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

by donm＠cts.com

It would be really cool if some one were able to scan and make available this data sheet for those who are unable to find it. <If anyone wants to get this data sheet, it's reprinted on page 605 of the <'Student Manual for the Art of Electronics' by Thomas C Hayes and Paul <Horowitz (2nd Edition, ISBN 0-521-37709-9) - don

26 years, 1 month

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Definition of Obsolete... (was: Re: gauging interest in VAX 6000-530

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>>Sure, if the old stuff works, why change? (Even if it -is- obsolete!) >>It does indeed make sense. >I can honestly say that is where you and I differ greatly: the definition >of "obsolete." One of my all-time favorite .sig lines (I forget whose it was) said: " Don't think of it as a `new' computer, think of it as `obsolete-ready' " While collectors may argue about "obsolete" - a term, that to my ears, smacks of PC-clone salesman-speak - in the world of business and industrial computing, platforms that are old and well-established are called "legacy systems". It's generally acknowledged that if a system does its job well and reliably, it is "legacy"; the mark of a non-legacy system is that it is under constant development, crashes often, and doesn't fill its design specs. Of course, here I'm talking about more than hardware, and more than hardware+software, but how a system fits into the real world and performs a useful function. -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927

26 years, 1 month

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Definition of Obsolete... (was: Re: gauging interest in VAX 6000-530

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<One of my all-time favorite .sig lines (I forget whose it was) said: < <" Don't think of it as a `new' computer, think of it as `obsolete-ready' " To that I also add: "Stable mature systems we know how to use." Allison

26 years, 1 month

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Beautiful U day

by lance＠costanzo.net

>lemay(a)cs.umn.edu writes: >> Well, it looks like the University of Minnesota is having another >> beautiful U day... this is something the latest U president came up with Just grab everything and anything that looks interesting. You can always dispose of it later if its not. Lance Costanzo | Speaker to Animals lance(a)costanzo.net | speaker(a)kzin.com http://www.webhighrise.com | http://www.kzin.com Website and Virtual Domain | PC Resources, Hosting starting at $5/month, | Accoutrements, no setup fees | and other oddities.

26 years, 1 month

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Beautiful U day

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

In a message dated 10/25/99 9:32:34 PM US Eastern Standard Time, lemay(a)cs.umn.edu writes: > Well, it looks like the University of Minnesota is having another > beautiful U day... this is something the latest U president came up with > a few years ago, basically instead of departments on campus having to > pay to dispose of old and obsolete equipment, on a Beautiful U day, they > put out tons of bins all over campus, and the departments can toss in all > the old computers and such they want, and the university will pay the > disposal fees (as opposed to the individual departments paying). > > Anyways, this means there may be jems appearing soon. For example, > I just saw a HP 85 out in the hallway, I assume someone is jumping > the gun on cleaning their areas... Is anyone dieing to have a HP 85? > is there anything else I should be looking for? In the past few years, > I usualy have seen at least one Apple ][+, IBM PS/2's, etc. > sure would be nice to have all the memory simms out the PS/2s that get thrown out... Unfortunately, they always seem to command a premium price. if you can't grab entire machines, even cards or memory or even hard drives would be worth getting.

26 years, 1 month

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Beautiful U day

by lemay＠cs.umn.edu

Well, it looks like the University of Minnesota is having another beautiful U day... this is something the latest U president came up with a few years ago, basically instead of departments on campus having to pay to dispose of old and obsolete equipment, on a Beautiful U day, they put out tons of bins all over campus, and the departments can toss in all the old computers and such they want, and the university will pay the disposal fees (as opposed to the individual departments paying). Anyways, this means there may be jems appearing soon. For example, I just saw a HP 85 out in the hallway, I assume someone is jumping the gun on cleaning their areas... Is anyone dieing to have a HP 85? is there anything else I should be looking for? In the past few years, I usualy have seen at least one Apple ][+, IBM PS/2's, etc. Unfortunately, I'm severely strapped for space, so anything i grab, i would have to dispose of fairly soon. Obviously, if i see anything extremely rare i will grab it, but I dont know about stuff like the HP 85, or calculators, etc. So, I guess i'll just have to see whats available, grab it, and then post it to the list quickly. For those near the U of Minnesota Minneapolis campus, beautiful U day is this Wednesday. I imagine the como recycling lot will fill up with stuff very soon now (thats where I found my PDP 8/e 2 weeks ago). Anyways, just a heads up for those in or near minneapolis, and I guess an offer to trade a HP 85 (i'll ask if they are tossing it tomorrow, i already informed my janitor friends in that area that i want it). -Lawrence LeMay

26 years, 1 month

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EISA? (Was: gauging interest in VAX 6000-530

by zmerch＠30below.com

Rumor has it that Mike Cheponis may have mentioned these words: >(And, of course, most 486dx2/66 machines used at least an EISA bus [2], > running 32 bits at 8.33 MHz x two clock edges = 533 Mbits/sec.) [snip] >[2] Indispensable PC Hardware Book, 3rd edition, p. 552 [for reference inclusion] "Most" 486DX2/66's used EISA??? What's your definition of most? That book of yours has a rather skewed idea of what "most" means. Now, most "Server" 486's did have EISA AFAIK, but the server machines were an _extremely_ small portion of the total number of machines in the real world. (I actually had use of a retired Dell 486DX266 EISA low-end server. [Low-end being defined as: Adaptec 1542 ISA SCSI interface, non-ECC memory...] ) Certainly a nice machine, but by no means the most feature-filled server Dell produced at the time. The company I worked for at the time had roughly 400-500 486's deployed, with 75-100 being DX33 or faster. I think 3 machines there had EISA, and were all servers - not for use as a single-user machine until replaced by a faster server. BTW, those machines worked fairly well servicing around 100 users, but only 10-15% were at their desks at any one time - the rest of the machines were logged in but idle. Of course, with a 400 user 10Mbit (non-switched) ethernet network & 4 of these servers (the 4th was a PCI P60), by the time the servers started doing real work & were slowing down, ethernet collisions pretty much ground everything to a halt. Two more PCI P60 servers replaced the 3 EISA 486's, and my employer allowed me to take one home to work on - to replace the 4Mbyte 386SX16 I was running AutoCad 12 on - and doing renders. Let's just say that 486 was an extreme improvement. ;-) (Oh, and the servers were just file-sharing servers running Netware 3.11, for reference...) Again, just my $0.02 (CDN, this time) and not worth that... Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger --- sysadmin, Iceberg Computers Recycling is good, right??? Ok, so I'll recycle an old .sig. If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead disarmament should *not* be your first career choice.

26 years, 1 month

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what is a VXT 2000+

by Innfogra＠aol.com

What is a VXT 2000+? It has 18 meg or ram. It comes up with VXT V1.5 followed by 08-00-2B-37-70-4A. The configuration indicates that it has 8 plane Low Res 4 Megpixel FB which I assume is the graphics configuration. It originally came with a DEC VRC 16-HA Low emission monitor. My scrapper who has this feels the monitor is worth $150. If anyone interested in this, with or without the monitor, contact me directly. He also got in a couple of MVIIs that are available. I will get the configuration next week Paxton.

26 years, 1 month

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what is a VXT 2000+

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

Whoops, change that last URL I gave (for the VXT software) to ftp://ftp.openvms.digital.com/vxt/ -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927

26 years, 1 month

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what is a VXT 2000+

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>What is a VXT 2000+? It's an X-terminal. > It has 18 meg or ram. It comes up with VXT V1.5 followed >by 08-00-2B-37-70-4A. The configuration indicates that it has 8 plane Low Res >4 Megpixel FB which I assume is the graphics configuration. "08-00-2B-37-70-4A" is the hardware Ethernet address. The VXT 2000+ loads its software over the Ethernet at power on. To quote from the VXT release notes: VXT software is installed on a load host and downloaded into the VXT 2000[+], VXT 2000, or VT1300 X terminal; the VXT software license applies to the X terminal on which the software is executed, not to the host CPUs in the network. The release notes then go on to specify how to install the software on the following different systems - I imagine other network-capable systems are easily done as well: o VXT Software on InfoServer Systems o VXT Software on OpenVMS Systems o VXT Software on DEC OSF/1 AXP Systems o VXT Software on ULTRIX Systems o VXT Software on SunOS Systems o VXT Software on HP-UX Systems o VXT Software on IBM AIX Systems o VXT Software on SCO ODT Systems The software installation kit now appears on the OpenVMS Freeware CD-ROM set, and you can grab it over the net from: ftp://openvms.digital.com/vxt/ -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927

26 years, 1 month

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gauging interest in VAX 6000-530

by zmerch＠30below.com

On or about 07:56 PM 10/24/99 -0700, Mike Cheponis was caught in a dark alley speaking these words: >That's fascinating. Take obsolete hardware and architecture (vax), and >keep them running! I guess I will never cease to be amazed at the weird >things people do. Heck, I heard the other day that people are -still- >running 1401 emulation mode under a VM/360 simulator on their modern h/w! The last three places I worked for (or heard of thru the grapevine) were running mostly System 36 RPG apps in emulation on their AS/400 hardware... it's more common than you might think! >> Its not the speed >>of the individual bus, but its the number of busses. > >That's of course bull..... You crack on others for stating things without backing up with actual data... where's yours? My wife's box is a Pentium 100 running SCSI3Wide and I did benchmarks (real-world... but don't have them handy) which showed that box stomped a Pentium 166 / IDE. (Mind you, saying the IDE bus is rather an oxymoron, as it's an extension of the ISA bus IIRC... :-) The difference? The IDE bus is totally stupid (read: CPU controlled) whereas the SCSI bus is very smart (read: 80Mhz RISC CPU controlled) - the SCSI controller is offloading most of the CPU overhead. Despite all this, the mouse driver on it right now sucks wind, and can lock the entire machine for over 3 seconds... bad driver/bus design. That's something the PC world will prolly never get rid of. Tho I've never seen, touched, smelled a Vax, I've seen other DEC hardware (yes, even a 3-CPU 486DX33) that use sub-controllers for all of their I/O, and they handled lots of multiple users wonderfully, and if one I/O controller goes south, the equipment is designed to continue with minimal heartburn. >>The more busses, the more parallelism and the less waiting. > >-IF- the speed of the busses is high enough! And one bus cannot affect another bus... >>One >>fast bus works well until you want to do multiple things, and >>then it quickly becomes a bottleneck. > >Excuse me? Could you please back up this assertion with data? After all, >at -some- point, all these busses have to get their data into/out of the CPU, >right? And -that- is a "bottleneck" for sure... (Sure, you can have >channel-to-channel I/O, but most aps are not just shuffling bits.) The busses don't *have* to route their data thru the CPU (erm... unless it's the IDE bus...) if it's headed for memory - that's what DMA is for. A good DMA setup (which the PC doesn't have) can offload even more work from the host CPU, allowing it to do useful work instead of playing "data traffic cop." As always, YMMV, IMHO, and all that jazz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger ===== Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- zmerch(a)30below.com SysAdmin - Iceberg Computers ===== Merch's Wild Wisdom of the Moment: ===== Sometimes you know, you just don't know sometimes, you know?

26 years, 1 month

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Did the list change?

by jfoust＠threedee.com

I haven't received anything from this list in the last week or so. As far as I know, nothing changed on my end. I've tried to send 'subscribe' and 'which' commands to the listproc, but I get no response. Did something change at U-Wash? - John

26 years, 1 month

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Help - Is there a paper tape BASIC for a PDP 8/S

by daniel＠internet.look.ca

-----Original Message----- From: Lawrence LeMay <lemay(a)cs.umn.edu> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Monday, October 25, 1999 6:36 PM Subject: Re: Help - Is there a paper tape BASIC for a PDP 8/S >> >> I am hoping to find BASIC (not FOCAL) for the PDP 8 line. I can't run OS/8 >> so I am hoping to find a BASIC that will run on my 8/S in binary form. > >Why cant you run OS/8, just because of a lack of enough core memory? 4k core only. #1) I have no disk. #2) I did not think OS/8 was compatible with the Straight 8/ 8/s instruction set incompatibilities. If it is compatible then I will actively seek a DF32 and interface. > >-Lawrence LeMay > >> >> A) Does this even exist? >> B) Is it on the Web? >> >> Thanks, this 8/S is proving to be lots of fun. >> >> BTW: I just got this message on my PDP tonight: >> >> "Congratulations!! You have successfully loaded 'FOCAL' on a PDP 8/S >> computer." >> >> Yippee! >> >> john >> >> >

26 years, 1 month

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Looking for

by dogas＠leading.net

Anyone got an EXORtape orphan that you'd like to reunite with its family? Thanks - Miike: dogas(a)leading.net

26 years, 1 month

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Help - Is there a paper tape BASIC for a PDP 8/S

by daniel＠internet.look.ca

I am hoping to find BASIC (not FOCAL) for the PDP 8 line. I can't run OS/8 so I am hoping to find a BASIC that will run on my 8/S in binary form. A) Does this even exist? B) Is it on the Web? Thanks, this 8/S is proving to be lots of fun. BTW: I just got this message on my PDP tonight: "Congratulations!! You have successfully loaded 'FOCAL' on a PDP 8/S computer." Yippee! john

26 years, 1 month

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XXDP help needed

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Oct 25, 15:59, Bill Pechter wrote: > Is my memory of the breakdown of the diags correct? > > +--> Diag software > | +--> Second diag > | | > ZRQBC1 > | | > | +-->Revision C patch level 1 > +--RQDX? disk controller (does the R stand for Rotating Memory Here?) Very close. The first character is the processor type it's intended for, the next two are the device mnemonic (not always the same as the mnemonics used elsewhere, alas), then diagnostic "number" (you know what I mean :-)) and then revision and patch level, as you said. I can't help with the specifics of most diagnostics (my microfiche set is neither complete nor very accessible at the moment -- wasn't most of that stuff on-line inside DEC once? What became of STARS and TIMA?) but you might find the general stuff at http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/XXDP.ps helpful (there's a .pdf equivalent there too, thanks to the assistance of another list member). -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

26 years, 1 month

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HP CS/80, SS/80 & Amigo Protocols

by jerome＠strobedata.com

Hello: I saw a message from jeff.kaneko(a)juno.com where it appears he got some docs on the CS/80 etc. protocol from you. I think this is the protocol used by HP for its HP-IB disks. I suspect that this protocol uses a block mode addressing that spans a variety of devices built and sold in the 80's and early 90's, incl. some by Bering (an alternate source of HP-compatible HP-IB storage products). I am looking for the disk protocols and command set to see if I can talk to these devices with a National Instruments (GP-IB) board in a PC running NT with a driver written in a modern high-level language. I suspect that the commands are device-independent, as these HP devices worked with a broad scope of computers, with very little change in configuration. Does this sound like the same docs you have? If so, may I please get a copy of those docs? I think that they are the same that Jeff got from you. I'm in the Seattle area (Redmond) and am willing to pay for your trouble photocopying. Please give me a call and we can talk. I suspect that some of HP's SCSI protocols are similar in structure and would like any thoughts you have on this. Thanks, Jerome Hodges Strobe Data, Inc. 8405 165th Ave NE Redmond, WA 98052-3913 Ph. 425-861-4940 Fax 425-861-4295

26 years, 1 month

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Reliable PCBs at home

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Oct 24, 21:48, Marvin wrote: > Richard Erlacher wrote: > > Has any of you ever encountered an approach to this that could be managed in > > the home environment with equipment costing, nominally, less that a k-buck > > or two and achieving nominally 10-mil traces with 8-10 mil separation or > > anything close to that? How about a dry-film solder mask? > Doing the process at home can be done with a minimum of equipment if service > shops are used for parts of the process. A small copper plating tank, > tin-lead tank, and peroxide-sulfuric etchant along with fusing oil and flux > can be set up at home for probably a couple hundred dollars. To set up a > fairly complete shop including drilling and imaging would probably cost > between 2K and 3K. This would provide the capabilities of producing > reasonably high quality boards. Oh, did I forget to mention getting the > experience to know how to do it :)? I've never done the full process Marvin describes at home, but there's a commercial website that has quite a lot of useful information. Eniough to encourag me to try it "one day": http://www.thinktink.com/ (If you're like me, and keep that Java(script) stuff turned off, turn it on for this site, as the menus need it). -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

26 years, 1 month

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Radio Shack TRS-80, Model 1

by blrab＠digisys.net

I have a TRS-80 Model 1. The monitor is third-party, the disk drives are third-party. I have all the documentation, plus NEWDOS 80. Not wanting to trash it (chuckle), do you have a home or where's the best place to post this? The machine is in NW Montana. I can't pay for shipping, although I will pack it carefully for shipping. In other words, the machine is free, FOB Polson, MT. Any ideas? Bob Bushnell blrab(a)digisys.net

26 years, 1 month

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OT: how big would it be?

by Philip.Belben＠pgen.com

> Of course you could, but why would you want to? What's the problem with > PCBs (or am I going to find out for myself when I get seriously into > making them at home?) Nothing except that I thought they were a more recent innovation. I was thinking along the lines of, this is how you might build it with technology available in 19XX Can anyone give a timeline with (a) the invention and (b) the first commercial availability of: PCBs, Transistors, ICs (perhaps divide up by technology and scale of integration), and possibly other items of technology relevant to this period (say, 1940 to 1970)? Along similar lines, what multipin plugs were available at what date? In the 1930s and 40s, multipin plug and socket often meant something that plugged into a valve (tube) base... Philip. This E-mail message is private and confidential and should only be read by those to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, copying, reproduction, modification or publication of this communication is strictly prohibited. Please delete the message from your computer and destroy any copies. This message is not intended to be relied upon by any person without subsequent written confirmation of its contents. This company therefore disclaims all responsibility and accepts no liability of any kind which may arise from any person acting, or refraining from acting, upon the contents of the message without having had subsequent written confirmation. If you have received this communication in error, or if any problems occur in transmission please notify us immediately by telephone on +44 (0)2476 425474

26 years, 1 month

2
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XXDP help needed

by pechter＠pechter.dyndns.org

> In article <7v20se$i4n$1(a)info.cs.uofs.edu>, > Bill Gunshannon <bill(a)cs.uofs.edu> wrote: > > Can anyone give me a rundown on the commands needed to use ZRQBC1 > > to format an RD52?? > > > Is there docmentation available anywhere for XXDP?? People always > > tell me UNIX is too cryptic, what would they say if the saw XXDP?? > > I wonder what extent DEC's naming conventions led to their ultimate > downfall? Once you're used to it you can tell a LA120 from an RZ28 and > a KZPCM-AA from a FRPG4-WI, but damn... > > -- > In hoc signo hack, Peter da Silva <peter(a)baileynm.com> > `-_-' Ar rug t? barr?g ar do mhact?re inniu? > 'U` <pfy> Sigs with pfy's markov chain. > -- "pfy", a markov chain IRC bot. Is my memory of the breakdown of the diags correct? +--> Diag software | +--> Second diag | | ZRQBC1 | | | +-->Revision C patch level 1 +--RQDX? disk controller (does the R stand for Rotating Memory Here?) Always found DEC's PDP11/Vax naming conventions made more sense than IBM's or HP's. (Except for the DL/RL/DM/RM/RK issues with boot rom input vs. drive names...) And their diag supervisor xxdp diags were much easier to deal with than almost anything else. (I loved the early xxdp stuff you had to deposit to constant locations to change the seek/read-write timings). Bill --- bpechter@shell.monmouth.com|pechter@pechter.dyndns.org Three things never anger: First, the one who runs your DEC, The one who does Field Service and the one who signs your check.

26 years, 1 month

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IBM 5155 Anyone have one?

by roblwill＠usaor.net

Hi! Does anyone have an IBM 5155 (I think I got the model right) Portable PC that they would want to sell/trade something for? I'm trying to narrow my collection down to portables, since I sorta have limited space, and I may be getting rid of (probably on the list) some of my desktops. -Jason (general-one(a)home.com)

26 years, 1 month

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gauging interest in VAX 6000-530

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<My main belief is that nobody is going to keep a VAX anything running with <dozens of simultaneous users. So, if a VAX is to be something close Very errorloaded belief. It's done, being done. In 1993 the style of computing is actually quite different than current. large companies used VAX or as400 as central computers and maybe also servers to those PC users that wanted application autonomy. <Now, perhaps if we were to port Apache to the VAX, and used that I/O bandwi <on multiple DS3s, well, that's great. Exists, I know of a company using a bunch of 6000s to service a user base of some 1000 systems never mind running all the batch jobs like payroll, job costing, database updates and other mundane stuff. <Hey, I'm not saying the original IBM PC was going to outperform the VAX 650 <but a modern PC will crush any VAX in any application, IMHO, with equivalen <h/w attached. NO, simple reason, PCs don't have equivelent hardware. <1) The names of these busses? Some are FDDI, Massbus, CI, HSI, SCSI(I/II/IIW...), and a few properitory busses. <2) Their uses? Two general catagories, memory interconnect and Storage interconnect. There are several IO interconnects as well. <3) Their peak and average throughputs? I think FDDI is still in the 100++m/bytes/Sec region. Though there were a few parallel busses that were 50-100mbytes/sec rate. I will not argue this as PC are finally going fibre and Gigabit eithernet but thats 10 years after the fact. <I certainly know for a fact that UNIBUS performed very poorly. I don't hav <data at my fingertips, but it seems to me it was around 10 Mb/s (that <megabits/sec) peak throughput. [I prefer measuring throughputs in bits/se <since that normalizes across different bus widths.] Also loaded with errors. Systems process things in chunks. FYI the pdp-11/70 was a 1mips (I think it was also 1mfps) machine despite that slow unibus. <Fast dual-port SRAM solves the problem, but commodity PCs aren't designed <that way. Also, the AGP bus uses mega-RAM to speed up PC graphics, for exam Exactly they arent designed that way. The cpus might do better in a real system but even then there are throughput issues. Your original arguement WAS a 486dx would kill the VAX 6000-530. the answer is still not ever! In the end it still takes 10k$ to do what 10k$ of vax did then. The rather specious arguement of my daddy can beat your son is is pointless. I can easily beat a PDP-8 with a slow PDP-11, what have I proved other than the next generation machine is better (wasnt that the point of its design?). In 1993, PCs were plentyful but they were not the applications killers. What they were then was the cheap workstations with 640x480x8 or maybe 800x600x8 graphics and often a lot less. Could a 486dx be made such that it would be a crusher box... yes but, there would have been no software for it as PC compatability was a must have back then other wise it was just another soso cpu. Allison

26 years, 1 month

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Calculator Comparisons

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<Of course you can. The exact details are a right fiddle (partly because a <nixie tube is not a diode, so you are going to get sneak paths!), but <basically you sequence the anodes of the tubes to the B+ rail and then <ground the appropriate cathode for each tube. Nixi is a threshold device so there are no sneak paths but the actuation voltages are pretty fussy due to the hystersis. <A _lot_ of calcultors had a multiplexed nixie tube display. It was much <less common in test gear which is why I guess you've not seen it. Really, never saw many that did, the vacuum florescent (bluegreen) were generally mux'ed.. <You want to look at the 7441, and 74141. I seem to recall there being a <TTL chip with counter, latch(?) and nixie driver all in one package. I <can't remember the number but it was a 7414-something (74142/74143???) 74142 is the nixi (Counter, latch, decoder) and the 143 is the led/lamp seven segement. 74141 is an pmproved 7441 and likely easier to find. <And no, they don't seem to be in the more recent TTL databooks I have <here :-(. I think there are still plenty about (if only in the junkboxes <of people on this list :-)) My Ti data books have them (ca1976) as do the reference TI set from the mid 80s. I'd expect they can be found easily enough. Allison

26 years, 1 month

4
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DOS 1.10

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<Has anyone else run into trouble reading 8 sector disks under Win95? I trie <to read the IBM DOS 1.10 disk and just ran into the Abort, Retry, Ignore <error message. When I booted it up and copied it to another disk on the <Compaq luggable, everything worked out just fine. W9x driver assumes default formats. use a dos box to copy the contents of the disk to a format the winbox knows. FYI: Don't bother win9x in dos mode as it's still the same drivers. Allison

26 years, 1 month

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gauging interest in VAX 6000-530

by ethan_dicks＠yahoo.com

--- Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner <spc(a)armigeron.com> wrote: > One of the stories about the machine relate to a package that just showed > up one day. They open it up to find a replacement fan for the machine. It > seems that the machine in question had determined that one of the fan units > was marginal and had placed an order for a new one from the manufacturer. Tandem's do that. They used to print warning messages on the console that failover had occurred, but people got out of the habit of reading the logs. The solution: bypass the customer and order parts directly from the vendor when faults were detected. Most customers learned that something failed when a) a part showed up or b) a field-service engineer showed up. -ethan ===== Infinet has been sold. The domain is going away in February. Please send all replies to erd(a)iname.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com

26 years, 1 month

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Benchmark Wars (was Re: gauging interest in VAX 6000-530)

by cmcmanis＠mcmanis.com

At 04:01 PM 10/24/99 -0700, Mike wrote: >(Hi Chuck!) > >Here's my back-of-the-envelope: [snip] Ok, you've considered the memory bandwidth without considering: 1) That disk transfers also happen across this bus. 2) Other I/O (mouse? Sound? Video?) 3) The interrupt load on the CPU. As an empirical note the 16450 UART often could not be serviced fast enough by the 486DX66 to prevent it from dropping incoming characters above 9600 baud. That was even with the "FastCOM" driver that came with Procomm plus for DOS, not until the 16550 added a 16 (or was it 32) character FIFO did it work. Now multiply that by 12? Say 9600 baud, every types a key. That is 12 interrupts to service while you're potentially trying to push out 12 streams of bytes. Anyway, the VAX (and most DEC gear) got around this by having channel processors _everywhere_ and of course the modern PC has channel processors _nowhere_. (IDE taking this to the logical extreme) Somewhere I've got an 8 port serial card that was built for the 16 bit ISA bus (it has 8 mini-din connectors on the card edge). The thought was to run UNIX on a 486 and use terminals for multiple students. It didn't work. The PC couldn't keep up. I fully admit though that given source code I might have been able to make it work :-) --Chuck

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Benchmark Wars (was Re: gauging interest in VAX 6000-530)

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<> If you're doing ray tracing, get a fast PC. <> If you're timesharing dozens of people, a VAX is not a bad choice. < <I remain unconvinced(!). Then what would work better for fast ray tracing. and why does my ISP have a 24x250mhz SGI and not 24 PIII/xeons? <> It's all about "balance" and truly good designers can get good balance fo <> the task at hand without being stuck in some rut. Big time Chuck. I like the mix, I like to mix. Thinking of the 11/55 story. 1970, KA10 (PDP10) 300 users (mostly TTYs) in schools never using more than maybe 70%. Plus batch processes for version clerical tasks related to the operation of the BOCES LIRYCS timeshare system. Now That was BIG iron (12 6ft racks!). But if I took all the PCs needed to provide the same interconnected services and stacked them up they would easily outweigh the KA10 and much more power, try 300x200W that is 60KW, the Ka10 was under 10KW and like near 6KW. <> (For Mike, have you ever actually run a 486 based PC architecture machine <> with a dozen actual serial interfaces connected to terminals? It is <> instructive because the damn things saturate the ISA bus and no disk <> traffic happens at all! < <(Hi Chuck!) < <Here's my back-of-the-envelope: < <The 16-bit ISA bus on a 486dx2/66 runs at 8 MHz. The total bus throughput <for memory operations is 32 megabits/sec. (4 cycles = 500 ns, 16 bits/cycle yes, but the IO is polled or interrupt and that adds 500% overhead. <If your dozen uarts are on a memory-mapped card, and you're pumping 19.200 <b/s continuously to the dozen uarts, that's 184,320 b/s required by the <uarts. That's only about 0.6% of the available bus bandwidth (about one <uart transfer every 174 Main Memory references.) Yes, you do have to work <with such slow memory, and now we understand why cache memory was so import <even on dx2/66 motherboards. So, yeah, keeping a dozen terminals blazing <output would be "fun" with an ISA-only bus! It's not 184320, thats how many are transfered, not the process loading. The system might require that to be dispersed across 12 buffers and there are overheads associeted with that. So your understating the actual task and loading. While the ISA bus is running at its speed the cpu is basically locked to that and the memory accesses that could occur, don't. The actual performance is not impressive. FYI: vax using the same approach would really be poor too. This kind of IO was typical of PDP-11s and they did it very well. The big iron solution is hardware and non competeing busses to unload the cpu from the IO task and not burden the memory with the slow IO cycles. Therein is part of the difference. Old iron treated the cpu as a valuable resource and were designed with the idea that cpu cycles were expensive. <(Incidentally, I am -not- advocating ISA as some sort of "wunderbus"; on th Yes it's perfomance is par with mid range(ca 1977) unibus and Qbus of 10 years before. By 1981 DEC had decided that those busses were ok for their use but they needed faster buses. FYI BI bus was a 64bit bus (minimum access was a 8byte chunk) and in use about 8 years before PCI was conceived (or VESA, VL). the big iorn was always trying to feed the data rate habit and usually long before PCs. < contrary, I remain amazed that it has taken the PC industry as long as it < has to recognize the importance of I/O speed. 64-bit 66 MHz PCI and 2x AG < are steps in the right direction... Yes, the microcomputer industry seem < hellbent on re-discovering what the mainframe and mini guys knew 20 or 40 < years ago...) Yes. thats the whole point. Allison

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Last chance before they hit SCRAP...

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>I've got a fair number of ST41201J SMD drives (1.2G) in System Industries >carriers in Milpitas (near San Jose); if anyone needs them we can work out >a trade. > >I've recently learned that there are different flavors of SMD. The >high-transfer rate drives use the SMD-E interface, which uses differential >ECL transceivers for the data and clock on the radial interface, vs. >TTL-compatible stuff on the earlier drives. I thought all SMD interface drives used differential ECL signals on the radial cables... >I'm hoping to use some of these on a system that was originally set up for >Fujitsu Eagles (M2351), but I haven't found any online reference that >indicates the data transfer rate or geometry of the Eagle, or whether >it uses SMD-E. A very good source of SMD drive geometry information is the "Sun format.dat" file that's been floating around the net for the past 15 years or so. The Eagle is 842 Cylinders, 20 Heads, and (assuming 512 bytes/sector) 49 or 50 sectors per track. The data rate is 15 MHz. Is this what you needed to know? I have manuals for most of the Fuji drives. Incidentally, the Fuji Eagle manual is titled "M2351A/AF Mini-Disk Drive Customer Engineering Manual". Most weenies today wouldn't call a drive that weighed over 100 pounds "Mini", but they don't know what they're talking about! -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927

26 years, 1 month

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OT: how big would it be?

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>> Of course you could, but why would you want to? What's the problem with >> PCBs (or am I going to find out for myself when I get seriously into >> making them at home?) >Nothing except that I thought they were a more recent innovation. Than... ? > I was >thinking along the lines of, this is how you might build it with technology >available in 19XX Printed circuit boards were used in consumer electronics as early as the late 1940's. These were true "printed circuits" (i.e. copper traces applied to substrate) and not the wamsy-pamsy etched circuits you'll find today :-). -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927

26 years, 1 month

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Punch Cards

by BSands8417＠aol.com

I am setting up a class for 6-7 graders and need a few punch/hollerith, etc. cards to demonstrate past equipment/practices. Can anyone help? Thanks Ben Sands Bsands8417(a)aol.com

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Reliable PCBs at home

by edick＠idcomm.com

This appears to be the procedure, though I forgot to mention that the copper has to be applied electrically to the drilled boards prior to application of the second (after the .000030" flash of copper which is chemically applied, but the dry-film I meant was indeed the solder mask. All my boards were made with dry-film solder mask, since that worked so well for my wirewrap boards. I liked the appearance, and silkscreened legends went on top of it wit little smearing and blurring, so they could be REALLY small. I never considered letting a shop do parts of the job, but I'll explore that before I give up completely. thanks for the explanation. Dick -----Original Message----- From: Marvin <marvin(a)rain.org> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Sunday, October 24, 1999 10:48 PM Subject: Reliable PCBs at home > > >Richard Erlacher wrote: >> >> First of all, I haven't read ALL of this thread, but I recall Tony or >> someone else replying to him saying something about the method for making >> plated through two-sided boards in your home. I've never met anyone aside >> from professionals with scads of equipment who could do that, but it seems >> to me that the method which was described to me was to start with bare >> fiberglass/epoxy panels, drill them, then apply a slightly conductive >> coating in liquid form which had to be forcibly dried (perhaps baked) before >> the resist was applied. The boards were then exposed, the films applied to >> registration targets on each side, to a powerful UV light, for which some >> prefer to use direct sunlight, and the boards subsequently developed, then >> etched. >> >> Has any of you ever encountered an approach to this that could be managed in >> the home environment with equipment costing, nominally, less that a k-buck >> or two and achieving nominally 10-mil traces with 8-10 mil separation or >> anything close to that? How about a dry-film solder mask? > >First of all, there are service shops that will take a drilled board, do the >PTH process, and electroplate the desired amount of copper onto the board. >The normal process for making PTH boards is as follows. > >The copper clad laminate is cut to panel size and drilled. The drilling is >usually done on an NC machine. The NC program can either be supplied as a >drill file, or it can be hand programmed. Hand programming involves taping >the artwork (or more likely a copy) to a programing table, marking the rout >to follow for each drill size, and then just the grunt work of centering >each hole in a scope, and pushing a foot pedal that records that location. > >There are a number of different processes for doing PTH, but the most common >is to take the drilled panel(s), run it through an electroless copper line >(cleaning, catalist, accellerator, electroless copper) that will put about >30 millionths of copper on the board, and electroplate about .3 mill or so >of copper on the bare panel (enough so the rest of the process doesn't >create problems with the plated through holes.) > >The next step is imaging and how that is done depends on the required >quantity and line density. What I used (prototype/short run shop) was use >dry film. The board is cleaned and laminated with a photosensitive film. The >artwork was transferred to diazo film, and the diazo films were used to >actually image the board. At this point, the board is developed and the >copper you see is what you want. > >The rest of the process is fairly short. Electroplate copper up to the >desired thickness, electroplate tin-lead, strip the dry film, etch, gold >plate the fingers if necessary, fuse the tin-lead into solder, route, clean, >and ship. The etching is usually done by machine using an alkaline etching >solution. > >Doing the process at home can be done with a minimum of equipment if service >shops are used for parts of the process. A small copper plating tank, >tin-lead tank, and peroxide-sulfuric etchant along with fusing oil and flux >can be set up at home for probably a couple hundred dollars. To set up a >fairly complete shop including drilling and imaging would probably cost >between 2K and 3K. This would provide the capabilities of producing >reasonably high quality boards. Oh, did I forget to mention getting the >experience to know how to do it :)? > >BTW, I think you just meant dry film above. Dry Film Solder mask does >require UV curing and is probably impractical for home use. However silk >screening the soldermask and legend is easy and inexpensive to do at home.

26 years, 1 month

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gauging interest in VAX 6000-530

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<It states: "The VAX 6500 processor delivered approximately 13 times the <power of a VAX-11/780 system, per processor." Your confusing the price of bricks with the weight of concrete. The MIPS metric is not accurate, I don't know if there is one. Further VAX doesn't spend all its cycles doing drystones. In the real world you do some math then do a LOT of housekeeping. <To me, that means "13 MIPS". 13 MIPS is about 2 to almost 3 times slower <than a 486dx2/66. Until you fill memory. then the contest reverses. The 486s of the time were doing good at maybe 5meg bytes/sec and thats SLOW. The real test then and now is what the system does with relational database of say 100mb is size. < CPU MIPS MIPS < System OS CPU (MHz) V1.1 V2.1 < ---------------------- ------------ ----------- ----- ------ ------ < VAX 8650 4.3 BSD ----------- 18 6.3 6.2 < cc -non_shared -DUNIX -O5 -ifo It's a non compare as an 8650 is not a 6000 anything. there are differnet memory bandwidths and IO bandwiths in effect and the slowest is much faster in action than an 8650. <And, back of the envelope, the 6500 was 2x the 8650. And it was 1/5 the volume. <I don't know what it is about collectors that somehow confuses their <memories of the past; maybe their internal core memories have suffered som <bit flips? ;-) (I have some old junk, too, so I consider myself in the <same camp...) Well, first of I'm not your average retrorevionist PC collector. I worked for DEC for 10 years (83-93) spanning the era in quesiton. <Fact is, these old machines were slow, noisy, hot, power-guzzling behemouth <compared with what we have today. Yes. Compared to the "hot" 486dx/50 in 1992 we were using the little (they are 10wx4Hx16D) VS3100s (same size and lower power than your power guzzling PC) as the PC crusher and those were typically 2.4-3.5VUP range. Oh, and I've used a VS3100 recently as a server at work for test purposes and the 3100/m10E clobbered the P166mmx/scsi box running NT. <As you know, the vax would run the X -client- which, of course, is not <much of a load. And as for running 50 users, heck, at the VCF 3.0 there <was a guy showing an 8080 running timesharing on a bunch of terminals! Yes, I know and have done. I've tried to run a p133 as a unix host (not a web server) as a timeshare client and it doesn't load as well as the VS2000 I have. The 8080 timeshare FYI had terrible latency! <Therefore, to me, you have to measure the performance in some repeatable <way. Dhrystone is not the perfect benchmark (which is close to an oxymoro <anyway), but it is -a- benchmark for integer CPU performance. Yes so... When I'm running a relational database that number means absolutly nothing. Running a word processor it's means nothing. <It's too bad that you had to run w3.11; I'm assuming you're running a real <OS on the dx2/66. In 1993 what real OS would have a PC running? DOS? Concurrent dos, SCO unix? Venix? The hot IO interface was 10b2 and AHA5142 SCSI. The really hot box was the 4cpu (486dx/50) box NCR made, there was no real OS yet and w95 was still beta testing on that box. <Now, let's talk about busses. Just how fast -was- this CI? Let's compare <that with 66 MHz 64-bit PCI, which has 66e6 x 64 = 4,224,000,000 bits/sec <peak throughput. What was CI's throughput? CI, cluster innerconnect was was fast when PCs were running ISA-16. If memory serves it was a 24-32mbytes/s rate. PCI-66 is now, and slow Alphas use it. The difference is you could have multiple CI busses and sorry but, only one PCI. Also PCI is not that fast. It's bursty and can run peak rates that fast but what is the CPU doing when PCI is honking at that rate? Answer? WAITING, if your real lucky running from the cache! But then when VAX was running CI what was the PC running? OK ISA-1 at some 8meg bytes/sec and memory interfaces were typically 70ns 32bit wide non-interleaved with caches. SCSI was maybe 10mb/s. the less than popular MCA bussed IBM hardware were much fast than the ISA and VL bussed counterparts. Running VMS in the early 90s we had SMP that was scaleable using LAVC (cluster over eithernet) and CI. There were also the BI and other interconnects. The point being your trying to save your arguement with _now_ hardware against _then_ hardware. PCs with then hardware were the industry joke for uptime, reliablility and performance, the AS400s, VAX, Prime, and others were the systems choice for getting work done on the larger scale. PCs in many ways are still behind the "big iron" of the early 90s, as they still lack a really good OS (linux, freebsd are contenders though). The hardware is not mature, they keep creating new standards that barely get debugged before they are pass`e. It's always amazing to see older systems bumping along getting real work done, usually while the PC user is rebooting for the third time today. Allison

26 years, 1 month

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IBM 5155 Anyone have one?

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

In a message dated 10/25/99 4:05:18 AM Eastern Daylight Time, mikeford(a)socal.rr.com writes: > >Hi! > > > >Does anyone have an IBM 5155 (I think I got the model right) Portable PC > >that they would want to sell/trade something for? > > You mean a 5140? > well, its all semantics ,but the 5155 is called the portable pc and is a big suitcase sized machine. the 5140 is the covertible dual floppy laptop. d DB Young Team OS/2 --> this message printed on recycled disk space view the computers of yesteryear at http://members.aol.com/suprdave/classiccmp/museum.htm (now accepting donations!)

26 years, 1 month

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gauging interest in VAX 6000-530

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<That's fascinating. Take obsolete hardware and architecture (vax), and Define that, obsolete is when it doesnt do the job. <>The problems is equivalent hardware. You can't configure a PC <>like a VAX, they are two different types of machines. A PC <>is tuned for a single user, while a VAX is tuned for many users. < <Amen! Thank you! You obviously didn't understand, likely don't care to. One observation is those that claim a narrow pardigm often end up eating it. VAX is not beall but then again it represents 20 years, in excess of 8 busses (cpu to memory and primary IO) and one major OS that still is secure and fast. PCs are an evolving species and wer are not up to the maturity level for even the OS not minding the hardware. <Remember, I was just making the observation that the integer performance of <the vax 8650 is worse than a dx2-66. I think single-user; I run single-use <machines. The future is single-user with vast network-accessed databases. All served by big iron with 64 bit cpus, why is merced so hot to beat Alpha. <Again, with -equivalent hardware- it certainly would. Ok. find a PC that you can cluster. Set it up in minimal time using an out of box OS. <having given up on Big Iron. Also, the market sizes for IBM, HP, and Sun' <"big iron" exist specifically to be those back-room servers that can do lot <of disk I/Os per second (the web, eh?). Even the web needs lots of IO, and more every day. <BUT, I would like the Vax Lover Crowd to acknowledge that they integer <performance of their machine is pathetic. If that all you hang you hat on you win. Your still missing the point and most everything with it. <> Its not the speed <>of the individual bus, but its the number of busses. < <That's of course bull..... < <>The more busses, the more parallelism and the less waiting. < <-IF- the speed of the busses is high enough! They have to be very very fast and the system on the bus very very fast and then you still have bus bandwidth conflicts. Therein lies the truth, if someone delivers a PC that has multiple independent PCI buses that can run in parallel will you start claiming that is better? <>One <>fast bus works well until you want to do multiple things, and <>then it quickly becomes a bottleneck. < <Excuse me? Could you please back up this assertion with data? After all, <at -some- point, all these busses have to get their data into/out of the CP <right? And -that- is a "bottleneck" for sure... (Sure, you can have <channel-to-channel I/O, but most aps are not just shuffling bits.) How about channel to Memory where the cpu get and put most of it's stuff. Or one bus that serives slow IO and another that is for memory acesses for multiple cpus at full bandwidth.Anyone thats stuied computer design and not software engineering would have studied system design and bus throughput models. <Sure, but AGP is better than -no- AGP, and it does show that there are othe <busses available on a PC, yes? (Which was my original point.) NO! those busses cannot operate in parellel and they operate and the expense of each other. I'd add if you plug in a slow card the plug and pray hardware may configure to that slower card at the expense of faster ones around it. All said and in the end, we have a troll. Allison

26 years, 1 month

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gauging interest in VAX 6000-530

by cem14＠cornell.edu

At 07:56 PM 10/24/99 -0700, you wrote: >Excuse me? Could you please back up this assertion with data? After all, >at -some- point, all these busses have to get their data into/out of the CPU, >right? And -that- is a "bottleneck" for sure... (Sure, you can have >channel-to-channel I/O, but most aps are not just shuffling bits.) Well ... I have some experience with high-speed switches and crossbars in parallel supercomputers (as a user). The fallacy in your thinking is that you believe that moving data around is not "processing". You still think that the real processing takes place only at the cpu. Matter of fact is that, in the real world, as data goes through each driver/buffer and process in the OS on its way to the process that will actually do something with it (i.e., actual "integer-op-related" cpu time) there are usually several large block transfers. If all of this can happen without hogging the cpu (and you need hardware to do it) you can bet that the corresponding machine will be many times faster than a machine with a PCI bus. I once read that the average number of moves for net data (after it is in memory) for data from input through tcp/ip stack through OS through application is on the order of 4.x ... I think in some Sun literature...

26 years, 1 month

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OT: how big would it be? - PCBs at home

by edick＠idcomm.com

First of all, I haven't read ALL of this thread, but I recall Tony or someone else replying to him saying something about the method for making plated through two-sided boards in your home. I've never met anyone aside >from professionals with scads of equipment who could do that, but it seems to me that the method which was described to me was to start with bare fiberglass/epoxy panels, drill them, then apply a slightly conductive coating in liquid form which had to be forcibly dried (perhaps baked) before the resist was applied. The boards were then exposed, the films applied to registration targets on each side, to a powerful UV light, for which some prefer to use direct sunlight, and the boards subsequently developed, then etched. Has any of you ever encountered an approach to this that could be managed in the home environment with equipment costing, nominally, less that a k-buck or two and achieving nominally 10-mil traces with 8-10 mil separation or anything close to that? How about a dry-film solder mask? Please share your experience, real or semantic. Dick -----Original Message----- From: Roger Merchberger <zmerch(a)30below.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Sunday, October 24, 1999 5:21 PM Subject: Re: OT: how big would it be? - PCBs at home >On or about 07:15 PM 10/23/99 +0100, Tony Duell was caught in a dark alley >speaking these words: > >>Oh, don't get me started on trying that... And that toner-transfer film >>isn't that good either... > >Isn't that good? My, you're certainly in the mood of understatement today, >Tony. I've tried that stuff (thinking... This is cool. I can finally >prototype PCB boards for my classic interfacing projects relatively >easily...) and I can officially say that it really, really, really sucks. >And the worst part? It's not that cheap, either. > >(certainly affordable, if it worked... which it doesn't.) > >For the problems with acetate, try getting a transparency film designed for >the actual printer that you intend on using. Toners are quite different, >including their fusing temperatures, fineness, and other factors. Another >thing to watch for with this iron-on crap (or laser film, or whatever): >Don't run it thru the printer twice. The high fusing heat changes something >in the media that seems to make it right close to worthless the 2nd time >round. > >I think that's what happened to me; the 600 DPI HP's use a "micro-toner" >which fuses at a higher temperature, and I think it changed the media so it >wouldn't "iron-on" easily, not to mention I don't think the iron got hot >enough to xfer the toner if that's a factor on the process working right. > >Some of the newer "photo" inkjets might work pretty well for artwork, >too... My wife's Epson Photo 700 does this thing called "micro-weave" for >the photo papers. It essentially takes 1/4 swipes at the image, and prints >the image 4 times at 1/4 density with the full printhead, so there's >virtually no banding. I've not tried it (have a laser) but it just might work. > >As always, YMMV and all that... >Roger "Merch" Merchberger >===== >Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- zmerch(a)30below.com >SysAdmin - Iceberg Computers >===== Merch's Wild Wisdom of the Moment: ===== >Sometimes you know, you just don't know sometimes, you know?

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gauging interest in VAX 6000-530

by spc＠armigeron.com

A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 634 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/19991025/51cd92a7/at…

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Available sale/trade: OSI Challenger 1P

by jimw＠agora.rdrop.com

Another step in my ongoing attempts to bring some focus (and room) to my collection. (and help finance a possible upcoming major restoration project) Ohio Scientific Challenger 1P microcomputer Includes 5.25 diskette drive, manuals, software (original disks plus extras). Unit is in overall good shape, some paint wear around the keyboard (no wrist rests back in those days). Pictures available on my web site. Have not fired it up in some time so it exact condition is unknown but it is complete. I'm thinking $250.00 (plus shipping) unless someone convinces me that I'm totally out of the park on that. Interesting trades (see the 'Most Wanted' list on my web site for ideas) always entertained. -jim --- jimw(a)computergarage.org The Computer Garage - http://www.computergarage.org Computer Garage Fax - (503) 646-0174

26 years, 1 month

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gauging interest in VAX 6000-530

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<> VAX 7000's in a brand new computer room. Said corporation has numerous <> computer rooms with VAXen, and these systems are heavily used. < <Maybe I should have said "Nobody -sane- is going to....". Try managing that, nice all in one place system. Sanity is restored. <How fast is a Vax 7000? http://www.digital.com/timeline/1992-3.htm <describes a little about the VAX 7000, but no hard speed data. Far to brief for you spec's experts to appreciate. <Incidentally, the vax 7000 was introduced 7 years ago; have there been any <upgrades since then? Yes, disks and network peripherals. Lower cost. and it's scaleable for multiple cpus and clustering. <The paradigm today is client on Ethernet, server cluster in the back room. <Scalable, cheap, reliable. Scalable, buy a bigger server? Run out of net bandwith? Multiple servers that are NT based add one more? Been there doing that. HAve they figured out how to cluster PCs (I know Linux Beuwolf... and right out of a box too). Gee and I thought adding another VAX to a cluster was a powerful scaleable solution. That failover capability from the 80s is pass`e too I'd bet. <One Big Box In The Back Room is what people did in the 40s, 50s and 60s.... And 70s, 80s and even the 90s. The big box in the back room is called a server now (likely several servers). <You're right, speed isn't everything; it's the -only- thing! ;-) Yes, rebooting faster is better when you have to. ;) <My PCs are damn reliable; are you buying junk? They are -waaaaaaaaaaay- mo <reliable than the VAX-11/780s, VAX-11/750s and VAX-11/785s that I have I'd hopes so, those are 20 years old. Will your PCs even run after 20 years? 10 years? How about 5? Then again why not run that super fast VAX beater 486dx2/66 still? <used in the past. (I run BSDI unix on a Pentium Pro, as well as NetBSD on <other machines, and they have -never- crashed.) Good for you. Run NT for a while and get to appreciate the rest of the real industry. Do you serve 6 different databases? How about thin windows clients from them? FTP and web pages are nice can they serve out disk space for W95 workgroups and legacy dos programs? Whats the backups like? Do the 40 clientshave a back up schedule to the server(s)? What fun it is when the user changes their setting and locks up their workgroup? How system security management for PCs, servers? Well, thats a sample of the Intranet I run and maintain. Can't say I like all the MS stuff but I'd realy hate to train users for unix/linux that barely want to deal with PCs at all. For a small business a common system based on big iron is really cheaper and easier to maintain. Allison

26 years, 1 month

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PDP-8/e PSU questions

by ethan_dicks＠yahoo.com

I moved my PDP-8/e this weekend and have been inventorying and testing various components. At the moment, the PSU isn't cooperating. ISTR there were some molex connector jumpers at various points, but I may be missing one or two. Up on the front, I have an empty 3-pin molex shell on, IIRC, P5. On the back, there is one 3-pin jumper in place and an empty 3-pin connector next to it. I get no lights, no sound, no nothing out of this. The fuses are good. Any suggestions? -ethan ===== Infinet has been sold. The domain is going away in February. Please send all replies to erd(a)iname.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com

26 years, 1 month

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OT: how big would it be? - PCBs at home

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<Has any of you ever encountered an approach to this that could be managed i <the home environment with equipment costing, nominally, less that a k-buck Being close to doing this I can speak about it some. The key to doing plated through hole is a process called electroless copper plating. I don't do that for one reason, it's a nasty process and the materials are poison and its wastes are poison to the max. I farm it out. the films for high res stuff are gerber photoplots you can farm that work out. laser printer plots are not adaquate for anything less than 25mil features and even then... At work we pay 87$ to get B size plots from Acad-13. This is not cheap and is likely the upper end as I get them elsewhere for ~20 for A size. the drilling, it's possible to build a threeaxis drill press that is NC controlled with better than 0.005 accuracy with relative ease. that will drill for you. With patience and a simple jig in a drillpress you can do this by hand. Sensitizing, exposure and development are trivial. the photoresist can be very expensive though. They run from 300 to 800 USD a gallon (that a lot) and getting a pint quanity can be hard. The easy way is to pour on the resist (under safelight) and spin the board at 3000rpm for 20 sec. The coat is very uniform then and quite thin. Exposure is a light box with two UV lamps of adaquate size(20w, 2ft, shortwave). Development is generally whatever the resist requries and takes a few minutes. htere are positive resists and also negative, pick the right one to match your photoplots (or pick the photoplots to match the resist)! Etching the board is simple and can be handled by most hobbiests. <or two and achieving nominally 10-mil traces with 8-10 mil separation or <anything close to that? How about a dry-film solder mask? Dry film mask may be part of the resist used or a seperate operation. It's not essential but it helps. A z280 board under devlopment using 10 mil features, two sided with PTH is what I'm basing my experince on. Also the company I work for does foil heaters and temperature sensors so the have a minimal PCB operation (no drilling, single sided, no PTH). Allison

26 years, 1 month

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OT: how big would it be? - PCBs at home

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Oct 22, 15:20, daniel wrote: > Making PCBs at home is a rediculous waste of time. I have a vacuum lightbox > here as well as a commercial processing system, a silkscreening set up, even > a wave solder machine in my home and nothing compares to what the big guys > can do and charge for the same thing. If you're trying to emulate the way a professional PCB house will make them, or if you need moderate to large quantities, I suppose I agree. But for two or three boards, I strongly disagree. I've made dozens, possibly hundreds of PCBs at home or at work, and it doesn't take that long, nor is it very difficult. I certainly prefer it to wire-wrap. Of course, you typically won't be able to get such fine lines, and putting two tracks between the pins of a 0.1" pitch DIP isn't something I'd do. I wouldn't consider using a professional PCB company for a one- or two-off unless it truly was very special, or a prototype for something that later would be made by the hundred. I make same-size artwork on a decent laser printer, and expose that onto sensitized boards. With a little care, registration is easily good enough for double sided PCBs. It's even possible to do plated-through holes, though I don't -- I use track pins, because the through hole stuff is relatively expensive. > My last *production* company use to > make its own prototype doublesided PCBs in house and it wasn't worth it. I > have a company I use now that will make me a double sided PCB, GOLD PLATED > contacts, solder mask both sides (pre-drilled of course), and silk screened, > and cut for less than a $1 a board in quantities of 500. OK, but do they also charge $490 for a one-off prototype? Most companies here charge according to the number of layers and amount of setup -- and that's mostly related to the number of plated holes, not board area. > Pre-sensitised boards are useless as they usually come flawed and the > coating thickness is not consitant. The company I use now for PCBs used a > "roll" of sentised film that was "ironed" onto a 3' X 3' board. Far better > process. Maybe, but I've never had a problem with pre-sensitised board. Sensitising it myself with an aerosol turned out to be a less-than-clever idea, though :-) > Don't forget a good GERBER and NC drill file is needed and most PCB > manufacturers find little problems with the files that you may not uncover > in Most PCB houses here are perfectly happy with 2x size artwork, and many will accept same-size, possibly with a small surcharge. Marvin mentioned a number of ways to produce artwork. I've seen most of them used. Dot matrix printers aren't usually very good in terms of black/white contrast, nor sharpness (but often OK for x2 camera-ready artwork). I once discussed using an offset litho press to print directly onto flexible PCBs, but I don't know if the person I spoke to actually did that -- it should certainly have much higher resolution than a silkscreen. And people really do use tape on mylar film (well, maybe not much nowadays, but it used to be common). Lots of hobbyists over here print onto acetate or drafting film with a laser printer, and that works pretty well -- it goes straight into my light box. Daniel wrote "He drills the boards first, then photosensitizes them. They get UV, then he develops them in water (I think it was). Then he electroforms copper to create plate through holes, then tins, then gold plates, I think then he did the solder mask on both sides (I am sure that was silk screened) and finally the boards were silk-screened (layout), then cut." That's a fairly typical commercial method, except it wouldn't be water development. At home, it would be a weak solution of caustic soda, but that "goes off" very quickly, so a more esoteric substance is used commercially. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

26 years, 1 month

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Benchmark Wars (was Re: gauging interest in VAX 6000-530)

by cmcmanis＠mcmanis.com

Several people have gone after this topic many different times. It can't be "won." It can't be won because computers are tools and one can always find an application that makes less efficient use of the tool to "prove" their point. If you're doing ray tracing, get a fast PC. If you're timesharing dozens of people, a VAX is not a bad choice. Its all about "balance" and truly good designers can get good balance for the task at hand without being stuck in some rut. My favorite example was the HP2000 with BASIC supporting 40 users. In our lab at school we had one of the "fast" ones (it had some addon from a floating point company (FPS?)) and it was considered too pokey for anything compared to the 11/55. But over in the business school the very same model (sans FP, but same group of machines donated by HP) was comfortably running what seemed like zillions of HP terminals in HPBASIC. Balance. --Chuck (For Mike, have you ever actually run a 486 based PC architecture machine with a dozen actual serial interfaces connected to terminals? It is instructive because the damn things saturate the ISA bus and no disk traffic happens at all! On a PCI equipped bus with the users coming over the network via telnet its workable, but for terminal based I/O the DEC timeshare systems were (and probably still are) the best that you can buy.)

26 years, 1 month

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Anderson Digital Computer

by jolminkh＠nsw.bigpond.net.au

A junk dealer I stay in touch with tells me he has an ancient computer he insists is labelled "Anderson Digital Computer". He says it is a metal box containing a screen and a separate keyboard. I'm to go to see it this week some time. Can anyone shed some light on what this might be? He knows nothing about computers so it might be an XT clone for all I know. Hans

26 years, 1 month

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gauging interest in VAX 6000-530

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<No confusion; there are simply different metrics for performance and she's <using a different one than you. You are both, in fact, correct. The 486 <will outperform the VAX in integer performance, but the VAX has bundles <more bandwidth to disk than the 486 ever dreamed of. Rodger that but also to memory and IO as well. It's pretty difficult to interface more than a handful of serial lines to a PC. My MicrovaxII comfortably has 32lines (all running at 9600 as that was the fasest modem in 1989!). <> Fact is, these old machines were slow, noisy, hot, power-guzzling behemou <> compared with what we have today. < <No argument there ;-) No facts!. By 1990 vaxen and other vendors (sun, Appllo, IBM...) had pizza boxes and made PCs look like they were running in reverse at no higher power, often higher res video and better IO. VAXen were amoung the first to run busses like FDDI and broadband as well when PCs didn't have interfaces for that yet. Allison

26 years, 1 month

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Last chance before they hit SCRAP...

by kyrrin＠bluefeathertech.com

This is going to the CLASSICCMP and NetBSD port-VAX lists, and to the two PDP-11 newsgroups. RE-PC in Tukwila, WA (south of Seattle) has a whole palletful (at least six) Seagate 'Sabre' series SMD drives NEW in their original packaging. These are already in their carrier tray with a power supply. I don't know capacity or model number -- was rushed, didn't have time to dig -- but I do know that this is the last chance to get them before they're scrapped. I did look at one, briefly. They appear to be the earlier series of Sabre, the ones that sat vertically in their mounting tray, as opposed to the later series that sat flat and were physically smaller. I also confirmed that they're SMD interface by direct viewing of the connectors: One 60-pin and one 26-pin Berg male header, standard .050 pitch. Initial asking price is $20.00 per unit, with definite discounts possible if you get more than one. To put it another way, the store would rather sell them than scrap them, and the manager of the place does recognize that there are those of us who do use the older hardware. Contact Maurice from 10:00 - 19:00 PDT at 206-575-8737 (press 0 during the voice announcement to bypass said announcement and start the phones ringing). They're closed on Sunday, but they'll be open tomorrow (Saturday). I hope this is of interest to at least some of you. Thanks for reading. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner and head honcho, Blue Feather Technologies http://www.bluefeathertech.com // E-mail: kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com Amateur Radio: WD6EOS since Dec. '77 "Our science can only describe an object, event, or living thing in our own human terms. It cannot, in any way, define any of them..."

26 years, 1 month

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New day = new toy! HP-86

by rigdonj＠intellistar.net

Today's haul. Found at a garage sale! A complete HP-86A computer system. Here's what I got. 5933-7832(D) Series 80 Personal Computer Retail Price List HP/5933-7804 Series 80 Personal Computer Software Catalog (6/83) 00087-13519 Word/80, HP-86/87, Hewlett Packard Series 80 case w/ Manual, pocket guide, 1 5.25 fd, ovl. 00087-13511 VisiCalc PLUS, HP-86/87, Hewlett Packard Series 80 case w/ Manual, pocket guide, 1 5.25 fd. 00087-13520 File/80, HP-86/87, Hewlett Packard Series 80 case w/ Manual, pocket guide, 6 5.25 fd. 00085-13046 Surveying Pac, HP-83/85, Hewlett Packard Series 80 case w/ Manual, 1 5.25 fd. 82950-90001 HP 82950A Modem Owner’s Manual 00087-90121 I/O ROM Owner’s Manual 00085-90003 rD HP-85 Standard Pac Manual 00086-90014 Introduction to the HP 86 00087-90017 HP-86/87 Operating and BASIC Programming Manual 82901-90001 HP 82901 M/S, HP 82902 M/S Flexible Disc Drive Operator’s Manual 82937-90017 HP-IB Interface Owner’s Manual 00087-90614 Miksam ROM Owner’s Manual, HP-86/87 00087-90612 Miksam ROM Pocket Guide, HP-86/87 00087-90141 Assembler ROM Pocket Guide, HP-87 00087-90001 HP-86/87 Pocket Guide HP 82950A Modem HP 82909A 128K Memory Module HP 82913A Video Monitor HP 82937 HP-IB interface HP-86 computer (“A” model with built-in parallel printer port and two built-in floppy drive interfaces.) 83A Okidata printer. HP ??? Parallel printer cable HP 82929A Programmable ROM Module HP 82936A ROM Drawer with: 000877-15002 Plotter ROM 00087-15003 I/O ROM 00087-60912 “Service ROM-- System” 00087-12035 System Demonstration Disc, HP-86/87 (5.2.5” disk) 00083-12056 82950A MODEM Communications, Series 80 (5.2.5” disk) 00087-15007 Assembler (5.2.5” disk) Not bad for one day! :-) Joe

26 years, 1 month

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OT: how big would it be? - PCBs at home

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Oct 23, 19:15, Tony Duell wrote: > We found that toner didn't stick that well to acetate film, and that we > often ended up with gaps in tracks, etc. Amazingly, printing onto _paper_ > and giving it a very long exposure in the UV box helped a lot. Sounds > crazy, but I've got the boards to prove it :-) I find drafting film is best - but make sure you get the type that withstands the heat of a laserprinter or photocopier :-) > Many components can be soldered on both sides (Turned-pin IC sockets help > here, but I use nothing else anyway). For those that can't I use the > proper track pins. The PTH 'repair' kits are out of this world when it > comes to prices... I don't like soldering components on both sides, because it makes modifications/repairs harder later. For special purposes, I do sometimes use pins extracted from turned-pin sockets, though, and I don't mind soldering those on both sides. > There's always the good old HP plotter with a metal-tipped pen onto film. > Takes a bit of fiddling, and it's slow, but it works. And it's a _lot_ > cheaper to find an old HP A3 (or larger) plotter than a similar laserprinter. I forgot about that one -- silly, because in a previous job, we used to do that quite a lot. > For small board (<A4), a laserprinter seems to be the way to go for the > hobbyist. Pick up an old CX or SX engined machine and rebuild it (this > _is_ classiccmp, after all) :-)... Yup. And the older engines often seem to be better for this sort of purpose than the newer ones. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

26 years, 1 month

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gauging interest in VAX 6000-530

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>With machines like this there is a saying, "If you need to ask....". >Basically it's a large machine, larger than a 19" rack (only about 4.5-5 >feet tall though). IIRC, the power requirements aren't that bad, you >should be able to run it off a dryer circuit (as long as the dryer isn't in >use), and it's single phase. Hmm - I know that lower-numbered 6000 CPU's had three-phase 208V power supplies. At what point did they go back to single phase? Not that a three-phase power requirement on a 6000 is a killer - they actually don't suck very much current, so a electronic phase converter on a dryer circuit is a *very* reasonable approach. -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927

26 years, 1 month

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Differences Between CompacTape I, II, III

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<> I also believe the DLT is helical scan versus CompacTape's linear scan <> technology. No they are all linear. Helical scan is used for some 8mm and most 4mm. What seperates DLT (and the TK50/70 forrunners) is the tape is wider and high bit packing. <It's still linear. That's what the "L" in DLT stands for. For example <ECMA Standard 286 defines DLT 6 as having 208 linear tracks. Correct. <This is alleged to allow for much better tape robustness, since it doesn't <get beaten to death with every pass. This is why Seagate, HP, and IBM <have joined forces to develop a new LTO (Linear Tape Open) standard: Having used it and am using it for backup it's reputation for reliability is real. It's the backup of choice for a lot of stuff. Allison

26 years, 1 month

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gauging interest in VAX 6000-530

by cmcmanis＠mcmanis.com

Think "refrigerator", think "family of four." Depends a bit on the peripherals as well. Check out http://www.digital.com/timeline/1988-2.htm (and check out the vax-vixen, this was clearly before DEC started selling to women :-) --Chuck At 11:30 PM 10/23/99 -0500, you wrote: >I don't know much about Vaxen, or DEC anything for that matter, but I'd >like to learn. How big is it? How old is it? How's the loading >facilities? What sort of power is required?

26 years, 1 month

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PDP-11 Freeware CD progress!

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

Hi Folks, Over a week ago here I announced the availability of the RT-11 Freeware CD, and many folks have ordered copies through Amazon.com. I'm guessing (hoping) that all US folks who had ordered early on have received their copies by now. With a little bit of luck, international airmail may have come through for the folks outside the US too. (Though Kevin tells me that his still hasn't arrived in Vancouver, and that has me a bit worried. Some folks in the Seattle area got theirs on Tuesday - and Vancouver just isn't all that much further away, at least if you ignore that border! I wonder if the Customs Canada folks are puzzling over the concept of RT-11 and that's what is slowing things down...) The RSX-11 Freeware CD's are coming along. Present plans are for there to be 4 (yes, *four*) CD's in the set. Two will contain ODS-1 filesystems, and will be directly readable on an -11 with attached CD-ROM drive, and two will contain ISO9660 filesystems, and be convenient for browsing or study on a PC or workstation. I was rather lucky with the RT-11 CD that I could squeeze both an ISO9660 volume and 7 RT-11 partitions on the same disc. There's just *way too much* RSX-11 stuff to do this for the RSX-11 collection, and besides there's no easy way to put both ISO9660 and ODS-1 filesystems on the same disc. For those anxious folks who want to see the RSX CD labels, they can point their browser at http://www.trailing-edge.com/www/freeware.html If any wants to correct the grammar on the labels, specifically the section that attempts to explain where you should use the ODS-1 CD's and where you should use the ISO9660 CD's, they're welcome to whack away! Current plans are for me to sell all 4 RSX CD's in a set for $40.00. I did once have thoughts of making one set of two for ISO9660 users and a different set of two for ODS-1 users, but I decided that I'd just confuse potential users too much about which set they really needed and as a result the CD's wouldn't get into the hands of potential users. Of course, by packaging all four at once I have to charge a bit more money for the larger set, and maybe this keeps the CD's out of the hands of some potential users too. If anyone has any feelings/thoughts on this issue, I'd be glad to hear them! -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927

26 years, 1 month

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a bit offtopic

by musicman38＠mindspring.com

>I just bought a Philips Odyssey 2001, i know it`s a bit offtopic >but does anyone know how old it is ?. The first thing I did was >to open it up to look for somekind of infomation to it`s age >but I did`t find any dates at all. I have found a bit infomation >about a Odyssey 100 & 200, but nothing about a 2001. > >Regards Jacob Dahl Pind Best I can tell this machine was manufactured in 1978, and is not very common unlike the 2000, 200 and 500 series pong games by Magnavox.. Its also closely related to the Phillips European version called the G7000.. Hope this helps.. Phil...

26 years, 1 month

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Differences Between CompacTape I, II, III

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<> Actually shouldn't the list read more like: <> <> TK50 CompacTape 95MB 350 o <> TK70 CompacTape II 270MB 350 o <> TK?? CompacTape III (DLT) 20GB/40GB 1540 o <> TK87 CompacTape IV (DLT) 35GB/70GB 1850 o < <Jerome Fine replies: < <Special thanks to Chuck McManis and Zane Healy for the <URL and the information. < <Based on the data within the above tables (and at the URL), <there seems no doubt that DEC practised their usual <antics back in the 1980s when they practised their standard <marketing policy of adding "nothing". From my experience A foolish remark. The change and added "nothing" as you called it was the TK50 media was formatted (init'ed) and verified at the higher bit density. It was also marked differently so these with TK70 and TK50s in their sites would know them apart (and DEC would in their stockrooms too). TK 50 had been around for a few years before TK70 and was not enjoying a good rep as the early tk50 drives where to say the least unreliable. They are fixed and the TK70 was really the DLT standard setter for reliability in field use. Marketing really didn't want the two confused. The TKs be came part of Quantum in the big sell off and quantum really wanted divorce them selves from the TK50 or any TKmumble plus moving the performance ahead. So there is a lot of "nothing" between the lines. Allison

26 years, 1 month

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My Biggest eBay gripe..

by Innfogra＠aol.com

In a message dated 10/18/99 12:50:56 AM Pacific Daylight Time, mikeford(a)socal.rr.com writes: > > I and many others have given the issue a LOT of thought, and basically the > idea of a "live" finish is EXTREMELY popular among both buyers and sellers. > Implementing it is not a small or simple problem, especially within the > browser environment which expects the user to ask for updates. > One of the other sites I sell on is the LabX auction. This is a 'Live Finish' auction where the time is extended in two minute increments until there are no more bids. I think it has a real time function but I have never used it. I have only sold. never bought. I really like their format for an auction. It does keep the feeling of the oral auction. LabX makes their income off of much higher listing fees than ebay. They do not charge the transaction fee. This seems to be stable software. I have been using them for a couple of years. I believe they will sell their software. I recommend LabX if you have to buy or sell lab equipment. Many pieces of lab equipment use classic computers within, to keep this on topic. http://www.labx.com I do think having a 'live finish' raises the prices paid. Paxton

26 years, 1 month

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EBaying; howling after an auction

by Innfogra＠aol.com

In a message dated 10/17/99 5:54:47 PM Pacific Daylight Time, thompson(a)mail.athenet.net writes: > hat is one aspect of Ebay that I don't understand -- that some sellers > will put multiple identical items up at the same time potentially keeping > their bid prices down by preventing a war between two anxious prospective > buyers over one item. It seems to make sense to put a large number of > different items out at once instead. >

26 years, 1 month

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OT: how big would it be? - PCBs at home

by daniel＠internet.look.ca

-----Original Message----- From: Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Saturday, October 23, 1999 4:51 PM Subject: Re: OT: how big would it be? - PCBs at home >> >Most shops cost a >> >fortune to drill and etch a 10x8 card with a quantity of 2. Wire wrap for >> >this design is out of the question. >> > >> >> >> Sounds like you folks have been quoted a lot higher than I am paying for >> prototype PCBs (if you had them done in a shop). Could be your the lack of > >Well, you seemed to be implying you got them done for $1 or something >(you claimed no set-up charges). I've never heard of pricing like that >for one-offs... Of course not.. on a small board like that... usually a $100 for 10 or so. I have never paid a set up fee. Again, most shops will. I got lucky. This shop and I have done quite a bit of business and I have helped him get some solder fountain equipment for his tests... I get an excellent rate... and it makes my prototypes boards bug free. I like that! > >> ><I've found that the typical 'cheap' hobbyist's setup (disk of FeCl(3), >> >> Ferric Chloride is awful. If I *have* to do a quick small one-off board I >> use very hot Ammonium Persulfate. > >I am reliably informed that the persulphate etchants break down if >overheated. You might want to watch this (<50C?) > > >> ><things like getting track widths right (!), which really messed up some of >> ><the striplines. We even had boards come back with the layers in the wrong >> ><order. We _very_ quickly learnt to (a) check everything and (b) do the >> ><prototype ourselves if at all possible, to ensure the basic design was >> ><sound...] >> >> >> I know, on critical strip line work I sit down with the guy and we double >> check the widths on the film. > >By which point you might as well have done the darn thing yourself... > I rarely do a board JUST for prototype/experimental reasons. Most of my boards end up in production so it's a lot easier to iron out the bugs in the prototype stage for production. I take it you do mostly one-off experimental stuff. >I learnt years ago that if you have to check everything that somebody >else (PCB house, etc) is doing at every stage, then quite simply it's a >lot faster and less hassle to do it yourself.. > >> >> That's my point exactly. I just don't have the time anymore to screw around >> with bad etches... even good etches can be bad in one small place causing > >A lot of minor faults can be patched over for prototypes... > Been there, done that. >> all kinds of grief. I've had boards that we did in house that had >> *microscopic* traces either shorting two pins or jumping two traces >> together. I had one short so fine once that I could not see it by viewing >> the board through light... I found it with a meter! > >I've had boards come back from a PCB house with a note saying that >they've checked them against my netlist. And I've _still_ had internal >shorts (which _weren't_ in the netlist). > >I got to the point of checking for real nasties (power-ground shorts, >etc) with a meter, and then populating them, checking as I go. Quite >simply, if you don't know what effect a short or open will have on your >design then you don't really understand the design in the first place. >But as ever, you check things a little at a time. > >> >> And don't even get me started on those pre-sensitized boards... I've had >> many with hair line cracks in the coating which causes LOADS of grief after >> the board is done and sometimes when the board is bent. :-( > >Hmm... Again, _for prototypes_ you should know just what effect such a >crack would have. And then you can easily fix it (the signal reflection >at a small repair like this will cause no problems at all!). > The idea of prototype to me is have the "ideal" conditions. Boards with these problems are easy to find BUT many intermittant problems can come from them. Ie: move the board and it craps out. >Almost every board I have been involved with has been an experimental >design/prototype. So cut-n-jumper mods are occasionally necessary anyway. >Fixing PCB problems (which are _NOT_ common in my experience on homebrew >boards) is no great hassle. > > Okay that's different. I design products, final stuff. I design a board, have about 10 prototypes knocked out.. sometimes some minor changes are made, then it goes to production. My own prior company (outside my current employer) did lots of this work so after a few prototypes were assembled I would send the job to Taiwan with a schedule. I try to wirewrap when possible on experimental type stuff but nothing beats quick PCBs. Again, depends on your pocket $$, application, turn around time, and if it's a hobby or serious $$. >-tony >

26 years, 1 month

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OT: how big would it be? - PCBs at home

by daniel＠internet.look.ca

-----Original Message----- From: Allison J Parent <allisonp(a)world.std.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Saturday, October 23, 1999 12:19 PM Subject: Re: OT: how big would it be? - PCBs at home ><> Making PCBs at home is a ridiculous waste of time. I have a vacuum lightb > >No it's not. Right now I'm doing a design that requires two sided and >design rules down to 10mils. Most of my designs are 10mil clearance. My PCB maker *likes* 10mil clearance. > There are three flat packs <64 pins and >and daughter cards for more. The worst part was drilling the 2000 holes >and a 3axis NC machine (home grown is not that hard). Yuck. >Most shops cost a >fortune to drill and etch a 10x8 card with a quantity of 2. Wire wrap for >this design is out of the question. > Sounds like you folks have been quoted a lot higher than I am paying for prototype PCBs (if you had them done in a shop). Could be your the lack of volume production in the past...I guess it depends what your time is worth and the type of project. I'll still knock out quick single boards for patches or small circuits. I do a lot of RF and high speed (50Mhz) design. ><I've found that the typical 'cheap' hobbyist's setup (disk of FeCl(3), Ferric Chloride is awful. If I *have* to do a quick small one-off board I use very hot Ammonium Persulfate. ><modelmaker's drill, rub-down transfers or a pen as the resist) is a total ><waste of time and energy. But the above stuff, which is easily possible ><to consider for serious home use (remember the sort of tools and test ><gear that I tend to own...) is certainly useable. > >I've done boards that way too. Even hand drawn simple RF layouts on the >board with a SHARPIE pen (solvent based marker pens) for one ups. > I haven't tried that. I use Protel for everything. ><After a bit of practice, we could easily make striplines for ECL and/or ><RF stuff, SMD boards (no problem at all with SOICs, PQFPs, PLCCs, etc), ><and of course conventional pin-through hole. The ECL stuff clocked at ><200-300 MHz as well. > >The real trick is fine line stuff. > ><[As an aside, we found some PCB companies were remarkable _bad_ about ><things like getting track widths right (!), which really messed up some of ><the striplines. We even had boards come back with the layers in the wrong ><order. We _very_ quickly learnt to (a) check everything and (b) do the ><prototype ourselves if at all possible, to ensure the basic design was ><sound...] I know, on critical strip line work I sit down with the guy and we double check the widths on the film. > >There are plenty of things that can really mess up an otherwise good design >and bad etchs are hell to trace in when bring up for the first time. > That's my point exactly. I just don't have the time anymore to screw around with bad etches... even good etches can be bad in one small place causing all kinds of grief. I've had boards that we did in house that had *microscopic* traces either shorting two pins or jumping two traces together. I had one short so fine once that I could not see it by viewing the board through light... I found it with a meter! And don't even get me started on those pre-sensitized boards... I've had many with hair line cracks in the coating which causes LOADS of grief after the board is done and sometimes when the board is bent. :-( john >Allison >

26 years, 1 month

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Calculator Comparisons

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>>If you don't mind direct drive, there are TTL BCD-to-10 decoder chips >>intended specifically for driving Nixie tubes. I just looked in my >>newer databook at the 7445 and 74145, and they don't *say* "can directly >>drive Nixies", but they do have high-voltage open-collector outputs. >These "HV" decoders have 30 and 15 volt output devices. The one for neon >lamps or Nixies was the 7441. Thanks for refreshing my memory! Unfortunately NatSemi/Fairchild no longer list the 7441 in their TTL lineup, but I'm sure a dedicated hobbyist could find the parts at Halted Specialties or similar place. Looking in the Fairchild books, the 7442 is still around as a DIP, and combined with a transistor array it'd do a fine job as a Nixie driver. The 74154, I see, is available as a SOIC for surface-mount. Hmm - now all we need is a Hexadecimal Nixie! Did such a thing ever exist? It'd be so cool to have fully formed A-F characters... though of course there would be religious wars over upper vs lower case :-). Tim.

26 years, 1 month

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Calculator Comparisons

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>Wow! Thanks for the link. I happen to have a nixie tube strip that looks >just like the one in the AL-1000. The one I have has 12 CD71 tubes (plus >the minus bulb). On the bottom, there are characters in English and Katakana. >Some of the part numbers are "IS-1", "Model 121" and "I2D-E2(B)". The >Katakana appear to be representative of digits. > >I've always wanted to do something with this (like so much of my really good >stuff, I've had it since I was a kid). I've just noticed that 12 digits >is enough to make an ISO Date compatible clock/calendar (i.e., 199910220116). >Is there a good reference around about how to drive a multiplexed neon array >going from TTL to 90VAC? Can you multiplex a Nixie display in the same way as a LED display? I've never seen it done, but that certainly doesn't mean it isn't possible. If you don't mind direct drive, there are TTL BCD-to-10 decoder chips intended specifically for driving Nixie tubes. I just looked in my newer databook at the 7445 and 74145, and they don't *say* "can directly drive Nixies", but they do have high-voltage open-collector outputs. They look more like open-collector lamp drivers than Nixie drivers to my eye this morning. I swear there were TTL chips which could directly drive (err, well, sink) Nixie displays, but they aren't specifically called out in the newer databooks. I've gotta find the box that has Don Lancasters _TTL Cookbook_, I know there's an example in there. -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927

26 years, 1 month

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Calculator Comparisons

by ethan_dicks＠yahoo.com

--- Rick Bensene <rickb(a)bensene.com> wrote: > > Casio AL1000 (discrete transistor, programmable, not scientific) > > Casio AL2000 (ICs, much the same functionality as the AL1000) > > ???? (All-in-one-chip equivalent) > > To check these out, see: > http://www.geocities.com/oldcalculators/commal-1000.html > This is a Commodore AL-1000. It's a Commodore-badged OEM version identical > to the Casio AL-1000. Wow! Thanks for the link. I happen to have a nixie tube strip that looks just like the one in the AL-1000. The one I have has 12 CD71 tubes (plus the minus bulb). On the bottom, there are characters in English and Katakana. Some of the part numbers are "IS-1", "Model 121" and "I2D-E2(B)". The Katakana appear to be representative of digits. I've always wanted to do something with this (like so much of my really good stuff, I've had it since I was a kid). I've just noticed that 12 digits is enough to make an ISO Date compatible clock/calendar (i.e., 199910220116). Is there a good reference around about how to drive a multiplexed neon array going from TTL to 90VAC? -ethan ===== Infinet has been sold. The domain is going away in February. Please send all replies to erd(a)iname.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com

26 years, 1 month

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OT: how big would it be?

by Philip.Belben＠pgen.com

> IIRC, the 8080 was about 4000 MOSFET transistors. If you implemented it > with individual FETs, and packed it densely, I think you could fit it in > a 10.5" high rack space easily, and a 5.25" high rack space with difficulty. > Of course, you'll need plenty of forced air cooling. From a serviceability > point of view, building it less densely is clearly better. True. > If you implemented it with bipolar transistors configured as saturating > logic, it would require perhaps twice as many transistors and a lot more > resistors for TTL logic, or 50% more transistors, a lot of diodes, and a > lot of resistors for DTL logic. Also true. A lot of the power estimates have been based on the assumption that we have bipolar transistors. What about discrete mosfets? We could do NMOS or even CMOS designs directly that way... I liked Hans's suggestion (which I have now deleted, alas) of a museum exhibit with three identical computers, but with processor as single chip, board of gates, and rack of trannies for comparison. It does provide a service that you couldn't get another way... ... or could you? Didn't PDP8 come in all three versions? I've often wondered if you could build a transistorised computer without pcbs at all. You know, trannies on tag board, little plugs bolted onto the ends (or on flying leads) and so on... I was assuming ECL for two reasons - if you use early transistors (Ge), ECL would probably be the only way to go at all fast; and ECL gives the advantage of easy differential line drivers and receivers for long interconnects. Philip. This E-mail message is private and confidential and should only be read by those to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, copying, reproduction, modification or publication of this communication is strictly prohibited. Please delete the message from your computer and destroy any copies. This message is not intended to be relied upon by any person without subsequent written confirmation of its contents. This company therefore disclaims all responsibility and accepts no liability of any kind which may arise from any person acting, or refraining from acting, upon the contents of the message without having had subsequent written confirmation. If you have received this communication in error, or if any problems occur in transmission please notify us immediately by telephone on +44 (0)2476 425474

26 years, 1 month

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pdp8/f

by daniel＠internet.look.ca

-----Original Message----- From: Chuck McManis <cmcmanis(a)mcmanis.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Tuesday, October 12, 1999 10:51 PM Subject: Re: pdp8/f >Having already inspected and turned down this junker be it known that the >system doesn't work. I wasn't able to isolate the problem to the front >panel or the CPU but the boards didn't work. The 8/E chassis that went for >around $400 on Ebay was a better deal. Consider Keyways for PDP-8 boards as >well. I told Easy that the 8/f wasn't worth more than two or three hundred >tops. That 8/e chasis went for $1300 this morning! > >--Chuck > >At 09:13 PM 10/12/99 -0500, you wrote: >>OK, the PDP8/f is in California. As i mentioned before they want $600 >>for it. This is what it contains: >> >> > 1 M8330 >> > 1 M8310 >> > 1 M8300 >> > 1 M837 >> > 1 M848 >> > 5 M1709 >> > 2 M8655 (NOT THE TWO LISTED BELOW) >> > 1 M849 >> > 1 M8320 >> > AND 1 DATARAM DR118 CORE MEMORY >> >>I'm still dealing with them over the PDP8 boards I want to buy, which is >>why i'm hesitant to mention the company at the moment. >> >>-Lawrence LeMay > >

26 years, 1 month

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Calculator Comparisons

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<I swear there were TTL chips which could directly drive (err, well, sink) <Nixie displays, but they aren't specifically called out in the newer Try 7441 binary to decimal nixi driver. And the V++ should be 120-130V with a diode clamp at 90V for std nixis. The lower voltage tube that work at 90-100V you can skip the clamp. I stilll keep a pot load of them, I have test gear (some 25+ years old) that use nixi tubes, such as my Yasu 355 frequency counter. Muxing nixies... can do it but the rules (voltages and rates) are horrid. First of the formed segment types don't mux well at all they are slow. The dot matrix tubes (burroughs self scan) were the most common muxed "neon glow" displays. Allison

26 years, 1 month

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OT: how big would it be? - PCBs at home

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<> Making PCBs at home is a rediculous waste of time. I have a vacuum lightb No it's not. Right now I'm doing a design that requires two sided and design rules down to 10mils. There are three flat packs <64 pins and and daughter cards for more. The worst part was drilling the 2000 holes and a 3axis NC machine (home grown is not that hard). Most shops cost a fortune to drill and etch a 10x8 card with a quantity of 2. Wire wrap for this design is out of the question. <I've found that the typical 'cheap' hobbyist's setup (disk of FeCl(3), <modelmaker's drill, rub-down transfers or a pen as the resist) is a total <waste of time and energy. But the above stuff, which is easily possible <to consider for serious home use (remember the sort of tools and test <gear that I tend to own...) is certainly useable. I've done boards that way too. Even hand drawn simple RF layouts on the board with a SHARPIE pen (solvent based marker pens) for one ups. <After a bit of practice, we could easily make striplines for ECL and/or <RF stuff, SMD boards (no problem at all with SOICs, PQFPs, PLCCs, etc), <and of course conventional pin-through hole. The ECL stuff clocked at <200-300 MHz as well. The real trick is fine line stuff. <[As an aside, we found some PCB companies were remarkable _bad_ about <things like getting track widths right (!), which really messed up some of <the striplines. We even had boards come back with the layers in the wrong <order. We _very_ quickly learnt to (a) check everything and (b) do the <prototype ourselves if at all possible, to ensure the basic design was <sound...] There are plenty of things that can really mess up an otherwise good design and bad etchs are hell to trace in when bring up for the first time. Allison

26 years, 1 month

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Heathkit Analog Computer (1956)

by foxvideo＠wincom.net

While going through some stuff I ran across a specifications folder for this kit. It has circuit diagrams for the individual units and the front panel. Also a couple of articles on how it works. If anyone needs this info I will scan it and forward it. Regards Charlie Fox Charles E. Fox Chas E. Fox Video Productions 793 Argyle Rd. Windsor N8Y 3J8 Ont. Canada email foxvideo(a)wincom.net Homepage http://www.wincom.net/foxvideo

26 years, 1 month

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opening a Rl01 drive

by lemay＠cs.umn.edu

Ok, how do you open the top of a RL01 drive? someone mentioned removing that little plate on the right side, but when I do that i dont see anything resembling an unlocking mechanism. The latch on top appears to be locked somehow, since i cant seem to move it. -Lawrence LeMay

26 years, 1 month

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opening a Rl01 drive

by daniel＠internet.look.ca

I had a bigger problem... A drive lid that always opened! One day (you know where I am going...) I OPENED the lid and tried to remove a pack while it was spinning... Not happy.. Lost that RSTS/E pack. I really like running RK05s.. john -----Original Message----- From: CLASSICCMP(a)trailing-edge.com <CLASSICCMP(a)trailing-edge.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Friday, October 22, 1999 8:37 PM Subject: Re: opening a Rl01 drive >>Thanks, now I know how it works ;) > >Yeah, well, leave it to me to overlook the actual question and make >it much harder than it really is :-). > >I have come across *several* RL01/2 drives through the years where the >latch mechanism didn't work properly because someone had tried to >pry the lid open (usually by wedging something in the crack in the >front.) This isn't kind to the little latch mechanism, and my worst-case >fear is that it's damaged beyond recognition. > >Tim. >

26 years, 1 month

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opening a Rl01 drive

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>Thanks, now I know how it works ;) Yeah, well, leave it to me to overlook the actual question and make it much harder than it really is :-). I have come across *several* RL01/2 drives through the years where the latch mechanism didn't work properly because someone had tried to pry the lid open (usually by wedging something in the crack in the front.) This isn't kind to the little latch mechanism, and my worst-case fear is that it's damaged beyond recognition. Tim.

26 years, 1 month

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opening a Rl01 drive

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>>> I choose to power it up, and I was able to open the top door. However, >>> the FAULT light stays on, i cant lock the cover down anymore, and >>> I can remove the disk pack (just lift the handle?). I'm chosing to leave >>> the RL01 powered up for a little while, in case the electronics havent >>> been powered on for a while, but I doubt that wil fix this problem. >>I meant to say i CANT remove the disk pack. >*Oh*. Double-Oh: now I realize where you're at. You see the pack, you lift the handle, but it doesn't come out. Well, this one's easy: Start with the handle in the *down* position, against the pack. You see the little semi-circular notch on the right-hand side of the middle of the handle? Put your right thumb there. It's a little slide mechanism, you push it to the left. Now, keeping the slide slid to the left, you lift the handle. It should "feel" different than before you slid the slide, and you'll hear a ker-klunk as a lever mechanism disengages the magnetic hold-down on the pack. Lift, and put the pack in its lid!. Do the same to remove the lid from a pack. Occasionally, you'll run across packs where the little slide mechanism that operates the lever action is damaged, and there you've just got to pull hard to get the pack out! -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927

26 years, 1 month

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opening a Rl01 drive

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>> I choose to power it up, and I was able to open the top door. However, >> the FAULT light stays on, i cant lock the cover down anymore, and >> I can remove the disk pack (just lift the handle?). I'm chosing to leave >> the RL01 powered up for a little while, in case the electronics havent >> been powered on for a while, but I doubt that wil fix this problem. >I meant to say i CANT remove the disk pack. *Oh*. Do you hear a "click" roughly 20 seconds after applying power to the drive? That's the lid latch solenoid. The "click" means that you can open it now. If you hear the "click" but still can't operate the open-cover latch, this is likely because the long piece of nylon line that connects the button to the latch is out of whack. (Or just plain broken!) Can you slide the button back and forth? If you feel *no* resistance, then the nylon line is probably broken. If you still can't move the sliding button at all, then the latch mechanism is screwed up. Some previous fellow may have tried too enthusiastically to move the slide when he shouldn't have, and bent or notched something out of whack. It's also possible for the latch mechanism itself, the other end of the nylon string, is broken/bent. If you don't hear the click, there may be a power supply or logic board problem. In *any* event, if you loosen the four screws holding the plastic panel on top at the rear of the drive, you can lift up the *entire* top cover quite handily and see what's going on. -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927

26 years, 1 month

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opening a Rl01 drive

by danburrows＠mindspring.com

I think you did not slide the thumb release on the handle before you lifted the handle to remove the pack. Dan -----Original Message----- From: CLASSICCMP(a)trailing-edge.com <CLASSICCMP(a)trailing-edge.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Friday, October 22, 1999 8:13 PM Subject: Re: opening a Rl01 drive >>> I choose to power it up, and I was able to open the top door. However, >>> the FAULT light stays on, i cant lock the cover down anymore, and >>> I can remove the disk pack (just lift the handle?). I'm chosing to leave >>> the RL01 powered up for a little while, in case the electronics havent >>> been powered on for a while, but I doubt that wil fix this problem. > >>I meant to say i CANT remove the disk pack. > >*Oh*. Do you hear a "click" roughly 20 seconds after applying power >to the drive? That's the lid latch solenoid. The "click" means that >you can open it now. > >If you hear the "click" but still can't operate the open-cover latch, >this is likely because the long piece of nylon line that connects the >button to the latch is out of whack. (Or just plain broken!) >Can you slide the button back and forth? If you feel *no* resistance, >then the nylon line is probably broken. If you still can't move the sliding >button at all, then the latch mechanism is screwed up. Some previous >fellow may have tried too enthusiastically to move the slide when he >shouldn't have, and bent or notched something out of whack. It's also >possible for the latch mechanism itself, the other end of the nylon string, >is broken/bent. > >If you don't hear the click, there may be a power supply or logic >board problem. > >In *any* event, if you loosen the four screws holding the plastic >panel on top at the rear of the drive, you can lift up the *entire* >top cover quite handily and see what's going on. > >-- > Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com > Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ > 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 > Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927

26 years, 1 month

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opening a Rl01 drive

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>I choose to power it up, and I was able to open the top door. However, >the FAULT light stays on, i cant lock the cover down anymore, and >I can remove the disk pack (just lift the handle?). I'm chosing to leave >the RL01 powered up for a little while, in case the electronics havent >been powered on for a while, but I doubt that wil fix this problem. > >Note, the drive isnt conected to any computer at this time, its just >powered up. Yep - if the drive isn't getting the clock signal from the bus interface module in the computer (this is used to synchronize the spin rate, among other things), it'll light up its fault light and refuse to do anything. At least you know that the "fault" light works! When one of the other bulbs goes bad, the "fault" light is usually the first one cannibalized because it's so rarely on. -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927

26 years, 1 month

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