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

by tponsford＠theriver.com

Hi All The Last UA auction, I picked up about 9-10 old IBMXT/and clones upgraded 5150 ?. I don't collect any 8088 machines, I simply wanted these for the MFM drives/cables. Most of the machines had been lying around for ages in somebody's dusty wherehouse and some were missing power supplies, etc, so I made no attempt to resucitate any of them before canabalizing. After taking them apart. I have all these parts for the taking. Just pay the postage. I would prefer someone to take the whole lot. Any items left unclaimed goes to the dump. I can check any of the cards or boards for certain chips or info If you need me to. So here is what I have: 8088 MB's 64K/128K rom, 8088-fujitsu '81 8087-2 intel '80 8 isa slots 64k/128k rom 8088-2-fujitsu '81 vacant 8087 socket 8 isa slots 64K-256K 8088 -intel '78 '81 8087 -intel '80 '81 5 isa slots 64K-256K D8088D -NEC vacant 8087 socket 5 isa slots 64K-256K 8088 -intel '78 '83 vacant 8087 socket 5 isa slots UNKNOWN 128k ?? sab8088 -SIEMENS '86 8087-2 iNTEL '84 8 ISA SLOTS (appears to be missing some mem chips. ie.empty sockets) 80286 MB's 256K/512K system board CG80286-6 C cpu C80827-3 intel co-p 6 EISA/2 ISA slots PC/XT cards Full Length (13") [2] AST Six Pak Plus DATA Translation Inc io card (50 pin) [2] Black and white/Parallel Card TIC mono/Parallel card AST MegaPlusII Hercules Mono/Parallel card Color Graphics card/no name/ has IBM chips 9pin and RCA jack WD Floppy and MFM HDD controller (EISA ?) IBM #62X1133 Serial/Parrallel Card?? Has 2 banks of 6- 30 pin simms (high Byte on right and Low byte on the left) Fixed Disk (MFM) /Floppy disk controller (EISA) TECMAR Graphics Master video card 9pin and RCA jack w/toggle switch Serial Parralel Card ? JRAM-3 Tall Tree Systems has a oscillator chip and a Mostek 8507 chip and appears (I can barely read it...JLASER-1 Tall Tree Systems 1/2 Length (9") [3] Floppy Controller 16.0MHZ oscillator and NEC D765AC [3] Floppy/Serial Controller/Game controller HAve 3.5 v 350mah battery MFM HDD/Floppy Controller EISA WD 1988 Mid length (7") Modul r Circuit Tech MCT HDC MFM/Floppy Controller Short Cards 5/12-6 inches WD Floppy /MFM HDD controller [4] Serial Parrallel Controller [3] Serial Parallel Controller I/O card V 2.0 Winbond Chip GP1B Card Ethernet t-base 10 50Pin i/o card Cheers Tom

21 years, 6 months

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*nix on 8086 (was installing XP on Sony)

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

>> > Actually, Linux will run on an 8086, nowadays, completely without >> > memory management as an embedded OS :) >> > >> > I vaguely remember seeing a page about running Linux on the Tosh >> > 1000 :) >> >> That's the ELKS project, which promptly went inactive as soon as they >> got something cobbled together. A much better bet for running *nix on >> 8088 hardware is Minix. > >Or early Xenix. But my Altos 8086-based machine that runs ancient Xenix >is very proprietary, with (I believe, though I haven't got any 'deep' >technical specs for it) supplimentary hardware for memory protection. I have Xenix running on the Nabu 1600. This is an 8086 processor with 512k or RAM, four serial TTYs, and a custom MMU board which provides memory protection and management features Xenix will NOT run with the MMU board removed. Early QNX however does run without the MMU (as does CP/M-86 and MS-DOS) - QNX is one of the smallest somewhat *nix like OS's that I've seen run on a bare 8086. 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

21 years, 6 months

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Adaptec Toast

by rcini＠optonline.net

All: Does anyone have a copy of Adaptec Toast or other CD recording software for the System 7 Mac (68k-based) that's not tied to a specific recorder (i.e., not OEM)? If so, please contact me off-list. Thanks. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Build Master for the Altair32 Emulation Project Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ /************************************************************/

21 years, 6 months

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Scrapping of DEC Equipment

by pspan＠amerytel.net

Hello All, I am in the process of scrapping out my Telecom gear. I have some LA 120's and other Dec boards that I will be listing. The printers are not very economical to ship, so my thoughts are that there may be some interest in the parts. If that is the case, please let me know. A year or so ago, the folks next door talked about wanting to sell their Dec inventory, test fixtures and prints. Although I did forward all of the info to them, I don't think they did anything with the information. If there is still any interest, please let me know. Thank you. Phil

21 years, 6 months

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unsubscribe

by aardvark＠fefsi.be

21 years, 6 months

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AM29116DC cpu??

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Joe R." <rigdonj at cfl.rr.com> > > Does anyone have any information about this part? I've been told that >it's a high performance microprocessor. I found it on what looks like a hex >size DEC card made by Spectra Logic Corp. I found a picture of one on the >net but it's not very good. ><http://www.cpushack.net/gallery/showimg.php?file=/chippics/AMD/29K/AMDAM291 >16DC.jpg> > > Joe Hi I might have a manual someplace that has it in it. It was a single chip combination of a number of 2901's in one package. I think it had a 2910 as well. I forget if it was 4 or 16 2901's. Still, basically an extension of the 2900 bitslice family. It will be some time before I can dig into my piles to find a book on it. Anyway, it was still considered part of the bitslice family and not a uP. Dwight

21 years, 6 months

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Looking for some DEC stuff (again)

by willisjo＠zianet.com

Looking for some DEC stuff for my private collection... New Mexico, Texas, Arizona area preferably: Any BA23 chassis (these could probably be shipped) Actually, BA123/213 would work too Any H9642 racks Any SDI drives (RAxx) Any working RD54s 9-track tape drive--any make that can be connected to a VAX, i.e. Kennedy would work, though a TU80/TU81/TU81+ would be ideal, as I already have the controller. KDA50 disk controller Any of the following: DELQA/DEQNA, RQDX3, TQK50 Contact me off-list if you have any leads. John P. Willis

21 years, 6 months

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Looks neat -- Fairchild movie on DVD

by news＠computercollector.com

http://www.thefairchildchronicles.com/ ===== Evan's personal homepage: www.snarc.net *** Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! - It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address - Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us - Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all - W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news at computercollector.com - We're approaching 700 readers: win a prize!

21 years, 6 months

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Taking photos of displays...

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk ---snip--- > >I'm a bit worried by your choice of film. To me, 800 ASA is a fast film, >which will have coarse grain. I normally preder something slower than >100ASA. And then there's the issue of developing and printing it. These ---snip--- There is a 1600 Pan--something_or_other that Kodak makes that is also fine grain. I've used it to make C size blowups of astro pictures. It is hard to find but it is available. Most places I went would tell me that it was only use by professionals and they didn't carry it. I wish I could remember that name. Dwight

21 years, 6 months

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Who invented DOS?

by tyger69＠chartermi.net

I suspect that it might be very well be a corruption of the story about Randy Cook's easter egg in TRS-DOS, that showed up in NewDOS prior to NEWDOS80. That one really DID exist. RS, in TRS-DOS 2.3, changed "Randy Cook" in the easter egg to "Tandy Corp". It was invoked by running a boot file as if it were a program, with one of the master paswords, and pressing 'J'? and 'N'? while it was loading. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com ------------------------------ That's funny, because the first time I heard the story a few years back, it was a lawsuit between AT&T and SCO over the rights to unix. (Or was it MicroSoft and Xenix...???) Should this discussion be moved to the urban legend mailing list? --T Jam the computer...trash every lethal machine in the land! -- Timothy Leary

21 years, 6 months

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Taking photos of displays...

by dvcorbin＠optonline.net

> I suspect you may have to put the camera on a tripod (or equivalent > means of keeping it fixed) and take something like a dozen > pictures and > then digitally average them, to get the equivalent of a long exposure > with a slow film. > Little bit of a problem with that logic...you would want to "accumulate" or "sum" the light from shorter exposures to simulate a longer one, not "average". And if the light is low enough you could end up summing a bunch of "0"'s in any case....

21 years, 6 months

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Age

by toresbe＠ifi.uio.no

OK, at a mere OCT 20 years I think I'm the youngest on the list - I started out playing around with NIBBLES.BAS on my dad's business 286 Vectra laptop (he worked in Shipping at HP), I can't really remember when, but I was young - around three years old. When dad got his 486, I played extravagant amounts of Commander Keen 4. Started writing tiny programs in the library at school on the 386 there when I turned 7. I have fond memories of lending my dad's HP95LX and playing with it, especially after he got his 100LX. The 95LX was confiscated by my school and subsequently lost by the teacher, and the 100LX was broken by my baby stepbrother who tripped over the charger... and gave me two HP50LX'es... Had a fascination with 1980s computers like the Commodore 64, sat in the basement typing BASIC games off the "Learn BASIC" book when I was around 10-11. I think I was about 12 when a friend of my mom's lent me a machine with Visual BASIC - and I did some very... BASIC stuff with that too, but rapidly started getting a hold of things At age 14 I sort-of got a job setting up Windows XP machines for a local gaming place, where I met Bj?rn Vermo, investor, cctech mainframe guru and list member, and his girlfriend, Debbie, who told me about the Informatics library and the books there. I managed to navigate my way there, and was shocked to find a PDP-7 in the atrium. I did not know much about big iron back then, so it was a great opportunity to learn a lot more. And learn I did - I subscribed to this list (first cctech digest, then cctech, then the full cctalk - addictive :), started getting into Linux, learning to code a Real Language, learning about electronics, and classic computing, etc. I found it remarkable how much one learns when one completely ignores school! Now I just recently got my very own PDP-11, which I with the help of gordonjcp over IRC fixed :) My dream job is working at a museum, maybe even starting a separate computer museum (which Norway, with a very interesting computer history, IMHO really needs, but that's another thread :) Hell, I'd be a building super if they let me use a 360/91 as the furnace :) -- Tore S Bekkedal <toresbe at ifi.uio.no>

21 years, 6 months

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MousePads

by jrkeys＠concentric.net

Does anyone else on the list collect mousepads? If so, what is the size of your collection and do you specialize? I was just looking over some the oddballs I have in my own collection which is over 600 pads (with a number of dups. included) and still growing. I collect all types such as those put out by computer companies, business of all types, pads with liquid/floaters inside of them, really oddball ones like the mousepad telephone sold by Sharper Image, odd shapes, and ones that are true artwork done by real artist (on commission) and children that are cancer patients. JohnK

21 years, 6 months

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Digital Pathways' SLC-1 "The Time Machine"

by tomj＠wps.com

Very cool. Got it working. It's a clever device that sits between the terminal and computer. It simply bidirectionally and transparently passes characters terminal <--> computer, but can pattern-match text from the computer and send text to the computer in response. I'm so advanced here, I don't even have to type in the date and time, a MACHINE does it for me! Imagine the time savings! [booting the disk from the virtual console] !100033L FILENAME? MAPPED NOVA 3 RDOS REV 6.60 DATE (M/D/Y) ? 3 05 2005 TIME (H:M:S) ? 00 36 51 R Isn't technology wonderful?

21 years, 6 months

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Bootstrapping kermit... D.G. Nova RDOS

by tomj＠wps.com

I now have FORTRAN IV actually working now. I did previously make FORTRAN IV "HELLO, WORLD" run, using the TYPE command, since I had troubles with FORMAT, but it turns out the troubles successfully using FORMAT and WRITE were actually problems with the math library functions. I rebuilt the fortran library with the hardware mult/div and it all works. So I found an RDOS KERMIT program source. It's actually the output of some RATFOR, for FORTRAN 5, but hopefully I can get it to compile on FORTRAN 4. My problem is more contemporary. The kermit source text is on my "terminal" linux laptop. I'm using minicom. I need to do XFER/A $TTI KERMIT.FR on RDOS to input the text, but minicom blasts the text out too fast. I solved this problem in another world at another time by writing a "text upload" that dynamically watched for character echo and self-paced; is there anything like this around? I guess I could hack something up in Perl, to simply delay 25mS per character, or something; or extract the CPU card and set the console speed to 300, bu sheesh, the source is 68,798 characters, I have to debug fortran4 vs. fortran5 issues as it is, I don't want to chase down dropped single characters at the same time. Is there any linux tool to do this sort of console-bootstrap thing, or a way to coerce minicom? (Delay after newline is useless, tried that, even 999 mS.)

21 years, 6 months

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Re installing XP on Sony

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Mar 4 2005, 10:56, Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > I think many don't realize the damage that can happen > when the group becomes a "Please fix my PC" group. > I watched this happen to a news group that had too many > people that tolerated such off topic post. From Jim's own > words, he thought that this was a general computer > group. It is not. [ snip ] FWIW, I'm in complete agreement with Dwight, and well remember the newsgroup he means, having used it from 1994 until its eventual demise. Actually, it's still there - but has become an alt.fix.my.pc group. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

21 years, 6 months

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test

by lbickley＠bickleywest.com

test -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

21 years, 6 months

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PING Fred Van Kempen, Ed Sharpe

by jpl15＠panix.com

Anyone having any contact with Fred or Ed, or who can possibly get a message to either of them - it would be a Good Thing for either (or both) of them to get in touch with me ASAP.. Thanks! Cheers John

21 years, 6 months

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Build your own Apple I article

by tpeters＠mixcom.com

Quoting from the Wired article: "A new book tackles modern computers in a uniquely hands-on way -- by getting the reader to build a replica of one of the most famous personal computers of all: the Apple I." "Apple I Replica Creation: Back to the Garage by Tom Owad explores the architecture of modern digital computers through the process of building an Apple I replica for about $100." Wired News, http://wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,66742,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3 "The book focuses on the basic knowledge of digital electronics required to understand how the computer does its most basic work. Many diagrams and photographs illustrate specific tasks or functions. But the book is not simply a cookbook directing readers to "insert tab A into slot B." It attempts to teach the fundamentals of digital computer design along the way. The "Digital Logic" chapter, for example, which can be downloaded as a sample chapter (.pdf), shows how to build "and," "or" and "not" gates from resistors, diodes and LEDs. Owad said building microcomputers is within many readers' grasp, if they have the appropriate guide. "Apple I Replica Creation attempts to be that guide," Owad said. " The Woz himself wrote the Forward to the book. -T [Authors] "90% of everything is crap" --T. Sturgeon "111% of crap is everything" --L. Wall --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, Cisco Certified CCNA

21 years, 6 months

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directory structure on DOMAIN/OS

by Saquinn624＠aol.com

In which environment? Powered up Phaeton, from both SysV and Aegis the user-look was //{system_name}/directory/directory/file maybe underneath it's different, but that's what "pwd" and "wd" show Rock On -Scott Quinn

21 years, 6 months

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Who invented DOS?

by willisjo＠zianet.com

vrs writes: >> At 09:26 AM 3/4/2005, Jim Leonard wrote: >> >You could make a case that CP/M was modeled after Unix, but we won't go > there :-) >> >> Never! RT-11, maybe. > > I always thought both were modeled after OS/8 :-). (Which was, in turn, a > souped up DMS.) > > Vince > It was originally written by Tim Patterson of Seattle Computer Products, as 86-QDOS (Quick and Dirty OS). The initial purchase by Microsoft was for $15,000 IIRC, but full rights to the OS were purchased later for a larger sum. Patterson was originally planning on including multitasking, but did not due to time constraints. The OS gained tree-structured directories and I/O redirection/pipes (< > >> |) in 2.0 (inspired by UNIX), and a major rewrite for 5.0 (I believe this rewrite was largely the work of Charles Simonyi, but could not be sure). Tim Patterson was hired by Microsoft for a period of time. John John P. Willis Coherent Logic Development

21 years, 6 months

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Open DEC digital equipment door without the key?

by vax9000＠gmail.com

I am curious about what is in the HSC70 but the the door is locked and the key is lost. There should be a PDP11 and several HD's inside, at far as I know. I think people on the list might know how to open the door without a key or force. The lock is not the round cylinder type found on a vax 4000. Thanks. vax, 9000

21 years, 6 months

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Altair32 Emulator "Easter Egg" idea

by technobug＠comcast.net

> I thik one of the old HP plotters would "sing" a song using the motors, > given the proper power up sequence. > In the '68-70 timeframe I heard an amazing rendition of the Barcarole on the tape reader of an HP 2115 using the pinch roller solenoid with a punch card inserted as a resonator. However, the best use of music on computers was done by a friend who received special treatment from the Cyber operators after playing Charge on the high speed chain printers at the end of his job. Since he didn't advance the paper the printing effectively cut the paper causing the next several jobs to make an squirel's nest out of the insides of the printer. CRC

21 years, 6 months

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Open DEC digital equipment door without the key?

by dvcorbin＠optonline.net

> 9000> I am curious about what is in the HSC70 but the the door is > 9000> locked and the key is lost. There should be a PDP11 and several > 9000> HD's inside, at far as I know. > > 9000> I think people on the list might know how to open the door > 9000> without a key or force. The lock is not the round cylinder type > 9000> found on a vax 4000. > > Is it a flat key lock? If so, that would be the "other" standard key > that DEC used. I think it's a three pin lock -- you should be > able to > pick it with a paperclip. > > Alternatively, a drill will do wonders. > And I have always used C-4......

21 years, 6 months

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cctalk Digest, Vol 19, Issue 15

by dm561＠torfree.net

-----------Original Message: Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 07:54:47 -0800 (PST) From: Vintage Computer Festival <vcf at siconic.com> Subject: Re: Re installing XP on Sony The point is that if I went onto a PC mailing list and asked someone to help me troubleshoot my Commodore 64, I would probably be ignored, possibly even laughed off, and rightly so. So, even if it were true, which in my experience it isn't, does this mean that we have to be equally rude and condescending? Actually, in my experience the people on the PC & other lists I'm on tend to be quite helpful with off-topic questions if they can, or (nicely) suggest other resources if they can't. I would have thought that especially this list would be more mature and polite (as indeed many people here are, although they tend to be rather quiet). I always have to remind myself that there are a lot of other people on this list who don't say anything unless they actually have something useful to contribute. We have a very special mailing list here with a specific character, which is of great value to people in this hobby. If we allow really common, unextraordinary PC maintenance issues to be discussed any old time someone wants to bring them up even though there are an infinite number of tools and resources available only a few clicks away, we'll lose that unique character, and subsequently most of the people who currently inhabit this space who are valuable resources for the hobby. Well, actually I correspond with several people who used to be on this list and have/are valuable resources who have unsubscribed because of the amount of irrelevant garbage and the "attitude" on this list; I doubt that the occasional PC-related topic would have bothered them. I went through my email files from before I unsubbed a year or so ago to find people with whom I have unfinished business, and quite a few people who used to be useful contributors seem to no longer be heard from now that I'm back... It would be interesting to know how many actually unsubscribed, and why. Every person who unsubscribes because of the way they're treated or the amount of junk on this list is a lost potential resource. Folks have used the list in the past to ask PC related problems, but that has been in situations where they have already exhausted all other resources, or they are in a serious pinch and needed immediate information, and they always explain this. This has been a rare occurence as most people respect the character of the mailing list and its members. Jim's issue could've been answered after 5 minutes of Googling. So what? I ask and get asked lots of questions of/by people, and I've never said or heard "Don't bother me, look it up on Google!" As to the "character" of this list, it appears to be a place where you can talk and ask questions for days about just about anything, cars, guns, what have you, ignoring pleas to "finally get off this OT topic," as long as it's not about what many if not most of us actually have sitting in front of us, a PC-compatible, maybe even (God forbid) running a Microsoft product. Are you really afraid that if we do answer the occasional OT but computer-related question that we'll suddenly be deluged? Can't we (at least some of us) be a little nicer, especially to "outsiders" who may not be aware of our anal attitudes, or would that totally destroy the "character" of this list? mike

21 years, 6 months

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Honeywell H316 - Friends, parts, papers and stories needed!

by hachti＠hachti.de

Hello everybody, I own a Honeywell H316 computer and I am looking for other people who also own Honeywell x16 computers. At the moment I know only two other people with H316 computers, one of them with a working one and the other with a strange-behaving one... I also have some software for my machine: - FORTRAN IV + library (with source code) - DAP-16 assembler (with source code) - memory and cpu test programs etc. - some loaders (with source code) It would be interesting to get more software. A basic interpreter would be really great! I am also perfectly equipped for paper tape backup/copy and generation. I am further looking for peripherals, spares, cpu options, docs etc. Simply *everything* x16 related... Who is Will Jennings? It seems to be a bit complicated to contact him. He has posted an interesting message a few years ago. Saying that he had have saved a lot of H316 CPU stuff. Where is he? how to contact him?? There is also a small website where I document my H316 activities: http://h316.hachti.de With best regards, Philipp :-)

21 years, 6 months

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Where to find Concurrent Maxion parts

by jdrcpeterson＠graceba.net

Anyone know a source of Concurrent Maxion 9502 CPUs or parts thereof? Darren

21 years, 6 months

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DEC RX50 Test Disks

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Mar 2 2005, 20:25, Christian R. Fandt wrote: > I have a set of five RX50 floppies which contain various service tests. I > have not yet discovered what machine/CPU these work upon. Could anybody > point me in the direction of how to interpret the seven-character part > numbers? All have a copyright date of 1983. They are as follows: > > CZUFDB1 (disk part # BL-T540B-M1 "USER TESTS") > CZXD1B1 (disk part # BL-T541B-M1 "FIELD SERVICE TESTS 1") > CZXD2B0 (disk part # BL-T542B-MC "FIELD SERVICE TESTS 2") > CZXD3B0 (disk part # BL-T565B-MC "FIELD SERVICE TESTS 3") > CZXD4B0 (disk part # BL-T583B-MC "FIELD SERVICE TESTS 4") > > Are these some version of XXDP? They came with the MVII and MicroPDP-11/73 They're the standard XXDP disks that came with a microPDP-11 -- they were probably supplied with your microPDP-11/73 when it was new. They're no use for a VAX. Aren't these the same disks you asked about last May? I posted a listing of the directories then. There is a manual for XXDP, but I don't have it (unless it's buried in my microfiche somewhere, which I don't think it is). However, I put my notes and extracts of the help files on my web page a long time ago, and you can still find them here: http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/PDP-11/XXDP.pdf http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/PDP-11/XXDP.ps (same contents, just different file formats). Those will allow you to work out what most of the files do. There's also a partial list at http://starfish.osfn.org/rcs/pdp-11/xxdp/xxdp25_notes.txt Al and Henk had a discussion some time ago about scanning the documents (program-specific instructions and listings) for each of the diagnostics. Each one is normally known by a name like ZRQBH0, or more often just ZRQB, where the first letter refers to the processor type, the next 2 to the device, the fourth to the test number. The last letter and digit are the revision and patch level -- so ZRQBH0 is to run on any processor ("Z"), to test some part of an MSCP disk system ("RQ"), test "B" -- actually it's the formatter for an RD51 or RD52 on an RQDX1 or RQDX2 controler (ZRQC is the corresponding formatter for an RQDX3). It's therefore slightly unfortunate that Al indexed his by a different scheme, but not too hard to find what you want (if it's in his archive). Look at http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/XXDP/ for some scans. The initial "C" on some of the names refers to the media it was supplied on. It's not really part of the name. Henk has summaries of some that are relevant to his interests, on his web page at http://www.pdp-11.nl (see the menu entry for XXDP on the left) which are fine to get you going, but many of the disgnostics halt on varous errors, and you often need the listings to see what caused the halt, or to do more than simple tests. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

21 years, 6 months

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11/45 progress

by GOOI＠oce.nl

> Jay wrote about a DL11: > If I exam 776500, I get a 200, > but anytime I store a value and read it back, there's all > zero's in the data register. I will dig up my notes getting characters in and out a M7800 in my 11/35 resurrection using the front panel several years ago. This is also an advice: make notes of *everything* you do on a system, no matter how trivial at this time. Changing a wire, trying some toggle in tests on the console, behaviour, measured voltages on pins, etc. If problems occur later you can go back and do all tests from your notes. That's why I can write my tests with the M7800 when I get home (in a few hours from now). - Henk, PA8PDP. These are a few of my notes. Console board: 2 versions. M7800 and M7800-YA M7800: Xtal = 4608 kHz, has 1448/1449 jumpers: A3,A4,A5,A7,A9 open: A6,A8,A10 base address = 776500 baudrate = 1200 Bd. M7800-YA: Xtal = 1152 kHz, no 1448/1449 (20mA current loop only) jumpers: A0,A7 open: A4,A5,A6,A8,A9,A10 base address = 777560 (console) baudrate = 1200 Bd. console registers: RCSR 777560 RBUF 777562 XCSR 777564 XBUF 777566 Hit the key "1" of the keyboard If RCSR contains 0200 it means that a character is received. To check this: 1) set the SR to 777560. 2) press LOAD ADDRESS --> the ADDRESS LEDs show 777560 3) press EXAM 4) the DATA LEDs show 000200 RBUF should contain 061 (ASCII "1"). To check this: 1) set the SR to 777562. 2) press LOAD ADDRESS --> the ADDRESS LEDs show 777562 3) press EXAM 4) the DATA LEDs show 000061 Load 065 in XBUF --> the screen should show a "5". Operation: 1) set the SR to 777566. 2) press LOAD ADDRESS --> the ADDRESS LEDs show 777566 3) set the SR to 000065 4) press DEP Simple test of the CPU. 1) set the SR to 777570 (the switch register address). 2) press LOAD ADDRESS --> the ADDRESS LEDs show 777570 3) set the SR to 000777 (this is BRA . branch to myself) 4) press START The ADDRESS LEDs show 777572. CONSOLE LED is off, RUN, BUS, PROC LEDs are on. When you press HALT, CONSOLE LED goes on. - Henk, PA8PDP.

21 years, 6 months

1
0
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Looking for some DEC stuff (again)

by dvcorbin＠optonline.net

> Looking for some DEC stuff for my private collection... New > Mexico, Texas, Arizona area preferably: > There is a massive collection up for grabs right in Dallas. It was mentioned here on the list recently. I would love to get in on the deal [for the PDP-8 stuff specifically], but the distance, size of the total lots, etc make this look impractical. FWIW: I was talking with the owners of the collection about a year ago. At that point they did not want to sell, but were suffereing major cash problems, these apparently have become "fatal". As far as I can tell (based on some long phone calls) the equipment has been fairly well treated.

21 years, 6 months

1
0
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MS-DOS, HFS, and other file separators

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Steve Jones" <classiccmp at crash.com> ---snip--- > > >So, what else have we got out there for file/directory path >separators? We've got DEC's "DEVICE:[DIR.SUB]FILE.TXT;1" and >uhm... actually, I can't think of the conventions for any others >at the moment. Can anybody think of any interesting ones? I >can't remember what DomainOS did, but I remember it striking me >when I learned of it. Mainframes? RTOSes? > >--S. Hi The Polymorphics DOS uses <disk>dirname>filename.ext or <disk>dirname>subdir>filename.ext . It is funny in that the file names and directory names can be up to 32 characters but the extention is only 2 characters. If using the disk name, it can only be 8 characters. They also had subdirectories from the start. This DOS is like most of the older ones in that it one had to PACK every now and then to recover deleted disk space. Since it was created before DOS, I wonder where it got its roots? Dwight

21 years, 6 months

1
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Altair32 Emulator "Easter Egg" idea

by RCini＠congressfinancial.com

Tha Altair32 Emulator uses sounds for feedback (all disable-able) for the switch clicks, drive door, disk head movement (load/unload/step) and system fan spin-up, run, and spin-down. And, no, I don't run the fan noise for the whole time :-) I have some of the same problems as Jim in that the sounds disappeared on my development machine (Windows 2000 and Visual Studio .NET 2003) when I upgraded from Visual Studio 6 to .NET. I believe that the sounds work on machines other than mine, though. Oddly enough, every once in a while, the sounds will appear, but only briefly, before disappearing again. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Jim Battle Sent: Friday, March 04, 2005 1:39 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Altair32 Emulator "Easter Egg" idea John Foust wrote: ... > I've always thought that emulators should come with much more familiar > sound effects, like the sounds of keyboards, disk drive doors > opening and closing, floppy steppers engaging, fans, tapes turning, etc. > That's all part of the memory we're savoring and preserving, no? My Sol-20 emulator has sound effects. There fan startup and running noise, the floppy disk door opening and closing, floppy disk head stepping, floppy motor start and stop, and disk friction noise. Since the real keyboard makes enough noise on its own I don't see what would be added by having fake keyboard noise too. http://www.thebattles.net/sol20/solace/solace.html When I recorded the sounds I first used a dynamic microphone but the coil picked up more RF hum than anything else. An electret mic fixed that problem. It took a while to splice the fan sounds so they would loop nicely. The head stepping sound is of it stepping one track, but it does a fairly good job even when there is fast head stepping. One other thing I have done is to emulate the music card -- just a single pole RC lowpass filter hooked up to the S-100 INT* line. The "MUSIC" program would take a score and compile it into a program to toggle the INT line to produce polyphonic music -- although the notes aren't very well tempered as they get higher in frequency. It is pretty impressive that it works as well as it does: http://www.thebattles.net/sol20/d-minor.mp3 I recently upgraded PC's and now my own emulator doesn't run right and the sound comes out only when I'm using the debugger. I guess it is about to time spin a revision on the emulator.

21 years, 6 months

1
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Re installing XP on Sony

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Vintage Computer Festival" <vcf at siconic.com> ---snip--- > >We have a very special mailing list here with a specific character, which >is of great value to people in this hobby. If we allow really common, >unextraordinary PC maintenance issues to be discussed any old time someone >wants to bring them up even though there are an infinite number of tools >and resources available only a few clicks away, we'll lose that unique >character, and subsequently most of the people who currently inhabit this >space who are valuable resources for the hobby. ---snip--- Hi I think many don't realize the damage that can happen when the group becomes a "Please fix my PC" group. I watched this happen to a news group that had too many people that tolerated such off topic post. From Jim's own words, he thought that this was a general computer group. It is not. While this group tends to wonder off topic every now and then ( I'm partly guilty of some of it ), it is still one of the best resources for general information on what we like to term as classic computers. We have a general 10 year rule. Although, we are seeing many PC's getting into the time frame, it has not shown up as a major collectable area. Question on fixing a MFM drive would be on topic partitioning XP is not. The primary purpose is to keep from having things fall into day-to-day computer operational problems. As Sellam says, this is not the right place for these. While there are many on this list that see little harm in fielding such off topic questions, I doubt they have seen a group destroyed as I have. For those that defend him, I doubt you realize that this group can be quickly destroyed by such sympathizes. When I step off topic ( and I have a few times ) I have no problems or animosity towards those that chastise me for doing so. If Jim feels that there is little purpose to this group because we are unfriendly to question about using XP, maybe he has an incorrect understanding of what this group is chartered for. I would like him to remain in the group if he has interest in older classic machines. If he doesn't then he is right to leave but there should be no hard feelings as it was just a mistake that is quickly rectified. Dwight PS Sorry about my Reply-To. I don't directly control this.

21 years, 6 months

1
0
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Who invented DOS?

by vp＠cs.drexel.edu

"John Allain" <allain at panix.com> wrote: > These articles say that Kildall's CP/M easteregg appears in DOS 1.0 or so. > Has anyone here actually run the proof for themselves? I have a version of MS-DOS 1.0 (running on an 8086 that is NOT PC-compatible) (A Japanese machine called Samurai with dual 8" floppies). So if somebody can tell me what the "CP/M easteregg" is, I can try it out. **vp

21 years, 6 months

1
0
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Altair32 Emulator "Easter Egg" idea

by dvcorbin＠optonline.net

Back in '73..'75 an "enterprising soul" wrote a complete "symphony" for a PDP-8. Made use of the various shounds available on our system, primarily (IIRC), the 6 TU-56 Drives (12 tapes), System Console, Line Printer, 4 ASR-33 and 2 DecWriters....

21 years, 6 months

3
2
0 0

Altair32 Emulator "Easter Egg" idea

by dvcorbin＠optonline.net

>> Back in '73..'75 an "enterprising soul" wrote a complete >> "symphony" for a PDP-8. Made use of the various shounds >> available on our system, primarily (IIRC), the 6 TU-56 Drives >> (12 tapes), System Console, >> Line> Printer, 4 ASR-33 and 2 DecWriters.... > > Ooh, do tell more. What did it sound like? Any recordings available? > > -- Alas I know of no recordings, and to be honest I can not remember the tune itself. What I do remember [this was a school district computer]: 1) Having a heading from listening to Bill K, and Erich F "tuning" the program 2) Mr. "C" [music director] coming down and spending hours critiquing!

21 years, 6 months

2
1
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Who invented DOS?

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

cswiger <cswiger at widomaker.com> wrote: > All I want to know is who decided to use \ instead of / for > directory separators (warming up the tar and holding feathers). '/' was already taken up for the command line switch introducer character (not '-' since CP/M and DOS were originally inspired from the culture of DEC OS's rather than the UNIX culture). MS

21 years, 6 months

1
0
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Who invented DOS?

by dvcorbin＠optonline.net

> All I want to know is who decided to use \ instead of / for > directory separators (warming up the tar and holding feathers). > Dont know "who" but the alleged "why" was to avoid confusion in parsing (switches used "/" [same as DEC,CP/M] rather than "-" ala Unix.

21 years, 6 months

1
0
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Altair32 Emulator "Easter Egg" idea

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Mar 3 2005, 22:16, Richard A. Cini wrote: > I had an idea for an Easter Egg within the Altair32 Emulator. I > remember a story that you could run a certain program on the Altair and hold > an AM radio next to the Altair and you would hear music. IIRC, the song was > "Daisy" as was played in 2001: A Space Odyssey. > > Does anyone (1) have this program in source and/or binary and (2) > can someone make a high-quality WAV file of it for me (since I don't have an > Altair)? Sounds (sorry) like a good idea. The inspiration for HAL singing "Daisy" when he was lobotomised by Dave Bowman in "2001" was that Bell Labs had demonstrated an IBM 7094 "singing" "Daisy" in 1961. Bell Labs were doing research into vocal-tract modelling; John Kelly had wired a speaker to one of the output bits and he and Carol Lochbaum[1] programmed the vocal, with Max Mathews, who was pioneering digital music, did the accompaniment. The whole thing was programmed onto magtape, read back once complete and "played" through the speaker. The recording they made was also once available on an album called "Music >from Mathematics". I'm sure there used to be an article on the web about it, though I can't seem to find it right now, though I have found references to some of the Bell Labs reports and tapes: http://www.mindspring.com/~ssshp/ssshp_cd/ss_btl1.htm (about 2/3 down). What I can find, though, is a digitised copy of the recording they made, which I downloaded, so I've put it on my website for you: http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/daisy.aifc I also have an MP3 version, which isn't much inferior (and much smaller!): http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/daisy.mp3 There's an updated, unaccompanied, somewhat shorter, version from later work (text-to-speech project) at Bell Labs: www.bell-labs.com/project/tts/languages.html www.bell-labs.com/project/tts/daisy.aiff [1] sometimes mispelt "Lockbaum" -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

21 years, 6 months

3
2
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classic X86 hardware

by GOOI＠oce.nl

> The p70 was MCA, had one 32-bit and one 16-bit slot. > This meant... You could insert a full System/370 CPU!! > > Imagine that, a VMS portable...! > > -- > Tore S Bekkedal <toresbe at ifi.uio.no> Isn't VMS from D|I|G|I|T|A|L| and *MVS* from IBM? Or had IBM also a "VMS"? BTW, what do the letters stand for (inbotb abbreviations)? - Henk, PA8PDP.

21 years, 6 months

4
3
0 0

11/45 progress

by GOOI＠oce.nl

> Jay wrote about a DL11: > If I exam 776500, I get a 200, > but anytime I store a value and read it back, there's all > zero's in the data register. I will dig up my notes getting characters in and out a M7800 in my 11/35 resurrection using the front panel several years ago. This is also an advice: make notes of *everything* you do on a system, no matter how trivial at this time. Changing a wire, trying some toggle in tests on the console, behaviour, measured voltages on pins, etc. If problems occur later you can go back and do all tests from your notes. That's why I can write my tests with the M7800 when I get home (in a few hours from now). - Henk, PA8PDP.

21 years, 6 months

1
0
0 0

classic X86 hardware

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

>VMS stands for, IIRC, Virtual Memory System. Not sure what MVS stands for. Multiple Virtual Storage. -- 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

21 years, 6 months

1
0
0 0

classic X86 hardware

by vax9000＠gmail.com

Before you guys start to laugh at me, I would like to itemize some. 1. The original IBM PC 5150/5160 MB 2. The HP 100LX, 200LX palm PC 3. The original Nexgen pentium class PC 4. The IBM "butterfly" 486 laptop 5. You name it cheers, vax, 9000

21 years, 6 months

8
10
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Altair32 Emulator "Easter Egg" idea

by RCini＠congressfinancial.com

I have a 7445A at home...anyone know the key sequence? -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of William Donzelli Sent: Friday, March 04, 2005 9:00 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Altair32 Emulator "Easter Egg" idea > That machine also had a very nice Calcomp plotter. I miss plotters. I thik one of the old HP plotters would "sing" a song using the motors, given the proper power up sequence. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org

21 years, 6 months

1
0
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Altair32 Emulator "Easter Egg" idea

by RCini＠congressfinancial.com

The adorned "Daisy" is pretty neat! Does anyone have the original 8080 code used by Dompier at the Homebrew meeting? -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Pete Turnbull Sent: Friday, March 04, 2005 6:17 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Altair32 Emulator "Easter Egg" idea On Mar 3 2005, 22:16, Richard A. Cini wrote: > I had an idea for an Easter Egg within the Altair32 Emulator. I > remember a story that you could run a certain program on the Altair and hold > an AM radio next to the Altair and you would hear music. IIRC, the song was > "Daisy" as was played in 2001: A Space Odyssey. > > Does anyone (1) have this program in source and/or binary and (2) > can someone make a high-quality WAV file of it for me (since I don't have an > Altair)? Sounds (sorry) like a good idea. The inspiration for HAL singing "Daisy" when he was lobotomised by Dave Bowman in "2001" was that Bell Labs had demonstrated an IBM 7094 "singing" "Daisy" in 1961. Bell Labs were doing research into vocal-tract modelling; John Kelly had wired a speaker to one of the output bits and he and Carol Lochbaum[1] programmed the vocal, with Max Mathews, who was pioneering digital music, did the accompaniment. The whole thing was programmed onto magtape, read back once complete and "played" through the speaker. The recording they made was also once available on an album called "Music >from Mathematics". I'm sure there used to be an article on the web about it, though I can't seem to find it right now, though I have found references to some of the Bell Labs reports and tapes: http://www.mindspring.com/~ssshp/ssshp_cd/ss_btl1.htm (about 2/3 down). What I can find, though, is a digitised copy of the recording they made, which I downloaded, so I've put it on my website for you: http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/daisy.aifc I also have an MP3 version, which isn't much inferior (and much smaller!): http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/daisy.mp3 There's an updated, unaccompanied, somewhat shorter, version from later work (text-to-speech project) at Bell Labs: www.bell-labs.com/project/tts/languages.html www.bell-labs.com/project/tts/daisy.aiff [1] sometimes mispelt "Lockbaum" -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

21 years, 6 months

1
0
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MicroVAX II Success - Part II

by willisjo＠zianet.com

Just a follow-up: Turns out that the problem was with the way the cards were installed in the Q-Bus. The mixed Q22/CD-serpentine backplane doesn't allow you to insert a Q-Bus card in the C/D slot of row 3. moving the three dual-height cards to the left hand side of the backplane fixed the problem and allowed the system to complete its tests and boot successfully. Thanks once again

21 years, 6 months

1
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MicroVAX II Success!

by willisjo＠zianet.com

Thanks to all. The system now boots (at least partially) into VMS 5.1: 7..6..5..4..3.. Tests completed. Loading system software. 2..1..0.. VAX/VMS Version V5.1 Major version id = 1 Minor version id = 0 .. PLEASE ENTER DATE AND TIME (DD-MMM-YYYY HH:MM) PLEASE ENTER DATE AND TIME (DD-MMM-YYYY HH:MM) 04-MAR-2005 03:04 $! Copyright (c) 1988 Digital Equipment Corporation. All rights reserved. The VAX/VMS system is now executing the system startup procedure. %%%%%%%%%%% OPCOM 4-MAR-2005 03:06:19.27 %%%%%%%%%%% Logfile has been initialized by operator _OPA0: Logfile is SYS$SYSROOT:[SYSMGR]OPERATOR.LOG;762 %LICENSE-I-LOADED, DEC FORTRAN was successfully loaded with 50 units Now all that remains is to get Quasijarus onto some TK50s so I can run the One True UNIX. Thanks again for your patient help! John

21 years, 6 months

1
0
0 0

Age

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

> Nico de Jong wrote: > > It could be interesting to know the age"spread" of thist list > > contributors, and how long we've had the computer virus under > > our skin. Born in 1966, started with 4K chicklet-keyboard PETs at the downtown public library in 1977 (none of my schools to that point could ever afford a computer). Had a friend with a Quest Elf around the same time frame, so jumped from 100% BASIC to mixed assembler/BASIC pretty early on. Saved up half the money for a PET 2001N-32K (still have it) in 1979. Got first computer job at 15, programming a prototype C-64 (s/n P00002008) for Bruce & James Software, "Wordvision 64" demo. They went on to release Wordvision for the PC before going bankrupt. Wrote kids games published by Reader's Digest Software until that company folded when Reader's Digest terminated their kids software line. Picked up a PDP-8/L at the Dayton Hamvention, in the meantime, starting a long association with DEC computers. Turned that association into a career with Software Results Corp, making HASP/3780/SNA COMBOARD protocol engines based on the MC68000, first as hardware technician, later as System Manager, finally as lead programmer. Got my first taste of UNIX there, in 1984. After a few minutes on a VAX-11/750 w/2MB of RAM and 2xRK07 (28MB) running 4.1BSD (that I now have in my quonset hut), I *knew* that UNIX had a future. I've spent the past 20 years doing UNIX and VMS administration and programming to different degrees at different places. Started dabbling in Linux with the 0.9 kernels, whenever they added native (non-patched) SCSI support. Did first Slackare install in mid-1992 >from a huge stack of numbered floppies. Just got back from a year at the South Pole running a neutrino telescope (AMANDA) for the University of Wisconsin, that depends on two dozen Linux machines, and a dozen VME crates to collect, archive, and forward gigs of data per hour. It's been one of my favorite jobs of all time, not just because of the location, but because I got to use all of my admin and electronics skills I've been building for my entire career.

21 years, 6 months

3
2
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MicroVAX II Problem

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

John Willis <willisjo at zianet.com> wrote: > Back panel: > > There is a toggle switch. Two settings. One with an empty circle with a > dot above it, and one > circle with a dot in the center. It is set on the empty circle with the > dot above. (down position). This is the halts disabled position. Set it to dot-in-the-circle (halts enabled) and it should give you the >>> prompt. In the halts disabled position is attempts autoboot. I assume that the hang you are seeing is the result of autoboot not succeeding / looping. Setting the dot in the circle will disable autoboot and give you the console; you can then check your system out manually. MS

21 years, 6 months

2
1
0 0

VC8/I Point Plot Controller

by chd_1＠nktelco.net

I have been playing around with a collection of old Flip Chips that I have and put together a VC8/I compatible scope controller for my PDP8/e. You can find a page about it here http://www.chd.dyndns.org/pdp8/VC8/ The only reason this was possible was because I had two 10-bit D/A converters (A618), the rest of the modules are pretty common. Thanks to David Gesswein for some test programs. -chuck

21 years, 6 months

2
1
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MicroVAX II Problem

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

John Willis <willisjo at zianet.com> wrote: > 7..6..5..4..3.. > > > No dead-sergeant prompt >>> How is the halt enable switch on the back set? MS

21 years, 6 months

2
1
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MicroVAX II Problem

by willisjo＠zianet.com

Here's the output from the system when connected to a terminal: KA630-A.V1.3 Performing normal system tests. 7..6..5..4..3.. No dead-sergeant prompt >>> It used to also have 2..1.. and then go to the >>> John Willis <willisjo at zianet.com> wrote: > system would actually begin its power-on tests (F...E...D...C... etc.), > however, it hangs at 3. From what I could find in DEC documentation, > this is a "spurious interrupt" problem, 3 is _NOT_ an error, it just means that the system reached the >>> prompt at which you can give it commands like which device to boot from. Connect a terminal to the console port to interact with the console. MS

21 years, 6 months

1
0
0 0

Create a VAX CPU with FPGA?

by waisun.chia＠gmail.com

On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 21:37:57 -0800, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote: > I'm one of the lucky ones, all of my main PDP-11's have SCSI > adapters. However, only one of my two -8's (/m & /e) have a disk Lucky bastard! :-) Either you've had a windfall, or you're now less an arm and a leg... > controller, though I've not found time to get either -8 fully running > :^( One thing that really worries me is that the days of being able > to get new SCSI disks that will work with a PDP-11 are coming to an > end, if they aren't already over. One of the vendors that is very > good with getting 3rd party disks to work with VMS has reported that > the new U320 drives don't sync down to Narrow SCSI right. Wow. That has happened already?... bummer > What I'd really like to see is some sort of MFM HD emulator. That's > something that would be of use to more than just us DEC users. For > those of us that would use it with DEC HW, something that would > emulate a RD51-RD54 would be great for those OS's that expect a > specific HD type. To fantasize further: - device end either SCSI/U320/SCA or IDE/SATA - bus end (Qbus or Unibus) emulates the largest type of a family, i.e: RD/RD54, RL/RL02, RX/RX02, RK/RK07, same for RP, and the rest I think the hardware part is the easiest. The stumbling block would be the emulation layer in order for applications to run unchanged int the various DEC OSs.. /wai-sun

21 years, 6 months

1
0
0 0

MicroVAX II problem

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

John Willis <willisjo at zianet.com> wrote: > system would actually begin its power-on tests (F...E...D...C... etc.), > however, it hangs at 3. From what I could find in DEC documentation, > this is a "spurious interrupt" problem, 3 is _NOT_ an error, it just means that the system reached the >>> prompt at which you can give it commands like which device to boot from. Connect a terminal to the console port to interact with the console. MS

21 years, 6 months

1
0
0 0

MicroVAX II problem

by willisjo＠zianet.com

Hello all, I purchased a MicroVAX II about a year ago. When I went to the office where it was sitting, the original owner, a former DEC field service engineer, and myself powered the machine up. VMS came up successfully; no problems there. The system is in a BA23 rackmount chassis, and contains a MOB Systems quniverter, to connect it to a BA11K Unibus chassis via two large ribbon cables. The system contains also the following boards: M7658 - 16-bit parallel I/O with DMA and block mode functions M3104 - DHV11-A 8-line asynchronous DMA MUX M7651 - 18/22-bit DMA general purpose parallel interface Also, a TQK50 TMSCP controller and an RQDX3 ST-506 MSCP controller. The system has for drives an RD54 fixed disk and a TK50 tape drive. Anyhow, once I got the system home and cabled everything back according to the notes/pictures taken of the original installation, the system would not come up, and the DC OK light on the front panel would not light. I checked and re-checked the cable connections, re-seated all the boards, still no-go. Realizing I would not need the Unibus chassis, as it contained no cards other than the one needed to connect it to the uVAX II's Qbus, I removed the Qbus part of the quniverter. This solved the DC OK problem, and the system would actually begin its power-on tests (F...E...D...C... etc.), however, it hangs at 3. From what I could find in DEC documentation, this is a "spurious interrupt" problem, and the docs gave no clue as to how to go about tracking it down to any specific part of the system. I have tried pulling all the cards except for CPU and memory, to no avail. I tried installing the RD54 in a VAXstation 2000. It boots VMS successfully when installed in that system, so I know the drive is good. Unfortunately, I recently moved and could not keep the BA11K due to space constraints, so I have since parted with that chassis. I'm completely stumped at this point. Any suggestions? Thanks much, John Willis

21 years, 6 months

1
0
0 0

fixing broken .Z files?

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

Don't suppose anyone's come across anything that'll attempt to fix a corrupt .Z (Unix compress) file, have they? I've got a 40MB compressed tar archive here, but uncompress barfs after the first 23MB - it'd be nice if there was a way of skipping over the duff bits if possible and reading *something* from the last 17MB! cheers Jules

21 years, 6 months

6
12
0 0

Not sure who all is near York University

by brain＠jbrain.com

But if you do: If you have the time and interest to wander out to York U on a Friday morning: I've been asked to make a presentation there. My theme (if I don't wander too far off the subject) is "Computer hobbyists of the 70s and 80s" - mostly from a Commodore user perspective, of course. It runs about an hour. This is in connection with a computer museum at York; a bunch of older computers (including lotsa Commodores) will be on display. A little more information can be found at: http://www.cs.yorku.ca/museum/events/events.htm (gosh, I think they must have retouched my photo). And the YorkU host, Zbigniew Stachniak, says: >> Since our history of computing lecture series event is open to anyone, >> you are, of course, free to bring with you anybody who is interested >> in your lecture. > > So come along if you have time and inclination (like the guy who leaned his grandfather clock agains the wall), and we'll all revise history together. :-) --Jim Butterfield Jim "the other Jim" Brain. -- Jim Brain, Brain Innovations brain at jbrain.com http://www.jbrain.com Dabbling in WWW, Embedded Systems, Old CBM computers, and Good Times!

21 years, 6 months

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Ottawa collectors in the news

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

In case anyone is interested: CJOH news in Ottawa is running a segment on local collectors of classic computers. The camera crew was here this afternoon, and they visited Mike K's on sunday. It will air as a segment on the "Tech Now" section of this Sunday 6:00pm newscast (March 6). Local Ottawans can tune CJOH directly, anyone with ExpressVu (Canadian satellite) should be able to get it on channel 196 at the above date/time. 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

21 years, 6 months

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PDP-1 project milestone

by eric＠brouhaha.com

The PDP-1 Restoration Project is still far from complete, but we hit a major milestone tonight. When we last tried to run Spacewar, the sun and player ships would not display correctly, though the starfield and torpedos seemed to be fine. We ran the DEC instruction diagnostics and they failed on the shift/rotate test, though all the diagnostics had passed a few months earlier. This week we wrote a more specific diagnostic program and determined that left shifts and rotates of the I/O register were not doing anything, though right shifts and rotates of the I/O register were fine, and all shifts and rotates of the accumulator were fine. After a little study of the print set, we identified two system modules that could cause the observed behavior. We tried replacing one of them, a 1607 pulse amplifier. After replacing the 1607, our own diagnostic and the DEC diagnostic both passed. Some of the team wanted to go home without trying out Spacewar, but the rest of us nagged until they gave in. We loaded it, and it ran correctly. Spacewar on the real Type 30 display with long persistence phosphor is a thing of beauty! Some of the tasks remaining to be done: * build new Spacewar control boxes * continue repair/testing of Soroban console typewriter * adjust Type 30 display to factory specs (linearity is poor) * adjust paper tape reader sensitivity/threshold * diagnose & repair suspected flaky memory "module" 0 * voltage margin checks, run all diagnostics * install new belt and test BRPE tape punch Eric

21 years, 6 months

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Canon Cat -- what's it really like?

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Eric Flanzbaum" <elf at ucsd.edu> > ---snip--- >Given what others have posted in this thread about the Cat, I'm under the >impression it is basically a editing machine (with some fancy features >built-in), along with a back door into Forth. Almost a glorified word >processor, if you will. > >Was there much (if any) 3rd party software developed for it -- which >expanded beyond its native capabilities? > > Hi Not that I know of but there are others that might have more information on this. From my playing with it, you can not directly execute code from the disk. Even to run Forth, you have to select the code from the screen before it will execute. This isn't hard to do but not the same as running a program on the disk. There might have been some way to do it but the Cat only seems to use the disk for text storage. Once in Forth, I believe one can take over the machine and treat it like a normal processor. I'm sure there must be a trap-door in there someplace to load code from disk but I've not explored what can be done from Forth, other than, when I first got it, to look through the memory to determine where the ROM images were. I do know one of the fellows that wrote code for it and I've been meaning to pick his brain some time. For the curious, it is a great machine. There is so much in there to explore. and even a way to do it ( Forth is like a super monitor ). Dwight

21 years, 6 months

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Canon Cat -- what's it really like?

by elf＠ucsd.edu

Ron Hudson wrote: > sounds to me like emacs is to lisp as cannon cat is > to forth, at least to some extent. It does have that ring to it, huh? Given what others have posted in this thread about the Cat, I'm under the impression it is basically a editing machine (with some fancy features built-in), along with a back door into Forth. Almost a glorified word processor, if you will. Was there much (if any) 3rd party software developed for it -- which expanded beyond its native capabilities?

21 years, 6 months

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List subscribtion

by hachti＠hachti.de

Does anybody know why my list subscribtion has been cancelled? I wasn't receiving any messages since February 26. Now I have subscribed again. But I don't know what happened..... Philipp

21 years, 6 months

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Re installing XP on Sony

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

You seemed to have left out a few words so I thought I might help a little. >From: "Jim Isbell, W5JAI" <jim.isbell at gmail.com> > >No, this is NOT a PC support list, it is a general list for computer ^ classic >talk which is what my post is. If you need to be "on topic" go to the ^ not >cctech list. > > Hi This is an un-moderated "clasic computer" list that tolerates some off topic post. Also, it is self regulating in that many off topic post may be flamed. Members should refain from posting replies to post that, if allowed to continue, damage the list in general. Even when they know the answer. I'll admit that I've not always been able to stop myself but many times I have. What to do with Windows XP is way outside of topics covered under clasic computers. The worst of it is that this list most likely has only a small percentage that are up on dealing with XP. Most just use it only when needed and for nothing else. We are not trying to turn you off towards the list but help you realize that there are better places to handle your particular problem. Dwight

21 years, 6 months

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Reply-To: behavior was Re: imaging DC600A QIC tapes

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Mar 3 2005, 10:03, Tom Jennings wrote: > On Thu, 2 Mar 2005, Pete Turnbull wrote: > > > Probably because Jules' mailer is inserting an unecessary "Reply-to:" > > header (pointless, since it's supposed to be used only when you want > > replies to go to somewhere other than the "From:"), and then mailman is > > applying the principle of "least modification" and *appending* the > > classiccmp address, rather than replacing the one Jules' mailer put in. > > > > I've noticed this with posts from one or two other listmembers. > > I think Jay's right -- mailman may have changed, but it's not > necessarily incorrect. There are few subtleties involving > To:/Reply-To: processing but it's one of those things a lot of > MUAs make configurable. Pine's "reply-always-uses-reply-to" in > feature-list, for example. I'm not suggesting there's anything wrong with mailman -- in fact, applying "least modification" is The Right Thing. You are only allowed one "Reply-to:" line per message, and mailman is quite properly not discarding existing information. I just don't think any MUA should create a "Reply-to:" if it's the same as the "From:" or "Sender:". As for Pine using "Reply-to:" for replies, that's what the RFCs say you *should* do if a "Reply-to:" is present; it's purpose is purely to override the "From:" when replying. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

21 years, 6 months

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working MITS Altair 8800 & manual

by dogas＠bellsouth.net

21 years, 6 months

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Canon Cat -- what's it really like?

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Eric F." <elf at ucsd.edu> > >The recent death of Mr. Raskin has me Google'ing around for information >about his Canon Cat machine. > >Even prior to his passing, I have always thought it a sweet looking machine. > >Does anyone of this list own a Canon Cat? If so, do you use it for any sort >of regular everyday work? And what's your personal impression of the machine? > >Is it even possible to use it in the context of today's work demands (i.e., >for email)? Or is a proper network interface & appropriate software the >limiting factor here? > > Hi I have a Cat. There are some companies that still use these as editing machines. That is why they seem to be missing from the collector group in general. I got mine >from Al Kossow. I had to replace the lithium battery in it but it otherwise works OK. I'd love to get some information on the memory and I/O mapping. It expects to use particular printers so it would be nice to rewrite the driver to work well with my 3SI. I could imagine that if I were doing a lot of writing for college or writing a book, I'd find the editor a real advantage. It has one other nice feature. One can write out a formula and it will give you the answer. It is kind of like having a spread sheet in your text. Of course, if you know the secret key sequence, you can bring it into the Forth mode. From here, you can access the inner machine as well. You can write Forth code and execute it in the text as well. It then becomes a spread sheet plus at that point. Still, it is primarily a text machine in black and white. I talked with Jeff about two years ago. He definitely had interesting ideas about computer interfaces. He didn't think much of the mouse. Besides being the major source of carpal tunnel syndrome (sp?) it is a real time waster for most applications. The machines code wasn't completely written in Forth but Jeff does attribute the quick software development and the fact that there were no errors found in the released version to using Forth in the creation of code. Forth tends to make a person do incremental testing as the code is written. This often helps to produce error free code in the final product. Dwight

21 years, 6 months

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DEC Documentation, RT11/RSX/VMS Denver area

by emu＠ecubics.com

Anybody likes to have it ? Free, PICKUP ONLY

21 years, 6 months

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no list traffic for cctech - culprit explained

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

I dug into some of the complaints that people on cctech weren't getting any posts, except from me. Here's what happened. Remember that cctech is 100% moderated. Nothing goes to it without moderator approval. The moderators are behind ;) I just checked and there's a few days of messages in there. I'm sure this will get caught up soon enough. In addition - why are cctech people getting posts just from me? Well, see above, PLUS, I set my own subscription to cctech to not require moderation. Thus, any posts I make go straight to the users without an approval step. I did this because sometimes when I send out notices like "I'm taking the server down for a while", cctech users don't get them immediately like cctalk users do, due to moderation. So by setting my cctech subscription to no moderation, cctech people would get my notices immediately. The downside of this, in hindsight, is that it looks REALLY squirrely to the cctech people. They get a string of my normal posts, and them some time later, possibly a day or so, when moderation occurs, they get all the other posts I make. Problem solved. I think what I'm going to do about this is change my personal cctech subscription back to requiring moderation. That way cctech people won't see the odd out of order behaviour. Then I'll create an additional "admin" subscription for myself that doesn't require moderation. I'll then try to remember to use that "admin" subscription to send out list notices and things will be more sane for cctech people. Regards, Jay West

21 years, 6 months

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TRAC; Two TI DS10 disk packs available

by classiccmp＠crash.com

The following are available, but with a request. Two clean TI DS10 (TI-990 era) disk packs. I've been charged by a friend with finding a good home from them, which I think means someone from this list trying to keep a TI-990 in good order. The catch is, we'd like to get any recoverable data off of these disk packs. My friend is a board member for the TRAC Foundation. TRAC is "an interpretive, recursive, string-based, macroprocessing language with no compile step" invented by Calvin Mooers starting in 1959. Going to www.tracfoundation.com one finds that "entire subroutines can be inserted, or deleted, from a running procedure, thus massively changing the behavior during runtime." Whoa! Imagine changing a sort routine half way through a long running job... The reason I mention TRAC is that there's a chance one of these packs has important/useful information about the TRAC language, and my friend would really appreciate it if the new owner could check for and recover anything that's on these. That's the only catch - we want whatever can be read from them. And whoever wants them would need to pony up for shipping and handling, or come collect them near Boston, MA, USA. I can try to scrounge up a suitable box, but the packs might have to go through the UPS Store too. So, preference will be given to the person who stands the best chance of recovering data. I can wait a week to see what responses come in. Thanks, --Steve.

21 years, 6 months

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starmax 3000, starmax4000, accessories, denver area

by emu＠ecubics.com

pickup only

21 years, 6 months

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imaging DC600A QIC tapes

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Mar 2 2005, 22:50, der Mouse wrote: > In passing, on the "whom to reply to" thread, this message came in with > a header > > > Reply-To: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk, > > "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > > I noticed this when I tried to reply and saw both addresses in the To:; > upon checking, I found that Reply-To:. > > How it got that way, of course, is a different question. Probably because Jules' mailer is inserting an unecessary "Reply-to:" header (pointless, since it's supposed to be used only when you want replies to go to somewhere other than the "From:"), and then mailman is applying the principle of "least modification" and *appending* the classiccmp address, rather than replacing the one Jules' mailer put in. I've noticed this with posts from one or two other listmembers. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

21 years, 6 months

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VT220, vt320, vt420, Denver area

by emu＠ecubics.com

Pickup only please

21 years, 6 months

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LSI-11/2 microcode source

by h.wolter＠sympatico.ca

Does anyone have the microcode source code for the PDP11 native instruction set on the LSI-11/2/WD chips? it purportedly provided with the LSI-11 WCS option (KUV-11 -M8018) The descriptions I've found in documentation located on bitsavers say the the kit included the microcode assembler/linker tools as well as the full ' 11 source .mic code for reference. Meagan? Alternate anyone have info on reading out the WD PMOS roms? I've got 3x working M7264 LSI-11/2(quad height) with all the MICROMs loaded as well as a M7270 LSI-11 (dual height), they all run RT fine. Anyone know if you can just swap the MICROMS to make a WD Pascal Microegine? Would be a good set if you already have an 11/23, 11/73 looking to complete the set. Open to interesting trades. Heinz

21 years, 6 months

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TI-990 recollections

by classiccmp＠crash.com

I'm in contact with two gents who worked on TI-990's back in the 80's. Since this platform doesn't get a lot of traffic on the list, I thought I'd share their recollections of working on these systems. ======== Gentleman N [ Referring to the pictures/links posted a few days ago of a [ TI-990 in L.A. ... The disk drives for this computer is actually a pair of drives in one enclosure. One removable and the other "fixed" internally. They both have the same capacity (5MB I think). The funky terminal is just that. It's a great monochrome terminal with addressable cursor and it is fast for its day when compared to VT52/VT100s. The OS seemed decent from what little I used it but I never did any programming with it. In 1986 I helped out Bryan with an old client in Honolulu who had a rack mounted version with three DS10's where two of the unit (four drives) had failed with head crashes (don't move packs between drives after those funny scrapping sounds begin). The service guy had the system already repaired and I helped get the their accounting system going again. I went back 1987-89 and wrote a new version running on i386/AT&T Unix System V Release 3 so they could have more modern hardware. It was a nice system...but not an IBM 1401 (or CDC 8090)! ======== ======== Gentleman A Wow, that's a (nice) blast from the past. And to help connect the dots, I am a friend of Bill's who handed over a customer with one of these for Bill to provide software support. I had a 2 person company (sales guy and me) that developed business applications for a chain of radio stations, and we needed a system that we could resell 1) quickly; 2) with no cash upfront; 3) that was reasonably powerful for a multi-user terminal based application. This was around 1980, and we talked to all the usual suspects, DEC, Data General, HP, maybe Wang... It's been a while. Anyway the TI folks basically sold us a machine and delivered it, no cash down, 120 days to pay, lots of support, etc. I had the thing in my living room of my bachelor-pad apartment for a few months of development and testing, then we delivered it to the client. The application was in Fortran (is that correct Bill?), but I remember writing a few little assembler tools and twiddling a few bits here and there. Once we delivered it to the customer my access was somewhat limited to bug-fix and enhancements during evenings and weekends, so I didn't get to play with it as much as I would have liked. The coolest thing I remember from the OS was a near real-time display of in-memory processes. Sort of a graphical version of 'top' mapped onto physical addresses. ========

21 years, 6 months

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Mainframes buttons and Gordon Moore...

by news＠computercollector.com

Two interesting articles: - http://tinyurl.com/63yx9 (cnet) - http://tinyurl.com/6y6rb (computerworld) ===== Evan's personal homepage: www.snarc.net *** Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! - It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address - Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us - Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all - W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news at computercollector.com - We're approaching 700 readers: win a prize!

21 years, 6 months

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imaging DC600A QIC tapes

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Mar 3 2005, 13:49, Jules Richardson wrote: > On Thu, 2005-03-03 at 13:09 +0000, Pete Turnbull wrote: > > > Probably because Jules' mailer is inserting an unecessary "Reply-to:" > > header (pointless, since it's supposed to be used only when you want > > replies to go to somewhere other than the "From:") > > Possibly fixed now :-) (we'll see when this hits the list...) Yep, that's fixed it :-) -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

21 years, 6 months

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OSI Software Find!

by dfnr2＠yahoo.com

Hi Bill, Any chance of your making binary copies of your working disks available? That would be a boon to the rest of us OSI owners. Dave --- Bill Sudbrink <wh.sudbrink at verizon.net> wrote: > Well, since my C4P-MF has been rock solid stable > since I > fitted the new power supply and cleaned the drive > head, > I've been going through a bunch of 25 (and more) > year old > diskettes to see just what I have. > > Lo-and-behold! > > On a diskette simply labeled OS65D 3.2 (not > originally mine, > acquired I don't know where), I found really nice > machine > code implementations of Space Invaders and > Asteroids! You > don't usually see machine code programs on OSI > diskettes, the > OS was too crude to have a simple binary loader. > Diskettes > usually have BASIC programs, with maybe a couple of > USR$ > sub-routines in data statements. To load and > execute the > programs, you have to EXIT from BASIC into the > sub-monitor and > then load the diskette tracks into memory one at a > time. Once > you have it loaded, then you GO to the starting > address. I > think that these programs might have been originally > intended > to be loaded from cassette tape. Fortunately, the > diskette had > two BASIC programs, each of which PRINTs the > instructions for > loading the machine code programs. I'm really happy > about this! > People usually see OSI boxes running rather slow > interpreted > BASIC programs. These two programs show just what > an OSI box > can do. There is no attribution for the Asteroids > program, but > the Space Invaders is copyright 1980 by Michael > Kincaid. > > Can't wait to show these at TCF! > > Bill > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

21 years, 6 months

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Age, was Re: IBM mainframe goes for 99 cents

by pat＠computer-refuge.org

Jules Richardson declared on Saturday 26 February 2005 03:03 pm: > On Sat, 2005-02-26 at 22:02 +0800, Wai-Sun Chia wrote: > > Born 1966 (age 39). > > Most people start at zero ;-) ??? 1966 + 39 = 2005. That's the current year, unless during my intoxication last night, I built a time machine and sent myself back 1 year in time. :) However, that seems somewhat unlikely. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org

21 years, 6 months

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