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

by pete＠pski.net

I?ve recently acquired a rare complete set of 10 TRS-XENIX 1.0 Development System floppy disks. I?ve done quite a bit of 8? disk imaging so I'm fairly comfortable using ImageDisk, cleaning disk heads, etc. I?ve run into a scenario with these disks that I have not had to deal with before. Since this is the only complete set of this software I?ve ever seen, I need to be really careful with how I proceed. The media itself looks pretty good. No scratches, no blotches. However, on a number of disks the sleeves have warped. I am afraid that this will damage the media when I spin them up. I?m thinking of cutting open the sleeves and placing the media in new 8? floppy sleeves. I?ve also heard about baking the media, although I?ve never tried this and not sure of its value. What are your thoughts on how to proceed?

9 years, 4 months

4
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DEC DSSI troubleshooting (RF71)

by witchy＠binarydinosaurs.co.uk

Hi folks, I've got my VAX3800 resuscitated after many years in limbo and two of the four RF71s in there have gone bad. Has anyone tried swapping the controller boards between drives? Is it just a matter of letting the drive auto-calibrate or do I need to SET HOST onto the controller and tell it it's on a different HDA... Here it is in a happier mood shortly after first powerup: http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/VAX3800.jpg (not my best LK201 keyboard but it was the closest :) ) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection?

9 years, 4 months

2
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HP-1000 12044A 12825A HDLC Interface manuals available anywhere?

by glen.slick＠gmail.com

I don't see these manuals online at either bitsavers.org or hpmuseum.net. Does anyone have copies of them available? 12044-90001 HDLC Direct Connect Interface Hardware Reference Manual (12044A for A/L-Series) 12825-90001 HDLC Direct Connect Interface Hardware Reference Manual (12825A for M/E/F-Series) I have more than one HP-1000 CPU. Just curious what it would take to connect some of them together running 91750A DS/1000-IV software.

9 years, 4 months

4
7
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Booting PDP-11's from RX02's

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

So, I'm winding up to boot Unix V6 from an RX02 floppy. So I need two things: - Details of how DEC ROM bootstraps boot from RX02's. I vaguely recall seeing documentation of this somewhere (e.g. which sectors it loads, etc), but now I can't find it. Don North has dumps of the RX02 ROM's, but I'm too lazy to read through the code and figure out how they work. Is there some documentation which covers it? I did a quick Google search, but if there is anything out there, my Google-fu was inadequate. - Did anyone ever do an RX02 driver for the V6 disk bootstrap? (Well, I guess a V7 driver would work, too.) Note: what I need is _not_ either i) the Unix OS driver for the RX02 (I found one of those already), or ii) a driver for the v7 standalone second-stage bootstrap (which would probably be in C). The thing I'm looking for would be called rx.s, or something like that. Yes, I could write it, but again, I'm lazy! :-) Noel

9 years, 4 months

3
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Compupro Disk Images Uploaded

by billdegnan＠gmail.com

I have uploaded a set of disk images from My Compupro system with an 8085 and 8086 card, plus regular z80. The thread starts a number of years ago, but today I just updated, at the bottom, to include images of the disks I have for the system. Some interesting concurrent CPM and DOS stuff, not sure if this is really MS DOS 1.25 or not, never got it to work on my system. I'd love to see someone else make it work. Thread: http://vintagecomputer.net/browse_thread.cfm?id=265 Just get the IMD images: http://vintagecomputer.net/disk_images/COMPUPRO/ As always, thanks Dave Dunfield, please use the images with the proper licenses, etc. Bill

9 years, 4 months

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SEEKING GOOD ILLUSTRATIVE MATERIAL ON IBM ADD ON BOXES GOT A STACK..

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

SEEKING GOOD ILLUSTRATIVE MATERIAL ON IBM ADD ON BOXES GOT A STACK.. So need hi res scans of catalogs brochures etc showing them all stacked and what when with what. We had an early IBM pc for a while....but never this many add on boxes! I am lost... Remember back in the 80s I sold HP stuff... any help and guidance appreciated to make this all come together into something nice visually! thanks Ed Sharpe archivist for SMECC couryhouse at aol.com

9 years, 4 months

1
0
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DEC bus transceivers

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

Re: DEC bus transceivers > From: allison > Actually since about 1987 I've used about 1200 pieces of the 8641 alone > repairing boards at the commercial level. Well, that's over almost 30 years - and your total from that period is about 4% of the remaining stock (and in a commercial operation, to boot, not hobbyist)... > If you going to build a board or three maybe even 20 its not a big deal > but its not a reliable source of predictable quality. Sure, but try looking at it from our perspective: we either use an out-of-production part, or have to design something (almost certainly from discretes) that meets those specs; and we actually looked at the latter (viz. Dave B's design). However, after some pondering, and taking everything (including all the below) into account, we decided to go with the original chips, since they were still sorta available. Which is why both we and Guy have stocked up on them, at the start of the process: we don't want to crank out boards designed for a certain part, and then not be able to get the out-of-production parts the boards were designed to use. If we were designing something for serious production, that wouldn't be an option, but for limited-volume hobbyist use, it is. The choice of an out-of-production part does have a down-side, but it's minor (and mostly alleviated by the pre-buying), and the other options were (in overall sum) worse. > If you get to the bridge your talking redesign in reality or an > expensive buy from unreliable source then testing them in bulk. But, but... I'm _already_ buying them from unreliable sources, then testing them! :-) But to be serious - if the demand for QSIC's, etc, runs the well of DS8641's dry, yes, we'll probably have to re-design. In other words, we'd be right where we'd be today if we decided not to use out-out-production parts. Noel

9 years, 4 months

3
2
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ContrAlto V1.1 Released

by JoshD＠livingcomputers.org

Hi all -- Just wanted to let you guys know that a new version of the Xerox Alto emulator I've been working on at the LCM+L has been released; V1.1 of ContrAlto can be downloaded from: http://www.livingcomputers.org/Join/Online-Systems.aspx. At this point, the vast majority of software appears to be working properly, if you do run into any issues please let me know! ContrAlto is open source, so if you want to hack on it the source is available on our GitHub site at https://github.com/livingcomputermuseum/ContrAlto. Thanks! - Josh

9 years, 4 months

4
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Digital archiving tools

by wmaddox＠pacbell.net

Many of us maintain large collections of bits that we'd like to preserve over a long time, and distribute, replicate, and migrate via unreliable storage media and networks. As disk sizes (and archive sizes) have increased, the probability of corruption undetected or uncorrected by the mechanisms normally built into disk drives, network protocols, and filesystems has increased to a level that warrants great concern. I would be interested to know if there exists an archive format that has the following desirable properties: 1) It is well-documented, and relatively simple, to facilitate its implementation on many platforms present and future. 2) It supports some degree of incremental updating, but need not be particularly efficient about it. An explicit compaction operation is preferable to an overly complex format. It is adequate to use append-only strategies appropriate for write-once media. 3) Insertion and extraction of files, copying of the archives, and other archive-manipulation utilities support end-to-end verification that identical bits have been stably recorded to the media, bypassing or defeating platform-level or hardware-level caching mechanisms. Where this is not possible, the limits must be carefully delineated, with some basis for determining the properties of the platform and certifying reliability properties where possible. 4) The format should provide for superior error detection capability, designed to avoid common failure modes with mechanisms typically used in hardware. For example, use a document-level cryptographic checksum rather than a block-level CRC. 5) The format should include a high degree of internal redundancy and recoverability, say, along the lines of a virtual RAID-array. Just as biological organisms constantly correct DNA transcription errors, the idea is to have a format that is robust across long-term exposure to imperfect copying and transmission channels. Does anything like this exist? --Bill

9 years, 4 months

4
7
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CMI expandacore18

by tedknowlegy＠gmail.com

I too have been searching for documentation/schematics for the Cambridge Memories, Inc. Expandacore18 4k core memory boards. I have an old Diversified Numeric Applications Med PL/185 machine which is a clone of the Raytheon 703. This machine has 16k of core with 4 of these boards. -- THE BLUES IS THE TRUTH. IF IT'S NOT THE TRUTH, IT'S NOT THE BLUES. (Willie Dixon)

9 years, 4 months

1
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Computers.... AARRRMMMYYY! Computers!

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

Here is an interesting article from the ozobob list on 50 yeas of computing in the US Army! http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=ADA431730 About the earliest thing we have militantly computer related in the museum are some parts of the NORAD SAGE system

9 years, 4 months

1
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ContrAlto V1.1 Released

by derschjo＠gmail.com

(Apologies if this gets posted twice, e-mail changes appear to have lost the first one...) Hi all -- Just wanted to let you guys know that a new version of the Xerox Alto emulator I've been working on at the LCM+L has been released. V1.1 of ContrAlto can be downloaded from: http://www.livingcomputers.org/Join/Online-Systems.aspx. At this point, the vast majority of software appears to be working properly, if you do run into any issues please let me know! ContrAlto is open source, so if you want to hack on it the source is available on our GitHub site at https://github.com/livingcomputermuseum/ContrAlto. Thanks! - Josh

9 years, 4 months

3
3
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DEC DS10L Fix CPUFan!

by danielolsson＠linuxmail.org

Hey! Has anyone fixed a CPUfan on a DS10L that is rattleing by lubricating it in someway? Or do i need to buy a new fan for it? /Daniel

9 years, 4 months

3
2
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turbochannel available

by agrier＠poofygoof.com

I have pmaz SCSI controller, a couple lofis, and a bunch of 8MB pmax+ modules that are being threatened with the local electronics recycler. send me the address of your good home or place of business in the continental US states, and I'll spare them that fate. -- Aaron J. Grier | "Not your ordinary poofy goof." | agrier at poofygoof.com

9 years, 4 months

3
2
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Hitachi 303 Analog Computer Manual

by kylevowen＠gmail.com

I scanned my copy of the Hitachi 303 manual a few weeks ago. For anyone interested in downloading it, I uploaded it here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8Ow1Wo1rBQUSVdXQU84SWtVRFU Didn't see it on Bitsavers yet, so I thought I would share. Thanks, Kyle

9 years, 4 months

2
1
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Need to archive: GRiD Compass Computer Operating System Software

by ian.finder＠gmail.com

I have not had good luck with the RuGRiD list. I am aware of it. There are only a small handful of people there with Compass gear; It is mostly centered around the later PC-compatible GRiD stuff. There is one fellow with quite a lot of Compass media who has reached out to me a couple times, but I don't get the drift he sees any urgency in imaging the media, nor intends to share it. I have offered a hand, money, etc. If he does come through, I'll be very pleased, but at this point I am trying to look elsewhere. Steve, if you're willing to cross-post my list below and see if you have better luck, please do. I have never received a single response of value on that list. - Ian On Tuesday, October 25, 2016, Steve Hatle <shatle at nfldinet.com <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','shatle at nfldinet.com');>> wrote: > > > > -------- Original Message -------- > Subject: Need to archive: GRiD Compass Computer Operating System > Software > From: Ian Finder <ian.finder at gmail.com> > Date: Tue, October 25, 2016 7:08 pm > To: "cctalk at classiccmp.org" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > > Folks, there appears to be a large GRiD-sized hole where archived copies > of > the Compass Computer Operating System software should be. > > ... > -- > Ian Finder > (206) 395-MIPS > ian.finder at gmail.com > > >> > > There's a fairly active GRiD list at > > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rugrid-laptop/ > > You may wish to cross-post there, or I can if you don't wish to join up. > > Steve > -- Ian Finder (206) 395-MIPS ian.finder at gmail.com

9 years, 4 months

3
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Looking for informer 213 VT100 roms

by ian.finder＠gmail.com

I picked up an Informer 213 from eBay this week, but it has the IBM rom set! Noooooo! Anyone out there with the VT100 version willing to dump the roms for me? Thanks, - Ian -- Ian Finder (206) 395-MIPS ian.finder at gmail.com

9 years, 4 months

1
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DEC bus transceivers

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: allison > What vendor I don't recall, would have to look it up; I turned Guy onto them, and he bought out everything they in stock. > They have been scarce save though resellers that have NOS parts from > old stocks and they are not cheap and unpredictable quantities. Yeah, that vendor said they could get more (apparently from others who still had stocks), but they'd be slightly more expensive. Apparently these people all interact, and deal stuff around. So that figure I was given of 30K in stock is probably not from that one vendor, but across all of them. But since nobody is using these chips in a product (that I know of), I suspect the number is likely to go down only slowly. > Then I could buy them they are about .86 dollar US, but that was in the > early 80s. The ones Guy and I recently bought were about $1 each (I don't recall the exact amount, would have to check). So not cheap, but not ridiculous. Noel

9 years, 4 months

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DEC bus transceivers

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Paul Koning > The trouble with chip resellers is that it's hard to know which ones are > legit, and which ones are in the fake chip business. I suspect that the network of major resellers would tend to keep out the riff-raff. (They don't need the aggro of dealing with the consequences.) > a 7400 instead of something more valuable. Which is why it's good that the DS8641's are going for little more than a buck; at that price point, there's only minimal benefit from faking them. Anyway, for any I get, random samples go straight into my tester board! "Trust, but verify!" :-) Noel

9 years, 4 months

1
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DEC bus transceivers

by shadoooo＠gmail.com

Hello, surely the old transceivers are the most compatible solution, however you still need to convert the voltages back and forth... Plus the solution is not the cheaper, and a little uncomfortable too, as you need to find these old chips, hoping not to buy fake chinese duplicates (it happened to me more time unfortunately). So I was searching a solution with modern components, but not using components too much specific and difficult to be found. As we need 3.3v logic, but able to work in 5v bus, I'm thinking about 5v tolerant standard logic as TI LVC or LVT. The problem is that there aren't open drain bus transceivers, but the problem could be solved simply using input-only and output-only components, connecting two in parallel but opposite direction on bidirectional pins. So identifying one or maybe two codes would be enough for all the components needed for the board. The idea of using bare transistors seems to me too much simple. Not that it couldn't work, but it would be almost impossible to satisfy all the specifications of the bus in this way... unless you use a more complex circuit with precise current sources and resistors to grant correct voltage biases, impedances and slew rates, which in the end is a logic integrated circuit. Andrea

9 years, 4 months

18
45
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DEC bus transceivers

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Guy Sotomayor > Secondary chip marke[t] (only reputable vendors). I'm a little more willing than Guy to troll in disreputable waters (I bought 1K DS8641's from a source in Hong Kong), so I have this: http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/QSIC/TestCardF.jpg which has a bunch of special circuits on it to test chips to make sure they meet specs; e.g. the large potentiometer is so I can vary the input voltage to see where it switches from 0 to 1, etc. > From: Paul Koning > it would be odd to have one; I can't think of anyone who would expect a > PDP11 to work with part of its devices powered down. For one thing, if > the box with the terminator loses power Forget the terminator - as Jon Elson also points out (his email appeared while I was creating this one), any device which uses interrupts, if un-powered, won't pass grants. > From: allison > Bottom line is someday there will be no DEC parts and what then? I > reserve DEC parts for repairing defunct boards for new and unique build > it would be a waste of scarce material. For actual DEC interface IC's like DC003's, sure. Those are hyper-rare. But DS8641's are available in the 10's of thousands, there's no earthly way we could use them all on repairs. Yes, when they run out, we'll have a problem - but I plan to cross than bridge _if_ and when we get to it. Noel

9 years, 4 months

2
2
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Game master?

by bbrown314＠comcast.net

Does anyone remember a subscription time sharing system called, I think, "game master". It was at least available and marketed in the chicago area... possibly nationwide. I just wonder if there is any info on what kind of system it ran on and any preserved info etc. Thanks. -Bob

9 years, 4 months

1
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Electroluminescent Display aging - Was : Re: Flat panel display rot - "tunnel vision" in electroluminescent and other displays- bad seals.

by ian.finder＠gmail.com

Update: I've swapped the displays and drivers around, and the "tunnel" effect seems to be a property of the panel and not drive electronics. Perhaps they are all high-hour examples? Anyone here an electroluminescent display expert? > > > On Wednesday, July 20, 2016, Ian Finder <ian.finder at gmail.com> wrote: > >> No, I'm not convinced the EL repro isn't a driver electronics issue. >> >> I'm just a little confused about why the issue congregates at the edges >> of the displays. Any ideas why that might be? >> >> I may try swapping the panels around this evening if I am feeling brave. >> >> On Wednesday, July 20, 2016, Brent Hilpert <hilpert at cs.ubc.ca> wrote: >> >>> On 2016-Jul-20, at 12:52 PM, Ian Finder wrote: >>> >>> > I have a few GRiD compass systems and some are suffering from massively >>> > decreased contrast on the edges of the displays: >>> > >>> > [See the system on the left] >>> > https://www.instagram.com/p/BIGGzUzgat-/?taken-by=tr1nitr0n >>> > >>> > [Or this one:] >>> > http://www.ripstick.com/USCM/images/Grid_Compass_1101_ >>> Laptop_in_Box_002.jpg >>> > >>> > Meanwhile, other EL systems I have- like my HP integral PC- haven't >>> > succumbed to this. >>> > >>> > I have seen similar issues on amLCD displays in my Tadpole, Toshiba and >>> > other machines, so this is something we all may have to confront. >>> > >>> > ------- >>> > >>> > I was wondering if the folks here had theories? >>> > >>> > I'm thinking moisture (or air) might be leaking in from the edges of >>> the >>> > glass panes, perhaps from a compromised seal- sorry for the silly >>> picture >>> > but you can see the composition of the display here: >>> > >>> > https://www.instagram.com/p/6BXaLBtSzd/?taken-by=tr1nitr0n >>> > >>> > Does anyone know how one might prevent this from progressing- storage >>> tips? >>> > >>> > Could it be reversed? >>> > >>> > Better yet, does anyone have ideas on how to rapidly dehydrate the >>> display? >>> > Perhaps there is even a way to re-seal them. >>> > >>> > I think all two-glass-pane displays that don't have a vacuum may >>> eventually >>> > succumb to this. >>> > >>> > Perhaps it is just oxidation and not moisture, but I'd love to hear any >>> > theories. >>> >>> >>> Are you convinced this is a panel problem rather than a driver >>> electronics problem? >>> >>> In one picture it looks like the sort of thing that happens when you >>> have to turn up the brightness (for some types of display), resulting in >>> partial illumination in other areas of the screen. >>> >>> I've never had opportunity to repair or work on EL flat-panel displays, >>> I'm not familiar with the driving techniques and requirements, so this is >>> just a query/guess. (I see it's an X/Y matrix drive scheme, but the >>> voltages & timing & phasing I don't know about.) >>> >>> >> >> -- >> Ian Finder >> (206) 395-MIPS >> ian.finder at gmail.com >> >> > > -- > Ian Finder > (206) 395-MIPS > ian.finder at gmail.com > > -- Ian Finder (206) 395-MIPS ian.finder at gmail.com

9 years, 4 months

1
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PDP15 panel

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

even with shipping across the pond a great deal if your system is missing one! Ed# In a message dated 10/25/2016 3:15:40 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, linimon at lonesome.com writes: If it were on this side of the pond I'll be all over that. mcl

9 years, 4 months

1
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Need to archive: GRiD Compass Computer Operating System Software

by shatle＠nfldinet.com

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Need to archive: GRiD Compass Computer Operating System Software From: Ian Finder <ian.finder at gmail.com> Date: Tue, October 25, 2016 7:08 pm To: "cctalk at classiccmp.org" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Folks, there appears to be a large GRiD-sized hole where archived copies of the Compass Computer Operating System software should be. ... -- Ian Finder (206) 395-MIPS ian.finder at gmail.com >> There's a fairly active GRiD list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rugrid-laptop/ You may wish to cross-post there, or I can if you don't wish to join up. Steve

9 years, 4 months

1
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Need to archive: GRiD Compass Computer Operating System Software

by ian.finder＠gmail.com

Folks, there appears to be a large GRiD-sized hole where archived copies of the Compass Computer Operating System software should be. For those not aware, GRiD had an OS product that was quite advanced for the time- with bitmapped graphics, multitasking, a beautiful forms-driven, UI, etc. Unfortunately, nothing but the basic OS seems to be preserved anywhere- no add-on software, not even the utilities needed to format the hard drive. This is a travesty- GRiD made something far more important than PC clone machines, at one time. *** I'm looking for leads on any software products mentioned below, or at this URL: http://www.1000bit.it/ad/bro/grid/GRID-1984-PriceList.pdf *** I have been buying manuals for the express purpose of scanning, and have a great deal of coverage, but am short on software. I am not opposed to paying for any of this, nor shipping and returning the original copies to the provider at my own expense. I will certainly put all the images in Bitsavers, if Al is okay with that- otherwise they will be made available through some other means. Any leads on GRiD media is appreciated. Thanks, - Ian GRiDWrite, Management Tools, GRiDVT100, and GRiDbasic have already been preserved. [35], [36] and [37-47] would be incredible to find. REF PRODUCT MODEL VERSION NOTES --- ------------------------- ----- ------- ----- 18 GRiD-OS 110X/112X 29200 3.1.0.A [6] 19 GRiD-OS 113X 29210 3.1.5.D 20 GRiD-OS 110X/112X 29200 3.1.0.A 21 Management Tools 21100 3.1.0 22 GRiDMaster 21231 3.1.7 23 GRiDPaint 21214 3.1.5 24 GRiDWrite 21132 3.1.7 25 GRiDAccess 21212 3.1.7 26 GRiDPlan 3.1.5 27 GRiDPlan II 3.2.1 28 GRiDWrite 21132 3.1.7 29 GRiDVT100/Reformat 21191 3.2 30 GRiDVT100/Reformat 21191 3.1.5 31 GRiD3101/Reformat 21151 [7] 32 GRiD3101/Reformat 21151 3.1.5 [7] 33 GRiDTek4016 21228 36.9.4 [7] 34 GRiDTerm/Reformat 21141 3.1.5 35 GRiDTransfer/Partition 21210 36 GRiDRecord/Playback 3.1.5 37 C-86 23032 3.2.0 38 Pascal-86 23025 0.3.1 [1 COPY SOLD] 39 FORTRAN-86 23015 0.3.0 40 PL/M-86 23030 0.2.7 41 BASIC 3.1.0 [7], [1 COPY SOLD] 42 ASM-86 23031 43 GRiDDebug/Devel. Tools 29300 3.1.7 44 GRiDDebug/Devel. Tools 29300 3.0.0 45 GRiDTask II / Windows 21230 3.2 46 GRiDTask II 21230 3.1.7 47 GRiDTask 21230 3.1.7 48 ROM Builder 2.1.0 [7] 49 ROM: GRiD-OS System 112X 24100 3.1.0 [8] 50 ROM: GRiD-OS System 113X 24180 3.1.5 [8] 51 ROM: GRiD-OS Utilities 21400 3.1.0 [8] 52 ROM: GRiDMaster 3.1.7 [8] 53 ROM: GRiDVT100/Reformat 24150 3.2 [8] 54 ROM: GRiDWrite/Term/Refmt 24140 3.1.5 [8] -- Ian Finder (206) 395-MIPS ian.finder at gmail.com

9 years, 4 months

1
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PDP15 panel

by gtoal＠gtoal.com

Friend of mine pointed this out to me, but I'm a software guy, don't have any use for hardware. Maybe you guys would be interested. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DEC-PDP-15-console-panel-von-1970-/112179257620?h… 8 days left. I think he failed to sell it previously at 130 Euros so that probably sets an upper limit on the auction price. Graham

9 years, 4 months

4
3
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Blue top DEC cabinet -- cheap

by jason＠smbfc.net

Hey All, Surplus at work has this right now: http://archives.smbfc.net/uploads/retrocomputing/deccab/ I'm happy to go pay for it and hold it if someone is interested and able to pick it up quickly. --Jason

9 years, 4 months

1
2
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assembler, disassembler for Intel 8089?

by spacewar＠gmail.com

Before I write my own, does anyone happen to have an assembler and/or a disassembler for the Intel 8089 I/O processor?

9 years, 4 months

8
20
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VTServer/etc for V6 Unix

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> I'll start with getting VTServer to run under V6 (my only Unix, don't > have anything later :-) So, I just got VTServer runnin under V6: it successfully loaded a memory diagnostic from the 'server', into the 'client', using 'vtboot' on the latter. (Both running on emulated machines, for the moment - I thought I'd take all the hardware-related variables out of the equation, until I have the software all running OK.) It didn't require as much work on VTServer as I thought it might: I had to convert the C to the V6 dialect (no '+=', etc), and some other small things (e.g. convert the TTY setup code), but in general, it was pretty smooth and painless. Note that it won't run under vanilla V6, which does not provide 8-bit input and output on serial lines. I had previously added 'LITIN' and 'LITOUT' modes (8-bit input and output) to my V6; since the mode word in stty/gtty was already full, I had to extend the device interface to support them. I didn't add ioctl() or anything later, I did an upward-compatible extension to stty/gtty. (I'm a real NIH guy. :-) My only real problem in getting VTServer running was with LITIN; I did it some while back, but had never actually tested it (I was only using LITOUT, for my custom program to talk to PDP-11 consoles, which also did downloads, so needed 8-bit output). So when I went to use it, it didn't work, and it was a real stumper! But I did eventually figure out what the problem was (after writing a custom program to reach into the kernel and dump the entire state of a serial line), and get it working. (I had taken the shortcut of not fully understanding how the kernel serial line code worked, just tried to install point fixes. This turned out not to work, because of a side-effect elsewhere in the code. Moral of the story: you can't change the operation of a piece of software without complete understanding of how it works...) Is there any interest in all this? If so, I can put together a web page with the V6-verion VTServer source, along with the modified V6 serial line stuff (including a short description of the extended stty/gtty interface), etc. > so if you turn up whatever you used to boot V6, it would probably still > be useful. So I guess my next step, if I don't hear shortly from someone who has previously used VTServer to install V6, is to start on actually getting a V6 file system created. I'm still vacillating over whether it would be better to go V6-style (and just transfer a complete, small existing V6 filesystem), or V7-style (and get stand-alone 'mkfs', etc running with V6-format file systems). Anyone have an opinion? Noel

9 years, 4 months

3
2
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Archived viruses, was Re: Reasonable price for a complete SOL-20 system?

by terry＠webweavers.co.nz

Here is some I wrote some time ago on my experiences with vintage viruses. Bear in mind it's a narrative (and hence somewhat long-winded and rambling) but anyway..here it is for anyone interested... http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/2009-08-30-vintage-viruses.htm Terry (Tez)

9 years, 4 months

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PDP-11 RL02 disk emulation

by scott.l.baker＠gmail.com

Hi Noel, >> Any chance it could be put into 'production'? Sure, if there is interest, I could make a run of boards. >> Also, what FPGA board are you using? I assume it's one that has an SD >> card socket or something, for actually storing the bits on? My project is just an interface board for an existing RL02 emulator project: www.pdp11gy.com There are a multiple project revisions listed on the pdp11gy.com site that use different Altera FPGA dev boards: DE0 Nano, DE0 Nano SOC, and BeMicro CV. I was planning to use a Terasic DE0 Nano dev board since these boards can be found on eBay from $50 to $100. The DE0 nano does not have an micro-SD card socket which is why there is a socket on my interface board. http://sierracircuitdesign.ddns.net/temp/RL02 The DE0 Nano SOC, and BeMicro CV dev boards have micro-SD card sockets, so if you used one of those, then you would not need to populate the micro-SD socket on the interface board. According to the author of the www.pdp11gy.com RL02 project, the 40-pin headers on DE0 Nano, DE0 Nano SOC, and BeMicro CV are compatible, so you could use my interface board with any of these boards. Regards, Scott

9 years, 4 months

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Intel 8089A, 8089A-3, 8089-3 datasheet

by spacewar＠gmail.com

Does anyone have a datasheet for an Intel 8089A, 8089A-3, or 8089-3? The only datasheets I've found are for the "plain" 8089 with no "A" or numeric suffix. The component resellers show better availabiliity for with the "A" and/or "-3" suffix, though it's possible that those are in error. The 8089 is an I/O processor. The "-3" suffix is most likely a speed grade. The standard part without the "-3" is 5 MHz.

9 years, 4 months

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RK8E Plessey Clone and Data Break Error

by marco＠familie-rauhut.eu

Hello all together, i restore a rk05 disk drive in combination with an Plessey RK8E clone controller. Now the drive itself is restored, and the connection cables are built. My problem is that the rk8e diskless controll test (dhrka) fails with an data break error. The diskless controlltest is running throug all register and also the databuffer test. But in the first data break routine it fails. Then i toggled in the Example program from the maintanence vol.III, Single Cycle Data Break Transfers (Write than Read). With this program the content of the SwitchRegister is written through the data buffer registers and read back to the memory. Afterwards it is compared to the original SR content. I found out that the routine is running if SR=7777. Deeper investigation results that the bits 0, 1, 4, 6 and 9 have to be one`s to run the routine. The other SR bits are switchable while running the program. Next thing i did is trying read data with futil. i could read data form the disk. But with many read errors. Because i do not know anything about the allignment between my diskpack and the drive, i formated the pack with the RK8E Formater (dhrkd). The write part of the format is running. In the disk checking part the formater fails. Anyway. Then i used futil and scanned the whole surface off the diskpack. On the whole disk are 5 bad blocks left. Now i am able to dump blocks from the disk. But it seems that no matter witch block i dump out, it is the same block all over the disk. Afterwards i tried to modifie some words in block 0. And this is working. When i write the modified block i see the modification also in every other block of the disk. Have anyone the lightning idea? On a Google search i found a post of Rick Bensene from 2014 on this list witch described a similiar problem. In this discussion where talked about an spike in the load signal of the current address register. I checked that and see that this was not my problem. Thanks in advance Marco Rauhut

9 years, 4 months

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Unibus / Qbus

by shadoooo＠gmail.com

Hello, we are discussing on separate thread about doing an universal interface for PDP11. I'm taking all the relevant documentation about Unibus and Qbus busses, aiming to check the possibility of doing a board compatible, with some adjustments, with both worlds. I started to read the 1979 specifications, however it's not all clear to me, specially about Unibus. What I understood: - Qbus is complete on A and B connectors, so a dual card could be done. Some backplanes have a true serpentine, while some other has C and D with other signals, but those are of particular usage with dual-board interfaces. Basically both dual and quad boards can be done, with the latter using A and B and simply propagating grant on C and D, supposedly connected in standard serpentine. Unibus: the specifications are describing A and B, but backplanes are complicate than that, and can have Unibus, Modified Unibus, Extended Unibus, SPC... What for? If all the signals are in AB, why they are connected again in CDEF? There's some complete documentation about the different backplane types, and the standard approach for an Unibus board? Thanks Andrea

9 years, 4 months

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DEC bus transceivers (was Re: Unibus disk controller with modern storage)

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: David Bridgham > Just the bus interface takes over half the area of a dual-height board! In part because the level converters are SMD, and we had to mount them on (modified) wide DIP carriers to use them in a wire-wrap board. > I've played around with laying out what might be the production board > ... and I've got it down to a row of 8641 bus transceivers and a row or > two of the level-converter chips. > http://pdp10.froghouse.org/qsic/proto-pcb.jpg For those looking at that picture, it's not our current plan for 'producton' QSIC's; the one in the picture uses a daughter-card with an FPGA on it, but that makes the card to high to fit into a single slot. So the current plan is to do a card with an FPGA on it directly. Noel

9 years, 4 months

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11/35 on eBait

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Glen Slick >> Went unsold at $3500. Relisted, this time at $5000. > there was a taker for that 11/35 at $5000 today.... Smack me with a wet halibut. They must not have seen the original listing? I can't come up with any other explanation why someone would pass up a chance to buy it for $3.5K, and pay $1.5 more for the priviledge... Noel

9 years, 4 months

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11/35 on eBait

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> Philipp Hachtmann wrote: > Was it really sold? I can't figure that out from here. Only "listing > has ended". And when I try to search for it, the website doesn't show > it :-( ??? If you go to the listing: http://www.ebay.com/itm/142146207101 the image has 'Sold' emblazoned across it. And if you click on that image, it takes you to the original listing, which says "Sold for: US$5,000". Noel

9 years, 4 months

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Time to get rid of weird connected appliances! <<SKYNET MUST DIE>> check this

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

Time to get rid of weird connected appliances! <<SKYNET MUST DIE>> check this.... http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/how-your-dvr-was-hijacked-to-help-…

9 years, 4 months

10
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ASTEC 8151 PSU (TRS80, Osborne etc)

by witchy＠binarydinosaurs.co.uk

Hi folks, Now that the bouncing has calmed down I've got a question about this here triple output pretty ubiquitous power supply. This one had some burst caps so naturally wasn't working and was probably why the machine it came out of was taken out of use. I've replaced all of them because why not, along with the .1uF mains filtering cap that would also burst at some point and I still get low output on all rails. I've tested all the major components out of circuit and checked for shorts; in Apple ][ power supplies (also Astec, apart from the ones that aren't) low output is mostly caused by a feedback capacitor (C7) going out of spec, but these are all new and as close a match to the originals I could find. One thing I've not done is reflowed all connections so I'll do that later, but has anyone got experience of common failure modes with these things? Cheers -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection?

9 years, 4 months

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Free - IBM PS/2 model 30-286, 50, and 77 for spares/repairs. (Bristol, England)

by tomjmoss＠googlemail.com

Hi All, I have a few IBM PS/2s in various states of disrepair that are free to anyone willing to collect from Yatton (Near Bristol), or arrange a courier. Systems as follows: Model 30-286 - powers on to BASIC prompt, bad floppy drive, missing hard drive. A few minor scuffs, should make an easy restoration. Model 50 - Boots from HDD to DOS, has bad sectors but might be OK after a low level format, haven't tried it because the FDD is bad. Includes untested tape drive in the second 3.5" drive bay. Some rust spots on case. Model 77 - Very good cosmetic condition but doesn't power on, corrosion around the BIOS chip so I'm guessing it's because of that. If anyone's interested I can take photos and find out the system specs. I also have one of the later IBM PS/2 mice. Regards, -Tom

9 years, 4 months

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PDP-11 RL02 disk emulation

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Scott Baker > Feedback on this project is most welcome. Any chance it could be put into 'production'? It just seems to me that rather than having 53 people send in individual orders for boards, etc it would be better (and also perhaps get a price break due to volume) to do a small run. (You may not want to produce complete boards, but even kits would be useful.) I think an RL02 simulator is a great idea; those of us with RL0x controllers could use this most of the time, avoiding potential damage to our old drives/disks; I know I would buy several if they were available. Also, what FPGA board are you using? I assume it's one that has an SD card socket or something, for actually storing the bits on? Noel

9 years, 4 months

2
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VTServer/etc for V6 Unix

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

The fact that the installation procedures for V6 and V7 are wholly different, in their technical detail, was apparently not well known. The 'Setting up Unix' documents are more checklists, they don't go into a lot of detail as to what is actually happening, so I have prepared two pages on the Computer History wiki: http://gunkies.org/wiki/Installing_UNIX_Sixth_Edition http://gunkies.org/wiki/Installing_UNIX_Seventh_Edition which go into more detail on what is actually happening. Noel

9 years, 4 months

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OT: Excessive bounce notices?

by kspt.tor＠gmail.com

On 22 October 2016 at 17:27, Adrian Graham <witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk> wrote: [..] >> Same story from me, and I also wondered about the excessive bounces - >> because of gmail. > > Ditto, and ditto. I also thought it was due to the dyndns attack so just > resubbed after emailing Jay, but if everyone did that who got an excessive > bounce message the poor chap will have quite a full inbox. Yes, it must have been that attack. I wasn't aware of it at the time, probably because I rely on 8.8.4.4. DNS which was never affected. We still need that global task force to hunt down spammers and ddos'ers and get rid of them once and for all. Or at least inflict some discomfort.

9 years, 4 months

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Unibus disk controller with modern storage

by shadoooo＠gmail.com

Hello Dave, exactly! But in place of a plain FPGA, nowadays I would choose a FPGA-ARM board, for example the ZedBoard MicroZed or the Myirtech Z-turn, both of them have a Zynq onboard, and they can run linux for the software side and programmable logic for the interface side. Very nice and flexible. For the development, I'm trying to figure if an hybrid QBUS / UNIBUS solution is possible. Of course one have to switch some jumper to avoid conflicts, but hey, in the end you would have a true universal board. What kind of bus transceivers did you used for the QSIC, specially because you have to go from 5V open-drain logic to 3.3V logic? Thanks Andrea On 10/21/2016 07:00 PM, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > You mean, perhaps, something like this? > > http://pdp10.froghouse.org/qsic/html/overview.html

9 years, 4 months

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Looking for HP98034 / HP9895 ROM images

by cruff＠ruffspot.net

> On Oct 18, 2016, at 11:00 AM, cctech-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > does anyone of you happen to have the images of the firmware ROM of > HP98034 module and/or of the HP9895 disk drive, please? I?ve sent F.Ulivi the contents of the single ROM version from my 9895A, along with some preliminary reverse engineering work on the contents that I?ve done in conjunction with Eric Smith.

9 years, 4 months

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OT: Excessive bounce notices?

by barythrin＠gmail.com

Just curious, I probably could have just asked Jay but incase this was wider spread I received a message that my subscription at my Gmail was suspended due to bounces. I was wondering if that may have been only today and more widespread from the Dyn dns ddos that happened? If so others may want to double check for similar issues as I probably missed some messages today. No biggie, just a PSA if it affected more than myself.

9 years, 4 months

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Altos 686/886 (i286) MFM drive parameters

by aek＠bitsavers.org

micropolis 1325 --sectors 16,0 --heads 8 --cylinders 1024 --header_crc 0xffff,0x1021,16,0 --data_crc 0xffffffff,0x140a0445,32,5 --format WD_1006 --sector_length 512 40 meg disk in the system used a 1323, 4 heads instead of 8

9 years, 4 months

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Are DEC TK50/TK70 tapes worth hanging onto?

by dzubint＠vcn.bc.ca

OK, I have a fairly large collection of VAX 4000 and VAXStation 3000 systems which I have fun with and use with both OpenVMS and OpenBSD over the years.... But, I also have two big rubbermade containers (about half a cubic meter) filled with TK50 and TK70 tapes which I have never used. Some are blank, some are the boot & install media for VMS 5.5, some are software installations, etc. etc. In the past 25 years that I have had them, I have not once ever used my TK50 or TK70 drives...I've always either booted off the attached disks or netbooted. Should I just throw these things out? Do any collectors consider them to be valuable? Since it's now 2016 and I think the last TK tapes were made in the 1990s, I'm getting the urge to toss them. Opinions? Comments? --------------- Thomas "PDP-11" Dzubin Vancouver, Calgary, or Saskatoon; CANADA

9 years, 4 months

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Re: Archived viruses, was Re: Reasonable price for a complete SOL-20 system?

by barythrin＠gmail.com

I wouldn't dismiss it if you're using images or any used software. Yes some platforms are more susceptible than others but unless you have no hard drive, power your system off after every use, and never switch disks while system is running it's still something that can infest your originals or archive. Dan's great collection of cpm is a good example of something that ended up passed around the community and had a few infected images. ?Depending on whether it's a file, boot sector, MBr or TSR it will different and potentially detrimental impact. I stopped archiving my Amiga disks but at a place I worked that had Amiga systems some kids brought in lots of games (some cracked) and while we didn't allow that it was spring break and they had finished their work. What's the worst that could happen? Kids slowly starting to walk up and say their computer says it's infected with a virus. Probably one disk but who knows how many were infected after that. Took me longer just to find an antivirus for the Amiga than to get the systems cleaned lol but still, an unexpected pain. One of the best preventative methods if the software doesn't need to write to the originals is write protect the floppy. ?But buying used, who knows if the previous owner was computer savvy or safe. -------- Original message --------From: Steven M Jones <classiccmp at crash.com> Well, glad to hear there's nothing to worry about.?

9 years, 4 months

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Blown Tantalum Capacitor Advice

by shadoooo＠gmail.com

Hello Rob, I'm quite sure that the tantalum explosion has nothing to do with the spin-up failure. Indeed the RD53 (Micropolis) is infamous for a problem in the head positioning shock absorber. The head positioning system is based on a voicecoil inserted in the magnetic field; the angle covered by the head arm is limited by two adjustable metal limits originally covered with rubber. At startup the mechanism is moved back and forth to check the two limits, and exactly at the ends a special magnetic pattern is recorded on the surface of the disks for calibration. Due to age, the rubber becomes goo, so the angle limits become wider, so during the calibration the head falls offer the calibration area and spin-up fails. The suggestion is to choose a clean room with few dust and a good lighting, carefully open the top cover of the disc, and remove the goo the more as possible using adsorbent sticks. Be sure not to touch the disc surface with the goo accidentally. Then try to insert some small pieces of paper over one limit (if I'm not wrong the failing is the left) in place of the missing rubber, and try the disc, and continue to add thickness until it works. Then you are sure about the right limit to move. Then remove the paper, loosen a little the screw, but just a little so the limit will not move unless pushed with some strength and a screwdriver. Then move a very small amount towards the center and try, then repeat trial and error until the disc starts. Then tight the screw and it is over. Close the disc and voila. Andrea

9 years, 4 months

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Unibus disk controller with modern storage

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: shadoooo > they can run linux for the software side Maybe it's just me, but running Linux on an interface card strike me as somewhat grotesque. It's bad enough running a far faster chip than the vintage CPU, but... a majorly complex operating system to boot? > I'm trying to figure if an hybrid QBUS / UNIBUS solution is possible. > Of course one have to switch some jumper to avoid conflicts Lots and lots and lots and lots of jumpers. The two buses are completely unlike, pinout-wise. And the UNIBUS board has to be a quad, and there are some QBUS chassis which only take duals... > What kind of bus transceivers did you used for the QSIC We used a mix of DS8641 quad transceivers (they're still available in reasonably good numbers for a reasonable price) and AM2908 octal latching transceivers with a tri-state output (to allow us to have a bidirectional internal bus for BDAL00-BDAL21 - we were trying to minimize the number of pins needed on the FPGA to interfaces to the QBUS). But we probably will use a different FPGA on the production boards, and all DS8641's. > you have to go from 5V open-drain logic to 3.3V logic? We do that with separate 74LVC7T245 level converter chips. Noel

9 years, 4 months

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0
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Weird List Post Error

by cctalk＠ibm51xx.net

Hmmm... I just sent a message to the list and got the following error: "Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients. Subject: RE: Archived viruses, was Re: Reasonable price for a complete SOL-20 system? Sent: 10/22/2016 10:30 AM The following recipient(s) cannot be reached: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' on 10/22/2016 10:30 AM 451 Requested action aborted: local error in processing" Resent the message again and it went through fine. Anyone else having trouble posting? -Ali

9 years, 4 months

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Unibus disk controller with modern storage

by shadoooo＠gmail.com

Hello Dave, exactly! But in place of a plain FPGA, nowadays I would choose a FPGA-ARM board, for example the ZedBoard MicroZed or the Myirtech Z-turn, both of them have a Zynq onboard, and they can run linux for the software side and programmable logic for the interface side. Very nice and flexible. For the development, I'm trying to figure if an hybrid QBUS / UNIBUS solution is possible. Of course one have to switch some jumper to avoid conflicts, but hey, in the end you would have a true universal board. What kind of bus transceivers did you used for the QSIC, specially because you have to go from 5V open-drain logic to 3.3V logic? Thanks Andrea On 10/21/2016 07:00 PM, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > You mean, perhaps, something like this? > > http://pdp10.froghouse.org/qsic/html/overview.html

9 years, 4 months

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MOTD: It is amazing how many ways you can make mistakes with 32-bit instructions

by pbirkel＠gmail.com

Published in the National Computer Conference, 1976. Full quote: "He bought an RPC-4000 "at a graveyard-type disposal sale," and later noted, "My RPC is working but I can't get an assembly program more than two-thirds loaded. This produces lots of messages telling me my programs are bad" I suspect some memory aberrations, but the memory print routine won't print either. So I have been trying to write a simpler routine of my own in machine language. That is a drag. It is amazing how many ways you can make mistakes with 32-bit instructions." " Also memorable: "An Indiana hobbyist bought a Univac 0 File Computer as scrap, with arithmetic unit, program-control unit, 90-column reader/punch, sort-collate unit, tape-drive program controller, and six magnetic-tape units. The new owner says, "I had figured to use the outside winter air to get it turned on and see what I've got, and just close down in summer. As to space, not too bad: only about 400 or 500 square feet, pretty compact. I'm presently having 220 V installed to begin to turn on some of it." And *we* think that we have it tough :->. From: https://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/afips/1976/5084/00/50840235.pdf -----

9 years, 4 months

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Archived viruses, was Re: Reasonable price for a complete SOL-20 system?

by billdegnan＠gmail.com

> > John McAfee predicted that 5 million computers would be wiped out. > The press were called in. > > On March 6, there were apparently DOZENS of drives wiped. Few, if any records kept to verify numbers. > McAfee, as expected, took full credit, and declared that the REASON why it was dozens, instead of millions, was because his warnings were heeded. > > Six months later, when he took his company public, he raised 42 million dollars. > > He is currently a fugitive as the "prime suspect" in the murder of his neighbor in Belize (apparently NOT virus related) > > Side note...maybe 6 or 12 months before the big virus scare I called McAfee on the phone and spoke with him about a virus I found on a GRID laptop that I found was copied to 4000 similar machines out in the field where I wokred. He emailed me his latest test iteration of his software, a copy on a scratch disk. It was a very early version. I had no idea of course of his future, but I was impressed with his software because it was light, no install disks and he knew his stuff. We were talking about how to inject his antivirus prpgram into a program I wrote to update laptops remotely by modem, and how we could send virus updates via this process. It was getting impractical to keep sending me disks and we needed a better way. You could not buy his software Viruses were starting to get more numerous. I don't know if he had just started his company, it was not public or anything yet. In fact I got his number inmformally from a manager at a company called Sales Tchnologies out of Atlanta, I w as working with their sales tracking program they were already using my "mass update" system to manage their software and data updates. That's where the virus came from. Fun times all MS DOS based, btrieve database, Sprint Internet exchange for free phine calls inbound >from anywhehre in the USA... I also remember building and compiling Sales Tech software version updates on a xerox workstation. When I left they offered me the Xerox but I remember thinking what would I ever do with *that* old piece of junk? "Well Bill you're the only one who knows how to use it so we will just throw it away then, are you sure".."yah, my apartment is too small...." At least that's how I remember it. Bill

9 years, 4 months

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Archived viruses, was Re: Reasonable price for a complete SOL-20 system?

by billdegnan＠gmail.com

On Oct 21, 2016 8:30 PM, "Steven M Jones" <classiccmp at crash.com> wrote: > > On 10/21/2016 14:15, william degnan wrote: > > Any disk or archive you come upon from the early 90's should be scanned for > > viruses before use on a vintage machine. USe a modern PC as it's no biggie > > to clean old viruses that way. Scan before you use on an older machine, > > scan inside of ZIP files not just the zip itself. There were three viruses > > that I found years ago on the most-often seen Maslin archive set. Old > > stuff that's not an issue for modern machines. > > I didn't think modern A/V products included complete historical sets of > signatures. I'm sure they can deal with ancient, simple bootloader > infections and such, but at some point I'd be concerned there's a gap > where something might be too new to be detected by the simplest > heuristics, but too old for a more sophisticated signature to be in your > common modern products. > > But this isn't something I've had to deal with. Is this an imagined > problem, or has somebody run into this? > > Thx, > --S. > Stoned Monk is still detectable by modern anti virus software, 25 or whatever years later, at least last time I tested using a win 7 machine. So, that was maybe 4 or 5 years ago.

9 years, 4 months

2
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HP 7945 disk format

by aek＠bitsavers.org

for anyone wanting to try David's MFM emulator in an HP MFM 7945 disk box, here is the format, determined from reading a Vertex V170 drive from one --sectors 32,0 --heads 7 --cylinders 987 --header_crc 0xffff,0x1021,16,0 --data_crc 0xffffffff,0x140a0445,32,5 --format WD_1006 --sector_length 256 The 7945 is notoriously flaky because of the Vertex drives.

9 years, 4 months

2
7
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PDP-11 RL02 disk emulation

by scott.l.baker＠gmail.com

Hi, The author of this project http://www.pdp11gy.com <http://www.pdp11gy.com/doneE.html> built a wire-wrapped board to interface an RL02 controller (RL11, RLV21, or RL8A) and an FPGA development board (which does all the heavy lifting for the disk emulation). I decided to build one of these emulators and to design a printed circuit board rather than using wire wrap. The schematics and layout of my RL02 interface board can be found here: http://sierracircuitdesign.ddns.net/temp/RL02 I made changes to the original design (e.g. I used different driver and receiver chips) but I think it should be plug compatible with the original wire-wrapped design. Feedback on this project is most welcome. Regards, Scott

9 years, 4 months

1
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Burroughs B5000 emulator

by kspt.tor＠gmail.com

On 21 October 2016 at 16:37, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote: > A friend of mine is working on an emulator for this Burroughs Large > Systems beast. [..] > I have suggested to him that it might be easier to work under an > existing mini/mainframe emulator, such as SimH or maybe even > MESS/MAME, but he is highly resistant to this idea, for reasons I do > not really understand. > > I'm interested in opinions: do folk think that it would help, or not? I fully understand. Not everything is easily tweaked to fit into those frameworks. When I wrote my two minicomputer emulators I couldn't see how on earth I could get that working inside simh without increasing the work needed ten or fifty times. There wasn't anything there that would help me for what I had in mind.

9 years, 4 months

1
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Unibus disk controller with modern storage

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Paul Koning > 1976 Peripherals Handbook, page 6-4. It specifies the driver output > low voltage at 70 mA sink, not 50... Differing editions give slightly different numbers. I was looking at the 1972 edition (which was the one that was closest to hand, no other reason); the number I gave is on pg. 204. I haven't checked later ones to see if there were further revisions. The later 70mA sink spec is probably a slightly more robust number to work with. Noel

9 years, 4 months

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Burroughs B5000 emulator

by lproven＠gmail.com

A friend of mine is working on an emulator for this Burroughs Large Systems beast. There is an existing one -- https://github.com/pkimpel/retro-b5500 But it's web-based and in Javascript. Mark wants one that can be run as a proper local binary, under Linux. I believe he's using part of this emulator but trying to port it to either C, FreePascal or a mixture of both. I have suggested to him that it might be easier to work under an existing mini/mainframe emulator, such as SimH or maybe even MESS/MAME, but he is highly resistant to this idea, for reasons I do not really understand. I'm interested in opinions: do folk think that it would help, or not? Also, anyone who might have any info that would aid him and are interested, I can put you in touch. He claims the system was influential in the design of the original Intel 8088/8086, which is news to me. Comments? -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven Skype/MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? LinkedIn/AIM/Yahoo: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R)

9 years, 4 months

2
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Fwd: Unibus disk controller with modern storage

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: David Bridgham > the right threshold voltage to meet the receiver spec The UNIBUS spec says the 4 crucial receiver parameters are input thresholds (high and low), and the input currents (high and low); the crucial transmitter parameters are the output low voltage (at 50 mA sink), and the output high leakage current. Noel

9 years, 4 months

4
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Old versions of Emacs

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Lars Brinkhoff > Emacs in 1983 would have been Gosling Emacs, I guess. Prior to that one, someone else at BBN (whose name I have forgotten, alas) did an Emacs intended for PDP-11's running Unix. It wasn't programmable (the way 'real' Emacs is), perhaps because there was not enough room for that on a PDP-11. I should have that on my MIT-CSR backup tapes, but if you're interested in a copy, it will be a while before I can excavate it; the tapes had some dropouts, which may have made the dump (a straight 'dd' of a 4.3 filesystem) unreadable. Noel

9 years, 4 months

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More DEC Alpha kit available, Newmarket UK

by binarydinosaurs＠gmail.com

Folks, We have another pedestal ES40 and rackmount ES45 to give away, as well as a half-height Compaq rack (20U?). Has to be collected from CB8 7NY before the end of next week otherwise they get recycled. Anyone fancy an early xmas present? :) -- adrian/witchy Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection? www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk

9 years, 4 months

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Old versions of Emacs

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Lars Brinkhoff >> someone else at BBN (whose name I have forgotten, alas) > Sounds vaguely like MicroEMACS by Dave Conroy, but I suppose this is > something else? Unix V6 you say? Was it BBN PEN by David Barach, David > Taenzer, and Robert Wells? None of those names rang a bell. I just read the entire backup tape (in file form) into an editor, and searched for "Emacs", and I found some things which indicate the version I'm thinking of was written by Warren Montgomery, of Bell Laboratories (that's what I get for relying on memory, sigh). It was apparently written in the 1980 to early-1981 timeframe. Googling 'Emacs Warren Montgomery' turns up some interesting early things, including this: http://org.ntnu.no/emacs/implementations.html https://www.finseth.com/emacs.html Perhaps you already have this content, though? > Yes, I am! I don't think I can take on every single variation of Emacs, > but a version this early is interesting. OK, I will keep this in mind if/when I ever manage to read the dump. Noel

9 years, 4 months

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Photos from the NWA Auction

by coryheisterkamp＠gmail.com

For those curious about the equipment that sold last week, I put together an album from my brief stop on Saturday. Let me know if you have trouble viewing it. https://goo.gl/photos/yb83SJSj67gS96n39 On closer inspection it appears the documentation for that GP-4, as well as some of the other computers, sold to different parties (the value being in the shelving and cabinets). I'm still losing sleep over that GP-4. From all appearances it was a turn-key setup (in theory). Unfortunately, the auction site immediately removes closed lots from their webpage so no idea what it sold for, or if it went to a scrapper. I suspect it was billed as 'cabinets of aviation equipment'. Being 3 hours away I can't exactly run over there and pin a note on it. Some further digging on the net revealed a photo in the Motorola Annual Report 1965 featuring the machine touting Moto's new ECL logic. Apparently it was designed for aviation simulation but included facilities for being a general purpose machine. -C

9 years, 4 months

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Museum thoughts?

by mouse＠Rodents-Montreal.ORG

There's someone local who's seen my assortment of computer hardware twice and has, each time, told me I should set up a museum. This is tempting, but I don't know the first thing about doing it. About all I'm sure of is that it would involve a lot of stuff I currently have no idea of. I know that there are at least a few people here who've been involved in such things. While all the examples that come to mind are in the USA, and mine would be in Canada, I'm sure there are many respects in which the issues are jurisdiction-independent - and, who knows, there may be such a person in Canada that I just can't recall offhand. So, I'm wondering if there's anyone who'd be willing to share experiences, thoughts, issues, whatever, on the possibility. I'm not looking to make a lot of money off this. If I can turn my computers from money-sink to money-neutral, I'll be content. (They are currently soaking up money in the form of causing me to be renting significantly more storage than I would be if they were to vanish.) /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

9 years, 4 months

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Museum thoughts?

by couryhouse＠aol.com

Nice display Bill! Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone -------- Original message -------- From: william degnan <billdegnan at gmail.com> Date: 10/20/16 13:01 (GMT-07:00) To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Museum thoughts? > > > > > There's someone local who's seen my assortment of computer hardware > > twice and has, each time, told me I should set up a museum. > <snip> > > > > So, I'm wondering if there's anyone who'd be willing to share > > experiences, thoughts, issues, whatever, on the possibility. > > > > Maybe you could find a local museum and volunteer there, see what's involved behind the scenes.? If there is nothing close enough to your interests offer to contribute an exhibit to a local college, or business, or someone who has a stale display case that could use a refresh. Come up with a plan and present it to the powers that be.? This way you can get some experience before you go full museum. Here is an example of what I am talking about, at the U of Delaware in the computer sci hall.? I got some students to help set up. http://vintagecomputer.net/UofDelaware/UofDelaware_CM_TRS80-2.JPG Bill

9 years, 4 months

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WD1793 FDC versions

by mhs.stein＠gmail.com

Anybody know what the differences are among the WD1793, WD1793A, WD1793B-02 etc., or where I could find this info? Thanks, mike

9 years, 4 months

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Unibus disk controller with modern storage

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Paul Koning > That's fine if your target is an OS for which you can write drivers. It > wouldn't help RSTS users. Right, they're stuck with exact clones of DEC controllers. (For Unix, tweaking the RP11 driver to handle the extended RP11 should take all of 12 minutes, tops! :-) > Q22 disks .. RL02 also, if I remember right. Oh, right, the RLV12 - forgot about that. Still, it would be nice to be able to run RK11's and RP11's in 22-bit mode! :-) Especially since there will be replicas of DEC's indicator panels for them, whereas an RL11 indicator panel would definitely be... an anachronism! ;-) > A possible answer for a lot of this is to do the actual emulation > algorithms in software, in an embedded CPU inside the FPGA. For MSCP > that's obvious, but it would work for the others as well I suspect. Dave B is a wizard with Verilog, so until it gets to the complexity level of MSCP we'd probably do it all in Verilog. > From: Jon Elson > I did **ONE** board with some kind of gold flash that a PCB house > recommended. ... it was a colossal disaster. You had to lift the pin > ... Since then, I have used pure tin HASL, and had little trouble. I think gold came into the discussion in the context of the contact fingers where the board plugs into the backplane. I've never seen a QBUS/UNIBUS board with tin fingers, although they were common on SIMM memory cards; no idea if tin would work for QBUS/UNIBUS - although now that I think about it, SIMM cards didn't slide into position, but kind of rotated, so maybe tin would work there. Noel

9 years, 4 months

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Unibus disk controller with modern storage

by shadoooo＠gmail.com

Hello, I read several posts about Unibus disk interfaces and emulation. One of my retrocomputing dream is to design an Unibus universal board, probably based on FPGA because of precise timing requirements, to emulate one or more disk/tape interfaces, and possibly something more. The real storage could be based on SD card, so very easy to be moved to a PC for imaging and data transfer. Probably a low level emulation would be quite easy, while a more complex solution (MSCP) could be more difficult. The board itself wouldn't be cheap at all, because PCB would be big, and because FPGA aren't cheap either. Probably it would be anyway cheaper than an MSCP-SCSI, and it would be far more flexible. From what I understand, there could be a great demand of a such interface here around? Andrea

9 years, 4 months

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Unsticking a Seagate ST-419 head

by aek＠bitsavers.org

I have a couple of drives I would really like to recover the data from. On one of the two I've tried so far, the lowest head in the stack is really stuck on. Has anyone successfully unstuck a head from this era. I've tried the obvious things (gentle rotation in both axis, heating the platters) but there is a lot of surface area on those old heads and it is pretty badly stuck.

9 years, 4 months

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Unibus disk controller with modern storage

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Paul Koning > I'd suggest the Massbus series, they are just about as simple as > anything and that's where you find the largest capacities short of MSCP > devices. If you want to exactly emulate only DEC controllers, yes. (Of course, such a project should do that, for binary compatability.) However, as I think I have mentioned before, I'm actually enamoured of taking a very simple controller like an RP11, which has lots of spare disk address bits, and defining an 'RP11-E' which maxes out the virtual drive size without changing _anything_ about the register format other than using unused bits in the cyclinder address register. That will produce disks with 2^28 blocks, or 2^36 bytes, or 64GB. That's most of a large SD card... :) Not too useful to those without the ability to tweak drivers, but... there's another issue with the older controllers, which is that they only support 18-bit addressing, and for use on QBUS machines, where one would really like to be able to do DMA to anywhere in the 22-bit space (for Unix, this would be for swapping, and raw I/O - buffered I/O would be fine with 18 bits). So maybe an updated version of those old, simple controllers would actually have some use. (I'd certainly want them for my Unix boxes.) > Apart from MSCP, avoid RL emulation also. Why avoid RL's? Not the greatest controller, I agree, but it is a 'lowest common denominator' drive for a certain era of gear. > From: Toby Thain > Isn't Noel working on something related? I think Dave B gave a pretty good update. In addition to what he mentioned, I'd like to mention the indicator panels (like the DEC ones for the RF11, RP11, etc). Dave has designed the new indicator PCB, and we have a couple of prototype PCB's in hand, stuffed and working. I think there's a video clip of it doing its thing on the Web page he pointed to. Our concept is that we'll be able to drive more than one of these panels, by connecting them together serially - that way a machine could have, say, both RK11 and RP11 indicator panels, driven from a single QSIC board. That will slow down the refresh rate a bit, but our numbers indicate it should still be acceptably fast. Noel

9 years, 4 months

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Photos from the NWA Auction

by shatle＠nfldinet.com

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: Photos from the NWA Auction From: ethan I would figure the data center rooms and stuff might of had other racks of more modern server equipment that might have been sold off separately or relocated to other sites. Didn't see holes in the floor for cabling but wouldn't be surprised. I didn't see video projection hardware on the auction and usually that is used to project the stuff outside the cockpits no? What was left is the interesting stuff :-) ------- There were a number of ex-NWA/Delta employees that were in the building during the inspection phase. Talking to them, the sentiment was that after the merger, Delta took "anything that was worth anything" and sent it down to their facilities in Atlanta. There were a number of simulator bays where the cockpits had been removed, and the attendant server rooms were fairly bare. I saw a bunch of Sun-3 "operator manuals" laying around, but no Suns. One of the guys said they had a bunch of "old" Sun gear at one time, but that all went south. The PDPs and GP4 were part of what was the oldest DC-9 sim in the country up until they walked away from it, so we were told. I agree - the "interesting" stuff was left behind, but maybe not all of it :-) Steve

9 years, 4 months

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Stanford Computers

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

I read something in THE NeXT Best Thing book about Stanford col.. actually making some? or they were in on a design of some book not handy now and my memory may also be flawed on this issue... Ed# In a message dated 10/20/2016 11:18:19 A.M. US Mountain Standard Tim, wmachacek at q.com writes: Does anyone on this list have any information on Stanford Computers? I have 2 of them that I saved from being recycled many years ago. I have finally gotten around to looking at them more closely. I have a model ?640? and a model ?XT-10?. The 640 has 2 ? 5 ?? floppy drives plus a Conner CP-344, 42MB HD (the HD may have been a later add-on to the original configuration). The XT-10 has 1 ? 5 ?? floppy drive and a NEC D5186, 25MB HD. I could not see a name on the MB in the 640, but the name ?80 Data? was on the XT-10 MB. I believe these to be from the mid to late ?80s time frame. They both have the 9 DB pin video connectors. The XT-10 has an EGA Graphics card, I could not tell what kind of card is in the 640. I am being very reluctant to start pulling cards on a machine this old for fear of breaking something. The ribbon cable seemed somewhat brittle on the 640. Can ribbon cables break due to age? If anyone has any information on these systems, I would appreciate hearing from you. I believe this company was in the bay area somewhere. With the name Stanford Computer, that seems very likely. Thanks for any information you can give me. I am in Colo. Springs. Bill Machacek

9 years, 4 months

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Stanford Computers

by wmachacek＠q.com

Does anyone on this list have any information on Stanford Computers? I have 2 of them that I saved from being recycled many years ago. I have finally gotten around to looking at them more closely. I have a model ?640? and a model ?XT-10?. The 640 has 2 ? 5 ?? floppy drives plus a Conner CP-344, 42MB HD (the HD may have been a later add-on to the original configuration). The XT-10 has 1 ? 5 ?? floppy drive and a NEC D5186, 25MB HD. I could not see a name on the MB in the 640, but the name ?80 Data? was on the XT-10 MB. I believe these to be from the mid to late ?80s time frame. They both have the 9 DB pin video connectors. The XT-10 has an EGA Graphics card, I could not tell what kind of card is in the 640. I am being very reluctant to start pulling cards on a machine this old for fear of breaking something. The ribbon cable seemed somewhat brittle on the 640. Can ribbon cables break due to age? If anyone has any information on these systems, I would appreciate hearing from you. I believe this company was in the bay area somewhere. With the name Stanford Computer, that seems very likely. Thanks for any information you can give me. I am in Colo. Springs. Bill Machacek

9 years, 4 months

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1966-68 Honeywell u-COMP DDP-516 Console

by billdegnan＠gmail.com

I recently came upon the console for a Honeywell u-COMP DDP-516, which is the older brother of the Honeywell Kitchen computer (DDP-316). Took a lot of photos: http://www.vintagecomputer.net/browse_thread.cfm?id=655 Bill

9 years, 4 months

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Photos from the NWA Auction

by shatle＠nfldinet.com

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: Photos from the NWA Auction From: ethan at 757.org Date: Tue, October 18, 2016 6:47 pm To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Wonder if anyone got the actual simulators/cockpits? Fun toys but > won't fit in your average basement... There were bids on them, hopefully they go to home flight simulator nerds that will entertain us with videos on youtube of them running inside their houses! -- I was at the facility briefly to help out another lister with prepping his lot for shipment. The GP4 is being dismantled for scrap. About half the racks are already empty. With a little bit of cash beer money and some wrench work, the panel you see in IMG_5535 is now in the backseat of my car. It will likely be all gone by EOD on Friday.

9 years, 4 months

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Museum thoughts?

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

Hi Mouse - running a museum project is fun but also a lot of work. here is a little framework to think about and discuss Ed# at SMECC . - SPACE you rent or buy a building ($$$$ !) or... place displays in other's premises (can work if they protct your gear) - INSURANCE (property, liability, employee) - UTILITIES ( winter is your enemy, summer is ours in AZ) - SECURE FURANITURE AND FIXTURES (when in doubt, lock it under glass) EMPOLYEES and/or VOLUNTEERS Great to have so you are not the only one chained to the entry desk, employees cost $$$ volunteers no salary - either can be a blessing or a curse if you get a bad one In a message dated 10/19/2016 7:41:07 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG writes: There's someone local who's seen my assortment of computer hardware twice and has, each time, told me I should set up a museum. This is tempting, but I don't know the first thing about doing it. About all I'm sure of is that it would involve a lot of stuff I currently have no idea of. I know that there are at least a few people here who've been involved in such things. While all the examples that come to mind are in the USA, and mine would be in Canada, I'm sure there are many respects in which the issues are jurisdiction-independent - and, who knows, there may be such a person in Canada that I just can't recall offhand. So, I'm wondering if there's anyone who'd be willing to share experiences, thoughts, issues, whatever, on the possibility. I'm not looking to make a lot of money off this. If I can turn my computers from money-sink to money-neutral, I'll be content. (They are currently soaking up money in the form of causing me to be renting significantly more storage than I would be if they were to vanish.) /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

9 years, 4 months

3
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VTServer/etc for V6 Unix

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Dennis Boone > The sources for the V6 versions of the tmrk et al programs seem to be > here: Yes, I have those, thanks; those are the 1-block programs I mentioned to Warren: >> The only V6 boot mechanisms are 1-block programs that go into block 0 >> of device 0 and which boot Unix directly from that file-system Well, to be technical, also there are the programs to copy the disk images >from tape to disk - mcopy.s does that - etc. In case anyone looks at mcopy.s and wonders how R5 (which contains a pointer to the console print/input routines) gets set up, mboot.s, which will have run previously (to load the appropriate disk-controller-specific version of mcopy off the tape) does that. One can't actually boot V6 Unix directly from a V6 distribution tape, all one can do is copy the disk images from the tape to the disk; one then boots from the disk. (Although now that I look, there is tpboot.s, which claims to boot >from a file on a 'tp' format tape. But I don't think V6 was ever distributed in that form - and in any case, it would still need a disk with a Unix file system, with appropriate files - init, sh, etc - already on it, to be able to boot Unix that way.) Noel

9 years, 4 months

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1
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MFM floppy and HD emulator DREM

by emu＠e-bbes.com

Hi all, anybody has any experience with that: http://www.drem.info/ ?

9 years, 4 months

15
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VTServer/etc for V6 Unix

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> Here are some notes I made a while back, when I looked at it: > ... > Block 2-xx - gubbish, apparently inodes, code, etc? So I just realized something's incomplete here. There's an intermediate stage (loading 'xxyy', where 'xx' is "tm" or "ht", and 'yy' is "rk", "rp" or "hp"). Those must be in stored in that block "2-xx" area, but I'm not up for grokking the assembler ("tpboot.s") that loads them to see how it works (it takes a file-name, 'xxyy' as above, entered at the console). And I got the tape files slightly wrong: mcopy.s is indeed the tape copier program (assembled with either tm.s or ht.s, and one of rk.s, rp.s and hp.s), to produce the 'xxyy' files above. However, the first stage booter is "tpboot.s", not "mboot.s" (didn't look closely enough); again, assembled with either tm.s or ht.s - that produces the first-stage bootstrap that goes in blocks 0 and 1 of the tape. Noel

9 years, 4 months

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VTServer/etc for V6 Unix

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Warren Toomey > This doc: .. describes a way to install from tape, but it seems like it > does a block copy of a tape image to the disk. Yup, that's the standard V6 install from tape. It uses the two programs I mentioned in the last message; first mboot (which produces the '=' prompt), and then mcopy (assembled with the appropriate disk and tape drivers), which is used to copy disk images to the disk. > Also .. there is a v6.tape.gz file. Unfortunately, I have no > documentation on this. It could be raw blocks, or it could be a TAP > file, who knows. I looked into this previously. The other three files: root.v6.tar.gz doc.v6.tar.gz usr.v6.tar.gz are just TAR dumps of the 3 disk images on the V6 distribution tape: the root (includes kernel source, and most of the binaries), usr (source for all commands), and documentation. The v6.tape seems to be an image of V6 distribution tape. Here are some notes I made a while back, when I looked at it: The first 100 512-byte tape blocks contain the tape bootstrap stuff. Blocks 100 - 4099 are the RK05 root image, blocks 4100 - 8099 are the /usr RK05 image, and the blocks 8100 - 12099 are the /doc RK05 image. .. The most recent timestamp on any file in /usr and /doc is July 19th 1975, as with Dennis' copy. However, the most recent file timestamp on root is October 11th, 1975 Block 0 on tape - mboot (tm tape booter) Block 1 on tape - hboot (ht tape booter) Block 2-xx - gubbish, apparently inodes, code, etc? Block 98 on tape - hpuboot Block 99 on tape - rpuboot Block 100 on tape - rkuboot HTH. Noel

9 years, 4 months

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VTServer/etc for V6 Unix

by wkt＠tuhs.org

Hah, the file http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/PDP-11/Tools/Tapes/Vtserver/v7_standalone.tar.gz has the source code for the standalone tools including boot and vtboot.pdp. So, given a working V7 environment, you should be able to rebuild these and possibly make them work in a V6 environment. Alternatively, if you have a working V6 environment (e.g. a simulator), you could bring in the vtclient.c code and integrate it into the V6 boot binary. Cheers, Warren

9 years, 4 months

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Are DEC TK50/TK70 tapes worth hanging onto?

by tdk.knight＠gmail.com

Don't store ur tapes in a damp basement will help with sticky shed syndrom... Keep em dry a food dehydrator helps... On Oct 18, 2016 7:46 PM, "Al Kossow" <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote: On 10/18/16 5:37 PM, Steven M Jones wrote: > I think they're useful to folks who have drives that can use them, and > they aren't nearly as fragile as QIC or helical scan drives (4mm, 8mm) > of a similar age. > The drives, maybe, but the tape sheds like nuts.

9 years, 4 months

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2020 Power consumption

by RichA＠LivingComputerMuseum.org

From: Mike Ross Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2016 2:39 AM > On Wed, Oct 19, 2016 at 7:44 PM, Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at update.uu.se> wrote: >> Somewhat related, how much power does a 2020 draw on average? > Bye some enormous coincidence I was just looking through some DEC > pdp-10 brochures I have. > DEC advertised the 2020 as drawing no more power that a hairdryer; the > quoted figure was 1400w as I recall. Umm, are you sure about that? That was how we advertised the Toad-1 System in the 1990s, but the Mighty Mite power supply in the 2020 draws a lot more than that. Rich Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Living Computer Museum 2245 1st Avenue S Seattle, WA 98134 mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

9 years, 4 months

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MASSBUS disk emulator (Was: Unibus controller for MFM disks)

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Ian S. King >> Does anyone know anything about the status of the plans to open-source >> it? > I've made some inquries, stay tuned.... OK, thanks! >> Can you briefly describe what it was? I'm still curious about what it was: was it a stand-alone board with a separate power supply, or did it plug into some sort of backplane? Did it use something like SD cards for storage? And what was the MASSBUS connection like: a set of 3 Berg headers into which one plugged the flat cables, or was there some oddball connector that wound up connected to a standard MASSBUS connector? Noel

9 years, 4 months

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VCFed, the BBS!

by couryhouse＠aol.com

I could care less about telnet... I want to make the teletype ?clack! ? Ed# Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone -------- Original message -------- From: Rod Smallwood <rodsmallwood52 at btinternet.com> Date: 10/16/16 18:39 (GMT-07:00) To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: VCFed, the BBS! On 16/10/2016 14:10, william degnan wrote: > On Oct 16, 2016 5:52 AM, "Evan Koblentz" <cctalk at snarc.net> wrote: >>> I mean? please add 110? Baud? Evan! >> >> I was giving examples, not carved-in-stone specifications. > If the system is simple it'll be easier to support, 110b is not, given the > number of persons coming in from the other end so slowly.? No one barely > has a phone line anymore as it is, most (95%) of the external traffic will > be telnet.? If the bbs allows those few of us with phone lines to connect > at 300 to 1200b to get to a handshake and resolve to a simple welcome > screen for hardware testing purposes, that would be a good start. Get that > running see what kind of traffic results, and plan phase ii from there. > > I imagine it will be best once this system is up and running that people > call in on Sunday afternoon so visitors to the museum hear the inbound > calls in real time like a sys op would running a bbs from his basement. > Bill Speaking as a former Sysop from the 1980's. What would be nice is a couple of DEC Rainbows running FidoBBS and connected via a phone line simulator. Enter your mail message on one and see it get transferred to the other where it can be read. Rod Smallwood -- *PDP-8/e PDP-8/f PDP-8/m PDP-8/i Front Panels ex Stock - Order Now*

9 years, 4 months

2
1
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MASSBUS disk emulator (Was: Unibus controller for MFM disks)

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Rich Alderson > Yes, the d/r card is strictly level conversion, and the microcode in > the Xilinx does all the Massbus protocol. So if you don't mind continuing to indulge my curiousity (thanks for all the indulgence so far :-), is the D/R card a daughtercard that mounts on the Mesa (my guess)? Noel

9 years, 4 months

2
1
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Xerox Alto restoration, part 10

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Liam Proven > It boots, and with a borrowed mouse, GUI apps work There was a new blog post which I don't think was mentioned here yet: http://www.righto.com/2016/10/restoring-ycs-xerox-alto-day-10-new.html but it doesn't cover the borrowed mouse; does cover getting the CPU 100% working, though. Noel

9 years, 4 months

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Xerox Alto restoration, part 10

by lproven＠gmail.com

It boots, and with a borrowed mouse, GUI apps work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMp5EAq-Elo -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven Skype/MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? LinkedIn/AIM/Yahoo: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R)

9 years, 4 months

2
1
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FS (cost of shipping): AS/400 8-port twinax concentrator/adapter cables

by jtp＠chinalake.com

I have two IBM 21F5093 AS/400 8-port twinax to DB25 adapters with clip mounts. Looks like the coil is about 14-16 feet of cable. Pics on request. Free for the cost of shipping (01888 metro-west Boston,MA , about 3 lbs each) Need the space, gotta go.

9 years, 4 months

3
2
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VTServer/etc for V6 Unix

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Warren Toomey wkt at tuhs.org > To load V6, you need to build a virtual tape which replicates the V6 > tape. Err, there's the problem. The V6 boot tape consists of 3 'dd' images of RK05 V6 file systems (one each root, source, and doc), with a 'boot block' on the tape which can copy them to RK05 packs; there is no standalone 'mkfs', etc. Now, if I were willing to wait for the transfer of the entire 4K blocks, I could use that approach, but... my only working mass storage device (currently - more on the way, at some point) is an RX02 - much smaller. So I _can't_ go that way, my only choice is to replicate the V7-type process (stand-alone 'mkfs', etc), for V6. Although I suppose I could use an emulator (I have been using Ersatz-11 to run V6 for quite a while now) to produce a RX02-sized file system, with just the stuff it needs to boot ('init', 'sh', etc), and use VTServer to transfer that over. And I'd probably have to tweak the client-side code to write raw images to disk (not sure if it already knows how to do that). > the problem is that both "boot" and "vtboot.pdp" contain the > client-side code to talk to the server, and it seems that I didn't > supply the source code for this. > ... > Hah, the file .. v7_standalone.tar.gz has the source code for the > standalone tools Yup, found that some years back when I first found VTServer. > Alternatively, if you have a working V6 environment (e.g. a simulator), > you could bring in the vtclient.c code and integrate it into the V6 > boot binary. The only V6 boot mechanisms are 1-block programs that go into block 0 of device 0 and which boot Unix directly from that file-system (type a file name, and it loads that file and starts it). So there is no second-stage boot program to integrate the VT client into (although obviously I could port the second-stage bootstrap to V6). > From: Ian S. King > I know I made it work and booted V6 on my 11/34. I'll start with getting VTServer to run under V6 (my only Unix, don't have anything later :-), so if you turn up whatever you used to boot V6, it would probably still be useful. Noel

9 years, 4 months

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VTServer/etc for V6 Unix

by wkt＠tuhs.org

Hi all, an early version of VTServer is still at: http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/PDP-11/Tools/Tapes/Vtserver/ I think some others took it and extended; Fred van Kempen springs to mind. To load V6, you need to build a virtual tape which replicates the V6 tape. Hopefully this is easy to do. However, the problem is that both "boot" and "vtboot.pdp" contain the client-side code to talk to the server, and it seems that I didn't supply the source code for this. I'll go home and dig through my old stuff and see what I can find. Cheers, Warren

9 years, 4 months

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VTServer/etc for V6 Unix

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: "Ian S. King" > ISTR that one can generate a 'tape' config file with whatever components > you want/need. Right, I saw that, but I need the V6 components... > I know there are v6-specific tools somewhere ... I think it's somewhere > in the TUHS site, and not completely obvious so you have to hunt a bit. Any hints you could provide would be most gratefully received. I looked in the source tree, and doing a search for "mkfs" only turned up the normal V6 mkfs. (Note that for the V7 one, the source for the standalone and Unix versions is one file, which has #ifdefs. That seems to be the one that's in the VTServer tree.) I had a pretty extensive walk through the archive 'back when' I first found out about TUHS, and I don't think I saw V6 versions (I would likely have grabbed them, if I had); I did find (and grab) VTServer, along with a bunch of other stuff. I just took another quick skim, couldn't find them. I would have guessed that they didn't exist, since that whole method of putting Unix on a machine didn't exist until V7, so it wouldn't have been written 'back in the day'. Noel

9 years, 4 months

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VTServer/etc for V6 Unix

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

So, I'm trying to do what VTServer was invented for - load Unix into an actual PDP-11, over its serial line, when one doesn't have machine-readable Unix on any mass storage for the machine. However, all the initial code that VTServer loads ('mkfs', etc) is V7-specific (V6 has a slightly different file system format) - and I want to install V6. Has anyone ever tweaked the programs which VTServer loads to do V6-format filesystems? I did a quick Google, but didn't see anything. No biggie if not, it won't be much work to adapt them all, but I figured I'd try to avoid re-inventing the wheel... Noel

9 years, 4 months

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MASSBUS disk emulator (Was: Unibus controller for MFM disks)

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Rich Alderson > There have been 2 generations of Massbus Disk Emulator (MDE) at LCM. Thanks for the bits... very interesting. > Data was transferred via FTP over a 100baseT crossover cable connected > to a Slackware server; the Rabbit was able to keep up with 4 drives at > this speed Were the bits actually stored on the Slackware server, or was it just used to put bits on the 'drive' to start with? If the latter, what were the actual bits stored on? (I know, not that relevant, since this is the prior rev, but I'm curious.) > a Mesa 5i22 Anything I/O card (includes a Xilinx Spartan-III FPGA) that > plugs directly into the PCI bus in a server-class X86-64 box, and used > a revision of a separate driver/receiver card designed for MDE 1.0 to > connect to the Massbus Let me make sure I understand this; was there some sort of cable or somehow a connection from the Mesa 5i22 directly to the driver/receiver card, which was purely 'level conversion', with the Mesa doing the 'protocol' on the MASSBUS? (I.e. they didn't communicate over the PCI bus?) > a control program for the PC side which runs under Windows 2008/2012 > Server. So the actual bits are stored on something (disk?) controlled by the PC? Noel

9 years, 4 months

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11/35 on eBait

by glen.slick＠gmail.com

On Oct 2, 2016 11:03 AM, "Noel Chiappa" <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote: > > So there's another 11/35 up on eBait: > > http://www.ebay.com/itm/142135416325 > Went unsold at $3500. Relisted, this time at $5000. Buy it this time before it goes up to $6500 next time??? http://www.ebay.com/itm/142146207101

9 years, 4 months

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Comdyna GP-6 Analog Computer Repairs Needed

by bill.phillips＠christovalisd.org

I have a Comdyna GP-6 analog computer that I need repaired ASAP. Anyone available to help me out? Bill Phillips wcphillips at verizon.net

9 years, 4 months

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