Does anyone have experience with reading in then writing out flux
transitions with a Kryoflux on an 8? floppy drive as well? If that is known
to work reliably
I?m buying one :)
Kryoflux?s next project should be the same thing but for ? mag tape. I think
Al did something like that years ago, but an off the shelf product for ?
tape would be spiffy.
J
Not just any Packard Bell... just this one.
it has a place due to form and design, certainly not performance.
http://www.smecc.org/itemsklkljl;_3.jpg
Please let me know if you find one.
Ed Sharpe archivist for SMECC
In a message dated 7/2/2016 7:53:14 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time,
cisin at xenosoft.com writes:
On Sat, 2 Jul 2016, David Griffith wrote:
> It seems that museums have traditionaly sought the best artifacts. I
> feel they should also exhibit crap from time to time to remind visitors
> of history's wrong turns.
It took a little while before Edsels became collectible.
Yugo
I remember ours has 4 pin connector too but not as robust as a ma bell
one..
ours comes in a orig box even.
I was mixed as to if I wanted to display it with ttys or with
sci-tech kids toys and devices display we have in a huge walk in display
case. ... it is sitting up in the front office ... I am sure there are
photos somewhere on one of the servers...but too tired to chase it tonite.
In a message dated 7/2/2016 11:08:44 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time,
cclist at sydex.com writes:
On 07/02/2016 09:54 PM, couryhouse wrote:
>
>
> No it gets printed to... there are TTYS in real world and print on
> strip then western union would oade each strip onto sheet of
> paper....what did they want for it?
>
Yes, I know--I once owned a model 14 TTY, complete with a pile of
mucilage-backed tape for the teleprinter.
But it was a beast, not a red plastic thing.
--Chuck
No it gets printed to... ?there are TTYS in real world and print ?on strip then western ?union would oade each strip ?onto sheet of paper....what did they want for it?
Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone
-------- Original message --------
From: Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com>
Date: 7/2/2016 9:15 PM (GMT-07:00)
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: Maybe interesting toy in junk shop...
On 07/02/2016 08:56 PM, Bill Sudbrink wrote:
> No, I don't think so.? I'm pretty sure that the paper tape on this
> thing is for output, probably printed or marked in some way because
> the paper seemed too flimsy to hold a readable punch pattern.? But
> now I'm pretty determined to go back tomorrow and see if I can get
> some more info.? I didn't look at the bottom of it, maybe there's a
> label.
Perhaps it's a device to print dialed numbers?
--Chuck
I would like that 6 proc black cube......ed sharpe
Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone
-------- Original message --------
From: Tothwolf <tothwolf at concentric.net>
Date: 7/2/2016 8:00 PM (GMT-07:00)
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: RE: Actually we want this Packard Bell
http://www.smecc.org/itemsklkljl; _3.jpg
On Sat, 2 Jul 2016, Jay West wrote:
> Ed wrote...
> ---------
> Not just any Packard Bell...? just this one.
> http://www.smecc.org/itemsklkljl;_3.jpg
> it? has a place? due to form and design, certainly not? performance.
> ---------
> IMOO.... no place at all. If it had some kind of cult following, or lots of
> people remembered it, maybe.
> But I doubt most people (let alone collectors) would look at that and say
> "oh, I've seen that before!".
>
> Now... maybe as an example of how hard mfg's tried to differential via
> terrible case designs... ;)
I think the same could probably be said for something like that
6-processor Pentium Pro that was sold in the late 90s which had a black
cube style case and a stand which allowed it to sit on its corner. Very
unusual design with both the case and boards, but few people will have
seen, let alone used one. As far as utility goes, they are just about
worthless now, except to someone who wants to collect one for nostalgia
reasons.
I myself wouldn't mind finding a Packard Bell Legend I (Intel 80286) only
because I once owned two of them (that were sold without my approval as a
pair to someone for $100, including the VGA monitors). The same also goes
for a Compaq Deskpro 386/20e (specifically the 'e' model) for similar
reasons. Both machines are not something all that useful from a utility
standpoint (I have dozens of late generation 486 and Pentium boards I
could put in a case which would be far more useful) but would be fun to
have just to tinker around with again.
I gave a kids teletter sort of tape sender receiver. There are two to b a kit.. what did they want for it we could use for an off site display. ?Ed Sharpe ARCHIVIST For smecc
Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone
-------- Original message --------
From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com>
Date: 7/2/2016 8:08 PM (GMT-07:00)
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: Maybe interesting toy in junk shop...
On Sat, 2 Jul 2016, Bill Sudbrink wrote:
> I was poking around a junk shop that I visit from time
> to time and I saw a toy.? It didn't really strike me as
> that interesting when I saw it but I've been wondering
> about it since I left the place this morning.? The
> thing was mostly red plastic with a cardboard bottom.? It
> had a two-prong AC cord and a four prong "old fashioned"
> telephone jack.? It had two big buttons and a spool of
> paper tape mounted on the front.? The tape was about 1/4
> inch wide.? I call it a toy because it had that sort of
> feel about it.? It was not clearly labeled as such.? It
> was also styled in a way that suggested late 1960s to me.
> The whole thing was the size of a small shoe box.? I
> can't find anything like it in google searches.? I wonder
> if it might have some early modem like device in it.? Does
> this description "ring a bell" with anyone?
an auto-dialer for an alarm system?
Was it punched tape (used as ROM)?
or blank tape with some sort of marker?
On 07/02/2016 08:56 PM, Bill Sudbrink wrote:
> No, I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that the paper tape on this
> thing is for output, probably printed or marked in some way because
> the paper seemed too flimsy to hold a readable punch pattern. But
> now I'm pretty determined to go back tomorrow and see if I can get
> some more info. I didn't look at the bottom of it, maybe there's a
> label.
Perhaps it's a device to print dialed numbers?
--Chuck
On Sat, 2 Jul 2016, Bill Sudbrink wrote:
> No, I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that the paper
> tape on this thing is for output, probably printed or
> marked in some way because the paper seemed too flimsy
> to hold a readable punch pattern. But now I'm pretty
> determined to go back tomorrow and see if I can get
> some more info. I didn't look at the bottom of it, maybe
> there's a label.
Let's hope so.
If the 4-prong telephone jack is not being used for an actual telephone, .
. .
howzbout a telegraph recorder?
1/4" wide doesn't allow for much sideways, other than ON/OFF, unless there
is a print head of some sort inside, then it could even be a TTY
On 07/02/2016 07:32 PM, Bill Sudbrink wrote:
> I was poking around a junk shop that I visit from time to time and I
> saw a toy. It didn't really strike me as that interesting when I saw
> it but I've been wondering about it since I left the place this
> morning. The thing was mostly red plastic with a cardboard bottom.
> It had a two-prong AC cord and a four prong "old fashioned" telephone
> jack. It had two big buttons and a spool of paper tape mounted on
> the front. The tape was about 1/4 inch wide. I call it a toy
> because it had that sort of feel about it. It was not clearly
> labeled as such. It was also styled in a way that suggested late
> 1960s to me. The whole thing was the size of a small shoe box. I
> can't find anything like it in google searches. I wonder if it might
> have some early modem like device in it. Does this description "ring
> a bell" with anyone?
Sounds like a late-model Kilburg Dialaphone. 1960-ish. Early models
directly operated the dial of the desk telephone--later ones just pulsed
the line appropriately--something that AT&T objected to and that Kilburg
unsuccessfully fought. This was years before the Carterfone episode.
Memory was a paper tape with printed names on it.
That particular unit sounds like a very rare piece of kit.
Am I getting close?
--Chuck
On Sat, 2 Jul 2016, Bill Sudbrink wrote:
> I was poking around a junk shop that I visit from time
> to time and I saw a toy. It didn't really strike me as
> that interesting when I saw it but I've been wondering
> about it since I left the place this morning. The
> thing was mostly red plastic with a cardboard bottom. It
> had a two-prong AC cord and a four prong "old fashioned"
> telephone jack. It had two big buttons and a spool of
> paper tape mounted on the front. The tape was about 1/4
> inch wide. I call it a toy because it had that sort of
> feel about it. It was not clearly labeled as such. It
> was also styled in a way that suggested late 1960s to me.
> The whole thing was the size of a small shoe box. I
> can't find anything like it in google searches. I wonder
> if it might have some early modem like device in it. Does
> this description "ring a bell" with anyone?
an auto-dialer for an alarm system?
Was it punched tape (used as ROM)?
or blank tape with some sort of marker?
I was poking around a junk shop that I visit from time
to time and I saw a toy. It didn't really strike me as
that interesting when I saw it but I've been wondering
about it since I left the place this morning. The
thing was mostly red plastic with a cardboard bottom. It
had a two-prong AC cord and a four prong "old fashioned"
telephone jack. It had two big buttons and a spool of
paper tape mounted on the front. The tape was about 1/4
inch wide. I call it a toy because it had that sort of
feel about it. It was not clearly labeled as such. It
was also styled in a way that suggested late 1960s to me.
The whole thing was the size of a small shoe box. I
can't find anything like it in google searches. I wonder
if it might have some early modem like device in it. Does
this description "ring a bell" with anyone?
Bill S.
I should point out. one of yahoo's primary criteria for deep-sixing listserv
traffic. is if the reply-to is set to the list instead of the (arguably more
standard/compliant but less useful) reply-to-sender.
No, don't want to start that flame war again. Just saying. that's a yahoo
criteria.
J
I keep getting emails from the list server disabling my account for
excessive bounces. Is it possible to get a log showing where the problem is
coming from so I can complain to my ISP?
Thanks
Rob
Well with yahoo domain having a hard fail specified it looks like it's too
stay. The typical troublemaker with yahoo mail is lists modifying message
bodies or subject lines. Those practices will gauge have to end (and
frankly it can't be soon enough imho).
That said the usual consequence is that messages *from* yahoo through the
list get binned for Gmail users or anyone else who enforces DKIM. I've
noticed Gmail has started marking messages in Spam with the reason why
they're there and when they first started a *lot* if them were due to
signature fails. There are very few these days which make me believe the
lists I'm on have changed practices. Certainly yahoo hasn't rolled back
their dns records.
So unpredictability makes since sense as the bounces you see will be very
dependent on the domains *sending* the messages and their dns records. If
you have a thread with a couple yahoo uses talking back and forth you could
well see a series of bounces from users on servers that respect Yahoo's dns
records requesting a hard fail.
--
Greg
Long ago there was a thread about FOCAL-65 for the 6502, and I asked
the people involved but it seemed it never came to light.
http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/cctalk/2001-September/1691.html
As it happens I appear to have both the user-manual and a quite thick
photocopied (not great quality) listing of FOCAL-65, that I am happy
to scan and upload somewhere.
However, if this already exists somewhere and can point to it, I can
put this scanning task aside.
thanks.
I know a few list members who have been doing this, after fixing CRT
cataracts.
Was that glass additionally leaded to cut down on X-rays at all? Is there a
risk to that?
These are mostly black and white CRTs.
--
Ian Finder
(206) 395-MIPS
ian.finder at gmail.com
Actually we want this Packard Bell http://www.smecc.org/itemsklkljl;_3.jpg
for the computer display at SMECC!
Also want any promo material, artwork, manuals etc etc etc....
drop me a line offlist with a title of SMECC Packard Bell please
to _couryhouse at aol.com_ (mailto:couryhouse at aol.com)
thisis what we are looking for
http://www.smecc.org/itemsklkljl;_3.jpg
In a message dated 7/1/2016 10:49:36 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time,
js at cimmeri.com writes:
Computers don't (yet) have voting
rights. :-)
But you're defining "spirit" and listing
criteria by which a machine is
appropriate or not. A PS/2 with an
80386 running Windows 3.1 is acceptable,
whereas a Packard Bell with an 80386
running Windows 3.1 is not. Yeah, you
and I would cringe at a PB being
discussed, but maybe there's someone out
there who really is fond of their PB.
So as Terry ("Tezza") acknowledges,
terms like "landmark," "classic,"
"collectible" are subjective (but I
don't think "vintage" is subjective --
that term is usually set by age alone).
This is why it's just easier to use a
single criteria -- age -- and leave it
at that. Why is age acceptable
everywhere else in collecting, but not
here? Otherwise, someone (the list
owner?) has to pontificate over a list
of acceptable computers. Good luck with
that.
- J.
For some things like video ?editing ?a tube monitor has better color gamet..sp?... than chap or enemy middle expensive lcds....
Most important to me is this color although for data and juSt to ?stretch ?time line across I use 40 Inch lcd flats.... ?
Good flats ?are good but price is very expensive. ...
Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone
-------- Original message --------
From: TeoZ <teoz at neo.rr.com>
Date: 7/1/2016 3:00 PM (GMT-07:00)
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: what's vintage? was Re: Latest addition: A bondi-blue iMac
People junked most of the older small low res slow refresh non working (bad
caps) non widescreen LCD monitors by now. I kept one I got free and fixed
ages ago for bench testing (has just a VGA connection) since it is easy to
move around. Newer gaming video cards don't even have VGA out anymore so the
older VGA connector monitors are of no use. Could also be instead of
offering them for sale or free people just straight up recycle them because
of low demand for working ones. On a recycling forum I read people were
trying to sell working older units for $10 each with no luck. The last 2 LCD
monitors I purchased new were $100 (Both DELLs a 23" IPS 1080P and a 24"
1080P) so pricing is not a problem like it used to be in the 90's were a 17"
quality monitor was $800.
-----Original Message-----
From: Chuck Guzis
Sent: Friday, July 01, 2016 3:14 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: what's vintage? was Re: Latest addition: A bondi-blue iMac
On 07/01/2016 11:48 AM, Toby Thain wrote:
> Or, for free, a dumpster LCD. I find working ones discarded
> regularly, and 90% of the non-working ones are just bad inverter caps
> ($2 worth).
Been there, done that--and even depopulated the inverter section on one
PCB (badly designed--capacitors hot-glued to heatsinks, that sort of
thing) and replaced it with a cheap "universal" CFL inverter.? Still
works fine.
Strangely, I don't see nearly as many junked LCD displays today as I did
5 years ago for some reason.
--Chuck
---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
Actually we want this Packard Bell http://www.smecc.org/itemsklkljl;_3.jpg
for the computer display at SMECC!
Also want any promo material, artwork, manuals etc etc etc....
drop me a line offlist with a title of SMECC Packard Bell please
to _couryhouse at aol.com_ (mailto:couryhouse at aol.com)
thisis what we are looking for
http://www.smecc.org/itemsklkljl;_3.jpg
In a message dated 7/1/2016 10:49:36 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time,
js at cimmeri.com writes:
Computers don't (yet) have voting
rights. :-)
But you're defining "spirit" and listing
criteria by which a machine is
appropriate or not. A PS/2 with an
80386 running Windows 3.1 is acceptable,
whereas a Packard Bell with an 80386
running Windows 3.1 is not. Yeah, you
and I would cringe at a PB being
discussed, but maybe there's someone out
there who really is fond of their PB.
So as Terry ("Tezza") acknowledges,
terms like "landmark," "classic,"
"collectible" are subjective (but I
don't think "vintage" is subjective --
that term is usually set by age alone).
This is why it's just easier to use a
single criteria -- age -- and leave it
at that. Why is age acceptable
everywhere else in collecting, but not
here? Otherwise, someone (the list
owner?) has to pontificate over a list
of acceptable computers. Good luck with
that.
- J.
Hi all,
I've got an Dolch C100D Analyzer with an bunch of Probes lately,
And I'm lookinffor someone that has an Dolch LA with an Disassembler
Option - ROM installed and is able to read out it's contents.
I Do habe an C100D analyzer, got it w/o any documentation but the
LAM3250 docs available at the uni Stuttgart fits alsmost exactly.
It seems, that most of the Dolch LAs are internal powered from a Z80 so
it is'nt unlikely that the Options will fit in different models.
I'll get two Dolch 64300 tomorrow, one for repair..disassemblers
included, but the 64300 has ROM cassettes for plugin.
Kind Regards,
Holm
--
Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe,
Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583
www.tsht.de, info at tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741
yes smecc saved one... I do not see a lot of them around anymore....
In a message dated 6/30/2016 6:40:37 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time,
terry at webweavers.co.nz writes:
My classic/vintage computer activity has taken a back seat lately but I
did
find a machine I had on the "classic" list for some time. It's now part of
the collection.
http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/collection/imac.htm
Some would say this is not vintage, classic or collectible (and so
shouldn't be discussed here). However, these are all subjected terms which
can be (and are!) argued about at length.
To me it's a noteworthy model which had some impact on personal computing
(notably by helping put Apple back in the game). Vintage? At only 18
years old perhaps not but a classic and collectible? As time goes by I
would say yes.
Terry (Tez)
Specifically, "TIB0203 Magnetic Bubble Memory: System Application Manual", 1979
Libraries in Australia and China apparently have this, but
unfortunately that doesn't help me much.
I'd be interested in other documents relating to TI bubble memory. I
already have "TIB0203 Magnetic-Bubble Memory and Associated Circuits",
November 1978, and both the April 1977 and March 1980 editions of "TMS
9916 Bubble Memory Controller".
> From: Ian Finder
> Does anyone here have scans to get started with
I've provided Rod with a mechanical drawing, and a scan, of an 11/35 front
panel (identical to the 11/40, except for the number). Here:
http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/pdp11/PDP-11_Stuff.html
if you have any use for it.
Noel
Just wanted to drop a line here- despite a shipping misfire, Rod Smallwood's replacement 8/e panel finally arrived yesterday and they look KICK ASS!
Thanks, Rod!
I'd love to start building artwork for the 11/40 panel- mine looks pretty sorry at the moment. Does anyone here have scans to get started with and best practices to use?
Thanks,
- Ian
Sent from Outlook<https://aka.ms/kr63o9> on iOS
Hey,
I'll be driving around southern and central California in a few weeks. Will be between LA and Yosemite Park.
Does anyone have a garage or other pile of computers that you want thinned-out? I can come-by and take some of it off your hands.
Thanks-
Steve.
I seem to remember there is an entry point that one can use to reinitialize
BASIC already loaded into core memory, with the intention of re-answering
the questions about MEMORY SIZE, Use SIN?, etc. Is this correct? I looked
in the docs I have b ut I could not find it. If no one has this info I
will have to disassemble, IN a HEX editor I see the questions are all at
the end.
-- Bill
+1 You tell em Will!
-Connor K
On Jun 21, 2016 4:05 PM, William Donzelli <wdonzelli at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I have sent Todd his contact info. He is willing to let one person come in and take pics and post to the group. He does NOT want to move one or 2 items of the most value; he wants to move out pallets of stuff. He is not closing shop; he just wants to move out some really old equip that has been there for years.
>
> Be sure to tell your friend that the mainframe collectors can
> certainly make cubic feet of equipment leave the warehouse quickly!
>
> --
> Will
The 2000 isn't fully compatible either i thought since its one of the few PCs using the 80186 processor. When i acquired mine (also without a monitor and i think without keyboard or software ) i sort of accepted id likely not get it running. But perhaps the ?software is out ?there and less of a concern than i thought.
I didn't know it was compatible with the cm-1 but i never checked what video card mine had.
Still an interesting system historically.
> From: William Degnan
> The problem was a missing KJ11
Ah. Well, if you want to add one (I assume you've just re-jumpered the
machine for the moment), I do have one we can copy (for the PC etch) - I'm
assuming here that originals are now unobtainium.
Also, if you have the KE11-E, but not the KE11-F (the former is a prereq for
the latter), and would like one, I have one I have no use for (Unix doesn't
use that version of the PDP-11 floating point), and would be willing to trade
it for something I do have a use for.
> My error. Lesson: Always check everything.
Yes, always a good rule when dealing with recovered machines. I always take
them apart and go through them completely, verifying all cables, etc from the
original documentation.
Noel
> From: William Degnan
> The IOT step is bombing (?) and loops through the addresses:
This may be a pointless question, but just to clear the ground first: the CPU
is otherwise functioning reasonably well? E.g. it's not dropping the 020 bit
when reading words from memory? (That would convert the '220' new PC in the
vector to '200', and produce exactly the behaviour you are seeing.)
If it is otherwise more or less working, so this is specific to IOT trap
handling, I agree with Fritz - a KM11 would be a big help.
Noel
I thought I'd throw this one out to those who know more than I about the
PDP 11/40
I am working with DaveR on vcfed.org/forum who asked me to run the
following program as a test from the front panel:
20 - 220 ; IOT trap vector (New PC)
22 - 340 ; IOT trap vector (New PSW)
200 - 012706 ; MOV #600,SP
202 - 600
204 - 240 ; NOP
206 - 0 ; HALT
210 - 4 ; IOT
212 - 240 ; NOP
214 - 0 ; HALT
216 - 0 ; HALT
220 - 0 ; HALT
222 - 0 ; HALT
START the program running from address 200.
----------------------
Problem is - The IOT step is bombing (?) and loops through the addresses:
204
206
210
200
204
206
210
200
endlessly.
Anyone care to speculate which CPU card is the culprit?
--
@ BillDeg:
Web: vintagecomputer.net
Twitter: @billdeg <https://twitter.com/billdeg>
Youtube: @billdeg <https://www.youtube.com/user/billdeg>
Unauthorized Bio <http://www.vintagecomputer.net/readme.cfm>
On Jun 30, 2016 1:19 AM, "Fritz Mueller" <fritzm at fritzm.org> wrote:
>
> Hey Bill,
>
> Do you have a KM11 maintenance card? Guy Sotomayor here sells kits
and/or assembled boards at
http://www.shiresoft.com/products/km11/KM11%20Replica.html. I built one up
myself based on a layout by Tom Uban at
http://www.ubanproductions.com/museum.html
>
> The easiest way to get to the bottom of this since you have a nice,
short, repro case would be to step through the microcode with a KM11 and
see where it goes awry. From that point, its fairly easy to come of up a
list of boards to swap and/or chips to check.
>
> If you want to go to the chip checking stage, you'll need some board
extenders and a logic probe, they are pretty cheap. Or you can grab a
surplus logic analyzer and some DIP clips off eBay if you want to get posh!
>
> I just went through this process with my 11/45, it was pretty educational.
>
> --FritzM.
Fritz,
It turns out that I was missing the KJ11 my cpu cards were wired to
expect. On the 11/40 this module is the little M7237 card for space E of
slot 3.
The machine in question did not come with this card, I assumed it was not
needed until I checked the cpu jumpers and discovered my error. Should
have done this 1st!
It was impossible to run the CQKC diagnostic for 11/40 or 11/45 -
http://www.vintagecomputer.net/temp/disassembly.txt
Instructions using IOT in particular.
Bill Degnan
twitter: billdeg
vintagecomputer.net
Looking for a Tandy TRS-80 Model 2000 compute monitor. Wikipedia description here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandy_2000 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandy_2000>
The monochrome is model VM-1 Monitor, the colour is CM-1 Monitor.
Many thanks
Brendan
--------------//----------------
brendan at mcneill.co.nz
+64 21 881 883
And here is Ken's new post in the series
http://www.righto.com/2016/06/restoring-y-combinators-xerox-alto-day.html
Marc
> On Jun 21, 2016, at 10:59 PM, CuriousMarc <curiousmarc3 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The restoration is physically happening at my place. As noted below we have
> a small and quite knowledgeable group of people contributing, including
> actual hardware when we are missing a part (thanks Al !). A few of us are
> chronicling this on our favorite media from our favorite angle.
> I like to make short videos trying to convey the inside story of the
> restoration, on my YouTube channel:
> https://www.youtube.com/curiousmarc
> It's interspersed with all the other restorations, but two videos so far:
> https://youtu.be/YupOC_6bfMI
> https://youtu.be/xPyqQXFC2yw
> Ed Thelen likes to collect every bit of raw information floating around,
> including some of the team emails and throw them into equally raw site, as
> he does for the IBM 1401 restoration effort at CHM:
> http://ed-thelen.org/RestoreAlto/index.html
> Carl Claunch methodically recounts everything he does every day (and he does
> a lot), so when he works on the Alto, you'll know every detail:
> http://rescue1130.blogspot.com/
> Ken Shirriff makes deeply researched, superlative detailed posts on his
> blog. These are reference pieces, I admire them a lot:
> http://www.righto.com/2016/06/y-combinators-xerox-alto-restoring.html
> And it gets discussed on the Y-combinator (the owners of the machine) and
> hopefully here too.
> Seeing the interest, I will make an effort to post new links when they
> become available, unless of course Master Al beats me to it.
>
> Marc
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Al Kossow
> Sent: Monday, June 20, 2016 8:54 AM
> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
> Subject: Re: Y Combinator is restoring one of Alan Kay's Xerox Alto machines
>
> http://www.righto.com/2016/06/y-combinators-xerox-alto-restoring.html
> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11929396
> http://ed-thelen.org/RestoreAlto/index.html
>
>> On 6/20/16 8:51 AM, Al Kossow wrote:
>> I post just went up on Saturday. It's nice that both CHM and LCM folks
>> are helping with this.
>>
>>
>>> On 6/20/16 8:41 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
>>> http://www.righto.com/2016/06/y-combinators-xerox-alto-restoring.html
>>>
>>> Found via:
>>>
>>> http://www.osnews.com/story/29261/Xerox_Alto_restoring_the_legendary_
>>> 1970s_GUI_computer
>>>
>>> There are 2 videos up so far, with disassemblies that may interest
>>> CCmpers.
>>>
>>> Some people from the list are involved, including Al Kossow, but I
>>> haven't seen the link posted.
>>>
>>
>
Hi
I collect vintage IBM laptops, have just joined the community, and wonder if anyone can help with the following:
1. Can write a Teledisk image of concurrent CP/M for Displaywriter to two 8 inch floppy disks which I can supply?
2. Can solder a cable fie me which will interface an ibm 6360 8 inch floppy to a PC. I am unable to do this myself.
3. I have an external 5.25 floppy adapter/a inside an ibm ps/2 p70 and wonder if the external 37 pin connector is pin compatible with the 37 pin connector of the ibm 6360 8 inch floppy drive?
I thought about connecting two out of the 3 cables from this drive to an IBM displaywriter (supplying the correct voltages etc) and the 37 pin connector to my external 5.25 adapter/a card?
Thanks for your help.
David
It's that time of year when a young man starts to take stock of
reality (for better or for worse) and decides that his load must be
lightened. This time the machine with on the block is an MAI Basic
Four deskside minicomputer. I'm not sure of the exact model but it
can be seen in the first three pictures in this gallery:
https://picasaweb.google.com/102190732096693814506/HaulOf10315?noredirect=1
Note: nothing else in that gallery is on offer at this time - maybe
later. However other random hardware may be thrown at you during the
transfer.
I have not powered it up. I was told it was working when taken out of
service many years ago, but we all know how that goes.
I have some documentation for it that I will be scanning (some of
which is not already on Bitsavers) but I will send it along to whoever
takes the machine afterwards. I do not have any disk or tape media
for it.
I'm not looking to get a lot for it - trades would be fine, preferably
for something that I can lift myself, however I am also looking for a
working DEC RX02 drive or a later IBM terminal controller (3174 or
similar) with Ethernet that I can use to run IBM real terminals on
Hercules.
Preference goes to:
1) someone local who can haul it away. I am not presently equipped
to deal with shipping anything this large.
2) someone will will get it sooner rather than later
3) someone who will make it sing again.
If you're coming to VCFMW in September, the storage unit holding the
MAI is just a few miles away from the hotel and we can do the loud-out
then. If you're here sooner, even better.
-j
Some people might have noticed that Mim.Update.UU.SE have not been
reachable the last week. This is because the University have decided to
put all systems behind firewalls, which hurt the Update computer club
pretty bad.
For people who would still like to get access to Mim, I have now setup
telnet to listen to a second port in addition to port 23. Mim is now
accessible by telnet on port 10023 as well, which is not blocked by an
firewall.
In addition, I also added ftp on port 10021 in addition to port 21, so
people who would like to get to files on Mim by ftp can do so again.
This also prompted me to make a couple of improvements to BQTCP/IP for
RSX. The changes are that the telnet daemon can now be set to listen to
an alternative port, and can also listen to several ports.
I also added the capability to the ftp client to specify which port to
connect to.
The TCP/IP package can be found at ftp://mim.update.uu.se:10021/
However, if you have the previous version of TCP/IP for RSX, you cannot
access this address, as the previous version ftp client did not accept a
port argument. So it's a bit of a chicken and egg thing. But using some
intermediate system, you can get the disk image to the machine, and
install the new version, after which things will be possible to use more
or less as before.
One more thing: NEMA, my very tiny EMACS clone for RSX, have gotten a
lot of work done lately, and if anyone is interested in this tool, I
really recommend that you fetch the latest version. A port to VMS is
also included with the files now, courtesy of Erik Olufsen.
NEMA is available at ftp://nema at mim.update.uu.se:10021/
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
Just in case anyone is interested, I have just posted a video on YouTube of
my Rainbow 100+ (not the one I am selling) running in a dual head
configuration. The quality of the video isn't great, but it might interest a
few people.
You can find it here: https://youtu.be/y4p9plwjRio
Regards
Rob
> From: Fritz Mueller
> So far I haven't seen any place in PDP11GUI to set anything other than
> port and baud rate
You might have to use native OS tools to do that. On Unix, that will be
'stty'; on Windows, you'd have to use native Windows tools to do that; if you
go to the Device Manager, select your serial port, and click on 'Properties',
it has a tab ('Port Settings') for that (or, should I say, it used to - not
sure about the most recent versions, they're making it all smart-phone like
for brain-dead lusers).
> From: Don North
> Mostly PDP11GUI does not care, either 7b or 8b.
I'm kind of surprised to hear that; I assumed that PDP11GUI can download
binaries, and for that, 8-bit is kind of necessary?
Side-story: when I started bringing up my -11's, the first one I did was an
-11/23. So I needed a way for my Windoze box to talk to the -11's console
line, for ODT. I was too lazy to figure out how to use some existing
software, so I decided to write some. I wanted to be able to use it (later)
to talk to one -11 from another, and I didn't know how to do complex terminal
hacking under Windoze anyway, so I decided to write it under Unix. V6, to be
exact (I consider all later versions to be unholy perversions - well, V7
isn't too bad, I guess), running on Ersatz11 on the Windoze box.
Later, I wanted to be able to load .LDA files, which are 8-bit binary. One
problem. Native Unix V6 doesn't have the ability to output 8-bit binary over
a serial line (or input it, for that matter). When I first started using V6
at MIT, the DSSR people had already totally re-written the TTY driver, and
added that capability, so I never ran into this problem before. Also, the
native V6 stty() call isn't very flexible, and there are no spare mode bits.
So they'd added a new system call, ttymod() (sort of like ioctl(), but done
before it), to control all their wonderful extensions.
I decided not to replicate that, but rolled my own upwardly compatible
extension to stty(), which adds all that extended semantics. From there, it
wasn't too much work to get sending the absolute loader down the serial line
in its original binary form (which means all the old console bootstraps work,
too), and using that to load .LDA files.
Noel
(My original message to cctech has yet to appear. I thought I might try the
cctalk list).
While Motorola never shipped the MC6839 [1] the binary is available [2]
and I've been playing around with it [3]. While it's not producing the
exact same results as I get on a more modern machine, it appears to be
"close enough" for me to be happy with it. But I am having one issue that I
can't figure out.
The documentation for the FMOV operation says:
FMOV Move (or convert) arg1 -> arg2. This function is useful for
changing precisions (e.g. single to double) with full
exception processing for possible overflow and underflow.
Okay. And to call it [4]:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Function|Opcode| Register entry conditions | Stack entry conditions
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| FMOV | $1A | U = precision parameter word| push arg
| | | Y -> argument | push precision param word
| | | D -> fpcb | push ptr to fpcb
| | | X -> result | call FPO9
| | | | pull result
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For moves, U contains a parameter word describing the size of the
source and destination arguments. The bits are as follows, where
the size is as defined in the fpcb control byte
Bits 0-2 : Destination size
Bits 3-7 : unused
Bits 8-10 : Source size
Bits 11-15: unused
And the size bits are defined as:
111 = reserved
110 = reserved
101 = reserved
100 = extended - round result to double
011 = extended - round result to single
010 = extended - no forced rounding
001 = double
000 = single
It appears that to convert from single to double, I would set U to $0001,
but the results are *so* far out of whack it's not even funny. I've tried
setting U to point to the value $0001 and that doesn't work. I've tried
shifting the bits (because in the FPCB they're the upper three bits) and
that doesn't work. I've tried reversing the registers and that doesn't
work. Does anyone have the actual source code [4]? Or know what I might be
doing wrong?
-spc
[1] A ROM with position independent 6809 object code that conforms (to
what I can find) with IEEE 754 Draft 8.
[2] Available in the file fpo9.lzh here
https://ftplike.com/browser/os9archive.rtsi.com/OS9/OS9_6X09/PROG/
[3] Using a 6809 emulator library I wrote: https://github.com/spc476/mc6809
Not much documentation I'm afraid.
[4] Register entry: ROM base address + $003D
Stack entry: ROM base address + $003F
[5] I'm lead to believe that Motorola release the code into the public
domain.
So I know for certain that this topic has come up before, but I cannot
for the life of me find the thread(s) it appeared in, so I'm asking
again (apologies in advance).
What is the name of the rounded, 3-pin power connector often seen on
early test equipment (I've seen it on older HP and Fluke stuff)? I have
an S-100 chassis that inexplicably uses one, despite dating from 1982 or
so. I need to track one of these cables down but I have no idea what it
is exactly I'm looking for...
Thanks as always,
Josh
So Motorola apparently never produced the MC6839, a ROM containing
position independent 6809 code for implementing (as far as I can see) IEEE
754 Draft 8. Motorola *did* however, release the resulting binary into
(from what I understand) the Public Domain [1] but I've yet to find the
actual source code, which would solve my current problem.
I'm playing around with the code in an MC6809 emulator [2] and trying to
use it (getting my retro-software fix in as it were). It works---not as
accurate as today's stuff, but close enough and it supports single and
double precision. The current issue I have is with the FMOV opcode
(register entry) described as:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Function|Opcode| Register entry conditions | Stack entry conditions
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| FMOV | $1A | U = precision parameter word| push arg
| | | Y -> argument | push precision param word
| | | D -> fpcb | push ptr to fpcb
| | | X -> result | call FPO9
| | | | pull result
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For moves, U contains a parameter word describing the size of the
source and destination arguments. The bits are as follows, where
the size is as defined in the fpcb control byte
Bits 0-2 : Destination size
Bits 3-7 : unused
Bits 8-10 : Source size
Bits 11-15: unused
It's not clear if U should contain the actual parameter value, or a
pointer to the parameter value. It just doesn't seem to work no matter how
I code it. Anyone have any clue?
-spc (I'm at a loss here ... )
[1] Available in the file fpo9.lzh here
https://ftplike.com/browser/os9archive.rtsi.com/OS9/OS9_6X09/PROG/
[2] I wrote one: https://github.com/spc476/mc6809
Not much documentation I'm afraid.
So, I am trying to run PDP11GUI under Wine on Linux, and I am having
problems loading a machine description file. It seems when PDP11GUI
tries to kick off M4, it is expanding an extra backslash into the
command. So you get this sort of error message (note extra backslash
before m4.bat):
Can't recognize 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Joerg Hoppe\PDP11GUI\\m4.bat"
"C:\users\Public\Application Data\PDP11GUI\machines\pdp11.ini"
"C:\users\fritzm\Temp\tmp_pdp11gui_m4_out.ini' as an internal or
external command, or batch script.
I've verified that I can run m4.bat sucessfully manually if I set the
appropriate env vars first. But this doesn't help because it seems like
PDP11GUI deletes the file and then (fails to) regenerate it on each run :-(
Anybody else run in to this or have a suggestion for a workaround?
thanks much!
--FritzM.
DECprinter I, GE TermiNET30, C Itoh CIT-101e, PDP-11 manuals, PDP-8
diagnostic duplicates, TI SilentWriters etc etc.
http://www.datormuseum.se/available
/Mattis
if it was close I would jump on that terminet 30!
Ed#
In a message dated 6/27/2016 1:38:34 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time,
mattislind at gmail.com writes:
2016-06-27 21:41 GMT+02:00 Ian S. King <isking at uw.edu>:
> So far away.... <sigh> (Pacific Northwest, United States)
>
That is right. Forgot to mention that everything is outside Str?ngn?s in
Sweden.
/Mattis
>
> On Mon, Jun 27, 2016 at 12:20 PM, Mattis Lind <mattislind at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > DECprinter I, GE TermiNET30, C Itoh CIT-101e, PDP-11 manuals, PDP-8
> > diagnostic duplicates, TI SilentWriters etc etc.
> >
> > http://www.datormuseum.se/available
> >
> > /Mattis
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS, Ph.D. Candidate
> The Information School <http://ischool.uw.edu>
> Dissertation: "Why the Conversation Mattered: Constructing a
Sociotechnical
> Narrative Through a Design Lens
>
> Archivist, Voices From the Rwanda Tribunal <http://tribunalvoices.org>
> Value Sensitive Design Research Lab <http://vsdesign.org>
>
> University of Washington
>
> There is an old Vulcan saying: "Only Nixon could go to China."
>
On Fri, Jun 24, 2016 at 11:06 PM, Pete Lancashire
<pete at petelancashire.com> wrote:
> Rather have a C Itoh CT-101e ..
I can probably help with that. I'm in Ohio and I get out to Chicago
and NJ a couple of times a year. I have a cabinet of CiTOH terminals
I bought from my employer "some years ago". ;-) We used an
assortment of DEC VT10x, VT220, CiTOH 101 and CiTOH 101e terminals.
ISTR the CiTOHs were as much as $800 cheaper than DEC terminals at the
time. They were robust and at one point, I pulled out of the manuals
the magic escape sequence to "switch sessions" and use the local
printer port as a second comms line (we just had to bang out a custom
DB25 adapter since the entire company was standardized on Nevada
Western 6p6c modular serial and we didn't have a box of the right
adapters for the printer port). It was awesome having two live lines
in front of our usual switchbox setup for connecting to multiple
hosts.
> ... knew one of the developers
Neat!
> F/W was done in the US I can no longer remember the key combination but the
> terminal would let you know who did it
That would be fun to look up.
> Anyone wants to gain a cubic foot or two let me know
You got it!
-ethan
> From: Adrian Stoness
> friend found this now opening channels to rescue it
> its an 11 of some sort not sure witch one
??? Both URL's are the same picture - an envelope on the floor?
Noel
> From: Adrian Stoness
>> its an 11 of some sort not sure witch one
Ah, OK. That's either an -11/04 or -11/34 in the top left corner, with either
an RX01 or RX02 above it. (Not enought detail in the image to say.) The rest
of it seems to all be some sort of custom medical or other specialized
hardware.
(The /04 and /34 are very similar - the only difference is which processor
card(s) is/are plugged in - you can convert most -11/04's [it depends on the
specific backplane in use] to -11/34's by pulling the M7263 KD11-D -11/04
processor card, and plugging in instead the M8265 & M8266 KD11-EA -11/34A
processor cards, which still seem to be relatively prevalent.)
Noel
Questions for our HP specialists. I can't open the case of the HP 264x
terminals I just got. I see from the manual there is a small slot on the
side in which you have to insert a "key". Is the key just a small blade tool
or does it have to be more special shape than that?
Marc
I noticed someone selling a 660AV in my area on Craigslist. I went and got
it because for $50 he had a nice little Apple display with the machine
that matches my Quadra 700 and an Apple Adjustable Keyboard in good
condition to go with it. Turns out he gave me a whole slew of spare mice
and an extra Apple Design keyboard (a good, if ugly and PeeCee lookin',
spare).
The 660AV was dead when I brought it home. It would bong normally but
wouldn't produce any video. The RGB video connector on the monitor was
smashed out of shape, too. So, I used a sheet metal tool to re-smash the
connector back into the right shape, and some needle nosed pliers to
straighten the pins. Then I replaced the PRAM battery on the mobo and that
fixed it. I guess they don't quite last 23 years.
The weird thing about this machine is that it says "PowerPC" right on the
front, but it's *NOT* a PPC. It's most definitely a 25Mhz 040'. I wonder
why that's there? Maybe the guy took the badge from another system, but I
don't think so. This was the original owner. I also wonder why this one is
called a "Quadra" when I know I used to have a 660AV that was a "Centris".
Wikipedia seems to imply it was just a marketing name change only.
However, the article also mentions that most of the Quadras don't have a
floppy with motorized eject. Well, this one does. Perhaps it was replaced.
I just wonder what's up with these little nuances.
The best part of this deal is that the Apple Adjustable keyboard feels
mechanical, and I've been pretty impressed with it so far (once you
carefully remove the plastic wristrests). It was a bit yellowed, but a bit
of retr0brite treatment restored it to bright white. It looks pretty much
new, now. I gotta do the Quadra 700 and 660AV next. They aren't badly
yellowed, but somewhat. Since neither is scratched up, they should restore
nicely.
My plan is to run A/UX on the Quadra 700 and MacOS 8.1 on the 660AV. Right
now I have everything in pieces. I'm waiting on another SCSI2SD to come to
be able to set them both up. Plus, I just got the one SCSI2SD and I'm in
the process of benchmarking it on several different OSs. I wish the US
vendor would sell the newer (v6) board, as it's supposed to support 10MB/s
synchronous (if your SD card can do it, and most can these days). All they
have on Ebay right now are the older 5.x based cards (which is like the
one I have now).
-Swift
Ok gang - here's the 100+ pics from the warehouse:
https://www.flickr.com/gp/144446985 at N04/b76872
I included pics with model numbers where I could find them
>From what I could see:
** NO PDP or SGI anything (not even a coffee mug) **
Commodore 64 with peripherals, pretty much new in box
Sun E3000
DEC VAX and Alpha desktop boxes
DEC VAXServer 3800
Three IBM mainframe peripherals of some sort
IBM robotic tape archiver
Terminals: DEC, IBM, Qume, AT&T, others
CRT displays
Printers: Okidata, etc
Keyboards: lots of special IBM versions, listed below
8 pcs of the rare short Keyboard I described to you earlier.
Model F Keybds: I am not sure how many model F keyboards I have,
but I do have them.
~ 4 pcs of Original IBM PC and PC XT Keyboards (1981-1984)
IBM 5251 Keybds: I have approx 8 pcs of 5251 Keyboards.
Keyboards we have:
IBM 3151 104 ~20
IBM 3161 104 ~50
IBM 3162 104 ~25
IBM 3163 104 ~25
IBM 3164 104 ~50?
IBM 3178 ~100
IBM 3179 ~100
IBM 3180 122 ~150?
IBM 3191 ~100?
IBM 3192 122 & 104 ~100?
IBM 3193 Unkown Qty yet ?
IBM 3194 Unkown Qty yet ?
IBM 3196 122 & 104 ~75 pcs of 104
IBM 3197 122 & 104 ~75 pcs of 104
IBM 5155 Unkown Qty yet ?
IBM PC XT/AT Unkown Qty yet ?
IBM 3471 122 & 104 ~75 pcs of 104 Sm qty of 122
IBM 3472 122 & 104 ~75 pcs of 104 Sm qty of 122
IBM 3476 122 & 104 ~75 pcs of 104 Sm qty of 122
IBM 3477 122 & 104 ~75 pcs of 104 Sm qty of 122
IBM 3481 122 & 104 ~75 pcs of 104 Sm qty of 122
IBM 3482 122 & 104 ~75 pcs of 104 Sm qty of 122
IBM 3483 122 & 104 ~75 pcs of 104 Sm qty of 122
IBM 3486 122 & 104 ~75 pcs of 104 Sm qty of 122
IBM 3487 122 & 104 ~75 pcs of 104 Sm qty of 122
IBM 3488 122 & 104 ~75 pcs of 104 Sm qty of 122
IBM 3489 122 & 104 ~75 pcs of 104 Sm qty of 122
Here are detailed part numbers: (we probably have other models not
listed!!)
1368193
1386304
1386887
1390123 3191/3192
1390238 3191/3192
1390572 3196/3197
1390572 3196/3197
1390702 3191
1390702 3192
1390876 3196/3197
1390876 3196/3197
1391401 Clicky Vintage
1392595
1394099
1394100 3471, 3472, 3481, 3482 3483 122-Key
1394167 3476, 3477, 3486, 3487 122-Key
1394193
1394204 3472 104-Key
1394204
1394802
1394806
1395162
1395660 3476, 3477, 3486, 3487 122-Key
1395665 3476, 3477, 3486, 3487 104-Key
1395666
6110668 3180?
6115543 3180?
Qty 1 IBM 5642852 for the IBM 5291-1 (the -1 is the rare one)
Manufactured 1991-1993
Hi folks,
I've started to look into hooking up pdp11gui to my 11/45 w/ M9301. Does
anybody here know how the console DL11 should be configured for this
wrt. data bits, parity, stop-bits? I haven't seen this mentioned in the
documentation or tutorials.
thanks,
--FritzM.
It seems the clock oscillator chip (E1, 13.824 Mhz) on my VT52 is
flaking out. It has become very vibration sensitive. I tried reflowing
its solder connections, but it has not seemed to help much...
Anybody have a spare, or suggestions/advice for a replacement? There's
certainly room enough in there to build and mount a small oscillator
board if the old/original parts are too hard to find or are all
similarly flaky with age at this point. Looking around on the web, the
symptoms of the resulting failure mode seem pretty common (no scan, but
a slight tap on the right side of the chassis will sometime restore,
though I suppose that could be many other things as well!)
cheers,
--FritzM.
ate: Fri, 24 Jun 2016 13:43:16 -0400
>
> From: Earl Baugh <earl at baugh.org>
> To: cctech at classiccmp.org
> Subject: Re: CDC 6600 - Why so awesome?
>
> This thread reminded me that I recently got shipped what the person told me
> was a CDC 6000 Central Memory core.
> (it matches what's on this page :
> http://www.museumwaalsdorp.nl/computer/en/6400hwac.html ). He told me
> that
> the console looked like this :
> http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/gbell/craytalk/sld031.htm
>
> Earl
>
The Computer Museum in Boston gave pieces of the CDC 6600 core to donors.
I still have it.
--
Michael Thompson
I have a DEC Rainbow 100B in the upright pedestal for sale. It comes with
128K of memory, a hard disk controller with hard disk cable, an RX50 drive
and the graphics option. It is just the base unit and the pedestal, there is
no keyboard, monitor or hard disk included. I collected this machine
recently and had to replace the shorted EMI filter on the input of the PSU
with something more modern, so it is a working machine.
When I have been given a machine for free that I can't keep, then I give it
away. In this case, this one cost me money to buy and repair, so this time I
am selling it. I would much prefer collection as it is quite large. If I
must ship it then so be it, but it may take me a while to find a suitable
box to ship it in, and I may have to add that to the cost.
Pictures here: https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=FC758A5A91B91301!5858
<https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=FC758A5A91B91301!5858&authkey=!AC9g74
Lag3CoW5k&ithint=folder%2cjpg> &authkey=!AC9g74Lag3CoW5k&ithint=folder%2cjpg
Looking for offers.
Regards
Rob
Oooh, if I didn't have an _extremely_ strict rule about 'only PDP-11's' (to
prevent my house filling to the gills, and my wife divorcing me :-), I'd be
all over that. Someone definitely needs to grab this up!
Noel
I still have the aluminum bar that says 360 30 that was on the top of
the system here in phx. I bought early on in my computer business life
segment.
Aside from being part of a memento for me and sort of interesting
sitting in a glass case... it may need to find its way back atop a
360/30 someday.
Ed# _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org)
In a message dated 6/25/2016 10:57:07 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time,
aek at bitsavers.org writes:
Maybe a 2841 disk controller, but the 360/30 panel has been pulled. Hard
to say what is really there.
LCM may be interested in parts for their 360/30, and Will Donzelli has
been looking for a 2841
On 6/25/16 10:06 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
>
http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?53014-IBM-360-with-additional-era…
>
> --Chuck
> -------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "The first thing we do, let's kill all the spammers."
>
Tested using "Raw block speed" test in LIDO 7 under MacOS:
[SCSI2SD v5]
READ: 891 KB/s
WRITE: 728 KB/s
[ACARD ARS-2000SUP]
READ: 1621 KB/s
WRITE: 1277 KB/s
More info:
The ACARD device contains a Samsung 850 Pro 128G SSD. The SCSI2SD contains
a Samsung Pro+ 64GB micro SD and is running firmware v4.6, IIRC. Both are
were attached to a Quadra 700 Macintosh running System 8.1 with 68 megs of
RAM (4 onboard + 64MB in 16MB SIMMS, the max on the Quadra 700). I had
them hooked up at the same time so I could use one to partition the other.
The hard disk "driver" was the one provided by LIDO, but I also tried
LaCie SilverLining 5's driver as well, but the performace was slightly
worse. I tested in LIDO using it's raw speed test feature. It's probably
only a rough measure of sequential speed. I just tested three times and
averaged the results, but it was within just a few KB/s each time.
Once I'm done I'll hook both of these up to a FreeBSD box, dd off full
backups, then start over again and try with ZFS under FreeBSD via a PCI
SCSI controller. Then again under IRIX if I still have the energy. I'll
give some results from 'fio' or 'iozone' under FreeBSD. Those will be a
lot more detailed and break down sequential versus random results and show
the results of various other permutations.
I'd also like to test the SCSI2SD v6, but I can't get my hands on one,
yet. The only place that talks about the v6 is the codesrc wiki and the
American ebay retailer seems to only have the v5.0. I'll wait, I guess.
-Swift
Hi, All,
A friend of mine who is mostly into Sun equipment recently purchased a
MicroPDP-11 from a State auction. He knows little about DEC gear, but
I can help him there. His machine had the RD5X drives pulled by the
State, but still has an RX50. Where can I point him to get a handful
of RX50 floppies? I can help him with contents to put on them, but he
needs media.
He's likely to start with RT-11. He could probably use 10-20 floppies to start.
Thanks,
-ethan
I took apart my VR241 recently to see if I could find the reason why the
screen doesn't go completely black. I took lots of pictures while doing so,
to make sure I could put it back together again correctly. However, now that
I am putting it back together, there is one wire which looks like it wasn't
connected. It is on the deflection board (on the right when looking from the
back of the CRT).
I am not sure now if I missed taking a photo of this when it was connected,
or if it really should be not connected. There is a pin marked Size Link
near to it, which might be where it has to go, and sounds like an optional
thing if that is the case.
You can see the wire in question at the bottom of the picture below, it is
the green wire with a single-pin connector on it, and the size link
connector is the two-pronged connector just below it in the photo:
https://1drv.ms/i/s!AlQc3lJwQx7bgbAJQx-HsvGY8Gcqsg
Anyone know where this wire should go?
Regards
Rob
Hi All,
In bringing up and debugging my PDP 11/45, I found that one of my GRA
(M8101) spares has a failed ALU subsidiary ROM. It's a pretty standard
little 32x8 ROM in a 16-pin DIP, and the truth table is in the 11/45
print set.
I wonder what the replacement options are for parts like these? In
particular, given the 30ns micro-cycle on the KB11-A, and the fact that
the propagation time for the ALU downstream of this is roughly 20ns on
its own, I'd be worried that an off-the-shelf bipolar PROM might be too
slow here.
I'm still a little slow on reading the microcode flows, so its not clear
to me exactly how many micro-cycles there are on the critical path for
the E-class instructions where this ROM is used. Maybe its not an issue.
Anybody every try replacing one of these with a bipolar PROM? Any other
suggestions for how to repair parts like these?
cheers,
--FritzM.
> From: Richard Loken
> I have an Ann Arbor Ambassador here with the original owner's manual.
If anyone else has _another_ AAA, I'd like one too! (I'm assuming Ian's going
to be getting this one! :-)
They were wonderful terminals, in their day - the largest screen of any
terminal easily available at the time. People in Tech Sq preferred them to
VT*, etc for that reason.
Noel
> From: Glen Slick
> the part is listed as DM8598-AD, where a DM8598 is a 256-bit (32x8)
> tri-state bipolar mask ROM.
> Some substitute T.S. PROMs include the Signetics 82S123
On my M8101, it's an 82S123, which is a tri-state programmable PROM (the
82S23 is the open-collector version of that chip). Those should be relatively
easy to obtain.
BTW, quick question: if a fusible link PROM 'fails' because one of the
fusible links regrows, is it possible to 're-program' that particular chip,
back to the 'original contents'? Some programmers might barf (because they
want the chip to be 'empty' to start with'), but maybe one of those home-brew
pgrogrammers could 'refresh' the chip (thereby avoiding using up a new chip,
when it's not really needed)?
> From: Curtis H. Wilbar Jr.
> Is there a file containing the image ?
I'd really like to accumulate a database of the contents of all the PROM
components for all the PDP-11 CPU's. I've got a few of them (for the -11/05),
but there are zillions more.
Anytime anyone creates one, can you please send me a copy, and I'll try and
get them organized and uploaded (and if I _really_ get ambitious, I might try
and start filling in the gaps).
Noel
> From: Swift Griggs
>> Much of the architectural concept was shared with IBM 7030 STRETCH
>> (another system worth researching).
> Hmm, I've never heard of it. I'll check it out.
The first supercomputer, IMO. It's an interesting machine, with a variety of
innovations that later became standard: e.g. it has separate instruction and
arithmetic units, with the former being in charge of all fetches, both
instruction and data, as well as executing things like branch instructions;
it also has a primitive form of pipelining ("Interlocks in the look-ahead
unit ensure that nothing is altered permanently until all the preceeding
instructions have been executed successfully.")
Eric has a nice page about it:
https://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/ibm/stretch/
There's a good book about it:
Werner Buchholz (editor), "Planning a Computer System: Project Stretch",
McGraw-Hill, New York, 1962
Speaking of books, there's also a CDC 6600 book:
Jim E. Thornton, "Design of A Computer: The Control Data 6600",
Scott, Foresman, Glenview, 1970
Really gotta do that Bibliography!
Noel
Someone emailed me last night that has a full set (about 30+) of manuals in
grey binders for VMS 5.0.
Still waiting for them to respond with their location. This is not something
I'd want...
J
It's been a long time since I've asked about this, so I figured it was
worth another shot. I've been looking for an Ann Arbor Ambassador
terminal for close to fifteen years, with no success. It's kind of an
obscure model, but they did exist. I heard of one being available
several years back, but, unfortunately, someone else got it before I
could.
So, does anyone have one of these? Has anyone seen one in recent memory?
-Ian
I've been saving the VT52 I've owned for years (used it with a modem
back in the late 80s to dial into school) with the thought of paring it
up with a PDP-8/E, PDP-8/F, or PDP-8/M .... but I don't know that the
PDP-8 train will ever stop here. I've come close a couple of times, but
have either missed the train on a good deal, or not been in a position
to stomach the pricing some of them fetch.
So, I'm contemplating selling the VT-52. It has age typical wear, but
last time it was powered on, it was working. There was a touchy
connection that would act up once in a while requiring a tap on the side
to bring it back around (something in the video connection no doubt). I
never dug into it to resolve it 100%, as it didn't happen often, and a
'love tap' on the right side always brought it around.
I'd like to hang onto it, but it is big.
I'm entertaining offers which might sway my decision to keep/sell it.
I'm located close to the intersection of Sharon, Easton, and Stoughton,
MA.
I don't think shipping is an option, unless your willing to pay, and
take the risk on something like this being transported. If I can get a
big enough box, I can pack it well.... but I'd prefer not to do it due
to the risks involved.
Keep VT52 in the subject line of any e-mail you send so I can find it
easier. Sometimes I may only check mail here once a week, so if you are
inquiring and don't hear from me for a while, no fear, I'll get around
to you.
-- Curt
There is a Teletype printer on ebay, the seller is in Virginia. Ebay
item 231990393069
The auction title is:
1966 - Vintage Antique TELETYPE INKTRONIC Receive Only Set TelePrinter
Parallel
Hey folks,
While working on my 11/45, I built up a KM11 replica based on Tom Uban's
ExpressPCB layout. I noticed the following behavior when trying to use
it in uPB mode on my KB11-A CPU:
* If I set up uPB, set KM11 S1 on and S2 off, and resume execution,
the breakpoint fails to stop the processor
* BUT, if I depress and *hold* CONT, while it is held down the CPU
will be held in T2 on the target microword
* If I then reach over and flip on S2 before releasing CONT I can hold
the machine there in T2
Documentation on the KM11 seems to imply that the machine should just
stop at the target state holding in T2 without having to do the
holding-down-CONT-while-flipping-on-S2 thing.
I was wondering if this was an oddity of my KM11, my CPU, or is that
just the way uPB mode works on these things?
thanks,
--FritzM.
Just wanted to share some joy here: after a months-long spare time
restoration and debug process, the PDP-11/45 I've been working on booted
to the M9301 console emulator last night (pic at
http://fritzm.github.io/images/pdp11/m9301-running.jpg).
Made me super happy to see that register dump an the "$" prompt :-)
Next up will be using PDP11GUI to run more thorough diagnostics, then
I'll be moving on to storage (RK05)...
cheers,
--FritzM.
I have two Force VME boards with microSPARC CPU which I have no use for.
SPARC/CPU-5V-64-110-2. 110 MHz. 64 Mbyte.
https://imgur.com/a/4GWqB
Trade for something interesting.
/Mattis
On Jun 24, 2016 1:11 PM, Jay West <jwest at classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
> Mike wrote...
> -----
> ??? HP 262x terminals don't ship well.? The "ET" terminals must be packed
> carefully.
> ----
> That is very true. I could use one of those large black plastic pieces that
> hold the monitor open. Mine broke'ted.
>
If you have the broken pieces and or a complete one I could possibly model it and 3D print it depending on size...
We have the technology ;)
-Connor K
This thread reminded me that I recently got shipped what the person told me
was a CDC 6000 Central Memory core.
(it matches what's on this page :
http://www.museumwaalsdorp.nl/computer/en/6400hwac.html ). He told me that
the console looked like this :
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/gbell/craytalk/sld031.htm
I got it along with a box other parts (mostly Sun things) and a single
"plane" of core memory from another module.
(It connects the 6000 to the Sun 1's that I picked up in the past... some
interesting history...good "over a beer" stories :-) )
I'm coming to VCF MW this year so if there is interest, I can bring it
along...
Earl
Spotted this at a local surplus place today. it's an acoustic coupler/modem,
white plastic case, manufacturer is "MI2" (with the 2 as a superscript, so I
guess "MI Squared"). Never heard of them.
No clue if it works, appears to be in fair condition, they have a price tag
of $25 on it.
J
You guys must have much larger apartments (or houses I'm guessing) than
me.... I would really like a vt220 largely because it seems like it
wouldn't occupy much space. I'm guessing they withstand shipping better too.
--
Greg
Someday I want to have a PDP11 even if it is a QBUS version
I can get a clean RX02 for about $150. When my life involved PDP11's
starting with 34A and ending with 44's I never used one.
-pete
Heh! Especially if an upper case only terminal
I can just imagine the cry arising from the little whiners!
QUIT SHOUTING QUIT SHOUTING!
(as they stamp their feet and rent their clothing....)
In a message dated 6/24/2016 7:50:46 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time,
emu at e-bbes.com writes:
On 2016-06-24 08:23, Swift Griggs wrote:
> However, I think most folks these days would faint if they were forced to
> work on a terminal.
Just don't tell them, that they do ;-)
If you really think about it, the terminals just got faster and
got more colors. (and you call them smartphone, thin clinet, tablet, win
PC, ...)
Otherwise:
a.) most data is somewhere in the cloud (before it was called mainframe)
b.) a lot of applications are running in the cloud (before, mainframe)
c.) you connect now via wireless internet (before: modem)
d.) ...
So, just Emperor's new clothes ;-)
To my sorrow, I'd never heard of the CDC 6600 and I barely knew who
Control Data was (whippersnapper, I know). I see a lot of traffic about
them on the list and I went out to discover "why so cool?" Wikipedia and
other spots talk about the features, but I'm trying to understand from
folks who put hands to the metal, why they liked them so much.
I'm a total igmo concerning this bit of kit. Is this about right?
- It has dual "calligraphic" displays. Geeze! Very freakin' cool
- It was RISC nearly before folks could even articulate the concept
- It had some wicked cool "demos", to cop a C64 term. (ADC, PAC, EYE)
- It wasn't DEC and it wasn't IBM and it was faster than both when it hit
the street?
- It has a cool OS? Dunno. Not much info on "SCOPE"
- Made in the USA baby! Back when we actually made things.
- It used odd sized (by todays standards) register, instruction, and bus
sizes. 60 bit machine with 15/30 bit instructions. But, didn't it cause
a bunch of alignment issues for you ?
I dug into the CPU instructions for about 20 minutes and it was actually
pretty straightforward. The so-called "COMPASS" ASM code was oh-so-cool. I
can't believe they had so many of the features now considered "modern" or
"clever" (at least by me) in the 1960s! This code:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COMPASS/Sample_Code
... Is super-readable, in fact, probably a bit more than several
much-newer dialects on different platforms. There was one instruction
"PROTECT" I found pretty interesting, too. Was that similar to noodling
with the control registers CR0, CR2, CR3, and CR4 on x86 to mark memory
protection from segmentation violations? I remember that being the
protection mechanism on my 386 SX/16 (and I remember it being a PITA),
however the COMPASS "way" looks much easier/cooler and must have some
hardware assistance to do that so easily.
-Swift
I have been going through our library of documentation and found some items
that are duplicates.
There are a LINC-8 programming manual, PDP-8 DecTape programming manual,
PDP-8/L maintenance manual, PDP-8/e maintenance manual volume I and volume
III.
http://i.imgur.com/YEAdnZV.jpg?1http://i.imgur.com/pvsypvY.jpg?1
Trade for something interesting!
Other things that is also for trade:
http://www.datormuseum.se/available
/Mattis
> On Jan 3, 2016, at 4:56 PM, Paul Koning <paulkoning at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> ...
> This Forth implementation is a port of Fig-FORTH by John S. James, with some RSTS-specific magic added. I just realized the file header says that it is in the public domain, so I suppose I should post the source...
Done. Thanks to Al Kossow, it now lives on Bitsavers, in bits/DEC/pdp11/forth/forth.mac
This is the RSTS run-time system, from V9.6 and later. I haven't tried building it on older versions; the comments say it works back to V7.2. I don't remember why that version is mentioned. Run time systems existed before then, though a few details did change over time.
The original version was for RSX and RT-11. I did the RSTS port, and Kevin Herbert added some more stuff to it later on. The biggest change is to make the vocabulary machinery match the ANSI Forth 83 standard, which allows for lots of separate vocabularies and arranging their search order. This was needed to allow SDA to define a set of 32 bit replacements for the standard (16 bit) arithmetic operators of native Forth, without getting itself all confused.
Build instructions are in the comments near the top of the file. There's very little to it.
Enjoy.
paul
now, there is a 11/23 I could love! ---Ed#
In a message dated 6/22/2016 9:44:20 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time,
glen.slick at gmail.com writes:
BACKPLANE",
> so the operation is not so mysterious. I had never seen a hex-wide Q-bus
> backplane before this.
>
> There are some pictures of the system and the Q-Bus to 11/40 front panel
> interface here:
http://www.ricomputermuseum.org/Home/equipment/dec-pdp-1140
>
In my recent studies of electronics (I'm a noob for all practical
purposes) I keep seeing folks refer to Verilog almost as a verb. I read
about it in Wikipedia and it sounds pretty interesting. It's basically
described as a coding scheme for electronics, similar to programming but
with extras like signal strength and propagation included. Hey, cool!
Why are folks referring to "Verilogging" and "doing a verilog" on older
chips. Is there some way you can stuff an IC into a socket or alligator
clip a bunch of tiny leads onto it and then "map" it somehow into Verilog?
Is that what folks who write emulators do? Ie.. they exhaustively dump
Verilog code for all the chips then figure out how to implement that in
some computer programming language like C ? What do folks do for ROM chips
and PLCs? I'd think they must dump the code and disassemble it. No?
I'm just curious and this is a tough question to answer with Google since
I'm pretty clueless and don't know the right words to search for. I notice
people talk about correcting their Verilog code, so it must be somewhat of
a manual process. I'm just wondering how someone even gets started with a
process like that.
-Swift
Are DEC ECO's available online anywhere? I have not seem them in the
usual places e.g. bitsavers... I am particularly interested in ECO's
related to the KB11-A (11/45).
thanks,
--FritzM.
On Tue, Jun 21, 2016 at 9:05 PM, Michael Thompson <
michael.99.thompson at gmail.com> wrote:
> The RICM just picked up a PDP-11/40 chassis that was modified to accept a
> PDP-11/23 board set. It also contains a custom board to interface the
> PDP-11/23 to the original PDP-11/40 front panel. It is quite an
> accomplishment to get the Q-Bus board set working in the Unibus chassis.
>
I looked at the backplane pictures that I took after the rescue. I assumed
that the hex-wide 8-slot backplane in the front of the card cage was the
original 11/40 processor backplane. On the back it says "LSI 11 BACKPLANE",
so the operation is not so mysterious. I had never seen a hex-wide Q-bus
backplane before this.
There are some pictures of the system and the Q-Bus to 11/40 front panel
interface here: http://www.ricomputermuseum.org/Home/equipment/dec-pdp-1140
--
Michael Thompson
Wondering if anyone out there has such a machine running. It was
literally the first computer system I used (at Indiana State
University back in the 70's). I had some real fun doing FORTRAN and
Pascal programming on that thing.
Thanks,
Bryan
> I just looked in some boxes I haven't opened in decades. I have "Mesa
> Language Manual, Version 5.0, April 1979". If the people with the Alto
> need this, let me know.
It?s been scanned: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/mesa/5.0_1979/documentation/CSL_79-3_Mes…
> ... Mesa was a hard-compiled language, but it had concurrency,
> monitors, co-routines ("ports", similar to Go channels), strong type
> safety, and a sane way to pass arrays around. ...
The designers of the concurrency mechanisms (Butler Lampson and Dave Redell) wrote an excellent paper, which can be downloaded from Lampson?s web site:
http://research-srv.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/blampson/23-ProcessesInMe…
> Anyone here know or remember Mesa? I'd like to hear more about it.
Thanks to the foresight of Al Kossow and others, the Computer History Museum has a repository of Alto source code online, including the Mesa system and some applications such as the Laurel electronic mail client and the Grapevine distributed mail transport and name service. (The repository also includes a lot of BCPL and a small amount of Smalltalk.) The repository is here:
http://xeroxalto.computerhistory.org
Probably better to start here:
http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/xerox-alto-source-code/http://xeroxalto.computerhistory.org/xerox_alto_file_system_archive.html
Paul McJones
I have a 9-slot VME backplane for sale or trade. It weighs about 3 pounds
when packed. Pictures at
https://www.flickr.com/photos/32548582 at N02/albums/72157670027920776
--
David Griffith
dave at 661.org
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
Hi,
I own PRM-85 boards for my HP-85 and 86 machines. While they are very useful extension modules for these computers, they lack a proper case. I hate to destroy a working interface or memory module just for the case.
I read in this list that there are more people interested in such a case.
So I designed a replica case for 3D printing, but did not yet try it out.
I do not own a 3D printer and the commercial services calculate between $20 to $100 for one shell (upper/lower).
This is a bit expensive for some trials, as I expect that the 3D design would need some iterative refinement to obtain a "perfect" case.
So: if someone owning a 3D printer and a PRM-85 board is interested in helping me to refine the design by making a test print I could supply the STL files for upper and lower shells. As a "thank-you" I would expect feedback to improve the design.
Regards,
Martin
Martin {.} Hepperle {at} mh-aerotools {dot} de
> From: Dwight Kelvey
> The RIS[C]/CISC is really not even relevant in todays processors since
> the main limiting factor is memory access bandwidth and effective use
> of caches.
Memory bandwidth has often been the limiting factor over the complete
timeline of CPU's/systems. (It would be interesting to draw up a timeline,
showing the periods when it was, and was not.) Yes, caches can help a lot,
but inevitably they will miss (depending on the application, more or less
often).
The RISC/CISC thing actually is kind of relevant to this, because RISC
focuses on getting the CPU cycles to be as fast as possible, and that kind of
implies simpler instructions --> more instructions to get a particular task
done.
That was part of the motivation for microcoding, back when it was invented; at
that point in time, logic was fast, memories were slow, so more complex
instructions made better use of memory bandwidth - especially since this was
pre-caches. (It also made binary code 'denser', which was important back then,
with much smaller memories.) However, more complex instruction sets made the
CPU more complicated; microcoding helped deal with that.
The 801's breakthrough, at a very high level, was to see the whole system,
and try and optimize across the compiler as well as the instruction set, etc,
etc. They also realized that people had been going CISCy for so long that
people had to some degree forgotten why, and that that assumption needed to
be re-examined - especially in light of the then-current logic/memory speed
balance, which had shifted towards memory at that particular point in time.
Noel
I picked up a DEC VR201 display today, it was leaking a highly corrosive
brown liquid. So corrosive it burned my skin painfully / immediately and
I had to wash hands thoroughly. Anyone come across a display that leaked a
corrosive liquid like that? The display was stored in its original box, so
I don't think the brown liquid was from something stored on top of it, but
I don't know for sure.
Bill
--
@ BillDeg:
Web: vintagecomputer.net
Twitter: @billdeg <https://twitter.com/billdeg>
Youtube: @billdeg <https://www.youtube.com/user/billdeg>
Unauthorized Bio <http://www.vintagecomputer.net/readme.cfm>