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

by bill＠chipware.com

I know that it is a "one-shot". What does that mean? The pinouts in the Chip Directory are no help. Several seem to be involved in the DEPOSIT logic on the IMSAI front panel. Also, I can't quite figure out what the logic table for the 74107 is trying to say. Thanks, Bill

26 years, 6 months

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Tektronix 31 pictures

by rigdonj＠intellistar.net

Go see "http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/7510/tek31.html". This is Rick Bensene's website and he's got a good description and some nice pictures of the Tek 31 posted there. Joe

26 years, 6 months

1
0
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HP 64110 emulator system software?

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

Hey folks. Anybody have any info on what software is required to run an HP 64110 processor emulator with various (z80, 68000, etc) emulation pods? Anybody here ever use one? -Dave McGuire

26 years, 6 months

2
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Daisy computer ?????????

by rigdonj＠intellistar.net

At 05:35 PM 7/11/99 -0700, Aaron wrote: >Daisy is the company that bought Cadnetix and eventually went out of >business. Did you pick it up? I'm not sure how close they are related, but >I have a lot of documentation for the Cadnetix system I have (but haven't >been able to get running). Mine is the same; 68020-based system running a >variant of SunOS under the CAD software. I *think* I saw a z-80 and a 68000 CPU in it. We didn't havve any tools and couldn't get all the way into it. > >As far as the cables, could they be 50-pin scsi cables? They might be but I *thought* they were larger. They are shielded so maybe they just looked that way. They're LONG and seem to be made to go to something outside of the cabinet. Mine has an >Adaptec scsi card and two enormous HD's in it (I think 10 meg apiece). It has a large card mounted next to the hard drive. The card looks like it converts SCSI to MFM for the hard drive and an interface for the 8" floppy drive. There is a FH 5 1/4" hard drive in it that appears to have a MFM interface. No idea what size drive it is. I didn't get it but I can if someone wants it. I may be going back there today or in the next couple of days so left me know ASAP. Joe > > Aaron > >On Sun, 11 Jul 1999, Dave McGuire wrote: > >> On Wed, 31 Dec 1969, Joe wrote: >> >This is another oddity that I spotted Friday. It's a black box about 3 >> >feet high by 1 x 2 feet with 2 chrome legs that stick out to one side with >> >castors on the end of them. It has an 8" floppy drive near the top and a FH >> >5 1/4" hard drive inside. There were several WIDE ( 60 pin?) ribbon cables >> >hanging out of it. Inside at the bottom it has a card rack with about 6 or >> >8 Multi-bus cards in it. The label on the outside says that it was made by >> >Daisy. Any one have any idea what it is? >> >> Whoa...that's quite a find. I had a chance to play with one of those about >> ten years ago, very briefly. It's a very nice CAD system. I'm almost positive >> it's Sun-based, so if it's got multibus cards in it, there's a Sun-2 in there. >> >> That was a kickin' system when I saw it. I was amazed by its capabilities >> and speed. My CAD work at the time was done using AutoCAD on a 10MHz 8088 >> (v20, actually) machine, and the Daisy system totally blew it away. I know, >> that's not saying much, but it was impressive at the time. :-) >> >> -Dave McGuire >> > >

26 years, 6 months

2
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DEC RT-11

by estechmann＠abivest.com

I just found a small box containing 6 8" DEC floppies labeled RT-11 V5.2 BIN RX02 Part numbers BA-P727E-BC through BA-P732E-BC The box (apparently) had not been opened, but the condition of the disks is unknown. Anybody interested? -- Eric Stechmann Direct: +1 (651) 234-1217 Software Critter Fax: +1 (651) 490-1484 American Biosystems, Inc. E-mail: estechmann(a)abivest.com 20 Yorkton Court URL: www.abivest.com St.Paul MN 55117 The program said "Requires Windows 9* or better" so I bought a Macintosh.

26 years, 6 months

2
1
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Sinking feeling

by Philip.Belben＠pgen.com

> Plotter", and the other "4662 Interactive Digital Plotter (with Option 31) Hi, Marvin. As Tony said, option 31 is not related to the 31 calculators. In fact it is the multiple pen option for the 4662 - an 8-pen semicircular carousel. How technical is this manual? I have some manuals, somewhere, I think, but I need to know the part number for the little gear that bolts onto the motor spindle in the option 31. (This drives a toothed belt which in turn drives the carousel). This gear on mine is in three pieces (metal hub + two parts of plastic gear). I tried glueing back together, but the thing dropped a tooth on the belt just often enough to be annoying. I suppose I can try again, reassembling the gear more carefully, and tensioning the belt more accurately, but I'd like a new gear anyway... Philip.

26 years, 6 months

2
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Can anyone ID these SEMI chips?

by edick＠idcomm.com

EMM SEMI made a number of odd-shaped (as compared with more conventional configurations of the time) staticc memories back in the late '70's -early '80's. These don't particularly ring a bell, though the 256x8 seems to sound about right. I haven't seen any literature lately. perhaps someone with a recent IC master will have more. Dick -----Original Message----- From: Doug Coward <mranalog(a)home.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Monday, July 12, 1999 12:41 AM Subject: Can anyone ID these SEMI chips? >Hi everyone, > I'm curious about identifing some chips. >I have was appears to be a memory board made by "EMM". >It also appears to be Q-bus, at least the power and >ground seem to be in the right places to be Q-bus. >Anyway, the board has 64 of these chips, and looking >at the interconnection between chips, they appear to >be arranged in 2 groups of 32. The chips are labeled: > > SEMI > 4200ACC > 7733 > > These are 22 pin chips, made in 1977, but I can't >seem to find any chip manufacturer named SEMI or >any reference to this 4200 number. > > Can anyone identify these chip? > >Thanks in advance, >--Doug >==================================================== >Doug Coward dcoward(a)pressstart.com (work) >Sr. Software Eng. mranalog(a)home.com (home) >Press Start Inc. http://www.pressstart.com >Sunnyvale,CA > >Curator >Analog Computer Museum and History Center >http://www.best.com/~dcoward/analog >====================================================

26 years, 6 months

1
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BASIC and the KIM-1

by uiterwyk＠eisers.com

Cameron, I can send you the Source Code for MicroBasic (An integer basic) written for the 6800 in 1975. The assembler memnomics are basicly the same, it shouldn't be too big a stretch to convert to the 6502 (Which I always intended to do 24 years ago when I wrote it) Robert Uiterwyk uiterwyk (at) eisers (dot) com

26 years, 6 months

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BASIC and the KIM-1

by ckaiser＠oa.ptloma.edu

A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 532 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/19990709/eef465da/at…

26 years, 6 months

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BASIC and the KIM-1

by Philip.Belben＠powertech.co.uk

>> That would be cool (though a commented disassembly would be even better, >> if that's available from anyone). I'm really particularly interested in >> *any* small BASIC implementation on the 6502 (Commodore BASIC doesn't >> count -- *you* try wading through 16K of uncommented disassembly ;-). > > Appendix F of "PET/CBM Personal Computer Guide" by Adam Osborne/Carroll S > Donahue consists of about 40 pages of lists of entry points and > addresses/labels for routines in the BASIC ROMs. It's not a disassembly, > but it would be great help to anyone trying to interpret one. IMHO the best guide to PET internals is "Programming the PET/CBM" by Raeto West. Pages and pages of guide to the ROMs (though no commented disassembly, I'm afraid), comparing different versions, and explaining the bugs in early versions. ISTR the PET has 14K (on early PETS, 7 * 2K byte chips) of ROM (except for 4000 series and later) of which roughly 8K is BASIC and 6K is Kernal. In PETs with 4 * 4K chips, the remaining 2K is permanently paged out to make room for I/O stuff. And not all that 8K is machine code - you've got tables of reserved words and addresses and things too. Philip. ********************************************************************** 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 **********************************************************************

26 years, 6 months

1
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Some qbus scores...

by mbg＠world.std.com

This weekend, I scored a couple of boards in the Qbus space... o another Qbus music board (93/D8036) (Anyone happen to have any programming info on these?) o a *dual-high* 1 Mbyte memory board (M7506-BC, MSV11-MB) o an MXV11-B (M7195) o a DLV11-E o a DLV11-F *and* o An ABLE corp QNIverter This last one is really interesting as I got to thinking about whether there was a disk (either from DEC or some third party) which ran on Qbus and looked like something supported by a KS10...? I think RM03s are supported by the KS10, and I *think* I have an RM03-look-similar somewhere in my apartment (warehouse). If this is true (and if I can find the controller), I might just be able to get a less-power-hungry -10 system going in the near future. Can anyone help with information of what is available? 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 | +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+

26 years, 6 months

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Some qbus scores...

by mbg＠world.std.com

>The Qniverter won't help you with this. The RH11 in your KS10 uses >the Unibus in an 18-bit wide mode (see the Unibus handbook for details >on how the parity bits are chosen to do this), but there are no >corresponding signals on the Q-bus. The Qniverter therefore generates >two parity bits based on the Q-bus 16-bit-wide data bus and subs these in >on the Unibus side. I was wondering if this would be a problem on my drive back from the place I got it... Okay, my fears were correct... d**n... >No 3rd-party Unibus RH11-emulating controller that I ever met does >18-bit-wide data, either. Double D**n... >If you're really serious about using your KS10, there are several >companies (SETASI, in particular) with off-the-shelf Massbus replacement >drive systems. Other companies (like Wilson Labs) make SCSI-to-Massbus >converters. These, IMHO, are the solutions you should be looking at if I'm serious, but my finances would not allow that (I'm sure it *is* a case of "If you have to ask, you can't afford it"). >you've decided that you don't want RM's and RP's in your computer room >I know several folks running KS10's at home, in one case *two* KS10's >with 4 big Massbus disks and two TU77's. I *did* warn you that you Would I know these people ? :-) >wanted 3-phase power run in before you got your KS10, didn't I ? :-) Yes, you did... But if I had waited for it to be run in before I took it, I would have lost out on the chance of getting it. And they are getting scarce, especially ones in the condition this was... 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 | +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+

26 years, 6 months

1
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Vic User

by Glenatacme＠aol.com

In a message dated 7/11/99 6:55:23 AM Eastern Daylight Time, gareth.knight2@whichnet writes: > Does anyone have any copies of the old UK magazines, Vic User or Commodore > User (pre-1985)? No, but there are some great scans of "Your Computer" at http://w1.631.telia.com/~u63104436/ which include some Commodore related stuff, in case your interested. Glen Goodwin 0/0

26 years, 6 months

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Some qbus scores...

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

> o An ABLE corp QNIverter > >This last one is really interesting as I got to thinking about >whether there was a disk (either from DEC or some third party) >which ran on Qbus and looked like something supported by a >KS10...? > >I think RM03s are supported by the KS10, and I *think* I have >an RM03-look-similar somewhere in my apartment (warehouse). >If this is true (and if I can find the controller), I might just >be able to get a less-power-hungry -10 system going in the >near future. > >Can anyone help with information of what is available? The Qniverter won't help you with this. The RH11 in your KS10 uses the Unibus in an 18-bit wide mode (see the Unibus handbook for details on how the parity bits are chosen to do this), but there are no corresponding signals on the Q-bus. The Qniverter therefore generates two parity bits based on the Q-bus 16-bit-wide data bus and subs these in on the Unibus side. No 3rd-party Unibus RH11-emulating controller that I ever met does 18-bit-wide data, either. If you're really serious about using your KS10, there are several companies (SETASI, in particular) with off-the-shelf Massbus replacement drive systems. Other companies (like Wilson Labs) make SCSI-to-Massbus converters. These, IMHO, are the solutions you should be looking at if you've decided that you don't want RM's and RP's in your computer room I know several folks running KS10's at home, in one case *two* KS10's with 4 big Massbus disks and two TU77's. I *did* warn you that you wanted 3-phase power run in before you got your KS10, didn't I ? :-) -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927

26 years, 6 months

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Urgent call for all and any transputer programs

by rmeenaks＠olf.com

Hi, I am in the process of making a freely available CD of all transputer programs that are public domain/shareware/GPL. In order to benefit everyone, I am asking you to donate any programs (no matter how small) as soon as possible. I want to reach the 650meg mark by the end of this month. So far I have 300-350megs. Tony, can you send me the schematics for the B020 as a lot of people are asking me for this. I also have the B020 development kit which I'll send to you. Thanks. Ram

26 years, 6 months

2
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Some qbus scores...

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< o another Qbus music board (93/D8036) (Anyone happen to have < any programming info on these?) I have a limited amount of Gigilo board info and software that drives it for PDP-11, RT-11 using I think Micropower Pascal. Allison

26 years, 6 months

1
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Commodore 8-bit/PET Page Updates

by foxnhare＠jps.net

Those of you interested in Commodore 8-Bits you will find my site has been recently updated... * Addition of "PET game Screenshots" - http://www.jps.net/foxnhare/petscreens.html Of selected games out of the PET Games Archive - http://www.jps.net/foxnhare/archive.html * Commodore 64 repair aid from an old newsletter - http://www.jps.net/foxnhare/c64fixer.html * Commodore 1541 repair aid from an old newsletter - http://www.jps.net/foxnhare/1541fixer.html * Added Mini Reviews in my Computer Movies/Books Page (still working on this one) - http://www.jps.net/foxnhare/compmovbook.html * And updated a few links here and there. -- 01000011 01001111 01001101 01001101 01001111 01000100 01001111 01010010 01000101 Larry Anderson - Sysop of Silicon Realms BBS (209) 754-1363 300-2400 baud Commodore 8-bit page at: http://www.jps.net/foxnhare/commodore.html 01000011 01001111 01001101 01010000 01010101 01010100 01000101 01010010 01010011

26 years, 6 months

1
0
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Lear-Siegler ADM terminals

by rigdonj＠intellistar.net

Hi, On my scrounging trip Friday I found a big pile of LS ADM 5 terminals. The appear to be in good condition. Does anyone need one? What's the difference between the ADM 5 and the ADM 3A? Joe

26 years, 6 months

1
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(fwd) systems available. (fwd)

by jpl15＠netcom.com

UK Classiccmpers: Hark! -------------------------------------------------------------- From: "T.Bluck." <tb(a)planet-tharg.demon.co.uk> Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: systems available. Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 12:44:52 +0000 Hello. I have two pdp11/34's (both with keypad/display front panels) these systems have all the P.C.B.'s etc.. and also (I Think) tape controller's as well.. and a pdp11/24 in a rack with a pair of RL02 drives and an emulex sc12 card and smd drive (emulating rk06 and rk07 drives) this system is running RSTS/E and will boot from any of the attached drives. I'm looking for offers and homes for these systems. if interested please contact me by e-mail. I'm in North Kent England, so be prepared to either collect, or I'll hire a van and deliver.. All The Best. -- Tim.Bluck. -- end of forwarded message --

26 years, 6 months

1
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BASIC for the '8

by cmcmanis＠mcmanis.com

Ok, now we're cooking. I loaded up EDUSYSTEM 4K BASIC on my 8/E this evening. The paper tape was part number DEC-08-ED10A-A-PB and it ran just fine. When it starts it askes which functions to retain (sort of like Focal does) and then gives you the READY prompt. My standard test of a FOR next loop with a PRINT statement in the middle ran just fine. However, I've got _no_ documentation on this version of BASIC. So if anyone has docs for this version of BASIC please let me know, thanks! --Chuck

26 years, 6 months

2
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classic computer

by SGRIF＠wxs.nl

Since my interest is no longer on old pc-stuff, please get me of your mailing list.

26 years, 6 months

2
1
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74123... What's it do?

by edick＠idcomm.com

A 74123 is a retriggerable one-shot. For a given trigger transition, it outputs a pulse of very approximately calculable duration and, should it get another such trigger before it's done with its current pulse, will continue that pulse until the predtermined pulse duration after the last such trigger. If you work for many companies and use one in a circuit, you will be fired without further ado. That was SOP at Martin Marietta when I was there. I even saw a manager back a guy into a corner to get him to save everyone the embarassment and just quit. There is no justification for using such a device with today's circuitry, and the passives which make it stabile and predictable for practical use all cost more than an equivalent precisely timed circuit. Now watch the guys jump on this one because they got one to work once upon a time. . . Dick -----Original Message----- From: Bill Sudbrink <bill(a)chipware.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Saturday, July 10, 1999 2:49 PM Subject: 74123... What's it do? >I know that it is a "one-shot". What does that >mean? The pinouts in the Chip Directory are >no help. Several seem to be involved in the >DEPOSIT logic on the IMSAI front panel. >Also, I can't quite figure out what the logic >table for the 74107 is trying to say. > >Thanks, >Bill

26 years, 6 months

2
1
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Help with SCSI tape on PDP-11 with RT-11

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

> Well, I need some help with a SCSI tape drive!! > >ENVIRONMENT: >Hardware: CQD 220/TM set both ways for W3-6 > W2 is out, standard CSR > for tape > TZK12-AA with jumpers OOOOOCCOOC >Software: RT-11 V5.6 > >BUT, when I try to do a COPY DU0:a.b MU0:a.b >the system hangs without having written anything to MU0: >When I try to do a BACKUP DU0:a.b MU0:a.b >I get 2 error messages saying it couldn't do the BACKUP >and quits, again without writing anything to MU0: It would be nice if every tape drive reacted the same way to SCSI commands, but this simply isn't the case. If you can try a different SCSI controller (or even a different firmware revision) or a different make of tape drive you'll probably have better luck. The fact that you can do some very simple operations, but not some more complicated operations, points to the problem being with certain SCSI "position tape" commands. This isn't too surprising if (as I'm assuming) this is a QIC cartridge drive - these often balk at filemark and record skips, *especially* in reverse (which is something that RT-11 will try to do for PIP-type operations for sure.) >Please, any suggestions would be helpful. I wish I could give you better advice than "it's hit and miss", but that advice would be "only use devices that the company that made your SCSI host adapter is willing to support", and this is often excessively restrictive. I think the CMD's are only qualified against Exabytes and some 4mm cart drives (at least they were when I bought my new CQD-440 most of a decade ago.) -- 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 Note that when I substitute a TQ50/TK50, everything is OK with respect to PIP and BUP. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine

26 years, 6 months

1
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Help with SCSI tape on PDP-11 with RT-11

by jhfine＠idirect.com

Well, I need some help with a SCSI tape drive!! ENVIRONMENT: Hardware: CQD 220/TM set both ways for W3-6 W2 is out, standard CSR for tape TZK12-AA with jumpers OOOOOCCOOC = Parity, SCSI ID =4, TPWR (at least the SCSI ID seems to be 4 since that is what the CQD 220/TM says to use for MU0: and MU0: exists) DC 6250 Software: RT-11 V5.6 Symptoms: I can do both an INIT MU0: and a RUN BUP MU0:/Z followed by: DIR MU0: for the simple INIT BACKUP/DIR MU0: for the RUN BUP MU0:/Z and for either DUMP/TERM MU0: I get the correct stuff (which is somewhat different) in each case, so I know I am writing to the tape drive which stops and starts and rewinds, etc. the appropriate number of times for these successful operations. At first I had a SCSI hard drive on the 50 pin cable as well (not at end of daisy chain - i.e. in the middle) which made no difference to MU0: and the SCSI hard drive works just fine at 160334 with or without the tape drive powered on or off. BUT, when I try to do a COPY DU0:a.b MU0:a.b the system hangs without having written anything to MU0: When I try to do a BACKUP DU0:a.b MU0:a.b I get 2 error messages saying it couldn't do the BACKUP and quits, again without writing anything to MU0: Note that when I substitute a TQ50/TK50, everything is OK with respect to PIP and BUP. Please, any suggestions would be helpful. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine

26 years, 6 months

1
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FS: NeXt color printer

by rigdonj＠intellistar.net

Hi, Does anyone need a NeXt color InkJet printer? I picked one up with some other stuff and I don't need it. I guess it's pretty rare, I've seen a bunch of NeXt LASER printers but I've never a NeXt color inkjet before. I haven't tested it yet but it appears to be in fine condition. It uses the same large ink cartridges that the Apple Color printer and some of the Canon inkjets use and it has a SCSI interface. I'm open for trades on HP stuff, S-100 stuff or anything else that looks interesting. Joe

26 years, 6 months

2
1
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MicroVAX 3100 Problem

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< <I cant see aany identifier on the front of the drive. Thee labels on = <the tapes which belong to it say TK50K is this enough? If not do I need = <to open the box to look at the drive or are there distinguishing = <features on the front which will give you an idea what drive it is? Ok, 3100, mounted inside, then it's a TZK30 (same density as tk50). The standard TK50 is full height and does not have three lights. Likely the tape mount failed for some reason and now you'll have to manually remove the tape. Allison

26 years, 6 months

1
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74123... What's it do?

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<If you work for many companies and use one in a circuit, you will be fired <without further ado. That was SOP at Martin Marietta when I was there. I <even saw a manager back a guy into a corner to get him to save everyone th <embarassment and just quit. I would have gone for nothing less that total public humiliation. <There is no justification for using such a device with today's circuitry, MITS and IMSAI lived... and died by them. Myself they are ok for non-critical timing. Unfortunately they were often used in critical circuits, shame as there were parts that could be used for critical timing but 7412X was not it!! Allison

26 years, 6 months

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What is a Sirius?

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

Hi Tony, >....The only firmware on the disk controller board is the GCR >encoder/decoder ROM and the microcontroller for the spindle >motors. Neither of those would change for DS drives. And I'm >not suprised that the boot ROM will boot a DS drive either. Quite, IIRC when you're using DS drives the system treats each side of the disc as a separate drive. So in a dual floppy machine you'd have drives A through D (A/C and B/D) - under DOS anyway. 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 --

26 years, 6 months

1
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What is a Sirius?

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

Hi Tony, >> Have you ever found software which will drive the Centronics port >>as GPIB?.... >No. It wouldn't be too hard to write it, though... > >All I/O is memory mapped. The base addresses for the 3 VIAs seem >to be.... Aha....you have detailed technical docs on the machine??? I managed to get a "service manual" several years ago but it has nothing even remotely useful in it.... :-( >What I was really looking for, though, was sound _input_ software. The >hardware is almost there (you'd need a preamplifier, that's all). Sorry, I'd misunderstood what you meant. >Aren't they 80 track? They certainly seemed to be. Which of course means >the heads are different to the PC drive ones.... Augh, major brain fade....you're correct of course, the Sirius uses 80 track drives (I'd been fiddling with an XT before I wrote the message). What I think I was getting at....is that pretty much any 80 track drive from that era should work, as long as you can remove the analogue/motor control boards (which isn't usually possible on more modern drives). 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 --

26 years, 6 months

1
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74123... What's it do?

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<I know that it is a "one-shot". What does that <mean? The pinouts in the Chip Directory are 74121, 122, 123 and 9601 Response is a pulse triggered by the inputs and the pulse length is determined by the R*C values connected. Common use is pulse shortening or pulse stretching. <no help. Several seem to be involved in the <DEPOSIT logic on the IMSAI front panel. <Also, I can't quite figure out what the logic <table for the 74107 is trying to say. 74107, JK-FF. J and K inputs setup what the FF will do when the Clock input changes state (hin to low transistion). Allison

26 years, 6 months

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Pointers please - Obsolete/discontinued chips

by ddameron＠earthlink.net

At 07:35 PM 3/19/99 -0700, you wrote: > >Can anyone recommend a vendor for obsolete or discontinued chips? My >specific current need is for an AMD chip: AM7992BCD (or equivalent). > www.alltronics.com in San Jose has a AM7992ADC for $US 2.50. Don't know what the suffix means: package, speed, etc. There is an expensive place that may even make some "obsolete" chips, I think their name is Rochester Electronics. -Dave

26 years, 6 months

2
1
0 0

74123... What's it do?

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>I know that it is a "one-shot". What does that >mean? An external resistor and capacitor set a time constant. One-shots produce output pulses, the width set by the time constant, in response to certain changes in their inputs. > The pinouts in the Chip Directory are >no help. "Well duh". Try a manufacturer's website, i.e. National Semiconductor's Application Note #366, "Designer's Encyclopedia of One Shots", at http://www.national.com/an/AN/AN-366.pdf or Fairchild Semiconductor for the 74123 data sheet http://www.fairchildsemi.com/pf/DM/DM74123.html If you have a nearby university, you'll be able to find the 74123 in just about any TTL databook from the last 25 years or so. While you're there, you might find a copy of Horowitz and Hill's _The Art of Electronics_. Note that the 74LS123 is incompatible, for many applications, with the non-LS 74123. This is the boundary between analog and digital technology... -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927

26 years, 6 months

1
0
0 0

RRD40 carts?

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<me suspect there is some sort of special DEC CD-ROM holder cartridge. If <so, is there any source for these? (I've got Sun ones but have never seen <any others besides them.) I think older sony used the same or was it panasonic. Allison

26 years, 6 months

2
1
0 0

MicroVAX 3100 Problem

by peter＠joules.enterprise-plc.com

I hope this is near enough on topic. I started to create a standalone backup this morning aand have a problem. The backup process aborted because of a problem with the tape drive. The drive is now sitting there with all three lights flashing. If I press the 'unload' button all of the lights come on stadily for some time and then start flashing again. Any suggestions as to what might be wrong, or at least how to diagnose the problem? BTW I aam running VMS 5.2. Regards Pete

26 years, 6 months

2
1
0 0

RRD40 carts?

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

> I just got and RRD40 (external SCSI version that I'm going to "downgrade" > to use with the KRQ50) and it has a very strange loading slot. This makes > me suspect there is some sort of special DEC CD-ROM holder cartridge. If > so, is there any source for these? (I've got Sun ones but have never seen > any others besides them.) Yep, I've got a few of the LMS caddies that fit the RRD40 left. Get me your mailing address and one will go out ASAP. Are you sure you really want to use the RRD40? It's slower than a 1X CD-ROM... If you can at all get a more recent SCSI CD-ROM that you can set to 512 bytes per sector (lots of such NEC units show up on E-bay and at surplus dealers like www.hitechcafe.com) and use, do it. Most third-party Q-bus SCSI controllers will issue SCSI mode selects so that you can use drives that are set up for 2048 bytes per sector, even. -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927

26 years, 6 months

1
0
0 0

MicroVAX 3100 Problem

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<I started to create a standalone backup this morning aand have a = <problem. The backup process aborted because of a problem with the tape = <drive. The drive is now sitting there with all three lights flashing. = <If I press the 'unload' button all of the lights come on stadily for = <some time and then start flashing again. =20 < <Any suggestions as to what might be wrong, or at least how to diagnose = <the problem? We would need to know more like what tape? Allison

26 years, 6 months

1
0
0 0

RSTS/E Question

by jpl15＠netcom.com

One last go at this.. (3rd time = charm??) If anyone reading The List is familiar with RSTS/E V9.x (I am running 9.7) I have a small perplexity. I have performed a recent sysgen to add RL02, RK05, RX02, and networking functionality to RSTS on my 11/44. I have a pair of RL02s and an RL11 card installed in the machine. The RL02 subsystem appears to function normally according to the appropriate docs. I can init the RL02s, I can erase and re-init, and during the init process, if called for, the disk check patterns run to completion and bad blocks (if any) are found and written to BADB.SYS. I can mount the drives, and can see them mounted by SHOW DEV. What I *can't* do is read or write to them... the error message 'device not available' results from trying to alloc, dir, or any copy or pip operation. I have tried mounting the /PUBLIC to no avail. I have the RSTS Orange Wall coming, but it's not here yet... I'm hoping I'm doing/not doing something dumb or obvious... Thanks and cheers John

26 years, 6 months

1
0
0 0

RRD40 carts?

by cmcmanis＠mcmanis.com

Howdy, I just got and RRD40 (external SCSI version that I'm going to "downgrade" to use with the KRQ50) and it has a very strange loading slot. This makes me suspect there is some sort of special DEC CD-ROM holder cartridge. If so, is there any source for these? (I've got Sun ones but have never seen any others besides them.) --Chuck

26 years, 6 months

1
0
0 0

OT:? VGA MaxStation

by a2k＠one.net

I imaginge thta this is fairly off topic but I sincerely have no idea how old it is. A while ago I aquired a MaxSpeed VGA MaxStation X terminal. Nothing with it, so I emailed MaxSpeed and they sent me a free PSU. I hooked up an SVGA monitor, mouse, and keyboard, and plugged in my ethernet cable. When I turn it on, the power light just blinks (short, long, short, long, etc) over and over again. Nothing happens on the CRT, but the keyboard lights blink momentarily. Any ideas? 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

26 years, 6 months

1
0
0 0

BASIC and the KIM-1

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jul 9, 14:37, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > That would be cool (though a commented disassembly would be even better, > if that's available from anyone). I'm really particularly interested in > *any* small BASIC implementation on the 6502 (Commodore BASIC doesn't > count -- *you* try wading through 16K of uncommented disassembly ;-). Appendix F of "PET/CBM Personal Computer Guide" by Adam Osborne/Carroll S Donahue consists of about 40 pages of lists of entry points and addresses/labels for routines in the BASIC ROMs. It's not a disassembly, but it would be great help to anyone trying to interpret one. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

26 years, 6 months

1
0
0 0

Surplus Computer Stuff Available

by mcquiggi＠sfu.ca

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. (Off Topic) Amateur radio gear: Henry 2002 "Tempo" 2 KW 2-meter linear; Heathkit SB201A 2 KW linear, 80-15 meters. 10. 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! That's all for now, likely more to follow. Kevin

26 years, 6 months

1
0
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Top 150 Collectible Microcomputers

by kaikal＠MICROSOFT.com

Here's the first draft at a list of the Top 150 Collectible Microcomputers (from the U.S.A.). I would have gone for Top 100 but there are just too many great machines, and 200 is too many. It's currently at 133 items. Some related models are combined as one, even though they are rather different... other similar models are kept separate. This is basically just because I personally feel they rate their own separate listing, feel free to disagree. Please add items! Items on the list should meet the following categories: 1) Collectible Microcomputer (yes, I know the H-11 is on here as an "honorary" micro) 3) Sold in the USA 4) Available from a manufacturer (not just plans in a magazine) The list: Altos 586 Altos ACS 8000 APF MP1000 Apple I Apple II Apple II+ Apple II+ Bell & Howell "Black Apple" Apple IIc / IIc Plus Apple IIe / IIe Platinum Apple IIgs / IIgs Woz Limited Edition Apple III Apple III+ Apple Lisa / Macintosh XL Apple Macintosh 128 Apple Macintosh 512K Through SE Apple Macintosh Portable AT&T Unix PC / 3B2 / 7300 Atari 400 Atari 800 Atari XL Series Atari 520ST / 1040ST Atari Portfolio Byte Computers Byt-8 California Computer Systems (CCS) S-100 Coleco ADAM Commodore/MOS Technologies KIM-1 Commodore PET 2001-8 Commodore PET 4032 / 8032 Commodore SuperPET SP9000 Commodore VIC-20 Commodore 64 / 65 Commodore 128 / 128D Commodore C16 / Plus 4 Commodore SX64 Commodore Amiga 1000 Commodore Amiga 500 Compaq Portable PC / Plus / II / III CompuColor II CompuPro S-100 / 8-16 Convergent Technologies WorkSlate Corvus Concept Cromemco C-10 Cromemco System One Cromemco System Three Cromemco Z Series Data General One DEC Rainbow 100 Digital Group Systems Dynalogic Hyperion Epson HX-20 Epson PX-8 Geneva Epson QX-10 & QX-16 Exidy Sorcerer Gimix Franklin ACE 1000 / 1200 Hewlett-Packard HP85 Hewlett-Packard HP150 Heathkit H-8 Heathkit H-11 Heath-Zenith H88/H89 IBM 5100 Personal Computer IBM 5140 PC Convertible IBM 5150 Personal Computer IBM 5160 PC-XT IBM 5170 AT IBM 5155 Portable PC IBM PCjr IBM PS/2 Model 80 IMSAI 8080 IMSAI PCS-80 IMSAI VDP-80 Ithaca Audio InterSystems DPS-1 Intertec SuperBrain Kaypro II Kaypro 4 / 10 Lobo PMC-80 Mattel Aquarius Mindset PC MITS Altair 680 MITS Altair 8800 MITS Altair 8800a MITS Altair 8800b MITS Altair 8800b Turnkey Morrow Decision 1 Morrow Micro Decision Morrow Pivot NEC PC-6001A NEC PC-8001A NEC PC-8201A / PC-5000 North Star Advantage North Star Horizon Ohio Scientific Challenger C1P Ohio Scientific Challenger C4P Ohio Scientific Challenger C3D Osborne 1 Osborne Executive Osborne Vixen Otrona Attache Polymorphic Systems POLY-88 Processor Technology SOL Quasar/Panasonic HK2600TE Hand Held Computer Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 1 Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computers 1-3 Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 2 Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 3/4 Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 4P Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 12 / 16 / 6000 Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100 / 102 / 200 Radio Shack TRS-80 Micro Color Computer MC-10 Radio Shack TRS-80 Pocket Computers RCA COSMAC 1802 / ELF / Super ELF Rockwell AIM-65 Sanyo MBC-1000 Seattle Computer Products 8086 Sharp Pocket Computers PC-1500 / PC-1500A Sinclair ZX80 Sinclair ZX81 / Timex-Sinclair ZX1000 Smoke Signal Broadcasting Chieftain Spectravideo SV-318 / SV-328 Sphere SWTPC (SouthWest Technical Products) 6800 SWTPC (SouthWest Technical Products) 6809 Synertek SYM-1 Texas Instruments TI 99/4A Timex-Sinclair 1500 Timex-Sinclair 2068 Tomy Tutor Vector Graphic Vector-1 Vector Graphic Vector-4 VideoBrain Vtech Laser 128 Xerox 820 Zenith Z-110 / Z-120

26 years, 6 months

21
46
0 0

PC form factor

by Glenatacme＠aol.com

Hey Hans: We're grossly off topic here and I don't want to upset any of the classiccmp folks (again), but here's my reply: In a message dated 7/8/99 5:09:02 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Hans.Franke(a)mch20.sbs.de writes: > > Not to doubt your word, but as owner of a small PC repair shop, my > experience > > (and records) would suggest that the following components have a higher > > failure rate than power supplies or their fans. In order from highest > > failure rate: > > > 1) modems -- extremely susceptible to spikes -- our most common repair > > Modemfailure due spikes ? Just out of couriosity - do you still > have telegraph like overhead single wire telephone connections > and no protective devices in your area ? (Thats just the only > way I can imagine to become the modems into #1 failing devices) I live in Central Florida. To be honest I don't know what protective devices the local phone company has. We do have old fashioned telephone poles. :>) I do know this: ---> Central Florida is the lightning capitol of the world -- we get more than anywhere else. :>( ---> July is peak lightning season. --> Every summer from June to August, for the last seven years, we have sold a huge (for us) number of modems, usually installing them in PCs which contain burned-out modems. --> I checked our files, and we have replaced more bad modems than any other PC component. Perhaps my logic is faulty so help me out here -- what would you conclude, given the above data? Any suggestions as to what else might be killing all these modems? Regards, Glen Goodwin 0/0

26 years, 6 months

2
1
0 0

Confirm, please?

by kyrrin＠bluefeathertech.com

Hello from the Bay Area! Thanks to Chuck McManis, I now have another MicroVAX III board set which will be put to many useful purposes the moment I get home. I have also acquired, in my scrounging travels, a Dilog DQ686 board. It appears to be a QBus ESDI controller. Confirm? Deny? Drool? I've also acquired two new-in-the-box DEC KRQ50 controller kits. This is the kit required to put an RRD40 or 50 CD-ROM on a MicroVAX or MicroPDP-11. It consists of an M7552 controller, the cabinet and cable kit, a bus grant card, the external cable for the CD-ROM drive, and an installation guide. I'm going to keep one, but I will be placing the second one up for bid on Haggle's 'Antique Computers' section once I get back to the northwest (Sunday/Monday). I'll be picking up a Northstar Horizon system this morning, so I gotta scoot. Catch up to you all later. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner and Head Honcho Blue Feather Technologies (www.bluefeathertech.com) kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com "...There's always a bigger fish..."

26 years, 6 months

2
3
0 0

IMSAI (moving along...)

by edick＠idcomm.com

Remember when I was bitching about the S-100 having half a dozen or more signals, any four of which would do the job? That's only true if the FP, the CPU, and the target memory or peripheral agree on which signals those are. That's not always the case. Some cards seem to prefer you use one pair of signals as the active strobes with others as qualifiers, while others require the concurrence of all before anything happens. It may be that the memory doesn't think it's being written, or that it doesn't believe the data is being gated onto the bus. You might find it illuminating to reach in with a scope probe and see how long the write and the select strobes are at the destination, and compare them with the source. Dick -----Original Message----- From: Bill Sudbrink <bill(a)chipware.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Thursday, July 08, 1999 4:58 PM Subject: RE: IMSAI (moving along...) >> Do you have prints for the cpu and FP? they are a must as you can >> literally follow the signal forward or backward to the problem. > >For the front panel I have drawings of the board/traces, both >solder and component sides. For the MPU-A I have nothing. >Interestingly, I have the MPU-B Theory of Operation and Users >Guide. > >Thanks, >Bill

26 years, 6 months

1
0
0 0

Vax 6000's

by geoffrob＠stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au

I accidentally posted this to the BSD Port-VAX list, so apologies if you have seen it before...... I picked up, on behalf of the school here, 3 Vax 6000 machines last Monday, >from my favourite scrapyard. ($300 for the lot) This in now on topic, they are 1989 build, I think.:^) Having searched for and never found a SCSI controller (apart from $$$$ new ones) that would work in one, I was very pleased to find in a 6000-420 from this lot, not one but THREE! CMD CBI-1000 VAXBI SCSI Controllers, 2 x /MB (Disk only) and 1 x /TM Disk and/or Tape. I can now contemplate building up one machine with all it's disk drives in the cpu cabinet. And my 4mm DAT tape can now be cluster served again. Haven't been able to do that since the strange Emulex Tape controller in the HSC50 died. (Well, the interface in the enclosure with the 2 x DAT drives anyway, the HSC card is still ok I think. It emulated the DAT devices as TA78's to the Vax, (if you can imagine a 4 Gb TA78) The surviving HP 4mm DAT is currently living in a VS4000-90, where it works ok, but I'm not able to share it to the cluster, for some reason. This lot includes:- 6420 with 128Mb of RAM and it's SCSI stuff - an XMI bus only, (never seen one of them before) 6440 with a DSSI controller, CI and Ethernet, 196Mb of RAM(!) and a very tired 6240 with 96mb. The 6240 has been dropped from a great height at some point and is really bent, twisted and beaten up, (front door torn off) though it would probably still run. The 6440 is somewhat dinged, bent and scratched, ("body rough" I guess you'd call it) but otherwise ok. The 6420 is fine apart from a few minor dings and scratches. I'm spare parting the 6240, and probably the 6440. Next week I have to go and pick up a retired, complete, CI based cluster, that only came off DEC Maintenance in September 98, 1 x 6410, 1 x 6240, 2 x HSC70, 2 x TA79, 1 x Star Coupler and stack of RA9x and RA7x drives in an SA6?? cabinet. Direct from the owners. So they will be in mint nick. No coin, just come and get it. This is gonna be a big trip,(130 miles each way BTW) as I am towing a trailer behind the ute. It struggled a bit with the 3 x 6000's but if I lay some stuff flat to reduce the wind drag it should be ok. Consequently, the school's lone 6320 is getting a major upgrade. It's now fat with 256mb of RAM courtesy of the beat up 6440, and is going to get it's CPU's and one of the CMD SCSI controllers and XMI based CI & Ethernet as well. Plus we will have one complete spare machine ready to plug in. The HSC50 will now retire to a working display I intend to set up and be replaced by the HSC70. I haven't figured out exactly what bit's will go where, but I'm counting on 2 or 3 Multi-CPU machines when the dust settles. Some of the excess then comes to my private collection, so I will wind up with a multi-cpu box of my own, a 6260 with 128Mb and a SCSI controller if it all works out - I will probably just update my existing 6220 to that level, (since I've already converted it to single phase) and have plenty of spare parts ;^) BTW, anyone know how some good startup SYSGEN values for a 6000 that had 64mb originally and now has 256Mb? It runs Multinet 3.2 Rev B, WASD Web Server/Proxy Server, MX mail, IUPOP3, Madgoat FTP, & only 2 or 3 interactive users - me and the developer of WASD mostly - we're his beta site. (The day to day file serving for the school is done by a Novell box.) I can't see why I can't get it to a point where there are essentially no page faults, considering the workload and available memory. I have bumped up some of the PQL_xxxxxxxx Sysgen variables, but am really out of my depth here. I have managed to make the correct changes in SYSGEN to have VMS 6.0 recognise all the memory, however, for some odd reason it won't accept -1 as a variable in PHYSICALPAGES which should make it use (according to the VMS FAQ anyway) all the memory it finds. I set it to 524288 and SHOW MEM says 256Mb so I guess it's happy. But if I try SET PHYSICALPAGES = -1 SYSGEN says SYNTAX ERROR. AUTOGEN? Last time I tried that, it hosed up the system so bad it took an hour to get everything working again No idea what went wrong but I'm in no hurry to try it again. When I get a second system up, I'll see if I can find out what happened. I'm reading the VMS tuning instructions, but the signal to noise ratio is still rather on the high side at my level of comprehension. Greetings from Country South Australia. Geoff Roberts VK5KDR Computer Systems Manager Saint Mark's College Port Pirie, South Australia. Email: geoffrob(a)stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au netcafe(a)pirie.mtx.net.au ICQ #: 1970476

26 years, 6 months

1
0
0 0

IMSAI (moving along...)

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<On the MPU-A: <Pin 68 has no connection, right at the card edge. <Pin 77 goes to an 8T97 pin 9 (an output pin). < <Now that I look at it this way, this is VERY WEIRD! <Maybe very bad? Does this mean that the CPU can not <write to this memory card? Does the front panel <arbitrate pin 68 for the CPU? Arbitrate is the wrong word. PWR/ is generated by the CPU as is SOUT, those combine in the front pannel to make MWRITE. Mwrite is used to deposit front pannel data in ram and the cpu data to ram. Most memories use Mwrite to write data but some will use PWR/ and SOUT instead (for non frontpannel systems). I belive the ram you are using wants Mwrite. So you need to see if there is activity on the mwrite line (68) If it's there when you hit deposit then look at sout and PWR/ on the bus. Do you have prints for the cpu and FP? they are a must as you can literally follow the signal forward or backward to the problem. Or if you have BURSKY, Hayden books THE S100 BUS HANDBOOK that will do as it has the IMSAI prints in it. Allison

26 years, 6 months

2
1
0 0

PC form factor

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<This is only true for overhead lines, and not when they are buried under <the street, correct? Actually, some of the main lines are fiber-optic now, <which shouldn't carry a surge. True to a point but, at some time the fiber becomes copper and there is the source of risk. A hit to a local tree can charge the ground that the copper passes through and deliver a common mode bash to whatever is connected to it. Common mode is when both leads are at the same potential but manyto many volts above "Ground". This is very common with lightening. Shielded cable is no help as the shield (at over 10,000 AMPS) can carry a very big potential above around as well! Keep in mind surge protectors are for small surges, lightining is a very big surge and I've seen it melt 000 guage copper like it was warm butter. The hit that did that cooked my NS* the first time was a direct one to a roof antenna. the ground for that antenna was 000 copper. The second time that happend it was in a different place and it hit the pole a half mile down thre road were it went underground and though power and phone came in from underground... damm, not again! Allison

26 years, 6 months

1
0
0 0

new pictures online

by dogas＠leading.net

Hi gang, I'm back again. I've taken alot of pictures lately. http://users.leading.net/~dogas/homebrew.html This is a beautiful *old* s100 homebrew system built around a Tinker Toys Wunderbus. It has 2 8" drives, 2 Exatron stringy floppies, a (I think) wire-wrapped (George Morrow ???) front panel board... http://users.leading.net/~dogas/b4.html This is my only minicomputer, a Basic/Four. Also there are pictures of the terminal, inside the back, a few dual 8" systems, etc.... I'll go out on a limb and ask if anyone has any software for this. :) :) - Mike: dogas(a)leading.net

26 years, 6 months

1
0
0 0

WTB: IBM 5150 Portable case/PS and keyboard

by roblwill＠usaor.net

Hi! After getting that email from the guy that wanted the Osborne to turn in to a 'portastudio', I got an idea. I'm going to be going to college in a couple years, and doubt I'll have very much space (especially in the car I have) to lug my full-size tower PC and 21" monitor back and forth every semester. I was also sorting through my parts boxes, and found I still had a 9" VGA monitor (mono) that I thought blew out, a 386 board, and a PS/2 Model 25 keyboard. What I'm thinking of doing is getting an old 5155 case, and keyboard, putting in the VGA tube/video guts, and replacing the keyboard with the Model 25 keyboard, since it's smaller. I'd then take that computer to college, since I'd basically be doing word processing (word Perfect), and a bit of web browsing/email (Arachne). I'm not looking to pay much for one (probably between $15-$20), and all I need is the case and keyboard. If anyone has one with a blown monitor or something, let me know. ThAnX in avdance... -Jason ( roblwill(a)usaor.net ) < http://members.tripod.com/general_1 > ICQ # 1730318

26 years, 6 months

3
2
0 0

IMSAI (moving along...)

by bill＠chipware.com

So I've identified and corrected one problem with the front panel and now the address lights and switches seem to respond correctly to EXAMINE, EXAMINE NEXT and DEPOSIT NEXT. For those who might be curious... U15 (74ls04) had apparently been replaced several times. In particular, the area around the pad for pin 11 was rather charred. There seemed to be some conductivity between pin 11 and one of its neighbors. I desoldered U15 and soldered in a socket. Then cut the trace about 1/8" from pin 11, reinserted U15 with pin 11 bent out and "air wired" pin 11 to a convenient hole-through a little further down the trace. Much better! So now, on to the data lights. With no memory board installed, I get 0xFF (all 8 data lights on) for any address. This is correct behavior, is it not? I then put in the INDUSTRIAL MICRO SYSTEMS 8K MEMORY BD. Checking each 4K (0x0000, 0x1000, ..., 0xE000, 0xF000) I still get nothing but 0xFF. Try DEPOSITing 0x00 at each 4K, still nothing but 0xFF. On the board, J1 is jumpered at 0 (choices being 0-7). I assume that this is the bank number and that would make this board 8K starting at address 0. J2 is open (I have no idea what this means). By the way... on the front panel, when powered up, the PROGRAMMED OUTPUT lights are all on. Is this correct? Thanks, Bill

26 years, 6 months

4
10
0 0

PC form factor

by Glenatacme＠aol.com

Hello Dick: In a message dated 7/2/99 6:15:07 PM Eastern Daylight Time, edick(a)idcomm.com writes: > IBM had people who were really worried about noise, hence wouldn't put a > meaningful fan in the box. That little thing in the PSU (which dies more > often than any other single component in any PC) Not to doubt your word, but as owner of a small PC repair shop, my experience (and records) would suggest that the following components have a higher failure rate than power supplies or their fans. In order from highest failure rate: 1) modems -- extremely susceptible to spikes -- our most common repair 2) CD-ROM drives -- easily damaged by jarring the unit -- we sell a lot of replacements 3) floppy drives -- usually a victim of grit which is sucked in through the drive by the power supply fan! Side note: In '88 I had a gig with Gulf Oil/Cumberland Farms. Being a True Blue shop, MIS insisted on nothing less than PS/2-80s at forty loading terminals. About three months after installation, the floppies began to fail. Inspection revealed that since Big Blue, in their wisdom, had failed to build the little closure flap into the drives (probably saved them 10 cents per unit), these machines were not suitable for use in an industrial environment without modification (replacing the drive). Modifying these critters cost IBM a boatload on just this one project; I'm sure there were many more. Regards, Glen Goodwin 0/0

26 years, 6 months

8
9
0 0

Free stuff gone.

by bsa3＠cornell.edu

The free stuff has all been claimed. -- Brad Ackerman N1MNB "...faced with the men and women who bring home bsa3(a)cornell.edu the pork, voters almost always re-elect them." http://skaro.pair.com/ -- _The Economist_, 31 Oct 1998

26 years, 6 months

1
0
0 0

Junk boxes

by Mzthompson＠aol.com

On Tue, 6 Jul 1999, Max Eskin <max82(a)surfree.com> wrote: >>Hi, >>I'd like to know how people here store their junk parts, as I'm looking >>for an efficient method myself. For the past several years, I've been >>keeping them in ziplock bags in a plastic box, which is falling apart, and >>also is useless for storing anything small. On the same day, John Lawson <jpl15(a)netcom.com> wrote: >My junk box? Very simple, elegant, straightforward: >I just use a house. >PS: The garage works for when the house is full. Like now.... And the barn works fine after that ;-) I bought this place years ago, and probably what intriqued me then was limitless (NOT) storage space. Of course then it was just electronics in general, mostly old radios, and now the computers. The garage building has a 2 car garage up front and beside that is an 8' x 20' room I use as my electronic shop. Across the back is another room which is 12' x 30' and has a garage door at one end. This room is my general workshop along with storage for whatever wanders in. Over the years, some of what I have hauled home has served as storage for the rest of it. The back garage has 12 19" racks (solid steel sides) laid over on their sides and stacked three high. Down the center of the garage is other equipment racks where I have added shelves inside. So never turn down a free equipment rack, especially one with wheels. The are some DEC racks that are a steel frame with removable side panels and the steel frame is put together with pop rivets. I have taken these and removed the panels and drilled out the rivets holding the top side rails and crossbars. I then cut the uprights down to around 30-33" and drill and remount the top side rails and crossbars. Next I put a plywood top on it. This particular style of rack has shelves that mount on the inside of the uprights. I put in a few shelves, spaced just right. In one rack I put a DECstation 3100 CPU box on the bottom shelf, an expansion box on the next shelf up, and a TK50 expansion box on the top shelf. For the keyboard, you can mount a board on the front with angle brackets. The monitor goes on top and you have a machine you can roll out of the way while you play with your latest haul. My wife owns a sewing shop, and as such is known by all the fabric stores in town. When one of them closed up, she was contacted and got the chance to go in and buy some of the furnishings. She bought 6 patterns cabinets for $10 each, put two in her shop and gave the other four two me :-))). These are about 2'd x 2'w x 3.5'h. Since I knew they would be heavy once filled, I grabbed the left over side panels from the DEC racks, and put some reinforcing steel on the inside and mounted casters (removed from other racks). Each side panel was big enough to hold two pattern cabinets, and they were all bolted to the side panels. Each of these cabinets has four drawers which each have dividers, making them nice for organizing stuff. The point to all of this is that given a little imagination you can combine various items of junk (hauled home treasures) together to form storage space for your stuff. Mike Thompson

26 years, 6 months

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FW: OSBORNE MATTERS.....

by roblwill＠usaor.net

Hi! Here's someone that emailed me searching for some leads to buy an old Osborne. Please reply directly to him. -Jason Message: 28 of 28 Folder: INBOX From: "Garrett Newnam" Garrett-Newnam(a)excite.com Add to Address Book Filter Sender Date: Wed, 07 Jul 1999 02:46:41 -0500 Subject: Osborne matters... Header: Displaying BriefHeader Show Full Header Hello there. Nice to be in contact with you... I'm an ex-Osborne 1 user, and have been getting nostalgic about them lately. Especially since my bright idea of installing PC components into and Osborne case (I mainly use my PC as a recording studio, and the portability of say, an Osborne Vixen, could really turn into a slick little "Portastudio", complete with speakers, modem, and mouse). Any leads for Osbornes for sale? Garrett N.

26 years, 6 months

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New finds last couple days

by jrkeys＠concentric.net

Good Day All over the last few days a few items have come my way here's a short list: 1. Mattel Aquarius and extras' all in their boxes 2. Apple GS with WOZ (so called limited edition),2 3.5 drives and 1 5 1/4 drive, KB and mouse 3. Several old manuals and mag's 4. digital VAXstation 4000/60 with built-in cd-rom drive no KB or monitor with it. 5. Mac LCIII just the cpu no kb or other parts with it. 6. 10 brand new unopened copies of Win 3.1, Access 2.0, ProComm Plus, and other software all brand new unopened. (I will be putting most of this up for sale at $5 a box plus shipping). 7. About 15 Atari cartridges, have list them yet but I notice a few that I had never seen before. Well that's the short as some of the stuff is not yet 10 years old. Keep computing John I also saw were ZOOM acquired all of Hayes Corp. assets and name, another great one dies. I wonder what this does for Hayes items that we all collect ?

26 years, 6 months

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IMSAI (moving along...)

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<> put in the INDUSTRIAL MICRO SYSTEMS 8K MEMORY BD. < <Hi Bill < If this is a dynamic memory board it may not work. <None of the dynamic boards, I tried, seemed to work It's static. I have one still as they are reliable as they come. Do check that it's jumperd for Mwrite from the FP and that the FP is generating Mwrite. Anotehr place to look is that the various *disables (they disable the dat, control and address lines from the CPU.) arent disabled as they are individual lines for data and other controls. An imsai will run dynamic but its got to be the later design with hidden refresh. Even then it's twitchy. Allison

26 years, 6 months

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Free: CDS Unistar, NeXT docs

by bsa3＠cornell.edu

The following items are free to whomever wants to pay for shipping or pick them up either in Ithaca (whenever) or Baltimore (Mariott Hunt Valley, this weekend). * CDS Unistar, one floppy, HD, a bunch of Data Translation DA/AD cards, keyboard. No docs or discs, and the /usr partition is wiped, so this won't do much good unless you already have one. I can supply a copy of the manual for the same vendor's ISA card of like vintage, if it will help. Works, at least to the extent that I can test it with what's in /bin. * NeXTstep v2.1 upgrade package. Includes OS on floptical. * NeXT manuals, all in one box set: Technical Summaries Supplemental Documentation Writing Loadable Kernel Servers Operating System Software Sound, Music, and Signal Processing: Reference Sound, Music, and Signal Processing: Concepts As always, first come, first served. Taking all of these items off my hands simultaneously is welcome, but not necessary. -- Brad Ackerman N1MNB "...faced with the men and women who bring home bsa3(a)cornell.edu the pork, voters almost always re-elect them." http://skaro.pair.com/ -- _The Economist_, 31 Oct 1998

26 years, 6 months

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FW: Symbolics 3600 and 3670 available

by Jgzabol＠aol.com

Hi there, I have run across two interesting machines: Symbolics 3600 Symbolics 3670 built for AI applications. Since they are not in my line, here is the telephone number of the person who needs to remove them WITHIN THE NEXT TEN DAYS (612) 379 - 7343 (Minneapolis, MN). Please contact him directly, not me; I am simply forwarding this information. These are NOT personal computer type systems, they are BIG !!!! (Mainframe class). These are LISP machines. Happy collecting John G. Zabolitzky

26 years, 6 months

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Article about collecting in Antique Trader.

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

Hi Tony, >> The thing about Sinclair machines is that they are masterpieces of >>design.... > >I am not convinced they are good designs. We've had this discussion >before on this list, but I will never be convinced that leaving out a >couple of chips to save a few pence is a good thing if the result doesn't >work properly. Quite, but my point was that whoever designed them (Sir Clive or whoever) REALLY understood what they were doing! Although that said a lot of the design ideas could have (probably were) cribbed >from books like "The Cheap Video Cookbook" etc.... >Never had a System 1, always wanted one. I've got some of the later >Systems in racks, including the 6809 version... Likewise, I'd love to get my hands on a System 1 - I've never even seen one "in the flesh". I wasn't aware that they developed the "System 1" further, I'd always thought/assumed that Acorn quietly dropped the system after the "Atom" popped up. <Mk 14> >I have the tape interface. I think I saw the PROM programmer at an >electronics show, so at least a prototype existed. Never saw any of the >others. One of my teachers at school was the only other person I've known who had a Mk14 from new. I'm pretty sure he never managed to get any of the add ons other than the tape interface, though ISTR he'd ordered the VDU and PROM programmer. I think he ended up cancelling the orders due to non-delivery, the launch of the VDU board was delayed several times ISTR. :-( 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 --

26 years, 6 months

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Junk boxes

by max82＠surfree.com

Hi, I'd like to know how people here store their junk parts, as I'm looking for an efficient method myself. For the past several years, I've been keeping them in ziplock bags in a plastic box, which is falling apart, and also is useless for storing anything small. --Max Eskin (max82(a)surfree.com) http://scivault.hypermart.net: Ignorance is Impotence - Knowledge is Power

26 years, 6 months

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Fw: FS Next stuff in Minneapolis

by fauradon＠mn.mediaone.net

As usual I don't know the guy, Contact him directly. I could help pick up and ship if that's a problem with the guy. Francois ----- Original Message ----- From: william rice <rice0067(a)tc.umn.edu> Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.marketplace Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 1999 3:50 AM Subject: FS Next stuff in Minneapolis > I have a bunch of next stuff that must go > 030 cube boards $25 (2) > 25mhz '040 cube 16/1gig with monitor and cable and keyboard $250 > 25mhz 040 color slab 24/380 17" sony monitor soundbox, cables, > keyboard $250 > next laser best offer (3) > external hdd 1gig $25 (2) > black dove fax $5 (1) > > sgi iris 3130 complete $50 > > all these are for sale in minneapolis.. I will ship if I have to tho... > make reasonable offers if you dont like the price.. I just want to get > rid of this stuff > > bill >

26 years, 6 months

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Random ramblings...

by jimw＠agora.rdrop.com

1) For anyone needing to make travel plans or prepare items for exhibit - there are now less than three months until the start of VCF III! 2) Down that same track, (since I just had the above revelation a few days ago) there are some new pictures on the 'Computer Garage' website that I've been shooting as I'm going thru machines and systems... "Field stripping the RX02" makes up one quick little photo set... There are others as well. 3) And for those of morbid curiosity (or those just in need of a good theme for a nightmare B^} ) Hidden in the pages (but not too hidden) of the 'Garage' are some shots from within (one of) the 'Computer Garage' Warehouses! Sorry, no panoramas from within the 'Garage' itself... Yet! <snicker> -jim --- jimw(a)computergarage.org The Computer Garage - http://www.computergarage.org Computer Garage Fax - (503) 646-0174 >>> Coming soon to www.computergarage.org - the CBBS/NW on-line archives >>> Coming to VCF III (2-3 October 1999) - CBBS/NW live!

26 years, 6 months

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OT: A call to arms (sort of)

by edick＠idcomm.com

I've snipped much of the original message, so I hope you can wade through the several threads interwoven under this general (off-) topic in the embedded comments below. Dick -----Original Message----- From: Philip.Belben(a)powertech.co.uk <Philip.Belben(a)powertech.co.uk> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Tuesday, July 06, 1999 11:57 AM Subject: Re: OT: A call to arms (sort of) > >> Well, in my case it was supposed to lead to the development of a really >> open hardware platform. >> >> As for Allison's comment that SPARC is to "high end" I have to disagree. >> The SPARC architecture was initally a lot less complicated than the PDP-11 >> architecture. It is the funky MMUs that get in the way. > >I'm reluctant to enter this rather heated debate, but: > >Has anyone tried to build a SPARC - compatible processor out of standard SSI and >MSI chips? > >Has anyone any thoughts on how easy, or otherwise, it would be? > >Philip. > > >PS since I'm in here: > >Dick - it's all very well to choose a bus because it is a popular, de facto >standard, but if you don't conform pretty closely to the standard, you may as >well not have a standard at all. And what other reasons are there for choosing >ISA? > >Tony - OPEN doesn't mean everything is documented. It means you can connect >what you like to it. And know what to do to get it to work. > >Chuck (wasn't it) suggested having an OPEN hardware architecture for which >anyone can build periphereals and CPU cards which, if they conform to the OPEN >spec, will be guaranteed to work. I think this is an excellent idea. > Yes, and then someone jumped in with the notion that everyone who produces hardware for such a bus should make every detail of his product available to whoever wants it, including his competitors, and then, of course, decried the use of custom logic even though the equivalent SSI/MSI version would take a PCB a couple of acres in size . . . well, that's a bit of a hyperbole . Would you believe square meters? > >However, there is nothing wrong with using undocumented cards on the OPEN-spec >bus which happen to work because they were designed for the system on which the >spec was based. Win-win! Those like you who want a fully documented system can >have one. Those like Dick who want to be able to use cheap cards from the 50p >bin at that shop in Notting Hill can do that too. As I said, win-win. > When I suggested that it might be advantageous to be able to use boards which are available from that 50p bin I wasn't thinking of myself. There are people who have complained bitterly about the $2 cost of this and that, and it's their interests I was considering. I use cheap stuff when it's available, but I normally don't have to leave my house to find it. I've actually never had a copy of the ISA spec, nor has it been a problem, though I've designed 20+ boards in use even today for the ISA. My position is that it's not necessary to have anything open. It's generally straightforward to build something that works on the ISA as it is for most any widely used bus. Since it's not in the interest of any commercial manufacturer to build products as open as Tony Duell would like, though it might have worked in the past (that's DISTANT past), it's unlikely we'll see that happen. If you want a bus to use under public scrutiny, it will be only a matter of time before someone finds a way to try to make bit of money that way, and the "open-ness" will fade. > >P. > I'm not the one who is concerned (a) about whether "the bus" is open or (b) about whether it's standard. I find it hard to buy cards which do what I want yet don't adhere to some standard, however, so I buy stuff that's commercially available, or build stuff that's compatible with what I have to run with it. > >PPS I am concerned about the report that the open software movement is losing >momentum. Does anyone have any more news on this? I read quite recently that >Intel is trying to negotiate with some of the Linux community to get Linux >available for their next generation of processors right from the start. The >difficulty seems to be NDAs, not surprisingly. I hope they solve it (e.g. no >disclosure until launch date, free thereafter). > >P. > The reason the open software is losing momentum is that the people who do the work don't mind pitching in but do mind doing the work for people who won't do their own work. These folks are finding that getting paid helps their inclination to do useful work. OTOH, many of those who provided the "momentum" though not willing to do the work, are not willing to pay others for it either. As an example, look at LINUX, and then look at the state of its documentation. Dick

26 years, 6 months

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Need Info: "LH Research" Power Supply

by mcquiggi＠sfu.ca

Hi Gang: This is a longshot, but I am looking for a schematic (or even a pinout) for an LH Research power supply, model number IM203. It's 120VAC to 5 VDC@8A, 12 VDC and -12 VDC both at 1.5A. There are two terminal strips (unlabelled) on the supply, one with 4 screws (AC input, by inspection), and one with 7 screws for the outputs. It's not working (nothing obvious like rectifier or fuses) and I'm trying to figure out why. I emailed the company without a reply. Any info appreciated, Kevin -- Kevin McQuiggin VE7ZD mcquiggi(a)sfu.ca

26 years, 6 months

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OT: A call to arms (sort of)

by edick＠idcomm.com

please see embedded comments below; Dick -----Original Message----- From: Philip.Belben(a)pgen.com <Philip.Belben(a)pgen.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Wednesday, July 07, 1999 6:59 AM Subject: Re: OT: A call to arms (sort of) > > >>>And as I invented the term in this thread I get to confirm that Tony is >>>using the correct definition :-) "Open Hardware" is hardware that is >>>documented well enough such that anyone can recreate it from the >>>documentation. This includes VHDL specs, PAL equations, etc. >> >> Are you guys familiar with the "Open Hardware Certification Program" (I >> haven't heard it mentioned)? >> >> They've got a list of their own requirements at >> <http://www.openhardware.org/conditions.html> > > >Thanks, Tom, very interesting URL. I wasn't familiar with it, but it is quite >close to my view of "open hardware". I would tend to extend this so that not >only are devices supplied with enough info to write drivers, but they are also >supplied with enough info to connect them to computers using other buses. In >many cases this is the same, but it would help to have a definitive list of >(say) what features of the bus they need / don't like / can take advantage of. > >To return to Chuck and Tony's definition, yes, very laudable. But I don't think >you should _impose_ the requirement that everyone who builds hardware for the >open system should make everything public. And I like Dick's idea of taking an >existing standard, in the same way that Linux (for example) took the UNIX >system, so that there is already a wide range of stuff available for your >system. And users can build as open or closed a system as they like. > >Dick, I'm not sure what you meant by buying stuff "that does what you want but >doesn't conform to some standard" - that seems to be the opposite way round to >our discussion, which was about defining an open bus, and whether kit you buy >(which _does_ conform to the standard) will work with the bus we've defined, or >whether the differences between our open definition and the standard will >prevent it. > What I meant by that comment was that if you decide on one standard, but a function you feel you have to have doesn't, or you don't want to buy the available hardware for some reason, e.g. cost, particularly in the case where you have another potential solution, e.g. you have something that can be made to work, you shouldn't be prevented by the standard, or by the lack of information, from adapting what you want to use. Likewise, if you like the majority of the signal set on ISA, except you don't like the way interrupts work, you should be able to make that suit you. Then, supposing you would also like to use a different interconnection arrangement, say, the one used with VME, perhaps, then that should be OK too. The bad thing about any standard is two-fold (at least). First, it prevents integration errors by ensuring tbat you can plug whatever adheres to the standard into a standard system and expect it to work, and secondly, itmakes sure that maufacturers build cards that will work with others' cards. Unfortunately, the resulting debate in standards committee meetings often doesn't concern itself with how well something works as much as which mfg has the largest installed base of "nearly" standard hardware. The problem, you see, is that in a SCSI standards committee, a single vendor, e.g. ADAPTEC, with enough installed base to overwhelm the market can defeat the whole standard. One point I was driving at was that since the interrupt scheme on ISA is unpalatable to many, it can be ignored so long as cards being used don't exploit that feature. There are plenty of video cards which don't use it. There are simple ways of converting cards which do use it to use the opposite sense if that's deemed appropriate. It's still easier to patch an existing board than to reinvent the whole thing. > >ISA is a standard - of sorts. You can adopt it, and reap the benefit of the >standard, because a lot of kit will work with your system. Or you can reject >it, and said kit won't work with your system. You seemed to be suggesting the >adoption of a partial ISA standard. And some ISA kit will work with it, and >some won't. Fine for true open hardware, since you can tell what will and won't >before you buy it. But difficult to use the existing ISA kit with your open >bus, since it is the existing ISA kit that is not open, so you can't easily tell >whether the ISA card you had in mind will work on the modified bus. So why >bother with ISA at all? > It would not be my choice to adapt cards about which I didn't know enough to accomplish the task. However, given that much is known about ISA, including its flaws, I find that signal set a good starting point. If you switch the connector to be a DIN 41612 type, it's still a decent signal set, and if you invert the interrupts, and perhaps make them level sensitive rather than edge triggered, it might even be better. It's just that THIS PARTICULAR existing "convention" if not standard, will lead to much easy-to-adapt hardware, thereby leading to a useable test environment virtually right away, while with other types, more effort is needed. > >On this point I agree with Tony. Edge connectors in slots, while fine for the >volume market, doesn't help the homebrew hobbyist. So if we choose an existing >bus on which to base our new open bus, choose one with indirect connectors, like >VME. True, few hobbyists will homebrew _everything_, but by the Chuck/Tony >definition of open, they should be able to, if they wish. > >A system aimed at homebrew also makes it easier for designers to publish designs >which other people then build. Kits can be made of standard parts and not >require custom PCBs. And when the bugs have been ironed out, then the PCB >design can go off to the mass production plant... > >Philip. > > > > >

26 years, 6 months

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Junk boxes

by steverob＠hotoffice.com

On Wednesday, July 07, 1999 8:50 AM, Allison J Parent [SMTP:allisonp@world.std.com] wrote: > I'd like to know how people here store their junk parts, as I'm lookin > for an efficient method myself. For the past several years, I've been > keeping them in ziplock bags in a plastic box, which is falling apart, > also is useless for storing anything small. I like ziplock bags for small components, hardware, etc... They keep everything sorted, they keep dust and dirt out, you can see through them, and most importantly they're cheap. I dump the baggies with similar items in to cardboard boxes and put them on shelves in a closet. Currently, I have three closets that are FULL of this kinda stuff. My refrigerator just went bad and I'm thinking about making a storage "locker" out of it. I'm gonna paint it to match my equipment racks, and put different handles on it to make it look more "industrial". It has built in shelving, it's sealed against dust, it's on casters so it's easy to move, and it's already paid for... :-) The hardest items to store are "books" and "documentation". They take up a lot of room, they're heavy, they're very sensitive to handling, and they're often irreplacable. Books deserve the best possible treatment and need to be kept on good quality book shelves. Prints, booklets, and other small documents go in hanging folders in a filing cabinet. Complete systems go in the garage / workshop. This 14' X 25' building is where I keep the goodies. Everything gets tossed in to a spare bedroom. I use the (RSS) Robertson sorting system to keep things organized. I just throw it in a pile and it magically sorts it's self out. Whenever I go looking for something, it'll ALWAYS be on the bottom... Steve Robertson - <steverob(a)hotoffice.com>

26 years, 6 months

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Junk boxes

by KFergason＠aol.com

In a message dated 7/7/99 5:39:46 AM Central Daylight Time, John.Honniball(a)uwe.ac.uk writes: For the Texans here, Houston has an Ikea store. Coincidance. I just spent $219 this past weekend for a set of Sten shelving. 9ft by 6ft with a corner piece. 4 shelves high. 20" deep. pain in the butt to put up. Works good. << > I'd like to know how people here store their junk parts, Well, for larger items, such as desktop microcomputers, I can recommend a range of wooden shelving from Ikea called "Sten". Ikea is a Scandanavian furniture supplier (mostly in flat-pack form) but I doubt it's available outside Europe. >>

26 years, 6 months

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Junk boxes

by jpl15＠netcom.com

My junk box? Very simple, elegant, straightforward: I just use a house. Cheers John PS: The garage works for when the house is full. Like now....

26 years, 6 months

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What is a Sirius?

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

Hi Tony, >Right. Again, it should be easy enough to do that. Hack an 8272 or >something in place of the GCR path, keep the motor control hardware >that you've already got. Yes, shouldn't be too tricky. IIRC the Sirius User Group were talking about trying to get permission to duplicate the new floppy controller but I don't think they pursued the project. After all they'd probably only sell a few boards to club members, and how many people would want them if it meant not being able to access their existing discs? Hmmm, I think it may be time for me to dig up the 'phone number for the group and renew old acquaintances; it's been about 5 years since I had any real contact with them now. 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 --

26 years, 6 months

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Article about collecting in Antique Trader.

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

Hi Glen, I'll keep this short as we're heading MAJORLY off topic here.... >Sorry to hear it. 95 OSR2.x is actually a bit more stable than the >earlier versions, so if you're running something prior to 2.0 you >may want to upgrade again (can't believe I'm saying this . . .) On my home system I've found little difference in terms of stability between OSR1 and 2 (I mainly run Office, IE4 and Frontpage, as well as some emulators), but having supported WIn95 systems in two different jobs I'd not disagree with that statement.... >> I'd be using Linux right now if I could get versions of the software >>I need to use for it. > >They'll be here soon, we hope . . . Quite, I've got some (little) experience with various flavours of Unix and it would definitely be my OS of choice if I could get the software I need for it....it's very frustrating. 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 --

26 years, 6 months

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OT: A call to arms (sort of)

by Philip.Belben＠pgen.com

>>And as I invented the term in this thread I get to confirm that Tony is >>using the correct definition :-) "Open Hardware" is hardware that is >>documented well enough such that anyone can recreate it from the >>documentation. This includes VHDL specs, PAL equations, etc. > > Are you guys familiar with the "Open Hardware Certification Program" (I > haven't heard it mentioned)? > > They've got a list of their own requirements at > <http://www.openhardware.org/conditions.html> Thanks, Tom, very interesting URL. I wasn't familiar with it, but it is quite close to my view of "open hardware". I would tend to extend this so that not only are devices supplied with enough info to write drivers, but they are also supplied with enough info to connect them to computers using other buses. In many cases this is the same, but it would help to have a definitive list of (say) what features of the bus they need / don't like / can take advantage of. To return to Chuck and Tony's definition, yes, very laudable. But I don't think you should _impose_ the requirement that everyone who builds hardware for the open system should make everything public. And I like Dick's idea of taking an existing standard, in the same way that Linux (for example) took the UNIX system, so that there is already a wide range of stuff available for your system. And users can build as open or closed a system as they like. Dick, I'm not sure what you meant by buying stuff "that does what you want but doesn't conform to some standard" - that seems to be the opposite way round to our discussion, which was about defining an open bus, and whether kit you buy (which _does_ conform to the standard) will work with the bus we've defined, or whether the differences between our open definition and the standard will prevent it. ISA is a standard - of sorts. You can adopt it, and reap the benefit of the standard, because a lot of kit will work with your system. Or you can reject it, and said kit won't work with your system. You seemed to be suggesting the adoption of a partial ISA standard. And some ISA kit will work with it, and some won't. Fine for true open hardware, since you can tell what will and won't before you buy it. But difficult to use the existing ISA kit with your open bus, since it is the existing ISA kit that is not open, so you can't easily tell whether the ISA card you had in mind will work on the modified bus. So why bother with ISA at all? On this point I agree with Tony. Edge connectors in slots, while fine for the volume market, doesn't help the homebrew hobbyist. So if we choose an existing bus on which to base our new open bus, choose one with indirect connectors, like VME. True, few hobbyists will homebrew _everything_, but by the Chuck/Tony definition of open, they should be able to, if they wish. A system aimed at homebrew also makes it easier for designers to publish designs which other people then build. Kits can be made of standard parts and not require custom PCBs. And when the bugs have been ironed out, then the PCB design can go off to the mass production plant... Philip.

26 years, 6 months

1
0
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Junk boxes

by allisonp＠world.std.com

> I'd like to know how people here store their junk parts, as I'm lookin > for an efficient method myself. For the past several years, I've been > keeping them in ziplock bags in a plastic box, which is falling apart, > also is useless for storing anything small. My setup due to volume and diverity of components is more involved. I only have a 10x14 room that I use as my office and the wall space of the garage on one side that I'm willing to fill. In that limited space there are some 30-40 systems, their spares and 30+ years of electronics from my radio and analog days. For some components metal coffee cans where the quantity of one type or class warrents it. Then there are the 30/40/50 drawer cabinates for small parts. I also have the ~10x6x1.5" divided project bins, maybe another 12 of those for small volume parts. There are tubes of ICs enough to fill a 14x14x20" box. Then there are the copy paper boxes with larger peices, boards, cables, disks, old radios, books and whatnot maybe another 12 or so of them. Things like cables I used often and small parts I keep at a hand are in one of three 15x15x16 wood cubes with three drawers and prints are in a larger three drawer that can hold C sized sheets. I also have a lot of book shelf space for books! Any my major systems I used every day are in a wall unit I built (to get 17" depth!) for the PC and four 3100 series vaxen. Oh, and more books. Zip lock bags are good for keeping items that must stay together or that may have many little loose parts. For keeping memories and CPUs that want anti-static a coffee can with lid works fine. A decent shelf unit can really help storage too. Allison

26 years, 6 months

1
0
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Junk boxes

by ethan_dicks＠yahoo.com

--- Max Eskin <max82(a)surfree.com> wrote: > Hi, > I'd like to know how people here store their junk parts, I have several parts boxes (3 columns, 20+ rows, each box 1"x3"x5") that hold ICs, IDC connectors, resistors, fasteners, relays, etc., for the larger components. For teeny stuff, I use plastic film canisters. For loose SMT parts, I have a box of sample capsules I got from a resistor company - 1" tall, 1/4" I.D., with a plastic window on the end. Cables are sorted by type and stored in xerox paper boxes. I also have this way of cutting and folding former 6"-reel magtape boxes into display storage - cut the short-side top flaps in half, top-to-bottom. Fold a long flap and the adjacent short half-flaps against the inside of the box and glue them in place. Take the two remaining half-flaps and glue the remaining long flap against them. It looks something like this... +-------------------------+ |+-----------------------+| || || || Open hole to inside || |+-----------------------+| +-------------------------+ | | | | | Label area | | | +-------------------------+ I can stack them two or three high on a regular modular shelf, depending. I find them good for high-profile stuff like SCSI supplies, monitor cables and other odd stuff that needs to stay at the top of the heap. Big stuff goes on modular shelving, but we've been over that ground in recent months. For in the computer room, I use the stanchion/standard style of shelving where you screw the vertical strips to the walls and fit in brackets as needed. I have three walls out of four covered with this stuff in my current room, floor to ceiling. It's a lot of space, but I always find a way to fill it. ;-) -ethan -ethan _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

26 years, 6 months

1
0
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Junk boxes

by roblwill＠usaor.net

What I use for storing my larger stuff (motherboards, drives, etc.) are Egg boxes (not the ones that the actual eggs are in). Just go to your local Giant Eagle (or whatever's local in your area). Ask them if they have any empty egg boxes that you can use for storing stuff. They _should_ know what you're talking about. They're pretty sturdy, and they usually have handles in them. They'll usually give them to you for free, but I've found that it helps to buy something from the store, then ask the cashier :) Another thing that works _very_ well in damp areas are the wax-covered cardboard 'crates' that they sell fruit and some vegetables from (If you have a bulk store in your area). Those things are almost totally waterproof, but they'll still get 'soggy when wet', but they won't rip through as easily. ///--->>> -Jason Willgruber (roblwill(a)usaor.net) ICQ#: 1730318 <http://members.tripod.com/general_1>

26 years, 6 months

1
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Kalok Drives

by aw288＠osfn.org

I have a pair of Kalok drives, a KL320 and a KL330 (20 and 30 Mbyte, perhaps?), each on a sort of "hard card" thing for a PeeCee. The interfaces are apparently made by Seagate. I do not know what is on them, or even if they work. Any interest out there? If not, I am going to scrap them out. William Donzelli aw288(a)osfn.org

26 years, 6 months

6
8
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PC to Mac file transfers

by musicman38＠mindspring.com

>>Does anyone here know how I can transfer downloaded files from my PC to my >>newly acquired Mac by floppy disk.. ? >>Any help greatly appreciated.. >>Phil... > Hmmmm, something else >to be aware of, I think you need the 1.44Mb floppy to be able to read FAT >floppies, don't think that works with 800k floppies. The Mac I just got is a "Macintosh Classic II" , and I think it has a 1.44 floppy drive.. It has System 7.1 OS also.. So I will ask again if someone knows how I can teach the Mac to read floppys >from my PC, and also the reverse.. I will be downloading software and files from the internet to my PC, and then I need to put them on the Mac Via Floppy disk.. Can anyone help? Phil..

26 years, 6 months

3
4
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Article about collecting in Antique Trader.

by Philip.Belben＠powertech.co.uk

Tony: > There is a very big difference between being ignorant (and wanting to > learn) and being clueless... I have never flamed anyone for the latter... Did you really mean that? In my experience you flame a lot of people for being clueless. I hope you don't flame ignorant people if they want to learn, though. OT: There is a quotation about that, but I can't remember the exact words or all four verses. Something like: He who knows, and knows that he knows, is wise: follow him He who knows, and knows not that he knows, ?[can't remember this one]? He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, is teachable: teach him He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool: shun him. The fourth category seems to be the sort of cluelessness that Tony finds annoying - and who can blame him? Philip. ********************************************************************** 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 **********************************************************************

26 years, 6 months

3
2
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Sun hard drive question

by rigdonj＠intellistar.net

Hi, I have a Sun EXP-2 external hard drive that I picked up. I'm trying to find the specs on this but none of the SUN hardware FAQs seem to be working. Can someone tell me what system it's for and the disk capacity and other particulars? Joe

26 years, 6 months

3
2
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E-bay stupidity! was Re: height of folly

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< You could be right here but that isn't what I remember. <My old, mumbled up, mind could have got it wrong.

26 years, 6 months

1
0
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Junk boxes

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>I'd like to know how people here store their junk parts, as I'm looking >for an efficient method myself. For the past several years, I've been >keeping them in ziplock bags in a plastic box, which is falling apart, and >also is useless for storing anything small. Indeed, "junk parts" covers everything from tiny surface mount resistors to entire 400-pound tape and disk drives here :-). Small stuff goes in the Akro-Mills style of plastic drawers. I long ago gave up using those dividers that they give you a few of - small parts just slip underneath way to easy. Most all of the hardware collection resides in the same plastic drawers. I've got the photo stuff drawers here pretty well segregated from the random electronic and hardware stuff drawers, but otherwise there isn't a lot of order. Well, that's not entirely true: the IDC connectors are nicely arrayed by type (header, socket, edge connector) and size (10-16-20-26-34- 40-50-60) in a nice matrix. And the 1/4" and 1/2" watt resistors are nicely collected and ordered too. Moderately larger stuff (including even 3.5" disk drives) will fit into the large plastic drawers. Small PC boards generally get put in anti-static bags and then into cardboard "Stor-All" letter file boxes. Larger PC boards go into larger boxes. For instance, Unibus hex-height boards go into an 18" x 12" box. The next step up from PC boards are, of course, rack-mount chassis. These generally get piled on top of each other or on shelves until they're tested and put into a real rack. There's a big pile, probably three hundred pounds worth, of various rack rails here waiting to be matched up with boxes. Standard rack-mount drives (you know, like RL02's, etc.) get stacked on top of each other if they're spares, put in a rack if part of an actual system. Working tape drives always go into racks. Tape drives in the process of being repaired generally occupy their own chunk of floor space. There's usually a delay from repair to mounting in rack until I can convince someone to help me heave it into a rack and stand the rack back up. Random stuff (monitors, keyboards) go on prefab shelves, along with cardboard boxes filled with PC boards. 9-track tapes, 14" removable disk packs, etc., go where God intended them: into Wright Line media shelves intended just for the application. Admittedly there's a few hundred 9-tracks in a pile in the corner waiting either for me to put them to use or go recycle them. There's hundreds of boxes of 8" floppies lined up on shelves underneath my workbenches. TK50's fit very nicely into 9" x 12" cardboard boxes, which are then stacked upon each other. -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927

26 years, 6 months

1
0
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Help

by review＠RyansPC.ryanspc.com

Hi. I need help unsubscribing from this list. Here's the deal: Currently, I use the addrfess review(a)thereviewguide.com to access eMail. I subscribed (and currently use the reply address) tim(a)thereviewguide.com . However, since then, I no longer have SMTP server that I can access. I write eMAil via telnet and use pine. So when I try to unsubscribe, I gert an error that I can't unsubscribe because I'm not subscribed. I also didn't see a 'reply to' option under pine. So how canI unsubscribe? CAn someone kick me? Any ideas? Thanks, Tim

26 years, 6 months

2
1
0 0

33ASR Update

by jpl15＠netcom.com

Many, many, thanks to the person who posted the fix for gooey print-hammer pads!! The one I got had turned viscid, so I scraped it off, cleaned the tab, and affixed one of those little peel-n-stick rubber feet. (one trade name is 'Bumpon'). It works perfectly, and is just the right height. Now I am diagnosing the machine.. it has a stuck something in the keyboard/reader. Some keys print a different character, and a few print only their shifted symbol, and vice-versa. Neither does Return work, tho I can trip the pawl by hand and the carriage smacks me in the knuckle every time. Reading a test tape produces the same result. So I am going to spread out the manuals and figure out which codes are getting mangled. Other than that, it seems in good shape, still nicely oiled and all belts in good condition... even the ribbon is still dark, except for the portion that has been exposed for the last twenty years, sitting on that lonely shelf... According to the Laws of Surplus Attractionm can a PDP-8 be far behind?? Cheers John

26 years, 6 months

8
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OT: A call to arms (sort of)

by edick＠idcomm.com

Out bretheren on the Pacific Rim don't share our sense of ethics nor do they revere the notion of intellectual property rights, or patents, for that matter as we do. If you have a product made, say in Korea or Taiwan, it's almost certain you'll have a competitor making the same thing using tooling exactly like yours within a few weeks, and they don't have to earn 50Megabucks in NRE costs. If they never see a working model, as, indeed, they may not, they're going to have a much easier time cloning your product with the schematics and programmable device listings than without, particularly if your product is just a board for a PC. In the latter case, they often don't even know what it does, but just reproduce it and sell it to someone who buys pirate copies of the doc or ships the product without. If it's your product, YOU make the market, and THEY make the profit. 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: Tuesday, July 06, 1999 5:45 PM Subject: Re: OT: A call to arms (sort of) >> >> > Odd... I've got several hundred (no exageration) service manuals here. >> > All containing schematics, etc. In a lot of cases there's enough >> > product. >> >> ???!!?!?!!!! >> >> Tucked away in just about _every_ manuafacturer's R&D department is a >> room that contains as many of their competitor's products and manuals as >> they can get their hands on. If you think that electronic companies do >> not use this tactic to "improve" their products, you are wrong. > >Of course they do. But I won't accept that the service manual gives them >that much help. And I can't think of a case where a service manual has >been the cause of a clone. > >Given a working example of a product you can 'reverse engineer' it to >better than the level of information in the service manual in a couple of >weeks. Using only a DMM and a simple logic analyser. The former to get a >rat's nest of the connections, the latter to assign useful >names/functions to pins on gate arrays. Believe me, it's not hard. > >And I know that a lot of companies do just that to competing products. >I've talked to people who do just that. > An automatic tester can give you a netlist in a day's time, assuming you have a board and someone to program the tester. However, getting from a netlist of a board with, say 1000 components on it to a schematic can take a long time. By that I mean a LONG time. I've seen where it has taken a week to get a correct schematic of a 3"x4" board. Now what about a 9" x 12" one? > >Therefore, the service manual isn't _that_ valuable. Not having it >doesn't stop the above. And from what I've heard (and observed on classic >computers), you would be very unwise to rely on a manual. Errors creep >in. Things are missed out. Important details of things like signal timing >can only be deduced from the product itself. In other words, even with >the manual you are going to want to dismantle and analyse a real machine. > The sevice manual can shorten the time to do the job from weeks to days. That's pretty helpful if you ask me. > >> >> Service manuals do a great job of giving up company secrets! These days, >> the things are generally marked "confidential" and do not leave the >> buildings. > >I will assure you that restricting the service manuals like this doesn't >hinder 'the competition' that much at all. What it does hinder are >non-official service agents, though. That, IMHO is the main reason for >restricting them. And I am not happy with that. > >> >> William Donzelli >> aw288(a)osfn.org >> > >-tony >

26 years, 6 months

1
0
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RSTS/E <-> RL02s

by jpl15＠netcom.com

I have gotten RSTS/E V9.1 re-sysgenned on my 11/44 to include support for RL02s, RK05s, RX02s, and a few other things. I have spent some time getting the hardware configured properly. As a result of the new sysgen, I can now init, erase, and mount the RL02s. 'show dev' indicates the RL02 mounted, yet when I try to write to the drive, get a directory, or allocate the drives, I get a 'Device not available' message from RSTS. I have tried mounting them /PUBLIC, tried re-initing them, nothing seems to change. If I try to do anything with them dismounted, I get 'Device not mounted' as you would expect. I have the RSTS Orange Wall coming in a few weeks, until then I am limited to the 'help' facility. The RL02s are working fine, I have the docs and specs and have verified that they are 'OK'. The scratch pack I am using was new and never used before. During the Init process, I specified three-pattern initialization, which completed normally in about 15 minutes, finding and marking three bad blocks along the way. So... anyone have any ideas? What am I doing stupid? What am I *not* doing? Calling all RSTS Gurus.... Cheers John

26 years, 6 months

1
0
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Advice wanted on Kennedy 9600 and PDP11/23

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>> I'll also point out that NRZI requires a lot tighter physical tolerances >> on the alignment of the tape head (the reason why many drives don't support >> 800 BPI NRZI at all) than 1600 and 6250 BPI (which allow substantial skew >> between the tape channels as part ofthe spec.) If at some point the head >> in your transport had been replaced or knocked around without properly >> being re-aligned you might see something like what you're seeing. >Would you? Most tape head/path adjustments are only really critical for >'interchanageability' -- so that tapes on one drive can be read on >others. If the head is slightly skewed, it will write a skewed tape, but >it will also be expecting to read a tape that's similarly skewed (and >that's what it will get). > >Now, admittedly if they're way out it's not going to work. But then it >probably wouldn't read a 1600bpi distribution either. What you say above is certainly true for tape systems where the same head is used for reading and writing, and most small tape drives fall into this category. But most 7-track and 9-track drives have separate read and write heads, and these are often out of skew with each other. Because the read and write heads are often part of the same assembly, the necessary deskewing can be a combination of both physical adjustment (to get the read head correctly aligned) and electronic timing adjustment (to get the write pulses aligned on tape relative to the read head.) There may be some drives where the write head is physically adjusted and the read timings are electronically adjusted, but this makes the entire procedure much more difficult - what good does a master skew tape do you in doing mechanical alignment of the write heads??? :-) For most drives with electronic deskewing (and the Kennedy 9100 and successors certainly fall in this category) when you get a replacement head it comes with a set of "starting" electronic deskewing settings. I'll gladly fax you the section of a Kennedy maintenance manual that details the procedure, if you're interested. >I would cartainly look for other causes before tweaking head adjustment >screws. Absolutely. Barring physical damage (a good drop onto concrete from a few feet is enough to whack other things out of alignment) I'd look for other causes first. The NRZI data path is different than the PE data path, for one thing. -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927

26 years, 6 months

2
1
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What is a Sirius?

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

Hi Tony, >My Sirius is very 'fussy' about the disks it will handle. It won't use >most 360K disks. It will work with '80 track' disks.... Interesting, the only discs mine objects to are, surprise, surprise, 1.2Mb ones. I'm pretty sure that the discs I used in mine were a mixture of 48tpi and 96tpi media, no problems with either type here. >....One day I'll get some suitable drives to experiment with and see if I >can get it to handle DS, or if there are other changes. AFAIK the disc controller is exactly the same for SS/DS drives, IE no firmware changes etc. >Any ideas which version of MS-DOS that would be? I have 1.25 and 2.2 I >think somewhere. OK, I DO have a copy of 1.25 which will access the hard drive. However since it's v1.25 it's only of academic interest - I also have a copy of (I think) DOS 2.11, complete in "Victor" colours, but that refuses to see the hard drive at all. I'm told I need a different version of 2.11 which includes support for the hard drive. 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 --

26 years, 6 months

2
1
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PC to Mac file transfers

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

Hi, >The Mac I just got is a "Macintosh Classic II" , and I think it has a 1.44 >floppy drive.. It has System 7.1 OS also.... >....So I will ask again if someone knows how I can teach the Mac to read >floppys from my PC, and also the reverse. You need a utility like "Dos Mounter" which lets you read/write MS-DOS format discs; the Classic II has a SuperDrive in it so you'll have no problems if you can find the software. I can't help I'm afraid as my Classic II is up the shoot - the ROM on the internal HD has failed (you don't have the facility to read ROMs do you???). 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 --

26 years, 6 months

1
0
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OT: A call to arms (sort of)

by Philip.Belben＠powertech.co.uk

> Well, in my case it was supposed to lead to the development of a really > open hardware platform. > > As for Allison's comment that SPARC is to "high end" I have to disagree. > The SPARC architecture was initally a lot less complicated than the PDP-11 > architecture. It is the funky MMUs that get in the way. I'm reluctant to enter this rather heated debate, but: Has anyone tried to build a SPARC - compatible processor out of standard SSI and MSI chips? Has anyone any thoughts on how easy, or otherwise, it would be? Philip. PS since I'm in here: Dick - it's all very well to choose a bus because it is a popular, de facto standard, but if you don't conform pretty closely to the standard, you may as well not have a standard at all. And what other reasons are there for choosing ISA? Tony - OPEN doesn't mean everything is documented. It means you can connect what you like to it. And know what to do to get it to work. Chuck (wasn't it) suggested having an OPEN hardware architecture for which anyone can build periphereals and CPU cards which, if they conform to the OPEN spec, will be guaranteed to work. I think this is an excellent idea. However, there is nothing wrong with using undocumented cards on the OPEN-spec bus which happen to work because they were designed for the system on which the spec was based. Win-win! Those like you who want a fully documented system can have one. Those like Dick who want to be able to use cheap cards from the 50p bin at that shop in Notting Hill can do that too. As I said, win-win. P. PPS I am concerned aboout the report that the open software movement is losing momentum. Does anyone have any more news on this? I read quite recently that Intel is trying to negotiate with some of the Linux community to get Linux available for their next generation of processors right from the start. The difficulty seems to be NDAs, not surprisingly. I hope they solve it (e.g. no disclosure until launch date, free thereafter). P. ********************************************************************** 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 **********************************************************************

26 years, 6 months

3
2
0 0

Kalok drives contest

by aw288＠osfn.org

Despite the griping about the Kalok drives, quite a few people want them. Being rather busy, both will go to the same person, thru a contest. The question: What company was IBM's first "headache" in the disk drive business? The winner pays shipping, and some token amount for my time, box, and tape. Bribery works, too. William Donzelli aw288(a)osfn.org

26 years, 6 months

1
0
0 0

E-bay stupidity! was Re: height of folly

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< I think you are refering to the single chip F8 ( 3780 ). The <two chip F8 was considered the first 8 bit micro when I <worked at Intel. I don't think history has changed much <since then. No I meant the multichip F8 (385x) from fairchild. It predates the 8080 by a tiny bit but not the 8008. The 3850/1 were made with N channel mos Isoplanar technolgy that was not available when the 8008 (PMOS) was designed. <> Not true. It was still being made in the early 80s! I think DEC did <> a last time buy in 84 or 85. < <I meant, new designs. Intel was using the 4040 series <parts themselves until about '85 but the part was still long <obsolete and not used in new designs. Not specified previously. But true. New designs from '73ish through the 80s tended to grab the newest or similar but easier to use. For example people went from 8080 to 8085 or z80 for reduced chip count and/or simpler design. In the 1971 through 1980 time frame I was: 1971 Sunrise electro ttl then later 8008, mobile data term 1973(early) Automated processess, early time code work for studios 8008 1975(late) Hazeltine, 8080 H1500, H1420 1976-8 TANDY TRS80, z80 1979(early) NEC Microcomputers, inc. (cmos micros, intel 2nd source, LCD display drivers) Kept all the data books I had! I rely on them for dates and tech notes. The F8 was not a popular chip save for it made cheap systems, horrid instruction set. Allison

26 years, 6 months

2
1
0 0

East Coast Vax 11/750 Available

by classiccmp＠dobyns.com

Please respond to the original sender, Martin. I'm just forwarding this on his behalf. He's looking for a "local" collector for what looks like an excellent box. -b -----Original Message----- From: Martin Baechtel <mbaechtel(a)chugach-dc.com> To: 'bdobyns(a)clueless.com' <bdobyns(a)clueless.com> Date: Friday, July 02, 1999 3:30 AM Subject: Vax 11/750 ... snip ... I will sell you my Vax 11/750 for $100. It has 6Mb, A RA80 disk with under 200 hours on it, A DH11-AE, DH11-AA (24 rs232 ports), FP750, DMC11, TU58, two LP11 And a spares kit and if you need a tape drive A 9300 (125 ips 800/1600). If you need any VT200s I have 18 @ $!0. each martin Baechtel w 703 413-8888 06:00 -16:00 edt h 301 330-9079

26 years, 6 months

1
0
0 0

Help, as in I need help too

by PaKing＠exchange.ml.com

Hi, Great list, but no can handle the traffic. I unsubscribed several weeks (months?) ago. Then come in this morning and, pow! Some how I'm back on the list. Interesting list, but no can handle the traffic. I sent unsubscribe again and got "You are not subscribed to list classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu". Gee, thats what I thought. Also got this odd message sent: Sun 7/4/99 7:03 AM Current settings are: ADDRESS = Paul_King(a)ml.com MAIL = ACK PASSWORD = 931085786 CONCEAL = NO Thanks, Paul > -----Original Message----- > From: Tim Hotze [SMTP:review@RyansPC.ryanspc.com] > Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 1999 2:53 PM > To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers > Subject: Help > > Hi. I need help unsubscribing from this list. Here's the deal: > Currently, I use the addrfess review(a)thereviewguide.com to access eMail. > I subscribed (and currently use the reply address) tim(a)thereviewguide.com > . However, since then, I no longer have SMTP server that I can access. I > write eMAil via telnet and use pine. So when I try to unsubscribe, I gert > an error that I can't unsubscribe because I'm not subscribed. > > I also didn't see a 'reply to' option under pine. > So how canI unsubscribe? CAn someone kick me? Any ideas? > > Thanks, > > Tim

26 years, 6 months

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E-bay stupidity! was Re: height of folly

by allisonp＠world.std.com

I wouldn't worry to much. The 8008, unlike the 4004 wasn't <the first anything. The Fairchild F8 was the first 8 bit. First the F8 set didn't predate the 8008. It was however the first minimum chipset part to open the marrket to part list the 3780, 8048 and other single chips MCUs. <I would say that the 8008's only claim to fame was <that it only made a short run and was replaced with <the more long lived 8080. Not true. It was still being made in the early 80s! I think DEC did a last time buy in 84 or 85. Allison

26 years, 6 months

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OT: A call to arms (sort of)

by owad＠applefritter.com

>And as I invented the term in this thread I get to confirm that Tony is >using the correct definition :-) "Open Hardware" is hardware that is >documented well enough such that anyone can recreate it from the >documentation. This includes VHDL specs, PAL equations, etc. Are you guys familiar with the "Open Hardware Certification Program" (I haven't heard it mentioned)? They've got a list of their own requirements at <http://www.openhardware.org/conditions.html> Tom Owad

26 years, 6 months

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OT: A call to arms (sort of)

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<Has anyone tried to build a SPARC - compatible processor out of standard SS <MSI chips? Not familiar enough to say. It's my understanding the DIE is small and low active device count for a cpu. Allison

26 years, 6 months

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OT: A call to arms (sort of)

by edick＠idcomm.com

I don't think we disagree that much, but take a look at my comments embedded in your reply quoted below. 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 03, 1999 8:39 PM Subject: Re: OT: A call to arms (sort of) <snip> > >Well, IMHO there is _if you want to call the bus ISA_. > >There's no reason not to use this type of DMA on a homebrew system. >There's no reason not to use cards that have the same form factor and >same connectors and ISA cards. > I've seen little reason to use DMA at all when processors generally have the capacity to move data at the bus bandwidth with block transfer instructions. It's not a religious issue for me to call the bus whatever seems appropriate. ISA is the "standard" developed around the PC. The signals are, for the most part, the obvious ones for ANY microprocessor. The interrupts are the exception, in that they use the ancient and stupid intel method, namely positive-going and, as you said, edge sensitive interrupts, which preclude the more sensible approaches to interrupt management. > >But as soon as you start changing signals, you no longer have an ISA bus. >Some ISA cards will surely fail to work. That is _all_ I am saying. > Well, pehaps we don't want ISA bus. Perhaps we could benefit from the use of the cheap and commonly available parts, though. I never used interrupts or DMA in ten years on the S-100 bus. It was never necessary to do so. I don't see why you're so worried about interrupts on the few ISA boards one might actually want to use, e.g. serial I/O and disk adapters, along, maybe, with video boards. There aren't really any terribly interesting parallel I/O boards, and if you want to use IEEE488 stuff you'll play hell beating the WIndows software to help you do it. > >> Leaving off the motherboard doesn't change the BUS to something else. There >> have been systems with multiple processors on passive backplanes for the ISA >> for years. You don't have to change one signal. Of course, if you leave > >If you want to have active-low interrupts, DMA as I described it above, >etc then you do have to redefine some of the signals. Maybe not in name, >but certainly in what they do. > >Suppose you don't have a central DMA controller. What do you propose >doing with the DRQ/DACK signals? Sure you can make them effectively >bus request signals. But now the peripheral card has to know to generate >the address. And no standard ISA card would do that. > Just exactly which boards do you wish to use that do that? If they don't yet exist I'd say there are some liberties worth taking. > >> off the motherboard, i.e. the circuitry that makes it a PC, then you don't >> have to use the otherwise useless 4x-color-burst crystal oscillator either, > >I don't know what your problem is with that oscillator. It's trivial to >generate. That really is the least of the problems. > It's just a useless source of noise synchronized approximately with our TV electronics. >> and you don't have to generate that inane 18... Hz interrupt and can use >> something sensible instead, and you don't have to generate refresh addresses >> with one DMA channel, and you don't have to use DMA for the floppy which > >Actually, only PCs and XTs used a DMA channel for refresh. ATs and above >have a separate counter for this. > Yes, but refresh itself doesn't need an address at all, or at least hasn't since the 64k DRAMs came out with hidden refresh. > >> >> in general, to have DMA, first because the processors used on PC >> >> motherboards have block transfer operations which operate at the bus >> >> bandwidth. >> > >> >Why do you assume that ISA -> Intel processor? It may be something >> >totally different, something that doesn't have efficient block transfer >> >instructions. >> > >> Now you're confusing me . . . you just got through saying that the PC has to >> be there, Intel and all, or it's not an ISA bus. Perhaps you spoke (sic) > >You just said '...processors used on PC motherboards...'. Now most PC >motherboards have an Intel, or Intel-compatible processor on them. So I >think I was justified in thinking that you were implying an Intel >processor here. > >> too soon? I made no such assertion! There are lots of processors which >> have block transfer instructions which operate at the bus bandwidth. Even >> the Z80 did that. > >And IIRC the Z80 block moves were ridiculously slow... > Yes, perhaps it was ridiculously slow, but it was the bus bandwidth at the time. > >> >I see a _lot_ wrong with the ISA signal definitions. For one thing the >> >IRQs are edge triggered, active high, when any sane designer would make >> >them level triggered active low (had IBM done this it would have cost >> >them an extra couple of TTL chips on the PC motherboard. It would also >> >have allowed the sharing of interrupts). For another thing there's no >> >proper bus request/grant (multiple masters are almost essential IMHO). >> > >> You're certainly right about that! All that would have been needed is that >> they swallow their pride and use a sensible interrupt handler instead of >> their silly 8259. In fact, they should have left all their LSI's off the >> MB. The way their counters work, or don't, and the fact they're slow, and >> they're ripple counters so you have to read half of them twice . . . don't >> get me started . . . > > >Don't get me started either. I sat down with the PC (and later...) >techrefs, and I went through the schematics. Every so often I would >exclaim 'They did WHAT???'.... > >> which used it, I'd say that's a non-issue. You don't need the schematic, >> though,since the board you'll be using will be an IDE interface with onboard > >For the <n>th time, the aim is to get 'open hardware'. That means (at >least to me) available schematics. Not schematics of things that _might_ >work the same (e.g. WD1003 .vs. IDE). It means scheamtics and >documentation for the hardware that's actually in the machine. > So, you want schematics of the disk drives as well, and the keyboard, and the floppy drive? . . . and when you have them, how are you going to stick your 'scope probe into that IC, and how are you going to fix it when it's broken. It's a custom IC, after all, and they will cost 10x what a new disk drive costs if you try to buy just one. If "OPEN" means to you that you have access and rights to all the intellectual property contained in your computer, you might as well give up right now. If what you want is enough information to program and use the devices you can buy, that's quite possible as we sit here. > >> FDC. Those (FDC's) are well characterized and all you need to know about >> the 1003-WAH is the command set, since IDE still uses it. >> >> The little IDE interface boards with 5 TTL's on them are easy enough to buzz >> out and understand. Data on the LSI's is easy enough to get, though you > >I've found it _very_ hard to get data on the typical ASICs that you find >on modern PC motherboards and I/O cards. In fact I've not managed to do >it in a lot of cases. > That's the reason, precisely, why you don't use them. > >I don't mean the 82xx chips that are on the original PC motherboards. I >have the data sheets on those. I mean the all-in-one chip on a multi-IO >card that does FDC, IDE, 2 serial ports, parallel port, etc. > There's no reason to use one, even if you could. The little 5-TTL circuit works fine and just as quickly, for disk I/O. Now, since you hate the PC MOBO so much, why would you want to use one of the PC-MOBO specific IC's? > >-tony >

26 years, 6 months

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Article about collecting in Antique Trader.

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

Hi Philip, >That is indeed the one I had in mind. I think there may have been one >or two other kit machines in that price bracket (Nascom?) I'm pretty sure the Nascom I and II were pitched at something like ?199 and ?275 respectively when launched. The ZX-80 and 81 were ?79 and the Microtan 65 was ?69.95. Can't off-hand think of any others just now (well I can, but I can't remember the prices). 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 --

26 years, 6 months

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E-bay stupidity! was Re: height of folly

by edick＠idcomm.com

Nope . . . and I made a "high-tech tie-tack" out of my 8008. I just powered the box down, pulled the processor out, removed the 8008, bent the pins around so as not to damage a good silk bib, and super-glued the tack to the back of it. . . That box, an NBI word processor, used those hard sectored diskettes with the holes around the outside. EEEK! regards, Dick -----Original Message----- From: Joe <rigdonj(a)intellistar.net> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Saturday, July 03, 1999 6:55 PM Subject: Re: E-bay stupidity! was Re: height of folly >At 05:15 PM 7/3/99 -0600, Dick wrote: >>That's the price you pay, so to speak, for participating in a free-market >>economy. The market determines what price the market will bear. If there >>are more rich dummies (If that's how you prefer to think of them) than there >>are Altairs or 4004's then you'll probably never own one. >> >>Meanwhile, maybe I can get someone to slide me a few bucks for this old >>stuff of mine . . . > > Sure I'll slip you a few bucks. Got any 4004s around? :-) > > Joe >

26 years, 6 months

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Fwd: Looking for Minisport notebook in AU

by dcoward＠pressstart.com

Someone in Australia is looking for a Minisport Notebook. This is too new for me to have in my collection. Reply to louise melov <melmedia(a)zip.com.au> if you can help them out. --Doug >Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 07:02:16 +1000 >To: "Doug Coward" <dcoward(a)pressstart.com> >From: louise melov <melmedia(a)zip.com.au> >Subject: None >Hi Doug, >Remember the Zenith Minisport Notebook with the 2" diskette drive. >Any ideas where I can get one. >I tried posting an wanted ad in eBay. Got some bites, but nothing came of it. >Should I try more auction sites, or is there something better I could do ? >Thanks >Eddie R. ========================================= Doug Coward Press Start Inc. Sunnyvale,CA =========================================

26 years, 6 months

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