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

by THX1138＠dakotacom.net

Hi, These need to find new homes :-( (I have too many of them) The 14c -- the lightest of them -- is probably shippable (though I suspect it would cost more than *most* folks would be willing to pay!). I suspect the 19r is too heavy for anything but local pickup (85751). The 19c *definitely* pushes the limit on weight (unless you just want the *base* and not the 75# of monitor! :> ). If no interest, I'll disembowel them so I can reverse engineer the electronics and then pitch the resulting "scrap" into the hazardous waste recycling service. (I *probably* will want to tear the 19c's monitor apart regardless as I've not been able to find any published information on it and have a couple of others like it that I will need to support :< ) You'll have to find your own keyboard/mouse (PS/2 keyboard and 9 pin mouse) as I'll hold onto these for my other NCD's. Thanks! --don

20 years

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The TIFF vs. JPEG debate

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

Re: Hmmm... I don't know how to "create a PDF from a scanner". <:-) I typically scan documents to TIFF files. Then, open Acrobat (not Acrobat Reader) and paste the document in along with any added text, etc. So, it was my understanding that Acrobat did NOT further process the TIFF -- nor a JPEG, etc. Rather, just "held it in place on the page" ********* That's the hard way of doing it. The somewhat easier and generally preferred way: - Open Acrobat - File / Create PDF / From Scanner [This is from Acrobat version 6; may be different in other versions].

20 years

2
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Scanning Formats (TIFF vs. JPEG)

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

RE: " Why won't we just all switch to PNG" First, it's not nearly as well supported as either TIFF or JPEG. In my case, when I'm scanning documents, I am almost always going to save them as PDF files rather than as [explicitly] either TIFF or JPEG [although, internally, my PDFs created from a scanner are JPEGs]. I'm not even sure that using an internal PNG format is easily possible.

20 years

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PDP-8 /e/f/m memory

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PDP-8 /e/f/m memory > From: Don <THX1138 at dakotacom.net> > Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 11:41:47 -0700 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >> I thought I'd said that. Bit of work history, engineer and product >> engineer for a semi company that sold micros and ram. > >Work history doesn't help list readers since they can only read >what you've *written* (except for those few clairvoyants sitting >in the back row...) :> Most will not build unless supplied as a kit for $49.95. >You neglected to note that Icc grading *between* CMOS static >RAMs AT DC varies SUBSTANTIALLY. Power consumption at operating >frequency isn't an issue (here). Rather, the difference between >Icc(standby) on a "regular" 62256 (e.g.) and a "low power" >62256. Yes, I know. Does anyone care? >You can buy even LARGER devices (e.g. > 1MB -- B not b) >that will idle at *2* uA. > >I.e. the data retention time of a well designed BBSRAM >circuit *is* limited to the shelf life of the battery >powering it (during standby). *But*, only if you select >the right grade SRAM. At 2ua a 3V 30mAH Li cell has a life of how many years? At 20ua a 3V 30 mAH Li cell has a life of how many months? At 2ma using two AA alkaline cells (Duracell) in hundreds of hours? >In my reread of your comments, I don't see *that* mentioned. :> >(much of the 32KB devices you'll find in PC's and their ilk >are not chosen for this very low Icc(standby) -- *especially* >cache RAM!) Doesnt matter! if battery life were an issue I'd have brought it up. However I specifically metnioned in another post that battery life or even battery backup was not an issue. FYI: nearly all the previous commercial designs the ram array was usually 2102s and even the LP version at DC was both heat and power intensive. Their power drain was measured in amps for the array (96 2102s for one board). B elieve it or not they did provide for backup (using large SLAs). I'd point out that I have a bag full and some are very low power I measured several for this and got less than 1ua at 3v and room temp, outputs floating inputs grounded CS/ and OE/ negated. You forget guarenteed specs vs whats likely supplied as yeild is often to the better part. That was only the CMOS cache rams pulled >from old 486 boards of late generation (green). I have a very deep new parts stock with a tubes of graded 62256 and other low power rams as well as CMOS logic. >To put things in perspective, a 1F supercap charged *nominally* >to 5V (use care here since supercaps typically don't have much >margin for overcharge :>) would discharge to 2V (the typical >data retention voltage of a CMOS SRAM) in just 3000 *seconds* >(less than an hour) with a 1mA retention current. This could >be extended to ~30hours using 25uA devices. Using a *2*uA >device can extend this to 2.5 weeks... Read that as a battery would do far better. Back in 1981 when I first got my hands on a supercap I evaluated them against Li primary cells. I wasn't impressed then or now. Super caps are just big (is capacity) caps and don't really hold a lot of energy. They don't leak or do bad things as a rechargeable storage but a 1F super cap doesn't match a cr2016 or 2032 for total watthours of available energy. As a result a 2032 coin cell would perform much better than a super cap and I've never seen one leak. They are cheap and play with the dallas memory power management chips quite nicely. >[have I done my math right? Sorry, I'm just doing it in >my head so I may slip a decimal or three... :> ] Doesn't matter. The board I'm doing is not backed up. Even if it were it would be only short term backup as in minutes to hours so I could ride through a power "burp". A few AA alkalines in an external box would do that very well. This is a PDP-8f and it weighs in at a mere 60 pounds for the CPU box and there is a open 13"x4"x5" (60 cubic inches) cavity where a suitable enclosed and even properly vented (external to the CPU case) box could be placed containing a large battery and charge circuit. Right above the PS (in it's own box) and far enough away from the bus. If I need power fail backup I have 20k of core! What I want is 32k of semi to play with for large OS stuff and still leave room on the board for an IDE interface and maybe even a 2.5" drive or CF. Allison

20 years

2
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USR quad modems... (ontopic - really!)

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: USR quad modems... (ontopic - really!) > From: Roger Merchberger <zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com> > Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 09:15:15 -0400 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >OK, just kidding, but - to venture into where my brain & dynamic memory >part understanding, the 41256 uses a particular refresh[1] >which newer memory doesn't deal with well[2], so going *beyond* 512K is >problematic.[3] *If* I can figure out how to get 512K of SRAM to work in a >CoCo3, going *beyond* 512K might become a bit easier. > >Not to mention - going from SRAM to FRAM would be a pretty easy jump. A >CoCo3 with a "Suspend" switch could be *neat*. ;-) > >Or, I might be full of condensed milk, as my father-in-law used to say. > >Just my random thoughts for the day... > >Laterz, >Roger "Merch" Merchberger > >[1] 256 cycle / 8-bit counter / something like that. Did I mention that my >brain doesn't grok DRAM well??? ;-) > >[2] 512/1024 cycle / 9-10 bit counter / something like that. Just in case >you didn't catch it, I have DRAMophobia. ;-) Dram is "refreshed" or rewritten to keep the little capacitors from discharging. They are organized as rows and columns. The refresh process only needs a pass through every row within so many milliseconds (varies with part)to do the trick. Now as rams get bigger you natually have more rows and columns. But, while they were getting bigger they were also getting more complex. Sounds bad, huh? Well no! The complexity is in the logic to do the refresh. Parts in the late 4164 (64k) design life and later started turning up with their own internal refresh counter and by wiggling the RAS/ or CAS/ the right way and often enough they refresh themselves. Most of the big (41256 and larger) parts have this as well as most of the 30pin SIMM (256k, 1m and 4m, 16m) parts. Now for a lot more detail and great explantion see Tim Olmstead's DRAM paper available from Gaby's site http://www.cpm.z80.de/ "The Unofficial CP/M Web Site". Worthwhile reading for anyone mystified by Drams or phobic about them. FYI: the paper is Z80 centric but those that know it also know it only does 128 refresh. Yet, big (megabyte) rams can be hung off it due to the newer parts doing their own refresh thing. It all translates to other CPUs as well including those that don't do refresh for you at all (non z80 family). Allison

20 years

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Scanning Formats (TIFF vs. JPEG)

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

RE: >>I scan at 300 DPI MINIMUM for everything, but I sometimes scan at 600 >>dpi if there is extremely fine detail present. >Agreed on the DPI front. What I tend to find unacceptable though, >even on pure textual material, are bi-level scans - too much >information from the original is lost" ******** Agreed. I NEVER scan anything as "black and white" (each pixel is black or white). It just does not work well, ever, even for pure text that you would think really is "black and white". I always scan monochrome material, even text, as "grayscale". However, 8 bit depth (256 shades of gray) is all that you need for such monochrome material (in fact it's even more than you need), even if the scanner supports a greater depth.

20 years

2
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PDP-8 /e/f/m memory

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PDP-8 /e/f/m memory > From: Douglas Taylor <dj.taylor at starpower.net> > Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 20:24:43 -0400 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org> > > >Is it a bad idea to try and salvage/reuse the DC021 bus transceivers off >the CXY08 boards that seem to be so common and useless? >Doug No! though testing them afterwards is advised. Allison

20 years

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PDP-8 /e/f/m memory

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PDP-8 /e/f/m memory > From: Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> > Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 15:51:19 -0700 > To: "classiccmp at classiccmp.org" <classiccmp at classiccmp.org> > > >> Firstly, this is, as I am sure you agree, not a list to provide answers >> to members questions. > >Thank you for the clarification. This will save me a great deal of time in >the future not researching answers to questions. > >If this list is meant to be just another wank like alt.folklore.computers, >enjoy the noise. ;) thats funny! What isn't funny is I'd almost missed your post. I had the memory info I was looking for wrapped in 75 other posts from this list that morning. That would have been terrible loss as it was the definitive answer. Allison

20 years

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Looking for Intel PL/M-51 manual

by bjones＠rrs.co.za

Hi Did you manage to get a copy of the PLM compiler you were looking for? Do you have any documentation? Would you able to send me a copy of the Intel PLM51 manual if you have one? Many thanks BJ

20 years

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LSI 11/2 question

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: LSI 11/2 question > From: "Ethan Dicks" <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> > Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 17:15:25 +1200 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On 8/17/06, Scott Quinn <compoobah at valleyimplants.com> wrote: >> >> I have the opporitunity of getting some LSI 11/2 boards (LSI 11/2 processor, some memory, serial MUX, RK floppy driver) (I think) > >If it's a floppy card, it's probably an RXV11. If you had an "RK" >controller, it would most likely be the RKV11D which typically comes >in its own box with cables to the Qbus enclosure with the CPU. RK card is likely only the interface to an external box with the full RK controller. >The RXV11 will only work with the RX01 floppy drive or an RX02 with >the internal dip switches set to act like an RX01. Could also be RXV21, that works with RX02. > >> Couple questions: will the multiport serial work for a console or do I need a specific "console" card? > >A DLV11-J (the common 4-port card) has one port strapped for console use. Any DL compatable card set to the console address and vector (176500/60) > >> Will these boards work in a VAX 4k BA430 chassis/backplane, or will the C/D wiring and DSSI over C/D throw them off? > >Hmm... don't know that off the top of my head, but I would think that >if anything in the chassis is loading the C/D slots, you might have a >problem with the memory refresh lines. Unknown. The 11/2 does not do refresh and is only dual width. >I have never used 18-bit Qbus equipment in a backplane that modern, so >I can't comment from experience. 11/2 is not 18 bit, it is the dual width varient of the 11/03 the and is a 16bit address microPDP-11. Allison

20 years

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Need help with RSX-11M 3.2 sysgen

by fireflyst＠earthlink.net

Hi everyone, Does anyone here know what the exact procedure is to generate an RSX-11M 3.2 system from distribution RL01s to an RL02? I'm trying to create a mapped system for an 11/34 with 128KW of memory. The docs I 'm reading don't cover 3.2 (they're from bitsavers) and they seem to be a cross between RSX-11M v2.0 (using the PRESRV program to copy the disk contents) and v4.1 (using BRU.) I'm utterly confused and somewhat new to RSX. Any help would be much appreciated. Julian

20 years

2
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Apollo DN systems

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

Al typeth >> Dude, I'm very interested in that stuph > >Anyone who uses "dude" and "stuph" in a sentence doesn't need to have >anything other than a Linux box, preferably "modded". With all due respect for the wonderful work done by Al and other classiccmp people, perhaps this sentiment is a bit harsh. The message may not be worded exactly how the bulk of ClassicCmp people would word it, but if the interest is there, why not encourage it? As regards the "doesn't need to have", well, for the most part we probably don't need to have the vast majority of our boxes, but I enjoy mine all the same.

20 years

1
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Altos computers

by tpeters＠mixcom.com

The deal to get Don's old CP/M - MP/M computers - Altos - to a good home collapsed. His widow needs to get rid of them and I can't store them. Here's my old message describing them. Please, someone, provide a home for this trove. Note: I believe that all of this material is still available. I'm hoping she hasn't disposed of any of it in the meantime. I don't think she has. ----- Here's a list of items that must go. Ideally, a small number of people would take this collection, so as to not divide it all up and make shipping/pickup complicated. If the person who wants the Altos computer wants the disks, I will probably fish out all the Altos, MP/M and application (not the Milenium Systems disks) and bundle that with the computer. The drive cabinet can go separately. Anything I suspect is DEC-related can go separately. The Millenium stuff is probably a separate item as well, unless someone wants all of it. If there's no interest in this collection as large units, it will go in smaller chunks to whomever wants it. She's not looking for money for this material, but can't bear any costs, so S&H is on you, plus some $$ for packing materials. Local pickup would be much, much better. Estate of Don S. Photos are available for a few items: http://my.athenet.net/~uuhhuu/altos/ Content listing based solely on written or printed labels, may be inaccurate, no further information (e.g. version numbers) is available. ?Assy? = Assembler Hardware: http://my.athenet.net/~uuhhuu/altos Altos Z80 based computer, CP/M, MP/M or ?, 208k memory, dual 8? Floppy, serial, parallel, etc. Second Altos cabinet, dual Shugart 801 floppy drives, fan, and power supply only. No motherboard. Was used in a rack for DEC drives. Manuals Manual, Shugart 1610-4 Intelligent Disk Drive Controller MP/M II Programmer?s Guide (photo) MP/M II User?s Guide (photo) MP/M II System Guide (photo) Digital Research CP/Net Network Reference Manual (photo) Link-80 Operator?s Guide Digital (DEC) Logic Handbook 1970 Manual: Adaptec ACB-4000 Series Disk Controller Eight-Inch Floppy disks on East wall shelves Utilities (shareware) dBase II Ashton-Tate ZIP CP/M modem programs PL1 BASIC 80 Supercalc V1.12 9250 Diagnostic LK Link Parsing Util Turbo Tutor Pascal MT+ MP/M 1.14 (Millenium Systems) Wordstar (Millenium Systems) Z80 assembler (Millenium Systems) MP/M 1.16 (Millenium Systems) MP/M 1.16 + Wordstar 2.10 + MSI Utils (Millenium Systems) 6809 Assy + 8048 Assy + Z8000 Assy + MSI util (Millenium Systems) Z80 Assembly (Millenium Systems) Convert.com + Convert.prl (Millenium Systems) 9516 software release (Millenium Systems) 9520 demo programs (Millenium Systems) 9520 diagnostic (Millenium Systems) Pascal Mt+ (Millenium Systems) CP/M (Millenium Systems) Wordstar ver 3.0 Wordstar 950 (possibly for Televideo 950?) CP/M (Millenium Systems) ZAS.COM + ZLK.COM + Z8TINS (Millenium Systems) 6800/6802 Assy (Millenium Systems) UCSD PASCAL SA 120-1 Alignment Diskette (Shugart?) Utils Wordstar 3.0 + Mailmerge + Spellstar Supercalc ISIS V4.2 System TCS Accounting (9 disks) Adventure Eight-Inch Floppy Disks on North Wall Shelves Altos Diagnostic (2 disks) MP/M (Altos) CP/M 2.02 Box of approx 80 disks, some RX01, some CP/M or MP/M, e.g. games, utils, Zork, JRT Pascal, etc. Box of approx 40 disks, mostly CP/M MP/M, e.g. dBase II, Modem 7, BDS C 1.44, user group software, terminal programs, terminal programs, ALGOL, FORTH, BASIC, Fortran, Tiny C, Mp/M, Dazzler, PALASM Osbourn Accounting CP/M 2.24 DEC disks, probably RX01: TECO etc (black cardboard box) CP/M + Wordstar Altos CP/M 2.24 Turbo for Altos dBase II Altos Diagnostic Executive 1.10 (original disk! pink box) RT-11 boot disk (DEC) Pascal CP/M-86 Wordstar-86 Mailmerge-86 Spellstar-86 Jade Computer Products Double-D Disk Controller CP/M 2.2 [Internet] "Usenet is essentially Letters to the Editor without the editor. Editors don't appreciate this, for some reason." --Larry Wall --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531

20 years

3
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udisk prototype

by brad＠heeltoe.com

I got the stuffed prototype boards back for my "unibus device emulator" today. Here's a poor picture (I was in a hurry) http://www.heeltoe.com/retro/udisk/udisk_big.jpg I powered it up and after fixing a few problems got everything on the "top half" of the board to work, basically cpu, serial port, led's and CF disk. I'll add some ttl chips tomorrow and check out the unibus interface. The (now out of date) docs are here http://www.heeltoe.com/retro/udisk/index.html It's a very simple design - basically an ARM cpu and a CPLD with lots of unibus receives and transceivers. Most of the work is done in software. The idea is the "personality" is specified by a file on the disk. There is also a serial port and USB. Both CF and IDE notebook drives are supported (a normal IDE can also be used with an adapter). I will update the doc files and publish the schematics, cpld files and source code - for non-commericial use anyway. So far I've written some simple code to emulate an RL02. I think I'll do an RK05 next. At some point I'll do a UDA50 also. It can also be used to talk to other controllers, test ram, etc... I don't know if it will actually work (yet), but it should be capable of emulating ram, rom or any unibus device. All of the control signals are there. The CPLD has two address comparators (with mask) which generate an interrupt to the cpu. The cpu then runs the bus cycles "by hand". I included the A,B parity lines also (to the cpld anyway) so it should be able to do 18 bit i/o. At some point I'd like to con someone into working on a massbus/rp03 style controller. This board should be able to go into the "magic" unibus slot on a KS-10 (it's only magic because of the bus hog disk controler which normally goes there). If, once it works, anyone else would like one I'd like to make a run of 10 or so with gold edges (and no mod wires :-) I estimate the cost would be about $200 each. Half of that is the pcb, the other half parts. I'd be happy to sell blank boards also, if people like to solder :-) All of the parts are available from Digikey, except the DS8641 & DS3862's. I'm going to use DS8838's instead of DS8641's, because I have a few (I need 2 per board). I also have about 200 DS3862's. The design uses 7, so 200/7 = 28 :-) it's just a hack, but should make my unibus machines happy :-) -brad

20 years

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Computers and heat density

by shoppa_classiccmp＠trailing-edge.com

Recent posts on the subject of "modern" logic families and PCB's make me think of an obvious trend in computing over the past several decades: Power density (and required cooling/heat dissipation) have grown greatly. A desktop PC of 20 years ago often had no fan, or if it had one it was just to generally keep air moving through the case and not to cool any specific heat producing sections. Of course modern desktop PC's (since at least the early/mid 90's) have vastly greater heat production and cooling requirements, with CPU heat sinks and fans being vital to reliability. At the same time, and a subject of increasing frustration for me, the number of computers required to do a given task has gone up exponentially. Tasks that used to (meaning 20 or 30 years ago) used to require a single PDP-8 or PDP-11 class minicomputer now use dozens to hundreds of PC-clone's to do the same functions. The heat production (and power and cooling requirements) of all the resulting PC-clones is hugely higher. In fact through the recent heat wave, computer/server usage is mentioned as a sizable component of total power consumption on the grid, when presumably 20 or 30 years ago it was negligible. I personally see massive government/military contractor computer projects turn into a race to buy the fastest/biggest/best/most computers with little regard as to whether you need hundreds of blade servers to run a single web site or mail server. It is also frustrating to see Peoplesoft/Oracle/Microsoft sell thousands and thousands of licenses at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars when the same function used to be done by a single PDP-11 with a couple of RK05's! Yet nobody seems to be asking: WHY DOES IT TAKE 100 COMPUTERS TO DO WHAT A SINGLE COMPUTER USED TO DO? After all, computers today are hundreds of times more powerful (CPU-wise) than they used to be. Disk storage is vastly more compact power efficient than it used to be. Don't get me wrong, I'm not sure everyone should have the same appreciation that those of us reading this message for "that computer of 30 years ago is good enough for what I do". Yet I would expect that any real demand for actual computer utility would make some sort of progress other than "buy ten thousand seats of Oracle licenses and several hundred oracle servers just to serve the needs of a single municipal city government HR and payroll". Some random articles about building sites where the required power/ cooling density is either explicitly addressed or in retorspect they didn't have enough: NSA risking electrical overload (Baltimore Sun): http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.nsapower06aug06,0,51374… Google's Server Farm with massive cooling towers: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/17/BUGA3JUO7M1.DTL OK, diatribe mode off. I'm going back to my 6SN7's and 807's playing some old 78's I got at the thrift store yesterday. Tim.

20 years

18
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USR quad modems... (ontopic - really!)

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: USR quad modems... (ontopic - really!) > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 23:35:41 +0100 (BST) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> > a TI/USR DSP chip, which is prolly useless outside of the intended use >> >> Some of the DSP's are "general purpose" -- external program >> store. However, since you called it a "TI/USR" part, I assume >> it has a USR house number on it and, as such, is probably >> a masked part. If so, "useless outside of the intended use" :> > >Unless either (a) the USB part number is just their code for a standard >device (HP were fond of doing this...), or (b) you can disable the >internal mask ROM and run it from external program store, say by changing >the state of a pin. > >Without knowing more about the device I can't possibly know if either of >these is the case. > >> > So, *if* I can get a Dynamic-RAM -> Static RAM converter board designed >> > for the CoCo, I could upgrade 4 CoCo3s to 512K with each modem board. >> >> What's the issue *preventing* this from happening? >> (unfamiliar with the internals of a CoCo3) > >The CoCo 3 is designed round a custom chip called GIME (Graphics, >Interrupts, Memroy Enhancement). It handles all the video side, the >memory mamangement (remmber the 6809 can only directly address 64K), etc. >Said chip outputs a 9 bit multiplexed address (designed to link to the 9 >addres pins on 256K bit DRAMs), and the DRAM timing signals. It also >expects 16 bit wide memory IIRC. > >It's probably possible to add external circuitry to turn that back into a >normal 18 bit address and hang SRAM off it, but I think it's more work >than finding some 41256s... Way more work! 41256s are not hard to find and some of the related flavours like 44256 could be used as well. >> > Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers >> > zmerch at 30below.com >> > >> > What do you do when Life gives you lemons, >> > and you don't *like* lemonade????????????? >> >> Use it to flavor your *tea*! > >As I commented last night, citric acid is ideal for cleaning up battery >corrosion from calles with alkaline electrolyte (NiCds, alkaline primary >cells, etc). That or vinegar work well for cleaning up after burped nicads or some fool charging Alkaline (durcells and the like) non-rechargeables. FYI: I've found some off brands of nicads that if allowed to discharge fully may leak. I had a few with the toshiba label on them do that. Never seen Duracells ever do that. So quality pays. Allison

20 years

1
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PDP-8 /e/f/m memory

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PDP-8 /e/f/m memory > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 22:54:51 +0100 (BST) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> >> >> Of 75 emails this morning, 44 (including 4 of mine) were on the subject of >> PDP-8 memory. From those only two provided any information on the subject. >> A few were well off track. Signal to noise -13db! In any other media >> that far down in the noise would be an unreadable signal. > >Oh come on.... > >Firstly, this is, as I am sure you agree, not a list to provide answers >to members questions. It's a discussion list. So of course topics are >going to drift (alas they sometimes drift too far in odd directions, and >I'll admit to causing that sometimes) Indeed! Most of those emails were thread drift. >Secondly, we don't know what you know. Both in the sense that you are a >very experienced hacker, and have more knowledge on many subjects than >the rest of us. And in the sense that even if we both know something, I >don't know that you know it. So of course there'll be messages that >'state the obvious'. Very experienced hacker and professional engineer. >And finally, if somebody makes a statement that you believe to be in >error it is, I think, sensible to explain why you think it's wrong. That >way we all learn something. If it were only that. I thought the avalanche if posts on the subject vaguely curious and somewhat funny. Allison

20 years

1
0
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MULTICS manuals

by THX1138＠dakotacom.net

Hi, I've got a couple of cubic feet of MULTICS manuals, here. Should I put them in the "to be scanned" pile or the "to be shredded" pile? [Hmmm... did I ask this question already? I can't find reference in my Sent folder :-( ] Thanks! --don

20 years

1
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Scanning Formats (TIFF vs. JPEG)

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

Re: >Barry Watzman wrote: >> I think TIFF is a mistake; I'd use JPEG, at about 5K to 10K per square >inch for color, or about 1/3 that for monochrome. > >Umm, ten thousand dpi!? I don't think so--that's 10K per "square inch". Linear resolution would be the square root of that--100 dpi, no? Cheers, Chuck *************** You are not reading what I said. I never said ANYTHING about "pixels". When I said 10K per square inch, that was not a reference to "pixels", it was a reference to finished JPEG file size. E.g. 10,000 BYTES total file size per square inch. You can do that with 100 dpi resolution, and you can do that (using a lot more compression) with 600 dpi resolution. But I have found that if you have a JPEG whose total file size is 5,000 to 10,000 bytes per square inch (500k to 1 megabyte for an 8.5" x 11" color page), then in my experience there will be NO detectable degradation compared to a lossless file format, for purposes of viewing, printing or OCR (but monochrome images can be a lot smaller than that). Again, the file size of a JPEG file is independent of resolution, the issue is "how much compression are you going to use". And I have no argument that if you use too much compression, the quality will be crap. But, at the same time, there is too much emotion connected with the fact that JPEG is "lossy" and TIFF is "lossless". If neither a person nor an OCR program can detect a difference, then the "losses" can be concluded to be both insignificant and irrelevant. It's not like an executable program where all losses are absolutely unacceptable. JPEG can be crap if you use a lot of compression, but if you don't get carried away and keep the compression low to moderate, I maintain that a JPEG file is indistinguishable from a TIFF file for all practical purposes. By the way, several people have asked what resolution I scan at, and the answer is 300 DPI MINIMUM for everything, but I sometimes scan at 600 dpi if there is extremely fine detail present. I've used 600 dpi for some schematics where the "original" in a manual was a blueprint-sized page reduced to 8.5" x 11" (or even 11" x 17") and it was already at the point where you needed a magnifying glass to read it.

20 years

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Old video boards

by segin2005＠gmail.com

I have recently went looking through my crap draw, and have come across two things of interest: an ATI GRAPHICS SOLUTION CGA/MDA video card. The only noticable defect is a damaged componet (capicator?) on the corner. An EGA/VGA 2-in-1 card. Dunno how it handles VGA modes with a EGA monitor, cause I don't have a EGA monitor or a ISA box without integrated video. A complete, working ESDI drive and controller. I can't use it cause I dunno what the hell the settings are. Image: http://segin.no-ip.org/computers/ (look near the bottom) An old MIDI program for Windows 95/98, called "CakeWalk Professional 7". Dunno if that's intresting, but I need the serial code for it (it has a serial AND a CD-KEY... I have the key on the original slimline jewel case)... And no, this isn't a warez beg. -- The real problem with C++ for kernel modules is: the language just sucks. -- Linus Torvalds

20 years

1
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RSX 3.2 sysgen

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> Does anyone here know what the exact procedure is to generate an RSX-11M 3.2 > system from distribution RL01s to an RL02? I'll check if I have a 3.2 sysgen manual.

20 years

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PDP-8 /e/f/m memory

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

Of 75 emails this morning, 44 (including 4 of mine) were on the subject of PDP-8 memory. From those only two provided any information on the subject. A few were well off track. Signal to noise -13db! In any other media that far down in the noise would be an unreadable signal. Allison

20 years

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The TIFF versus JPG debate

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

Re: I thought PDF's could just be used to *encapsulate* regular TIFF's? I.e., in much the same way that they can encapsulate JPEGs, etc. It can; in fact, when you create a PDF from a scanner, encapsulation is all that Acrobat is doing, it's the scanner software that determines the format, which can be tiff, jpeg or some other formats that the scanner software supports. But by default, it is almost always JPEG.

20 years

6
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Catastrophe strikes Blue Feather's 'net presence

by kyrrin＠bluefeathertech.com

Murphy's having some real fun with me this week... It seems that the failure of the outside world to access Blue Feather's FTP site was only the beginning. Within a couple of hours after I started troubleshooting last night, I discovered that our entire domain, including mail and web servers, had disappeared from the 'net. The problem turned out to be (and I never saw this coming) -- our firewall/router! It had, apparently, decided that it was simply going to give up the ghost, and not give ANY indication in its (alleged) self-diagnostics. No amount of power-cycling has fixed it, so I am going to replace it. Post-haste, I would add. The original unit was a Watchguard Firebox II that I got as a freebie, but Watchguard's current products are way too expensive for my tastes. If anyone knows of a good, solid VPN router, in the $400-$500 (max) range, with at least the following features I would appreciate hearing about it. I'm currently looking at Zyxel (the Zywall 5) and Multitech (RouteFinder 830). --Must support 1:1 NAT mapping. --Must support at least IPSec VPN with 3DES or AES encryption, and the VPN client must be low-cost or included. --Preferably, should also support PPTP for when IPSec is blocked at the originating end (I've seen it happen). --Must be RACK-MOUNTED, as in it has rack ears or brackets. This is NOT negotiable. --The manufacturer must NOT, unlike Watchguard and Juniper Networks, nickle-and-dime its users to death for extra features. Thanks much, and I apologize for the hassles. I never saw this one coming... -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy, Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m "If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?"

20 years

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Scanning formats (TIFF vs. JPEG)

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

Re: I think his point was "adjust quality factor so resulting image file has a size of ~10KB per sq in of original document". E.g., A size is ~90 sq in so target a 1MB file size. (note that this would correspond to an UNCOMPRESSED TIFF scanned at 300dpi! -- did I do the math right? -- in which case, the whole argument starts to fall apart since a 300dpi TIFF *compressed* would be much smaller! Or, for that given size, a COMPRESSED TIFF could be scanned at a much higher resolution) **************** You do understand what I was saying; unlike others, you understood that I was talking about resulting file size, not pixels. However, in the last paragraph, you missed one point, which was that my guideline of 5k to 10K per square inch was for color photographs. For monochrome, I cut that by 2/3, so my guideline becomes more like 1.5k to 3k per square inch. And this is very conservative, for files that will be, for all practical purposes, indistinguishable from the original. For many if not most uses, you can actually go a lot smaller.

20 years

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PDP-8 /e/f/m memory

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PDP-8 /e/f/m memory > From: Don <THX1138 at dakotacom.net> > Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2006 09:36:04 -0700 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Allison wrote: >>> But cache RAM is power hungry and has little practical chance >>> of being converted to BBSRAM >> >> Most are not, few if any of mine are not. NOTE: many of those rams >> are CMOS and at high cycle rates the power needed is impressive but >> in standby and low cycle rates the power drops significantly! Often >> they are spec'd at they fastest cycle time for power use as thats how >> PCs used them. > >CMOS power dissipation is a direct function of clock frequency. >*But*, you will find that at DC (which is where the device >operates when in sleep mode) there are huge differences in the >static Icc between different grades of SRAMs -- from the same >manufacturer and P/N. I thought I'd said that. Bit of work history, engineer and product engineer for a semi company that sold micros and ram. Allison

20 years

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PDP-8 /e/f/m memory

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PDP-8 /e/f/m memory > From: Don <THX1138 at dakotacom.net> > Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2006 09:33:25 -0700 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >> Because most batteries have shelf life! The average battery dies in >> a few years from just sitting. The LI cells are designed for very long life. >> I have a few sub-C sized LI cells that are over 15 years old and going strong. > >The shelf life (self discharge rate) of most batteries is *MANY* >YEARS. The AAA cells I bought last year for my Visor have a >"expiration date" of 2013. While your wailing about your maglites your also talking about that mere 7 year shelf life. >A low power BBRAM design essentially falls below this self >discharge rate (unless you get sloppy with the design). >The real problem is ensuring that the batteries (i.e. the >equipment that they are stored in) doesn't sit in >temperature extremes, high humidity, etc. Yes, I know this from my first CMOS design back in the late 70s. Heat is a big factor even for the leakage current of the CMOS. >And, if you're storing your '8 in those conditions, I suspect >one of these days you'll be in for an unhappy surprise as >you "suddenly" discover components that have fatigued What has this to to do with the topic at hand? Allison

20 years

2
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Vax parts needed (commercial)

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

I received the following email.... >We are still using 2 VAX 9440s and 2 9210 computer mainframes at our >facility in Colorado Springs, Colorado. We are having problems finding >some parts, MCUs for the CPUs. Any help is appreciated. If anyone can help with parts for these machines please contact me off-list. Jay

20 years

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PDP-8 /e/f/m memory

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

Looking for information on a QUAD width omnibus RAM card. Not interested in hex wide as it doesn't fit the older Omnibus 8E or F boxes. I used to have a 4kx12 card that used 2102 type rams but had no data for it. That went to and earlier 8E I had. Even schematics would help. In the end I may do my own as a pair of 61256s will certainly fit the bill and barely fill a corner of a board. Allison

20 years

23
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Front Panel Identification

by marvin＠rain.org

I ran across this front panel; does anyone know what it might have gone to? FYI, the file is about 1 MB in size. http://www.rain.org/~marvin/frtpanel.jpg I was told this came from Lobo Drives, but I can't imagine what they might have used it for. The markings on the left are not clear in the photo. The box is labeled "Register Select", the left column is marked "Display", and the right column is marked "Enter". The 18 position switch (0 - 17) is marked "Register Select", and switches are marked with such things as "Rosar", "Start Address", "Stop Address", "Spare Address", etc., and the top lamps look like maybe register contents and are marked CA, CB, CV, CK, CN, CH, CL, CW, etc.

20 years

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Data General Nova/Eclipse Software download

by madcrow.maxwell＠gmail.com

I've decided to try out the Data General emulation in SIMH and am looking for software. Is there any place that has software for RDOS like extra programming languages, games and productivity-type stuff? If not is anybody willing to share? Mike "Madcrow" K.

20 years

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PDP-8 /e/f/m memory

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PDP-8 /e/f/m memory > From: "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at verizon.net> > Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2006 12:33:20 -0400 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On Tuesday 15 August 2006 08:26 am, Allison wrote: >> I shave off the top of the DS1287s and replace the cell. It's easy to find >> the battery on those as it's magnetic! > >Interesting! What tooling do you use to do this? > The 1287s I did this to were made with a second layer of plastic over the origninal 28pin dip. Simple problem to grind through the plast to the battery, remove it and solder leads to the remaining connections. At various times I've used, hot soldering iron, belt sander, coarse file to get down to the battery. Rude and crude ut then again I the chip was bad already so it wasn't like I was going to loose anything. Allison

20 years

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Scanning formats

by THX1138＠dakotacom.net

Hi, I usually don't bother compressing TIF's of scanned images -- since I'm not too concerned with saving space for small documents. But, recently, I started scanning B-size drawings (e.g., print sets for projects I've worked on). Usually, I have to scan these at higher resolutions (because I often print B size versions of D size drawings :< ). The larger sheet size and higher scan resolutions are starting to make single sheets quite *large*! Suggestions? I had thought of FAX encoding (naive but it should work well on line drawings/schematics)... Thanks! --don

20 years

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Scanning formats

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

I think TIFF is a mistake; I'd use JPEG, at about 5K to 10K per square inch for color, or about 1/3 that for monochrome.

20 years

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PDP-8 /e/f/m memory

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PDP-8 /e/f/m memory > From: "Ethan Dicks" <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> > Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 12:23:43 +1200 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On 8/16/06, Bob Rosenbloom <bobalan at sbcglobal.net> wrote: >> The 5 volt parts have a write cycle limitation that's >> not there with the 3.3 volt parts. > >Ah... I did not know that 3.3V FRAMs were substantially longer-lived >than the original 5V versions. I'm still in favor of a pair of 62256s >(since they are so common and very cheap), but if I were to do an FRAM >board in the future, it's probably worth the extra buffers and >regulator to get chips that will last. I'd not use FRAMSs for PDP-8 as the need to write the subroutine return address at the begining of the subroutine would beat up some locations a lot. Also the write cycle does have delays while writing goes on. A better use for FRAMS is disk emulation. Lower number of write cycles but lots of reads. A few of them could easily emulate a RK05f. Even a pair of 32k SRAMS can emulate an RX08 (only faster!). One forgets that a PDP-8 system with a few megabytes of storage is a BIG 8! When you consider that SRAMS ar available to the 512kbyte range or larger and the prices are low. It's very easy to consider semiconductor disks in the megabyte range. If you resort to using DRAMS I have a pound of 30pin 1mb simms that easily could be used for a large disk simulation. Allison

20 years

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PDP-8 semiconductor memory

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

> > From: "Al Kossow" <aek at bitsavers.org> > > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/msc/MSC3102_PDP8semiMem.pdf > > That one is much clearer, though I cannot find the logic in it > (if any) that inhibits reads when using the bootstrap cards. The bootstrap ROM in my 8/e is a diode matrix ROM that doesn't appear in the memory map. When you flip the 'SW' switch, the boot ROM pretends to be a front panel and copies itself into the appropriate bit of core. -tony

20 years

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Computers and heat density

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

--- Bryan Pope <bpope at wordstock.com> wrote: > And thusly were the wise words spake by Dave McGui re > > > > On Aug 14, 2006, at 3:38 PM, Ray Arachelian wrot e: >> snip << > > > > Yes, and fortunately, they all have power > switches. ;) > > > > That is, until they use power from *you*... Anyon e > remember > B.A.T. for the Amiga? ( > http://www.lemonamiga.com/games/details.php?id=128 ) > The character you played had a computer implanted > into his wrist. > > Cheers, > > Bryan > Thanks for the link to that site. I managed to look up US Gold and saw quite a few games that I actually have for my Spectrum (e.g. Gauntlet 2 & 3) and one of the best games of all time IMO - Flashback, which I have for the Sega MegaDrive. Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

20 years

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cctech Digest, Vol 36, Issue 50

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

Re: > But doesn't JPEG use lossy compression? >Yes. And it blows thick industrial-waste chunks on any >graphics that are non-photographic. >Peace... Sridhar Bull Take a look at the stuff I've scanned on Howard Harte's site, including schematics, for example this one: http://www.hartetechnologies.com/manuals/Cromemco/Cromemco%20Bytesaver%20II. pdf They are fine. Keep in mind that almost every PDF file that was produced by scanning is a JPEG internally. Sure, there are lots of such files that are crap, there are lots of bad scanners (referring to both the hardware and the people that use them). But there are also some that are excellent, superb, indistinguishable from the original. And since they are all JPEGs, JPEG can do this with no discernable compromise IF YOU DON'T TRY TO OVER-COMPRESS. [The schematic in the Bytesaver manual was almost unreadable in the original printed format, extremely fine, extremely faint lines, but take a look, for example, at the drawing on page 10 of the manual (page 12 of the PDF file).]

20 years

3
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Micom Data Concentrator

by cc＠corti-net.de

Hi, I have two Micom Micro800/2 DataConcentrators and can't get them to do anything useful. I think they are concentrators/multiplexors that multiplex 8 terminal lines over one high-speed serial line. The problem is I don't have any manuals for them nor any other information like pinouts or switch settings, does anyone have the manual in electronic form? I only have a manual for the Micro800/X.25 Concentrator PAD. Christian

20 years

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Batteries ( was Re: PDP-8 /e/f/m memory)

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

--- Don <THX1138 at dakotacom.net> wrote: > O. Sharp wrote: >> snip << > > > > I have mini-Maglites in my toolkit - three of 'e m, > and they all get use; I > > work in the dark a great deal, but that's anothe r > story * - and recently > > had the unpleasant surprise of having one of the > "regular" batteries > > corrode and die (and the batteries had been > replaced less than a month > > earlier). This did an _astonishingly_ effective > job of destroying the > > interior of the Maglite as well, the acids eatin g > away the Maglite's > > shell in a way I literally didn't think was > possible. Defective battery? > > Some other problem? We may never know. > > What brand of battery? I haven't seen a battery > fail like this > in decades. Was the light stored in a harsh > environment? > > > Whatever the cause, I'd hate to even _contemplat e_ > the idea of that > > possibly happening right next to a DEC backplane . > Yeah, what brand? Have you heard (I read this today) that Dell has been forced to RECALL 4.1 MILLION batteries , made by Sony (haha!), from there notebook computer thingies made from... *checks dates* ...April 2004 to July 2006! Why? Because of a risk of "smoke and/or fire". On a similar note, a heard of mobile phones exploding (yes, exploding) in Japan a couple of years ago, because they weren't using the recommended rechargeable batteries. Apparently, IIRC, if the batteries short out they become VERY hot (700 degrees C?) and explode like a grenade. Many of the owners of said phones were hospitalised and/or had hands/ears blown off :( Also, after the recent hot spell (36 degrees C) here in the UK I discovered that one of the batteries in a remote had leaked. I put it down to the extreme heat (in 27 years I have only seen a battery that has leaked twice now), as in my experience it's a rare occerance (unless the battery is really old). Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

20 years

1
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Scanning formats

by blstuart＠bellsouth.net

> But what if you use mutiple OCR programs? Say, three different OCR > programs and then process the results taking a majority vote on each > resulting character? Even if all three mangle 20%, it won't always be the > *same* 20% across all three, right? (and if I did my math right, using > three 80% accurate programs reduces the error rate to just 0.8% or a 99.2% > accuracy rate) In the text OCR world, it's a mixed bag. I've tried this some in my day job at FedEx. While you can get some improvement this way, I've found a little different approach to help even more. You start with a greyscale image and do the binarizing yourself. Then you run the OCR engine on the image with several different binarization algorithms and different parameters on each. One of the commercial vendors does something like this and gives it a fancy name, like virtual rescan or something like that. At least with the material and techniques I was using, I found diminishing returns started to set in at after about 3 passes. BLS

20 years

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For users of Telenex / AR Datascopes...

by William.Cooper＠sungard.com

Kevin, I have a an Interview 7200 Turbo that I need to have repaired. It powers up and the fan comes on but no screen. Do you think you can fix it ? I also have Interview datascopes that need repair in storage. My Philadelphia facility also has some lying around as we have not been able to find a place to repair them. Please give me a call. Regards, Bill Cooper Senior DCE SunGard Availability Services 777 Cental Blvd. Carlstadt, NJ 07072 Phone: 201 729 2484 william.cooper at sungard.com Hours: Mon-Weds 730am to 830pm M-T 730am to 930pm W

20 years

1
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The TIFF versus JPG debate

by Jason.Armistead＠otis.com

My $0.02 worth on the abovementioned subject: TIFF has lots of ways data can be encoded within the basic TIFF file structure, including LZW, CCITT G3 and CCITT G4 formats. If anyone is interested, get a good look at the TIFF V6 specification, although the links on the www.libtiff.org site seem to be broken and Adobe has now put their copy of the TIFF specification behind a whole lot of "developer registration required" pages you need to get through first. See also http://www.awaresystems.be/imaging/tiff/tifftags/compression.html which describes the TIFF tags relating to compression of image data. >From where I sit, we've used TIFF with CCITT G42D (fax) compression on bitonal (black and white only) image documents for 150,000 engineering drawings with excellent results. This is a totally lossless compression format (what you get back is exactly what you put in) specifically designed to do a good job with what you'd find on pages of drawings or of text. If you don't need colour or greyscale, then CCITT G42D is hard to beat. Within the US military, the CALS (Computer-aided Acquisition and Logistics Support) Type 1 specification for bitonal images basically wraps the compressed CCITT G42D data inside a slightly different wrapper to TIFF - CALS is a fixed length text header, and TIFF is a lot of binary stuff. It's easy to convert between the two formats when you know how. What I like about TIFF coupled with CCITT G42D compression most is (a) it's lossless, (b) supports multi-page documents, (c) it's an open specification with (d) an open source library to manipulate the files (LIBTIFF) and (e) it is widely supported with hundreds of viewers available (on Windows, the free Imaging component works fine for most people). I can also easily transform my TIFF data into Postscript (btw Level 2 Postscript more or less supports CCITT G42D compression too), PCL or even into PDF with not too much drama. In comparison, PDF is locked in more or less to Adobe's Acrobat Reader (yes, I know there's always Ghostscript / GSView and friends ! ), and not as easy to manipulate - I call it more of a nearly "final form" document format than TIFF. JPEG is not suitable because it was a lossy format targeted at colour images more than black and white, and it wasn't multi-page. I believe the JPEG 2000 specification has improved on some of these such as providing a lossless compression option, and can handle multi pages. I don't know if software to support all these features is (a) cheap or (b) available. For my money, I'm sticking with TIFF Cheers Jason

20 years

3
3
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slick bits in computers (WAS: VAXen Rule!)

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

There were two unrelated bits: ignore the VAX thing for now, I was just illustrating that "things" can be found in almost any family of computer that are a disappointment, not just x86. Merely illustrative. The second part was the general question, which I guess was a bit too specific. What computers have you come across that are really neat and why. OK.- System/3{60,70,90,z} is neat for it's processor instruction set, PERQs for the user-microcode. SGI Origin 2000's are neat for their CRAYlink/NUMAlink interconnect system, AXPs for the PALcode idea (sort of a takeoff of the PERQ). If you saw a computer that has a serial port implementation that is so elegant that it struck you as a thing of beauty throw that in ... I'm just interested in getting a feel for what's out there that members feel is neat. I was kind of thinking hardware to start with, but it could be extended to software.

20 years

10
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PDP-8 /e/f/m memory

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PDP-8 /e/f/m memory > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 22:19:08 -0700 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >On 8/14/2006 at 9:35 PM Don wrote: > >> >>Unless you can make a battery application last A VERY LONG TIME >>(not just a LONG time since those are the cases where you get >>screwed because you have forgotten about the battery that >>you replaced 1 or 2 years ago... *but*, if you replaced it >>*10* years ago you don't mind -- as much -- when it dies >>after that long of a service life) it will frustrate users. > >Well, consider the Dallas battery-inside-the-chip clock-calendar circuits. >7 years sounded like forever--and it may well have been to the original >owners of the equipment. But now, they're starting to fade and finding >replacements can be a bit of a hassle. In 20 years, it'll probably be >nearly impossible. I shave off the top of the DS1287s and replace the cell. It's easy to find the battery on those as it's magnetic! >For this particular application, any keep-alive power source needs only to >last as long the longest power-off interval. If, as Don, says a supercap >will last several months, that should be good enough--and it's a permanent >solution. Heck, I wonder if you could trickle-charge the battery with >ambient light via a solar cell. That should extend the keep-alive period >some. > >I just don't like chemical reactions in my equipment--it's sort of like >bird's nest soup. It might taste good, but I don't like the idea of eating >bird spit.. > Then place the battery at the ends of two wires remote from where their failure can do harm. Experience is a good adaquately sized Li cell is by far the easiest solution when used with the Dallas ram controller chips. Allison

20 years

8
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Scanning Formats

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

RE: > But doesn't JPEG use lossy compression? Yes. You can adjust the "quality factor" but I think this would be A Bad Choice. Especially given my original comment that the documents are D-size reduced to B-size before printing (i.e., the text/lines are VERY fine and apt to disappear in the DCT application within the JPEG encoder.)" Yes, it's lossy compression, but if you use a high-quality setting (which was my point of 5K to 10K file size per square inch for color, or about 1/3 that for monochrome), you will never notice ANY difference. The size of the document is irrelevant, since as I said, "5K to 10K ***PER SQUARE INCH***". Larger documents produce larger files, but the quality loss for larger documents is no greater than for smaller documents ... which is to say, imperceptible. TRY IT, and compare the results. I suggest that you will not notice ANY difference between JPEG and TIFF, no matter what you do, no matter how you examine them. I have scanned nearly 40,000 pages now, plus almost 10,000 color photographs, since 2001. There is no good reason to use TIFF instead of JPEG, as long as you don't try to achieve excessive compression levels with JPEG (and at 5K to 10K per square inch for color, you won't be doing that -- that equates to 500K to 1 megabyte for an 8.5" x 11" color page). In fact, I often find that I can go down to less than 100k bytes per page (that's down towards and below 1K per square inch), but this is too much compression for some documents.

20 years

2
1
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PDP-8 /e/f/m memory

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PDP-8 /e/f/m memory > From: Don <THX1138 at dakotacom.net> > Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 21:45:57 -0700 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Ethan Dicks wrote: >> On 8/15/06, Don <THX1138 at dakotacom.net> wrote: >>> Outrageous overkill. What's that, 10ns memory? What's the 8's >>> memory cycle time?? ;-) >> >> The machine cycle time for an -8/e is 1.2uS. ISTR that a core read >> cycle on an MM8E (Omnibus core stack), including replacing the old >> value after the read destroys it, is on the order of 950ns, but that's >> from memory, not from looking it up. In any case, *any* SRAM, even >> stuff from the mid-1970s is fast enough. As for overkill, it's not >> about memory access time, it's about modern availability and package >> count - if you want to use a 32Kx8 SRAM, your choices are, >> essentially, uber-fast cache RAM in a skinny DIP or still-too-fast >> CMOS SRAM (62256) in a wide DIP form factor. > >But cache RAM is power hungry and has little practical chance >of being converted to BBSRAM Most are not, few if any of mine are not. NOTE: many of those rams are CMOS and at high cycle rates the power needed is impressive but in standby and low cycle rates the power drops significantly! Often they are spec'd at they fastest cycle time for power use as thats how PCs used them. Allison >> One could even wire up a socket with 3 rows of pins so the user could >> choose skinny or wide - the RAMs have, essentially, the same pinout.

20 years

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PDP-8 /e/f/m memory

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PDP-8 /e/f/m memory > From: Don <THX1138 at dakotacom.net> > Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 20:50:25 -0700 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Chuck Guzis wrote: >> On 8/14/2006 at 7:25 PM Bob Rosenbloom wrote: >> >>> How about two Ramtron FM18L08's? Nonvolatile like core with no battery >>> to die or leak. Would need level shifters to 3.3 volts >>> and slightly different timing. Low power, and in DIP or SMT. I'm just >>> tired of cleaning boards that had batteries that leaked all over them. >> >> How long will a supercap keep that much SRAM alive? > >Why not use a *big* battery/cell... aren't we talking >about a design that would end up WAY undersized? Even >scaled would leave lots of real estate that you could >install a conventional AA, 9V, etc. battery and forget >about it "forever" Because most batteries have shelf life! The average battery dies in a few years from just sitting. The LI cells are designed for very long life. I have a few sub-C sized LI cells that are over 15 years old and going strong. FYI: for how I care to use the semiconductor ram I could care less about volitility. Allison

20 years

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Newton

by technobug＠comcast.net

On Tue, 08 Aug 2006 16:15:18 -0700, Don <THX1138 at dakotacom.net> wrote: > Pulled a Newton (110?) out of the trash today > (complete with power, faxmodem, carrying case, etc.) > Appears to work. > > Can these be repurposed? Or, is it just an oversized, > underpowered "notepad"? I've used my 120 as a portable terminal. Not too bad if you can get by the handwriting recognition or tippy-tappin on the little graphic keyboard with the provided toothpick. A friend, a number of years back, hacked his box to be a TV remote. CRC

20 years

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cctalk: Spam?

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

--- Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote: > On Mon, 7 Aug 2006, Ade Vickers wrote: > > Is anyone else getting "spam" messages through > this list? Stuff about stocks > > & viagra mostly? > > I seem to be getting 2-3/day, but I'm not sure i f > it's a general thing or > > not... > > Replies off-list would be preferred. > > Are you sure that it is THROUGH the list, not simp ly > your address > harvested from a list message? > > I get plenty of that spam, but none of it coming > THROUGH the list. > The Comdex management sold their email list to > spammers. > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com > That sucks. I hadn't heard of Comdex until I read an old 1981-ish article about it in one of my 80 Microcomputing magazines. Exactly how long was Comdex a yearly event for? I think it's stupid that the Comdex management would sell the email list to spammers... unless it was just one evil fish in the pond? Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

20 years

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PDP-8 semiconductor memory

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: PDP-8 semiconductor memory > From: Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> > Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 16:21:58 -0700 > To: "classiccmp at classiccmp.org" <classiccmp at classiccmp.org> > > >http://bitsavers.org/pdf/msc/MSC3102_PDP8semiMem.pdf > > Thanks, thats information! Allison

20 years

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PDP-8 /e/f/m memory

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PDP-8 /e/f/m memory > From: Don <THX1138 at dakotacom.net> > Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 20:42:59 -0700 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Patrick Finnegan wrote: >> On Monday 14 August 2006 19:43, Ethan Dicks wrote: >>> On 8/15/06, woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote: >>>> If you use 2167's ( 16k x 1 ) ram's >>>> you can have 16k of memory ( 12 chips ) for >>>> about $25 not counting glue logic and other stuff. >>> Why not use a pair of 62256s? 32Kx16 and ignore 4 bits. It'd even be >>> easy to use a Dallas DS1210 or something like it to provide battery >>> backup. >> >> I'd probably do something like what the SBC-6120 does... use some typical 486 >> motherboard cache SRAM. Cheap, and relatively easy to find. :) > >Outrageous overkill. What's that, 10ns memory? What's the 8's >memory cycle time?? ;-) PDP-8 is slow, 1.2 to 1.6us memory cycle time (read, modify, write) so anything under 500ns is overkill. Cache rams can cycle fast, those from 486boards were typically in the 15- 25ns range. However, overkill is ok as finding a source for show rams is unlikely (old 2102s were orignally that slow). Since most parts I have like the Alliance 7C256 are cmos slowing them down also allows for lower power. Even if they were NMOS a mere 25ma (I have some old 61256s) standby would still allow for short term backup as its only two of them. Since the system is not portable (it is a PDP8!) and lives near outlets a wall wart of small size could easily supply the power for the entire memory rather than resort to battery. For my case it's not an issue, it's ok if it forgets after power off. Usually when I demonstrate the PDP-8 I like to toggle in a 20word program to do inchworm on the accumulator lamps. So even if it forgot wheres the harm. I went through the exercise above to point out that with some imagination there are solutions. Allison > >> You'd end up with one or two chips to do 32k x 12. >> >> Pat

20 years

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PDP-8 /e/f/m memory

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PDP-8 /e/f/m memory > From: Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> > Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 20:59:31 -0400 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org> > >On Aug 14, 2006, at 8:54 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: >>> > Why not use a pair of 62256s? 32Kx16 and ignore 4 bits. It'd even >>> be >>> > easy to use a Dallas DS1210 or something like it to provide battery >>> > backup. >>> >>> I'd probably do something like what the SBC-6120 does... use some >>> typical 486 >>> motherboard cache SRAM. Cheap, and relatively easy to find. :) >>> >>> You'd end up with one or two chips to do 32k x 12. >> >> 32Kx8 are easy to find as old cache RAM. They are not, however, low >> power, and would not be the best solution if you wanted to hang a >> battery off of them. OTOH, unless you are using paper tape software >> only, chances are you have a mass storage device and are booting into >> OS/8 and don't really need battery backup. > > True, but I think the idea there was to duplicate the functionality >of core, i.e. the nonvolatility in this case. Presumed only. Though with the parts I ahve it would be easy it was not a significant consideration. > That said, though, I've not found 486 motherboard cache memory to be >particularly easy to find. I did, however, buy a box of about 80 6264 >chips on eBay a few months ago for fifteen bucks. And 62256s are still >manufactured, as far as I'm aware. Both are easy to find. My supply of RAM came off some really nice but excess 486 boards must from the 1995-1998 timeframe. Allison

20 years

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Mac keyboards

by THX1138＠dakotacom.net

Hi, I have an "Apple Adjustable Keyboard" -- a wacky keyboard that splits in the center ("ergonomic"?) and has an auxillary "function/numeric" keyboard that sits alongside it (sheesh! What a wacky arrangement -- how to use up the most desktop space with the least added functionality! :< ) Needless to say, I am not happy with it. What should I be looking for as an alternative? Thanks!

20 years

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LCD question

by r_a_feldman＠hotmail.com

>From: "Barry Watzman" <Watzman at neo.rr.com> >Subject: Re: LCD question <snip> >The chances of being able to successfully use an LCD panel from a laptop >for any other purpose are near zero. I haven't been following this thread too closely, but you might find some useful information on the eio.com site, starting at http://eio.com/lcdintro.htm. There is a discussion of hooking up laptop LCD's to PC's at http://eio.com/lcdconnect.htm. Bob

20 years

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PDP-8 semiconductor memory

by aek＠bitsavers.org

http://bitsavers.org/pdf/msc/MSC3102_PDP8semiMem.pdf

20 years

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KVM's

by THX1138＠dakotacom.net

Hi, In an attempt to cut down on the number of monitors, etc. here, I dragged out an old KVM (which, unfortunately, seems to have lost track of his wal wart!). It doesn't take long to realize that this is a non-solution: - keyboards are PS2, Sun, USB, ADB, etc. - mice are PS2, Serial, Sun, USB, ADB, etc. - video is Sun's 13W3, HD15, DEC's RGB, apple's DB15, etc. Does anyone make a *truly* universal KVM (i.e. so that I can mix and match all of these flavors)? And, how outrageously priced is it? Or, do I just have to get used to hiding "not in use" mice, etc. out of the way?

20 years

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TI 990 with disks, manuals, software

by recycler＠swbell.net

Is there any interest in a TI 990 system complete, this has the CPU in cabinet with switches and lights, complete, manuals, software, and disk drives including removable disk packs, extras, is exceptionally clean as in computer room, and was running recently until the business changed software. Certainly bound to me in much nicer and less-used condition than what is showing up lately. Please reply off-list.

20 years

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OT: Funniest ./configure message ever

by segin2005＠gmail.com

checking for something to drink while compiling... err: no fridge found! (and yes, that's an actual message a ./configure script spat out at me. It's from the TiEmu 2.08 source package.) -- The real problem with C++ for kernel modules is: the language just sucks. -- Linus Torvalds

20 years

1
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Apple IIgs and SGI

by rborsuk＠colourfull.com

I have for free: 2 - apple IIgs's (Both units power up)(please don't ask what Revision) nothings included - Computers only 1 - SGI Origin I/O module (working system pull) Just pay shipping or pickup from 48047. IIgs weigh 14 lbs each (with packing)( or 28lbs together). Will ship the IIgs's via UPS and I/O module via USPS. Figure $8.50 Priority for the I/O module. First come first serve. Rob ps. Please USA only

20 years

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HP PARISC G30

by CaptnZilog＠aol.com

One more to go, too heavy to ship, CT area as well (willing to drive if someone wants it), HP G30 server, PARISC. No Hard drive/OS. Hate to, but probably someone takes it or it'll hit a dumpster. Would rather find it a "good home" if someone is interested tho. _phufnagel at snet.net_ (mailto:phufnagel at snet.net) - Pete

20 years

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PDP-8 /e/f/m memory

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PDP-8 /e/f/m memory > From: "Ethan Dicks" <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> > Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2006 12:54:00 +1200 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On 8/15/06, Patrick Finnegan <pat at computer-refuge.org> wrote: >> On Monday 14 August 2006 19:43, Ethan Dicks wrote: >> > Why not use a pair of 62256s? 32Kx16 and ignore 4 bits. It'd even be >> > easy to use a Dallas DS1210 or something like it to provide battery >> > backup. >> >> I'd probably do something like what the SBC-6120 does... use some typical 486 >> motherboard cache SRAM. Cheap, and relatively easy to find. :) >> >> You'd end up with one or two chips to do 32k x 12. > >32Kx8 are easy to find as old cache RAM. They are not, however, low >power, and would not be the best solution if you wanted to hang a >battery off of them. I have a bag of them I salvaged from old 386 and 486s and most are either low power or CMOS. I've bumped into a few of the older NMOS parts that are not low power but they do gow down in power when deselected. Nothing like the old 2114 or 2147 or 2167. However power it not a prime consideration as the lamps on the FP are a big load compared to most everthing else. For me it's board space, heat and a one card solution. Allison >OTOH, unless you are using paper tape software >only, chances are you have a mass storage device and are booting into >OS/8 and don't really need battery backup. > >-ethan

20 years

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Apollo DN systems

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> I did a little > work on porting NetBSD to and then have just never had the time to pursue. I contacted you a while back, and am still VERY interested in the hardware information that you were able to figure out on the DN systems. There is very little documentation on the hardware around.

20 years

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SMT PDP-8 (was Re: group buy for homebrew CPUs?)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 8/14/06, Peter C. Wallace <pcw at mesanet.com> wrote: > > One thing that I think *would* be awesome in surface mount, > > would be to do a "scale model" based on the straight-8, with > > all those little SMT diodes and transistors, and no logic > > IC's at all (except possibly some SMT RAM to replace the core > > planes) :-). > > > > Vince > > > > (It might also be cool to make some of the diodes the glowing kind.) > > > > That has been discussed before. It would be fun to do something like the > PDP8-S on a single PCB with only resistors, capacitors, SOT-23 transistors and > dual diodes (And yes LEDs in all the FF outputs would be nice). I'd build one, especially if it was Negibus-compatible. I could attach a real DF-32 to it. ;-) Has anyone estimated the physical size? A real PDP-8/S has about 1000 transistors and a lot more passives than that, not counting external things like a TTY interface (besides serializing the ALU, that's one of the ways they shoehorned Straight-8 technology into such a tiny box). One could always start small and build something simpler from the same technology - a simple clock or something - sort of a test-drive to see what the scope of a full processor would entail. -ethan

20 years

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Trying to locate some missing tapes...

by cclist＠sydex.com

You folks who buy those lots from DoveBid may want to check into some of the stuff and see if you can locate a tape or two for NASA: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060814/ts_nm/space_tapes_dc_2 (Just kidding--NASA would NEVER surplus this stuff, would they?)

20 years

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Old Apollo 68K systems

by phufnagel＠snet.net

Just figured I'd post this out here... I have a collection of old Apollo DN systems (3000,3010,3500,4000,4500,5500 I think sums it up) I did a little work on porting NetBSD to and then have just never had the time to pursue. Might be willing to part with them to someone in the New England area, since I have monitors with some of them, and OS tapes, spare hard drives, etc. Anyone interested, feel free to contact me... really not up for shipping monitors around, but for someone fairly local with interest I might be willing to do a road trip. -- Pete

20 years

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ID these boards?

by rtellason＠verizon.net

I have a couple of boards here, not sure what the heck they are... They're both full-length ISA cards, a 50-pin (!) D-type connector on the metal bracket, 3 or 4 sets of DIP switches, and a LOT of jumpers. (70-80!) Both are marked "Frontier TEchnologies Corp. AdCom 2-M Controller", one is also marked "Version 3" (this one also has a holder for a coin cell on it) and the other one "Version 5". There's also a Z80-SIO and an 8253 on each board, and the Version 3 one has an 8255 as well. While I'm at it, I also have a keyboard here marked "Wyse Technology 1983" with a really odd 10-pin plug on the end of the cable. Nice individual keyswitches if anybody wants that for salvage, or can use the cable. This one' s a little different than a lot of that other stuff in that there's no LSI on the board. Complete except for the plastic covers not being there. Anybody have any use for this or parts of it? -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin

20 years

6
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Cleaning microfiche?

by healyzh＠aracnet.com

Does anyone have any idea on how to remove oil from Microfiche? The History Resource Center has a stack of fiche with oil all over it that needs to be cleaned up. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

20 years

7
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Questions on convergence...

by newyork.techie＠gmail.com

I have an old (over 11yrs old) Hitachi 21" CRT model CM2111MU (sub model 512), also known as a SuperScan Mc21HR RasterOps, that seems to have a little overlap/failure to line-up on the colors (also known as a convergence issue as I've been told). I can't seem to find anyone in the area who still works on these damned things. Anyone have any pointers to fixing convergence issues or know of anyone in the Hudson Valley area (NY) that could fix this big bastard? Any assistance would be greatly appeciated. PS: I'm currently also working on acquiring a semi-working old MAC Classic II (I believe), are there any resource sites that have technical sheets, etc. to fixing it? John Boffemmyer IV

20 years

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KVMs

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

Don said > Amusing to think someone will spend $125+/node >just to live WITHOUT a keyboard! :-( Somewhat disappointing, too. The way you run servers without keyboards is using a serial terminal plugged into a multiplexer. Clean, and substantially less pricy. No Wizards or other excuses, though - you have to know your stuff for that.

20 years

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Asynch designs (OT)

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

--- Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk > wrote: > Don wrote: > > Stan Barr wrote: > >> Hi, > >> > >> Jules Richardson said: > >> > >>> Given that the licence is only for the BBC > channels, and I'll perhaps > >>> watch 2-3 hours of them per week, it works out > as quite an expense > >>> per programme! > >> > >> Not quite - the licence is for having _any_ > equipment installed in your > >> home capable of receiving broadcast tv - _any_ > broadcast tv. The money > >> goes (mostly) to the bbc, but a licence is > required for any broadcast > >> tv equipment including, but not limited to, a t v > set, video or dvd > >> recorder with a tuner or a computer with a tune r. > You still have to > >> pay even if you never watch the bbc :-( > > > > So, the *tuner* is the gotcha? I.e. if you used a > component > > DVD player/recorder, a video *monitor*, etc. > *they* would be > > exempt? > > Actually, the way I always understood it is that t he > licence fee funds the BBC > and isn't used for anything else (such and funding > general transmitter > install/upkeep). But the Government call it a "TV > licence" even though all the > cash goes to the BBC, and therefore you need to pa y > for the licence if you > want to watch any channels, not just the BBC. > > I don't know how well it's been challenged in cour t > - but as the BBC transmits > on slightly different frequencies across the count ry > it'd be hard to market a > device that was guaranteed not to be able to recei ve > the BBC now or in the > future, whilst being able to receive anything else . > Thats the way I think it works too. I believe the BBC had to renew the patent (or whatever) a few years ago, so we'll be paying them for another 50 years or so. For those outside the US, the BBC also runs atleast 5 main radio stations , plus local ones, here in the UK. Also, some handheld games devices such as my Sega Gamegear (and I believe Nintendo's Game Boy Advance) have TV Tuners which allow them to receive terrestrial TV. Not quite sure how good the picture quality is as I don't have a PSU for my Gamegear yet! :( Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

20 years

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PDP-8 /e/f/m memory

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PDP-8 /e/f/m memory > From: "Jay West" <jwest at classiccmp.org> > Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 12:41:55 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Chuck wrote... >> I did a semiconductor memory design for the OMNIBUS several years ago. It >> was for an -8/e and 32kW using two SRAMs. I never got to documenting it >> outside of my notebook, but if there is enough interest, I could do some >> schematics. It is battery backed, so its pretty much equivalent to the >> core I was replacing. > >Maybe it was your diagram I got years ago. Someone did a nice 32kw board for >the 8e using two 2114's I think it was. I have the schematics somewhere Must have been two 61256. the 2114 is a 1kx4 memory and three would be needed to create a word wide memory. I know this as I made a 3k ram for a 6100 system. The 61256 is 32kx8, two would be 32kx16, throw away 4 bits and you have a 32k word memory cheap. >still. The only reason I didn't build it right away was because at the time >I got them, the person said "these schematics aren't quite final, there may >have been some tweaking afterwards that didn't make it to the schematic" so >I just sat on them. > >A known working design - I'd want to build that in a heartbeat :) > >Jay West I figured before I embark as it will be winter before I WWrap it (too warm now) I'd check and see if someone else attacked the problem. Allison

20 years

1
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Scanning formats

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

--- Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> wrote: > On Mon, Aug 14, 2006 at 09:49:16AM -0700, Chuck > Guzis wrote: > > In any case, the LZW patent is now firmly > ensconced in history and should > > not be a reason to avoid a particular compressed > format. > > ...with the exception that LZW was never very > efficient to begin > with. :-) LZ77 variants (specifically LZSS and i ts > variants) have always > outperformed LZ78 variants like LZW. > -- > Jim Leonard LZW was the first compression method I am able to understand and use... although the compression/decompression does get very slow. I understand the (fixed) Huffman method in theory, but am currently unable to implement it. I certainly wouldn't even know where to start for the variable Huffman method :( Has anyone created their own compression method or have any pointers for someone wanting to create their own? Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

20 years

1
0
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Cleaning microfiche?

by wulfcub＠gmail.com

On 8/8/06, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote: > Does anyone have any idea on how to remove oil from Microfiche? The > History Resource Center has a stack of fiche with oil all over it > that needs to be cleaned up. A great deal will depend on the type of fiche. If they're originals, you can use a soft cloth (such as diaper flannel or jersey t-shirt material) and isopranol, "tape head cleaner" (used to get it at radio shack), or high-proof isopropyl alcohol. If it's a colored fiche (ie: diazo duplicate), this is NOT what you want to do. Alcohol tends to kill diazo rather handily. Good old water and a very mild soap works great. No scrubbing for either, as you'll tear the emulsion. Just gently work it with the soft cloth. One you've got it cleaned up, you can rinse it with clean water (distilled), blot the excess, and let it air-dry, or use a hair dryer set on "cool/no heat." I deal with this type of damage on occassion. One of the perks of working for a microfilm shop. --Shaun -- "If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you." -- Winnie The Pooh http://www.lungs4amber.org

20 years

1
0
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Anyone know about repairing a Grid Compass?

by evan＠snarc.net

Problem with my 1101 -- it turns on but I only get a bunch of vertical lines instead of the splash screen. It worked fine until a couple of months ago. I haven't got any clue about how to fix this. Can anyone help?

20 years

1
0
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PDP-8 /e/f/m memory

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PDP-8 /e/f/m memory > From: Gerold Pauler <gerold.pauler at gmx.net> > Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 19:11:48 +0200 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >If you are able to read german text, then the documentation of a 32KW >dynamic memory modul >from mico for the pdp8/e/f/m and /a may give some hints. >I've made a scan available under >http://pdp8.de/download/mico-mem.pdf Thanks, While I do not speak German it is still and engineering document so it's form and content are known. Makes working with foreign languages easier. It will be of some help along with the DEC docs I have. Allison > >- Gerold > >C H Dickman wrote: > >> vrs wrote: >> >>> I looked at doing one of these, but got kind of lost about how the >>> timing signals are used. I looked at the MOS RAM for the 8/A, but >>> there's all this cruft for refresh in there, some stuff about >>> suppressing access during ROM access, etc. And then it looks like >>> the memory timing signals are derived somehow from the memory refresh >>> stuff?? >>> >>> Is there a nice place where the Omnibus memory interface control >>> signals are explained somewhere? >>> >> >> I did a semiconductor memory design for the OMNIBUS several years ago. >> It was for an -8/e and 32kW using two SRAMs. I never got to >> documenting it outside of my notebook, but if there is enough >> interest, I could do some schematics. It is battery backed, so its >> pretty much equivalent to the core I was replacing. >> >> The Small Computer Handbook, the maintenance manuals and timing >> diagrams from the processor print sets had enough information for me. >> >> -chuck >

20 years

1
0
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EX2000 Floppy Drive Tester

by jdaviscctalk＠soupwizard.com

Hi, I ran across an interesting gadget at a university surplus sale, maybe someone can tell me how useful it is. It's an EX 2000 Disk Drive Tester. It came with a couple manuals and some 5.25" alignment floppies. The manual says it's "used to align and repair floppy disk drives with industry standard SA400 and SA800 interfaces", and says the connections on the end are for 5.25" and 8" drives. Here's a photo: http://www.soupwizard.com/temp/ex2000.jpg I'm extremely unlikely to be doing any floppy repairs myself, so would this be useful to anyone else? Jeff

20 years

6
13
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Early 1980s "Computing" magazine?

by evan＠snarc.net

Does anyone have copies of "Computing" magazine from 1981? I think this was a British publication but I'm not certain. Specifically I'm looking for an article in the April 9 titled "NewBrain order freeze as project is reviewed" or something similar. That information is from http://tinyurl.com/z9e5l. - Evan

20 years

2
2
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Computers and Heat Density (OT)

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

e.steibler wrote >I know, it is an M$ nightmare... Not really- MS will just send its sales force out after the higher-level managers who don't know much about computers, same as now, tell them how Linux is "unsupported" and other UNIXes are "proprietary" (and Windows isn't???), perhaps touch on the SCO threat, imply that UNIX admins are hard to come by and expensive... get them to commit to Windows as a platform and buy a 16p Itanium server with Windows Enterprise, thin clients, and a nice big $150 terminal license for each client. No nightmare there, the MS will probably also sell an Office license per client too.

20 years

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Computers and heat density

by ken＠seefried.com

From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Did the CDC 6600 ever have a C implementation? Dunno about the 6600, but it's decendent the CDC Cyber 180 did. I never even looked at it (the Algol 60 compiler was more interesting...I have the manual for that someplace), but I understand it was painful. Ken

20 years

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PDP-8 /e/f/m memory

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PDP-8 /e/f/m memory > From: "vrs" <vrs at msn.com> > Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 00:04:38 -0700 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >> Even schematics would help. In the end I may do my own as >> a pair of 61256s will certainly fit the bill and barely fill >> a corner of a board. > >I looked at doing one of these, but got kind of lost about how >the timing signals are used. I looked at the MOS RAM for the 8/A, >but there's all this cruft for refresh in there, some stuff about >suppressing access during ROM access, etc. And then it looks like >the memory timing signals are derived somehow from the memory >refresh stuff?? > >Is there a nice place where the Omnibus memory interface control >signals are explained somewhere? Small Computer Handbook 1973 is a good staring point. A complete prinset also has details like timing. Allison

20 years

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OT: Help needed in forwarding an item

by quapla＠xs4all.nl

Hi all, I need someone in the U.S. to forward some items to me. The seller of the items does not ship anything outside the US. The item are 6 large capacitors. Doesn't have to be done for free, and postage gets paid as well of course. Please reply off-list. Thanks, Ed

20 years

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Hi, I'm new...

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

--- Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote: >> snip << > > > I know how the CPU works and runs everything > > , in theory, but I can't program in machine > > language yet. > > As for how the CPU and everything else works > > physically, I don't really know anything, but > > There are, unfortunaely, very few books that > actually explain how the CPU > works. Most introductory hardware books explain > things like the AND and > OR gats and flip-flops (don't worry if these terms > mean nothing to you, > they're just the basic building blocks of computer > circuits), and then > tell you the CPU exists. It's almost as if the CPU > runs on some kind of > magic. > Hehe... abracadrabra. > I can assure you that it doesn't, and that many > older, simpler CPUs are > understandable at the gate level (or even the > transistor level). > > I know how _I_ learnt this stuff. I had already > understood how to use > gates, flip-flops, etc. I mamaged to get the servi ce > manuals for an old > minicomputer, and I sat down for a couple of > _months_ until I understood > it all. Of course back then there was no classiccm p > list, I didn't have > anyone to ask. I was very much on my own. > Perhaps there are service manuals for the Amiga?? I know I wanted to get my hands on the Amiga RKRM's (Rom Kernel Reference Manuals), but they will be hard to find in paper form. > > [Mains voltages etc] > > > > voltage is lethal. It's also likely to appear on > > > metal heatsinks, etc, in > > > such supplies. Don't work on one of those unle ss > y > > ou > > > really know what you > > > are doing. > > > > > > > Ok... no heat sinks in my A600 :) > > It's only heatsinks in high voltage circuits (like > the mains side of > SMPSUs, or the horizontal scan section of monitors > and TVs) that might be > at a dangerous voltage. Heatsinks, say, on top of a > CPU chip, or a > regulator IC on a motherboard, are very likely to > be at ground > potential. But if in doubt, ask. > Ok. > > > > > > > Monitors are often claimed to contain lethal > > > voltages. Well, there's > > > mains (and most colour monitors use an SMPSU> > circ > > uit, so the hazard I've > > > just mentioned is there). But the even higher > > > voltages to the CRT are > > > generally only able to supply low currents, an d > ar > > e > > > unlikely to be fatal. > > > Don't take risks, though, 25000V is darn > unpleasan > > t. > > > > > > > No problems there either, as I don't use a > > monitor. I plug my A600 into my TV via the > > RF cable. The picture quality is good enough > > for me. > > Well, a TV is essentially a monitor with an extra > bit -- the radio > receiver circuit -- added. It also contians high > voltages to operate the > CRT. And most, if not all, modern TVs use a SMPSU > circuit. > > Doesn't your TV have a SCART socket? Can't you > connect the RGB outputs of > the A600 there? > > -tony > No RGB cable for the Amiga and the SCART socket is already used: I have a 3 way SCART box which is plugged into the TV's SCART, with SCART's from the VCR, DVD player and my Dreamcast plugged into that. I have used the old Sega Megadrive (aka Genesis) RF switch box (the one that lets you switch between "Game" and "Aerial") and plugged that into the aerial socket on the TV. Into the switch box I have the aerial (for terrestrial TV) and my Amiga RF cable. The A/V sockets at the front are used by my Nintendo 64 (which is sat ontop of the TV), or Gamecube (sat next to Dreamcast under TV, but ontop of VCR and DVD player) depending on which Nintendo console I want to play. It's a nice setup.... but loads of cables :( Besides, it's not like I'm gonna try and do Hi-Def stuff on the Amiga! (NB: I know that ain't possible, unless you count the 2 colour super-hires screen mode - and before anyone asks I know nothing about Hi-Def screens and/ or widescreen TV's, but thats ok coz I don't want them). Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

20 years

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Handwire vs PCBs

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

When you're using a PCB, though, you have a large flat plane for the solder to deal with. If you're doing point-to-point and you don't make a good mechanical connection, then it is likely that you won't have much solder to stick it together with. A good mechanical connection also gives you more surface area for the solder joint.

20 years

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Miniature CPU repro (was Re: group buy for homebrew CPUs?)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 8/14/06, Bill Sudbrink <wh.sudbrink at verizon.net> wrote: > I have been toying with the idea of doing a one inch to one foot > (doll house scale) fully functional IMSAI. Clearly, it would be > implemented on some sort of PAL or PIC... the idea would be for > the front panel and a serial port (maybe a video out too (cromemco > Dazzler?)) to be fully functional with a "floppy" drive implemented > on one of the little flash memory packs. Hmm... at 1/12th scale... I would think the front panel would be the tricky part. The interior shouldn't be so bad. One could use a camcorder eyepiece display for the CRT, if you did a Dazzler. Be a bit tough to read text, though. I take it you wouldn't be considering working switches on the front panel, only blinkenlights, right? Sounds interesting. Would make an interesting VCF display. -ethan

20 years

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SMT techniques (was Re: group buy for homebrew CPUs?)

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: SMT techniques (was Re: group buy for homebrew CPUs?) > From: Brad Parker <brad at heeltoe.com> > Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 06:44:50 -0400 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > > >"Ethan Dicks" wrote: >> >>I _have_ thought about that for replacement -8/L and -8/i boards - > >Just curious, are there any machine readable schematics or netlists >for the 8/I? > >(from my primative understanding an 8/i was made from a few different >flip chips and a *lot* of backplane wirewrap - just wondering if that's >machine readable anywhere) That decribes a fair amount of the 8i and 8l. One it's I've been looking for is if anyone has done a semiconductor memory for the 8e/f/m omnibus machines. There was a hex wide one for the 8A. I figure it would be handy for those that don't have enough core or fully functional core. Allison

20 years

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new acquisitions

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

Just received 3 packages in the mail today from 3 different folks... 1) What I believe is a complete PDP-11/40 cpu cardset (M7231 through M7238 {yup, EIS}). Is this a complete set? Too bad that won't magically make my 11/45 start working. 2) DEC Microprocessors Handbook (poor condition, but I didn't have one, so nice!). 3) An MDB systems "MDB-DR11C". What exactly is this? Is it the same as a DEC DR11C? What was it commonly used for? Also in the box was an ACT "10015000" which I'm guessing may be a 4-slu card? Yay! Jay

20 years

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Asynch designs

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

> Supposedly, non-clocked logic can also offer greater security because >there's no clock signal for remote sensors to key on when trying to >sense what the CPU is doing. This seemed a little odd to me. Do >espionage types really try to sense what a processor is doing >remotely, based on the EM emissions from the chip? Don't know about processors, but Tempest had a proof of concept for intercepting I/O from kbd/video. (Anyone else remember Tempest? for a while they were selling big "tinfoil hat" type shields for monitors and then, suddenly, it went away.) Was that NSA that came up with the POC? P.S. - for the U.S. types - never would have thought it 15 years ago, but NSA now has official mousepads you can buy.

20 years

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More mags

by brain＠jbrain.com

Now that I got Scott's treasure on it's way, here's a few more options. Scott is not eligible :-) Issue 37-136 of Circuit Cellar, plus a few volume 1 (1.6 and 1.8) and volume 2 issues. I regret ditching this, but I never read them, and I can get them via CD if I do want them later. Mixed (16 or so) issues of Popular Electronics from '93 to 99. dozen or so issues of Modern Electronics/ComputerCraft/Microcomputer Journal from '90 to '97. Mostly 95-97 (Microcomputer Journal) No hoarding, first come, first serve, I'm asking only for shipping costs >from Iowa (52402). Anything not claimed hits the recycle bin after a week. Jim

20 years

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Handwire vs PCBs (was Re: group buy for homebrew CPUs?)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 8/14/06, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote: > I think the big problem was a shift in thought. Anyone who learned to > solder back in the handwired days remembers being told over and over again > that "Solder does not make a mechanical connection". Or in other words, > good wiring practice demanded that a wire be mechanically attached to its > terminal before solder was applied. Along come PCBs and what's holding > everything together? Solder. My dad (who was a Ham in the 1950s) told me over and over that solder is not a load-bearing material. Of course, given the weight of 1950s components, if you _don't_ make a good mechanical connection first, a solder-only joint is likely to fail eventually. I remember how hard it was to tear apart stuff from those days... I needed a solder gun and a quick hand with the needle-nosed pliers to start to unwind the leads from the solder tabs before the mass of the pliers cooled the joints. OTOH, a technique I've picked up from a co-worker here for nice faraday-cage-type enclosures (for RF-emitting/using projects) is to solder a box from chunks of copper-clad board. It's easy to work with and for stuff that small enough to fit in your hand, *very* strong. -ethan

20 years

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group buy for homebrew CPUs?

by trag＠io.com

>Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 10:09:54 -0400 >From: Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> >On Aug 12, 2006, at 4:37 PM, Jeff Walther wrote: >> BGA components have a specification for the clearance between the chip >> package and the circuit board after soldering. I don't think you >> could meet that just by putting the thing in the oven. > > Very true...but I've looked far & wide for a reason for that >specification to exist, and have found none. The only thing I can >think of is the possible flattening out of the balls causing them to >short against adjacent ones...but is that really possible? Not sure. I assumed (certainly don't *know*) that the specification is there because if the chip finishes too high above the PCB, then you didn't melt the balls enough and you may have cold joints, etc. and if the chips finishes too low/close to the PCB, then you've squished the balls too much and they may be in danger of shorting. At the least, it seems to me that if you meet the clearance specification, you're more likely to succeed at BGA soldering without expensive equipment to inspect the hidden solder balls. I could be wildly wrong though. I never carried through with my experimental ideas. Another thought is that if you use the feeler guage idea that I proposed, then you can heat the chip and board more thoroughly without the chip sinking any closer to the board. That should help to ensure good solder joints on the interior balls without allowing the chip to squish to close to the board. I think I was looking into it when the PPC750FX and later the PPC750GX came out and I really wanted to get them onto a ZIF module of the type that plugs into the Beige G3 model Macintosh. But Powerlogix came out with a couple of nice cards, so buying commercial became cheaper and more practicle than trying to do it myself. (Thank goodness!) Jeff Walther

20 years

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Handwire vs PCBs (was Re: group buy for homebrew CPUs?)

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Handwire vs PCBs (was Re: group buy for homebrew CPUs?) > From: "Ethan Dicks" <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> > Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 14:13:09 +1200 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > > >OTOH, a technique I've picked up from a co-worker here for nice >faraday-cage-type enclosures (for RF-emitting/using projects) is to >solder a box from chunks of copper-clad board. It's easy to work with >and for stuff that small enough to fit in your hand, *very* strong. > >-ethan I use that thechnique all the time to build RF assemblies where stray signals need to be bottled up to prevent unwanted signals in the wrong places. the advantage is not only is it a good shield but using scraps (cheap material) you can build custom enclosures for subassemblies. To keep this on topic at least somewhat. Years ago I built a PLL subsystem for a radio with a micro to do the tuning and display chores. The RFI from all that (8748 with led drivers and input controls) was unbearable. Boxed it all up as previously described using copper screen across the display opening and it was reduced to dead silent. Of course the few wires (power, slow parallel digital signal for tuning and switches) entering and leaving had to be properly filtered as well. Allison

20 years

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group buy for homebrew CPUs?

by trag＠io.com

>Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 15:58:16 -0600 >From: "e.stiebler" <emu at e-bbes.com> >Chuck Guzis wrote: >> On 8/11/2006 at 4:37 PM shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com wrote: > >> I suspect that the legacy DIP stuff will get harder to buy new through >> "normal" channels, given RoHS. In the long run, I suppose we'd all better >> get used to working with surface mount. :( > >Yup, get ready to solder .2 mm balls on 800 balls BGA. >Get your toaster-oven ready ;-) BGA components have a specification for the clearance between the chip package and the circuit board after soldering. I don't think you could meet that just by putting the thing in the oven. However, it might be interesting to get some feeler guages the same thickness as the clearance that that specification calls for, place the feeler guages around the edges of the chip between the chip and the board and then heat the chip and board until the chip presses down on the feeler guages. That *should* give the proper clearance and therefore the appropriate solder ball "squish". I don't know how one reballs BGA components though. Anyone care to explain? Jeff Walther

20 years

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semiconductor mfr. logos page

by trag＠io.com

>Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 20:53:39 -0400 >From: "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at verizon.net> >Subject: semiconductor mfr. logos page >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> >Message-ID: <200608122053.39577.rtellason at verizon.net> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > >A while back I'd sort of thrown something together with a bunch of logos on a >web pages, and since Jay expressed some interest in that some time back I >uploaded it, but since I wasn't happy about a number of aspects of it back >then I didn't link to it and didn't publicize it. ICMaster.com had a few pages of logos and manufacturers' names in alphabetical order, back when. They seem to have revamped their web site and maybe been taken over by someone else. I can't find their logo pages any more. Anyone else have any luck? Jeff Walther

20 years

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KVM's

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

--- jim stephens <jwstephens at msm.umr.edu> wrote: > Don wrote: > > > > > > > It doesn't take long to realize that this is a > non-solution: > > - keyboards are PS2, Sun, USB, ADB, etc. > What does ADB stand for? The reason I ask is that my initials are ADB (my middle name is David), and every time I see it in a message it throws me for a split second. Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

20 years

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Pictures of old S-100 cards?

by jcwren＠jcwren.com

I've been putting some S-100 cards on eBay, and I started wondering if anyone was maintaining a database of pictures of old cards. If not, and someone chooses to start one up, anyone is welcome to my pictures. http://tinymicros.com/ebay is where they're located, starting somewhere on page 20 or 21. They're not great photographs, but they're more than adequate to help identify boards and such. --jc

20 years

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HP 1000 double integer instructions info

by jdbryan＠acm.org

I'm working on adding double integer (32-bit) instructions to the HP 1000 simulator under SIMH. The 1000 F-Series computer came standard with these instructions, and I have documentation on the opcodes used. The E-Series did not have them, but there was a "specials group" product -- HP number 93585A -- that added firmware support for these instructions. However, the opcodes were different from the F-Series opcodes to avoid conflict with other E-Series microcode options. Does anyone have information on the opcodes used in the 93585A product? I have found a reference to a manual, HP number 93585-90007, "93585A Double Integer Firmware Installation and Operating Manual," but I cannot locate a copy. -- Dave

20 years

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KVMs

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

Don intones: > >Is it possible to add a second Crestor/Elite FB? (Sorry, I haven't >poked around inside this box, yet) Nope, UltraSPARC IIi doesn't support enough spare UPA ports. You can get a PCI PGX card if you so desire. Some of the bigger systems that use the full UltraSPARC II or UltraSPARC III with the external UPA/Crossbar controller offered more graphics ports. I think the 60 and 80 did, as well as the deskside beasts (and I suppose you could wedge a few screens into an Ultra Enterprise 10k if you wanted...) Even with the full UltraSPARC implementation, many smaller machines (e.g. Ultra 2) only had one UPA expansion slot for size reasons (and, I suppose, to protect the profit margins of the high-end systems).

20 years

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SMT hobby projects (was Re: group buy for homebrew CPUs?)

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

--- Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote: >> snip << > > I bought a pneumatic solder paste pump for $75, > and two different > very high-end hot air pencils for $50 and $120, al l > on eBay over the > past several years. The stuff is out there. $50 > for an air pencil > which will likely run for decades is not a bad > investment in my opinion. > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > Cape Coral, FL > As a newish member and someone not experienced in circuit board repairs/modification, could someone please explain what they (the pneumatic solder paste pump and the hot-air pencil) do, please? Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

20 years

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Questions on convergence...

by newyork.techie＠gmail.com

well ok then, if that is the case, does anyone know of anyone who may have the manual for the specific model I had mentioned? Hitachi CM2111MJ 512? John Boffemmyer IV

20 years

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