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

looking to buy/swap/extort old Bytes, PC mag, PC World...

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

I presently have this in Bytes - all of 1982, half of 83, 3/4 of 84. Nothing else of note. If theres particular issues yer looking for, or have stuph yer willing to unload, please contact. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

20 years, 8 months

2
1
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PC-DOS 3.3

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: PC-DOS 3.3 > From: Mark Firestone <pdp11_70 at retrobbs.org> > Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2005 16:00:01 +0000 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >I don't suppose anyone has a copy of PC-DOS 3.3 they'd be willing to >part with, or make disk images for me? I have to restore an application >on a PS/2 model 30 that requires it, and we've lost the disks (probably >about 10 years ago...) > >Anyone? Please? > >Thanks, > >Mark Use versions up to 6.22 and invoke "setver". Allison

20 years, 8 months

1
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VAXstation 4000 vlc default boot

by williams.dan＠gmail.com

On 12/12/05, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote: > What are the proper commands to set, and save, the default boot > device for a VAXstation 4000 VLC? Mine keeps defaulting to trying to > boot from ethernet. > > Zane > > > -- > -- > | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | > | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | > | | 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/ | > If it's the same as the others : set boot xxxx If it's not storing it then the battery may be dead. Dan

20 years, 8 months

2
1
0 0

Fwd: unknown data tape

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Fwd: unknown data tape > From: John Foust <jfoust at threedee.com> > Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 11:01:07 -0600 > To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > > >Speaking of audio cassette storage, I received this inquiry >to my web. Click the link to hear the data he has... What's >odd to my ear is that the data seems to be packeted between >carrier. Might this be someone's custom data, as opposed to >ordinary program load/save? No and yes. Most of the cassette schemes were either FM or FSK and both required a carrier to establish sync before the data. there were a quite a few modulation schemes but they can be described as either frequency shift keyed or phase shift keyed and in some ways similar. The important factors were cassette recorder players had poor speed control (both short and long term) high background noise (only soso signal to noise) and lousy bandwidth (rolls off below 300hz and the upper liimit maybe 8-11khz). So the recording schemes had to compensate for that. Allison > >As for why MP3s work fine and .WAV is unnecessary, MP3's >compression divides the signal into ~32 frequency bands, then >encodes the amplitude of those over time. The typical >two-frequency sine modulation used by cassette data recorders >probably fits quite well into those two bins, and MP3 would >recreate the simple sine waves quite well. > >After all, some of the hardware/software decoders within the >classic PCs (as well as their emulators) may have only used >the timings of zero-crossings, so they aren't very sensitive >to perfect reproduction of the waves. > >- John > >>Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 16:11:34 +0100 >>From: Paul Geisler <paul.geisler at web.de> >>To: jfoust at threedee.com >>Subject: unknown data tape >> >> >>hello. >> >>i found some old tapes i know nothing about ecept by title it may contain interesting information, and came from merely professional use. >> >>the tapes are recorded on standard compact casette but with some dedication to data recording for example switchable write protection etc. >>the label reads "T 300 Certified Data Casette". >> >>i capture the contents by stereo tape recorder, found both channels nearly equal so guess this mono, mixed them. the tapes are two-sided like normal audio ones. >> >>a strange thing is, that the recording is in small "packets", with empty tape inbetween. i first guessed it is only "empty formatted" tape, but the data packets seem to contain a varying length of information. still strange to waste more than a half of material this way? also strange the packets are ending with a simple tone, instead are headed with, so maybe this is used backward at original drives. >> >>here is a seven packet sample some minutes after beginning of one tape; all tapes seemed to have this same "format" from start to some end location which is not the real tape end: >>http://hirnsohle.de/test/datenSnipplet.wav (16bit mono microsoft-wav 624kb) >> >>i would be very happy if you had any idea how to look at the contents (if any).. i'm currently searching for some sofware "tape modem". i know such things for C64 datasette tapes, so maybe you know some universal program, where different emulations or flexible parameters can be used to find a matching demodulation/decoding? >> >>thanks very much & best regards >>Paul Geisler

20 years, 8 months

2
1
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CUBIX/6809 updates

by henk.gooijen＠oce.com

If you want to go straight to the PDP-11 website, use www.pdp-11.nl It is a faster link too. The "tshaj" link (named after the book written by Jack Vance) is from an ISP that offers cheap (slow) webspace. As written: comments are always welcome! - Henk, PA8PDP > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of woodelf > Sent: zondag 11 december 2005 23:31 > To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: CUBIX/6809 updates > > Allison wrote: > > >Henk, > > > >Love the "Blinkenlight project". ;) > > > > > Well I'm not Henk but here is his site. http://home.hetnet.nl/~tshaj/ This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation.

20 years, 8 months

1
0
0 0

VAXstation 4000 vlc default boot

by healyzh＠aracnet.com

What are the proper commands to set, and save, the default boot device for a VAXstation 4000 VLC? Mine keeps defaulting to trying to boot from ethernet. Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | 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, 8 months

1
0
0 0

Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Fri, 09 Dec 2005 11:00:19 -0800 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >On 12/9/2005 at 1:35 PM Allison wrote: > >>I added why it was faster. For the V20 in a XT clone it was easily 10% and >>for the V30 is was more.. > >Yes, but there the tech manuals and your explanation disagree. NEC seems >to think that the dual data busses were the big thing, but you mentioned >the EA calculation difference. Wonder which resulted in more performance >boost. Both. The address calc was on the wider bus so that it was not in a critical path. You needed the busses inorder to do the cal with fewer cycles and intermediate temp storage. The EA calc and the dual busses were important when Intel went to court over it. There were distinct differnces how they worked inside even though the socket was the same. What I never figured out for sure was if the 8080 used current segment or not. the differnce is the 8080 emulation would then be capable of running as if there were N many (available ram/64k) differnt ram areas making a banked 8080 possible. then again I never really looked at that seriously enough to implement. >>On the other hand there is a sorta improved Z80 like thing NEC did, the >>ucom7800 series and they are interesting. Looks Z80 like but the >>instruction set is anything but. I have a bunch of the PIGGYback >>(78PG11) and romless 7800 parts. > >Just look at the Rabbit 2000 instruction set. "Sort of Z80" is the best >way to describe it. Many additions and deletions. Before I programmed it, >I had two choices--either sit down with the manual and carefully note >differences or program it in C, the way Rabbit wanted me to. Suffice it to >say that the level of binary compatibility would be a serious barrier to >getting Wordstar running, if that was one's intent. ;) Fortuately the 7800 never claimed to be Z80. However to anyone familiar it was the same hardware different microprogram. Nice microcontroller with analog. Allison

20 years, 8 months

14
42
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CUBIX/6809 updates

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: CUBIX/6809 updates > From: woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> > Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 15:31:24 -0700 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Allison wrote: > >>Henk, >> >>Love the "Blinkenlight project". ;) >> >> >Well I'm not Henk but here is his site. http://home.hetnet.nl/~tshaj/ Thanks, should have known as I'ts in my bookmarks as a PDP-11 site of note. Allison

20 years, 8 months

1
0
0 0

CUBIX/6809 updates

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: CUBIX/6809 updates > From: woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> > Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 14:18:17 -0700 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Dave Dunfield wrote: > >>(The debug enhancements are brought to you courtesy of the stack >>corruption bug :-). >> >> >and the number 6809 ... >Looking at his home page you got alot more stuff about old machines >including a few 8's 11's and 12's. >I think cubix was a good idea, but this 15 years too late for me as I >realize in hindsight that 128k of >memory - split code and data is needed for any real work. This the >crummy 8088 has but not the 6809. If I were doing something that needed I&D and all sorts of space then a 8088 would not come to mind either! Though 68000 would easily or even Z8000. If it were serious work then all bets are off, a paycheck depends on results. For hobby, it's more of doing something unique and different from what I've done before. Also the project has a set of goals, portable, modest power needs (battery), and enough cpu power to be useful as complete project rather than a artifact that has marginal use if any at all. If I were building TTL again nothng less than 24bits. ;) Allison

20 years, 8 months

2
1
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CUBIX/6809 updates

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

Henk, Love the "Blinkenlight project". ;) Do tell us more, if you have a web page please point! Allison > >Subject: RE: CUBIX/6809 updates > From: "Gooijen, Henk" <henk.gooijen at oce.com> > Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 22:48:15 +0100 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Great Dave. >I will soon be picking up the intended floppy disk interface for my 6809 board (Blinkenlight project). >I must definately have a better look at your pages! Your site was already known to me :-) >Perhaps I should not put so much work in my 6809 code, but grab yours. But then I'll ask first! > > greetz, >- Henk, PA8PDP > >________________________________ > >Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org namens Dave Dunfield >Verzonden: zo 11-12-2005 12:55 >Aan: cctalk at classiccmp.org >Onderwerp: CUBIX/6809 updates > > > >For the benefit of any one who is building up a 6809 based system and >planning to run my CUBIX OS (or thinking about it): > >I have just updated the source code, documents, disk images and simulator for >the CUBIX/6809 system which are available on my site. > >Main change is that I have ported my Micro-C 6809 compiler over to run native on >the system. Languages currently included with CUBIX are: Assembler, Asp (high- >level assembler), Basic, Forth, APL and now C. > >Due to the large size of the C documentation, the documentation diskette has >been split into two physical disks (well... images for the simulator), "System/Utilities" >and "Languages". > >The C compiler happened to expose an obscure stack corruption bug in the OS, >so I have hunted that down and swatted it. > >I've also updated the simulator to include the ability to import/export text files as >console input/output, and enhanced the debugger to include the ability to >disassemble in either "6809" mode ("SWI" == "SWI"), or in "CUBIX" mode >("SWI / FCB xx" becomes "SSR xx") and a nifty "Step over" command which >allows you to execute at full speed until the stack pointer returns to where you >started. (The debug enhancements are brought to you courtesy of the stack >corruption bug :-). > >Regards, >Dave > >-- >dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield >dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com >com Collector of vintage computing equipment: > http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html > > > > > > >This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. >If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. >If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. >Thank you for your cooperation.

20 years, 8 months

2
1
0 0

Fwd: unknown data tape

by jfoust＠threedee.com

Speaking of audio cassette storage, I received this inquiry to my web. Click the link to hear the data he has... What's odd to my ear is that the data seems to be packeted between carrier. Might this be someone's custom data, as opposed to ordinary program load/save? As for why MP3s work fine and .WAV is unnecessary, MP3's compression divides the signal into ~32 frequency bands, then encodes the amplitude of those over time. The typical two-frequency sine modulation used by cassette data recorders probably fits quite well into those two bins, and MP3 would recreate the simple sine waves quite well. After all, some of the hardware/software decoders within the classic PCs (as well as their emulators) may have only used the timings of zero-crossings, so they aren't very sensitive to perfect reproduction of the waves. - John >Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 16:11:34 +0100 >From: Paul Geisler <paul.geisler at web.de> >To: jfoust at threedee.com >Subject: unknown data tape > > >hello. > >i found some old tapes i know nothing about ecept by title it may contain interesting information, and came from merely professional use. > >the tapes are recorded on standard compact casette but with some dedication to data recording for example switchable write protection etc. >the label reads "T 300 Certified Data Casette". > >i capture the contents by stereo tape recorder, found both channels nearly equal so guess this mono, mixed them. the tapes are two-sided like normal audio ones. > >a strange thing is, that the recording is in small "packets", with empty tape inbetween. i first guessed it is only "empty formatted" tape, but the data packets seem to contain a varying length of information. still strange to waste more than a half of material this way? also strange the packets are ending with a simple tone, instead are headed with, so maybe this is used backward at original drives. > >here is a seven packet sample some minutes after beginning of one tape; all tapes seemed to have this same "format" from start to some end location which is not the real tape end: >http://hirnsohle.de/test/datenSnipplet.wav (16bit mono microsoft-wav 624kb) > >i would be very happy if you had any idea how to look at the contents (if any).. i'm currently searching for some sofware "tape modem". i know such things for C64 datasette tapes, so maybe you know some universal program, where different emulations or flexible parameters can be used to find a matching demodulation/decoding? > >thanks very much & best regards >Paul Geisler

20 years, 8 months

4
4
0 0

CUBIX/6809 updates

by henk.gooijen＠oce.com

Great Dave. I will soon be picking up the intended floppy disk interface for my 6809 board (Blinkenlight project). I must definately have a better look at your pages! Your site was already known to me :-) Perhaps I should not put so much work in my 6809 code, but grab yours. But then I'll ask first! greetz, - Henk, PA8PDP ________________________________ Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org namens Dave Dunfield Verzonden: zo 11-12-2005 12:55 Aan: cctalk at classiccmp.org Onderwerp: CUBIX/6809 updates For the benefit of any one who is building up a 6809 based system and planning to run my CUBIX OS (or thinking about it): I have just updated the source code, documents, disk images and simulator for the CUBIX/6809 system which are available on my site. Main change is that I have ported my Micro-C 6809 compiler over to run native on the system. Languages currently included with CUBIX are: Assembler, Asp (high- level assembler), Basic, Forth, APL and now C. Due to the large size of the C documentation, the documentation diskette has been split into two physical disks (well... images for the simulator), "System/Utilities" and "Languages". The C compiler happened to expose an obscure stack corruption bug in the OS, so I have hunted that down and swatted it. I've also updated the simulator to include the ability to import/export text files as console input/output, and enhanced the debugger to include the ability to disassemble in either "6809" mode ("SWI" == "SWI"), or in "CUBIX" mode ("SWI / FCB xx" becomes "SSR xx") and a nifty "Step over" command which allows you to execute at full speed until the stack pointer returns to where you started. (The debug enhancements are brought to you courtesy of the stack corruption bug :-). Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation.

20 years, 8 months

2
1
0 0

CUBIX/6809 updates

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: CUBIX/6809 updates > From: Tom Uban <uban at ubanproductions.com> > Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 10:37:55 -0600 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Cool Dave! > >Is this running on other hardware than your homebuilt 6809 machines? Can >you please describe the Cubix features (disk?, commands?, etc.)? Or should >I just RTFM... I'll comment. Ave has two distinct systems listed on his web site and their interesting. I'm working on building one for portable(toteable) use. First I'd say I'm >from the 8080/8085/z80/z180 mostly world though I've played with lots of others. This is however my first real venture into the 68xx world though I'd looked at 6809 for a long time and have a COCO3 to play with. So I'm not near as comfortable with 6809 as many may be. What I've learned looking and working with the sim is that it's a very good cpu and somehow never got the populartity I'd have expected for the performance. Basic features: 6809 with a low chip count and despite the apparent low clock speed the CPU cycle usage is different (close to 6502) and operating speed is decently fast. Basic design (portable) is 48k ram and ROM resisdent OS. The resident OS can address up to 32mb of storage per logical device and the OS is sophisticated in that sparse files and scatter/gather are nominally part of it (like CP/M, unix, VMS). The OS is easily configured for any device (floppy, IDE, CF whatever). Same for IO (serial memory mapped video). One central item in my mind is that it's complete with supporting software such as editors, assemblers, languages and the sources are there. The documentation is good as well. Reading the manual gives depth to what I'm only outlining here. The outstanding feature if your interested at all, there's a good simulator for the hardware with matching software to play with, test drive if you will. The sim plays well on my P166 NT box, my W98 P100 and a dosbox. >I wrote a ton of 6809 assembly when I was programming pinball machines >at Williams/Bally in the 90's. ;) Then I'd expect you'll find programming the '09 familiar. Allison >--tnx >--tom > >At 11:55 AM 12/11/2005 +0000, you wrote: > >>For the benefit of any one who is building up a 6809 based system and >>planning to run my CUBIX OS (or thinking about it): >> >>I have just updated the source code, documents, disk images and simulator for >>the CUBIX/6809 system which are available on my site. >> >>Main change is that I have ported my Micro-C 6809 compiler over to run >>native on >>the system. Languages currently included with CUBIX are: Assembler, Asp (high- >>level assembler), Basic, Forth, APL and now C. >> >>Due to the large size of the C documentation, the documentation diskette has >>been split into two physical disks (well... images for the simulator), >>"System/Utilities" >>and "Languages". >> >>The C compiler happened to expose an obscure stack corruption bug in the OS, >>so I have hunted that down and swatted it. >> >>I've also updated the simulator to include the ability to import/export >>text files as >>console input/output, and enhanced the debugger to include the ability to >>disassemble in either "6809" mode ("SWI" == "SWI"), or in "CUBIX" mode >>("SWI / FCB xx" becomes "SSR xx") and a nifty "Step over" command which >>allows you to execute at full speed until the stack pointer returns to >>where you >>started. (The debug enhancements are brought to you courtesy of the stack >>corruption bug :-). >> >>Regards, >>Dave >> >>-- >>dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield >>dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com >>com Collector of vintage computing equipment: >> http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html

20 years, 8 months

1
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A Hobbyist DECnet Network

by bob＠jfcl.com

I'm interested in setting up a network of hobbyist DEC machines linked together in a DECnet phase IV network. Why? I suppose there's no really good reason, but it seems like it would be fun to be able to do "SHOW NET" or "NCP SHOW ACTIVE NODES" and see a whole long list of machines that aren't mine :-) Besides, it would be a good way to share access to real, non-simulated, VMS/RSX/RSTS and even, maybe, TOPS-10 or 20, machines. Does anyone else agree? Is anyone else interested in participating? I know I'm not the first to think of this; in particular, I've had a few email discussions recently with Johnny Billquist about HECnet, http://www.update.uu.se/~bqt/hecnet.html At some point I'd like to link up with HECnet, but right now Johnny is having ISP problems and it sounds like HECnet is down to one or two nodes. Are there any other hobbyist DECnet associations that are going strong? As for technology, it seems like the best thing would be to use the Internet as our communications medium. Nobody wants to pay for point-to-point leased lines anymore, after all. Multinet, TCPware, and even DECNet Phase V all have the ability to send DECnet traffic over IP. Right now I'm leaning towards Multinet - they have a free hobbyist license program, and Multinet can create point-to-point virtual DECnet circuits using UDP packets that can be routed over the Internet. They're simple to set up and administer. I have a fair amount of Internet bandwidth available at my location, and I can set aside a VS4000 VLC or model 90 to serve as a dedicated Phase IV routing node. Bob Armstrong

20 years, 8 months

9
15
0 0

Using an ipod shuffle with 8-bit machines

by James＠jdfogg.com

> Subject: Using an ipod shuffle with 8-bit machines > > I found this link yesterday : > > http://sbeam.dk/blog/?p=9 > > I thought some people here might find it interesting, I have > done similiar things myself with a portable cd-player and > with a pc sound card. A bit expensive just for this, but if > you get the quality quite high you can vastly increase the > loading speed. I would expect the lossy compression of MP3 would drop precious bits.

20 years, 8 months

3
2
0 0

Using an ipod shuffle with 8-bit machines

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Using an ipod shuffle with 8-bit machines > From: Pete Turnbull <pete at dunnington.plus.com> > Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 13:52:03 +0000 (GMT) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"<cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On Dec 11 2005, 13:34, Dan Williams wrote: >> > >> > I would expect the lossy compression of MP3 would drop precious >bits. >> > >> > >> > >> It says in the article that he used wav files and mp3's didn't work > >Hmm.. All I can say is it works for me and some other people who use >it for Exidy machines, and I know several people who've used MP3s for >BBC Micros. Perhaps the Amstrad machine is being unusually picky or >perhaps there was something unusual about the MP3 encoding he tried. > Loosing bits shoulld not render a problem. The original audio recorders were pretty low fidelity so loosing a few waveform buts are trivial. Keeping mind that cassette port data is binary bits represented as audio tones. That data had to withstand all the assaults a casette and the associated 20-50 dollar lo-fi recorder and player delivered. Lossy MP3 is very hi-fi compared to that. Allison

20 years, 8 months

1
0
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Using an ipod shuffle with 8-bit machines

by pete＠dunnington.plus.com

On Dec 11 2005, 13:34, Dan Williams wrote: > > > > I would expect the lossy compression of MP3 would drop precious bits. > > > > > > > It says in the article that he used wav files and mp3's didn't work Hmm.. All I can say is it works for me and some other people who use it for Exidy machines, and I know several people who've used MP3s for BBC Micros. Perhaps the Amstrad machine is being unusually picky or perhaps there was something unusual about the MP3 encoding he tried. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

20 years, 8 months

1
0
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Using an ipod shuffle with 8-bit machines

by pete＠dunnington.plus.com

On Dec 11 2005, 8:22, James Fogg wrote: > > Subject: Using an ipod shuffle with 8-bit machines > > > > I found this link yesterday : > > > > http://sbeam.dk/blog/?p=9 > > > > I thought some people here might find it interesting, I have > > done similiar things myself with a portable cd-player and > > with a pc sound card. A bit expensive just for this, but if > > you get the quality quite high you can vastly increase the > > loading speed. > > > I would expect the lossy compression of MP3 would drop precious bits. It doesn't. Some of us have been doing this for years. It's not new :-) Almost all the games and commercial software I have for my Exidy Sorcerer are MP3s which load at 1200 baud. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

20 years, 8 months

1
0
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Using an ipod shuffle with 8-bit machines

by williams.dan＠gmail.com

I found this link yesterday : http://sbeam.dk/blog/?p=9 I thought some people here might find it interesting, I have done similiar things myself with a portable cd-player and with a pc sound card. A bit expensive just for this, but if you get the quality quite high you can vastly increase the loading speed. Dan

20 years, 8 months

1
0
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6502 Operating Systems

by leeedavison＠yahoo.co.uk

> Once upon a time someone I knew in a large 3-letter computer > company disassembled OS65-D over a month or two of watching > football games on TV. ... > I have no idea if he is still around, and if the source is > either. I'll ask about. The source is here .. http://www.osiweb.org/osiweb/ .. in .pdf form Lee. .. ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Exclusive Xmas Game, help Santa with his celebrity party - http://santas-christmas-party.yahoo.net/

20 years, 8 months

1
0
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6502 Operating Systems

by terry＠terryking.us

At 10:58 PM 12/10/2005 -0600, you wrote: > > Anyone tried OS-65D, early disk operating system from Ohio Scientific?? > Not > > sure about the > > hardware dependencies.... > >Tell me a little about it. Is there source somewhere? OSI did not release the source. Once upon a time someone I knew in a large 3-letter computer company disassembled OS65-D over a month or two of watching football games on TV. He was the kind of guy who needed to keep his mind busy while watching football..... He eventually got a set of commented source that would reassemble and run, and we were able to add a new printer driver to some jump table. I have no idea if he is still around, and if the source is either. I'll ask about. That disassembled OS65D listing had something to do with a big fight that ended up with the IBM PC having the BIOS LISTING!! in the TechRef. But that's another story.... Regards, Terry King ...On The Mediterranean in Carthage, Tunisia terry at terryking.us

20 years, 8 months

1
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Keep DAA! (was Re: 8086 bugs)

by leeedavison＠yahoo.co.uk

> Now, how about lowercase hex (a-f instead of A-F)? Adjusting by > 39 instead of 7 would be a sufficient pain that I do not consider > this algorithm suitable. You don't need to, just OR the result with $20. Lee. .. ___________________________________________________________ To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre. http://uk.security.yahoo.com

20 years, 8 months

2
1
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need info on Cirus logic Processor set in a PDP8

by g-wright＠att.net

Hi I have A PDP8/A with a Cirus logic Processor board set. This uses the other DEC IO boards but has it own Processor board set. I seems to work but I have not figured out the Console ports and if one can Bypass the ROM boot. Thanks, Jerry Jerry Wright JLC inc g-wright at att.net

20 years, 8 months

1
0
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"Market" for old macs?

by carlos＠jimulco.autonoma.edu.co

Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>Toast, of course. Before Nero existed, I used a Mac IIci and Toast >>for all my CD burning needs. > Which version of Toast? Under which version of Mac OS? You made me go to the basement to verify... Let's see: Toast 3.5.7, Jam 2.5, MacOS 7.6.1 on the IIci, and MacOS 8.6 on an 8100. carlos.

20 years, 8 months

2
1
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looking for a Signetics N8234N Chip

by g-wright＠att.net

Hi, ALL I'm working a DEC PDP8 M8316 console board and need a Signetics N8234N IC. Can't seem to find them with out spending 100.00 minimum order. Any pointers would be helpful. Thanks, Jerry Wright Jerry Wright JLC inc g-wright at att.net

20 years, 8 months

1
0
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TU56 motor capacitors

by djg＠pdp8.net

Mine are shot and I was looking for replacements. I found this site part DAL-2EJ100 that looks like a acceptable replacement but min buy of 50 at $4 each = $200 http://www.capacitorindustries.com/excessinv.htm It looks like the existing ones are 2" by 4 1/8", these are 2" by 4.92" which seems like they will fit ok. Is anybody else looking for capacitors who would like to split an order? If so email me and I will buy them and split across all the interested people. Know of any other good source?

20 years, 8 months

2
1
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Reading Mac 800k Disks on Non-Mac Systems

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

as an aside to this thread, the Victor 9000/Sirius micro, an 8088 system purported to operate in minimum mode, used a disk scheme similar to Macs. More data was stored on the outer tracks, squeezing 1.2meg I think onto a DD disk. Theres a site based in the UK with gobs of software. Good luck hacking up a boot disk though. Victor was a reputable calculator maker at one time, but flopped in the PC business. Their 2nd model, the VPC-II, a real compatible, is less seldom found. Mine lacks the keyboard :( --- cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org <alhartman at yahoo.com> wrote: > On my Atari 520-ST, I have a "Magic Sac" from David > Small, that emulates a Mac 128/512 or a Mac Plus with > the appropriate ROMS. > > I bought the optional "Transporter One" which is a > seperate computer (Z-80 Based, I think...) that reads > and writes to 800k Floppies using the Floppy > Controller port and the MIDI ports on the ST to > communicate to the Transporter One. > > I also have a Spectre GCR, which is the follow on > product when David Small started his own company. > > This unit has something in it that allows it to > read/write to 800k Floppies without the Transporter > One. > > The Transporter is slow, and we used to convert Mac > Floppies to the Proprietary Magic Sac 800k Format that > could be accessed with the ST's Floppy Controller. > > This was a pretty neat solution at the time, giving > one a FASTER Mac than a Mac, with a bigger screen and > access to Parallel Printers (using "Epstart"). > > I did a lot of advertising work on my ST back in the > day. Unfortunately, my AERCO Ram upgrade gave up the > ghost, and I can't find the Docs for it. > > So, I'm back to 512k unless I want to piggyback some > RAM and take it up to 1024k. > > Used to have 2.5mb, which for a Mac Plus was plenty! > > Someday, I'll get it working again... Or find a MegaST > cheap with a Hard Drive. > > Those were nice systems. A shame Atari didn't sell > them as business computers in a professional form > factor. > > I also used to have a Trackstar 128, which would allow > a PC to Emulate an Apple ][+, and with a minor mod to > certain floppy drives... Read and Write Apple II disks > natively. > > I've gotta find another one of those someday. > > I think I have a board here called a "Hydra", at > least... That's what the guy who sold it to me said it > was... It was a board for an AT that was a MacPlus on > a board, and allowed the PC to run Mac Software. I > don't have any docs, software, or cables for it... > > And I'm not even sure this board IS a "Hydra" board. > > It has a 68k processor on it, but I don't see any Mac > ROMS. > > This might be a terminal emulator board that someone > thought was a Hydra Board. > > Regards, > Al Hartman > Philadelphia, PA > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

20 years, 8 months

1
0
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Reading Mac 800k Disks on Non-Mac Systems

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

you guys should post some pics of your boards and stuph. In the event of a lack of a place to put them, use the photo area of the Midatlanticretro yahoo group. You have my express permission LOL LOL. And Al lives in the area, and wed love to have you sign on. To my knowledge there is currently no member with a specific interest in STs (besides me). --- cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org <bernd at kopriva.de> wrote: > On Fri, 9 Dec 2005 08:48:58 -0800 (PST), Al Hartman wrote: > : > > > >I think I have a board here called a "Hydra", at > >least... That's what the guy who sold it to me said it > >was... It was a board for an AT that was a MacPlus on > >a board, and allowed the PC to run Mac Software. I > >don't have any docs, software, or cables for it... > > > >And I'm not even sure this board IS a "Hydra" board. > > > >It has a 68k processor on it, but I don't see any Mac > >ROMS. > > > >This might be a terminal emulator board that someone > >thought was a Hydra Board. > > > : > I've such a board here as well, but unfortunately without any > docs and software too ... > ... it includes 4 ATT 3030 Chips, a MC68000, 4 MB Rams and some > Zilog chips. There are connectors for floppy and scsi drives too. > I would be very happy to get it up and running > > > Ciao Bernd > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

20 years, 8 months

1
0
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IBM RT

by tponsford＠theriver.com

I just rescued a complete IBM RT PC. It includes all the documentation. AIX 2.x software, extra keyboards, extra cards, extra HDD;s and extra tape drives. It also has an extra ESDI hard drive labeled Reno 4.3. Was there a port of 4.x BSD to the ROMP processor? I thought that it was tried but not completed. There is also a backup tape labeled AOS? The whole system looks like its in pretty good condition. And maybe after consuming mass quantities of turkey tomorrow, I'll see if it boots up. Cheers Tom

20 years, 8 months

7
7
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Cromemco software available

by dm561＠torfree.net

---------------Original Message------------------- From: "Dave Dunfield" <dave04a at dunfield.com> Subject: Re: Cromemco software available <snip> > I've also got various Cromemco and third-party S/W packages for the > Z80/68000/68010/68020 and Unix systems; will post a list one of these days. > > However, I've been archiving them as MS format ZIP files instead of disk images; > that way it doesn't matter whether you've got 5" or 8" disks (also, I only had some > of them on hard disks). Mind you, you would need a way to copy them back from > MS to CDOS/Cromix/Unix format and of course you'd still need a boot disk > for each O/S. It would be nice to get this material archived, however it will be tough for most people to make use of it. Would it be feasable to make up boot disks with the utilities necessary to peform serial transfers, and provide ImageDisk images of these which could be used to download the remaining software from the PC into the target system? Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html -------------------Reply---------------- That's what I had in mind when I started to archive this stuff way back when, at least for the OSs: one or more bootable disk images in both sizes and a ZIP file of either a TAR file of the rest or individual files, depending on whether links and attributes are required. The problem I saw with just imaging is the 5" and 8" disks; for example, how would someone install your 8" image of Cromix on his/her System One? Also, I couldn't be bothered to install an 8" drive on the PC. Finally, at least some of this stuff might also run on non-Cromemco systems so it might be useful to have it in a form that is readable on the (more or less) universal PC. I was really just interested in archiving the stuff and not too concerned with storing it in a directly installable form. This works for me, but I realize it's not ideal. Is there a better way of archiving this stuff? Suppose you had a copy of Cromix+ on 8" disks, one bootable and three others in FTAR format; how would you archive that in a way so that someone with a System One and no 8" drive could install it, keeping the links and attributes intact? Or you find an interesting package installed on your System 3 HD ( If/when you get it working :); how do you archive that, again, keeping links & attributes intact? I'm using Cromix+ to copy & transfer stuff; it would indeed be useful to have a comm program configured for a Cromemco running CDOS or Z80 Cromix that can do xmodem or kermit; Since you'll shortly be getting copies of most of this stuff anyway, I'll gladly leave it in your hands :) mike

20 years, 8 months

1
0
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PDP 11/73 is ALIVE!

by VAXDECman＠aol.com

Hi, I saw this posting on the web. Thought you might have a version of RSX11M+. I'm trying to get a KDJ11-SD modified so I can run RSX on it. Thanks, Greg Miller Plymouth, MI

20 years, 8 months

2
1
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Request to mailing list cctech rejected

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

Hey Jay, Whats this?? I cannot corrolate it to any thing I may have sent ow was awake to send. Allison > >Subject: Request to mailing list cctech rejected > From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org > Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 01:16:35 -0600 > To: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net > >Your request to the cctech mailing list > > Posting of your message titled "Re: Legacy apps in Windows/OS X >was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software" > >has been rejected by the list moderator. The moderator gave the >following reason for rejecting your request: > >"Non-members are not allowed to post messages to this list." > >Any questions or comments should be directed to the list administrator >at: > > cctech-owner at classiccmp.org

20 years, 8 months

1
0
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A Hobbyist DECnet Network

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: A Hobbyist DECnet Network > From: der Mouse <mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca> > Date: Fri, 09 Dec 2005 03:00:23 -0500 (EST) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >> Probably there just aren't many hackers out there who know enough >> about DECnet to worry about, > >I suspect there are actually plenty of them - several are probably on >this very list - but most (verging on all, would be my guess) are >honest enough to be no problem. > There's a story of a VAX at DEFCON that was subjected to the hordes and stood well. VMS has good security out of the box, always did. It can be made very tight without much effort and it's also so different >from PCs (Hardend OS and protection in hardware) so security by obscurity doesn't hurt. Allison

20 years, 8 months

3
2
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Cromemco software available

by dm561＠torfree.net

I've got a few working Cromemcos and could check them out for ya, although Dave D is probably better qualified since he wrote ImageDisk. I've also got various Cromemco and third-party S/W packages for the Z80/68000/68010/68020 and Unix systems; will post a list one of these days. However, I've been archiving them as MS format ZIP files instead of disk images; that way it doesn't matter whether you've got 5" or 8" disks (also, I only had some of them on hard disks). Mind you, you would need a way to copy them back from MS to CDOS/Cromix/Unix format and of course you'd still need a boot disk for each O/S. If that's an IMI 7700 series drive (or two), a couple of tips: a lot of them had problems with the power connectors oxidizing so check those carefully (unless they've been replaced). Also, the older models had locking screws, so check that as well before you spin it up. Is it internal or external, BTW? And are those diskettes really single-sided? Z-2Ds generally had 2 DSDD TM100s and could read & write all four formats. Good luck! mike -----------------Original Message------------------ From: Doc Shipley <doc at mdrconsult.com> Subject: Cromemco software available To: General at mdrconsult.com, "Discussion at mdrconsult.com":On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <4397CA23.6000503 at mdrconsult.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Does anybody have a working Cromemco with 5.25" SSSD floppy drive[s]? I finally made it out to pick up my Z-2D, and it came with a lot of floppy diskettes. As it's going to be awhile before I bring up the Z-2D to boot - it hasn't been powered up in many years, so I'll be cleaning and then powering it up in stages - I thought I'd go ahead and image the diskettes. I've spot-checked a couple with 22Disk and they seem to have valid data, so I'm going to try my hand at Dave Dunfield's ImageDisk. I'd like for someone with a working system to try the images and see if they're bootable. <snip>

20 years, 8 months

2
1
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Keep DAA! (was Re: 8086 bugs)

by leeedavison＠yahoo.co.uk

> Now, what's it do? Nibble to hex ASCII probably, similar code can be used on the 6502 and 680x0 processors as well. Lee. .. ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

20 years, 8 months

1
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IBM DASD alternatives?

by ceby2＠csc.com

Folks -- Has anyone tried creating mainframe compatible DASD with commodity components? I now have an S/390, but am trying to pare it back to a fighting weight (one that'll fit the electrical limitations of my flat). The DASD are monster 14" platters with 400MB capacity each -- 9332-Model400. And the system requires 5 of them with its current configuration. I was wondering if there was a way to adapt the system to more modest disk types much way as has been done with some of the recent PDP re-implementations with flash and 2.5" IDE. Any thoughts? While we're at it, I'm still interested in offloading two of my IO cabinets and a bunch of COM controller feature cards. I haven't had any takers so far. Thanks, Colin Eby -- ceby2 at csc.com CSC - EMEA Northern Region - C&SI -Technology Architect -------------------------------------- This is a PRIVATE message. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete without copying and kindly advise us by e-mail of the mistake in delivery. NOTE: Regardless of content, this e-mail shall not operate to bind CSC to any order or other contract unless pursuant to explicit written agreement or government initiative expressly permitting the use of e-mail for such purpose. --------------------------------------

20 years, 8 months

5
10
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Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software > From: "Michael B. Brutman" <mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com> > Date: Fri, 09 Dec 2005 19:09:22 -0600 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Jim Leonard wrote: > >> >> Here's another dumb question: When I open up one of my XTs, why does >> my 8088-1 have an AMD logo on it? > >That's an easy one ... IBM insisted on two sources for the 8088. AMD >made an 8088 clone under license from Intel, and was the second supplier >used by IBM. Unlike the V20, it was an exact duplicate. > > >Mike >www.brutman.com/PCjr > By that time NEC had the 8088, AMD, And at least one European SGS maybe and a few I may have forgot. in 1981 The 8088 was already three years old! Allison

20 years, 8 months

1
0
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Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software > From: woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> > Date: Fri, 09 Dec 2005 11:25:09 -0700 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Chuck Guzis wrote: > >>Hmmm, thought I just said that. One of the more highly-touted performance >>improvements in the V20/V30 was the implemenation of dual internal data >>busses. In practice, I don't know if it made a huge difference in speed, >>but NEC claimed up to a 30% improvement for som operations.. >> >> >> >That was a long time ago ... the XT clone wars. Back then a M$ mouse $100. >No need to gouge the public with windows /85 :) > >>I thought it interesting that the 8080 emulation of the V20/V30 emulated >>the Intel 8080A and not tne NEC 8080A instruction set. >> >> >> >So what instructions did the NEC 8080A have different? > >>Cheers, >>Chuck The early NEC 8080 (round lid prior to 77ish) set the flags wrong I believe it was the sign flag though I'd have to check. After IMSAI and others dumped them for the big they redesigned to exactly match the Intel 8080A, NEC part was 8080AF. Allison

20 years, 8 months

3
2
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Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Date: Fri, 09 Dec 2005 18:28:07 +0000 (GMT) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> It was quite somethig to take an 8088, 8284(clock gen), 8205 (aka74138), >> 8755, 8155 and have a complete 16bitter in 5 or so chips. However, the > >IIRC there was a Circuit Cellar article in Byte for a 5-chip machine >using the 8088. The other chips were, IIRC, the clock generator, 8155 >(RAM + I/O), 8355 (ROM + I/O) and an Intel RAM chip with multiplexed >address/data buses. The address decoding was done by just connecting the >chip enables to the high-order address lines... Yes, that circuit is straight out of the intel appnote. >Well, I've read the datasbook, I've seen it in use, but have never >designed with it. What's the problem? It always struck me as a lot nicer >than the 8237 + page registers that IBM used in the PC think about it. It's a microprocessor with a flat 20bit address and nothing like the 8088. In some respects is nicer. I had to write a simple debugger for it using the host for the IO. Very ugly and hard to control. Allison

20 years, 9 months

2
1
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VS2000 speed (was RE: A Hobbyist DECnet Network)

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: VS2000 speed (was RE: A Hobbyist DECnet Network) > From: "John Allain" <allain at panix.com> > Date: Fri, 09 Dec 2005 15:23:30 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >I remember my uVII (RD54 on QBus, no Windowing) taking about 9 minutes >to boot, and about 15 seconds to do a HELP page. Still worth the wait, >compared to PCDOS certainly. > >John A. I bet if it had 6mb of ram it was alot. Also if "help" was that slow it's because to save disk space it wasn't unpacked, add to that a lot of paging and swaping and eek bad. My smaller ba23 uVAXII is only 8mb but, I gave up the tape for a second disk an RD31. The RD31 was the swap and page disk as they were fairly fast (16 heads not a lot of cylinders). That helped a lot and the tuning of the startup helped. Got a lot of the waiting out. The BA123 has SCSI with two RZ56 and MSCP for RD54 and 53 and that with 16mb of ram is noticeably faster, even with DECwindows running useing the local hardware it's not bad. One VMS trick I've found helps is put the page and swap on another spindle, it helps. Even a netbooted VS2000 with 20mb local for page and swap flies noteably better. Allison

20 years, 9 months

1
0
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A Hobbyist DECnet Network

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: RE: A Hobbyist DECnet Network > From: "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com> > Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2005 22:47:25 -0800 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >At 9:33 PM -0500 12/8/05, Allison wrote: >> > [The first "personal" VAX I ever owned was a VS2000, around 1989/1990. I >>>used to come home, turn it on, and I could make dinner while I waited for it >>>to boot and start DECwindows!] >> >>I have three of them, one is used for formatting disks both floppy and hard. >>My first uVAX was a MicroVAX-II in BA23, still have it. > >Is a VS2000 really that slow to boot? I own one, but it has memory >problems, they don't prevent me from formating drives, but they do >prevent it from booting an OS. The VS2k is a bare bones uVAX-II cpu and inst very fast but I never thought the boot to be unusually slow unless the dianogstic were running. However if the startup of the various added processes (DECNnet and DECwindows) is in the wrong order or done all at once the process can drag out as you run into needing one to enable the next and they are all eating up the cpu at the same time. A little tweeking of SYS$startup.com makes a differnce. One thing is pruning off unused or unneeded stuff. >My first uVAX was a VAXstation II/RC in a BA23, I've still got it, >though the monitor needs repaired. My second was a MicroVAX II in a >BA123, and was the first VAX I got running, it's now my PDP-11/73. >I've never seen a MicroVAX II boot slow enough to make dinner :^) > > Zane I always used VT100/125 or VT340 as they are smaller than the huge 19" DECwindows tube. Allison

20 years, 9 months

7
6
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Old MS-DOS & WIN Software

by dm561＠torfree.net

I'm getting rid of several large boxes of old MS-DOS & WIN software, OSs, apps, languages, utilities, games, etc. Also boxes of hardware such as PC MoBos, cards, keyboards, external print buffers, converters, <=9600bd modems etc. I realize without a detailed list this is rather vague, but I'd like to know if there's any interest in this sort of stuff to make it worth while actually making that list. If not here, maybe someone knows of another list where someone may be interested? TIA, mike

20 years, 9 months

28
103
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A Hobbyist DECnet Network

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: A Hobbyist DECnet Network > From: Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> > Date: Fri, 09 Dec 2005 01:07:33 -0500 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Robert Armstrong wrote: >>>How would you protect these older systems against abuse from >>>the random crackers? VMS is probably tolerably safe in >>>current versions, if properly managed, but I'm betting there >>>are problems with other OSes. You could do vpns, I suppose. >> >> >> Depends on what you mean. Ordinary ("ordinary" :-) people who don't have >> a VAX running Multinet and join the "network" wouldn't be able to get in to >> any of the DECnet machines. >> >> However, it is true that the Multinet DECnet virtual circuit over IP has >> virtually no security. It would be easy, if you knew a little bit about >> DECnet and were so motivated, to sniff or spoof the traffic. Probably there >> just aren't many hackers out there who know enough about DECnet to worry >> about, and they have better targets for their efforts. >> >> Yes, you could solve the problem with VPNs. Multinet v5.1 seems to have >> the ability to do IPSEC, but I have no experience with that feature. If >> it's anything like IPSEC on a PC, it's a lot of overhead for a poor VAX. > >Ciscos will do DECnet Phase IV secure tunnels over IP too. So will IBM >Mainframes. > >Peace... Sridhar At one time DECnet was the routing protocal for other tunneled protocals. Allison

20 years, 9 months

4
3
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VS2000 speed (was RE: A Hobbyist DECnet Network)

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: RE: VS2000 speed (was RE: A Hobbyist DECnet Network) > From: "a.carlini at ntlworld.com" <arcarlini at iee.org> > Date: Fri, 09 Dec 2005 19:03:42 +0000 > To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Robert Armstrong wrote: >>> The VS2k is a bare bones uVAX-II cpu and inst very fast but I never >>> thought the boot to be unusually slow unless the dianogstic >>> were running. >> >> RD5x drives are painfully slow, and this is especially a problem in >> the VS2000 because the integrated disk controller a) lacks DMA, and >> b) lacks the T11 chip to do local processing found in a RQDXn - the >> uVAX CPU has to do all the work. > >Wolfgang Moeller produced some patches way back when for the >uVAX/VS 2000 that would allow it to use a SCSI disk. > >Never actually tried it myself (as I had RD drives available >and faster machines if I just wanted speed). > >Antonio I have RD drives so I never tried it. I also now have RZ drives and it would be a good time to try it. Allison

20 years, 9 months

1
0
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Reading Mac 800k Disks on Non-Mac Systems

by alhartman＠yahoo.com

On my Atari 520-ST, I have a "Magic Sac" from David Small, that emulates a Mac 128/512 or a Mac Plus with the appropriate ROMS. I bought the optional "Transporter One" which is a seperate computer (Z-80 Based, I think...) that reads and writes to 800k Floppies using the Floppy Controller port and the MIDI ports on the ST to communicate to the Transporter One. I also have a Spectre GCR, which is the follow on product when David Small started his own company. This unit has something in it that allows it to read/write to 800k Floppies without the Transporter One. The Transporter is slow, and we used to convert Mac Floppies to the Proprietary Magic Sac 800k Format that could be accessed with the ST's Floppy Controller. This was a pretty neat solution at the time, giving one a FASTER Mac than a Mac, with a bigger screen and access to Parallel Printers (using "Epstart"). I did a lot of advertising work on my ST back in the day. Unfortunately, my AERCO Ram upgrade gave up the ghost, and I can't find the Docs for it. So, I'm back to 512k unless I want to piggyback some RAM and take it up to 1024k. Used to have 2.5mb, which for a Mac Plus was plenty! Someday, I'll get it working again... Or find a MegaST cheap with a Hard Drive. Those were nice systems. A shame Atari didn't sell them as business computers in a professional form factor. I also used to have a Trackstar 128, which would allow a PC to Emulate an Apple ][+, and with a minor mod to certain floppy drives... Read and Write Apple II disks natively. I've gotta find another one of those someday. I think I have a board here called a "Hydra", at least... That's what the guy who sold it to me said it was... It was a board for an AT that was a MacPlus on a board, and allowed the PC to run Mac Software. I don't have any docs, software, or cables for it... And I'm not even sure this board IS a "Hydra" board. It has a 68k processor on it, but I don't see any Mac ROMS. This might be a terminal emulator board that someone thought was a Hydra Board. Regards, Al Hartman Philadelphia, PA __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

20 years, 9 months

2
1
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cctalk Digest, Vol 28, Issue 27

by alhartman＠yahoo.com

A question... Anyone remember a board called "The Trash Compactor"? I went into a TRS-80 Model I case, and basically turned it into a Model III. It included the Disk Controller, Serial Interface and parallel interface all on one board. If anyone even has info about this board, I'd be interested to see it. Thanks! Al __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

20 years, 9 months

2
1
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Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Fri, 09 Dec 2005 10:52:21 -0800 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >On 12/9/2005 at 1:38 PM Allison wrote: > >>The early NEC 8080 (round lid prior to 77ish) set the flags wrong >>I believe it was the sign flag though I'd have to check. After IMSAI >>and others dumped them for the big they redesigned to exactly match >>the Intel 8080A, NEC part was 8080AF. > >I thought it was interesting that although IMSAI wouldn't use the NEC 8080A >part on their CPU cards, they freely used it in their floppy controller. >Probably to use up old stock, who knows? > >Cheers, >Chuck >(still got one of them old round-lid NECs) the FDC was canned code (rom) so they know what it was going to do. the S100 cpu broke with some basics using the NEC. Funny thing is the Intel data from '74 may also have been misleading. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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TSX Plus distribution status...

by lbickley＠bickleywest.com

I've received a number of emails over the past few months as to the status of the TSX Plus distribution for hobbiests. I'm finally to the place where I thought I would be a few months ago! Some of this is background material - but I've included a fair amount of technical information which I hope will enable others to recover data from old disk drives that would otherwise be unreadable. -- As you may recollect, some months ago I contacted S&H Computer Systems, Inc. on behalf of collectors to see if I could obtain a free license, binaries, and documentation for TSX-Plus for collectors. After a bit of negotiating regarding the free license, I was granted permission to release TSX-Plus to hobbiests. I was provided with a copy of the latest release, including documentation. -- About the same time, I was told that S&H might be scrapping out their 11/73 system "in a few months". I told them not to scrap it out - but let me know when they wanted to "make it go away". Shortly thereafter, I was told they needed the space for a tenant - and the 11/73 needed to disappear. I put out a "rescue" request on this list (The "Nashville rescue") - and after a good deal of back-and-forth, a couple of folks responded to rescue. The only items I wanted were the disks that contained TSX "anything" - and that I'd be willing to pay whatever shipping costs there were to California. What I got was six RL02 packs and one Fujitsu 2312K (at about 85 pounds) and its associated Emulex SC02/C controller, cables, etc. (The SC02/C makes the 2312K look like two RK07's plus one RK06). I put together an 11/83 system from spare parts I had around, including a "new" TK50 drive. After getting it up - I tried out the 2312K - and it wouldn't even go "ready". When I disassembled the drive electronics (two boards) - I found that one of the jumpers on the second board was bent badly and the jumper had fallen off in shipment. My guess is that it was bent from the getgo - and the jumper fell off in the process of shipping it from Nashville to CA. At any rate - after I straightened out the pins and replaced the jumper - the drive would go "ready". I was able get directories for DM0:, DM1: and DM2:!!! I thought I was "home free" - but then a "nastyness" occurred - I got many errors (temporary and permanent) reading files from the 2312. I put out a manual request on this list - and fortunately, Joe Heck responded to my request and mailed me a copy of the M2312K manual. This was a Godsend - I couldn't have gone much further without it. After reading both the M2312K manual and the Emulex manual - I discovered a feature which saved the day. The drive and Emulex controller support "Servo Offset Plus and Minus". This means that the conroller will, on discovering a sector error, offset the cylinder position either plus or minus 3 micrometers off track and attempt to read the record again. I modified settings on the Emulex board to turn this feature "on". Subsequent to making this setting, the disk could "almost" entirely be read without permanent errors. Unfortunately, when I tried to backup and verify the disk to tape - I got a number of verify errors. Back to the "drawing board". Many of the files on the disk were huge ".dsk" files. Unfortunately, the likelihood of a permanent error in a huge file proved to be very likely. So while the above fix made recovering small files very likely - the huge files (12,000-36000 blocks long) remained error prone. I concluded that I'd have to further enhance my recovery technique. I decided to add a 40 MB RD32 (ST-251) to the system and recover data by disk to disk copies, followed by tape backup of the RD32. I found the best way of recovering data in this situation was to "mount" the "filename.dsk" files to a logical disks - and then copy the contents to a newly created and mounted logical disk on the backup disk. In many cases there were no errors in any of the copied files - even when the original .dsk files had several errors! While this technique worked well, it took a LOT of work and time. I literally spent weeks getting all the data off the 2312, The good news is this: The original release I received from S&H (which is all end users ever received) was 5.6 MB in size. After the 2312 and RL02 data recovery - I have about 73.5 MB of source, data and code. Included is a complete PDP-11 accounting system (which I've also received permission to release after I strip it of data files). I have the TSXPlus licensing software which can generate keys. This may or may not me necessary for hobbiest use - but at least I now have it if we need it. I haven't had the time to look at all the stuff that's in the 73.5 MB - that's a LOT of PDP-11 code! Given that I also have a "real" job - this has taken an extraordinary amount of work. I feel very relieved that the worst is over and now I can actually "play" with whatever I have archived. (Archived on tape, ZIP disks, and my companies RAID5 disk array - I'm not about to loose it now!!!). Additionally, I paid for the shipment of four huge boxes of TSX-Plus source listings to be sent from Nashville to California - and have given them to Al for scanning into bitsavers. While some of the source is in the archived data - most of it was "lost" by S&H at some point in history - except for the hard copy listings... After a bit of recovery time, I'll finally start getting TSXPlus, RTSORT, S&H COBOL and documentation - with licensing forms - on my Website for any and all PDP-11 hobbiests to download. Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

20 years, 9 months

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Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Fri, 09 Dec 2005 09:54:34 -0800 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >On 12/9/2005 at 7:35 AM Allison wrote: > >>The other differences were internal effective address calculation was >>handled >>differntly from 8088 which shaved a few cycles of the execution. For the >>same clock V series were between 5-10% faster. Also the V20/V30 had 8080 >>emulation. > >Hmmm, thought I just said that. One of the more highly-touted performance >improvements in the V20/V30 was the implemenation of dual internal data >busses. In practice, I don't know if it made a huge difference in speed, >but NEC claimed up to a 30% improvement for som operations.. I added why it was faster. For the V20 in a XT clone it was easily 10% and for the V30 is was more.. Really nice parts. I'm generally not into 8088 but I've kept some of the older and newer V20s that have crossed my path for "maybe one day". The faster parts could scream. I kept a Tandy 1000hx because it was odd and used the V20. >FWIW, my reference manual for the 70108/70116 is dated August 1985 and >identifies both as "Low Power CMOS"; no mention otherwise of any other fab >technology. NEC did later offer the -H series variants (V20H, V30H, etc.) >which featured fully static operation and lower power consumption than the >V20/V30--and you could get them in clock speeds of up to 16 MHz. Those were the HCMOS process the change was mostly for speed. >I've got a reasonably thick folder in my files titled "Natick" with a bunch >of correspondence with the NEC folks there on the whole subject. The V40, >which was sort of an 80188 in CMOS (PGA, QFP and PLCC pacakges) also >claimed to emulate the 8080 instruction set, but I never got hold of one to >try it out (or I didn't care to). Likely from my old office and boss. By 85 it was CMOS before that it was NMOS. Even the first NMOS parts were really hybrid and much lower in power than the HMOSII from intel. Between 82 and 85 NEC was working on CMOS designs real hard and the first non-propritory 8 bit parts were 80C35. I have a few of the first samples with the page boundary bug, fixed in production. The V40/50 parts were still futures in 83 when I left. But looked interesting. >I thought it interesting that the 8080 emulation of the V20/V30 emulated >the Intel 8080A and not tne NEC 8080A instruction set. > >Cheers, >Chuck Well the Intel 8080A and the NEC8080AF are the same. NEC discontinued the incompatable 8080 version back around '78, they got burnt bad. The V20 implemented the 8080AF as bad memories were not lost. I have both versions. Taught them a lesson in compatability that wasn't forgotten. Even the 8085 and D780(Z80) execute the same undocumented instructions. On the other hand there is a sorta improved Z80 like thing NEC did, the ucom7800 series and they are interesting. Looks Z80 like but the instruction set is anything but. I have a bunch of the PIGGYback (78PG11) and romless 7800 parts. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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VS2000 speed (was RE: A Hobbyist DECnet Network)

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: VS2000 speed (was RE: A Hobbyist DECnet Network) > From: "Robert Armstrong" <bob at jfcl.com> > Date: Fri, 09 Dec 2005 10:24:55 -0800 > To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >> The VS2k is a bare bones uVAX-II cpu and inst very fast but I never >> thought the boot to be unusually slow unless the dianogstic >> were running. > > RD5x drives are painfully slow, and this is especially a problem in the >VS2000 because the integrated disk controller a) lacks DMA, and b) lacks the >T11 chip to do local processing found in a RQDXn - the uVAX CPU has to do >all the work. Nope. the SMC9224 part did have DMA. It didn't have the ability to DMA further than 16mbytes. It was the MSPC translation to that part that was painful. It also had SCSI via the NCR5380, but since SCSI was not yet a standard it doesnt talk to anything useful (OK, other than the TK50). the lack of T11 was less a hit than lack of the implied buffering it gave. The uVAX-II was not that much faster in booting. Oh if you had less than 8mb ram the swapping was very painful!!! And most only had 2M or 4m. > Starting DECwindows, especially, took forever... > > [Also, maybe I can cook dinner faster than you :-)] >Bob Nah, I order out. Standard programming foods, PIZZA! ;) Allison

20 years, 9 months

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Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software > From: woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> > Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2005 19:30:35 -0700 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > > >What I do find odd that the 8086 came out first then a few years later >the 8088. >It still think the 8086/8086 could have had two instruction sets -- >8080 emulation and >a better 16 bit design. Not that I know of. I remember being able to get 8088s before the 86s and that was back in 78 or early 79. It was quite somethig to take an 8088, 8284(clock gen), 8205 (aka74138), 8755, 8155 and have a complete 16bitter in 5 or so chips. However, the 8089 IOP was a piece of cruft and one big pain to debug. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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A Hobbyist DECnet Network

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: RE: A Hobbyist DECnet Network > From: "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com> > Date: Fri, 09 Dec 2005 09:01:55 -0800 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >At 7:49 AM -0500 12/9/05, Allison wrote: >> >My first uVAX was a VAXstation II/RC in a BA23, I've still got it, >>>though the monitor needs repaired. My second was a MicroVAX II in a >>>BA123, and was the first VAX I got running, it's now my PDP-11/73. >>>I've never seen a MicroVAX II boot slow enough to make dinner :^) >>> >>> Zane >> >>I always used VT100/125 or VT340 as they are smaller than the huge 19" >>DECwindows tube. >> >>Allison > >Actually for the most part I've always used a VT220, VT320, or now >VT420's. I don't think I ever managed to get the VAXstation II/RC >booted when the monitor was working, and once I actually wanted to, I >discovered the monitor wasn't working. For the past several years >it's been sitting in a storage unit under a DECwriter II terminal. I >ended up with the MicroVAX II before I could get ahold of a >replacement disk and copy of the OS for the II/RC. I have a choice of terminals to use and a tube or two. VT100, Vt125, H19, VT320, VT340 and a VT1200. If all else failes PC running PROCOM. I also have a VR160 and 190. >In the past, I have used 17" to 21" monitors on my Alpha's running >VMS, and come to think of it I briefly had my VS4000VLC hooked up to >the 17". Still for the last 5+ years all I've normally used is a >VT420 as the system console and simply used telnet or ssh to connect >to a shell session. Every few months I pull up a DECwindows session >on my Mac. > > Zane The only thing I havent tried is an Xwindows session on a PC. I do have Pathworks and the LAT interface is ok too. Generally I don't need to connect physically with the VAXen as they are small require minimal attention and live happily while tucked in a corner. Where the PCs need attention, the reset swich must be accessable and they must have a local console to be remotely useful as anything but a server and even then a tube is needed for diagnostic work. ;) Allison

20 years, 9 months

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Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software > From: woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> > Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2005 21:35:58 -0700 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Lance Lyon wrote: > >> From: "Allison" <ajp166 at bellatlantic.net> >> To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org> >> Sent: Friday, December 09, 2005 1:38 PM >> Subject: Re: Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win >> Software >> >> >>> >>> I've been around computers since I met a strapping PDP-8I back in '69. >> >> >> I feel so young - 1979 and an Exidy Sorceror! :-) > >I feel so old - PDP/S in 1981 > . and I lift PDP-8s and the like nd should know better. Ouch! Allison

20 years, 9 months

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IBM DASD alternatives?

by ceby2＠csc.com

>There's actually a couple of ways. You can do it through the front-end, >and you can do it over a SAN. >Peace... Sridhar >Sridhar - Okay, lemme clarify. The system is a 9221, air cooled rack mount system (built in 1992). So yes it's a ES9000 as opposed to an s390. Sorry I'm still getting used to the distinctions. I was working in Windows and UNIX when this system was out. I only started playing with big iron relatively recently. This one's pretty low end, 64 MB main, parallel channel adapter and as I mentioned, the older 9332-400 DASD. The features I have right now or communication and DASD/tape. I finished sorting through the cables, and irritatingly I need to find some bus&tag DB78 stock before I can hook up the 9332s. Anyone trying to dump bus & tag DB78 cabling? And, coming back to what you wrote, Sridhar, I wasn't sure what you meant by defining minidisk through the front end? Thanks, Colin Eby -- ceby2 at csc.com CSC - EMEA Northern Region - C&SI -Technology Architect ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a PRIVATE message. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete without copying and kindly advise us by e-mail of the mistake in delivery. NOTE: Regardless of content, this e-mail shall not operate to bind CSC to any order or other contract unless pursuant to explicit written agreement or government initiative expressly permitting the use of e-mail for such purpose. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

20 years, 9 months

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Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software > From: Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> > Date: Fri, 09 Dec 2005 01:22:45 -0600 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >> I'm only 28, and my father had a PDP-11/70 in our apartment when I was >> born. I still have that machine... > >Now how the hell am I supposed to compete with that? :-) You dont. A base PDP11/70 was less than three racks and only a bit power hungry. But it was the machine! Allison

20 years, 9 months

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HECnet

by johnny.billquist＠softjar.se

"Robert Armstrong" <bob at jfcl.com> wrote: > I'm interested in setting up a network of hobbyist DEC machines linked > together in a DECnet phase IV network. Why? I suppose there's no really > good reason, but it seems like it would be fun to be able to do "SHOW NET" > or "NCP SHOW ACTIVE NODES" and see a whole long list of machines that aren't > mine :-) Besides, it would be a good way to share access to real, > non-simulated, VMS/RSX/RSTS and even, maybe, TOPS-10 or 20, machines. And it's fun to interconnect different OSes and architectures. Since this question now has popped up, I thought I'd go through a few points of interest for those who want to know or join. First of all, yes, HECnet exists, works and have done so for a couple of years. But the interest have been very limited. I don't know why. Maybe because I don't frequent the right group of people. Same reason people tend to forget the ftp archive I have of PDP-11 software, which (in my eyes) is the better place to find atleast RSX stuff. :-) To begin with: HECnet is DECnet Phase IV, and nothing else. Anyway. HECnet started out as point-to-point connections using asynch serial DDCMP. This was because it was the easiest and most obvious way to solve this. Tunneling normal serial interface traffic is very easy. It was, however, limited by both by which OSes actually supported this (RSX and VMS afaik), the fact that you needed physical asynch interface on the machine, and the fact that this limited the network speed to 9600 bps. The next step was to tunnel ethernet instead. I wrote a small program running under Unix which does exactly that. It uses the berkley packet filter to get packets, and to send them as well. This means that an independent machine on the same ethernet segment is needed to do the tunneling. At the time I was doing this, I couldn't find any ready solution for this. I did look at GRE, but figured it cannot be used, since it requires the OS to atleast understand the packet in order to figure out that it should go on the GRE tunnel. DECnet is not understood by most Unix versions. Now, if I'm wrong, I'm all ears to implementing it. There also sometimes exist a bridge interface, which might be useful, but once again I haven't exactly been sure, so I've skipped it for now. My current bridge program have some flaws that are related to DECnet. First of all it don't learn where different MAC addresses are, to limit transmits. Second, you can decide which machines packets that are sent out on a bridge, but since it appears as one single ethernet segment, things can get wrong when one machine in one area wants to talk with a machine in another area, and wants to use the other areas router directly (since they have contact). This means that if you run an area router, you actually need to allow all machines to send traffic to anywhere. Some of these things are easy to improve, and I should probably address them. But since interest have been so low, the need hasn't exactly been acute. But maybe if this picks up. If you want to join HECnet, there are a few things we need to fix. First of all, we need the connection established. My machines are sitting at a site where I have very large bw, and no problems running 24/7. I have an area router, and another machine that acts as the bridge. So what you need is a machine to act as your endpoint of that bridge. It can either be a Unix machine, or something else, if we just get the connection going to some other host on HECnet. The requirements for my bridge software is really a machine that can send ethernet packets with anything as the source mac address, since that need to be faked. Most modern PCs can fake that, but I don't think SUN machines can. If you'd prefer to run something else than Unix, I'd be happy to help porting my bridge program. If you have a machine that actually can route DECnet over IP, it's in a way a better solution, but I can't deal with it right now. We'll have to start working on it. Let me know and we can talk. Second, since DECnet have addresses as well, this address database needs to be organized and allocated. For HECnet, I need to administer this. What I do is either allocate an area for someone who wants it, and then that area can be managed locally, or I can assign addresses from area 1, which I use myself. At the moment, only areas 1 and 11 have been spoken for. The node namespace in DECnet is flat, and while it's also local to every machine, it's nice to try to keep it uniform, so I prefer to keep track of node names, and have a master list locally, which people can copy >from when they want to. That also means you should register wanted node names. The area router for area 1 is an RSX-11M-PLUS machine. There are actually several area routers on area 1. MAGICA:: is a real PDP-11/70 running RSX-11M-PLUS. MIM:: is an emulated PDP-11, running RSX-11M-PLUS. ERNIE:: is a real PDP-11/84 running RSX-11M-PLUS. PONDUS:: is a real PDP-11/83 running RSX-11M-PLUS. ERNIE and PONDUS are at my home, and since my ISP left me stranded I don't have any permanent connection to my home right now, so they are mostly offline. MAGICA is normally not on at the moment, because of budget problems. This leaves MIM. MIM is normally online and running. I have been experimenting (together with John Wilson, the author of E11) with MIM lately in some interesting new features, which unfortunately have left MIM without a working ethernet at times. However, if we're serious about this, I can always keep MIM running a bit more safe. There are about 20 machines in area 1, and about the same number in area 11, which is managed by Saku Setala in Finland. The machine running the bridge is normally always on as well, so even with MIM out of the loop, everything should work fine. If you have any questions, just write me. If you want to join, write me as well. We'll start by figuring out how to hook you up, and we'll also allocate nodes, or an area for you. Johnny > > Does anyone else agree? Is anyone else interested in participating? > > I know I'm not the first to think of this; in particular, I've had a few > email discussions recently with Johnny Billquist about HECnet, > > http://www.update.uu.se/~bqt/hecnet.html > > At some point I'd like to link up with HECnet, but right now Johnny is > having ISP problems and it sounds like HECnet is down to one or two nodes. > > Are there any other hobbyist DECnet associations that are going strong? > > As for technology, it seems like the best thing would be to use the > Internet as our communications medium. Nobody wants to pay for > point-to-point leased lines anymore, after all. Multinet, TCPware, and even > DECNet Phase V all have the ability to send DECnet traffic over IP. Right > now I'm leaning towards Multinet - they have a free hobbyist license > program, and Multinet can create point-to-point virtual DECnet circuits > using UDP packets that can be routed over the Internet. They're simple to > set up and administer. > > I have a fair amount of Internet bandwidth available at my location, and I > can set aside a VS4000 VLC or model 90 to serve as a dedicated Phase IV > routing node. > > Bob Armstrong > > > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2005 23:43:29 GMT > From: Pete Turnbull <pete at dunnington.plus.com> > Subject: Re: Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win > Software > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic > Posts"<cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Message-ID: <10512082343.ZM22810 at mindy.dunnington.plus.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > On Dec 8 2005, 16:26, Jim Leonard wrote: > >>Allison wrote: >> >>>You lived a shelterd life. >> >>I lived a young life. I first became of programming age in late > > 1970s so my > >>first CPUs were 6502, Z80, 68000, and 808x. > > > Whether it's called a Half Carry or an Auxiliary Carry seems to depend > somewhat on whose data book you read. I've seen both used for the Z80 > for example, indifferent manuals. > > ...in a 6800, it's called the Auxiliary Carry; in a 6809 it's called a > Half Carry. It's bit 5 of the status register in both. > > ...in a Z80 and 8086 it's called the Auxiliary Carry; it's bit 4 in the > Flags register in these and 8080/8085. > > ...it's bit 5 in 8048 and 8051 series micrcontrollers. > > There's no (visible) equivalent in a 6502 because of the way its > special Decimal Mode for BCD arithmetic works. Ditto for a 68000. > There isn't one in an ARM either. > -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at update.uu.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

20 years, 9 months

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Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software > From: Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> > Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2005 19:29:43 -0600 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Allison wrote: >> Ah but, what I said didn't reflect on age only experience. ;) >> >> Then again kid... ;) > >Great. I'm 34 and a "kid" in this group. Maybe appreciation of classic >computers should also be subject to the "decade rule" too? ;-) Nah, that would take all the fun out! ;) I've been around computers since I met a strapping PDP-8I back in '69. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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A Hobbyist DECnet Network

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: A Hobbyist DECnet Network > From: "Robert Armstrong" <bob at jfcl.com> > Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2005 15:41:03 -0800 > To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > > I'm interested in setting up a network of hobbyist DEC machines linked >together in a DECnet phase IV network. Why? I suppose there's no really >good reason, but it seems like it would be fun to be able to do "SHOW NET" >or "NCP SHOW ACTIVE NODES" and see a whole long list of machines that aren't >mine :-) Besides, it would be a good way to share access to real, >non-simulated, VMS/RSX/RSTS and even, maybe, TOPS-10 or 20, machines. > > Does anyone else agree? Is anyone else interested in participating? I've been able to do that here for about 15 years internal to my room. Mostly 3100s (pizza box) of the microVAX flavor, MicroVAXIIs and MicroVAX2000s. Decnet is cool and LAVC is something I've never been able to reproduce with PCs. I try to boot the FLYIN: cluster a few times a year with members (CESSNA:, PIPER:, RUNWAY:, FBO:, MOONY:, MAUL:, BEECH: and C150U:). All of my VAXen are headless, I use a VT1200 xterm to "set host" to them. As to doing ove the internet, DSL, and floating addresses are a problem. There used to be a TOAD on the net (DEC system20 or somesuch), Is it still? > I know I'm not the first to think of this; in particular, I've had a few >email discussions recently with Johnny Billquist about HECnet, > > http://www.update.uu.se/~bqt/hecnet.html > >At some point I'd like to link up with HECnet, but right now Johnny is >having ISP problems and it sounds like HECnet is down to one or two nodes. > > Are there any other hobbyist DECnet associations that are going strong? Start with www.OpenVMS.org and link from there. > As for technology, it seems like the best thing would be to use the >Internet as our communications medium. Nobody wants to pay for >point-to-point leased lines anymore, after all. Multinet, TCPware, and even >DECNet Phase V all have the ability to send DECnet traffic over IP. Right >now I'm leaning towards Multinet - they have a free hobbyist license >program, and Multinet can create point-to-point virtual DECnet circuits >using UDP packets that can be routed over the Internet. They're simple to >set up and administer. More money that I can devote right now (power too). But interesting to follow and maybe later.. > I have a fair amount of Internet bandwidth available at my location, and I >can set aside a VS4000 VLC or model 90 to serve as a dedicated Phase IV >routing node. > >Bob Armstrong Actually a MicroVAX2000 with a RD54 is enough for routing if you can shoehorn the OS and enough ram in it. Routing is not a high cpu usage problem. For phase IV routing VMS5.4 is enough and that fits in a RD53(71mb) well enough and isn't as ram hungry as V7.x. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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A Hobbyist DECnet Network

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: RE: A Hobbyist DECnet Network > From: "Robert Armstrong" <bob at jfcl.com> > Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2005 16:37:06 -0800 > To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > > >> As to doing ove the internet, DSL, > > DSL? What's DSL? You don't mean the phone line, DSL ? Yep, or more specifically ADSL over phone lines. > >>and floating addresses are a problem. > > If you mean DECnet addresses, then yes, we'd have to have some >coordination of the addresses used. WE can just assign people a block of >addresses; I doubt that we'll have enough members for it to be a real >management problem. Not the DECnet addresses the IP addresses. >> There used to be a TOAD on the net (DEC system20 or >> somesuch), Is it still? > > As it happens I know a guy with an XKL machine in his apartment that might >be willing to connect. Don't know if we're talking about the same person. I dont think it's the same person, I can't be sure. But yes the XKL be it and the node/machine name was TOAD. >> More money that I can devote right now (power too). But >> interesting to follow and maybe later.. > > What's the money required? If you already have a VAX then you're set. >Power is an expense, of course, but you don't have to leave your node up >24x7. I already have a uVAX2000 running Ultirix as firewall so I guess I could. The problem is when I run VMS on the others I'm used to running a few as I don't want them to be lonely. ;) >>Actually a MicroVAX2000 with a RD54 is enough for routing if you can >> shoehorn the OS and enough ram in it. Routing is not a high >> cpu usage problem. > > Yeah, but a 4000/VLC takes less power, less space, and boots lots (lots!!) >faster. It's the lowest power budget (and therefore cheapest to operate >24x7) VAX I know of. Really? The uVAX2000 power supply maxes at 160W though the 3100m10s and M76s are not much more. Also the uV2k is only .5cuft I think there are smaller pizza boxes though. I happen to like that the UVAX2000 actually has a handle! > [The first "personal" VAX I ever owned was a VS2000, around 1989/1990. I >used to come home, turn it on, and I could make dinner while I waited for it >to boot and start DECwindows!] I have three of them, one is used for formatting disks both floppy and hard. My first uVAX was a MicroVAX-II in BA23, still have it. There are two 3100m76, three VAXserver3100, Two MicroVAX-11s in my collection of uVAX and at least four Storage expansion boxes, two TLZ04 tapes, and a pair of TZK-50s. I had a bunch more when U Vermont stopped using uVAX for mail servers years ago. About half run VMS5.44 under unlimited license and the rest 7.2 under hobbiest license. The rules around here is if it don't dim the neighborhood lights and it fits in the room I can keep it. Right now the room is cubed out. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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A Hobbyist DECnet Network

by ken＠seefried.com

From: "Robert Armstrong" <bob at jfcl.com> > Yes, you could solve the problem with VPNs. It's late and I'm tired, but isn't moving things like DECnet around what something like GRE tunnels can solve? Build logical networks over the Internet and have your DECnet world. Lot's of things can do GRE these days (Linux, for example). > Probably there > just aren't many hackers out there who know enough about DECnet to worry > about, and they have better targets for their efforts. True (as I deal with this for a living). The things that hackers are interested in using hacked machines for has changed. It's not about defacement any more, and if it's not high bandwidth and/or large storage, it's not worth the time. Not that you shouldn't be careful, though...:-) Ken

20 years, 9 months

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Z-Star 433VL

by tolik_trek＠mail.ru

Hello! I am from Russia. I have Z - Star 433 VL too... Without adapter. Have you found something about this adapter? I want to make it from another adapter, but i don`t know anything about it power plug. Do you know something about? Thanks, good bye!

20 years, 9 months

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"Market" for old macs?

by trag＠io.com

>Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 18:19:05 -0500 >From: Scott Stevens <chenmel at earthlink.net> >On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 23:59:42 -0500 >"James Fogg" <James at jdfogg.com> wrote: > >> > James Fogg wrote: >> > > My interests stop at the "classic" Macs, of which the SE30 is the >> > > height of engineering achievement (in my opinion). >> > >> > Why? I know a bit of the classic Mac engineering history >> > thanks to Andy's retro website/book, but I know nothing of the SE30. >> >> OK, neither do I (it's too late to argue). It is the last of the classic >> Macs and has the greatest number of features and capabilities. >> > >Actually it isn't the last of the Classic Macs in a certain sense. Apple > produced several other inferior compact Mac machines that aren't nearly > as expandable as the SE/30. The Macintosh Classic is an example of this, if > I'm not mistaken. The Classic can't sport anywhere near as much RAM as > the SE/30. The SE/30 is essentially the IIcx with the NuBus slots sawn off and a little (very little) video RAM and video circuitry added. It was a nice machine. 16 MHz 68030 with fully 32 bit wide data and address paths. Maximum RAM is 128 MB with eight 16MB 30 pin SIMMs. Color capability is in the ROM, but requires one of the somewhat rare video cards (SE/30 PDS slot) and goes to an external monitor. The follow up models which had similar form factors were far inferior. The Mac Classic really ought to be compared to the Mac Plus or Mac SE (somewhat superior to the former and inferior to the latter). The only thing the Classic had going for it is that Mac OS 6.03 is in the ROM, so you can boot with no available disk. It *should* have had the Mac Portable memory map, so that it could address 8 MB of RAM instead of only 4MB (24 bit address space) and a speed bump from 8 to 16 MHz, but Apple didn't do that. The Classic II was meant to be a follow up to the SE/30 but while it has a 16MHz 68030 its maximum RAM is 10 MB and its data path is only 16 bits wide. Bleah. The Color Classic has the same problem, though it does have a color screen. The Color Classic II was better with 33MHz 68030 and 32 bit data path. The Max RAM was still limited to only 36MB. However, that's a 72 pin SIMM socket with 4MB on the motherboard and Apple never acknowledged that any of their 72 pin RAM machines would address better than 32 MB per slot. Nevertheless many of their machines will work with 64MB or even 128 MB 72 pin SIMMs, so the CCII may have a much higher max RAM than reported by Apple. If that's the case, then the CCII was a worthy successor to the SE/30. Jeff Walther

20 years, 9 months

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A Hobbyist DECnet Network

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: RE: A Hobbyist DECnet Network > From: "Robert Armstrong" <bob at jfcl.com> > Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2005 16:27:16 -0800 > To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > > >> Yeah, as soon as I get my TK50 or one of my 9 tracks working >> I'm going to load DECnet/E, and then hopefully put my >> 11/23plus up on HECnet. > > How were you going to connect physically with HECnet? Set up some other >box as a gateway? > >Bob He can use a DEQNA/DELQA or similar for the Ubus. The laternate is a SYNC card (DPV-11 or whatever) to VAX or other DDCMP host. The real problem is he'll be running DECnet Phase-III however a small uVAX can do routing for that. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software > From: "Dwight K. Elvey" <dwight.elvey at amd.com> > Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2005 16:17:10 -0800 (PST) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >Hi > I still don't fully understand the decimal fuctions >of the 4004. It has similar problems with addition and >subtraction. It, of course, doesn't have to deal with >a half carry, being only 4 bits. >Dwight The 4004 is as they say a "whole nother animal". The decimal arithmetic is actually familiar theme amoung the 4bit(datapath) class of machines TMS1000, NEC uCOM4 and uCOM75, and others dealing with decimal quantities is both easier (no conversions) and allows the data areas in memory to be organized or thought of as long registers of decimal digits. Of course the Carry has to reflect numeric overflows greater than 9d instead of Fh. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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Cap reformation question

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

Hi There is a government spec on reforming capacitors that have been in storage for military specs. I don't recall if I saw this on this list or maybe one of the news groups. Dwight

20 years, 9 months

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Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software > From: Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> > Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2005 16:26:18 -0600 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Allison wrote: >> You lived a shelterd life. > >I lived a young life. I first became of programming age in late 1970s so my >first CPUs were 6502, Z80, 68000, and 808x. > >I'm in my 30s, it's not like I was born in 1985 or anything :) >-- Ah but, what I said didn't reflect on age only experience. ;) Then again kid... ;) Allison

20 years, 9 months

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Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software

by pete＠dunnington.plus.com

On Dec 8 2005, 16:26, Jim Leonard wrote: > Allison wrote: > > You lived a shelterd life. > > I lived a young life. I first became of programming age in late 1970s so my > first CPUs were 6502, Z80, 68000, and 808x. Whether it's called a Half Carry or an Auxiliary Carry seems to depend somewhat on whose data book you read. I've seen both used for the Z80 for example, indifferent manuals. ...in a 6800, it's called the Auxiliary Carry; in a 6809 it's called a Half Carry. It's bit 5 of the status register in both. ...in a Z80 and 8086 it's called the Auxiliary Carry; it's bit 4 in the Flags register in these and 8080/8085. ...it's bit 5 in 8048 and 8051 series micrcontrollers. There's no (visible) equivalent in a 6502 because of the way its special Decimal Mode for BCD arithmetic works. Ditto for a 68000. There isn't one in an ARM either. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

20 years, 9 months

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Timing of PDP-11 Instructions

by jhfinexgs2＠compsys.to

Hi All, I am not sure if there is still sufficient interest, however, I have encountered a rather bizarre timing situation when a specific subroutine is executed on my PDP-11/73. Background: I want to calculate the reciprocal (inverse) of a number between 1 and 65535 to an accuracy of 256 bits after the binary (or decimal) point. This result will then be used to calculate the logarithm of that value which in turn will be used to calculate li(x) for values of x up to 10**38. The code is in FORTRAN 77 (could also be in FORTRAN IV) which calls MACRO-11 code to do the really low level stuff such as repeated addition of many words with MANY Adc instructions following each addition (99.9% of the time the Adc instructions are never used). Preliminary Details: The subroutine first converts the INTEGER * 4 to a REAL * 8 to produce: R8ARG = I2ARG R8RCP = 1.0D0 / R8ARG as the initial 56 bit accurate estimate. The subroutine then continues: I must then convert R8RCP to a: REAL * 64 = INTEGER * 32 / FRACTION * 32 which is actually quite simple since the R8RCP value already contains the value EXP ** 2 which is the number of bits to be shifted right after the R8RCP fraction of 56 bits is unpacked. Next the unpacked 56 bits are moved by a whole number of words for each multiple of 16 bits to be right shifted. Completion is done by shifting right a group of 5 words when the last portion of the total shift is less than 16 bits of shifting. Unpacking uses the instructions: Mov (R0)+,-(R1) Word shifts use the following pair of instructions four times: Mov (R0),-(R1) Clr (R0)+ The final shifting (if needed) uses five instructions of: Ror -(R0) as many times as are required (1 to 15 times) The problem is as follows: When the destination argument address is in PAR0 (address is less than 17600), there is no problem. When I use an argument address in PAR1 (address is above 21000), there is a substantial speed reduction in the subroutine. It takes an average of 1611 microseconds for each of the 65535 cases when the destination address is in PAR0 (specifically 15236) while it takes an average of 6055 microseconds for each if the 65535 cases when the destination address is in PAR1 (specifically 21000) or about 3.75 times as long. What is EXTREMELY interesting is that the above timing is also repeated under E11, although everything is over TWENTY times as fast. Under E11, it takes 65 microseconds using PAR0 and 230 microseconds using PAR1 with the same identical program. I run using RT-11 with RT11XM for all testing, although I did check with RT11FB under E11 with almost the same timing results. I could also check with RT11FB on the real DEC PDP-11/73 if anyone thinks it might be worthwhile. ----------------------------------------------------------------- HOT FROM THE COMPUTER - A BIT MORE DETAIL! At first I was most suspicious of the Mov / Clr pairs since they are the code that is extra. HOWEVER, if I eliminate the last loop with the five Ror instructions, then (although the answer is incorrect - up to 2 ** 15 too large without the final shifts) the timing is the same for both PAR0 and PAR1 arguments. But this result contradicts the earlier version of the code which uses ONLY Ror instructions (a total of 16 Ror instructions are needed to span the 32 bytes in question) to accomplish all the shifting. Because the timing for the earlier version of the code (which is still present, just not used when the branch is taken to the "faster??" version) can now be compared by changing the branch instruction to use the less efficient code, I am still able to compare the timing for both versions - and the timing for the original less efficient version (which still includes the four unpack instructions and many more Ror instructions) is still the same as before for both PAR0 and PAR1 destinations arguments and equal to each other. SO I AM STUMPED!! Even when I turn the five Ror instructions loop into five Nop instructions (as opposed to not doing the loop even when there are more shifts needed - the code checks the remaining shift count, so pretending the remaining shift count is always zero to stop using the last five Ror instruction loop was easy), the timing test with a PAR1 destination argument takes longer even though NOTHING is being done! In fact using a PAR1 destination argument with a five Nop instructions loop still takes more than half of the extra timing (i.e. much more time than for the PAR0 destination argument which still uses the five Ror instructions loop). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HOTTER FROM THE COMPUTER - STILL MORE DETAILS! To my surprise, there is considerable variation even when different PAR0 destination addresses are used. Since the portion of the code up to the final right shifting within 5 words is all that can be different, I am even more mystified. However, after running 3 different code versions at 3 different addresses (2 in PAR0 and 1 in PAR1) on both a real DEC PDP-11/73 and under E11 on a Pentium III 750 (at over 20 times the speed of the PDP-11/73), the results are consistent. When I gradually increase the PAR0 destination argument address right up to the end of PAR0, the timing gradually decreases. When the address is in PAR1 (all or none - the field is 64 bytes long, so the last example in PAR0 is 17600), the average time suddenly jumps, but only for the "more efficient" code version. Since the results of all calculations are correct (verified against a version which uses the less efficient code), I am now totally mystified. I have never seen this occur before in all of the 45 years I have been using computers. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine -- If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the 'at' with the four digits of the current year.

20 years, 9 months

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A Hobbyist DECnet Network

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: A Hobbyist DECnet Network > From: Dennis Boone <drb at msu.edu> > Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2005 19:03:52 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > > > I'm interested in setting up a network of hobbyist DEC machines linked > > together in a DECnet phase IV network. Why? I suppose there's no > > really good reason, but it seems like it would be fun to be able to > > do "SHOW NET" or "NCP SHOW ACTIVE NODES" and see a whole long list > > of machines that aren't mine :-) Besides, it would be a good way to > > share access to real, non-simulated, VMS/RSX/RSTS and even, maybe, > > TOPS-10 or 20, machines. > >That actually sounds interesting. Among other things, it would >give folks like me who are newish to decnet a way to test against >known-working systems. > >How would you protect these older systems against abuse from the random >crackers? VMS is probably tolerably safe in current versions, if >properly managed, but I'm betting there are problems with other OSes. >You could do vpns, I suppose. VMS if not put up sloppy is fairly tight. The was a minor bug in 5.x that was fixed by 5.4. It's put 5.4 or later up against anything current. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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sad to report...

by john_boffemmyer_iv＠boff-net.dhs.org

my company that i work for has just decommissioned an hp9000 system for scrap and 11 dec vt420's circa 1991, unopened, with keyboards. they did not give option on taking them or buying them =/ don't you hate it when the bean counters get involved because they think the scrappers will not be jerks and resell what they get instead of doing their jobs and just scrapping it and keeping it from the employees for personal use? -John Boffemmyer IV -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.1.362 / Virus Database: 267.13.12/192 - Release Date: 12/5/2005

20 years, 9 months

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Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > >It's a problem with instruction sets that implement result codes as a >simple condition code register. The same arithmetic that couints >interations affects the condition codes that one might also need for >searching or computation. That's probably the reason that the increment >and decrement instructions don't bother the carry flag and that the 16-bit >increments and decrements on the 8080 didn't bother any of the condition >codes. Inspection of the 808x instruction set can be very illuminiating, >particularly when it comes to arcana like which instructions modify (and >how) the half-carry flag, for example. > >Cheers, >Chuck Hi I still don't fully understand the decimal fuctions of the 4004. It has similar problems with addition and subtraction. It, of course, doesn't have to deal with a half carry, being only 4 bits. Dwight

20 years, 9 months

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sad to report...

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: sad to report... > From: Don North <ak6dn at mindspring.com> > Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2005 15:39:32 -0800 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Cc: Classic Comp <classiccmp at classiccmp.org> > >When I worked for DEC back in the late 70s / early 80s, they had a >wonderful scrap / salvage center in the Mill complex (basement of >building 5 IIRC) that sold off 'scrapped' DEC parts to employees that >would have otherwise gone to the smelter. Just about anything DEC made >could show up there (albeit in pieces, not whole systems). I took advantage of it as often as I could. I thingk I have every 871A I got from there still. >I seem to remember that DEC mgmt finally shut it down when they >discovered that some employees were internally buying new DEC equipment, >dismantling it and sending the pieces to 'scrap', where they would then >go buy them for 'personal' use at a deep discount (I think the person >running the salvage operation would put this good stuff aside when it >arrived, for a small fee, of course). It was that and also there were people decomissioning good scopes and the like and "picking them up later". I got po'd there when I'd seen a 575 scope in pristine condition and they wouldn't sell it to me. I think it was less than a month later that it all hit the fan. >I don't think it ever reopened after this fiasco. No it didn't. I worked a special deal with my manager to get the PDP-8E off of a permenent property pass and in my hands along with a PDP11/23 in the lab that I was the only user. However, I've been in several places and seen similar abuses cause problems. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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Well, that's just typical! Amiga woes.....

by witchy＠binarydinosaurs.co.uk

While I was running disk salvage tools (DiskSalv) on my newly acquired Amiga 4000 it locked up and gave out head sticky type noises so I thought 'right, back up as much as possible on a more modern machine NOW' So, everything set with scratch disk to back up onto, knoppix booted to allow me to use dd and 4 of the 6 partitions on the Amiga disk put onto the other drive in ISO format......suddenly, the power goes off!!!!! Swear. More than once. Get the machine back online and BOTH disks have died on me. Backup drive won't power up and the Amiga drive no longer responds to the gentle 'power up please' tap I've been giving it. I'm not best pleased* Does anyone know someone with Kickstart 3.1 ROMs that they're willing to sell for less than the leeches on ebay? I've had a generous offer of OS3.9 but I still need the ROMs.... Cheers! *understatement. -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection?

20 years, 9 months

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Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software > From: Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> > Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2005 15:55:58 -0600 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Chuck Guzis wrote: >> codes. Inspection of the 808x instruction set can be very illuminiating, >> particularly when it comes to arcana like which instructions modify (and >> how) the half-carry flag, for example. > >The "half-carry flag"? Huh? You lived a shelterd life. 8080/8085 have a flag that is set when ther eis a carry from the low 4 bits to the upper as part of the DAA (Decimal Adjust Accumulator). Not only is it mostly undocumented therre are a bunch of instructions like Jumps that work with it also undocumented. While I've never deleved deeper than I had to with 8086/88 I'd bet it exits there and and with a few more permutations added. It's not unique to Intel! Allison

20 years, 9 months

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Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software > From: Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> > Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2005 15:39:31 -0600 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Consider on Windows XP that you can still run the following code: >> >> mov cl,9 >> mov dx,offset HWMes >> call 5 > >What is "call 5"? I'm having a brain fart right now and can't parse this. >-- Call 5 is the standard CP/M function call to BDOS parameters like what function is placed in C and DE pointed to string for string output. Goes all the way back to CP/M-80 V1.x Allison

20 years, 9 months

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datasheets for 82S21 - Signetics 32x2 SRAM?

by brad＠heeltoe.com

Does anyone have a datasheet for an 82S21? I checked all the obvious places but can't find one. 82S21 - Signetics 32x2 SRAM thanks! -brad

20 years, 9 months

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SMPSU IC explosion... (UC3844)

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

Random failure of the weekend was a UC3844 IC in a switchmode power supply - with a very loud bang, the entire top of the chip blew off, but there's no *obvious* sign of any other failure within the supply. This was one of two such supplies in a Sun RAID disk controller; the two do current-sharing under normal conditions - but the unit will run on one supply if the other fails, which is exactly what happened here. Leads me to *tentatively* say that the RAID unit itself is 100% and the failure was totally in the PSU. So, given that assumption for now, anyone know of a likely fault in a typical SMPSU that might cause such a catastrophic chip failure but no other obvious damage? Seems like a strange one to me, but I assume that something else in the supply has failed and the chip just couldn't handle it. Whilst knowing a bit of SMPSU theory (and practice), I'm not familiar with the UC3844... Of course maybe it was just time for that chip to die (it was at startup, and this in a server which had probably only been power cycled a handful of times in its life), but it sure was noisy about it. Shame Sun don't publish schematics! cheers Jules

20 years, 9 months

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Bionic Desk

by ploopster＠gmail.com

I know it's a long shot, but would anyone happen to know someone who has an IBM S/32 "Bionic Desk" available? Peace... Sridhar

20 years, 9 months

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Mac Mini

by Richard.Cini＠wachovia.com

Doesn't that essentially get you a VIA EPIA motherboard (except for the SCSI)? Only problem there is that it doesn't run OSX. On my PC at home, although I have "legacy" ports on my Shuttle XPC, I don't use them. I have a USB scanner and color printer. The laser printer is attached to the network though a Netgear print server. The DV_cam connects through FireWire and I use a card reader for the Memory Sticks from my Sony camera. I have a 56k modem, but it's internal. I don't really have any daily-use peripherals that use legacy ports. If I need, I have several other machines that I could use. I personally have not had a problem with USB but maybe I'm not looking hard enough :-) Rich -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jules Richardson Sent: Friday, December 02, 2005 4:30 AM To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Mac Mini Adrian Graham wrote: > On 2/12/05 02:34, "Scott Stevens" <chenmel at earthlink.net> wrote: > >>> My only issue with it is that it only has 2 USB ports and no mic input so by >>> the time you've got your kbd/mouse plugged in your remaining port is taken >>> up by the USB sound module though I guess I could plug that into the >>> keyboard too.....the hard drive is also slow.... >>> >> Can't you just plug a USB hub into one of the ports, and make it into a big >> maze of cables if that suits your desires? > > Yes, and belkin produce such a thing that's the same shape as the mini but I > feel that that's not the point of the machine. Yep, personally I'd only buy a Mac mini if it was 10-20% bigger and came with some real ports - say serial, parallel, and SCSI. Then it'd be a nice compact well-designed machine with some useful connectivity too. It seems that no matter what the USB-advocates say, bodging that sort of stuff on top of Universal Screwed-up Bus plain doesn't work... cheers J.

20 years, 9 months

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6502 OS??

by terry＠terryking.us

At 11:17 PM 12/5/2005 -0600, you wrote: > > I have the same problem. I've got a nice little homebrew 8MHz 6502-based > > micro sitting next to me with an EPROM emulator hooked up. I've got EhBASIC > > running on it, now I'm stuck in a "Now what? Write a DOS?" situation. Anyone tried OS-65D, early disk operating system from Ohio Scientific?? Not sure about the hardware dependencies.... Regards, Terry King ...On The Mediterranean in Carthage, Tunisia terry at terryking.us

20 years, 9 months

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VAX 11/725 anyone?

by John.Skowyra＠hp.com

Do you still have the 11/725 I need the tu58 boot tape. Please respond.. Thanks John J Skowyra Hewlett Packard Manufacturing Engineering Support Engineering Support Services Phone: (603)-884-3397 Fax: (603)-884-3940 Cell: (603)-566-5694 Email: John.Skowyra at hp.com

20 years, 9 months

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How to load ADVENT on PDP-8?

by djg＠pdp8.net

Not sure if this was resolved. I think the adventure on the diagpack2.rk05 was built for running off a floppy. It will not run directly from the rk05 image. The one on this image will run directly from it with RUN RKB0:ADVENT ftp://ftp.pdp8.net/images/os8/diag-games-kermit.rk05 It was built without EAE since my EAE wasn't working right at the time so should work on any machine. If you wish to put adventure on a different image/media follow these instructions http://www.pdp8.net/pdp8cgi/os8_html/ADVENT.DC?act=file;fn=images/os8/diag-… Start from the EXECUTION step since the files needed for the earlier steps no longer exist. If you are moving between an emulator and a real PDP-8 make sure that you disable things like EAE when building that you don't have on the real PDP-8.

20 years, 9 months

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Building M8027 hookup

by millercmp＠keyways.com

Here is a pinout for making a cable to connect an M8027 module to a standard Centronics 36 pin connector. We have used this cable on many of our in-house RT-11 systems and Epson-style printers. In addition to being a DEC dealer, we are a hobbyist in the areas of RT-11, OpenVMS, Oregon Software Pascal-2. Thanks. Mitch Miller Keyways, Inc. Centronics Compatible Cable for the DEC LPV11 Module R. Miller 10-26-89 LPV11 Centronics Compatible 40 Pin Berg Connector 36 Pin Male Connector --------------------- --------------------- --------------------- --------------------- 1 1 --------------------- --------------------- 2 19 --------------------- --------------------- 3 6 --------------------- --------------------- 4 24 --------------------- --------------------- 5 7 --------------------- --------------------- 6 25 --------------------- --------------------- 7 - 8 No Connection -- --------------------- --------------------- 9 3 --------------------- --------------------- 10 21 --------------------- --------------------- 11 2 --------------------- --------------------- 12 20 --------------------- --------------------- 13 5 --------------------- --------------------- 14 23 --------------------- --------------------- 15 8 --------------------- --------------------- 16 26 --------------------- --------------------- 17 4 --------------------- --------------------- 18 22 --------------------- --------------------- 19 - 20 No Connection -- --------------------- --------------------- 21 10 --------------------- --------------------- 22 18 --------------------- --------------------- 23 \ > Tied Together -- 24 / --------------------- --------------------- Centronics Compatible Cable for the DEC LPV11 Module Continued LPV11 Centronics Compatible 40 Pin Berg Connector 36 Pin Male Connector --------------------- --------------------- --------------------- --------------------- 25 11 --------------------- --------------------- 26 29 --------------------- --------------------- 27 - 36 No Connection -- --------------------- --------------------- 37 9 --------------------- --------------------- 38 27 --------------------- --------------------- 39 - 40 No Connection -- --------------------- --------------------- NOTE: Pin 1 of the 40 pin Berg Connector should be inserted into position VV of the LPV11 connector.

20 years, 9 months

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6809 Flex

by david＠thecoolbears.org

Anyone have a copy (5-1/4 or 3-1/2) of flex os for swtpc 6809?

20 years, 9 months

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Cromemco software available

by doc＠mdrconsult.com

Does anybody have a working Cromemco with 5.25" SSSD floppy drive[s]? I finally made it out to pick up my Z-2D, and it came with a lot of floppy diskettes. As it's going to be awhile before I bring up the Z-2D to boot - it hasn't been powered up in many years, so I'll be cleaning and then powering it up in stages - I thought I'd go ahead and image the diskettes. I've spot-checked a couple with 22Disk and they seem to have valid data, so I'm going to try my hand at Dave Dunfield's ImageDisk. I'd like for someone with a working system to try the images and see if they're bootable. Some of the diskette labels are totally incomprehensible to me, but here's a list (almost all hand-labeled): Cromemco CDOS SYSTEM DISK Cromemco 16K BASIC Cromemco Z-2D Test Disk 1 OF 2 CDOS 1.7 & Gen. Utils incl Copy5 [CopyS?] CDOS & Utils vers. 1.7 incl drivers (2.36 cdosgen this or other utils) 2.17 Utilities Backup CDOS Ver 2.58 Boot Z80 Assembler Deadsource Backup Z80 Assembler Backup Z80 Assembler FORTRAN IV FORTRAN IV Backup FORTRAN Files FORTRAN Disk (Steve) Word Processor w/screen edit Structured BASIC 16K BASIC Deadsource Coblink & Rel Progs ** F) .COB Files (Disk 2) Backup Appsadd Working Copy OK TO BOOT HAS HARD DISK CDOS VER. 2.58 Dir Cop.dat Mailing List Rev 07 w/CDOS 2.36 Payroll System Libraries MICROEMACS Source DS Boot Disk Z-2D Screen Editor for Soroc 120 VCALC, LCALC, Search Subroutines Disk Yes, it does have a Cromemco Hard Disk. I'll be looking to suck the data off that soon, too, if it's alive. Doc

20 years, 9 months

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cctalk Digest, Vol 27, Issue 79

by unibus＠gmail.com

> Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 02:14:13 -0800 > From: William Maddox <wmaddox at pacbell.net> > Subject: Available: 8" Vydec compatible floppy disks > > I have a box of 10 Memorex "FD VI" Vydec-compatible > 8" floppy disks. These are single-sided, double-density > disks with hard-sectored index holes around the periphery > of the disk (on the outside, not near the center hole). > They are labelled as compatible with the Memorex 651 drive. > Note that these are not the more common 32-sector format, > or the even more common soft-sectored variety. As far as > I know, these are useful only for Vydec word processors, > a very early WYSIWYG WP system. > Early versions (PDP11/05, /10) of Monash University's MONECS used Memorex 651 drives and the floppy disks should be compatible. Regards, Garry

20 years, 9 months

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IRIX (Was RE: besl Linux distro)

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

Unfortunately, it seems that the end of IRIX is creeping closer- I was just poking around on the SGI website and it looks like they've dropped the big MIPS graphic systems (Onyxes) Linux is a fine system, but IRIX is very nice, too, and it's nice to have multiple sources of ideas to draw from (Indigo Magic is a pretty slick desktop, among other things SGI did.) The big advantage of Linux over xBSD looks to be filesystems- Linux has JFS and XFS. P.S.- I do know about 5dwm.org, and I look forward to seeing it.

20 years, 9 months

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Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software > From: Scott Stevens <chenmel at earthlink.net> > Date: Wed, 07 Dec 2005 21:05:45 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 00:27:31 +0000 >Adrian Graham <witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk> wrote: > >> On 7/12/05 23:53, "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote: >> >> > Worst case, I setup something like my 8500/180 running an old >> > enough version of the OS so that I can also run "Warlords 2". >> > BTW, I do own PC versions of both games, from before I got a >> > Mac, however, they're limited to 640x480, while the Mac >> > versions go up to something like 1152x870. Both games are >> > also well on topic, but still two of my favorite games of all >> > time. >> >> My only take on this that springs to mind is why should you >> expect a computer company to continue supporting older hardware >> and software beyond a certain timeframe unless they explicitly >> say their current product is 100% compatible with their 10/15/20 >> year old product? It's almost like expecting a car manufacturer >> to still support manual wind-down windows and non-central >> locking because you happen to like manual windows and door locks >> you can activate individually. >> > >It's not a matter of 'meeting the requirement' or else for the >manufacturer. It's a matter of satisfying a customer and holding >onto market share. I happen to prefer manual windows and >non-central locking, and won't buy a car with electronic locks. >That is my choice and car makers who want to sell a car to me will >offer it. > >Much the same is true with Microsoft. They want to hold onto >their legacy customers, in fact leveraging that legacy is a big >part of how they've held onto and controlled the market. There >come points at which it's probably to Microsoft's advantage to >abandon legacy features, and that's when they do it. But they and >a lot of the rest of us know that's really one of the only things >they have going for themselves. Therin lies the truth of the matter. It's why the VAX11/780 happend, DGs machine Eclipse, and many others. The investment of software and the desire for "customer retention" are often drivers of technology choices. Its basic to even chipsets be they 8080 to 8088 then on to 80286 and Motorola did the same with 6800, 6809 and 68K. Granted in many cases at the chip level they are not binary compatable the idea being everyone gets to keep what they learned and has an upgrade path. I don't think for one second that was missed in business 101. However, legacy can be an albatross, ones neck may be on the line if the choice is wrong. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Wed, 07 Dec 2005 18:32:54 -0800 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >>> Consider on Windows XP that you can still run the following code: >>> >>> mov cl,9 >>> mov dx,offset HWMes >>> call 5 >>> mov cl,0 >>> call 5 >> >>Huh? Do you mean this? >> >>MOV AH, 9 >>MOV DX, HWMes >>INT 21h >>MOV AH, 0 >>INT 21h > >Nope, I mean what I said--try it. This little tidbit goes all the way back >to the time before DOS 1.0, when some level of compatibility with CP/M >applications was implemented. Notice that I didn't say "CP/M-86", which >uses int 224 to make system calls (which will not work under MS-DOS or >Windows of any flavor). I suspect this is an artifact of old SC-DOS/QDOS. And it works on W98 too. I know for a fact that old DOS DBASEII used it along with FCB support (another CP/Mism) with one caveat, the target drive or partition have to be less tha 500mb! I know because I was running a job costing system in DBASEII on a PIII running W98se and that was the trick. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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Cap reformation question

by jcwren＠jcwren.com

I've got a system with a couple large electrolytics that hasn't been powered up in a number of years. I have a 5A Variac. What's the typical procedure for the reformation process? Remove all cards (or maybe leave a junk card in for load?), start the Variac at 0V, increment by 10V every so often? How long per step, and/or is a different step suggested? I've seen lots of people say "you'll need to reform the caps, first", but never a prodecure for it. --jc

20 years, 9 months

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Hp plotter

by brushman＠esper.com

Tony, thanks for the help. It's more than I knew before. I can be persistent, in fact a friend of mine is looking up "communications analiser" as we speak. He too uses an old HP. Somewhere, I may find the answers. I've got friends that are very much into computers. The more I think about it, the longer the list grows! One for instance had me paint "free recycling" on the front of his computer store. That sounds like something with real possibilities for the people on this board. He gets shipping pallets full of the old stuff. Got to be something interesting in there. How about this: you just go to a sign maker, have them cut you some vinyl letters that say "free computer recycling, www..." maybe a ph number. Put the lettering on the back window of you vehicle, and bingo! Old stuff. Find out what they have, if you're not interested, give the location of a different place that takes it. In fact, to show my gratitude for this board, I'll send said lettering FREE to the first 3 people that ask for it. :) Just havin' fun (but the offer is valid), thanks again.

20 years, 9 months

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Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Legacy apps in Windows/OS X was Re: Old MS-DOS & Win Software > From: Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> > Date: Wed, 07 Dec 2005 17:22:52 -0600 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>>What's really water under the bridge is 16-bit mode in Windows. Vista >>>doesn't support it, period. Maybe someone will write a 16-bit emulator > > >> PPC applications written for the G3 under Carbon. That means Classic apps >> -- including 68K apps -- will probably die in the future. > >What bothers me is: How hard is it to include an emulator? Who cares if the >emulator is 100x as slow as the real thing when you're running it on a machine >that is capable of running OS X or Windows Vista? >-- Jim, It's real hard when the vendor(s) want you to buy office suite 2007 or whatever. Till someone (not a vendor) gets the emulator written the rest of will run it on classic hardware and software. "The only way to win the game is to not play." Allison

20 years, 9 months

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Cap reformation question

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

Hi I found the government reference. It is at: http://www.multi-volti.com/hb1131.pdf They mention using a lamp as a current limiter but as I stated earlier, lamps have changes in resistance with temperature. Unless the lamp is used in the intended voltage range, one can not depend on the resistance being close. They recommend reforming when stored for more than 3 years. They state that if the capacitor does not reform in 3 hours, it is considered bad. The values they show are for larger filter capacitors ( my guess as this is an old document ). They show 5 ma for axial and 10 ma for screw threaded radials. It should also be noted that they are not trying to save every capacitor, just put capacitors into condition for use. If one shorts, so be it. If you are trying to save capacitors, you might want to be a little more friendly to it. Dwight >From: "Dwight K. Elvey" <dwight.elvey at amd.com> > >Hi > There is a government spec on reforming >capacitors that have been in storage for >military specs. I don't recall if I saw this >on this list or maybe one of the news groups. >Dwight > >

20 years, 9 months

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Opening a classic Mac

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

Pretty easy- long handled T-15 to remove the two screws under the handle and two at the lower back. I wouldn't use the screwdriver-you can scar the case and it's usually not necessary. Put the Mac facedown on a soft surface, lift it a little by the back and shake- that has always done it for me. Another thing that can work is one of the "stationary clips" with the round spring (not the ones with the blued spring steel shaped a bit like a triangular prism). Once you have the cover off, worm your fingers in and disconnect the power, SCSI, floppy et al before pulling out the board. The SE&SE/30 expansion cards are two piece, you should be able to disconnect the cable and remove before pulling the mainboard.

20 years, 9 months

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Building M8027 hookup

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Building M8027 hookup > From: Dennis Boone <drb at msu.edu> > Date: Wed, 07 Dec 2005 14:45:34 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > > > I've looked at that manual before posting, and it does not have much > > to work out from. All the names of the signals are different. > >Ready is inverted between the two, I think. Both have the same basic >data transfer signals. Dataproducts has forms handling stuff that's >not in centronics. the LPV-11 was a upgrade and improved LAV-11. The LPV-11 has jumpers to handle things like parity, polarity of strobe to mention a few. All the manuals I have show the jumpers but do not give pinouts.. >You should be able to compare what's in the LPV11 manual to these and >work out which are which. Then figure out the pin numbering schemes >used in the LPV11 manual. They use an identical connector. TO sort out how to make a foreign cable you really need the printset for it. Either that or wire a DLV-11 serial card and use that to drive a serial interface printer. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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Building M8027 hookup

by ISC277＠CLCILLINOIS.EDU

OK, I'm trying to build myself a hookup for an M8027(LPV11) to run to my distribution panel. I've done some reading, and it is clear that this is a Centronics compatible card, so I have the right one. Does anyone know the pinout for this device? I'm confused. I know you can use other printers with this card, and I'm just looking to do raw text to an old Panasonic dot matrix printer - but I don't know what signal is what. As usual, any help is appreciated. TIA Julian

20 years, 9 months

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HP86B/HP85 PSU testing - where to start?

by vp＠cs.drexel.edu

Regarding www.series80.org: Lyle Bickley <lbickley at bickleywest.com> wrote: > Forget my last comment re:login/passoword - I was using the Konquerer browser > - when I changed to the Firefox browser - all was O.K. (you do need a > login/password - but you are given them in Firefox's error message). Sorry about the authentication step, but it has slashed downloads >from automated tools from my site. I find that this works much better than robots.txt because few (if any) robots are clever enough to look at the error page for the passwd. BTW the incantation is also present in the authentication window (but I guess nobody ever reads messages on pop-up windows anymore :-) **vp

20 years, 9 months

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Cap reformation question

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

Hi It is an interesting article but I suggest that the leakage currents may be over stated. 1,000 ma at 500 Volts is 500 Watts. This is way too much for a capacitor. Even 1 ma at 500 volts is quite a bit more than most capacitors can handle for any length of time at 500 Volts. I would suggest that the translation from the original article may have replaces the micro symbol with a m instead of a u as is normally done. Things to consider are that there are two factors when reforming. There is the production of gases that is directly related to the current flow and then there is the power dissipated. This is voltage times current. Both must be considered. A 500 volt capacitor should never have more than 1 ma of current flow and should most likely be in the 100 ua range for much of the reforming. Low voltage capacitors can handle more power but become limited by the gases produced and not the power. 10 ma for a good sized can is about max. Smaller cans should have less current. A small 10 uF 30V cap shouldn't have more than 25 to 50 ua at most. It has been mentioned that one can use current limited supplies. I've not seen ay that would limit the current to a fine enough adjustment to be correct for reforming. A resistor is best. Always start with a lower voltage even if you have a resistor. The oxide coating in the capacitor is not evenly eroded. It has a number of locations that may be thinner. These need to be brought up to the level of the rest without over heating them locally. To determine when to bring the voltage up, watch the voltage drop across the limiting resistor. I recommend starting with a voltage of about 1/10 the rating and measuring the voltage. Each time the voltage is increased, never let the current go more than was seen at the beginning. This can be observed by watching the voltage drop on the resistor. Never start with more than 1/2 the rated voltage, regardless of the current limiting resistor. Always finish by bring the capacitor to the full operating voltage. One doesn't need to bring it to the rated value. Most of the methods mentioned here for current limiting protect the rest of the supply but not the capacitor. A lamp on the input leads will not do much to limit current at the levels needed to keep excess gas from building in the capacitor. Those that have had success have been luck rather than having a good procedure. Remember, excess gas will not show failure until some later date. The capacitor will seem to be OK but dry up over time because of a ruptured seal. Using a lamp on the input to a variac may not be too useful. The variac waste quite a bit of power. In order to get the variac to a useful operating level, the current limiting will be way beyond what is useful in protecting a capacitor while reforming. A series resistor at the capacitor is the only method I know that is truly safe for the capacitor! Dwight. >From: "woodelf" <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> > >Joe R. wrote: > >> Q: How high of a voltage do you use the reform the caps? I'm wondering >>if it's necessary to apply full (or nearly full) rated voltage or if >>they're fully reformed at say 5 VDC. Has anybody done any testing in this >>area? >> >> >I assume the vorking voltage + some safety margin. >A quick search found this link on the web of a circuit to reform the caps. >http://www.vmars.org.uk/capacitor_reforming.htm

20 years, 9 months

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really off-topic: used car parts for US car?

by bert＠brothom.nl

Hi, My apologies for being so off-topic, but I see this mailinglist as a nice place to find nice people that think alike. Here's my question: can anyone give me an address where I might find a used fuel pump for a hercules white car. The engine is a 6-cilinder. I think it's an rather uncommon car in the netherlands so that may explain why it is so hard to find parts for it. Thanks in advance and kind regards, Bert

20 years, 9 months

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tapetools and VMS Backup tapes

by brad＠heeltoe.com

Ethan Dicks wrote: > >Does anyone here have any experience with reading VMS BACKUP tapes >with tapetools? Can you share your observations? I haven't yet tried >reading the files - I know there were some VMS BACKUP extractors in C >years ago, and I've even used them, but I'll probably have to re-find >and rebuilt them. I could also fire up simh and VMS, but at the >moment, my VMS install CDs are somewhere else. I'm actually in the middle of doing this also. I've been working on some tools to catalog and extract thousands of tapes, most from obscure operating systems (ITS, Genera) and some from not-so-obscure (Unix, VMS, TOPS-20). I found a program recently "vmsbu.c" which seems to work. I made some small mods to it to handle extracted files from images. Basically I have tape image files written in the form of tapetools. (be careful because I think tapetools-0.4 will not pad blocks and tapetools-0.6 will; I have a program which will analyse images and fix this if needed) If you take a vms backup image and run tapeextract you end up with a small file (the 'label file') and a big file (the backup). I modified vmsbu.c to allow you to specify both files and then generate a TOC and/or extract the files. I'd be happy to put these program on my web site if you'd like them. -brad

20 years, 9 months

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