if they get the same odd result :) If so, > > then I wouldn't mistrust my machine quite so much. > > You could always try using simh as your "reference" machine... :) That works well for many things, but not all. Bob, and the rest of the contributors including myself, don't simulate the entirety of the machine or peripherals such that diagnostics will necessarily successfully run. As a concrete example, memory CSRs are not simulated. Some diagnostics need this to work correctly so that they can set the wrong parity, etc. Cache is another feature of some of the models that is not simulated at all. I actually have SIMH modules for memory controllers (including CSRs) and the J-11 cache (but not other models) that I will submit for inclusion in SIMH someday. Nonetheless, Pat is right. SIMH (and E11, I imagine) can be an excellent reference platform for much machine behavior. John

19 years, 10 months

1
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Honeywell 7-track tape drive - who has EVER seen this?

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

--- Philipp Hachtmann <hachti at hachti.de> wrote: > Hi folks, > > please take a look at this picture: > http://h316.hachti.de?gallery/tape_drive2/dscn1704 _1024.jpg > More can be found here: > http://h316.hachti.de?gallery/tape_drive/ > http://h316.hachti.de?gallery/tape_drive2/ > > Who has ever seen/used/heard about/repaired this > kind (similar is ok, > too!) of tape drive? Well, thanks to you, I have seen one now :) Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

19 years, 10 months

1
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My sick A600 = dead

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

Sadly things have taken a turn to the graveyard... I hadn't been able to find the time to see what the original problem was caused by. A few weeks ago I no ticed that the floppies started coming out of the in ternal floppy drive warm on the underside. Today when I switched her on I heard a click sound ( no, not the switch button, another click) and when I started to see a slight whisp of smoke coming out f rom the floppy drive I knew something was seriously wrong and switched her off. I daren't switch her back on and will have to remove the harddrive and open up my 2nd A600, even if it m eans breaking those damn clips at the back. This comes after a few weeks of long working days (8 to 8.5 hours) when I should only be doing 7 hours a day. I am not a happy man at present. Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

19 years, 10 months

2
1
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Need an obituary for Don Tarbell

by webmaster＠rcworks.com

While I met Don briefly a few times my father would be probably the one that knew him best. My father was with him from conception of the cassette interface up to his death. My pop might be open to writing what you want, you should ask him. If your still in need of an obituary let me know and I will give you my dads email address.

19 years, 10 months

1
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DEC 57-27889-01 Chip, what was it used in?

by fm.arnold＠gmx.net

Hi, someone offers on Ebay this chip-carrier (#130038367943) It looks like the CIS-option fot the 11/23B and 11/24 processors, but there are only 5 chips on it. Who knows this piece of HW, what was it used for in which devices? Thanks, Frank -- Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation: - I have preferences. - You have biases. - He/She has prejudices.

19 years, 10 months

1
0
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Finding bad RAM chip on PDP11 M7551?

by derschjo＠msu.edu

I have a MicroPDP 11/73 I'm trying to get running again; it has a single M7551-AP memory board (1MB) which appears to have a stuck bit; the startup memory test fails with: Expected Data = 125252 Bad Data = 125253 Address = 01400010 Any ideas how to determine which RAM chip needs to be replaced based on the failing address? Thanks, Josh

19 years, 10 months

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UK rescue: Domesday + Acorn stuff (Camberley / Gillingham, Dorset)

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

I've just been contacted by a chap who posted to one of the Acorn usenet groups the other day - he has a range of stuff available, including a Domesday system player / disc / manual, 3 x Master 128 machines, and a selection of Cambridge Workstation software and manuals. Unfortunately his deadline for moving it is Monday, and all the people who have responded to his usenet post have let him down. Master 128 machines are common enough, but the rest is reasonably rare. Is anyone able to rescue this lot either for the museum, or for themselves? Whilst we'd welcome the Domesday and Cambridge Workstation stuff at the museum, I'm more interested in the rarer bits not going to landfill than anything. The guy lives in Gillingham (the Dorset one, not any of the others) and works in Camberley, so it seems like a pickup can be sorted out from either location. Original usenet post with a more comprehensive list is here: http://tinyurl.com/y4qv5t If anyone can help, that'd be great and I can put you in touch with the owner; unfortunately there's not a lot more I can do from the wrong side of the pond, and our one guy who lives close to Camberley is away right now... :-( cheers Jules -- If you've ever wondered how you get triangles from a cow You need buttermilk and cheese, and an equilateral chainsaw

19 years, 10 months

2
2
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Faraday cages

by jonas.otter＠gmail.com

A Faraday cage need not be made of solid metal, it depends on which frequencies you want to keep out (or in). The important thing is that any holes need to be smaller than any wavelength you want blocked. Also, slots and holes can act as antennae, so there are other restrictions as well, but essentially, the idea is to keep the holes small enough.

19 years, 10 months

1
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Faraday cages

by jonas＠otter.se

A Faraday cage need not be made of solid metal, it depends on which frequencies you want to keep out (or in). The important thing is that any holes need to be smaller than any wavelength you want blocked. Also, slots and holes can act as antennae, so there are other restrictions as well, but essentially, the idea is to keep the holes small enough.

19 years, 10 months

1
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150 something for disk drive, how about $25,000 for a Kaypro?

by jwstephens＠msm.umr.edu

It hasn't sold, but has two declied offers on it. I have heard of overpricing, but this is pretty much one of the highest I have ever seen. He claims serial number 000003 or such. Anyone know how kaypro serialized their units? Is this really the third Kaypro-II. It isn't an Apple 1, which would demand some sort of premium like this, however, and I wonder if the S/N if it is for anything is for the "test set" he says it is part of, rather than the unit. Jim 300039229895

19 years, 10 months

3
2
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OT: microsoft browser virus!

by evan＠snarc.net

I use Firefox 99% of the time, but tonight I decided to update IE 6 to the brand-new IE 7. So I opened Firefox, went to Microsoft.com, clicked the update button for IE on their homepage, and .... absolutely nothing happened. I guess they block FF. Not surprising, but no big deal. Instead I opened IE 6.x, again went to Microsoft.com, clicked the same update button, and .... my anti-virus scanner (Alwil Software' Avast, which I highly recommend) immediately popped up! It read the Microsoft download as a virus and it urged me to abort the connection. I rebooted and tried it again with the same results. It cites "VBS: zulu" as the culprit.

19 years, 10 months

2
1
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Looking for a VT100 keyboard

by derschjo＠msu.edu

Just picked up a VT103 sans keyboard (and also unfortunately, sans any QBus hardware -- just an empty backplane.) First things first, I'd like to find a keyboard for this thing -- anyone in the Seattle area have a spare keyboard they'd be willing to part with? Otherwise I'll go the eBay route... Thanks, Josh

19 years, 10 months

1
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Faraday cages ( was Re: staticy plastic tubs )

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

--- Ray Arachelian <ray at arachelian.com> wrote: > aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk wrote: > > Ahh, thanks. I had forgotten about Google > > (not surprising since I have been working > > 8.5 hour days for the past week and only > > getting 6 hours sleep each night). > > > Sounds a lot like my schedule. Are you also a > sysadmin? :-) errr.. no. I work for a water company and am a lab technician. Among other things we test the water to make sure it's safe to drink. > > I don't like to rely too heavily on Wikipedia > > as (like alot of information online) you can't > > be sure what's right or wrong, unless someone > > knowledgeable in the subject can confirm it. > > > For things that I'm familiar with Wikipedia is > almost always correct. > For things that I'm not familiar with, their > external links point to > data that agrees with it. > > So if I understand correctly, the outer casing > > of a harddrive acts as a Faraday cage? My > > (4GB) Toshiba ones I use in my Amiga 600 > > have circuitry on the underside, but I suspect > > that may stop it being a Faraday cage, unless > > it's stuck onto the outside of the unit. > > > The platters are very well protected by the metal > case. There are holes > for air, (hard drives don't like working in a vacu um > or low air > pressure) and of course holes for the control/data > cables, so it's not a > perfect Faraday cage, but it's close enough. They must be really small air holes (or well hidden) as I never saw any when installing the HD's Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

19 years, 10 months

1
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staticy plastic tubs

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

--- Ray Arachelian <ray at arachelian.com> wrote: > David Griffith wrote: > > This brings to mind a question: I have lots of > chips packaged in > > static-safe chip tubes which are then put in > metalized anti-static plastic > > bags. Is it okay to put packages like this into > said staticy plastic > > tubs? > > > Yes. But to be even safer, you could line the > inside of those bins, and > if you can, the sides and top with aluminum foil. > This will build > something like a Faraday cage which will keep the > chip tubes nice and > safe. > err... what's a Faraday cage? Someone I know sends disks to people (including myself) wrapped in aluminum foil. I keep them as he sent them, so I can tell which disks he sent me. The only problem is after getting them out I have a tough time getting them back in the box because of the foil. Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

19 years, 10 months

2
1
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8-inch drive substitutes

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

I recently sold a Qumetrak 842 8-inch floppy drive to a fellow who's restoring a CMI vintage synthesizer. He says that this particular model is what the synth uses. Can anyone think of a reason why he couldn't use some other model of drive as long as it's capable of reading DSDD media? -- 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, 10 months

4
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8-inch drive substitutes

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

From: "David Griffith" Subject: 8-inch drive substitutes > I recently sold a Qumetrak 842 8-inch floppy drive to a fellow who's > restoring a CMI vintage synthesizer. He says that this particular model > is what the synth uses. Can anyone think of a reason why he couldn't use > some other model of drive as long as it's capable of reading DSDD media? Stepping rate and head-load timings will vary between drives. Sometimes dramatically (e.g. Persci's!) Jumpering of drives for things such as drive ready, disk change, etc. can get hairy unless you have documentation for both the "original" and "target" drives. Jumpering details can vary between different board revisions. Often transliterating the jumpering needed is easy; other times you think you did it right but there are gotchas you don't see until you look at schematics or pull out your scope. In industrial uses sometimes you see door-lock and disk-eject solenoids - available on many models but not commonly found in many circumstances. (These are also options on some 5.25" and 3.5" drives...) Some drives are capable of remotely spinning up and down. As Nico mentions, some use 50Hz AC for the drive motor, some use 60Hz AC for the drive motor, and others run the drive motor from the +24VDC. And as Nico alludes to, some need just +5/+24V and others need some negative power supply for the electronics and others need line AC for the motor. Often the drive itself is behind some panel/bezel and the holes in the panel must match the holes in the drive :-). Some drives are distinctly non-standard in terms of dimensions, even if they come from "standard" manufacturers (there were some weird-ass Shugarts out there.) Tim.

19 years, 10 months

2
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Wow; $192 for a 5.25" floppy disk drive

by trag＠io.com

>Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 12:51:00 -0700 >From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> >Subject: Re: Wow; $192 for a 5.25" floppy disk drive >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> >Message-ID: <453774B4.25279.812F7FE at cclist.sydex.com> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII > >On 19 Oct 2006 at 14:16, Jules Richardson wrote: > >> I don't think you necessarily need anything like that much; I remember Dave >> Dunfield and I discussing this a while back and it worked out at something >> like a couple of hundred KB I'm sure. > >If you're going track-by-track, probably a couple hundred K is more >than enough. But holding a complete 8" DSHD image runs to something >like 6MB if you hang onto the whole histogram. > >I think you'd definitely want to have enough storage to hold a >complete image--it'd make copying much simpler, no? Besides, a few >megabytes of RAM is nothing nowadays. > >> I don't know, what's a couple of hundred KB of memory, a CPU (say a Z80 for >> sake of argument), a bit of ROM, and a serial interface chip, plus a bit of >> glue logic? > >Probably use something a bit more common, say an ARM? Not that I >have anything against a Z80 (or Z180, or EZ80). Just that extra >horsepower can be very nice, even if you don't need it right away. They're a bit more expensive (about $5 in quantity) but the MC9S12UF32 looks interesting. It has a built-in USB interface (in addition to the SCI serial interface) and a built-in ATA-5 interface. I'm not sure what one would use the latter for in this application, but the built-in USB interface would be nice if one wanted to build a unit with both serial and USB interfaces to the host. It would require considerably more software development, but another interesting possibility might be to have an ethernet interface and build the disk drive as a network storage/reading device. The MC9S12NE64 has an ethernet MAC and EPHY built-in as well as the more common SCI. And of course, they both have plenty of extra horsepower. Jeff Walther

19 years, 10 months

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OT: Good deal on knockout punch set

by cclist＠sydex.com

(For list members in the USA only) We were talking about panel work a little while ago and use of punches for larger holes (like the Greenlee punches). Today I note that in my email I have a coupon from Harbor Freight Tools for their knockout punch set: http://www.harborfreightusa.com/usa/itemdisplay/displayItem.do?itemid= 91201 $11.99 with coupon, good at any HF retail store. If you'd like said coupon, drop me an email off-line and I'll forward it to you. Cheers, Chuck

19 years, 10 months

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UniVac Factronic Computer System

by healyzh＠aracnet.com

Spotted on comp.os.vms No idea if this is for real or not. http://atlanta.craigslist.org/sys/219423935.html Guy wants $10,000 or "trade for working condition sanfrancisco cable car". I'm suspicious as there doesn't appear to be any history on the system, and the pictures appear to be dated.

19 years, 10 months

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What's the easiest way to test unmarked crystals?

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

I have a small handful of crystals and was wondering what the easiest way to divine their frequencies... I can say that I'm reasonably certain that all of them are between 32.768Khz and 50MHz, but some are blank, and some have non-obvious cryptic markings. What I'm looking for is some simple way to get them to oscillate and measure them with a frequency counter (i.e. - assume one is starting with a working, trustable frequency counter). Is it as simple as a pair of inverters/NANDs in the classic crystal loop, or is that circuit massively frequency dependent (i.e. - works for 1Mhz-10Mhz, not faster or slower...)? Thanks for any suggestions. -ethan

19 years, 10 months

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SBC-6120 (was Re: Help about am2901)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 10/20/06, woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote: > woodelf wrote: > > Well tommorow I plan to test my SCB6120 so I hope the magic smoke stays > > inside as I just finished soldering in the sockets. Tommorow a PDP-8 > > lives < sound effects > Evil laugher , thunder bolts < / sound effects > > > > A bolt of lightning strikes the 6402 ... > Ok I installed it backwards, but I had a spare in my junk box. Oops! At least it's a common chip. > I pull the power switch ... A bat flies by ... It *lives* . Nicely done. > Now I just have to run over to the local computer store a > IDE cable and adapter for a laptop drive and mounting hardware. I have a Mesa-brand CF adapter on mine (and a stack of sub-32MB CF cards). One caveat - it's been discussed on alt.sys.pdp8, but one of the commonly-available games disk image with ADVENT on it has a corrupt FRTS.SV. You'll need a good copy of that to get Colossal Cave working. (thread on alt.sys.pdp8 - http://www.gatago.com/alt/sys/pdp8/21898642.html ) Spare Time Gizmos ADVENT page http://www.sparetimegizmos.com/Hardware/SBC6120_Adventure.htm In any case, congrats on the new 12-bitter. -ethan

19 years, 10 months

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3.5" disk storage

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

Hi, I'm starting to get a rather large collection of Amiga and PC disks. What is better for storage and easy access, small cardboard boxes (W:5" D:4" H:5") that I can get for nothing from work or the proper plastic case things that can hold 50 or 100 disks? Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

19 years, 10 months

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vax/vms file archival ideas and suggestions

by aek＠bitsavers.org

I want to take the hundred or so TK50s I have and restore them to the hard drive -- I would suggest leaving them as blocked tape images and save them uncompressed. If the tapes read without errors, you can deal with them in the future using an emulator or using file extraction programs on whatever system you eventually deal with them on. Tapes with errors are more difficult.

19 years, 10 months

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M9312 boot rom offer

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

I'm going to be burning some M9312 boot roms within the next few days, as I find myself short on the ones I want. If anyone wants a particular image, let me know and I'll do it for my cost of the chip, plus $2.00 to get me a rallyburger, plus postage :) I have just a few blanks on hand, so if more than just a few people want roms I'll have to place an order and it'll take a week or so. I don't mind doing that if need be. Off-list please... Jay West

19 years, 10 months

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DEC H8571-J MMJ adapters?

by tothwolf＠concentric.net

I've had a hard time finding inexpensive H8571-J equivalent adapters, but I have a huge box of surplus DE9-F to 6-conductor RJ11 adapter kits. I was planning to make up a batch of H8571-J equivalent adapters out of these and some RJ11 to MMJ cords and wondered if anyone else out there could use some? Based on what I've seen on eBay, I suspect I could sell some there, but I wasn't sure if there would be any demand from classiccmp folks as well. I could also wire up some H8571-B equivalent adapters if there is any interest in those as well. Those would actually be simpler to make than the H8571-J. I personally don't need any more H8571-B adapters as I have plenty for the few MicroVAX systems that I have, but they aren't always easy to find. -Toth

19 years, 10 months

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M9312 boot rom offer

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

I'm going to be burning some M9312 boot roms within the next few days, as I find myself short on the ones I want. If anyone wants a particular image, let me know and I'll do it for my cost of the chip, plus $2.00 to get me a rallyburger, plus postage :) I have just a few blanks on hand, so if more than just a few people want roms I'll have to place an order and it'll take a week or so. I don't mind doing that if need be. Off-list please... Jay West

19 years, 10 months

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