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

by leeedavison＠yahoo.co.uk

> 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? The switching transistor has probably gone s/c which ends up connecting the rectified mains to the switch output on the IC. They tend not to last long when that happens. Lee. .. ___________________________________________________________ WIN ONE OF THREE YAHOO! VESPAS - Enter now! - http://uk.cars.yahoo.com/features/competitions/vespa.html

20 years, 9 months

2
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Timing of PDP-11 Instructions

by bqt＠update.uu.se

On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 22:39:07 -0500 Allison <ajp166 at bellatlantic.net> wrote: >>>Subject: Re: Timing of PDP-11 Instructions >>> From: "Jerome H. Fine" <jhfinexgs2 at compsys.to> >>> Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 21:57:37 -0500 >>> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> >>> > >>>I am still not able to figure out why the FORTRAN 77 >>>subroutine has different timing when the destination >>>address is moved from PAR0 to PAR1 under RT-11 under >>>both E11 and a real PDP-11/73. Cache has been suggested, >>>so I will attempt the calculation with a PDP-11/23 >>>which does not have any cache. >>> >>>Sincerely yours, >>> >>>Jerome Fine > > >Cache is half the answer. The other half is when you hit the bus >on a cache miss two things have to happen. You have to do bus >transactions which are very slow compared to cache and you have to >refill the cache. IF there is any MMU action required >(pagein/pageou) you add that overhead as well. Nonsense! No PDP-11 operating system have demand paging and page faults. It could be done, but noone is doing it. So you just have the memory access instead of a cache hit. But memory access is just so much slower. And the bus transaction is a part of that memory access. Oh, and the cache is working on *physical* address, not virtual. (You would get serious problems if you used the virtual address for the cache.) So, before you can even figure out if the data is in the cache or not, the MMU must do the address translation. >Remember the PDP11 is 16 bits. Any addressing outside ~28kwords >is going to involve a MMU operation. That a lot of register >access and it's costly(in time), more so if you need to move >the Dmap in an I&D machine (11/73). The reason for that is those >actions lie inside the core OS and require system calls to process. >E11 is just being faithful to the core PDP11 so I'd expect similar >if not exact same behavour. You didn't say RTll SJ or FB. This also seems like a silly statement. From a program point of view, you cannot access anything outside 32Kword. Never. Like you say: the PDP-11 is a 16-bit architecture. The MMU is always involved in mapping your 16-bit address into the 22-bit address space The memory is sitting on a 22-bit address space, so you *must* generate a 22-bit physical address. With the MMU disabled, the MMU have a wired mapping to the physical address space, while if the MMU is enabled, all addressing goes through the proper MMU PAR. This don't incur any timing overhead at all. The time for passing through the MMU is always present, and you cannot do anything about it, nor detect it. And as I said above, the MMU must first translate the virtual address into a physical address before the cache can take a shot at it. (Incidentally, the hardwired addressing used if the MMU is disabled, is to map the low 28 Kword of virtual space into the low 28 Kword of physical space, but to map the last 4 Kword of virtual space into the last 4 Kword of physical space, which is the I/O page. If you switch to 18-bit addressing, the MMU registers gets involved, but only the low 12 bits of the PAF are used, and of course in 22-bit mode all 16 bits of the PAF is used.) The MMU PAR is set up before the program can execute, and there is no more overhead in accessing something through the D PARs than the I PARs. You could possibly argue that the OS will need more time to fill in the PARs if you have split I/D space, since that means you need to fill in more registers. The PDP-11 is not like more modern virtual address machines, where you have a TLB, which is a cache for the MMU registers, and which is filled in dynamically as the program proceeds. The PDP-11 have a very static register set for the MMU, and those registers are already inside the MMU. And the mapping is rather static as well. Heck, you only have a total of 48 PARs at maximum to fill in. And that's only if you use all eight PARs for both I and D space, and for kernel, supervisor and user mode. No, Jeromes "problem" really can only be attributed to cache conflicts. It's not really a PAR0 vs. PAR1 problem, but a problem of both program and data hitting the same cache lines. With 8K cache, you have 13 address bits which select the cache line (well, since the cache is really 16 bits wide it's actually 12 address bits, A1-A12). A13-A21 is used as the cache tag. Any data hitting the same cache line is matched on the cache tag, and if the tag don't match, the cache is reloaded from memory. Otherwise data is served from the cache directly. So, if Jeromes program is in continous memory (which I assume it is, since RT-11 really don't do much fancy work with the MMU), PAR1 comes directly after PAR0 in physical memory, which means that the same relative address within each PAR will hit the same cache line. E11 will not have this problem, since E11 don't really implement the PDP-11 cache. No point in doing that. However, E11 is running on a i386, which happens to have exactly the same possible problem. All machines with cache will display the same behaviour. If you are smart, you can write a program that will tell you exactly how much cache you have, how many levels there are, the TLB size (if you have one), the associativeness of all caches, and also the timing of it all. And all of this is done by probing the same thing Jerome just discovered. :-) I have such a program somewhere around here, but it's really something that most people working with these things at a low level already should know about. >Shame you can try that (in F77) on a VAX or PC wher 32bit address >space is the rule. I'd expect much different behavour.. >Till your task is paged out. ;) It would be different, of course, in the sense that that program would have different cache sizes, different associativeness of the cache, would also have a virtual demand page system with a TLB, and a larger natural word size, which would change the requirements of the program. But we could easily create a similar effect on any machine. That is, the speed of the program would be affected by where the data was placed. Johnny -- 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 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.362 / Virus Database: 267.13.10/188 - Release Date: 2005-11-29

20 years, 9 months

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PDP-11/73 booting!

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: PDP-11/73 booting! > From: David Betz <dbetz at xlisper.mv.com> > Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 19:56:03 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >I got my PDP-11/73 booting by connecting an RX02 drive to the system >and using an RT-11 boot floppy. I've convinced myself that the 1.5mb >of memory (two M8059s and a third party card) works and that the >KDJ11-A CPU is working as well as the multi-function boot card >(M8047) and the RX02 drive and controller (M8029). > >Unfortunately, I still can't access the RL01 drive. RT-11 sees the >controller card but if I type "DIR RL0:", there is no indication that Ah thats... dir DL0: the RL02 is accessed by the DL: driver. is there a DL.sys on the disk? >the drive is even accessed. The disk seems to spin up and the ready >light comes on on the drive but I don't seem to be able to access the >drive from RT-11. I've also tried using a scratch pack and typing >"INIT DL0:" but that doesn't work either. Does anyone have any idea >what might cause this kind of behavior? Also, can anyone make me a >bootable RX02 disk with the RL01 diagnostics on it? I can supply the >blank disk? Assuming the interrupt grant is good (no empty slots between the cpu and the RLV controller. the cables are good and connected correctly. No fault light and When the load bitton is in you get spin up and a white load lamp. It should work. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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Which paper tape hole is bit 1?

by pete＠dunnington.plus.com

On Nov 19 2005, 9:50, Barry Watzman wrote: > I have a chart of paper tape hole patterns for all 128 characters, and it > shows the LSB (bit zero, although the chart numbers them 1-8) as the edge > hole on the 3-hole side, with the bits in order 0 to 7 (or 1 to 8). > > However, one question, this chart shows the high-order bit (parity bit) > punched for every character, no exceptions. Was that a standard convention > in sending ascii files to paper tape? It was for DEC, at least with PDP-8s. I don't know about anyone else. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

20 years, 9 months

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Free Popular Electronics Issues

by swtpc6800＠comcast.net

They are taken. Michael Holley ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Holley" <swtpc6800 at comcast.net> To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2005 7:59 PM Subject: Free Popular Electronics Issues >I have some extra issues of Popular Electronics that are available for the >cost of postage. U.S. only. Shipping from 98052 but media mail is by the >pound. > > 1978 Jan to Aug and Dec > 1979 Mar and Apr > 1980 Jan, Sep, Oct and Nov > 1982 Mar, Apr, Sep and Nov > > Here is my Popular Electronics web page. > http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Popular_Electronics.htm > > Michael Holley

20 years, 9 months

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Free Popular Electronics Issues

by swtpc6800＠comcast.net

I have some extra issues of Popular Electronics that are available for the cost of postage. U.S. only. Shipping from 98052 but media mail is by the pound. 1978 Jan to Aug and Dec 1979 Mar and Apr 1980 Jan, Sep, Oct and Nov 1982 Mar, Apr, Sep and Nov Here is my Popular Electronics web page. http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Popular_Electronics.htm Michael Holley

20 years, 9 months

1
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IBM AS400?

by john_boffemmyer_iv＠boff-net.dhs.org

... Not funny VAX. I still use and am a fan of IBM PS/2's. So are a couple others on here. A few still use IBM RS6000 machines and one or two use AS/400's. Please watch the generalizations... -John Boffemmyer IV At 09:20 PM 11/28/2005, you wrote: > > BIG GOTCHA- you need to make sure your machine comes with > not only the OS, but also the mashine-specific intermediate layer > software. Unless you have a friend at IBM, they may be happy to > give you a replacement in return for much cash, or they may do the > snooty Maitre d' thing . . . and OS/400 is rumored to lock itself > after a certain period of inactivity as well. > >You have found the reason why there are so many DEC fans and no IBM >fans on the mailing list. > >vax, 9000 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.1.362 / Virus Database: 267.13.8/184 - Release Date: 11/27/2005

20 years, 9 months

4
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PDP-11/73 booting!

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PDP-11/73 booting! > From: David Betz <dbetz at xlisper.mv.com> > Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 18:53:32 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Well, I have bad news and good news. The bad news is that I was >unable to fix my RL01 cable. I tried a few approaches to reconnect >the pins I could see were disconnected and wasn't able to get it to >work. However, the good news is that I was able to acquire another >cable and that fixed the problem entirely. In fact, the PDP-11/73 >booted off the RL01 pack the first time I powered it up. I have three >packs and was able to read all of them. One contains RT-11 V5.5, >another is a TSX-Plus system disk but appears just to boot RT-11SJ. >It does have lots of files on it with ".tsx" extensions but doesn't >seem to boot TSX. The third is a blank scratch pack. First, Congrats! You need TSX.SAV and TSX also is built on RT11. >I'm now in the market for a cable and breakout panel (cab kit?) for >my RQDX3 controller so that I can connect an ST225 drive and an RX50 >floppy drive to my 11/73. I know it's possible to build one of these >but from my experience with attempting to fix the RL01 cable, I don't >think I want to tackle that project. If someone has a cable and >breakout panel they'd like to sell please get in touch with me. There isn't a "cab kit" for RQDXn. The cables were all internal and you used RQDXn in one of the BA23/123 boxen. So you either need a M9058 from a scrapped BA123 or a mostly torn up BA23 (micro PDP11 or microvax) you can pull the pannel from. You also need the little switch pannel inserts from the BA123 to enable READY/OFFLINE and Writeprotect. You need: 1 50 pin female to female IDC cable (max length 18") RQDXn to breakout 1 34pin female to female IDC cable (max length 30") (RX50) 1 26pin IDC to card edge (RDxx) 1 34 pin IDC to card edge (RDxx) If your not using either of those boxes then your doing what I did which was to build something DEC didn't document. The cables are seriously are trivial and not a big a deal like those breakout boards and the switch pannels. Having done this I know. >Anyway, thanks to everyone who has given me help with this machine. I >now have a working PDP-11/73 with 1.5mb of memory, an RX02 floppy >drive and an RL01 hard drive and it's all working! Sounds like mine. ;) Allison

20 years, 9 months

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More parts I need to replace on the VT100

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

I'd look at what the resistors feed to- on my IRIS (as far as I can see) a resistor was smoked because multiple filter cap failures ^ ripple frequency with resultant lowering of reactive impedance, increasing current flow in this filter stage (between the outputs of the 5v rectifiers and ground, (.1?f cap -> 330 ohm -> gnd) and blowing the resistor. (at least that's what it looked like- the cap wasn't shorted and seemed to work properly under test)

20 years, 9 months

1
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Pyramid - Re: Masscomp OS floppies / tape dump

by Mark.Brennan＠ie.fujitsu.com

Hi Ken/Andy/Bill, I have some old marketing Pyramid brochures as well as some videos now on DVD, If you want any copies drop me a line off topic. Regards markb. Mark Brennan System Engineer System Services FUJITSU Fujitsu House, South County Business Park, Leopardstown, Dublin 18, Ireland Tel: +353 (0) 1 2076900 Mobile: +353 (0) 87 2222326 Fax: +353 (0) 1 2161863 E-mail mark.brennan at ie.fujitsu.com Web: http://ie.fujitsu.com/ Fujitsu Services Limited, Registered in England no 96056, Registered Office 26, Finsbury Square, London, EC2A 1SL This e-mail is only for the use of its intended recipient. Its contents are subject to a duty of confidence and may be privileged. Fujitsu Services does not guarantee that this e-mail has not been intercepted and amended or that it is virus-free. -----Original Message----- From: Ken Seefried [mailto:ken at seefried.com] Sent: 24 November 2005 03:33 To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Pyramid - Re: Masscomp OS floppies / tape dump From: Bill Pechter <pechter at gmail.com> > I wish I had the sources for it and Pyramid's OS/x... We had a Pyramid 90x when I was at GaTech. Really nifty box, but exceptionally obscure now. Sorta like our Kendall Square Reasearch machine (KSR/1).

20 years, 9 months

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More parts I need to replace on the VT100

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Julian Wolfe" <fireflyst at earthlink.net> > >The burned out resistors wouldn't have had anything to do with the blown >flyback or the shorted components I replaced on the video board? > Hi They could but you still need to look at the schematics to see how they may have done this. It is possible that the power supply failed in such a way that it blew up the parts on the video board. If so, simply replacing the resistors may make expensive smoke of your replacement flyback and other parts. It is always wise to evaluate the root cause of each known bad component. If the resistors are in series with the load, it is likely that the shorted parts on the video board may have caused the damage. If you see the resistors in other paths, look to see what in the supply might have also caused the failure. As an example, the series pass transistor in a regulator output stage could have gone short. This would cause the voltage to go way above what the flyback was designed for. It shorted some turns that cause the horizontal output transistor to go short from excessive power. Now a resistor that was used in series with the supply's output might smoke because there was nothing else limiting the current. This is only an example of thousands of possible problems. In other words, you need to look at the failures and justify the cause. Resistors burn up because they have excess power dissipated. This is caused by the voltage going up across them for some reason. Dwight

20 years, 9 months

2
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"Market" for old macs?

by James＠jdfogg.com

> Now here's a tricky question: If the SE30 were the only mac > in my entire household, how would I procure an OS install on > diskette for it? The drive in that thing is the 800K > multi-speed beast, yes? Do you have a PC? Apple does (or did) offer the OS's on their website, and there were instructions about how to use various PC based programs to write them in a Mac 800K format from a PC drive. Somewhere I have the images and software because I've had to do this once.

20 years, 9 months

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Cable and breakout panel kit for RQDX3

by dbetz＠xlisper.mv.com

Can anyone tell me the part numbers for the cable and breakout panel for the RQDX3 that allows it to be plugged into an RDxx MFM drive and an RX50 floppy drive? My understanding is that there is a ribbon cable that connects the RQDX3 module to some sort of panel that has places to plug in the cables that connect to the drives. I think the RDxx drive just uses standard PC type cables between the drive and this panel. Is that correct? Anyone know the part numbers for these parts? Thanks, David

20 years, 9 months

2
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Cable and breakout panel kit for RQDX3

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Cable and breakout panel kit for RQDX3 > From: David Betz <dbetz at xlisper.mv.com> > Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 16:21:39 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Can anyone tell me the part numbers for the cable and breakout panel >for the RQDX3 that allows it to be plugged into an RDxx MFM drive and >an RX50 floppy drive? My understanding is that there is a ribbon >cable that connects the RQDX3 module to some sort of panel that has >places to plug in the cables that connect to the drives. I think the >RDxx drive just uses standard PC type cables between the drive and >this panel. Is that correct? Anyone know the part numbers for these >parts? I dont have the box with all the board and cables so it's all from memory. It carries a 50-class part number for BA23 boxes (mounted at the rear wall of the drive cavity) it's breaks the 50pin out to a floppy (rx50 or 33) and one drive (RDxx). Th board is only three or 4 connectors and nothing else so if you find the schematic you could make it easily. For the BA123 it an M9058 which looks like a Qbus board (it is) and it breaks the 50pin out to the mix of up to 4 drives(RDxx) and a floppy (RX50 or 33). The cables are 50pin IDC and the drive cables are 34 for floppy and hard disk and a narrow (22 or 26 pin) for the hard disk. The cables are nothing special (no PC half twists). The M9058 requires 5V power off the Qbus. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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More parts I need to replace on the VT100

by Useddec＠aol.com

Sounds good to me. Any DEC stuff you don't need? Thanks, Paul

20 years, 9 months

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More parts I need to replace on the VT100

by Useddec＠aol.com

I have the entire power supply for $75 Thanks, Paul

20 years, 9 months

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IBM 1130 arrived from Austria

by bobalan＠sbcglobal.net

My IBM 1130 arrived today from Austria. It was packed very well, first wrapped in cardboard, then plastic wrap, then a sealed foil material, and finally a really strong crate. It spent a week in customs but they never even opened it up. The machine itself is quite dirty and will take some time to clean up, but looks complete and restorable. It came with a box of disk cartridges with unknown data or software. The main problem I have is that it's a 50 Hz machine. I assume the power supply could run on 60 Hz but the disk drive probably will not run correctly on 60 Hz. I believe the best thing is to start looking for a 60 Hz to 50 Hz power converter. Have a look at the unpacking at: http://www.dvq.com Bob

20 years, 9 months

9
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cctech Digest, Vol 27, Issue 62

by charlesmorris＠direcway.com

>Dammit, I've got to get one of my PDPs going so I can play ADVENT again, >assuming my RL02s are still readable :) > >"a hollow voice says...." "FOOL" :) I have an RL02 image running on SIMH OS/8 and I have the ADVENT.SV and the other ADVENT.** files. But it still won't run. What pieces do I need to complete the ADVENT game? thanks Charles

20 years, 9 months

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BASIC's question mark and PRINT

by terry＠terryking.us

Waaay...Back when I occasionally taught BASIC and APL, I always heard (Where?) that the "?" meant "What Is". Like: ?2+2 (What is 2 plus 2) ?2^16 and that this was intended to be used in "Immediate Mode". Some BASIC I used to use (Hmmm..??) would accept the "?" in program input lines, like: 100 ?"The Result is ";A but if you did LIST, it was shown as PRINT. That WAS a while ago... Regards, Terry King ...On The Mediterranean in Carthage, Tunisia terry at terryking.us

20 years, 9 months

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looking for some OS's TEK Basic, Pertec 4010, OMS Zues 4, Altos 5

by g-wright＠worldnet.att.net

Hi, All I'm back at the grind trying to find a few OS's The first is for my TEK DPO (WP 1210 Digitial processing scope ) this is a 7704a scope with a P7001 Digital processor that connects to a DEC PDP 11/05 . It runs on TEK Basic (8" floppy or DEC tape}.. The official name is "TEK SPS Basic V02" There is also a system test disk. I also need a TEK 4010 Terminal to finish it off. If anyone in the Seattle area has one. The second is a Pertec Mini ?? coax system 4010 Don't know much about it other than it used coax to the dumb terminals instead of Serial.. (1/4 " Tape) The third is a OMS Zues 4 I beleive it ran cpm or mpm (5 1/4 disk) The forth is a Altos 5 CPM or MPM (5 1/4 Disk) I can handle most image files. Or would gladly pay for a Disk or tape. If I missed somewhere online, point me in the right direction Thanks, for reading this Jerry Jerry Wright JLC inc 800.292.6370 PST g-wright at att.net

20 years, 9 months

2
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Looking for driver or information

by cclist＠sydex.com

I've got both Chi Corp./Computer Logics PCTD3 and PCTD16 Pertec-interface tape controlers. What I don't have is a clue as to how to drive them. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem that running down traces and some pencil and paper work wouldn't cure. But, other than for a couple of lines, much of the logic for these cards is hidden inside an early Xilinx FPGA. Thus far, my "pork poking" hasn't given up any information. Customer support at Chi Corporation is polite, but unhelpful. They claim that they don't have any docs for the cards any more (tossed during a move), nor are they sure about software (probably won't work on a modern PC), but they'll sell me a copy of their Outright conversion package for only $695 and it might work--maybe, but no promises. So, I'm wondering if anyone has any information on these beasts or perhaps has hung onto the TDRIVER.EXE or API.EXE files. I'm not interested in using the files, but rather want to use them to give up some clues on how that blasted FPGA is set up. Thanks, Chuck

20 years, 9 months

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AS400?

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

I am most definitely not anti-IBM- I like my brace of RS6ks very well, thank you, even though they're a bit grey around the muzzle (MCA, and one's a POWERstation). I don't expect companies to bend over backwards to hand me everything on a plate, but it would be nice if they didn't bend over backwards to make it difficult on the hobbiest. IBM's engineering is first-class, but RS6ks seem to be the only thing you can count on being able to use . . . quite a shame, really. Scott Quinn

20 years, 9 months

1
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"Market" for old macs?

by James＠jdfogg.com

> At work I have an SE30, LC, IIci, and a 603 variety mac > just... lying around. > Are these things as common as dirt, or should I snag them? My interests stop at the "classic" Macs, of which the SE30 is the height of engineering achievement (in my opinion). So I don't know anything about the LC, Iici and 603. As for the SE30, I find them for about $25.00 in excellent working condition, but they are getting much harder to find locally. They still show up regularly on Ebay.

20 years, 9 months

2
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monitor tweaking

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

to what extent is it advisable to use a say ~350 line monitor with a 400 line video output? Granted, I probably shouldn't try this with the original IBM mono display (reported to explode if you plug it into a CGA card), but this was a more or less common practice back when. Assuming you get a legible image, after adjusting the horizontal sweep, is there any risk to the equipment or operator when doing this? __________________________________ Yahoo! Music Unlimited Access over 1 million songs. Try it free. http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited/

20 years, 9 months

4
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Calling Will Kranz

by ISC277＠CLCILLINOIS.EDU

Will, if you get this, let me know on-list. I tried emailing you from my Earthlink and Comcast accounts and both gave bounceback messages. It's identifying my email as spam. I sent this mail message from my web mail account, so it's not a client thing. Will, how should I contact you about the disk packs/keyboard parts? A message (from <discipleofbruti at comcast.net>) was received at 23 Nov 2005 22:23:20 +0000. The following addresses had delivery problems: <will_kranz at softhome.net> Permanent Failure: 550_passing_these_spams_on_just_makes_it_worse Delivery last attempted at Wed, 23 Nov 2005 22:24:30 -0000 (Attachments successfully scanned for viruses.) Attachment 1: Name Unknown (message/delivery-status)

20 years, 9 months

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Calling Will Kranz

by ISC277＠CLCILLINOIS.EDU

Will, if you get this, let me know on-list. I tried emailing you from my Earthlink and Comcast accounts and both gave bounceback messages. It's identifying my email as spam. I sent this mail message from my web mail account, so it's not a client thing. Will, how should I contact you about the disk packs/keyboard parts? A message (from <discipleofbruti at comcast.net>) was received at 23 Nov 2005 22:23:20 +0000. The following addresses had delivery problems: <will_kranz at softhome.net> Permanent Failure: 550_passing_these_spams_on_just_makes_it_worse Delivery last attempted at Wed, 23 Nov 2005 22:24:30 -0000 (Attachments successfully scanned for viruses.) Attachment 1: Name Unknown (message/delivery-status)

20 years, 9 months

1
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Anyone have an unwanted Atari 1040ST or 1040STF?

by RMeenaks＠olf.com

I want to test out a KUMA K-MAX Atari RISC System and need an Atari? Thanks, Ram

20 years, 9 months

5
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I8008 Micro-computer

by phillipmilks＠netzero.com

An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: <http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20051129/af32995b/at…>

20 years, 9 months

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IBM AS400?

by Arno_1983＠gmx.de

Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> wrote: > 9000 VAX wrote: > BIG GOTCHA- you need to make sure your machine comes with not only the > OS, but also the mashine-specific intermediate layer software. Unless > you have a friend at IBM, they may be happy to give you a replacement in > return for much cash, or they may do the snooty Maitre d' thing . . . > and OS/400 is rumored to lock itself after a certain period of > inactivity as well. I've even heard stories about some of the machines having something similar to a inertia/tilt switch inside which was monitored all the time, even with mains disconnected, and which invalidated the license code in the NVRAM in case the machine was moved around (or the switch tampered with), since this was taken as a sign of a change-of-ownership and IBM doesn't support license transfer for OS/400. Can I say IP nazi methods? I also suppose it's near impossible to reverse engineer such a beast, as IBM would put lots of custom silicon and house-marked discretes in it? > > You have found the reason why there are so many DEC fans and no IBM > > fans on the mailing list. > > I raise my hand and point out that I am a big-time IBM fan. I can admit that I've also taken a liking for IBM stuff, since my first bigger rescue operation was that of an IBM 4331 which now happily resides in Hans Franke's collection. Well, "happily" is a bit much said, it doesn't even power up correctly yet, but at least it wasn't made into Chinese bicycles. > Not AS/400's, though. I have multiple mainframes *in my house*. I can only dream of such yet. Then again, at least a smaller AS/400 shouldn't be too complicated to keep in a domestic environment, space-/power-/heat-wise? I've already been promised one for indefinite loan, but it has yet to surface in the owner's storage area again :-) <wink>. So long, -- Arno Kletzander Stud. Hilfskraft Informatik Sammlung Erlangen www.iser.uni-erlangen.de Telefonieren Sie schon oder sparen Sie noch? NEU: GMX Phone_Flat http://www.gmx.net/de/go/telefonie

20 years, 9 months

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Need recommendations on a terminal server setup

by ISC277＠CLCILLINOIS.EDU

Alright, I'm getting ready to make my 11/23+ available online for people to play with, but I'm a bit stumped as far as how I should attach the serial lines to my Ethernet network. Now, I have a Sun server running Solaris 10 which I was able to connect a couple serial lines to and then tunneled that through a telnet port, but I'd rather not do that...with the setup I'm thinking of, we're talking about a whole lot of cable running into that box. Does anyone here have suggestions on what I should use for a terminal server? If I could just mount a DECserver box in my PDP-11 chassis that would be great, but isn't the Ethernet port DECnet-only? I don't know what I'm doing when it comes to this, so feel free to correct me. As always, any help is appreciated Julian

20 years, 9 months

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OT: Another interesting use for USB

by cclist＠sydex.com

Not long ago, there was a discussion about the proliferation of reading lamps that were powered from USB ports. In the same vein, I give you: http://www.thanko.jp/usbslippers/index.html USB-powered slippers! To make this on-topic, this would be a good thing with which to start your USB classic peripherals collection... Cheers, Chuck

20 years, 9 months

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Pinout for SED9421

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > >On 11/28/2005 at 11:21 PM Ethan Dicks wrote: > >>Dunno how much work it would be to make something like that for a WD >>FDC-based machine, like a PeeCee. > >How about attaching the read data and index lines on the floppy drive on >one machine to the FDC on another? Format the diskette and write the data >to be transfered on a given track. Allow the other machine to read it. > >Klutzy, but it ought to work with very little in the way of extra logic. > >Cheers, >Chuck > > Hi I was thinking that as well but you couldn't have any of the special characters that are used to mark the various fields. It would work if the files had ASCII text only but many of the FxH values would do funny things( for your standard controller chip, as I recall ) if the files had binary data. Dwight

20 years, 9 months

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Pinout for SED9421

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Allison" <ajp166 at bellatlantic.net> >> From: woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> ---snip--- > >>Did anybody ever use a serial chip and a data separater >>rather than a floppy disk controler? > >Yes, many. usually its a sync chip. > >Allison Hi Besides the HeathKit hard sectored controller board, used on both the H8 and the H89, Polymorphics also used a serial chip to do data. In both of these cases, as you state, they used synchronous serial chips and not async. Dwight

20 years, 9 months

4
4
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A trip down memory lane

by jrasite＠eoni.com

Some of you who lived in the RT-11 world may remember this little time-waster: <http://thcnet.net/thispagedoesntexist/yadayadaayadaa/zorkrules> Jim

20 years, 9 months

10
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CP/M 2 - what's its legal status?

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: CP/M 2 - what's its legal status? > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 21:37:58 -0800 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >On 11/22/2005 at 9:18 PM Fred Cisin wrote: > >>... just to add to the bad news,... >>I've seen numerous TM100-4M drives that were labelled TM100-4 ! >>So, a visual inspection may be inadequate to identify it. > >Vector Graphic was suprisingly stubborn about retaining the 100 tpi HS >format long after it had become pass?. I've had HS 100 tpi diskettes >from the Vector 4. I think Vector used some Micropolis drives and some >Tandon. They may have also used some MPI drives in the 100 tpi format. > >What I can't explain are the small cables between the RAM cards in the >middle of the card cage and whatever the cards are at the rear. > >Cheers, >Chuck Battery backup for the ram? Allison

20 years, 9 months

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CDC 1700 Memory Stack

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

Sorry... It should have said I DO know where there is a memory available. Billy

20 years, 9 months

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CDC 1700 Memory Stack

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

About 6 months ago, someone on the list contacted me about a 1700 spares. I can't get to my archive for another couple of weeks. But I don't know where a 1700 memory is and available at for price to be negotiated. Could whoever was after this please get in touch with me off list and I'll get the two of you together. Billy Pettit billy.pettit at wdc.com

20 years, 9 months

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Pinout for SED9421

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Allison" <ajp166 at bellatlantic.net> > >> >>Subject: Re: Pinout for SED9421 >> From: "Dwight K. Elvey" <dwight.elvey at amd.com> >> Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 10:46:28 -0800 (PST) >> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >> >>>From: "Allison" <ajp166 at bellatlantic.net> >> >>>> From: woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> >>---snip--- >>> >>>>Did anybody ever use a serial chip and a data separater >>>>rather than a floppy disk controler? >>> >>>Yes, many. usually its a sync chip. >>> >>>Allison >> >>Hi >> Besides the HeathKit hard sectored controller board, >>used on both the H8 and the H89, Polymorphics also >>used a serial chip to do data. In both of these >>cases, as you state, they used synchronous serial >>chips and not async. > >Err, Yes that's what I did say. Sync chips were the norm Hi Allison I'm not contridicting, just pointing out some cases to support. As I recall, the N* controller also used the synchronous serial chip. I don't know of a case that used a async part. All of these were used on hard sectored disk. I don't know of any soft sectored that used serial chips. I suspect that it is because these depended on using illegal data clocking sequences in order to mark sectors. This would require more external circuits. Dwight >for brewed designs there were not OSI or done with TTL. > >Often they were used because WD could not supply or was >not viewed as the desireable item due to lack of second >source (at least early on). Some did it to have a >propritory format. > > >Allison > > >

20 years, 9 months

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Pinout for SED9421

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > >On 11/28/2005 at 10:46 AM Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > >> Besides the HeathKit hard sectored controller board, >>used on both the H8 and the H89, Polymorphics also >>used a serial chip to do data. In both of these >>cases, as you state, they used synchronous serial >>chips and not async. > >To put a reverse twist on this, has anyone ever used two floppy controllers >to transfer data between two systems? I know it'd take a little extra >hardware (something has to provide address headers outside of a format >operation), but it should still be quite possible to do so. > >I've never tried, however. Ethernet is so much easier. > >Cheers, >Chuck Hi I've used slightly modified cassette tape software to transfer data to and from a Poly88 to a PC. The only part I recall changing was the initialization code and the sync detect. They used a 8251 so there was little other modifications. The Poly88 thought it was otherwise just doing a tape transfer. I initialized the 8251 as async to match the PC end. I suspect that one could do a controller to controller method but one would need to generate the index pulses. A simple 555 circuit would most likely be enough. You might need to add a little analog filtering to match up the compensation that is usually added to the write data on the higher density drives. Dwight

20 years, 9 months

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places to visit in England

by swebb＠cix.co.uk

On 11/27/05, Alexey Toptygin <alexeyt at freeshell.org> wrote: > I'm going to be in southern England for 2 weeks in mid-december, and I > was wonding if listmembers could recommend any classic computing sights > I should see while there. Ideas? Hi Alexey I would be delighted to show you around the Museum of Computing, we are based in Swindon, Wiltshire. Simon Webb Curator, Museum of Computing www.museum-of-computing.org.uk Tel: 07939 582544

20 years, 9 months

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Pinout for SED9421

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Pinout for SED9421 > From: "Dwight K. Elvey" <dwight.elvey at amd.com> > Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 10:46:28 -0800 (PST) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >>From: "Allison" <ajp166 at bellatlantic.net> > >>> From: woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> >---snip--- >> >>>Did anybody ever use a serial chip and a data separater >>>rather than a floppy disk controler? >> >>Yes, many. usually its a sync chip. >> >>Allison > >Hi > Besides the HeathKit hard sectored controller board, >used on both the H8 and the H89, Polymorphics also >used a serial chip to do data. In both of these >cases, as you state, they used synchronous serial >chips and not async. Err, Yes that's what I did say. Sync chips were the norm for brewed designs there were not OSI or done with TTL. Often they were used because WD could not supply or was not viewed as the desireable item due to lack of second source (at least early on). Some did it to have a propritory format. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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Pinout for SED9421

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Pinout for SED9421 > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 10:36:33 -0800 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >On 11/25/2005 at 9:59 AM Allison wrote: > >>The all time worst was the 1771 internal data sep. Tandy initally did >that to save parts. Really bad. > >I remember once asking our FDC design guy (he cut his teeth at Sperry ISS) >about the 1771 on-chip DS. He just laughed and gave a thumbs-down. He >built his board around the 1781, using GCR and a bit rate of about 380 KHz >on DS media. The drive electronics needed the low-pass filter tweaked a >bit to work, but he managed to get about a megabyte on a 5.25" DS floppy. >Not too shabby for the time (1979). Tandys EI design got me a few trips to FtWorth to massage their heads with a bat for what they did. Yes, 1meg was way above the usual 190k-380k common for for DDDS drives. The highest I got to with MFM was 800k (80tr 2sided). >Drives back then tended to have more problems than the controllers did. > >In particular, we gave up on Micropolis because of their stubborn >insistence on using a leadscrew positioner, long after almost everyone else >went to the faster taut-band. I still have a 96 tpi Micropolis drive that >employs buffered seek (goes not ready while seeking). It also mounts the >drive electronics board and the positioner on the movable part of the disk >clamping assembly. Only the drive motor and tach circuit is mounted on the >stationary drive frame. The disk that Shugart used while innovative was really bad for repeatability of position and slooowwww. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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places to visit in England

by alexeyt＠freeshell.org

I'm going to be in southern England for 2 weeks in mid-december, and I was wonding if listmembers could recommend any classic computing sights I should see while there. Ideas? Alexey

20 years, 9 months

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Available: 8" Vydec compatible floppy disks

by wmaddox＠pacbell.net

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. The disks appear to be unused, but are slightly warped due to improper storage. I suspect they are usable, however. They are available for the cost of postage to a collector with a compatible drive, otherwise I will put them up on eBay, or keep them as "bait" to lure a Vydec into my collection. ;) --Bill

20 years, 9 months

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Kevin Stumpf info

by jwstephens＠msm.umr.edu

I have a friend with a machine refered to in Kevin Stumpf's book on collecting computers. He owns the Univac III mentioned in a book he published. Does anyone have a copy of the book, or a contact for Me Stumpf? He would like to get the information about the system, which was in the book Many thanks Jim Stephens reply to jws - at - world.std.com, unless info is of interest to list, please. Thanks

20 years, 9 months

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NCD X-Terminals looking for a new home.

by alex＠p9.com

I have a couple of X-terminals that I don't have time to work on and that are therefore looking for a new home. The NCD19 would probably just work with the right download image. The NCD16 has a problem, which seems to be related to the memory. It does have a good CRT though (the square 16" 1024x1024 mono) and has server PROMs. Might be a good candidate for parting out. The IBM is a bit newer (and therefore a bit off-topic, sorry) and is an NCD OEM product. It's actually a network computer that supposedly does X, Windows Terminal Server, and some Java stuff. NCD19 June 1991 No keyboard or mouse Ethernet AUI/Thinwire Boot PROM V2.2.1 8MB RAM Cosmetic appearance fair NCD16 January 1991 No keyboard or mouse Ethernet AUI/Thinwire XServer PROM V2.3.0 1.5MB RAM Cosmetic appearance good Fails self-test, possibly memory IBM 8361-110 ~1998 No keyboard or mouse Power-supply Ethernet 10BASE-T 32MB RAM Boot Monitor V3.0.7.2 Cosmetic appearance fair I won't ship, but I can meet anywhere in the San Francisco Bay Area. I am not really asking for money for them, but would consider a trade if you have something I am interested in. Please respond directly in email. Alex.

20 years, 9 months

1
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paperclip computer project

by Betron522＠buckeye-express.com

I teach middle school and would be very interested in your paperclip computer project. Thanks Betty Betron522 at buckeye-express.com

20 years, 9 months

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Using a large MFM drive on a WD1000 controller

by cclist＠sydex.com

I've got an Atasi 1224 cylinder 16 head MFM drive that I want to use with a WD1000 disk controller. It will be the only drive attached to the controller. Pin 2 of the control connector on the WD1000 is RWC/, whereas the same pin on the Atasi is HS8/. So, I'll have to isolate that connector, but even so, since the WD can only address 8 heads, I'm stuck with around 70MB of storage out of a much larger drive. Has anyone in the same situation simply tried driving HS8/ off of DSEL2/ (pin 28) and jumpering DSEL1/ permanently TRUE? This should give me 2 drives of 1024 cylinders / 8 heads each. Am I thinking straight here? Cheers, Chuck

20 years, 9 months

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places to visit in England

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

anyplace that has a Research Machines Nimbus puter. None to be found on this side of the pond :( __________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - Make it your home page! http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

20 years, 9 months

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VAXmate, docs or floppies?

by h.otten＠chello.nl

I recently obtained a VAXmate, that Intel 286 based Digital Equipment MS-DOS machine with builtin ethernet. Last time I used one was around 1990, porting dutch versions of PSCA DECnet and PC ALL-IN-1 working for DEC. The system boots a DOS 3.3 floppy, so the hardware is fine. Underneath the unit is the RCD32 aka oizaabox hard disk system. I hear the disk spinning, no boot is done. Any one has more information on this system? The system floppies that belong to the VAXmate? Any help is appreciated. Hans. http://www.hansotten.com

20 years, 9 months

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IBM AS400?

by mbbrutman＠brutman.com

It's a midrange machine. Very good at COBOL and RPG. As a relational database that is tightly coupled with the OS. I'm not sure on the model numbers, but if it is in a white/beige box it's an old timer. The latest version of the OS is V3R2, dating back to about 1996. Black boxes mean it is a newer RISC processor model, although there were some previous generation boxes dressed up in black to make them sexy. :-) Peripherals and I/O on these things are weird. It's like working in a parallel universe. Read on the web for the gory details. If the box is newer, there is a good chance that some of my code is running on it in the bowels of the OS. Mike

20 years, 9 months

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Getting rid of 486 PC

by charlesmorris＠direcway.com

I have come across a stripped (but formerly working) PC chassis. It has a generic case labeled "Computers Plus", 250W power supply, and a motherboard with a 486DX2-66. No drives, peripherals or RAM. Anyone want it for the cost of postage, before it goes in the trash? Or just the motherboard? thanks Charles

20 years, 9 months

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RC-18 /working equipment/tubes NBO

by apryl＠nctv.com

I recently came across a manual (1956 RCA receiving tube rc-18) w/spare tubes from the army signal corp. & electrical, tube, (etc) tech books dating in the early 1940's. Also, there are fuses and other parts. some w/their shipping dates and many w/the company names right on the unopened boxes. Included in my findings is a working radio/recorder (?) unit that has enough parts to build another or replace existing parts. I can gather from my research that this piece of equipment was used in the war itself (WWII). I would like to inquire about this equipment to anyone who may know or be able to direct me to the proper place to find out more about this fascinating device! I have seen some 411 in the history museum online, but I need more. If you or anyone you know out there could point me in the right direction, I would be ever so grateful! Anyone know it's value? Thank you for your time & efforts, Apryl

20 years, 9 months

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IBM AS400?

by rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com

I spotted one of these in a local surplus store (Melbourne Florida). Is it anything particularly desireable? I believe it's model number is 9414. It's a large (30 inch?) tower and appears to be in very good condition. I don't know anything about these and tried to find info on Google but only found the usual collection of over-priced (or no price!) third party dealers and other spammers. Joe

20 years, 9 months

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HP K-Class 9000 auction in san antonio

by frustum＠pacbell.net

An auction house in san antonio is having an auction of "construction equipment" on Dec 10. However, the auction has other items including "salon & spa fixtures" and under miscellaneous, "HP K-Class 9000 computer system". I know nothing about this kind of system but presume that someone on this list might care about it. http://www.shattuck.com/liveauction/md1205.asp Picture 1: http://www.shattuck.com/md120530.jpg Picture 2: http://www.shattuck.com/md120531.jpg Other than giving notice of it, I can't help in procuring/storing/shipping it.

20 years, 9 months

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Free MK4801AN-1 chips

by shoppa_classiccmp＠trailing-edge.com

I've got 7 MK4801AN-1 (also marked 4118A) memory chips, 24-pin DIP's. Not sure what they go in, but if you can tell me where you want to plug them into, I'll send 'em to you gratis. Tim.

20 years, 9 months

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Pinout for SED9421

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Pinout for SED9421 > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 09:24:30 -0800 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >On 11/25/2005 at 9:31 AM shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com wrote: > >>to do the tweaking, as well as field service, as well as ... >>(Of course us hackers don't mind!) > >I've got a system here with a rather elaborate analog data separator PLL >(built around a CA3130 op amp). Part of the manufacturing process involves >a calibration diskette, trimpot and scope. It's pretty robust once it's >been set up, but component aging is probably a significant factor in >long-term performance. > >It seems hardly any more robust than a plain old digital (9216-type) data >separator. Which makes me wonder why anyone would bother implementing the >data separator in Figure 13 of the 179x app notes (3 trimpots). Simple, the non-digital circuits were available and the chips like 9229/9216 were later. There were really three varients, for plain FM oneshots either analog or digital did the job well enough. When DD (MFM) started to appear along with then current drives That didn't work well enough (peak shift) and PLLs became the solution then around 1981 people started to figure out how to apply write precomp and digital data seps that were either counter based or DPLL. >Out of the stats on performance that Allison cited, how many of those >errors could be recovered with a simple retry? Most were soft. Once they started to become hard the media was showing distress. >When I learned that Jameco was running low on 9216's, I bought their entire >stock, which amounts to about a 2 ft. tube of 8 pin DIPS. So if you're >looking for one, you know who's got 'em. :) Either that a Dflop(74LS74), hex D-latch(74LS174) and 32x4 prom(74LS288). Allison

20 years, 9 months

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Heath ET-3400 Trainer Simulator SW

by don.brown4＠sympatico.ca

How do I go about getting a copy of the simulator. How much will it cost. Don Brown Ontario

20 years, 9 months

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Free EPROM eraser

by shoppa_classiccmp＠trailing-edge.com

If anyone's interested, I have a home-built UV EPROM eraser that I can't see ever using again myself. (Everything I do is flash now and I don't see going back to EPROM's.) It was homebuilt from a germicidal lamp and an 8-track storage box and a ballast probably 30 years ago. Of course, there are no safety interlocks etc. Pick-up in/near Washington DC or you can pay for shipping (probably $8 or so.) Tim.

20 years, 9 months

1
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Cleaning out some old PC stuff

by fire＠dls.net

on 11/26/05 2:33, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org at cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: I am located in Cary, IL. this is about halfway between Chicago and Rockford in northeastern Illinois. I will send items any way desired (assuming USPS Media rate will be cheapest). Available for shipping costs, or free if someone picks up anything. thank you for taking the time to write. Bradley Slavik > Brad, > > Where are you located? > > Lyle > -- > Lyle Bickley > Bickley Consulting West Inc. > Mountain View, CA 94040 > > \"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero\"

20 years, 9 months

1
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Pinout for SED9421

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Pinout for SED9421 > From: lee davison <leeedavison at yahoo.co.uk> > Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 02:50:31 +0000 (GMT) > To: cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >> Figures.. However they loose a full sector for every four >> which is pretty bad considering sync and other overhead that >> floppies incur. > >It's not that clever. One 2K block of data per track, no sectors, >no sync, just the 125Kb/s async bitstream. Wait for the index >pulse and read/write the whole track. At the time it was a lot >cheaper than any other disk controller. > >Lee. They trade being efficient for a lot. Across 35 tracks (sa400) thats about 18k. NS* hard sector was 10x256 (2560bytes) track, and a sync chip (one sector per track) will give that much maybe more as well. I think what they did was very clever and dirt cheap and the hidden feature of async is the extra two bit times allows a bit more time to read/write the port 80uS vs 64uS typical. Wacky, but soon as you said OSI.. ;) they were a creative lot. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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OT: User group directory?

by news＠computercollector.com

Hey folks, I used to have a link to some national web site which listed computer user groups by region. Can't find it now. Anyone know the link? ----------------------------------------- Evan Koblentz's personal homepage: http://www.snarc.net Computer Collector Newsletter: >> http://news.computercollector.com Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists & Museum: >> http://www.marchclub.org >> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/midatlanticretro/

20 years, 9 months

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Pinout for SED9421

by leeedavison＠yahoo.co.uk

> Figures.. However they loose a full sector for every four > which is pretty bad considering sync and other overhead that > floppies incur. It's not that clever. One 2K block of data per track, no sectors, no sync, just the 125Kb/s async bitstream. Wait for the index pulse and read/write the whole track. At the time it was a lot cheaper than any other disk controller. Lee. .. ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

20 years, 9 months

1
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Pinout for SED9421

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Pinout for SED9421 > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 17:42:33 -0800 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >On 11/26/2005 at 12:48 AM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: > >>Is the difference in inertia between the band and the leadscrew really >>that significant? I always thought the taught band was indroduced for >>cheapness... > >Micropolis drives were 30 ms. track-to-track. I believe they used a 4-step >per track scheme. The last Micropolis 5.25" drive (with buffered seek) I >have has a closed-loop tach belt-drive spindle motor. I've never verified >it, but I suspect that with longer seeks, the stepping rate is sped up >considerably. I recall fooling with the step rate on a paper-feed motor on >a printer and discovering that once you've established direction, you can >crank the stepping rate pretty far up. Try it before things really get >moving and you're likely to find yourself stepping backwards. > >But you have a point about the speed. I've got some Siemens 8" drives that >use leadscrew positioning and they do just fine at 8 msec. track-to-track. The real problem is you can only step a stepper so fast. Older and smaller steppers tended to go async at relatively low speeds. A band position needed one maybe two steps per track some of the leadscrews were anywhere from 2(very fast ones) to 8. At some point you hit the wall for speed. Between resonance and other oddities steppers are hard to use for fast and precise at the same time. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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Pinout for SED9421

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Pinout for SED9421 > From: lee davison <leeedavison at yahoo.co.uk> > Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 01:13:45 +0000 (GMT) > To: cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >>> 6850 Async UART clocked at 125K bits/s, and a PIO for the control >>> lines. > >>> Lee. > >> Sure it wasnt the 6852 SSDA? UARTs generate start and stop bits and > >I checked the OSI610 schematic before replying. 8^)= > >Lee. Figures.. However they loose a full sector for every four which is pretty bad considering sync and other overhead that floppies incur. I'd used the 6850 in my first tape system back in '75-76 as it was available and worked well without baud rate clock scaling to do block replaceable FM format at around 30 kbaud. Problem was the tapes I used only got 60k of usable storage due to overhead. Going to a sync part upped that to 80k. Then I found a decent floppy that was affordable. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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Pinout for SED9421

by leeedavison＠yahoo.co.uk

>> 6850 Async UART clocked at 125K bits/s, and a PIO for the control >> lines. >> Lee. > Sure it wasnt the 6852 SSDA? UARTs generate start and stop bits and I checked the OSI610 schematic before replying. 8^)= Lee. .. ___________________________________________________________ How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com

20 years, 9 months

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Pinout for SED9421

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Pinout for SED9421 > From: lee davison <leeedavison at yahoo.co.uk> > Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 00:43:13 +0000 (GMT) > To: cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >>> Also Ohio Scientific, I think that was with an async UART? >>> (Don't know for sure, but I do know the best way to get the >>> correct information is to post incorrect information!) > >>> Tim. > >> I think the part they used was an USART as in async, bisync, >> and HDLC/.x25 kinda thing. > >> Allison > >6850 Async UART clocked at 125K bits/s, and a PIO for the control >lines. > >Lee. Sure it wasnt the 6852 SSDA? UARTs generate start and stop bits and even for a 128 byte sector that's 32 lost byte times as overhead. You could use a UART though but, storage efficientcy is then degraded. I went that path to do tape (FM encoded) so it's familiar. All of the designs I'd seen used synchronous serial parts from the old com2601/2651/2661 family and relatives under different names. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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Pinout for SED9421

by leeedavison＠yahoo.co.uk

>> Also Ohio Scientific, I think that was with an async UART? >> (Don't know for sure, but I do know the best way to get the >> correct information is to post incorrect information!) >> Tim. > I think the part they used was an USART as in async, bisync, > and HDLC/.x25 kinda thing. > Allison 6850 Async UART clocked at 125K bits/s, and a PIO for the control lines. Lee. .. ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Model Search 2005 - Find the next catwalk superstars - http://uk.news.yahoo.com/hot/model-search/

20 years, 9 months

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Pinout for SED9421

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

>Subject: Re: Pinout for SED9421 > From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) > Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 09:31:03 -0500 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> FYI:the average PLL is a bear to build and debug, they required clean >> power and good board layout with ample groundplanes. The digital ones are >> very good, simple to layout and shift rates with only a mux. >> >> >> Allison > >Don't neglect: PLL's require analog components of rather tight tolerances >to give consistent behavior from time-to-time and unit-to-unit. That falls in the catagory of a bear to build part. >The digital data separator (I heard its designer once refer to it as >a "jerk-locked-loop") has no such tight tolerances and in fact is usually >driven from a crystal oscillator. That is a good description. It also depends on the number of bits used as to how locked it is. Really only makes a difference when the peak shift is bad due to impropper media or bad write precomp or the drive speed is really off. Usually fixing the drive speed is easiest. The upside is predictable performance and repeatability. >The one-shot-with-critical-RC-constant used in early FM data separators >is a good example. With a little tweaking it really works pretty well. >But imagine mass-producing such a beast and training the assembly line >people to do the tweaking, as well as field service, as well as ... >(Of course us hackers don't mind!) I hate analog oneshots unless they are timing uncritical. I worked with an engineer that did everything with onshots and his stuff was prone to wandering off or plain quitting. The all time worst was the 1771 internal data sep. Tandy initally did that to save parts. Really bad. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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Pinout for SED9421

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

Does anyone have the pinout (or a datasheet) for the SED9421 chip (18 pin DIL package). I think it's some kind of floppy disk data seperator/PLL. A web search has found nothing of obvious use... If you want to send me anything other than plain text (like an image, or a pdf), please don't send it here. Please send it to tony_duell at yahoo.co.uk -tony

20 years, 9 months

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Cleaning out some old PC stuff

by lbickley＠bickleywest.com

Brad, Where are you located? Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA 94040 \"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero\" --------- Original Message -------- From: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Cleaning out some old PC stuff Date: 25/11/05 15:29 > This is 286 era things. I have manuals and hardware. > Please no disparaging comments. No obligation or guilt > will be meted out to anyone here. > > Main computer Compaq DeskPro 286. > > Following manuals available in short wide 3-ring binders > 2 copies of MS-DOS Version 30 Reference Guide > 2 copies of MS-DOS Version 3.3 Reference Guide > BASIC Version 3 > Compaq Deskpro 286 Operations Guide > Compaq Deskpro 286 Maintenance and Service guide > 80286 Based Products - Volume I > 80286 Based Products - Volume II > MS-DOS Version 4 Reference guide (with 5 1/4" disks) > > AllChargeCard with manual > AboveBoard PS/AT with manual > AST Rampage 286 with manual > > Also Alps P2100 printer (Loud fast dot matrix) with muffler. > > All will hit local recycle place in two weeks if not spoken for. > > Bradley Slavik > > ________________________________________________ Message sent using UebiMiau 2.7.8

20 years, 9 months

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ImageDisk 1.08 patch

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

I discovered that in my recent modifications to the filename selection code in ImageDisk, I introduced a bug which can cause it to close one too many windows when you are entering a filename and supplying the extension (if you don't supply an extension, ImageDisk will supply the default ".IMD" and all is well) - The symptom is that you appear to be back at the DOS screen, however the program is still active so you keyboard does not appear to be working. I have corrected this and updated IMD108.ZIP on my site (which now shows 1.08a when run). 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, 9 months

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Cleaning out some old PC stuff

by fire＠dls.net

This is 286 era things. I have manuals and hardware. Please no disparaging comments. No obligation or guilt will be meted out to anyone here. Main computer Compaq DeskPro 286. Following manuals available in short wide 3-ring binders 2 copies of MS-DOS Version 30 Reference Guide 2 copies of MS-DOS Version 3.3 Reference Guide BASIC Version 3 Compaq Deskpro 286 Operations Guide Compaq Deskpro 286 Maintenance and Service guide 80286 Based Products - Volume I 80286 Based Products - Volume II MS-DOS Version 4 Reference guide (with 5 1/4" disks) AllChargeCard with manual AboveBoard PS/AT with manual AST Rampage 286 with manual Also Alps P2100 printer (Loud fast dot matrix) with muffler. All will hit local recycle place in two weeks if not spoken for. Bradley Slavik

20 years, 9 months

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Pinout for SED9421

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Pinout for SED9421 > From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) > Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 16:56:16 -0500 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >"Peter C. Wallace" <pcw at mesanet.com> wrote: > >> On Fri, 25 Nov 2005, woodelf wrote: >> >> > Allison wrote: >> > >> >> Either that a Dflop(74LS74), hex D-latch(74LS174) and 32x4 prom(74LS288). >> >> >> >> >> > Just for the heck of it, got a schematic and a prom listing? >> > Did anybody ever use a serial chip and a data separater >> > rather than a floppy disk controler? >> >> Heathkit did with their H89 hard sectored floppy controller.... >> >> > >> >> Peter Wallace >> > >Also Ohio Scientific, I think that was with an async UART? (Don't >know for sure, but I do know the best way to get the correct information >is to post incorrect information!) > >Tim. I think the part they used was an USART as in async, bisync, and HDLC/.x25 kinda thing. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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Pinout for SED9421

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Pinout for SED9421 > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 13:25:49 -0800 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >On 11/25/2005 at 1:51 PM woodelf wrote: > >>Just for the heck of it, got a schematic and a prom listing? >>Did anybody ever use a serial chip and a data separater >>rather than a floppy disk controler? > >I've done it on lashups to read very oddball floppies. A 2651 in sync mode >will go to something like 600KHz or 1MHz data rate. > The commonly used 2601 USRT was common, also the Z80 SIO in sync mode or the NEC d7201(8274) as they were faster. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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Pinout for SED9421

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Pinout for SED9421 > From: woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> > Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 13:51:27 -0700 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Allison wrote: > >>Either that a Dflop(74LS74), hex D-latch(74LS174) and 32x4 prom(74LS288). >> >> >> >Just for the heck of it, got a schematic and a prom listing? Sure do. Send a scanner and a system that won't croak under the load. It's in the net, someone about three months ago found it. >Did anybody ever use a serial chip and a data separater >rather than a floppy disk controler? Yes, many. usually its a sync chip. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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Pinout for SED9421

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

>Subject: Re: Pinout for SED9421 > From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> > Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 12:28:14 -0800 (PST) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On Fri, 25 Nov 2005, Allison wrote: >> >>The all time worst was the 1771 internal data sep. Tandy initally did >> >that to save parts. Really bad. > >The 1771 may have CLAIMED to have an internal data separator; performance >did not bear that out. ;) I'm not going to argue that! ;) >You were much too gentle. Next time, we'll loan you a bigger bat. Hey North actually called me obnoxious once. ;) >the Micropolis lead screw was SLOW. But noticably more reliable than >either the Shugart spiral, or the split bands. Shugart whas prolific but not very good. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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Pinout for SED9421

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

>Subject: Re: Pinout for SED9421 > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 14:19:32 -0800 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >Has anyone noticed a significant performance difference between the PLL >type data separators (e.g. the WD1691/2143 combo) and the plain-Jane WD9216 >digital ones? I suspect that the PLL type is more tolerant of drive speed >variations, but that hardly matters all that much with modern drives. I >don't recall finding a disk that failed to read on a generic 9216-equipped >FDC but read fine on the old IBM PC floppy board. > >Cheers, >Chuck I've used he 9216 and 9229 and the NEC apnote digital data seperator (prom state machine synthetic PLL) as well as a custom NEC ASIC (with the prom data sep inside) and they all do very well. Testing against a well developed PLL (not the WD animal) showed a small difference after a 4 days of continious read and writes (number of fails less than 3). You have to do a very large number of reads without external influences to see the difference. Power blips and the like were a pain. A small difference was seen in the order of one of one failure per 250,000 reads vs 1 in maybe 400-500,000 reads. You need a lot more testing than we did then to get near 1:10^8 stats with any validity. FYI:the average PLL is a bear to build and debug, they required clean power and good board layout with ample groundplanes. The digital ones are very good, simple to layout and shift rates with only a mux. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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DEC Boot PROM files: Mirror Up!

by kyrrin＠bluefeathertech.com

With my thanks to Don North for his permission, as well as his excellent page layout work, I have established a mirror of his site containing PROM images and source code for numerous DEC'ish boot PROMs, as used on the M9312 boards. The link is -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com/technoid/promfiles.html If you have trouble accessing the page (folks outside the U.S., notably those in the Pacific Rim countries, may run afoul of our firewall's filters), please drop me a note. If your E-mail bounces, put in a brief 'Page' for me here in the group, and I'll see what I can do. Keep the peace(es). -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy, Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m "If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?"

20 years, 9 months

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not lurking

by dogas＠bellsouth.net

From: "Joe R." <rigdonj at cfl.rr.com> > Are you still lurking here! I haven't seen or heard anything out of you hell yeah I'm still around. I love this place. Been classic computing. ;) - Mike: dogas at bellsouth.net

20 years, 9 months

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Masscomp OS floppies / tape dump

by andy.piercy＠gmail.com

All, Is there anyone on this alias who has access to Masscomp OS floppy disks for a 5400 series, including graphics and dat acc etc? Thanks.

20 years, 9 months

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OS9 login / shutdown

by James＠jdfogg.com

> > I've just come across my first OS9 system, and know > absolutely nothing > > about OS9 other than that it's vaguely UNIX-like. Before I > try hooking > > the hard disk up and seeing if it actually works, obvious > questions follow: For some reason I missed the original post - I used to support high volume page scanners manufactured by Terminal Data Corp (now owned by Banctec). They had a Motorola based VME system that ran OS9, and I remember a little about it. To begin to understand it, consider it to be a CP/M clone with multi-user extensions. List the files in the system directory and most of them will be vaguely familiar utilities. I believe "DIR" was the command. If not, use commands from other common OS's as it was the same as one of them (LIST maybe?).

20 years, 9 months

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CP/M 2 - what's its legal status? (Vector box cards)

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: CP/M 2 - what's its legal status? (Vector box cards) > From: M H Stein <dm561 at torfree.net> > Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 02:21:28 -0500 > To: "'cctalk at classiccmp.org'" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Well, from my limited knowledge of Vector systems, AFAIK the >multi-user systems did actually use a standard 48K CP/M and >not MP/M; each terminal loaded it into its own memory card >and the supervisor ROM looked after time-slicing among the cards. A lot of the multiuser S100 systems used CPU/memory/IO per user running CP/M and a additional CPU/mem/IO/disks running MPM as server to provide inter-cpu communication, file services and spooled printing. Some ran Multiple IO subsystems and one cpu to time slice task swap. >But the question still remains whether the FDD is soft or hard >sectored; it does indeed look like a Tandon and not the usual >Micropolis and if the model number can't be relied on, how >could one tell (other than by trial & error)? > >mike This is the crush question. Board names/model numbers may help. Then those specifically familar with Vector can say whats what. Allison

20 years, 9 months

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Kevin Stumpf info

by dogas＠bellsouth.net

Original Message ----- From: "Keys" <jrkeys at concentric.net> > WOW a used copy going for $184.49!!!!!!!!!!!! Glad I got my copy from Kevin > after it first came out. wow again, though the publishing numbers couldn't be big . Kevin nicely signed my copy of that great book too I seem to recall chapters maybe like "how the PDP-10 made me fix the roof"... Fun. But, because my book was delivered along also with Kevin's Imsai 8080 and VDP-80, my review might be jaded... Joe's reading it now. ;) - Mike: dogas at bellsouth.net

20 years, 9 months

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Masscomp help please!

by andy.piercy＠gmail.com

Folks, I'm searching for info and parts for Masscomp computers. I have a MC5420 (68020) system less data acc and some parts of an MC5000 (68000) system and am looking for to a set of RTU distribution floppies or tapes for each system, manuals, and general Masscomp parts... Can anyone help? Thanks, Andy.

20 years, 9 months

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CP/M 2 - what's its legal status? (Vector box cards)

by dm561＠torfree.net

Well, from my limited knowledge of Vector systems, AFAIK the multi-user systems did actually use a standard 48K CP/M and not MP/M; each terminal loaded it into its own memory card and the supervisor ROM looked after time-slicing among the cards. Not sure what MDM7 has to do with the Flashwriter, which is essentially just a video display and parallel keyboard interface. But the question still remains whether the FDD is soft or hard sectored; it does indeed look like a Tandon and not the usual Micropolis and if the model number can't be relied on, how could one tell (other than by trial & error)? mike ------------Original Message--------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 18:24:43 -0800 From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> Subject: Re: CP/M 2 - what's its legal status? (Vector box cards) On 11/23/2005 at 2:21 PM JP Hindin wrote: >The thing is a pretty nifty set up, to be honest, I didn't know it was >nearly so cool ;) Isn't this whole thing deja vu all over again--only 6 years later? http://classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/1999-May/127508.html This was almost certainly an MP/M II system. FWIW, if you're wondering about the Flashwriter cards, there's a MDM7 overlay for them wandering around on the web. Cheers, Chuck

20 years, 9 months

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Kevin Stumpf info

by rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com

Mike, Are you still lurking here! I haven't seen or heard anything out of you in months. Joe At 08:33 AM 11/24/05 -0500, you wrote: >Original Message ----- >From: "Keys" <jrkeys at concentric.net> >> WOW a used copy going for $184.49!!!!!!!!!!!! Glad I got my copy from >Kevin >> after it first came out. > >wow again, though the publishing numbers couldn't be big . Kevin nicely signed my copy of that great book too I seem to recall chapters maybe like "how the PDP-10 made me fix the roof"... Fun. > >But, because my book was delivered along also with Kevin's Imsai 8080 and VDP-80, my review might be jaded... Joe's reading it now. > >;) >- Mike: dogas at bellsouth.net > > >

20 years, 9 months

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Appraisal and donating a collection

by Useddec＠aol.com

Hi, I can give you "fair market value" for most DEC and some other equipment. Thanks, Paul

20 years, 9 months

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Quick intro and requests

by crites＠ktc.com

Hi, Somewhere I picked up a message sent by you requesting a manual for the NEC ProSpeed 286. I have such a machine with manuals, nice carrying case and the only thing wrong with it is the battery is dead. It does not enough juice to boot up. If you are interested in it I would send it to for the cost of the shipping. Let me know. Regards, N.R. Crites

20 years, 9 months

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Pyramid - Re: Masscomp OS floppies / tape dump

by ken＠seefried.com

From: Bill Pechter <pechter at gmail.com> > I wish I had the sources for it and Pyramid's OS/x... We had a Pyramid 90x when I was at GaTech. Really nifty box, but exceptionally obscure now. Sorta like our Kendall Square Reasearch machine (KSR/1).

20 years, 9 months

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BASIC's question mark and PRINT

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: BASIC's question mark and PRINT > From: Jim Battle <frustum at pacbell.net> > Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 13:03:31 -0600 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >tim lindner wrote: >> In BASIC, where did the short cut of '?' for PRINT originate? >> >> After following a discussion on the CoCo list I thought I'd ask here. >> > >Here are some bounds and data points. > >The Dartmouth BASIC specification does not have ? as an abbrevation (circa 1964). > >I think all versions of Microsoft BASIC have this shortcut (circa 1975). > >Palo Alto Tiny BASIC (li chen wang) didn't use this convention -- instead it >used "P.". > >Wang BASIC (circa 1972) didn't use this convention. > > From what I can tell, DEC BASIC didn't use this abbreviation. The ? was adopted by convention from the fact that early MS basic (MITS BASIC) the ? was also the same value as the token for print. Most of the non-compiled 8bit basics were tokenized in memory for execution and storage and when "LIST"ed were detokenized to list as Basic we know. Allison

20 years, 9 months

9
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IBM RT

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

>>In a message dated 11/23/2005 7:15:58 PM Eastern Standard Time, >>tponsford at theriver.com writes: >>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 Sounds like mine. Mine also has AIX 2.2.1 on it. I have some RT diagnostic disks that might be copyable if anyone needs them. I think I have what's known as a megapel card but I dont have a free slot to put it in or a display to connect it to.

20 years, 9 months

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OS-9 login / shutdown

by os9al＠os9al.com

> I've just come across my first OS9 system, and know absolutely > nothing about > OS9 other than that it's vaguely UNIX-like. Before I try hooking > the hard disk > up and seeing if it actually works, obvious questions follow: > > 1) I assume there's a login process. Of course I don't know any > account > details for the system; are there any tricks to breaking in as > there often are > with old UNIX systems? The stock "login" utility provided by Microware was very, very basic (not even encrypted passwords; it was designed just as a front end for selecting user IDs for the super user). An example /dd/sys/ password file would have "super" for the user name, and "user" for the password. You could even type them both at the login prompt: Login? super user But no one should have ever shipped a system with that in place ;-) > 2) Assuming I can't log in at this stage, is it possible to cleanly > shut the > system down? e.g. some magic keypress or login name (as there is > with Apollo > machines) Power off at will! OS-9 was designed for embedded use and except for potential disk caching issues if you powered down during a write, there is no "shutdown" sequence for OS-9. > 3) If I can login somehow, how do I then shut the system down > properly? Is > there a shutdown command in OS9, or is it something else entirely? Not needed :-) Just make sure nothing is writing to the disk. > On the plus side, the interface between host and disk unit is SASI, > so there's > a chance I can do a raw backup of the drive via a modern system. On > the minus > side, the physical drive is an ST506 type via an OMTI bridge board, > so I can't > easily go from raw backup to working system without proper low- > level format > utils (which I don't have, although I'm still sorting through > floppies that > came in the same haul) You can do a web search and find disk utilities for PC and maybe Linux (and maybe Mac) that will read/write to an OS-9 disk image. > Of course all of this assumes that a) the hard drive isn't toast > already and > b) that the hard drive which came in the pile of stuff actually > belongs with > this system in the first place :) You can also find the OS-9 Technical I/O manual online at the CD-i Association website (netsearch; I don't know the address) and it has the disk structure in there. Worst case: disk zapper ;-) -- Allen http://os9al.com

20 years, 9 months

2
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Tape punch

by charlesmorris＠direcway.com

I'd posted here a while ago looking for info on a Tally 420PR tape punch and have built a driver board to interface it to a PDP-8A. But there is a problem with consistent punching/feeding (the result is often a longitudinal tear instead of holes) even with the pulse widths set to the recommended 4.5 ms +- 0.5 ms, -24 volts, and the feed mechanism intermittently binds up too. Currently I'm running it with only the sprocket and feed drivers hooked up, and simulated punch commands from a 555 timer, so the result should be continuously feeding tape with just sprocket holes punched in it. I suspect the problem is that the feed pulse starts immediately on the falling edge of the punch pulse, so the pin hasn't cleared the tape as the feed mechanism starts to move. It also tends to stick in that position with the tape not moving (you can hear the solenoids buzzing but the feed sprocket is not moving until tweaked backwards a few degrees by hand). According to the schematic, the escapement solenoid (which allows the tape to feed one row per pulse) is supposed to be actuated internally by contacts on the feed solenoid so there shouldn't be a timing issue there. Does anyone have more info on this punch model, or experience with these asynchronous mechanisms in general? Is there a requirement for a delay between punching the holes and pulsing the feed solenoid? How long does it take for the pins to move up or down after drive is applied/removed? thanks Charles

20 years, 9 months

7
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Mouse Pissed! Need power supply help

by pete＠dunnington.plus.com

On Nov 23 2005, 13:18, Julian Wolfe wrote: > Interesting, I was never aware that the 11/03 and 23 had different boxen > than the 11/23plus, though I knew the power supplies were different. > Speaking to my local DEC salvage dealer, he told me he used to get whole > 11/780s just for the power supplies in the front end 11/03s. However, > judging from the number of 23plus systems that were sold (and have recently > hit, if not flooded, the used market)I'd say it should be fairly easy to > find a cheap H7861 supply. Probably, and as Allison pointed out, if there's a lot of damage a replacement may, for once, be better than attempting a repair. BTW, if you've not already found it, my web page (actually it's a flat-ASCII text file) describing the different QBus boxes and backplanes and such may be of interest to you: http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/PDP-11/QBus_chassis -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

20 years, 9 months

1
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NSC800x-4

by cclist＠sydex.com

I've done some calling around looking for an NSC800x-4 CPU chip (4 MHz National Z80-type) and am coming up zeroes. Does anyone have one that they'd be willing to part with? Either DIP or PLCC is fine. Thanks, Chuck

20 years, 9 months

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Mouse Pissed! Need power supply help

by Useddec＠aol.com

Hi Charles, I'll look for the boards over the weekend, but I do have the H7861. Thanks, Paul

20 years, 9 months

1
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Mouse Pissed! Need power supply help

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: RE: Mouse Pissed! Need power supply help > From: "Julian Wolfe" <fireflyst at earthlink.net> > Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 13:18:02 -0600 > To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Interesting, I was never aware that the 11/03 and 23 had different boxen >than the 11/23plus, though I knew the power supplies were different. >Speaking to my local DEC salvage dealer, he told me he used to get whole >11/780s just for the power supplies in the front end 11/03s. However, >judging from the number of 23plus systems that were sold (and have recently >hit, if not flooded, the used market)I'd say it should be fairly easy to >find a cheap H7861 supply. There were four major boxes used, and a few oddballs as well. The majors were: BA11-m with the H780 on the side. smaller cage. BA11-N H786 in the front BA11-S H7861 in the front A good PC power supply will do the DC needs of a modest system but the signals BDCok, BPok, Bhalt, Bevent (ltc), Srun need to be created. Allison > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] >> On Behalf Of Pete Turnbull >> Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2005 11:52 AM >> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts >> Subject: Re: Mouse Pissed! Need power supply help >> >> On Nov 23 2005, 10:51, Charles wrote: >> > I've found the reason why my PDP-11 power supply (H7861) is not >> > putting out POK and DCOK signals. >> [ ... ] >> > Unfortunately the H780 schematic does not match closely (they use >> > 74123's while this one uses 555's, for example) so it'll be hard >> > to figure out the missing or unreadable parts anyway! >> >> The H7861 is a reworked version of the H786 design, which is fairly >> different from the H780. The H786 is used in the BA11-N box commonly >> used for PDP-11/03 and 11/23 systems, and the H7861 is used in the >> BA11-S box commonly used for 11/23plus and 11/73S systems, so you >> should be able to find the schemeatics amongst the BA11-{N,S} drawings. >> >> -- >> Pete Peter Turnbull >> Network Manager >> University of York >

20 years, 9 months

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Mouse Pissed! Need power supply help

by pete＠dunnington.plus.com

On Nov 23 2005, 10:51, Charles wrote: > I've found the reason why my PDP-11 power supply (H7861) is not > putting out POK and DCOK signals. [ ... ] > Unfortunately the H780 schematic does not match closely (they use > 74123's while this one uses 555's, for example) so it'll be hard > to figure out the missing or unreadable parts anyway! The H7861 is a reworked version of the H786 design, which is fairly different from the H780. The H786 is used in the BA11-N box commonly used for PDP-11/03 and 11/23 systems, and the H7861 is used in the BA11-S box commonly used for 11/23plus and 11/73S systems, so you should be able to find the schemeatics amongst the BA11-{N,S} drawings. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

20 years, 9 months

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Vector Graphic CP/M Disk, was Re: CP/M 2 - what's its legal status?

by marvin＠rain.org

I just posted an original 16 sector Vector Graphic CP/M System disk for the 3032 on VCM (http://www.vintagecomputermarketplace.com/.) I'm not sure what the tpi of the disk are since it doesn't say on the labels. On a similar note, I've been really busy and not able to respond timely to requests. That will most likely continue until after Christmas :(. I am working though to try and get caught up! > > On 11/22/2005 at 4:21 PM JP Hindin wrote: > > >How helpful ;P > > >I'll have a close look at the disk drive tonight and see if I can look it > > >up and find something out about it. > > On Tue, 22 Nov 2005, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > Well, that drive looks like a Tandon TM-100M, so most likely, you not only > > have hard-sectored diskettes, but they're 100 tpi also. Vector had a DS > > format that held about 640K. > > ... just to add to the bad news,... > I've seen numerous TM100-4M drives that were labelled TM100-4 ! > So, a visual inspection may be inadequate to identify it. >

20 years, 9 months

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