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

by owad＠applefritter.com

>BTW, I also have a tempest Macintosh 512K, and a tempest HP inkjet >printer. I guess I now have enough stuff to create a collecting >subcategory :) What's your tempest Mac 512K like, Sam? Is it similar to the one I've got at <http://www.applefritter.com/macclones/techmatics/index.html>? Tom Owad ---------------------------Applefritter--------------------------- Apple prototypes, Apple II & early Mac clones, and the Compubrick. ------------------<http://www.applefritter.com/>------------------

27 years

2
1
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Semi-OT: routing

by jlwest＠tseinc.com

I assume your netmasks are 255.255.255.0, and you don't have a default gateway set? Could also be bad cable, hub, etc... What about other traffic of a tcp nature rather than udp - such as telnet, ftp, etc... of course making sure these services are enabled in inetd.conf (followed by a sighup to inetd)? Are you sure the ip information is really set on the sun (ie. what does ifconfig -a show, is the interface marked up, etc.?)?? Jay West -----Original Message----- From: John Foust <jfoust(a)threedee.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Tuesday, August 03, 1999 4:53 PM Subject: Re: Semi-OT: routing >At 05:27 PM 8/3/99 -0400, you wrote: >> >>I'm trying to network my SparcII to my p166 running Linux (and ultimately >>my VAXstation and Sun 3/60). No matter how hard I try or which >>configurations I use, I can't ping from my Sparc [196.168.1.2] to my p166 >>[192.168.1.1]. I dropped a Win98 box on the network and set it up as >>192.168.1.3. I could ping ...2 but not ...3. I could ping ...3 from ...2. >>But neither box is talking to ...1. > >Sounds like a bad cable or hub. Which cable type are you using? > >- John > >

27 years

2
1
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Semi-OT: routing

by a2k＠one.net

This is only semi-ot because it involves my SparcII, which I can't seem to find the date on right now, but I'm pretty sure it meets the requirement. At any rate, please contact me off-list to avoid cluttering it up. I'm trying to network my SparcII to my p166 running Linux (and ultimately my VAXstation and Sun 3/60). No matter how hard I try or which configurations I use, I can't ping from my Sparc [196.168.1.2] to my p166 [192.168.1.1]. I dropped a Win98 box on the network and set it up as 192.168.1.3. I could ping ...2 but not ...3. I could ping ...3 from ...2. But neither box is talking to ...1. I know it works because the ethernet card is configured in the kernel, I see it get recognized at boot up, I can set the IP with ifconfig. I've read all my books about it, the man pages, the NETWORKING-HOWTO and the Ethernet-HOWTO as well as asking in #linux on effnet. This is a last resort. Thanks, Kevin ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It's you isn't it? THE BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL!" "In the flesh, on the phone and in your account..." -- BOFH #3

27 years

2
2
0 0

(no subject)

by edick＠idcomm.com

My apologies, folks . . . this one's clearly misrouted. Dick -----Original Message----- From: Richard Erlacher <edick(a)idcomm.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Tuesday, August 03, 1999 2:14 PM Subject: Re: (no subject) >Since I have their latest CD, I have all the data sheets. What I'm after is >the information about the logic cell resources, clock drivers, routing >resources, etc, generic to each family and not specific to a given device. >The individual sheets seldom have that data. > >regards, > >Dick > >-----Original Message----- >From: Hans Franke <Hans.Franke(a)mch20.sbs.de> >To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers ><classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> >Date: Tuesday, August 03, 1999 11:11 AM >Subject: Re: (no subject) > > >>> > A 99/4A can range from USD 2,- (just the unit in used condition) >>> > up to USD 30-70 (New, unused, original packed, never opened with >>> > no damages on the box). PS: The white units may score way higher >> >>> Hans, I don't know about you wacky Germans, but any American paying >>> USD$30-70 for a TI-99/4a in ANY condition would be a fool and a half. >>> Maybe if it was gold plated, or the President used it to fondle an >intern, >>> then maybe. But I just passed up on two TI-99/4a's in the box without >>> even a second thought. >> >>> New, unused, original packaging and never opened with no damage to the >box >>> is not hard to find (ok, except for "never opened", but still). Maybe >>> USD$10-$25. >> >>Just catch the next for me (never opened!) >> >>TI wasn't the real big thing over here. >> >>> > in Europe, since they never where sold in masses over here. PPS: >>> > a Ti 99/4 (no A) will also range higher, especialy when in mint/ >>> > unused condition. >> >>> I just paid $90 for future reference. A bit more than I wanted to pay >but >>> then how many 99/4's does one come across? In my experience of >collecting >>> for many years, the answer is not many at all. >> >>USD 90,- is quite high - it may need a second thought. >> >>> > A Timex/Sinclair may earn you USD 2-5 (used, with PS) or score >>> > a whooping USD 50,- as a new never opened box. >> >>> Repeat same discussion as above. You can buy new ZX-81's from that zebra >>> website for US$29 or whatever it is. >> >>Well, you might notice, in both cases that the high prices >>are ment for top notch stuff, and, as my mother said: >>Every day a dumb one lifts his head - you just have to catch him... >>(As I have seen the original question was about for what he might >>sell his stuff (jep, of course, take an auction (rarerarerare:))) >> >>Gruss >>H. >> >>-- >>Stimm gegen SPAM: http://www.politik-digital.de/spam/de/ >>Vote against SPAM: http://www.politik-digital.de/spam/en/ >>Votez contre le SPAM: http://www.politik-digital.de/spam/fr/ >>Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut >>HRK >

27 years

1
0
0 0

DUMB VMS!

by jritorto＠nut.net

I do not like this VMS. I like RSX and RT, but not VMS. First of all, it's running on a 32-bit machine and it isn't UNIX. That's just offensive. Then, second, it won't let me log in because I don't remember any of the passwords. I even tried the boot/r5:1 and uafalternate thing, but it still won't let me type in bogus login info. What a pain. If anyone knows how to get around this, please mail me back. I have a really important file on this silly vax and need to save it on a machine that I do backups on regularly. Then I'll be free to run NetBSD. Instead of that dumb VMS. ;^) jake

27 years

4
6
0 0

(no subject)

by edick＠idcomm.com

Since I have their latest CD, I have all the data sheets. What I'm after is the information about the logic cell resources, clock drivers, routing resources, etc, generic to each family and not specific to a given device. The individual sheets seldom have that data. regards, Dick -----Original Message----- From: Hans Franke <Hans.Franke(a)mch20.sbs.de> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Tuesday, August 03, 1999 11:11 AM Subject: Re: (no subject) >> > A 99/4A can range from USD 2,- (just the unit in used condition) >> > up to USD 30-70 (New, unused, original packed, never opened with >> > no damages on the box). PS: The white units may score way higher > >> Hans, I don't know about you wacky Germans, but any American paying >> USD$30-70 for a TI-99/4a in ANY condition would be a fool and a half. >> Maybe if it was gold plated, or the President used it to fondle an intern, >> then maybe. But I just passed up on two TI-99/4a's in the box without >> even a second thought. > >> New, unused, original packaging and never opened with no damage to the box >> is not hard to find (ok, except for "never opened", but still). Maybe >> USD$10-$25. > >Just catch the next for me (never opened!) > >TI wasn't the real big thing over here. > >> > in Europe, since they never where sold in masses over here. PPS: >> > a Ti 99/4 (no A) will also range higher, especialy when in mint/ >> > unused condition. > >> I just paid $90 for future reference. A bit more than I wanted to pay but >> then how many 99/4's does one come across? In my experience of collecting >> for many years, the answer is not many at all. > >USD 90,- is quite high - it may need a second thought. > >> > A Timex/Sinclair may earn you USD 2-5 (used, with PS) or score >> > a whooping USD 50,- as a new never opened box. > >> Repeat same discussion as above. You can buy new ZX-81's from that zebra >> website for US$29 or whatever it is. > >Well, you might notice, in both cases that the high prices >are ment for top notch stuff, and, as my mother said: >Every day a dumb one lifts his head - you just have to catch him... >(As I have seen the original question was about for what he might >sell his stuff (jep, of course, take an auction (rarerarerare:))) > >Gruss >H. > >-- >Stimm gegen SPAM: http://www.politik-digital.de/spam/de/ >Vote against SPAM: http://www.politik-digital.de/spam/en/ >Votez contre le SPAM: http://www.politik-digital.de/spam/fr/ >Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut >HRK

27 years

2
1
0 0

DUMB VMS!

by edick＠idcomm.com

Yes. That's the reason it was so popular with certain government agencies when I worked in the Military/Industrial complex. VMS was multi-level secure while UNIX, at least then, was full of holes. Dick -----Original Message----- From: Jim Strickland <jim(a)calico.litterbox.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Tuesday, August 03, 1999 1:33 PM Subject: Re: DUMB VMS! >Um, while I fail to understand why VMS is dumb for not letting you in without >the right passwords, I realise that's not very helpful to you. :) Hit the >web page at http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/2956/data.htm >and search for the word "password". It lists the procedure. > >And at the risk of starting a religious war between the VMS folk and the >unix folk, let me say just that VMS and Unix are good at different things. >VMS is much much more secure than unix, and has far greater ability to give >users *some* privilages without giving them *everything*. This is valuable >in some circumstances. Unix probably does get better overall performance >for the same hardware because it doesn't have this security overhead, among >other things. > > >Hope this helps. >-jim > >> >> I do not like this VMS. I like RSX and RT, but not VMS. First of all, >> it's running on a 32-bit machine and it isn't UNIX. That's just >> offensive. Then, second, it won't let me log in because I don't remember >> any of the passwords. I even tried the boot/r5:1 and uafalternate thing, >> but it still won't let me type in bogus login info. What a pain. >> >> If anyone knows how to get around this, please mail me back. I have a >> really important file on this silly vax and need to save it on a machine >> that I do backups on regularly. Then I'll be free to run NetBSD. Instead >> of that dumb VMS. >> >> ;^) >> >> jake >> > > >-- >Jim Strickland >jim(a)DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com >----------------------------------------------------------------------- > BeOS Powered! >-----------------------------------------------------------------------

27 years

1
0
0 0

DUMB VMS!

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>offensive. Then, second, it won't let me log in because I don't remember >any of the passwords. I even tried the boot/r5:1 and uafalternate thing, >but it still won't let me type in bogus login info. What a pain. >If anyone knows how to get around this, please mail me back. You want to read the OpenVMS FAQ (see http://www.openvms.digital.com/wizard/openvms_faq.html ), specifically "MGMT5. I've forgotten the SYSTEM password - what can I do?". It walks you through step-by-step, and best of all tells you how to do it without UAFALTERNATE set to 1. -- 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

27 years

1
0
0 0

More TI web sites

by dastar＠ncal.verio.com

Wow, this is right from TI's web site: http://www.ti.com/calc/docs/994a.htm They even refer you to a fan website. Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Don't rub the lamp if you don't want the genie to come out. Coming this October 2-3: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0! See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details! [Last web site update: 05/25/99]

27 years

1
0
0 0

Interesting TI 99/4a products

by dastar＠ncal.verio.com

Ok, I don't know if anyone else has ever seen this, but check out this web site: http://www.whtech.com/ti/ These guys are selling new TI 99/4a products. Ever heard of a SCSI adaptor for the 99/4a? This site has one! They used to have a product to hook an AT keyboard up to the TI. Pretty interesting. Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Don't rub the lamp if you don't want the genie to come out. Coming this October 2-3: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0! See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details! [Last web site update: 05/25/99]

27 years

1
0
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Cool IBM PC find

by Philip.Belben＠pgen.com

> Ok, here's something very cool as far as IBM PC artifacts go. Its an "IBM > TPC 4 System Unit" (the model is 4459). Its a tempested PC! Its I don't remember the 4459 but I do remember seeing an IBM Tempest PC when I was working at IBM as a pre-university student. Very solid panels that all screwed into place, rather than the pressed sheet metal around three sides. I also recall filter components between connnectors on the back panel and the cards / motherboard ports to which they belonged. These all went in a cavity about 1.5 inches deep between the rear of the PC chassis and the actual back panel. Philip.

27 years

2
1
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chinese and russian computer history

by Philip.Belben＠powertech.co.uk

Can anyone help this guy out? As usual, respond to him, not me (nor the list), please. Phikip. ---------------------- Forwarded by Philip Belben/PTech/PowerGen on 03/08/99 16:33 --------------------------- roinfo(a)knoware.nl on 28/07/99 22:04:04 Please respond to roinfo(a)knoware.nl To: history-of-computing-uk(a)mailbase.ac.uk cc: Subject: chinese and russian computer history Where do i find info on russian pre perestroika landmark computers and also info on chinese landmark computers Cornelis Robat ********************************************************************** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept for the presence of computer viruses. Power Technology Centre, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, Nottingham, NG11 0EE, UK Tel: +44 (0)115 936 2000 http://www.powertech.co.uk **********************************************************************

27 years

1
0
0 0

GridPad 1910 sales?

by sinasohn＠ricochet.net

At 11:47 PM 6/21/99 -0700, you wrote: >> ::Hi. A while back I was talking with Rodger on the list about the >> ::(appearant) abundance of GridPad 1910's that he was selling.... did th >He's around. Probably just extraordinarily busy as usual. Give him a >day or two to respond to your e-mails. I'm behind. Can you tell? 8^) Since I started that project, a few things happened -- I got married, trashed a couple of hard drives, and my dad had another stroke. At this point, the GRiDPads are kinda sitting there, waiting to be retested, boxed, and shipped, but I'm spending all my time at the hospital (when not working) so it won't be anytime soon. When he comes home, I'll likely be spending a lot of time caring for him, so I can't say when I'll really be able to get to it. So, if you have another chance to get a cheap GRiDPad, go for it. If you're desparate to get one asap, let me konw and I'll see what I can do. Otherwise, feel free to tell me to bugger off, or invest the money elsewhere for the time being. I'm really sorry about the delay and confusion. --------------------------------------------------------------------- O- Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know." Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates San Francisco, California http://www.sinasohn.com/

27 years

2
1
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Cool IBM PC find

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

IIRC, IBM made several tempest models like the PC, XT and AT. very heavy duty, but never saw one in real life. I picked up a neat IBM part. It's a prototype AT adaptor never used and still in its worn out box. it's basically just a full length AT card with holes for soldering in chips and components. Will go good with my never used PC keyboard and 5150 still in their boxes... In a message dated 8/2/99 9:02:56 PM Eastern Daylight Time, dastar(a)ncal.verio.com writes: > Ok, here's something very cool as far as IBM PC artifacts go. Its an "IBM > TPC 4 System Unit" (the model is 4459). Its a tempested PC!

27 years

1
0
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Epson HX20 question

by jpl15＠netcom.com

At the SoCal TRW swapmeet yesterday, I couldn't resist buying an Espson HX20, in it's brown plastic Epson carrying case, which included a couple of microcassettes. It powers on ok and basically seems to work, giving: CRTL/@ Initialize 1 MONITOR 2 BASIC 3 SkiWriter (TM) on the display; pressing 'MENU' or 'BREAK' restores the display, however choosing Basic or SkiWriter from the menu traps to: _ _ Trap! A=00 B=02 X=00FF C=D0 S=04AA P=00FF [Actually B=02 for Basic and 03 for SkiWriter.] Five ROMS are mounted, four for Basic and one for Ski. The dipswitch SW6 is 1,2,3=ON 4=OFF. That's all I know about it so far. I picked this up because it's a 'nostalgia' machine for me... I first saw one in the wretched computer store I worked at in the early 80's and couldn't afford it then. Later I did buy and use an older Epson Equity II (which I still have BTW). Any suggestions on how to make this little rig smarter? Cheers John. PS: The TRW Swap was great fun... Marvin, his friend Gyuari (from Hungary), Aaron Finney, and Dave Dameron stopped by... Paul Passmore showed up and we all looked for Mike Ford but he was in 'stealth' mode and eluded us. Marvin scored some cool vintage 8-bitters and I got some Real Old software and Games from a cow-orker that I need to sort out and offer to The List. Oh yeah... I bought a forlorn AT&T 3B2 700 in unknown shape, although the guy said it came out of service working fine.. When I get a Round Tuit, I'll probably have questions about the pinouts of the USOC jacks.. but for now on the shelf it goes... and it's *heavy*.

27 years

4
8
0 0

floppy disk drive manuals

by edick＠idcomm.com

Thanks for the information. Don Maslin sent some information which it turns out doesn't apply exactly to my particular drives, as some of the jumpers on his list dont exist, while others, on the drive, don't appear on the list. I'm not sure what that means, though. The drives had paper tags printed with dot-matrix which are mostly missing, and I'm quite certain the printed-on-foil labels are not specific enough to account for the different. Having re-jumpered the drives, they are able to read one another's writing, though I'm uncomfortable with some of the behaviors certain jumpers produce, particularly one, which seems to effect the drives differently. I've had these drives since they were a new product, but haven't looked at them since a couple of moves before I landed here ten years ago. I'm not in a hurry now that these drives are available for me to use to troubleshoot other drives, but when your scanner's back on line, I'd really appreciate a copy of the bitmaps. thanx, Dick -----Original Message----- From: Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) <cisin(a)xenosoft.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Monday, August 02, 1999 2:03 PM Subject: Re: floppy disk drive manuals >I have the "Operating and Service Manual" for the Tandon TM848-1 and 848-2 >8" drives. Since I still use some of those drives, I'm not willing to >part with them, but I could get copies made. Unfortunately it looks like >I won't have a working scanner at all this week. If you can help me >through what to look up, and teach me what to look for, I'd be glad to >check things for you. Let me know which sub-model you have. > >For example: >for motor speed, on the 848-1, trigger off of R33; for the 848-2, trigger >off of test point 12. > >For cat's eye alignment: >Channel A: Test point 2 >Channel B: Test point 3 >Ground: Test point 1 >External trigger: Test point 11, negative trigger, for single sided >drives, R33 is alternatre test point, negative trigger. Test point 12, >negative trigger for double sided drives. > > >Tony: >I also have manuals for the Sony D31V and D32V drives! > >-- >Fred Cisin cisin(a)xenosoft.com >XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com >2210 Sixth St. (510) 644-9366 >Berkeley, CA 94710-2219 > >On Fri, 30 Jul 1999, Richard Erlacher wrote: >> I have a couple of Tandon 8" slimline drives (They're in the basement and >> I'm not so no model number.) They clearly can't read one another's writing >> consistently, so I'm interested in alignment data as well as the jumper >> definitions. Would you have a manual which contains that information? I >> need to know what the jumpers are and do, and what the factory default >> settings are. I also need to know where the dif-amp outputs to be used for >> alignment are located, (pin numbers) as well as the index sensor pin and >> other signals used in adjusting these drives for radial head alignment, >> index alignment, track zero calibration, etc. If you have it and could >> email me that data, it would help greatly. >> >> regards, >> >> Dick >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk> >> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers >> <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> >> Date: Friday, July 30, 1999 7:23 PM >> Subject: Re: Cromemco 4FDC, How do you format a disk? >> >> >> >> true and for the data I gave the 125kbits/sec rate is too low. As it's >> >> minima was 250kbits/s is twice that! Part of the recording scheme is >> that >> >> there are rules for continous strings of 1s and 0s, they arent permitted >> >> to exist for clocking and bandwidth reasons. >> > >> >I've seen plenty of controllers and data separators that put limits on the >> >maximum number of consecutive pulses and gaps. That's why you need clock >> >pulses in MFM recording, and why Apple had the 5-3 and 6-2 encoder tables. >> >I have _never_ seen a drive (and I've read OEM and service manuals for all >> >sorts of drives) that specify any restrictions on the user data using the >> >standard encoding schemes >> > >> >At normal 5.25" data rates (125kbps (user bits) FM, 250kbps MFM) : >> > >> >Repeated MFM 0's looks like repeated MFM 1's looks like repeated FM 1's, >> >and consists of pulses every 4 us. >> > >> >Repeated MFM 1010... looks like repeated FM 0's, and consists of pulses >> >every 8us. >> > >> >Now, all drives support user sectors of 1024 bytes (8192 bits), MFM at >> >least (and I don't think this is a real limit of the _drive_ either). >> >That means you could have either of the above patterns for 8192 bits -- >> >the user bytes 'touch' each other with nothing between, and there's >> >nothing to stop you having a sector of 0's, a sector of FF's or a sector >> >of 55s if you want it. A disk drive that couldn't store said data would >> >not be useful. >> > >> >I've got a Sony 3.5" drive on the bench at the moment. Now this drive >> >rotates at 600rpm, so you would double the above data rates. Some of the >> >tests involve recording pulses every 2us (corresponding to the first case >> >above) and 4us (corresponding to the second case above) continuously for >> >one revolution and then playing them back. The service manual for the Teac >> >FD235 gives tests involving the recording and reproduction of 250kHz >> >(pulse every 4us) and 125kHz (pulse every 8us) waveforms. >> > >> >So it would certainly appear that these 2 drives could correctly handle >> >FM recording at half the user data rate of the standard MFM encoding. In >> >other words that Teac (720K) drive would handle FM encoding at 125kbps. >> > >> >-tony >> > >> >> > >-- >Fred Cisin cisin(a)xenosoft.com >XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com >2210 Sixth St. (510) 644-9366 >Berkeley, CA 94710-2219 >

27 years

1
0
0 0

floppy disk drive manuals

by edick＠idcomm.com

Greetings! I have a couple of Tandon 8" slimline drives (They're in the basement and I'm not so no model number.) They clearly can't read one another's writing consistently, so I'm interested in alignment data as well as the jumper definitions. Would you have a manual which contains that information? I need to know what the jumpers are and do, and what the factory default settings are. I also need to know where the dif-amp outputs to be used for alignment are located, (pin numbers) as well as the index sensor pin and other signals used in adjusting these drives for radial head alignment, index alignment, track zero calibration, etc. If you have it and could email me that data, it would help greatly. regards, Dick -----Original Message----- From: Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Friday, July 30, 1999 7:23 PM Subject: Re: Cromemco 4FDC, How do you format a disk? >> true and for the data I gave the 125kbits/sec rate is too low. As it's >> minima was 250kbits/s is twice that! Part of the recording scheme is that >> there are rules for continous strings of 1s and 0s, they arent permitted >> to exist for clocking and bandwidth reasons. > >I've seen plenty of controllers and data separators that put limits on the >maximum number of consecutive pulses and gaps. That's why you need clock >pulses in MFM recording, and why Apple had the 5-3 and 6-2 encoder tables. >I have _never_ seen a drive (and I've read OEM and service manuals for all >sorts of drives) that specify any restrictions on the user data using the >standard encoding schemes > >At normal 5.25" data rates (125kbps (user bits) FM, 250kbps MFM) : > >Repeated MFM 0's looks like repeated MFM 1's looks like repeated FM 1's, >and consists of pulses every 4 us. > >Repeated MFM 1010... looks like repeated FM 0's, and consists of pulses >every 8us. > >Now, all drives support user sectors of 1024 bytes (8192 bits), MFM at >least (and I don't think this is a real limit of the _drive_ either). >That means you could have either of the above patterns for 8192 bits -- >the user bytes 'touch' each other with nothing between, and there's >nothing to stop you having a sector of 0's, a sector of FF's or a sector >of 55s if you want it. A disk drive that couldn't store said data would >not be useful. > >I've got a Sony 3.5" drive on the bench at the moment. Now this drive >rotates at 600rpm, so you would double the above data rates. Some of the >tests involve recording pulses every 2us (corresponding to the first case >above) and 4us (corresponding to the second case above) continuously for >one revolution and then playing them back. The service manual for the Teac >FD235 gives tests involving the recording and reproduction of 250kHz >(pulse every 4us) and 125kHz (pulse every 8us) waveforms. > >So it would certainly appear that these 2 drives could correctly handle >FM recording at half the user data rate of the standard MFM encoding. In >other words that Teac (720K) drive would handle FM encoding at 125kbps. > >-tony >

27 years

3
3
0 0

Micro-stories for 2nd ed of A Guide to Collecting.

by kstumpf＠unusual.on.ca

The book, A Guide to Collecting... has been both mis-represented and criticized as being for mainframe collectors. That confuses me so I solicit your help in making the 2nd edition for everyone in the hobby. Please send your ideas, especially your acquisition and restoration stories involving microcomputers (PC, etc. = microcomputer). You know, the type of story where you discovered the exact rev. of a certain I/O board while browsing through a china cupboard in an antique shop while you waited for your car to be repaired. That kind of story. Please send them to me directly. Thank you very much. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------- Kevin Stumpf * Unusual systems * www.unusual.on.ca +1.519.744.2900 * EST/EDT GMT - 5 Collector - Commercial Mainframes & Minicomputers from the 50s, 60s, & 70s and control panels and consoles. Author & Publisher - A Guide to Collecting Computers & Computer Collectibles * ISBN 0-9684244-0-6 .

27 years

2
1
0 0

Carts/connector cleaning

by a2k＠one.net

Hello, time for the yearly nostalgia. I have quite a collection of NES stuff (carts and consoles) that I've rescued from trash, garage sales, etc. that has been sitting in my basement for a few years. Trying to run one of the games produces odd output (i.e. lines down it display, not booting entirely) which I know is due to dirty contacts. What's the best way to clean these? Alchohol on a swab? Freon? (I have a friend that bought out a very large supply of it just before it became illegal to sell (i.e.: 100+ bottles for his reel-to-reel tape recorders) Kevin ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It's you isn't it? THE BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL!" "In the flesh, on the phone and in your account..." -- BOFH #3

27 years

10
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GPIB,'C' and the HP-150 (was:Re: Tek 4041)

by jeff.kaneko＠juno.com

On Thu, 29 Jul 1999 22:58:15 -0500 "Roger Goswick" <ccfsm(a)ipa.net> writes: >Say, while I'm wasting everyone's time, where might I obtain a boot >disk for my HP 150? Would any version of Dos 2.1 work or do I need >an HP version. And many thanks all. This really is a swell bunch of >people you have here!! It's special. The IBMBIO.COM has all of the hardware specific drivers for the thing, and it's specially written for the 150's IO system, namely HPIB. Somebody's *bound* to have a copy somewhere . . . My local surplus dealer had Touchscreen II's. I imagine I can get one pretty cheaply . . . Jeff ___________________________________________________________________ Get the Internet just the way you want it. Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj.

27 years

3
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GPIB,'C' and the HP-150 (was:Re: Tek 4041)

by jeff.kaneko＠juno.com

On Thu, 29 Jul 1999 21:51:04 Joe <rigdonj(a)intellistar.net> writes: >Tony, > >At 11:16 PM 7/29/99 +0100, you wrote: >>> , but >>> >doesn't the HP150 have an IEEE-488 port (aka GPIB, HPIB) as >>> >standard. >>> >>> Yes, it does but the 150 uses the port to connect to peripherals >>> operating under MS-DOS. It has no commands that will let you send or >>> recieve specific strings over the HP-IB. >> >>That's news to me (and I guess to HP). The HP150 Technical Reference >>Manual has a section entitled 'HPIB Interfacing' which describes how to >>use the HPIB port for non-disk devices. >> > > THAT's news to me! I've never heard of using a 150 as a HP-IB >controller and I have a large STACK of 150 documentation and none of >it even hints that you can what you're talking about. Can you make a >copy of that for me? S@#* and I've got a pile of 150s setting out in the >rain cause I had no use for them! Now see, I figured that you knew this, Joe. I remember when I was working for motorola, they tried to market an automated radio test system that used an HP-150 as an instrument controller, attached (via GPIB) to a service monitor, and a *BIG* interface box called a 'barn' that routed the audio, PTT, etc. It didn't sell. The application software sucked. <SNIP> > In C? Is there a C that will run on the 150? Most of the software >has to be tailored specificly for the 150 or else be VERY MS-DOS >compatible with no short cuts. I've heard of BASIC, Assembler and Pascal that >will run on the 150 but I haven't heard of a C compiler that would. I suspect any version of 'C' that is a straight command-line c-compiler *ought* to work (using dos calls only, of course). Hmmm. Turbo C 1.0 comes to mind. The hard part will be getting the HP-150 implementation of dos 2.x (or better, 3.x). Dang it Joe, see what you've done? Now I have to buy an HP-150 to try this out. S@#*. :^) Jeff ___________________________________________________________________ Get the Internet just the way you want it. Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj.

27 years

4
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What is a RL02K-DC?

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

> All of my "Digital" badged RL02 packs bear this nomenclature. > > The other companies' packs (BASF, Memorex, etc) do not. > > I have about 25-35 diskpacks actually made by (or sourced by) >Digital, and they all are RL02K-DC. "DC" stands for "Data Cartridge". There are also "RL02K-EF"'s, which are guaranteed error-free. (And RK05-EF's, and RM03-EF's, etc.) You frequently find the "-EF"'s coming from sites that ran Unix, as Unix doesn't deal very well with errors at all... Tim.

27 years

1
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RT-11/RSX-11/RSTS freeware CD-ROM

by GOOI＠oce.nl

[snip -- deteled the original message to save bandwidth] Hello Tim. Count me in for the RT11 and the RSX CD-ROM. For RSX, I think as you stated, flavor 2C is the best option as I do not have a modern RSX version running on my 11/35. When the number of CD's to be burnt is clear I guess we all on the List will hear how to reward your effort ($$$). Happy PDP-ing, Henk Gooijen Nederweert-Eind Netherlands gooi(a)oce.nl

27 years

1
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d'oh! that's Berkeley, of course...

by dogas＠leading.net

- Mike: dogas(a)leading.net

27 years

1
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possibly need a systems pickup in Berkly, CA

by dogas＠leading.net

Anyone near there and willing to pick up a few systems (three Heathkit H-89's ) and pack and ship??? Thanks - Mike: dogas(a)leading.net

27 years

1
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OT: Power Supply voltage for Dayna Etherprint-T plus?

by mtapley＠swri.edu

All, My apologies. Dayna's web site says "Farewell", and the intel site to which it points gave it a good try but didn't answer the question. I recently got a Dayna Etherprint-T Plus but not the power supply for it and i have no idea what voltage or current it needs. I'm pretty sure the unit is later than 1989 but if anybody has one and could check out the power supply to see what it says and email me off-list, I'd appreciate it very much. Thanks! - Mark

27 years

2
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Also Available: RL02 Packs

by ethan_dicks＠yahoo.com

--- Kevin McQuiggin <mcquiggi(a)sfu.ca> wrote: > Hi Gang: > > I also have about ten extra RL02 packs, if anyone needs any. They even have > possibly useful stuff on them, e.g. VMS 5.2, VAX diagnostics, RT-11. Do you have any way of archiving the data off to 10Mb physical backup files? -ethan === Infinet has been sold. The domain is going away. Please send all replies to erd(a)iname.com _____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Free instant messaging and more at http://messenger.yahoo.com

27 years

1
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Your note

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<Allison, received your note and check yesterday. Thank you. That is what <cracks are for, isn't it? :) Glad the board works well. Yes, but, I only play a blonde on TV. ;) It's interesting to see the board with out all the hacks I'd gotten with the first one back in 77! It was quite a mess but, cheap as a result. It was an interesting board. Allison

27 years

1
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Also Available: RL02 Packs

by mcquiggi＠sfu.ca

Hi Gang: I also have about ten extra RL02 packs, if anyone needs any. They even have possibly useful stuff on them, e.g. VMS 5.2, VAX diagnostics, RT-11. Kevin --- Kevin McQuiggin VE7ZD mcquiggi(a)sfu.ca

27 years

1
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Surplus Stuff Available

by mcquiggi＠sfu.ca

Here's a repost of some of my stuff that is still available. Please help me reclaim some space in the basement! > Hi Group: > > Time for mid-summer cleaning. My logjam is getting far too big, and I need > to get rid of a bunch of stuff. > > I am located in Vancouver, BC. Most of this stuff is large and/or heavy, > and therefore I will insist on pickup, or at least reasonable delivery > distance, say, within a couple of hundred miles. > > Some items/systems, such as the pdp-11/60, are at a friend's house, and your > only option in this case, is to pick up. I will not ship 600+ lbs of gear > anywhere! > > Please contact me via email (mcquiggi(a)remove-spamblock.sfu.ca) if you're > interested. I need to clear some space in the basement! > > Here's the list: > > 1. Motorola 6800 development system. EXORcisor system unit, EXORdisk, > non-working SOROC dumb terminal. All manuals, some development boards, > some wirewrap boards. Circa 1975, a neat machine for those into early-PC. > > 2. Terminal, Tektronix 4017A, 16 colors, keyboard with pre-mouse rocker > pointer. All docs, working. Late 1970s, early 80s vintage. > > 3. Sun 3/60 system unit, ~150 MB HD and tape. Mono Sony monitor, keyboard, > no mouse. > > 4. Two Gandalf LDS140 low speed point-to-point modems. > > 5. MicroVAX 3100 model 10, 100 MB HD. > > 6. Boxes and boxes of 5.25" DSDD floppies. > > 7. TK50 tape drives, several, working condition. > > 8. Two BA23 MicroVAX/LSI-11 cases, no machine, just the plastic shell that > the machine fits into. > > 9. pdp-11/60 computer system, several terminals, printers, disk drives, many > disk packs, tape drive (9 track 6250 bpi), software, documentation. Was > working before being put into dry storage a couple of years ago. This is a > _large_ system, main cabinet about the size of 2 full-size refrigerators, > total lot probably 1000 lbs. You'll need a truck! Kevin --- Kevin McQuiggin VE7ZD mcquiggi(a)sfu.ca

27 years

1
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Check out my eBay auctions. Please?

by tcotrel＠pacbell.net

I have just listed the following three vintage computers (classic IBM XT, Osborn Executive and Zenith Data Systems Supersport laptop) for sale on eBay:: http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140038500 http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140034810 http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140032003 Thank you for your consideration Tom Cotrel

27 years

1
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PDP C compiler source code posted...old news?

by af-list＠lafleur.wfi-inc.com

Hi all, Apologies if this is old news to everyone, but the source code for the original PDP C compiler has been posted by Dennis Ritchie, along with a little history. http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/~dmr/primevalC.html Aaron

27 years

1
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PDP CDROMS

by jpl15＠netcom.com

Count me in as a confirmed purchaser of the SigTape CDRs.. Very nice Idea. Cheers John

27 years

8
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floppy disk drive manuals

by edick＠idcomm.com

Figuring out the test points won't be a problem since they use a '3470, which is also used in the Siemens drives. I doubt there's much difference in the circuitry. Oddly enough, I have two of the Tandon drives and no manuals, and none of the Shugart "half-height" drives and both of their manuals. What really troubles me is that after rejumpering the drives to match the data kindly provided by Don Maslin, the two drives behave somewhat differently, though they do now read one another's writing. What's more, the jumpers on the drives, though the drives are the same, don't match Don's data completely. There are jumpers not on the drives which are on the list, and jumpers not on the list which are on the drives. Examined in detail, the drives appear the same, though the boards are of different revision. Perhaps the code in the on-board processor is different. Dick -----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, July 31, 1999 12:38 PM Subject: Re: floppy disk drive manuals >> >> Greetings! >> >> I have a couple of Tandon 8" slimline drives (They're in the basement and >> I'm not so no model number.) They clearly can't read one another's writing >> consistently, so I'm interested in alignment data as well as the jumper >> definitions. Would you have a manual which contains that information? I >> need to know what the jumpers are and do, and what the factory default >> settings are. I also need to know where the dif-amp outputs to be used for >> alignment are located, (pin numbers) as well as the index sensor pin and >> other signals used in adjusting these drives for radial head alignment, >> index alignment, track zero calibration, etc. If you have it and could >> email me that data, it would help greatly. > >I know _I_ don't have that info, but that doesn't mean we can't make some >sensible attempts to align them. I have the SA800 and SA850 manuals to >hand, and I may have a couple of obscure 8" drive manuals somewhere. >Nothing Tandon, though. > >You can always use the interface connector as a source of the Index >signal. And of course to move the head around. > >So the only thing you're missing is the output of the read amplifier. If >the read circuitry is in a custom chip you might be out of luck. But a >lot of drives use 592 or 733 amplifier chips at the start of the read >chain, whereupon you look at the outpus (7 and 8) of that chip with a >'scope. If there's an MC3470 as the only chip in the read chain, look for >testpoints in the filter network connected to pins 14,15,16,17. > >If it's a custom chip, look for 2 testpoints and ground (often, but not >always TP1-TP3 in some order) connected to a symmetrical filter network >hung off the chip, Look for read-type waveforms when reading a disk that >was written in that drive. > >-tony

27 years

2
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32 sector 8" floppies

by edick＠idcomm.com

I had the impression that some of the Tektronix systems some of the guys have on hand use 32-sector hard-secdtored diskettes and TEKDOS, hence, the assumption (mine and apparently a weak one) that someone would have a system which could read these. Under no circumstances would I recommend trying to put together a controller, as you've clearly stated the case against hard sectored formats. It's too bad that people who might otherwise have maintained these things have ditched them just because of the odd media, though. Because this is a complete dead-end without some form of conversion, there'll be more of these systems going to the landfill. Dick -----Original Message----- From: Don Maslin <donm(a)cts.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Saturday, July 31, 1999 12:48 PM Subject: Re: 32 sector 8" floppies >On Sat, 31 Jul 1999, Richard Erlacher wrote: Actually, I didn't. This appears to be some of Don M's prose. > >It is a tough one, Dick. In dialogue with Chuck Guzis of Sydex some time >back he observed that there have been so many individual version of hard >sector formats that it would be quite difficult to make up a controller >and software that could read many of them. Similarly, making one for each >case as it came along would also be somewhat prohibitive. > >I think, obviously, that if one knew the details of the format the >challenge would be made less. > - don > >> Oddly enough, I've got nothing (controller) that will read hard sectored >> diskettes. That's probably your reason as well. With all the other fellows >> out there who collect classic hardware, surely there's someone who could >> read these and reduce the source files to a common distribution medium, e.g. >> MSDOS 1.44 MB floppies, for you. >> >> Dick >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Joe <rigdonj(a)intellistar.net> >> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers >> <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> >> Date: Saturday, July 31, 1999 8:27 AM >> Subject: Re: 32 sector 8" floppies >> >> >> >At 08:41 AM 7/30/99 -0600, Richard wrote: >> >> >> >>SInce this stuff is source code, if you have the ability to read it with >> one >> >>or another ancient system, it might be well to look at the source files to >> >>see what kind of FDC was supposed to be used. >> > >> > I don't have anything that will read them. I tried them on a Compupro >> >but it puked bits all over the place! If you want to give it a shot I'll >> >send them to you. >> > >> > Joe >> > >> >> > >

27 years

1
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paging Anthony Clifton

by fauradon＠mn.mediaone.net

Hi, If anyone has the e-mail addres for Anthony please send it to me I need to get in touch with him and I've lost his address. Thanks Francois

27 years

1
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32 sector 8" floppies

by edick＠idcomm.com

Oddly enough, I've got nothing (controller) that will read hard sectored diskettes. That's probably your reason as well. With all the other fellows out there who collect classic hardware, surely there's someone who could read these and reduce the source files to a common distribution medium, e.g. MSDOS 1.44 MB floppies, for you. Dick -----Original Message----- From: Joe <rigdonj(a)intellistar.net> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Saturday, July 31, 1999 8:27 AM Subject: Re: 32 sector 8" floppies >At 08:41 AM 7/30/99 -0600, Richard wrote: >> >>SInce this stuff is source code, if you have the ability to read it with one >>or another ancient system, it might be well to look at the source files to >>see what kind of FDC was supposed to be used. > > I don't have anything that will read them. I tried them on a Compupro >but it puked bits all over the place! If you want to give it a shot I'll >send them to you. > > Joe >

27 years

2
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Cromemco 4FDC, How do you format a disk?

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<3.5" drives and (most) 5.25" drives use the same data rates. Now <admittedly most 3.5" drives are used at double density, but I really Wrong. The upper rate for 5.25 drive is 250kbit/S (DD) (1.2mb drives are special case). The lower limit for 5.25 drives is 125kbits/S (SD). the 8" are 250 (SD) and 500Kbits/S (dd). 3.5" drives accoring to the sony doc infront of me are 250kbits/S (DD) (720k) and 500kbit/S (1.44) (DD). The 1771 only does the 250kbits/S rate for 8" SD and the 5.25 floppy rate is 125kbits/S. I've tried the SD mode to 3.5" floppies and it's sorta useable but when you figure it out you don't get much for the effort and most of the 1771 based controllers do not deliver or check two sided signals. I have two and they don't! <can't see a good reason why you can't format a 3.5" disk single-density, <using the same data rate as for 5.25" single density disks, which the <1771 is quite capable of. It's half the pulse rate the drive read elctronics are designed to bandpass. <The actual pulse rate at the floppy drive interface is not very different <between single and double density operation. The single-density system <'wastes' half the pulses on clock pulses. Double density is NOT simply True but the peak shift is way different. To get something useful you need to run the 1771 as if it was 8", then use a format that put the right total number of bits on the media roughly 250kbytes a side. then you have an oddball format that noone wants to read (PCs will have fits without a tweeked controller) and will be questionable for the effort. Get a 1793 board and do it right and get some real storage for the effort. The CCS or Compupro boards (others too) are very nice and can be setup so the data rates are appropriate for 3.5" but using the 5.25 connector for the 34pin connector. Don't forget, the step rates for the 1771 class of controllers and drive were also slower than 3MS (more like 12-40ms) so if you going to fix that, the format and what else why not set up a real controller. Either that or learn to fix 8" drives and use them as media is still plentyful. After all I still keep an 8" SSSD format as that is the official CP/M standard. <doubling the read or write clock rate and leaving everything else unchanged Been there done that and have the NEC Tshirt for the 372 sd controller and the 765 all mode. Don't go there. I know the parts and the industry for the time frame very well and have plenty of examples and original docs here to refer too! this is one area where the archive is unusually deep. Allison

27 years

5
10
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Vintage IBM computer (fwd)

by siconic＠jasmine.psyber.com

Here is someone with an old IBM PC and a Mac+ that needs to find a new home. She is located in California. Please reply directly to the original sender. Reply-to: ccevans(a)telis.org ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 11:08:23 -0700 From: Carol Evans <ccevans(a)telis.org> To: Sam Ismail <siconic(a)jasmine.psyber.com> Subject: Vintage IBM computer Hi, I have an original IBM 8086 computer with a lot of software from that era to go with it. I hate the thought of taking it to the dump or Goodwill, where it will no doubt also end up there. It works well, but since we upgraded several times, it is unused except for the rare occurance when I want to look up something. I think it should go to a computer museum because it still looks brand new. Have you any suggestions for me? Also I have a 1987 Mac plus, that my daughter took to college with her, then brought home when she graduated to an IBM laptop. I would love to see these go to someone that would appreciate them. Carol in the Redwoods (^..^) purrrrrr........... ccevans(a)telis.org Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)verio.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Puttin' the smack down on the man! Coming this October 2-3: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0! See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details [Last web site update: 05/25/99]

27 years

1
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Long-Distance Moving and Storage

by ware＠xtal.pharm.nwu.edu

Due to my recent decision to heed The Call of The Valley, I need to move my collection (about 6000 pounds of equipment) from Chicago to San Jose by the end of next month. I need to thin the herd some before the trip, so I will be posting a message listing available equipment in the near future. Other than the obvious suggestion of moving less gear, does anyone have advice for undertaking such a move? We're thinking of using a professional mover or a "you fill the container, we transport it" type of service if possible, since driving 2200 miles (and over the continental divide) with a 10-month old in a rented truck of questionable mechanical condition seems like a bad idea. The moving companies that I have contacted to obtain estimates have said that the computer equipment is no problem - "just box it up". It sounds easy enough, but I don't know what the reaction will be to 150-pound boxes (or crates) that contain a single item. I'm planning to remove the front panels from the lights-and-switches equipped minis for transport and may remove boards and/or PSUs to lighten individual machines if necessary. Does anyone have other suggestions for dealing with unwieldy items such as rack-mountable equipment and workstation monitors in a long-distance move? -- Scott Ware ware(a)xtal.pharm.nwu.edu

27 years

4
4
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32 sector 8" floppies

by edick＠idcomm.com

It would be well to remember that, back when hard-sectoring was common, it was considered more efficient than soft-sectoring. Shugart 801 drives were certainly available with hard-sector support as an option. Hard-sectoring did cost more, hence died off quickly enough. SInce this stuff is source code, if you have the ability to read it with one or another ancient system, it might be well to look at the source files to see what kind of FDC was supposed to be used. Dick -----Original Message----- From: Don Maslin <donm(a)cts.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Thursday, July 29, 1999 9:44 PM Subject: Re: 32 sector 8" floppies <snip> >> >> Well... I suspect some of the early Tektronix development and perhaps Unix >> based systems, but the MITS Floppy Disk sub-system for the Altair computers >> used them. >> >> -jim > >And various versions of Wang equipment, IIRC. > - don > >> --- >> jimw(a)computergarage.org >> The Computer Garage - http://www.computergarage.org >> Computer Garage Fax - (503) 646-0174 >> >> > >

27 years

3
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Cromemco 4FDC, How do you format a disk?

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<> work. The 5.25" floppy single density rate of 125kBITS/sec clearly would <> fall below the spec. There are limits to the write pulse width as well < <You are still missing the point, totally... < <125kbps FM is _NOT_ 125kpulses/sec at the disk interface, as you seem to <be implying. I'm not missing anything. For FM that means the two frequencies are 125/250KHz. For MFM that is very not true. Different bandwidth, but still not in the range of the accepted 250kbits/sec of the sony. <Double Density, MFM, 250kbps. <----------------------------- <A bit cell is 4us long, so 250000 of them per second. There is a (data) <pulse in the middle of a bit cell written as a '1', no (data) pulse in <the middle of a '0'. There is a (clock) pulse written at the start of a <bit cell if there is no (data) pulse in both this bit cell and the <preceeding one. Your missing bis/time vs frequency domains/bandwith. <For MFM you need to be able to record/reproduce pulses with separations <of 4us, 6us, 8us. true and for the data I gave the 125kbits/sec rate is too low. As it's minima was 250kbits/s is twice that! Part of the recording scheme is that there are rules for continous strings of 1s and 0s, they arent permitted to exist for clocking and bandwidth reasons. <Oh, absolutely. But the FM at half the data rate meets that spec. It has <to. I am not suggesting you could feed 300 baud data into a disk drive <and expect it to work - it almost certainly won't. FM at half the data rate is the 8" SD rate of 250kbits/sec... not 125k! The 125kbits/sec is the 5.25" floppy single denity rate. The problem is that the 2f domain is in the right range but the base rate is clearly not. It's an off by 1/2 problem. The 3.5" drive was designed to reproduce pulses that fall in the 250khz (minima) to 1.0mhz rate(maxima) so theres the bell curve that your skirting using the 5.25" single density data rate. The 8" rate 250kbits/S lands right in the range but rotation time being different you need a different sectoring arrangement. Allison

27 years

2
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New Finds

by jrkeys＠concentric.net

Well this week was not too bad just mostly books and parts. One the books I got at the thrift was Digital Deli written in 1984 and full tips, insights (for the time), and over 115 photos. It's a great read, another I got was a little newer called Computers: Today and Tomorrow and came with a CD, the disk is great. Got a complete set of manuals for the Rainbow 100. Some nice commodore items also like modems and some devices I had never seem before. Will get a list out later. John

27 years

1
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Cromemco 4FDC, How do you format a disk?

by edick＠idcomm.com

There's probably an easier way to look at the issue of data rate versus density on magnetic media. First of all, you must realize that every head/media/rotation-rate combination has a maximal flux reversal density with respect to time. Once you know that, you need merely understand how many flux-reversals the heads must induce on the media in order to record what will be recovered as a single bit. When you look at the manuals which come with various drives and controllers, etc, you get the whole shmear in timing diagrams. Unfortunately, these are marginally misleading. The drive takes the data stream it receives, in most cases, and divides it by two, using the complementary outputs of a flip-flop to drive the circuitry which drives the read/write head. Each time it toggles, it produces, effectively, a single flux reversal on the medium. When the data is read back, it produces a waveform more closely resembling what's in the "books" in that the flux change is "seen" as a pulse by the read/write head. This feeds filters and timing circuits and conditioning circuits which make it into precisely what's expected. However, not all modulation schemes cause the same effect at the head. The FM technique, with a clock always written "on schedule" (except for address marks) and transitions written only for "ones" one can clearly see that FM is an F/2F code, wherein modulation is at one of two rates, either the clock rate, or twice that rate. MFM improves on that by encoding the clock into its data by reversing the flux at more or less the same rate all the time, except that it shifts phase, always positively, in order to avoid exceeding the flux-reversal-density limitations of the head/media combination. (That's the reason the first zero of each string of zeroes is omitted, and that a zero between two ones is not written.) For the reasons above it's not resonable to try to compare FM and MFM. The data rate which has been used with 8" floppy drives has always been (AFAIK) 250 Kbps. The 125 Kbps rate was used with 5.25" floppies, but they came on after the adoption of MFM as the "smart" modulation scheme, so they were normally (except with RADIO SHACK computers) used with MFM. The way in which this modulation technique was applied was not the smartest way in which it could be done, but it did work well, fell well within the limits of the the-available technology, and provided a substantial improvement over what was previously done. The high cost of MFM hardware was what motivated WOZ, at APPLE, to figure out a way to process the data himself into a scheme which used both cheaper hardware and gave, effectively, density equivalent to "double" density, thereby defeating the critics. Dick -----Original Message----- From: Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Friday, July 30, 1999 4:42 PM Subject: Re: Cromemco 4FDC, How do you format a disk? >> >> < >> <But from my measurements, I think that it's very unlikely that a drive >> <can tell FM from MFM. I will try it sometime to confirm this. >> >> True, but the timing is still important. >> >> The SPEC I have for a Sony MP-F17W-70D (11/1988) makes it pretty clear >> that the acceptable rates are 250/500kBITS/Sec MFM with no discussion >> of plain FM. So it's probable the 8" SD rate of 250kbits/sec would >> work. The 5.25" floppy single density rate of 125kBITS/sec clearly would >> fall below the spec. There are limits to the write pulse width as well > >You are still missing the point, totally... > >125kbps FM is _NOT_ 125kpulses/sec at the disk interface, as you seem to >be implying. > >Let's consider what's actually written on the disk, using standard 5.25" >data rates. > >Single Density, FM, 125 kbps. >----------------------------- >A 'bit cell' is 8us long, so 125000 of them per second. Each bit cell >starts with a (clock) pulse. There will be a (data) pulse in the middle >of the bit cell if the bit is a '1'. > >So, allowable pulse separation times are 4us (between the 2 pulses in the >same bit cell, and between the data pulse in one bit cell and the clock >pulse at the start of the next one) and 8us (between clock pulses if '0's >are written to the disk). > >Double Density, MFM, 250kbps. >----------------------------- >A bit cell is 4us long, so 250000 of them per second. There is a (data) >pulse in the middle of a bit cell written as a '1', no (data) pulse in >the middle of a '0'. There is a (clock) pulse written at the start of a >bit cell if there is no (data) pulse in both this bit cell and the >preceeding one. > >OK, consider some data patterns. Here a ';' singals the start of a new >bit cell, a ',' separates parts of the same bit cell : > >11 -> data pulse, 1/2 bit cell gap; 1/2 bit cell gap, data pulse. Space > between pulses = 4us > >101 -> data pulse, 1/2 bit cell gap; 1 bit cell gap ; 1/2 bit cell gap, >data pulse. Space between pulses = 8us > >1001 -> data pulse, 1/2 bit cell gap; 1 bit cell gap ; clock pulse, 1 bit >cell gap; 1/2 bit cell gap, data pulse. Space between pulses = 6us > >So, > >For FM, you need to be able to record/reproduce pulses with separations >of 4us and 8us. > >For MFM you need to be able to record/reproduce pulses with separations >of 4us, 6us, 8us. > >Since the drive can't tell data pulses from clock pulses, there's no way >it can distinguish continual '1's at FM from the same at MFM, or >continual 0's at FM from 1010... at MFM. Therefore, if it can do MFM >correctly, it can also do FM _at half the user data rate_. > >> Keep in mond most all of the floppies I know of do have a minimum due >> to the read amps bandwidth (there is a banpass filter!) and the > >Oh, absolutely. But the FM at half the data rate meets that spec. It has >to. I am not suggesting you could feed 300 baud data into a disk drive >and expect it to work - it almost certainly won't. > >-tony >

27 years

1
0
0 0

Tek 4041

by ccfsm＠ipa.net

Hi All: Does anyone have any information on the Tektronix 4041? I've got a hankering to play with the IEEE-488 bus but can't see paying the current prices that most people seem to want for a IEEE-488 controller for a P.C. I've acquired an Tek 4041 with 512-K and the rom Basic development firmware and even the manuals. But I don't have the (optional) keyboard OR the diagnostics tape. If I could find this tape then I could simple use a RS-232 terminal for program input. I've even got a nice HP 150 that could serve as a terminal, but I need that tape!! Speaking of which, this thing uses a DC100 tape. Know where a soul can find any of these tapes for less that $25.00 each? I know that GP-IB controllers are considered kind of low life - but for some reason I'm hooked on this one (could be the 68008?). Hell, you know what? I'm afraid that old computers are going to be as addicting as old analog synthesizers and Tektronix mainframe o'scopes. Thanks all. Roger Goswick ccfsm(a)ipa.net

27 years

3
12
0 0

3Com 3Stations

by jeff.kaneko＠juno.com

Pete: You want some advice, eh? Okay. These beasties support CGA or EGA (you set this up from the setup screen-- No, I don't remember the key sequence, maybe it was CTRL-ALT-ESC, I dunno), and AFAIK, I'm pretty sure they support 1mb simms. (the later models had VGA, and supported more memory). It's a '286 CPU (in case you haven't looked), and while it can't run '386 based stuff, worked fin for most MS-DOS appz. How do you make it boot? Ha. You have to have either: 3Com 3+Start server software, or 3+Open Start (for OS/2 LanMan). 3+Start is a component of 3Com's 3+Share Network OS, and was in direct compettiton with Novell Netware 1.x and 2.x. MS-DOS based networking at it's best, yesindeedy. ;^) Basically, you built a file that was just a bit image of a standard DOS boot disk, with the necessary drivers therein. The START service would then respond to the boot request from the 3Station, effect a network connection, and proceed to serve up the boot volume (volume name setttable via setup, I'm pretty sure). After booting, you would log on to the 3COm network. Pretty slick for 1986, actually. I think I still have all of this stuff somewhere, ifn you want it. The only problem is, you'll need to dedicate a PeeCee just to run the boot services (and whatever other network services you want). An awful lot of work for just a '286, but still fairly cool. You'll also have to dig up a pretty old ethernet adaptor to put in the server. Jeff On Fri, 30 Jul 1999 16:59:52 +0100 "Peter Pachla" <peter.pachla(a)vectrex.freeserve.co.uk> writes: > Hi all, I've had these two "3Com 3Stations" (model 3C1100) lying > around here > for the past 5 years or so and I'd like to actually get them > running. > > Does anyone have any technical details about them; in particular > what sort of > graphics adapter is built in (it looks like either CGA, EGA or > MDA/Herc), what > sizes of 30-pin SIMMs do they take (and how do you set the memory > jumpers) and > how the heck do you get them to boot via the network? > > Anyone able to offer ANY advice? > > > TTFN - Pete. > > -- > Hardware & Software Engineer. Sound Engineer. > Collector of Arcade Machines, Games Consoles & Obsolete Computers > (esp DEC) > > peter.pachla(a)virgin.net | > peter.pachla(a)vectrex.freeserve.co.uk | > peter.pachla(a)wintermute.free-online.co.uk | > www.wintermute.free-online.co.uk > -- > > ___________________________________________________________________ Get the Internet just the way you want it. Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj.

27 years

1
0
0 0

Cromemco 4FDC, How do you format a disk?

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< <But from my measurements, I think that it's very unlikely that a drive <can tell FM from MFM. I will try it sometime to confirm this. True, but the timing is still important. The SPEC I have for a Sony MP-F17W-70D (11/1988) makes it pretty clear that the acceptable rates are 250/500kBITS/Sec MFM with no discussion of plain FM. So it's probable the 8" SD rate of 250kbits/sec would work. The 5.25" floppy single density rate of 125kBITS/sec clearly would fall below the spec. There are limits to the write pulse width as well but I'd bet the 1771 meets them as they are fairly narrow range for all data rates and formats. Keep in mond most all of the floppies I know of do have a minimum due to the read amps bandwidth (there is a banpass filter!) and the differentiators used to recover the read data. the head gap width also sets the minimum data rate as well though to a lesser extent. The easiest was to see this is record a track at different rates from 50khz through 1mhz and look at what comes out (or not). Allison

27 years

2
1
0 0

RSTS/E <-> RL02 working..

by jpl15＠netcom.com

Well... having sysgenned my 11/44 RSTS/E V9.7 system some time ago to add RL02s (among other things), I have been unable to read/write files to the RL02s, which otherwise appeared normal on the system. (INITable, ERASEable, MOUNTable, etc.) Any and all file operations aborted with a "?Device not available" message. Using the recently acquired RSTS Orange Wall (from Bruce Lane), I have discovered the answer to the problem: one must *create an account* on the device after INITing, etc! [D'Oh!!] Once I did so, the drive assumed it's rightful place in the System and seems to work fine; I copied and erased and re-copied a diskfull of Stuff several times. >>WooHoo!!<< NOW: at one time someone offered me a Bootrom for the RL02s so I can boot the 11/44 from them instead of the (DB0:) Fuji SMD. I need to go back into the mail archives and find that message again, but in the meantime.. I am looking for a 23-751A9 ROM to fit in the M7098 UBI. I will glady pay cloning/shipping/etc for it. Until then I am going to try booting from the RL02 by toggling in the loader code on the Console. But not Tonite! Cheers and thanks to all who offered help/advice!! John

27 years

2
1
0 0

32 sector 8" floppies

by edick＠idcomm.com

please see embedded remarks below. Dick -----Original Message----- From: Marvin <marvin(a)rain.org> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Friday, July 30, 1999 9:14 AM Subject: Re: 32 sector 8" floppies > >Richard Erlacher wrote: >> >> It would be well to remember that, back when hard-sectoring was common, it >> was considered more efficient than soft-sectoring. Shugart 801 drives were >> certainly available with hard-sector support as an option. Hard-sectoring >> did cost more, hence died off quickly enough. > >Why was hard-sectoring considered more efficient? IIRC, the soft sectored >disks had more capacity than a comparable hard-sectored disk. The overhead for soft-sectoring reduced the number of sectors per track from 32 to 26. This meant that you had (32 * 128 . . . 5 bits + 7 bits . . . 12 bits . . . must be 4K) 4K bytes per track. Anyway, 32 has most often been more than 26 in my book. In some cases not much more, but more, anyway. Drives could be jumpered to increase the sector capacity by skipping sector holes. I was looking at the circuitry just yesterday (in the course of troubleshooting an 8-inch drive) and recall that they allowd for 8 and 16 sectors per track as well, simply by dividing the sector pulses down. This was probably less efficient, due to the decisions made along the way, though it didn't have to be that way. The additional capacity didn't have to be simply doubled just because the number of sectors was halved. I recall something about 8 sectors yielding a capacity of somewhat more than 4K bytes. This does add up, since there are 83,333 nominal bit times per revolution, half of which were used for clock, of course, if FM was the modulation scheme. Since MFM was lurking on the horizon, I guess the LSI makers just decided to forget about hard sectoring. Nobody believed anyone would ever want a floppy diskette format which yielded more than what MFM would offer. It's just like nobody once believed that more than 64Kbytes of memory were desirable in a home computer, right? The difficulty arises from the general discontinuance of the manufacture of the FDC's capable of dealing with hard sectored media. Both NEC and Intel made a version which handled hard sectored media back in '76. It disappeared from their repertoire by '78, though. NEC also made a digital tape cassette controller which went the same way.

27 years

2
1
0 0

Fw: RL-01 drives UK

by danburrows＠mindspring.com

27 years

1
0
0 0

3Com 3Stations

by peter.pachla＠vectrex.freeserve.co.uk

Hi all, I've had these two "3Com 3Stations" (model 3C1100) lying around here for the past 5 years or so and I'd like to actually get them running. Does anyone have any technical details about them; in particular what sort of graphics adapter is built in (it looks like either CGA, EGA or MDA/Herc), what sizes of 30-pin SIMMs do they take (and how do you set the memory jumpers) and how the heck do you get them to boot via the network? Anyone able to offer ANY advice? TTFN - Pete. -- Hardware & Software Engineer. Sound Engineer. Collector of Arcade Machines, Games Consoles & Obsolete Computers (esp DEC) peter.pachla(a)virgin.net | peter.pachla(a)vectrex.freeserve.co.uk | peter.pachla(a)wintermute.free-online.co.uk | www.wintermute.free-online.co.uk --

27 years

1
0
0 0

Sun SparcStation II

by a2k＠one.net

I *think* this makes the list.. dunno the date off the top of my head... Anyway, sorry if it's O.T. The Sun monitor is much too large for my already over-crowded computer room, so I've set it up to boot a dumb terminal (will later be hooked up to my multiport serial card when I put the Sparc under my desk..) The problem is the last guy that had the Sparc really screwed up /etc/silo.conf and SILO requires me to type 1/boot/vmlinux root=/dev/sda1 ever boot (oh, I run linux ;) ) Can someone tell me how to make /etc/silo.conf boot the machine automatically? Eventually I'm going to make it a web server... when I buy a router (probably this weekend.) Thanks, Kevin ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It's you isn't it? THE BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL!" "In the flesh, on the phone and in your account..." -- BOFH #3

27 years

2
2
0 0

Borland releases old Turbo products at no charge...

by jfoust＠threedee.com

Check out <http://community.borland.com/museum/> for: The Story of Frank Borland The TurboMan Ad, September 1988 Old Software Turbo Pascal v1.0, Shipdate 20-November-1983 Turbo Pascal v3.02, Shipdate 18-September 1986 Turbo Pascal v5.5, Shipdate 02-May-1989 Turbo C v1.0, Shipdate 06-July-1987 Turbo C v1.5, Shipdate 25-January-1988 Turbo C v2.01, Shipdate 11-May-1989

27 years

8
8
0 0

32 sector 8" floppies

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>> It would be well to remember that, back when hard-sectoring was common, it >> was considered more efficient than soft-sectoring. Shugart 801 drives were >> certainly available with hard-sector support as an option. Hard-sectoring >> did cost more, hence died off quickly enough. >Why was hard-sectoring considered more efficient? IIRC, the soft sectored >disks had more capacity than a comparable hard-sectored disk. It depends on what you're comparing *with*. 32-sectored hard-sectored 8" floppies have a bit more capacity than IBM 3740 (26-sector) soft-sector format. But once you start going to double density, longer (and fewer) sectors, etc., the soft-sector formats start looking better, but only because the hard-sectored disks weren't evolving anymore at that point. They could've kept up, if it wasn't for advances in floppy disk controller technology which made the soft-sectored formats more attractive. In terms of early (early and mid-70's) hardware, hard-sectored floppies required less "smarts" in the disk controller because they don't have to deal with sector marks in the read signal. (Remember that early 8" soft-sectored floppy controllers lacked the smarts to write the address marks, and they reserved that function for special-purpose formatters. We aren't talking about a LSI chip, we're talking about a square foot or two of PCB stuffed densely with SSI TTL.) But then the FDC-on-a-chip came along (from WD, NEC, and others) and these had built-in circuitry for dealing with soft-sectored details. Others (like Wozniak) moved the FDC functions to the CPU and avoided both the FDC-on-a-chip *and* the square feet of PCB's typical of previous floppy disk controllers. -- 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

27 years

1
0
0 0

SoCal TRW Swapmeet this Sat 7/31

by jpl15＠netcom.com

The monthly SoCal TRW Ham Radio and Electronics Swap Meet is this Saturday, the 31st, from 7:30 am -> 11:30 am PST. The Meet is held at the TRW El Segundo facility, in the southern parking lots thereof: From the 405 (San Diego) freeway, take the Rosecrans exit and go west one mile to Aviation. Turn left (south) [under the Metrolink bridge] and proceed about 3/4 of a mile... the TRW plant will be on your right and the Swapmeet itself is in the southernmost parking lots bordering Marine avenue. I am in Spaces J21 and J23, driving a white Toyota 4X4 pickup truck with a black bedliner. Marvin will be there, and my spies tell me also Aaron Finney and *maybe* Mike Ford too... I plan on a Brag 'n Brunch after the Meet is over (around noon) and y'all are invited. 'Driving a Hard Bargain' is hungry work! Hope to see you there... but please don't show up before 9:30 or so, as it gives me an opportunity to scarf up on all the *good* stuff. Providing I can keep Marvin distracted, too.... ;} Cheers John

27 years

2
1
0 0

HP Equipment Available

by jeff.kaneko＠juno.com

Bill: So what's going on with this? Claimed? Withdrawn? Jeff On Tue, 27 Jul 1999 04:01:29 GMT bill_r(a)inetnebr.com (Bill Richman) writes: > A friend of mine has rescued the following equipment. (I don't know > HP > stuff, so I'll give a general description and some numbers.) > > Two big, _heavy_ boxes about the size of 2-drawer filing cabinets: > > Box 1 contains modules marked- > HP 9000/300 > HP 9000/300 > HP 98720A > > Box 2 contains modules marked- > HP 7958B > HP 9000/300 > HP 98720A > > There is also a large RGB monitor, HP #98751A, at least two (HPIB, > so > I'm told by an HP-head) keyboards and mice, video cables, etc. > > He offered it to me but I have no use for it. It's big, bulky, and > heavy, so if you're interested in it, you'll have to arrange for > transportation from Lincoln, Nebraska. A few bucks thrown in his > direction for dragging the stuff home from the brink of destruction > wouldn't be out of line either - maybe $50 or $100 if the stuff is > worth > anything to you. If you want any/all of this stuff, let me know by > Wednesday, because I'm sure he'll be tired of dragging it around in > his > van by then. He'll probably have used up the $50-100 in extra gas! > > > > -Bill Richman (bill_r(a)inetnebr.com) > http://incolor.inetnebr.com/bill_r - Home of the COSMAC Elf > Microcomputer > Simulator, Fun with Molten Metal, Orphaned Robots, and > Technological Oddities. > ___________________________________________________________________ Get the Internet just the way you want it. Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj.

27 years

1
0
0 0

Collecting computers in good in Canada - how about you?

by kstumpf＠unusual.on.ca

I don't know how I did it again. Hopefully no one enjoys my posts and this won't be read by many, but for those who were taken away from more important business by this message, I apologize. >Good morning my friend. > >How are you? You are being true to your word - haven't >heard a word from you in months on the CCL. > >Please let me know how you are. Research projects, >acquisitions (oops, is that still a bad word), and such. >I am very interested. > >There have been quite a few computers in and out of >my "ware"house. The Guide to Collecting is getting a >second printing (yikes), an I am a happy mainframe >programmer (MVS, Cobol, DB2, and CICS) at a local >insurance company. > >Family life is tough, but we're trying and moving >forward (2 teenage boys left in the fam). > >You take care and please give me an update. > >Yours in good faith. >---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >------------------------------- >Kevin Stumpf * Unusual systems * www.unusual.on.ca >+1.519.744.2900 * EST/EDT GMT - 5 > >Collector - Commercial Mainframes & Minicomputers from > the 50s, 60s, & 70s and control panels and consoles. > >Author & Publisher - A Guide to Collecting Computers & >Computer Collectibles * ISBN 0-9684244-0-6 >. > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------- Kevin Stumpf * Unusual systems * www.unusual.on.ca +1.519.744.2900 * EST/EDT GMT - 5 Collector - Commercial Mainframes & Minicomputers from the 50s, 60s, & 70s and control panels and consoles. Author & Publisher - A Guide to Collecting Computers & Computer Collectibles * ISBN 0-9684244-0-6 .

27 years

1
0
0 0

Collecting computers in good in Canada - how about you?

by kstumpf＠unusual.on.ca

Good morning my friend. How are you? You are being true to your word - haven't heard a word from you in months on the CCL. Please let me know how you are. Research projects, acquisitions (oops, is that still a bad word), and such. I am very interested. There have been quite a few computers in and out of my "ware"house. The Guide to Collecting is getting a second printing (yikes), an I am a happy mainframe programmer (MVS, Cobol, DB2, and CICS) at a local insurance company. Family life is tough, but we're trying and moving forward (2 teenage boys left in the fam). You take care and please give me an update. Yours in good faith. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------- Kevin Stumpf * Unusual systems * www.unusual.on.ca +1.519.744.2900 * EST/EDT GMT - 5 Collector - Commercial Mainframes & Minicomputers from the 50s, 60s, & 70s and control panels and consoles. Author & Publisher - A Guide to Collecting Computers & Computer Collectibles * ISBN 0-9684244-0-6 .

27 years

1
0
0 0

Info on the IMST426 transputer

by kenny＠kinnes.demon.co.uk

I'd heard about it round about ST450 time but did not get any firm data on it. Interesting idea. So how did you get 'em ?? K At 02:38 PM 7/28/99 -0400, you wrote: >Hi, > >Does anyone have any info on the T426 (yes it is a 6). What was >different >from the T425?? Any new instructions, etc. > > >Thanks > >Ram > >-- > > ,,,, > /'^'\ > ( o o ) > -oOOO--(_)--OOOo------------------------------------- >| Ram Meenakshisundaram >| Senior Software Engineer >| OpenLink Financial Inc >| .oooO Phone: (516) 227-6600 x267 >| ( ) Oooo. Email: rmeenaks(a)olf.com > ---\ (----( )-------------------------------------- > \_) ) / > (_/ > > > >

27 years

3
2
0 0

Semi-OT: eBay hilarity

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

In a message dated 7/29/99 6:10:13 PM Eastern Daylight Time, kaikal(a)MICROSOFT.com writes: > I guess this shows that anything can sell on eBay: > > http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?MfcISAPICommand=ViewItem&item=12988 > 8958 > > for those of us who are too lazy to open up a browser session, care to tell us what it is?

27 years

3
2
0 0

32 sector 8" floppies

by rigdonj＠intellistar.net

Hi, I was going through some boxs of disk tonight and found a bunch of hard sectored 32 sector 8" disks. Anyone have any idea what uses these? One of them is a Tektronix disk and it says 8002 Tekdos (Z-80) the others all say "ZAM" source code, edits, etc. Joe

27 years

3
2
0 0

Semi-OT: eBay hilarity

by kaikal＠MICROSOFT.com

I guess this shows that anything can sell on eBay: http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?MfcISAPICommand=ViewItem&item=12988 8958

27 years

5
5
0 0

About old mainframes and the end of an era.

by kstumpf＠unusual.on.ca

Some of you might know about the huge, famous, and yes, beautiful RED ROOM in the Math and Computing building at the University of Waterloo. Well, it's gone. The end of an era. Since class numbers are increasing and server/host/mainframe sizes are decreasing, the Red Room is being converted into many classrooms. For those who never experienced the Red Room it was a 2-storey open space in the middle of the building. The 2 floors were extra high. The sound damping walls and false floor tiles were matching orangish red. The walls of the second floor were huge sheets of sound damping glass - like an observation deck. Looking down into that room motivated many a teenager to enter the field of computer science or engineering. Please visit: ist.uwaterloo.ca/cs/redroom for many wonderful photographs. Yours in good faith. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------- Kevin Stumpf * Unusual systems * www.unusual.on.ca +1.519.744.2900 * EST/EDT GMT - 5 Collector - Commercial Mainframes & Minicomputers from the 50s, 60s, & 70s and control panels and consoles. Author & Publisher - A Guide to Collecting Computers & Computer Collectibles * ISBN 0-9684244-0-6 .

27 years

2
1
0 0

RT-11/RSX-11/RSTS freeware CD-ROM

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<Might as well add us in too... < <On Thu, 29 Jul 1999, wanderer wrote: < <> Another 'me too' :=) I also want the RT-11/RSX-11/RSTS freeware CD-Rom. <> Just have to get a SCSI host adapter but will manage that one as well. Oh what the heck, something for the PDP-11s for a change... I'm in. Allison

27 years

1
0
0 0

RT-11/RSX-11/RSTS freeware CD-ROM

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>Excellent idea! At a reasonable price like $15/CD, I would buy >CD's for RT-11 and RSX-P/OS. Especially if they contain all those >old SIG tapes. Indeed, they will be made up largely (but not exclusively) of the SIG tapes. There will also be a searchable index of the SIG tapes. Here's the SIG tapes that will go on the RT-11 CD-ROM: SPRI76 Spring 1976 SPRI78 Spring 1978 FALL78 Fall 1978 San Francisco SPRI79 Spring 1979 New Orleans FALL79 Fall 1979 San Diego 11SP13 Spring 1980 Chicago 11SP17 Fall 1980 San Diego 11SP26 Spring 1981 Miami 11SP30 Fall 1981 Los Angeles 11SP32 Spring 1982 Atlanta 11SP48 Fall 1982 Anaheim 11SP53 Spring 1983 St. Louis 11SP59 Fall 1983 Las Vegas 11SP66 Spring 1984 Cincinatti 11SP68 DECUS C distribution 11S076 Fall 1984 Anaheim 11S083 Spring 1985 New Orleans 11S087 Fall 1985 Anaheim 11S091 Spring 1986 Dallas 11S094 Fall 1986 San Francisco 11S097 Spring 1987 Nashville 11S103 Spring 1988 Cincinatti 11S108 1988 Australia 11S109 Best of RT Spring 1989 11S113 Fall 1990 In addition, there will be these RT-11 DECUS 11-xxx entries: 110174 STAR-TREK (SPACWR) Version: January 1975 110213 LIB.FOR: Library Routines Version: May 1975 110214 RENUM: FORTRAN Renumbering Program Version: February 1977 110215 TRACE.MAC/TR.MAC Version: July 1975 110221 ODT 11 MACRO RT 110229 INDEX: FORTRAN Cross-Referencer Version: 6.4, December 1982 110270B FODT: FORTRAN IV On-Line Debugging Tool for RT-11 Version: March 1977 110288 TECO V28 for RT-11 Version: December 1977 110294 BASIC-11 Extension Routines Version: January 1981 110294MUTILITY MACRO RT BASIC SVII 00HKMQ 110296 MACRO FORTRART SV XI 00AHKMQ 110304 LISP11 for RT-11 Version: January 1977 110314 RUNOFF MACRO RT MII 00AHKMQ 110314MRUNOFF MACRO RT MII 00AHKMQ 110325 HIDE: Hidden Line Removal/Plotting Subprogram Version: May 1977 110335 RASM: Reverse Assembler for RT-11 Version: 2.01, March 1979 110337 EXTMT: A General Purpose Magnetic Tape Handler Version: June 1982 110339 MACSP: MACRO-11/SP Structured Programming Macros Version: October 1977 110340 ADVENTURE Version: 3, November 1978 110342 DECODE3: RT-11 SAV/LDA Files Disassembler Version: 3.0, June 1982 110343 ED: Scrolling Video Text Editor Version: 8.2, July 1980 110356 FORODT: FORTRAN Debug Routine for RT-11 Version: March 1978 110365 GAMMA GSA GAMMA BASIC GAMMA GAMMA MXI 00MQ 110368 Fast Fourier Transform and Two Applications Version: December 1977/April 1978 110370 DUNGEON Version: 2.5, October 1980 110371 BACKUP: RT-11 Version: 01A, July 1978 110373 CHOOSE BASIC RT MXIII 00BG 110376 EVAEXA BASIC RT MXIII 00D 110381 PLOT Version: June 1980 110383 TSTE: Time Share Terminal Emulator Version: V2.0, March 1982 110388 Airplane Landing Simulation Game Version: April 1979 110391 MACRO RT D 00K 110403 MACRO Package for MACRO-11 to Assemble INTEL 8080 Code Version: July 1979 110413 ORC: Object to Macro Conversion Version: 1.1, August 1979 110415 EXFILE: Exchange File Program Version: September 1979 110435 FORTRAN Graphics Support for the VT105 Version: April 1980 110490 TSXLIB: A FORTRAN Callable Library Implementation of EMTs for TSX-PLUS Version: 6.31/88e30a 110491 CROSS: A Cross-Referencer for BASIC Programs Version: September 1981 110510 Space Invasion Version: May 1982 110529 DBSMNG: Data Base Management Package Source Kit Version: V3.1, March 1985 110530 RUNOFF for RT-11 Version: M02.4-K, August 1985 110547 Data I/O PROM Programmer Software and Utility Program Version: V2, May 1982 110597 DTC: Desk Top Calendar Version: V4, January 1985 110605 FALCON Application for RT-11 Version: December 1982 110606 SPAL-11: Structured Programming Using Assembly Language Version: September 1982 110608 Tenny Electronic Bulletin "Board" Message Mailing Facility Version: December 1982 110615 CPMRSX: CP/M to DEC Disk Translator for RSX-11M Version: V2.1, December 1984 110643 Banff 1981 Abridged Decus library 110647 Collection of BANNER, SPOOL, TART, BEVAN, KB, SFGL70, TSXLIB, RHODES, and PIP8 110660 SORT: Fast Memory/Disc Sort/Merge for RT-11 Version: V2A, July 1983 110684 BRUCE: A Backup and Restore Utility with Consolidation and Enhancement Version: V01.1, October 1983 110695 DBSMNG: A Small Database Management Package Binary Kit Version: V3.1, November 1984 110697 TCFL: Terminal Control Function Library Version: V1.0, July 1983 110698 MJCLOK: Multi-Job Clock Program Version: V01, February 1984 110704 TXTWRT: An RT-11 Text Formatting Program Version: July 1983 110710 BUPRES: A Program Which Reads Individual Files from a Backup/Device Magtape Version: February 1984 110743 DSKLIB: A Disk Librarian Utility Program Version: V2.18, June 1984 110746 User Command Linkage-Plus for RT-11 and TSX-PLUS Version: V07.54a, May 1986 110758 REVISE: A Scanner for RT-11 Device Directories Version: V1.0, September 1984 110761 ODTV09: RT-11 Debugging Tool Version: V09, October 1983 110768 Canadian Mortgage Calculation Program Version: July 1984 110800 CMATH: A Library of Elementary Math Functions for DECUS C Version: March 1985 110809 RUNOFF, Bonner Lab Version: August 1985 110820 KEFSYS (KEF11 IMPLEMENTATION SYSTEM) Version: July 1985 110854 NBS PASCAL for RT-11 Version: V1.6i (EC), Sept. 1986 110856 DUCM/DYC Version: V2b, December 1986 110872 LAP: Slave Print Utility Version: 1.4, April 1987 110880 Multiprocessor RT-11 Version: 5.0 110890 RDM FORTRAN Programming Interface Version: May 1987 110910 MAIL Version: 1.14, January 1988 110916 NOTAIL.MAC Version: 8A, September 1991 110924 HEATH Version: 1, February 1989 110929 Disk Benchmark Programs Version: 1988 110931 Extended Overlays for RT-11/TSX-PLUS Version: January 1991 110932 AS6816 Cross Assembler Version: 1.5, February 1991 And here's the RSX SIG tapes that'll be on the RSX volume: RSX77B Fall 1977 San Diego RSX78A Spring 1978 Chicago RSX78B Fall 1978 San Francisco RSX79A Spring 1979 New Orleans RSX79B Fall 1979 San Diego RSX80A Spring 1980 Chicago RSX80B Fall 1980 San Francisco RSX81A Spring 1981 Miami RSX81B Fall 1981 Los Angeles RSX82A Spring 1982 Atlanta RSX82B Fall 1982 Anaheim RSX83A Spring 1983 St. Louis RSX83B Fall 1983 Las Vegas RSX83B2 Fall 1983 Las Vegas, second volume RSX84A Spring 1984 Cincinatti RSX84A2 Spring 1984 Cincinatti, second volume RSX84B Fall 1984 Anaheim RSX85A Spring 1985 New Orleans RSX85B Fall 1985 Aneheim RSX86A Spring 1986 Dallas RSX86B Fall 1986 San Francisco RSX87A Spring 1987 Nashville RSX87B Fall 1987 Anaheim RSX88A Spring 1988 Cincinatti RSX88B Fall 1988 Anaheim RSX89A Spring 1989 Atlanta RSX89B Fall 1990 Anaheim RSX89EUR Europe 1989 Den Haag RSX90A Spring 1990 New Orleans RSX90B Fall 1990 Anaheim RSX91B Fall 1991 And, in addition, these RSX/IAS related DECUS 11-xxx entries: 110593 Control C Trap Handler for FORTRAN Version: V1.05, September 1982 110594 CPU Usage Monitor Display Facility for RSX-11M Version: X02.05, August 1984 110626 XLISP: An Experimental Object Oriented Language Version: V1.1, April 1983 110632 Task Image Zapper & Other Goodies Version: Spring 1985 110680 RSX-11M-PLUS System Accounting Reports with Datatrieve Version: October 1983 110681 MM: A Mastermind Game Version: December 1982 110689 Active Task List Scan Version: V01090 110748 BUG: A Debugging Tool Used on Existing IAS Tasks Version: V2.0, June 1984 110750 TEM: A Terminal Emulator for RSX-11 Version: 88.104, May 1988 110760 COMPOSE: VT200 Custom Character Set Generator Program Version: V1.0, October 1984 110767 DFL: A Program to Dump Physical Blocks from Floppy-Disk Version: V1.0, October 1984 110822 VT-200 SET UP Version: V1, September 1985 110823 Task to Task Communications Version: V1.01, November 1985 110836 ReGIS to HP-GL Conversion Program Version: V1.J, December 1985 110849 FIGure - A Calculator for RSX and VMS Version: V86.080, June 1986 110858 EMPIRE Version: October 1986 110870 ECR: Enhanced Console Routine Version: 1, April 1987 110871 IAS KERMIT Version: April 1987 110873 FORTRAN Aids and Tools Version: 1, April 1987 110887 CLE Version: 6.2 110896 MODES Version: 3, August 1986 110898 Finger/RSX Version: December 1987 110899 FDC; Floppy Diskette Copy Version: 1, December 1987 The RSTS/E CD-ROM is a bit more tentative, as contributors of RSTS/E freeware seem to be fewer and further inbetween. (And it's also true that since RSTS/E has both RT-11 and RSX run-time systems, that RSTS/E users can use material from the above SIG tape collections to some extent.) I do have a couple dozen miscellaneous tapes from Terry Kennedy that could be forced into a compilation. The "PRO freeware" CD-ROM would contain RX50 images of the following: PRO123 BASIC, PASCAL, PortaCalc, KERMIT and a Desk Top Calendar Version: V4, July 1985 PRO124 C Language System with Native Toolkit Version: November 1983 PRO136 PRO/VLINK for the Professional - 350/380 Series Version: V1.0-06, April 1985 PRO137 Adventure for the Professional-300 Series Version: V1, January 1984 PRO160 IMAGE Version: V6, 1986 PRO173 SIXELPRINT Version: 2.22, July 1987 PRO174 PRO/BASIC Version: 1.4, October 1989 PRO175 PRO/DECnet Version: 2.1, October 1989 PRO176 PRO/SIGHT Version: 1.1, October 1989 PRO177 P/OS Hard Disk Version: 3.2, October 1989 PRO178 PRO/Tool Kit Version: 3.2, October 1989 PRO179 Professional Installation and Maintenance Version: 3.2, October 1989 PRO180 Synergy, PRO/Communications, PROSE PLUS Version: October 1989 PRO181 PROSOFT Boot Floppy Version: February, 1990 as well as miscellaneous PRO-specific stuff pulled from the SIG tapes. -- 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

27 years

6
5
0 0

KFQSA Resolution - at last

by cmcmanis＠freegate.com

Hello everyone, The KFQSA has got to be one of the _weirdest_ boards DEC ever made to control disks. Some data points: KFQSA Switch Table (Normal Operation) Switch 1 2 3 4 CSR Address in Octal --- --- --- --- ------------------------- ON ON ON ON 0760444 (Secondary TMSCP) < tape controller ON ON ON OFF 0774500 (Primary TMSCP) < tape controller ON ON OFF ON 0760334 (Secondary MSCP) < Disk controller * ON ON OFF OFF 0772150 (Primary MSCP) < Disk Controller KFQSA Switch Table (When being programmed) Switch 1 2 3 4 CSR Address in Octal --- --- --- --- ------------------------- * ON OFF ON ON 0774420 (service 0) ON OFF ON OFF 0774424 (service 1) ON OFF OFF ON 0774430 (service 2) ON OFF OFF OFF 0774434 (service 3) To configure the board to support two DSSI drives as I have, you first put the KFQSA into "service mode" (ON-OFF-ON-ON) then power cycle and at the uVAX chevron type: >>> set host/maintenance/uqssp/service 0 If you have correctly set the switches on the KFQSA it will respond with a program : UQSSP Controller (774420) Enter SET, CLEAR, SHOW, HELP, EXIT, or QUIT Node CSR Address Model 0 760444 22 1 760354 21 2 760360 21 6 ------ KFQSA ------ ? help Commands: SET <node> /KFQSA set KFQSA DSSI node number SET <node> <CSR_address> <model> enable a DSSI device CLEAR <node> disable a DSSI device SHOW show current configuration HELP print this text EXIT program the KFQSA QUIT don't program the KFQSA Parameters: <node> 0 to 7 <CSR_address> 760010 to 777774 <model> 21 (disk) or 22 (tape) ? I enable two disk drives telling it that unit 1 is on the first controller and unit 2 is on the second. ? set 0 772150 21 ? set 1 760334 21 Now type 'EXIT' (and this saves that config) change the switches to select primary MSCP (on-on-off-off) and restart. Now the system powers up and shows two MSCP controllers (even though there is just the one) and DUA0: is on one, and DUB1: is on the other. I don't know if I can make both drives show up on one controller. That will require a bit more experimentation. --Chuck

27 years

1
0
0 0

"Color Graphics Upgrade Kit" for Tandy 2000

by red＠bears.org

I bought this from eBay some time ago, since nobody was bidding on it. I've since come to the conclusion that I will never own a Tandy 2000, and would like to offer it to somebody who might actually want it. The kit consists of some DRAM to be used as video memory and little else. It includes installation instructions and the original box, if my memory is to be relied upon. Best offer before 12:01 AM 4 August 1999 gets it. ok r.

27 years

3
2
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Re. PDP CDROMs

by rcini＠email.msn.com

Hello, all: Maybe I missed the original post on this thread, but what's the contents of the CD?? Obviously PDP-related, and sine I have an 11/34, I'd be interested in a copy also. But what's on it??? ----------------------------------- [ Rich Cini/WUGNET [ ClubWin!/CW7 [ MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking [ Collector of "classic" computers [ http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ <---------------------------- reply separator

27 years

2
1
0 0

LA Weekly Vintage Micro story

by jpl15＠netcom.com

Hello classiccmpers... Sellam referred Mr. Vankin to me, but my focus is not micros and vintage 8-bitters. I thought there might be some SoCal folks who could give him a hand with some info/interviewes or whatever you can. He wrote me a very pleasant note, but I'm a DEC-head and all my computers tend to weigh over 500 pounds... ;} Please write back to him if you can help... Cheers John

27 years

1
0
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FS: Data General One

by ckaiser＠oa.ptloma.edu

A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 761 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/19990729/d106dced/at…

27 years

1
0
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Vintage computer story for L.A. Weekly...

by jv＠journalist.com

Help me out -- and get famous too! My name's Jonathan Vankin and I'm a reporter in Los Angeles, doing a story for the L.A. Wekly. I'm looking for people in the L.A. area who collect or have a passion for "classic" or "obsolete" computers. Especially micros, e.g. old Apples, Commodores, Amigas, Osbornes etc. etc. If you're in the L.A. area, you're into older computers and, especially, if you have a collection or know someone who does, could you drop me a line at the e-mail address above? I got into this topic when I started getting nostalgic for my old ADAM, which i gave to Goodwill a couple of years ago. I was trying to figure out what made me so nostalgic for it and taht led me to the numrous vintage computer resources on the Web. But I need some L.A.-based colectors for the story. My deadline is pretty soon -- so drop me an e-mail with a convenient way to reach you now to spread the word about your beloved old machines! Thanks! Jonathan Vankin jv(a)journalist.com http://www.conspire.com http://home.pacbell.net/jvankin

27 years

1
0
0 0

Fw: surplus second hand hardware ?

by danburrows＠mindspring.com

Spotted and thought some one might be interested. Dan -----Original Message----- From: Brian Schenkenberger, VAXman- <system(a)SendSpamHere.ORG> Newsgroups: comp.os.vms Date: Tuesday, July 27, 1999 11:29 AM Subject: Re: surplus second hand hardware ? >In article <rmhn3.1740$Bs1.112530(a)news3.usenetserver.com>, "robert walton" <rob_moobled(a)hotmail.com> writes: >>Is there a www for surplus second hand vax's , micro-vax etc ? >>What would be the going rates on the above ? >>rgds >>Rob > >What exactly are you looking for? I happen to know of an entire rack >consisting of a uV-II, a Cipher 9-track, several Fujitsu drives, etc. >that will be tossed into the garbage in the next few days. This rack >is in central NJ (Monmouth County/Eatontown). If you are interested, >or anybody else for that matter, in having this equipment, please be >sure and eMail me ASAP. > >-- >VAXman- OpenVMS APE certification number: AAA-0001 VAXman(a)TMESIS.COM

27 years

1
0
0 0

PDP CDROMS

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>> Count me in as a confirmed purchaser of the SigTape CDRs.. >This brings up a good point. Tim, are you talking CD-ROMs or CD-Rs? I for >one would prefer a CD-ROM, as thier life span is considerably longer. >However, CD-R might be more practical considering the low demand for >something such as this (at least I think the demand would be low, well >obviously not in this mailing list though). I would *like* to know there's enough demand out there to get some real CD-ROM's pressed. It looks like this becomes feasible with a quantity of 500 of each. If someone knows of low-volume CD pressers that would be suitable for this project, I'd appreciate getting clued-in. Barring that, gold CD-R's look to be the next best option. -- 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

27 years

8
13
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Fw: Free 8 inch floppy disks and SIGM disk collection - U haul it.

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

they were already grabbed by me. In a message dated 7/29/99 4:05:10 PM Eastern Daylight Time, danburrows(a)mindspring.com writes: > Thought there might be some interest here. Spotted on local newsgroup. > Please contact poster directly. > Dan > -----Original Message----- > From: User Rdkeys Robert D. Keys <rdkeys(a)weedcon1.cropsci.ncsu.edu> > Newsgroups: triangle.forsale > Cc: rdkeys <rdkeys> > Date: Tuesday, July 27, 1999 2:51 PM > Subject: Free 8 inch floppy disks and SIGM disk collection - U haul it. > > > >Sadly, after 20 years of playing the great 8 inch flopper routine, I have > >now retired all my early 8 inch computer maschinen to the bit bucket in > >the landfill. RIP old CP/M.....you served me well.... > > > >Now, that leaves me with 13 boxes of new shrinkwrapped SSDD 8 inch > >floppies, and about another 75 loose 8 inch floppies. Also, I have > >a complete SIGM CP/M archive on 8 inch floppies, in storage case, > >about 100 8 inch floppies worth. > > > >I did not have the heart to relegate these things to the dustbin. > > > >So, dear friends, computer dinosaur users, who wants them? > > > >They are yours for the hauling..... > > > >Bob Keys > >rdkeys(a)weedcon1.cropsci.ncsu.edu

27 years

1
0
0 0

Fw: Free 8 inch floppy disks and SIGM disk collection - U haul it.

by danburrows＠mindspring.com

Thought there might be some interest here. Spotted on local newsgroup. Please contact poster directly. Dan -----Original Message----- From: User Rdkeys Robert D. Keys <rdkeys(a)weedcon1.cropsci.ncsu.edu> Newsgroups: triangle.forsale Cc: rdkeys <rdkeys> Date: Tuesday, July 27, 1999 2:51 PM Subject: Free 8 inch floppy disks and SIGM disk collection - U haul it. >Sadly, after 20 years of playing the great 8 inch flopper routine, I have >now retired all my early 8 inch computer maschinen to the bit bucket in >the landfill. RIP old CP/M.....you served me well.... > >Now, that leaves me with 13 boxes of new shrinkwrapped SSDD 8 inch >floppies, and about another 75 loose 8 inch floppies. Also, I have >a complete SIGM CP/M archive on 8 inch floppies, in storage case, >about 100 8 inch floppies worth. > >I did not have the heart to relegate these things to the dustbin. > >So, dear friends, computer dinosaur users, who wants them? > >They are yours for the hauling..... > >Bob Keys >rdkeys(a)weedcon1.cropsci.ncsu.edu > >

27 years

1
0
0 0

IEEE-488 (was Re: Tek 4041)

by ethan_dicks＠yahoo.com

--- Roger Goswick <ccfsm(a)ipa.net> wrote: > Hi All: > > I've got a hankering to play with the IEEE-488 bus but can't see paying > the current prices that most people seem to want for a IEEE-488 > controller for a P.C. On that front, I've got a couple of older 8-bit IEEE cards that I would love to find out information on... They're National Instruments cards (over 10 years old!), p/n 180212-01, with a 5-position DIP switch (U17), an IRQ jumper area (I2-I7), a DMA jumper area (A/R 1-3), a non-installed optional battery and (I think clock chip) 58167. The main IEEE chips are an NEC D7210C and NS DS75162AN driver. When I first got them, I went to the National Instruments page and found no references. Anything would be helpful at this point. Thanks, -ethan === Infinet has been sold. The domain is going away. Please send all replies to erd(a)iname.com _____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Free instant messaging and more at http://messenger.yahoo.com

27 years

4
3
0 0

RT-11/RSX-11/RSTS freeware CD-ROM

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>> 2. The RSX-11 CD-ROM. The sum total of stuff here comes very near >> 650 Mbytes, so it's not possible to have "dual-format" stuff here. >> So I propose three different flavors: >> >> 2A: An ODS-1 (i.e. native RSX-11 format) CD-ROM. Only useful to >> those with a CD-ROM drive hooked up to a real PDP-11, or to those >> using John Wilson's full-blown E11 emulator. >Can OpenVMS 7.2 read ODS-1, and if so does this require a VAX or will it >work on a Alpha. *That's* a long story. Let's set the wayback machine back to 1974 or so, when RSX and ODS-1 was developed. At that point in time, the ODS-1 definition allowed for disks up to 512 Mbytes in size. That wasn't a problem at the time, as the disks it was being developed on were, at most, 2.5 Mbytes or 5 Mbytes. Then, in 1976/77/78, early VMS development started - at first on an emulator running on a PDP-11/70. The first VMS versions only supported ODS-1 disks, but then "ODS-2" was developed and became the mainstay shortly after official release. A few years after that, larger disk drives began becoming available. The RSX-11 folks updated their definition of ODS-1 to allow for drives larger than 512 Mbytes, but the VMS folks didn't. The chasm between "RSX-11 ODS-1" and "VMS ODS-1" has widened since. Alpha/VMS has never supported ODS-1 volumes, largely because nobody at DEC ever went to the trouble of putting support in. And the RSX-11 ODS-1 definition has grown even more, to allow drives much larger than 8 Gbytes to be usable on modern RSX-11 systems. The RSX-11 CD-ROM is, in size, well over 512 Mbytes and as a result can't even be mounted on a VAX/VMS machine as an ODS-1 volume, because current versions of VMS don't support the extensions to get over 512 Mbytes. And Alpha/VMS simply refuses to even try to mount any ODS-1 volume. Now, I'm currently involved in a project, spearheaded by me and a few RSX oldtimers who have kept current on Vax/VMS and Alpha/VMS developments, for "regularizing" ODS-1 support across RSX-11, VAX/VMS, and Alpha/VMS. We have offers of assistance from insiders in DECpaq's VMS Engineering, as well as the official ODS-1 spec. As a result, support for ODS-1 in both VAX/VMS and Alpha/VMS will be improved soon, if everything works as planned. (And all those involved have enough Copious Free Time to implement the details.) >> 2B: An ISO9660 CD-ROM filled with RSX-11 virtual disks. These would >> be useful to folks who could Kermit or FTP the logical disks to >> a real RSX-11 machine with a virtual disk driver, or to those >> running John Wilson's full-blown E11. >Hmmm, doesn't this require a fairly new version of RSX-11? For hobbyists, >this is likely to be a problem. I know the version I've got doesn't support >virtual disks. I think that Mentec officially introduced support for virtual disks and virtual tapes beginning with 11M+ V4.5 - yes, fairly recent. >Although, I seem to recall there is a DECUS program to allow this... Yep, there is a freeware virtual disk driver that works under 11M+ (but not, AFAIK, under 11M). -- 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

27 years

1
0
0 0

PDP CDROMS

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

John Foust wrote: >At 10:31 PM 7/28/99 -0400, William Donzelli wrote: >> >>You may not have to think about trying to sell every last CD pressed. A >>few years back, a friend had 500 CDs made (the pressing of the disks, >>jewel cases, and full color insert/back) for something like $1100. The >>price may have gone down since then. At $15/each, it would not take long >>to get back the original investment. And these are pretty much the costs today (they'll be a bit less if I have real plain-jane artwork and no insert.) The real question is whether I can sell them in the required volume. >It's that kind of thinking that leads to stock rooms full of >CDs you can't sell fast enough, like the one I had in the basement >until I unloaded them at a price that barely covered the cost >of my investment. See, I'm not *trying* to make more than my investment; I'm just trying to get the PDP-11 freeware archives into the hands of everyone that can use them. (If any folks deduce that I'm obsessive about collecting and distributing this stuff, from the fact that I've been building the PDP-11 freeware archives for most of a decade now, largely from scrounged and discarded 9-tracks, 8" floppies, and disk packs, they're probably correct. When one of my former employers tossed ten thousand 9-tracks they'd accumulated over a few decades, I literally spent an entire night in the dumpster with a flashlight trying to rescue what DECUS and other freeware that I could.) >For heaven's sake, CD-Rs make much more sense. If your CD-R fails, >get another copy from Tim or someone else. Real pressed CD-ROM's *almost* make sense: The cost for getting a glass master made is about $750, and getting a few hundred CD-ROM's pressed from this is only about a buck a piece. Plain black artwork on the surface adds another $100 or so to the price. Divide the $1000 cost up 80 ways or so, and a $15 target price becomes reasonable. Seeing as how the collection is going to occupy at least 2 CD-ROM's, and probably more (especially if I want to satisfy folks who want ODS-1 format CD-ROM RSX Sig tape collections, which is *inifinitely* convenient for folks with a CD-ROM drive on their PDP-11 RSX box - I can't tell you how neat it is to be able to put a collection of hundreds of 9-tracks, spanning three different decades, onto a CD-ROM and have them all completely accessible on the -11 instantly!), I'm looking at $2000-$3000 just to get the glass masters made for pressing "a set". Gold CD-R's look to be the next best thing, and I can run those off fairly reliably in small volumes. What I'm tempted to do is take the income >from CD-R's, and let that accumulate until it makes economic sense to get glass master(s) made. At that point, everyone who got a Gold CD-R will magically get an honest-to-goodness CD-ROM. Does this sound like the "best of both worlds"? Folks would be welcome to buy multiple Gold CD-R's of the same volume if they wanted to speed the process up a bit :-). -- 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

27 years

4
3
0 0

RT-11/RSX-11/RSTS freeware CD-ROM

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

John Zabolitzky wrote: >count me in for the RT11 volume. >Much better than downloading - but the ISO _OR_ RT11 format surely >would be good both to have !! It looks like the collection will be split up the following ways: 1. One RT-11 CD-R, with both ISO9660 *and* RT-11 style directories. The ISO9660 directory will contain RT-11 logical disks that can be examined on a PC clone with John Wilson's PUTR (or on a VMS machine with VMS EXCHANGE) and will be at the beginning of the disk, and the RT-11 style directories will be at the "end" of the disk and accessed as high-numbered partitions through RT-11's DU driver, for those lucky enough to have a CD-ROM drive directly connected to their -11. Those using the full-blown version of John Wilson's E11 emulator could access the high-numbered RT-11 partitions, those using the non-full-blown version could still look at the logical disks on the ISO9660 partition. The "dual format" RT-11 CD-R is possible because the sum total of all the RT-11 stuff is under 300 Megabytes - thus I can put everything on the CD-R twice, once in the ISO9660 directory and once in a RT-11 directory. 2. The RSX-11 CD-ROM. The sum total of stuff here comes very near 650 Mbytes, so it's not possible to have "dual-format" stuff here. So I propose three different flavors: 2A: An ODS-1 (i.e. native RSX-11 format) CD-ROM. Only useful to those with a CD-ROM drive hooked up to a real PDP-11, or to those using John Wilson's full-blown E11 emulator. 2B: An ISO9660 CD-ROM filled with RSX-11 virtual disks. These would be useful to folks who could Kermit or FTP the logical disks to a real RSX-11 machine with a virtual disk driver, or to those running John Wilson's full-blown E11. 2C: An ISO9660 CD-ROM with all the files from the RSX SIG and DECUS collections as individual files. Source code could be Kermit'ted or FTP'ed to a real RSX machine as necessary. I want to keep options 2A and 2B open, because these allow the most direct access to the RSX-11 files on a RSX-11 machine or emulator. But I suspect that many people will end up with 2C, just because this is the only option for files directly human-readable on a PC-clone (not running E11) or workstation. -- 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

27 years

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PDP CDROMS

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>Thats something that has been puzzling me in this discussion, whats this >about CDROM being better archival than CDR? Kodak is saying 100 years for >their CDR I think. Lifetime estimates are all, in reality, just estimates. Most of them have some good scientific reasoning behind them, and usually take "accelerated aging" tests (high temperature/humidity/light situations) and extrapolate these results to more normal storage conditions. Indeed, the lifetimes of CD-R's are estimated to be at least in decades if not longer, but these are all estimates. Real pressed CD-ROM's have been around for about two decades now, and except for a few manufacturing snafus early on, they are known to be good for at least that long. In addition, CD-R's occasionally have interchangability problems - a brand X disk burned on a brand Y recorder might very well be unreadable on a brand Z player. Interchangability isn't a big problem for fairly recent CD-ROM readers, but for, say, someone hooking up an ancient RRD40 player it may very well be an issue. Pressed CD-ROM's tend not to have such interchangability problems (though certainly I think we've all run across cases where brand Z player won't read one disk, while brand Y will.) I tend to agree that CD-R's are probably good enough, but better is always the enemy of good enough, and real CD-ROM's would be better if there's enough volume to justify 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

27 years

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RT-11/RSX-11/RSTS freeware CD-ROM

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

Hi - Some of you may recognize me - an occasional contributor to CLASSICCMP - as the maintainer of the PDP-11 freeware archives at http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/ In between the RSX-11, RT-11, RSTS/E, and PRO stuff there, there's well over a gigabyte of PDP-11 freeware available for downloading, spanning 3 decades of sources. Others on this list have contributed software to the archives, and I can't thank them enough for their efforts. Recently, the idea of distributing a collection of the PDP-11 freeware on multiple CD-ROM's has come up. (It'd be at least 2 CD-ROM's, possibly more.) In part, this idea is motivated by the easy distribution that CD-ROM affords (it sure beats lugging around a few hundred 9-track reels), and it is also motivated by the fact that CD-ROM drives are easily connected to Q-bus or Unibus PDP-11's through a SCSI host adapter. I frequently make PDP-11 filesystem CD-ROM's for my commercial customers who are converting from old media to emulator disk images, and freeware tools for PC's (such as John Wilson's PUTR) allow convenient access to RT-11 filesystems on CD-ROM's. Of course, it's also possible to burn ISO9660 CD-ROM's with disk or tape images, and it is in fact I have made "mixed format" CD-ROM's that have both a ISO9660 directory structure (for access on a PC-clone or Unix/VMS workstation) and a PDP-11 directory structure (in the higher-numbered partitions of the CD-ROM.) My question is: would it be worthwhile for me to package up the PDP-11 freeware collection on multiple CD's (probably one CD for RT-11, one CD for RSTS/E, and two CD's for RSX-11 & POS) and distribute them? Would folks be willing to pay, say, $15 each for duplication and distribution costs, or is this completely out of line? Of course, the network-accessible archive at metalab.unc.edu will still be available for free. While it's clear that CD-ROM is a convenient distribution medium, it's also clear that most folks on the 'net are cheapskates and won't pay a dime to get something they could download for free, so it's not obvious that if I had a batch of CD-ROM's made up that anyone would ever actually pay a nominal amount for them. If anyone has any comments, experiences, suggestions, etc., I'm all ears! -- 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

27 years

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Unidentified HP kit

by red＠bears.org

Hullo again; This evening I managed to scrounge up a few HP bits, all in unknown operational state. I know little about them except that somebody here should be able to tell me all about them and possibly even use them. I have no immediate use for them. Two HPIB external disk units; one 7945 (apparently a hard disk) and one 9122 (dual 3.5" floppy). 8 98257A cards (apparently 1 MB parity RAM). I'm not sure what sort of system these would belong to (possibly a 9000/300?) but they are about 5" by 7", have plastic locking fingers (one green, one purple), and the electrical interface is card-edge, taking up the length of the longer side. That isn't a very good description, but oh well. What've I got? ok r.

27 years

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Need Info: DEC M9301YF Unibus Bootstrap/Terminator

by Jgzabol＠aol.com

Hi Kevin, output after boot: R0 R4 SP PC(at time of boot initiated) $ boot device codes, suffix n for unit number n, n=0,1,..., empty=0 TT terminal paper tape DK RK11 moving head cartridge DT DECtape MT TM11 magtape (7 or 9 track, 800 BPI, odd parity, dump mode) DP RP11 moving head disk pack CT TA11 cassettes PR PC11 high-speed paper tape reader DX RX11 diskette some M9301 versions additionally support MASSBUS devices. DX<cr> should work fine for you. The DX boot appears to be at address 173546. I will fax the program code at that address. Do you have the RX11 controller register descriptions ? John

27 years

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RT-11/RSX-11/RSTS freeware CD-ROM

by Jgzabol＠aol.com

Hi Tim, count me in for the RT11 volume. Much better than downloading - but the ISO _OR_ RT11 format surely would be good both to have !! John G. Zabolitzky

27 years

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Info on the IMST426 transputer

by rmeenaks＠olf.com

Hi, Does anyone have any info on the T426 (yes it is a 6). What was different >from the T425?? Any new instructions, etc. Thanks Ram -- ,,,, /'^'\ ( o o ) -oOOO--(_)--OOOo------------------------------------- | Ram Meenakshisundaram | Senior Software Engineer | OpenLink Financial Inc | .oooO Phone: (516) 227-6600 x267 | ( ) Oooo. Email: rmeenaks(a)olf.com ---\ (----( )-------------------------------------- \_) ) / (_/

27 years

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RT-11/RSX-11/RSTS freeware CD-ROM

by mbg＠world.std.com

>speaking of that, how does the rrd40 connect? Not via rqdx3, surely.... There seem to be two flavors of RRD40 (or maybe one has a different designation). The earlier one connects via its own special controller which looks like an MSCP device. It has one ribbon cable connecter, and the cable usually runs to a breakaout panel with two connectors (A and B). The other style is indeed a SCSI disk, with the typical centronics type connectors on the back. I have both types... the SCSI one I have on one of my DS5000/200s, and the MSCP one I will (now) be installing on one of my 11/83s. Megan Gentry Former RT-11 Developer +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+ | Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com | | Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg!world.std.com | | Compaq Computer Corporation | addresses need '@' in place of '!' | | 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43 | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ | | Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler | | (603) 884 1055 | required." - mbg | +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+

27 years

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business propose dearclassiccmp

by webmaster＠gauki.net

Dear classiccmp URL: WWW.PULSARLUBE.COM We have learned that you are a leading company in lubrication-related business & heavy industry and enjoying high reputation for a long time in your area. And, it's our pleasure to introduce ourselves as the only manufacturer of SINGLE POINT LUBRICATOR (SPL) in Korea. Through a long experience in this field, we are now in the position of taking 100% domestic market share. Actually, we had been competing with competitors from Germany and Canada for a long time. But, our absolute advantages in quality and price finally made us the only domestic supplier in SPL market here. To promote our products in your area, we are now looking for a proper business partner in such form as Distributor, Technology Licensing, OEM production, Joint Venture or others. For double sure of our quality, we'd like to say that one of major Petroleum companies in the world have been keeping an agreement with us for the past 3 years on the purpose of OEM production. Of course, the company name could be released on your request if necessary. Should you are interested in this high margin-oriented business opportunity, could you reply us at your earliest convenience We will contact you by phone sequentially. For your reference, you can reach us with points below: (Phone) 82-348-943-5584 (Fax) 82-348-943-5684 E-Mail: mddh(a)att.co.kr May we expect to hear from you soon. Sincerely yours, Steve

27 years

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List spam update

by kyrrin＠bluefeathertech.com

I was able to trace the lubrication products spam the list got hit with to the offending domain. I'm trying to convince them to suspend or terminate said domain, but am not having much luck. If you want to express your own displeasure at getting hit with such crap, you may send your mail to: paik(a)NETis.NET (Netis.net hosts the pulsarlube.com domain). Please keep the notes polite, but firm. At the moment, he's content to let pulsarlube.com's owners off with a simple warning. To my eyes, that's not good enough. I want their domain suspended or terminated. Period. If someone kept a copy of the original spam, could you please drop it my way? I mistakenly deleted the copy I had. Thanks! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner and head honcho, Blue Feather Technologies http://www.bluefeathertech.com Amateur Radio:(WD6EOS) E-mail: kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com SysOp: The Dragon's Cave (Fido 1:343/272, 253-639-9905) "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..."

27 years

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More RF71 info

by cmcmanis＠mcmanis.com

Well the mystery is pretty deep. Is it possible for an "ID Plug" to be bad? Using the DUP code on the KFQSA I set the UNITNUM on one of the RF71's to '1'. When I put the ID plug with the '0' on it, in its slot, it still reports as DUA0, however if I set FORCEUNI to 0 using DUP then it reports as DUA1 even though the ID plug says 0. The weird thing is that only the drive with the ID 0 plug in its slot responds to the controller, but both are tested on power up. I'm guessing it has something to do with the controller since the darn ID plug is just a piece of plastic! Oh, and it turns out I have two versions of this controller. One has a flat four position switch, the other a right-angle switch that I can adjust from the back. The latter has 3 open jumpers in the center of the board and the former has one open jumper. Curious. --Chuck

27 years

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RT-11/RSX-11/RSTS freeware CD-ROM

by mbg＠world.std.com

Count me in for the RT CDrom... This'll force me to get my non-SCSI RRD40 interface and disk setup and working... Megan Gentry Former RT-11 Developer +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+ | Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com | | Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg!world.std.com | | Compaq Computer Corporation | addresses need '@' in place of '!' | | 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43 | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ | | Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler | | (603) 884 1055 | required." - mbg | +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+

27 years

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