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

by dburrows＠netpath.net

I have had a few in the past but I only have a 9610 right now. Just got it a couple weeks ago and have not tested it yet. Dan >I'm taking a quick survey of who among us uses (or >at least owns) Kennedy 9x00 series tape drives. > >I do and I know that some others do (e.g. John > <jpl15(a)netcom.com>). > >Anyone else fit this description? > > >Jon >

27 years, 4 months

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TRW swapmeet

by A_Finney＠wfi-inc.com

Well, my first TRW was a bit of a wash (literally). It rained, and apparently was a pathetic showing. That aside, I managed to pick up an Atari 1027 LQ printer for $8, *brand new* (stickers, still covering the paper slot) in box with manuals, and a Sparc 1 with 24megs of RAM (no HD) for $15 in great shape (even has the sbus covers!). Nice brunch at Coco's after with John and Marvin... Aaron

27 years, 4 months

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Who owns Kennedy 9-track Drives?

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>I'm taking a quick survey of who among us uses (or >at least owns) Kennedy 9x00 series tape drives. > >I do and I know that some others do (e.g. John > <jpl15(a)netcom.com>). > >Anyone else fit this description? In the past, I had numerous Kennedy 9100's, a few 9300's, and some other 9000-series models (generally the "others" were swing-arms, not vacuum column.) I still have an assortment of common spare cards (not too surprising, considering I lived a few miles from Kennedy's homes in Altadena and Monrovia) and numerous manuals. -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927

27 years, 4 months

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Getting rid of background programs in System 7.1.1

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

or you can hold down the shift key as soon as you get the happy mac icon. that will disable all extensions. > > When ever I boot, before the Finder comes up, there's about 5 icons In the > > lower left-hand corner. I know that one is MS Mail, and the other is for > a > > network. I'm not sure what the other icons are for. I'd like to get rid > of > > these programs (extensions?) that are running in the background, since all > > they do is eat up memory. I can't access them after Finder opens, and > > nothing happens when I click on them before it opens. > > > > Any suggestions? >

27 years, 4 months

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ID these DEC floppy disks?

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Nov 28, 11:40, Christian Fandt wrote: > >> > BL-T540B-M1 CZUFDB1 USER TESTS > >> > BL-T541B-M1 CZXD1B1 FIELD SERVICE TESTS 1 > >> > BL-T542B-MC CZXD2B0 FIELD SERVICE TESTS 2 > >> > BL-T565B-MC CZXD3B0 FIELD SERVICE TESTS 3 > >> > BL-T583B-MC CZXD4B0 FIELD SERVICE TESTS 4 To which Pete replied: > >They are indeed XXDP disks. They're the field service set for a > >microPDP-11/23+. They contain XXDP Ver.2 plus relevant disgnostics, the > >User Tests disks has the XXDP utilities and confidence test, Tests 1 has > >object files and some utilities, Tests 2 has KDF11/BDV11/DLV11J/etc tests, > >Tests 3 has less-frequently-used interface tests, Tests 4 has other tape > >and disk tests. > I have no documentation on these disks, therefore, a few questions for you > and the others: > > ** Will the disks still work with the 11/73 and the third-party disk > controller? They'll work with the processor; they'll work with the the 3rd-party disk so long as it emulates an RX50 with MSCP protocol. > ** Is there an online index or something where you looked up those 'CZ' > part numbers or do you have the user's manual or same software in your > library to find the info above? (i.e., How did you know what they were and > how can I find the same?) I have the same set (and a lot of other XXDP/XXDP+ files), and I have listings and notes from DEC maintenance courses. > ** Any online manuals for these diagnostics? Or, anybody willing to sell a > xerographic copy of them to me? There were some manuals on microfiche; I have course notes on paper for XXDP/XXDP+ and my own notes for XXDP Version 2 (I think that's what it was called; some people referred to it as XXDP++ but that wasn't what DEC called it) as on those disks. There's a key to the names. For the older versions: Hxmnrp.SYS is a system file: H means SYSTEM, x=M,D,U,S,Q for Monitor, Decice Driver, Utility, Supervisor, or miscellaneous ; mn is the device mnemonic for the medium supported; rp is the revision and patch level. tmnirp.BI? is a diagnostic program; t processor type, eg V or Z mn device mnemonic, eg RQ i program identifier, eg C rp revision and patch level, eg B2 ? is N or C (BIN=binary, BIC=relocatable binary) Thus ZRQCH0.BIC is for any processor, using an RQDX controller, third diagnostic of the set (this one happens to be a disk formatter, but you would only know that if you knew what was in the set), eight version, never patched. There are some special mnemonics: DI directory utility SU setup utility AA XXDP supervisor file AB PT/AMS supervisor file SA User manual Apart from that, most of the mnemonics are simliar to the letters of the device name (eg RQ for RQDX, MR for MR11/MRV11, DL for DL11/DLV11, etc) but usually not the standard DEC device driver mnemonics. Dtirp.BIN is a Unibus test; t is the test type, rest as above, except 0 instruction test 1 adressing test 6 AA11/VT06/LAB11 test 8 Unibus test The common processor type letters for QBus are J 11/23, 11/24 V 11/03 Z any processor If I can find the source files, I'll put machine-readable notes on my web pages (probablyt as PostScript). That is mostly XXDP V2 stuff. I *might* have some machine-readble XXDP+ notes; if I can find any I put them up too. I'll post a note to the list if and when... -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

27 years, 4 months

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Recent Finds & Thoughts

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< Actually, if you set the azimuth of the replay head to be the same as th < recording head, you do improve the signal and the HF response. It doesn' Not much at all. We are talking halftrack heads or wider and you get phase cancelation if the gap is not perpendicular to the tape travel on record. if the play back head is narrower say using a stereo playback or one of the quad decks then you can tweek some but it still only buys you a little. Keep in mind that impats the upper limit of the HF response and most tape systems were designed to stay way clear of that. The best upper freqency response you could count on was 9-10khz from your 35-50USD portable that was sold for or commonly used. Most modulations schemes were either modem high pair (~2200hz) or phase encoded data (FM) if you FM data using a data rate of TARBEL (187char/SEC) you were using tones that were around 3000hz and 1500hz. TRS80 was in the same range. So the actual bandwidth needed was far less than 5khz. Kansas CITY format was exactly 8cycles of 2400 or 4cyles of 1200 for one or zero. FYI I droped using audio cassette save for when I needed to get some neat software from one format to mine. I went direct saturation where the NS or SN polar flux change carried the information. The same heads at audio that might work at 9khz audio did respectable 9600 baud using FM encoding. LAter I would find some low impedence heads that would allow me to hit a solid 1600frpi (800 bits/inch). This fixed some of the ills that plague audio schemes. < become perfect, but it does get better. VCRs (certainly UK VHS ones) use < this trick to reduce crosstalk between adjacent video tracks (which are < read by different heads on the head drum) and to allow a stereo audio < signal to be recorded under the video track and then replayed by a < separate head at a different azimuth setting. Different world and heads. Heical scan systems the path across the tape is different from linear travel and since the tape effectively moves in two directions operation is different than a portable audio cassette. Allison

27 years, 4 months

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Windoze, anyone?

by fauradon＠pclink.com

No I believe OBM was correct: Obsolete Business Machine (of couse this is spacific to the jr;) Francois ------------------------------------------------------------- Visit the desperately in need of update Sanctuary at: http://www.pclink.com/fauradon/ >Max, > OBM is supposed to be IBM. I forgot to check my spelling before sending. > John > >John Amirault wrote: >

27 years, 4 months

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ID these DEC floppy disks?

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Nov 22, 14:34, Kevin McQuiggin wrote: > Christian Fandt wrote: > Subject: Re: ID these DEC floppy disks? > Looks like some XXDP diagnostics, but let's see what Tim and others have > to say, to be sure. > > In that heap of goodies I'm keeping from that DEC Haul back in the summer I > > found a DEC 5.25" floppy disk package containing five floppies of the > > following: > > > > BL-T540B-M1 CZUFDB1 USER TESTS > > BL-T541B-M1 CZXD1B1 FIELD SERVICE TESTS 1 > > BL-T542B-MC CZXD2B0 FIELD SERVICE TESTS 2 > > BL-T565B-MC CZXD3B0 FIELD SERVICE TESTS 3 > > BL-T583B-MC CZXD4B0 FIELD SERVICE TESTS 4 > > > > All evidently are diagnostic tests for some sort of DEC machine which uses > > a 5.25" floppy drive. Could anyone identify which machine given the above > > info? They are indeed XXDP disks. They're the field service set for a microPDP-11/23+. They contain XXDP Ver.2 plus relevant disgnostics, the User Tests disks has the XXDP utilities and confidence test, Tests 1 has object files and some utilities, Tests 2 has KDF11/BDV11/DLV11J/etc tests, Tests 3 has less-frequently-used interface tests, Tests 4 has other tape and disk tests. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

27 years, 4 months

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Uknown Cartridge found..

by charlesii＠nwonline.net

classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu wrote: > > Forgot to mention in my find was a cartridge titled > "Mach 128" its by Access software inc.. > Obviously for the C-128, but don't know what it does.. > Has a switch on top and a reset button? on it.. > Anyone ever seen this Cart before ? > Phil... Probably sonthing simimluar to mach speed for the C=64. I helps load disks faster. Verry useful application. It doesn't work however with copy software. Charles

27 years, 4 months

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World Power Systems scam

by eric＠brouhaha.com

A while back someone asked about the famous World Power Systems scam. While I don't have the whole story, I've put a little bit of information and scans of some of the advertisments from the April 1979 issue of Byte on a web page: http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/wps/

27 years, 4 months

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HP3000 help needed

by fmc＠reanimators.org

Aaron Christopher Finney <A_Finney(a)wfi-inc.com> wrote: > I've read the HP3000-L FAQ and searched most of the day for info, but > there isn't much geared toward the Classic HP3000 home-hobbyist. Yeah, and some of us 3000 fans view this as a problem. > 9144 tape drive - I've already deduced that it's a low-density, 16-track > capable of 67/134 megs and the tapes have to be purchased pre-formatted. The HP part numbers for the tapes are 88140SC (150m) and 88140LC (600m). It may be that you can get tapes from 3M with an "HC" suffix and those can be made to work too. I thought the 134MB version was the 9145 (32-track) drive. > 2563A Printer - with a modular connector. Modular? Hmm, haven't seen that before. > 9123 3 1/2" dual floppy - picked up after-the-fact at a yard sale. It's > HP-IB, but has a weird DIN power connector cord. No P/S. This is for the HP Touchscreen II (aka 150C) -- the flavor of the 150 with the 12" display. It's got the DIN socket for that power cord. I don't think the 3000 will play nice with it in any event. > (2)HP3000 series 37's - these are piggy-backed, is this the usual > configuration? . Here's where I need some info: I'm thinking that what you have there is one 37 where the second box provides I/O expansion. It's an option, my 37s don't have that. > The "top" unit has a DB-25F in slot one, and an HP-IB in slot 4, as > well as those DE-3F (correct terminology?) connectors in ports 0-5. When I had a bunch of them on a 3000/64-68-70 (it got upgraded) I just called them ATP connectors. Unfortunately I don't remember the pinout, but it's three-wire RS-232 so not real hard to figure out -- harder to find connectors for! > The "bottom" unit has the DB-25F in slot one, the HP-IB in slot 4, > and an AUI (ethernet? Is this a Lanic board?) in slot 5, as well as > the 3-pin deals in ports 0-5. Above the ports is a female > Centronics-50 which connected to what I believe is a terminal > splitter, p/n 40290-60003. Above that is a *very* high-density 99-pin > male connector, this is attached to the board with the HP-IB > connector. I'm wondering if the DB-25Fs are INPs -- basically synchronous serial interfaces for computer-to-computer or computer-to-remote-terminal-mux stuff. If it says AUI, it's a LANIC. For that matter, if it's got the slide-lock it's probably a LANIC. The "Centronics"-50 doesn't have wire ears, it has threaded holes for screws, right? If so, it probably is for the terminal port splitter. That's the only sort of terminal interface I have in my /37s -- I didn't know it could have "real" ATP connectors until a conversation with Stan Sieler a couple of weeks ago. I've *no* idea what the 99-pin connector is! Unless it's the interconnect that's supposed to go between the backplanes in the two boxes. > The two units are connected vi an HP-IB cable on port 4 of each. Also, > the top has the keyed power switch for both. This bit about the HP-IB cable going between the units is something I really don't get. I'd expect there to be an interconnect of some sort between the two boxes and that the HP-IB interfaces are independent I/O channels. If the bottom unit doesn't have the keyed power switch, then I don't think it's an independent 3000. > What I need is *really* basic info on the system and some pointers to > information sources. Some quick ones: > 1) How in the heck do the two 3000/37 units come apart? Are you sure you want to do this? > 2) How do I wire a terminal to this? At a guess, the console port will be one of those port 0s. > 3) Is the AUI connector an ethernet card? A lanic card? Likely so. > 4) Could someone please ID all the rest of the ports? Tried that. > 5) Is there a graphical display capability on this machine? As an add-on? Not directly. You could connect a terminal with graphics capability (HP 2648A, 2623A, 2627A; 2625A and 2628A with the graphics options; the 150s; probably some others that I'm forgetting) and there were additional software products (HPDRAW, EASYCHART, DSG/3000) that knew how to use them to produce drawings and charts. > 6) What kind of Pertec tape interface is available for this machine? Well, unless that's what's inside a 7970E tape drive cabinet, I'd say none. By this point (mid-1980s) HP was using HP-IB for discs and tapes. > 7) If my 2nd drive is damaged, how might I go about getting an OS for it? Tricky. I don't know whether MPE for the classic 3000s is available at all now. > I apologize for such a long post and my absolute lack of knowledge here. I > had a buddy who was supposed to help me out (3000 guru) but he's just gone > overseas for work indefinitely. It's such a cool system, the way it's put > together, and there's a bunch of neat freeware that I'd love to use too. > Any help at all would really be appreciated. Time for another glum part of the picture. Roughly speaking, there's two kinds of 3000: the kind with series <= 70 and the kind with series >= 900. The former are the "classic" 16-bit stack architecture. The latter are PA-RISC architecture. The freeware is very probably for the latter. -Frank McConnell

27 years, 4 months

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Color QuickDraw

by roblwill＠usaor.net

My Mac Portable doesn't have Color QuickDraw in ROM, but It will run on it, providing I boost it up to the full 9 mess RAM. It begins to load, but then gives a "not enough RAM" error. -- -Jason Willgruber (roblwill(a)usaor.net) ICQ#: 1730318 <http://members.tripod.com/general_1> -----Original Message----- From: Eric Smith <eric(a)brouhaha.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)U.WASHINGTON.EDU> Date: Friday, November 27, 1998 5:19 PM Subject: Re: Color QuickDraw > >Actually the SE/30 does have Color Quickdraw in ROM. All Macs that Apple >shipped with 68020, 68030, and 68040 processors (and their variants) have >Color Quickdraw in ROM. The later ones even have 32-bit Quickdraw. > >This is true irrespective of whether the Mac has a B&W display built in. >For instance, on the SE/30 it is possible to install a color display adapter >in the PDS, and it works fine and in full color without needing any >special software installed. >

27 years, 4 months

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Copying files from disks to hard drive in System 7.1 Pro

by roblwill＠usaor.net

As you can see by my previous messages, I don't know much about Macs. Yet another question: How do I copy a file from a floppy disk to the hard drive? I tried the drag-and-drop like Windows, and the icon goes to the HD (desktop, or a folder on the HD). I eject the disk, then double-click the icon to run the program. It tells me to insert disk "Untitled" (that's what the disk volume is named). I insert the disk, and it runs the program off of the disk. This gets a bit annoying after a while. I'm sure there's some way to copy the files over to the HD, but how?? ThAnX, -- -Jason Willgruber (roblwill(a)usaor.net) ICQ#: 1730318 <http://members.tripod.com/general_1>

27 years, 4 months

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TI99: Ring network for TI's?

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< be able to send/receive. This also means both computers must be in < perfect sync so they catch the rising/falling edges of the signal. < IHMO, it's not a very good idea! Simple encode a one as one ful cycle of 4800hz and a zero as a half cycle of 2400hz (FM encoding). Recieving that is simple wait for the bit to change and then wait to see if there is a change at one half (or window >from 1/3 to 2/3) and then decide if that was a one or zero. since there is a once per bit change (minimum) you can sync the machines by sending a header of say 16 zeros. The casette tape soctware does exactly that but at a slower rate as the recorders are not so good as direct wires. Allison

27 years, 4 months

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Recent Finds & Thoughts

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< copying them onto a correctly aligned machine would be the first thing t < do to remove such hassles in the future :-). I still don't see how < incorrect azimuth can be used as a copy protection system. It can't. People were likely adjusting them to try and get reliability in loading and assumeing that was the copy protection. Audio tape is as difficult to copy protect as a vinyl recording, you can't effectively. Commercial casettes tend to have lower levels as the dup machines try not to saturate the tape as that would introduce distortion to music, also most were design for stereo (narower head). Most cassette recorders use a mono head (wider) so they pack up less and also when the record they write a wider path meaning they recover more on play back. Stereo tapes tend to play at lower levels and have poorer response on mono decks because of the head with differences. The only way to copy protect and audio tape is not try or make it so it only works on a given machine. Audio cassettes and computers stopped being company around or before '85 and I was there and never saw "copy" protection. I did see a lot of off speed, poorly recorded, tape with horrid print through, dropouts from poor tape (some you could see through!) and other recording errors that would never be noticed if it were music. Actually the best protections was each vendor had a different tape standard for format, data rate and encoding method. None of that was deliberate, most was simply implementation artifacts. The best being L1 trs80 used a slower rate than LIIs on the same exact hardware. Allison

27 years, 4 months

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HP3000 help needed

by A_Finney＠wfi-inc.com

/* note: sorry if this is coming through twice - I had a power outage right as it was sending so I don't know if it made it the first time. */ Well, I finally got around to ripping apart the HP3000 rack I got from John Lawson a couple of months ago. And desperately need some pointers... I've read the HP3000-L FAQ and searched most of the day for info, but there isn't much geared toward the Classic HP3000 home-hobbyist. What I've got is this: 9144 tape drive - I've already deduced that it's a low-density, 16-track capable of 67/134 megs and the tapes have to be purchased pre-formatted. 2563A Printer - with a modular connector. 9123 3 1/2" dual floppy - picked up after-the-fact at a yard sale. It's HP-IB, but has a weird DIN power connector cord. No P/S. (2) 7914 drives - one of these may be a non-op, having suffered some damage during transit. (2)HP3000 series 37's - these are piggy-backed, is this the usual configuration? . Here's where I need some info: The "top" unit has a DB-25F in slot one, and an HP-IB in slot 4, as well as those DE-3F (correct terminology?) connectors in ports 0-5. The "bottom" unit has the DB-25F in slot one, the HP-IB in slot 4, and an AUI (ethernet? Is this a Lanic board?) in slot 5, as well as the 3-pin deals in ports 0-5. Above the ports is a female Centronics-50 which connected to what I believe is a terminal splitter, p/n 40290-60003. Above that is a *very* high-density 99-pin male connector, this is attached to the board with the HP-IB connector. The two units are connected vi an HP-IB cable on port 4 of each. Also, the top has the keyed power switch for both. What I need is *really* basic info on the system and some pointers to information sources. Some quick ones: 1) How in the heck do the two 3000/37 units come apart? 2) How do I wire a terminal to this? 3) Is the AUI connector an ethernet card? A lanic card? 4) Could someone please ID all the rest of the ports? 5) Is there a graphical display capability on this machine? As an add-on? 6) What kind of Pertec tape interface is available for this machine? 7) If my 2nd drive is damaged, how might I go about getting an OS for it? I apologize for such a long post and my absolute lack of knowledge here. I had a buddy who was supposed to help me out (3000 guru) but he's just gone overseas for work indefinitely. It's such a cool system, the way it's put together, and there's a bunch of neat freeware that I'd love to use too. Any help at all would really be appreciated. Thanks, Aaron

27 years, 4 months

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Triumph of the Nerds 2.0.1

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< As it was, it bored me to tears with it's dicussion of Venture Capital. < spent half an hour discussing Cisco's experience. But, I see your point Most of the industry was venture capital and managing same. The one we talk about in a historical sense were often the least successful doing exactly that! < >One thing Max, BBS systems were never really an Internet thing. They we < >stand-alone computers that could be dialed-up and info uploaded or they were the internet before there was one. many of the BBSs were linked so email from one to another was possible (FIDO come to mind). Allison

27 years, 4 months

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Recent Finds & Thoughts

by Philip.Belben＠pgen.com

> I have many old computer cassettes, and have been thinking of recording them > onto a computer in order to preserve their contents. The signal from computer > tapes oscillates between two levels, right? This being the case, it should be > possible to record them using 1-bit sampling. Perhaps record with 8- or 16-bit > sampling and then convert down to single bit. This is one of those things that depends on the hardware. The PET and its descendants did indeed use one bit in that manner. There are quite full descriptions of the waveforms it generates in several manuals. One-bit sampling is not necessarily a good idea. What you then have is: PET writes to tape nice square signal of well defined timing. Signal comes off tape with rounded corners, noise etc. You sample it at 1 bit and write to a file. Later you read the file on a modern machine and reconstruct the audio. This is a nice square signal, with timing dependent on (a) the distortion of the original recording/playback process, (b) the noise added by tape ageing etc., (c) your sampling at 22 kHz. It goes through some audio system with not necessarily a good bandwidth and arrives at the PET cassette port. The PET then has to interpret it... Worse still if you're using an audio CD. The CD player will be filtering according to what's best for the human ear, not what's best for the computer. My advice: If you're going to do 1-bit sampling, process _immediately_ to try and reconstruct the original signal. That is what the machines do (often in hardware), after all. Then remember that some machines _don't_ use 1-bit encoding. The BBC micro, for example, uses a standard modem chip of the time, and the outputs look (I think) fairly sinusoidal... > Are there any programs to do this conversion? I imagine the equivalent of a > Schmitt trigger (in software) would work. What about playing back a 1-bit > audio signal? Are there any standard audio file formats that can be used to > store 1-bit data? > > The final 1-bit audio files should be highly compressible, so they could be > archived with zip etc. to reduce size. Agreed. 1-bit sampled audio - or multiple bit sampled audio processed to reconstruct the 1-bit waveform - should be many times more compressible than ordinary sampled sound. In theory, the compressed file need be only a few times the size of the original program, but I doubt this will be achievable. > Actually recording tapes to audio CDs is quite wasteful since you can only get > 70 minutes or so on a CD (an issue if you have hundreds of cassettes). My > approach would be to archive tapes as described above; of course burning an > audio CD is useful for transferring the data back to the source computer. I agree with whoever pointed out that you can use the two tracks of the stereo audio for different programs. Cross talk is negligible. That's 140 min. After all, those of us with reel-to-reel tape have been doing this for years... Audio CD is necessary in my opinion. The point of this exercise is to plug your computer into your sound system and load programs _without_ the need for a modern machine to retrieve archives and things. If it wasn't for copy protection, turbo loaders and the like I'd favour sampling the output of the computer's cassette port... Philip. PS PET and many later C= machines have one more problem: they didn't use standard audio cassette machine, but one with a special Commie board in it and a custom interface.

27 years, 4 months

6
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Color QuickDraw

by roblwill＠usaor.net

Will Color QuickDraw run on a non-color Mac (Portable)? If it will, where do I find it? I need it to run a program. ThAnX, -- -Jason Willgruber (roblwill(a)usaor.net) ICQ#: 1730318 <http://members.tripod.com/general_1>

27 years, 4 months

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"Backup tool" wanted

by CharlesII＠nwonline.net

I'm making backup disk images for my Atari 800. I was wondering if anyone has the equivlent of Fast Hack Em for the Atari? Also dose anyone know of a drive emulator for the Apple II? Charles

27 years, 4 months

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Recent Finds & Thoughts

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< ::How did that work? Made the S/N ratio horrible on copies? AFAIK no < ::cassette recorder, at least not of the cheap consumer type, ever had < ::automatic level control on _playback_. < < That was the idea, yes. All that would do is make a high precentage of poorly readable tapes. Likely they load their own loader that used a modified format that was not the same. Lowering the level on audio casette where you only have at best 34db (non dolby) of headroom on a portable would make a very crummy recording. Dubbing through a level controlled amp would beat that in a heart beat. The trick is imposing low freq noise like hum or other tones below 40hz that are unheard at normal play speeds as they are under the ability of the head to resolve. When you dupe tape at high speed 5x-10x the then say 20hz tone is now a resolvable 100-200hz and gets embedded (summed with data) as interfering noise (like a bad AC hum). < ::> days before automatic level control), or required odd azimuth settin < ::> would be toasted by dubbing. This probably shouldn't interfere with < :: < ::All that having the wrong azimuth would do is reduce the HF response. < ::There's no way to tell an original played back on a machine with the < ::heads at a different azimuth setting to the recording machine and a co < ::of that recorded and played back on the same tape deck AFAIK. No casse < ::recorder had software-controllable azimuth. This is all bogus. Recording with the azimuth off kills the HF response and no amount of tweeking with recover that on playback. It's not on the tape so there is nothing you can recover. The wider the head gap or track width the worse it will be. Casette recorders were full track mono (half the width of the tape) so they were wide! If it's wrong on playback same thing save for it's correctable. Back in the audio cassette days I've seen more attributed and fixes created based on presumed behavour. Every thing from amps to filters and other funky curcuits that often weren't fixing the tape or recorders problems but some illness in the system cassette interface. The best example of that was they TRS80. For example my fix for there interface believe it or not was remove ALL the analog on the input side and drive the gate z24 pin9 through a 10uf cap with a 270ohm pull down on the pin. There were at least two articles with filter/amps and other circuits all unneeded for that! Most all didn't usnderstand the interface or the behavour of audio tape. Allison

27 years, 4 months

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Latest acquisition.

by hhacker＠gte.net

For Thanksgiving, I acquired a Silicon Graphics IRIS 3130, which is a 680x0 based application specific system. Don't know a whole lot about it, yet, but I will post as I learn. What I do know is that it runs Unix and is intended as a tool for the production of animation. It has a GenLock feature, so if some of you have such experience, I would like to know what you know. William R. Buckley

27 years, 4 months

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Intergraph on ebay

by A_Finney＠wfi-inc.com

I'm probably really slow; did everyone else already see this? http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=43755633 Aaron

27 years, 4 months

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Xerox MemoryWriter, $10.00

by kyrrin＠bluefeathertech.com

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27 years, 4 months

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Triumph of the Nerds 2.0.1

by kurtkilgor＠geocities.com

Did anyone else see this? I thought it was much worse than 2.0, but can someone comment on its accuracy, whatever? I thought he left out a lot of stuff, about bulletin board systems, and such.

27 years, 4 months

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2.9BSD/DZ-11 clone screw

by DSEAGRAV＠toad.xkl.com

I got my hands on a Aviv DZ-11 clone. 16-line MUX. So, I go about shoving it in the 83. It boots 2.9BSD off a RL02. Shove device in, set CSR and interrupt vector, and fire up BSD. I screwed with the dtab line - With it using dzdma in place of dzou, I can't make the MUX go. The kernel attaches it, but I can't seem to be able to talk to it. So, I switched to dzou. Now, upon boot, I get the message: dz 0 csr 160100 vector 320 no address found for dzou SERIOUS CONFIGURATION ERROR^G^G^G I've tried other vectors and other bus slots, and get no improvements with either method (dzdma or dzou). Any ideas? (Oh, and if you've got another SDZV11, the DIP switches are BACKWARDS of their labels! 1=0 and 0=1. Cute, eh?) I also have a DHV11, but no idea how to tell BSD it's there. All I ever get from it is dh ? csr 160020 vector 370 didn't interrupt I think I need to set the DM address, but have no idea what to set it to. -------

27 years, 4 months

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Noisy RD53: Cure?

by kyrrin＠bluefeathertech.com

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27 years, 4 months

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HP-71B

by danjo＠xnet.com

> On Fri, 27 Nov 1998, Peter Wilton-Jones wrote: > > I have just come into ownership of an HP 71B with bar code > > reader but am unable to scan with the reader or get a > > program saved on it. Could you possibly put me in touch > > with somone who may know. Cheers. Please contact him directly.... p.g.g.wilton-jones(a)braford.ac.uk BC

27 years, 4 months

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Stuffit.

by roblwill＠usaor.net

I downloaded Mosaic for the Mac, but I can't use it. I need a newer version a Stuffit. The version I have is 1.5, and it just doesn't cut it anymore (it was on the computer when I got it). I tried to download it, but you need the new version to open the archive to install the new version (basically useless). Does anyone have a copy that they could email to me or something (TeleDisk?)? ThAnX, -- -Jason Willgruber (roblwill(a)usaor.net) ICQ#: 1730318 <http://members.tripod.com/general_1> PS>> If you have a copy, but don't have TeleDisk, let me know, and I'll send you a copy.

27 years, 4 months

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networking newbie

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

In a message dated 11/27/98 1:04:56 AM US Eastern Standard Time, jpero(a)pop.cgocable.net writes: > Back to topic about oldie machine (8573 P75 will be 10 years real > soon!) cannot answer networking question, but ps2 models are now coming under the 10 year rule. my favourite machine!

27 years, 4 months

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Copy Protection

by charlesii＠nwonline.net

I'm making backup disk images for my Atari 800. I was wondering if anyone has the equivlent of Fast Hack Em for the Atari? Also dose anyone know of a drive emulator for the Apple II? Charles

27 years, 4 months

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Audio Cassette formats

by mark_k＠iname.com

On Wed, 25 Nov 1998 Sam Ismail wrote: >In my experience, sound files do not compress well at all with PKZIP. I >don't know about WAV files in particular, but I'm lucky if I can squeeze >10% off the ADPCM files that I work with. Are you talking about digitised computer tapes or music? I have some digitised (VOC format) files of ZX Spectrum game tapes. For example, Altered Beast. Not sure at what rate this was sampled, but: uncompressed file size = 12,725,061 bytes compressed file size = 504,546 bytes Which is a pretty good compression ratio. That is using the lharc archiver; I imagine zip would give similar or better compression. There are lossless compression systems designed for audio, but I bet they weren't designed with computer tapes in mind. On Wed, 25 Nov 1998 Allison J Parent wrote: >FYI, protable casette recorders 3db point is 11-14KHz for the better ones >and they typical ones used 9.5-12.5KHz is more realistic. > >Sampling above 20Khz is wasting bandwidth and recording time. > >Even the fastest audio formats (sudding and TARBEL187bytes/sec) had >bandwidths below 5KHz. Many game tapes for e.g. ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 used turbo loaders. Not sure what the highest data rate was, though at least some C64 programs loaded at 3000 baud. 3db point may not be completely relevant; at least for the old ZX Spectrum, you had to hook up the tape player with volume set at or near the maximum. For systems which (notionally) record a bilevel signal -- this may include almost all of them -- it may be that sampling at a very high rate and then doing some kind of post-processing of the sample to reduce it to 1-bit resolution would be beneficial; the result could be closer to the original signal output from the computer when the master tape was created. On Wed, 25 Nov 1998 Marvin wrote: >Someone mentioned that there are copy protection schemes for cassette tape, >and I was curious what these might be and how they might interfere with >recording the tape onto my HD. Sure. Tape copy-protection was used by almost all commerical (game) software. This involved some devious tricks, as well as turbo-loading routines. It was designed to prevent people from copying games by reading into the computer and saving out again. It shouldn't have any bearing on sampling the tapes at all. Some techniques used were auto-run loaders, fast loaders and custom formats in general, greater-than-RAM-size blocks of data. -- Mark

27 years, 4 months

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Old 386 and 486 pc's

by jeff.kaneko＠juno.com

It was the ST-1150R. It is an RLL rated version of the ST-1100. These drives are both scarce because they were high-capacity ST-506 3.5" drives. Maxtor made plenty of 5.25 full height MFM 80+ MB drives, but the Seagate ST-1100/1150R was the biggest ST-506 3.5" drive available (if anyone knows of a bigger 3.5", ST-506 interface drive, I'd like to hear from you). There are some applications where only such a small drive will fit; and the use of an IDE or SCSI drive is not possible, becuase the interfaces aren't supported. Jeff On Wed, 25 Nov 1998 16:57:12 -0500 "PG Manney" <manney(a)lrbcg.com> writes: >>One was an Everex with a mondo-scarce RLL drive. . . > > >Which one? RLL's aren't _all_ that scarce. > >manney > > ___________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]

27 years, 4 months

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Collector

by CypressCEO＠aol.com

I am a 8008 and 8080 computer collector. I would like a subscription to your newsletter. Please send it to: SCHUROD(a)aol.com

27 years, 4 months

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Recent Finds & Thoughts

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< All that having the wrong azimuth would do is reduce the HF response. Correction: Having the wrong azimuth would do is reduce the already terrible HF response. Also if the motor speed is off that will add to the grief (don't assume it is!). used to work on portable casettes and 2% error was common and some were 5%+ wow and flutter from bad casette cases/ < There's no way to tell an original played back on a machine with the < heads at a different azimuth setting to the recording machine and a copy < of that recorded and played back on the same tape deck AFAIK. No cassett < recorder had software-controllable azimuth. Most all have a trap door for a screw driver. the adjustment compensates for head wear, mecanical error in the guides, sloppy transport. one set if the transport is any good it need not be touched. Most portables of the era were terrible. Allison

27 years, 4 months

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Audio Cassette formats

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< Many game tapes for e.g. ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 used turbo loaders. N < what the highest data rate was, though at least some C64 programs loaded < 3000 baud. 300 cps, maybe. Sill the bandwidth had to be under 7-9khs as the group delays in portable cassettes are terrible as you near their upper 3db point. Still that is only twice the Tarbel data rate. < 3db point may not be completely relevant; at least for the old ZX Spectr < had to hook up the tape player with volume set at or near the maximum. It is relevant as that is the result of the head gap and media limitations. Most portables a tone at 15khz was usually at least 20db down if not worse. The HF falloff for casette is poor and portables of the era terrible!! Most the amplifier chain was easily good for more than that! A fair number the bias osc for recording was only 35khz so anything over 17khz would alias till the cows came home but the head never saw it nor the media as it couldn't do it. The bulk of audio casettes were on the 30 cps range using 300baud systems or the later ones used 150-190cps using phase encoding like tarbel, trs80 or cosmac(lots of others too). Most all were most sensitive to: *Dropouts. short periods of far lower level (or none!). *Speed variations due to transport not being able to hold or not being on speed. *Group delays (phase shifts) from trying to put HF (above 5-6khz) through the electronics, heads and media. Compared to CDrom the bandwidth, speed and noise are TERRIBLE and barely approximate 1/4 the cdrom capability. Allison

27 years, 4 months

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Front Panel Theory

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< I don't suppose anyone has any schematics for a "I-can-build-this-front < panel-computer-out < of-nothing-but-Radio < Shack-and-Jameco-parts-sit-it-on-a-shelf-and-say-look-at-that-wow" < project, now do you? Just something to play around with, that's all. Like I said last night, Bursky's book _The S100 bus Handbook_ has the IMSAI and altair front pannels. There's not a lot of majik but lots of connections and a good handful of basic TTL. Allison

27 years, 4 months

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M7454: Unibus only?

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>Next: Does anyone know if the M7454 module (Unibus TU80 controller) >is Unibus only, or can it also be used on QBus systems? Plug it into a Q-bus backplane, and you'll let the magic smoke out! If you want a Q-bus tape controller, look for a Emulex TC02/03, QT13, Dilog DQ132/152, or the like. Tim.

27 years, 4 months

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Digital LA210 Letterprinter

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

Hi guys, Anyone have specs/instructions for these? I have rescued one I would like to use on my VMS 6.0 box. It appears to be intact, powers up and prints a self test, (seems very fast by dot matrix standards) but it's filthy as hell, I'm trying to clean it up at the moment. It came from a lead smelter - and looks like it. But I have no specs, don't even know if it needs a straight cable, handshaking or null modem, default baud rate etc. A list of the dip switch settings or a pointer to some online docs would be terrific. Cheers Geoff Roberts Computer Systems Manager Saint Marks College Port Pirie South Australia. My ICQ# is 1970476 Ph. 61-411-623-978 (Mobile) 61-8-8633-0619 (Home) 61-8-8633-8834 (Work-Direct) 61-8-8633-0104 (Fax)

27 years, 4 months

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Front Panel Theory

by lfb107＠psu.edu

I don't suppose anyone has any schematics for a "I-can-build-this-front panel-computer-out of-nothing-but-Radio Shack-and-Jameco-parts-sit-it-on-a-shelf-and-say-look-at-that-wow" project, now do you? Just something to play around with, that's all. I'd appreciate any info, Thanks! Les

27 years, 4 months

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M7454: Unibus only?

by kyrrin＠bluefeathertech.com

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27 years, 4 months

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Into the modern age

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< One thing I'm a bit surprised by is the speed of the video being much < faster than I'd imagined it would be. Now to get some software to run Why? DEC would and did do things to keep it from being a turkey. The Video is not a simple bit map and there is a drawing engine in there. Also VAX instruction set is fairly efficient doing bit manipulations. < on it; I've found some stuff already, but can someone point me at some < share/freeware software to run under DecWindows (besides the DECUS < archives)? In particular, I remember using an ephemeris program in schoo < that I could swear was freely distributed. Check, there was a fairly good flight sim and other stuff as well. < Does the DECUS hobbyist license cover all versions of VMS/DECWindows? V5.4 through 6.1. It may work with earlier. < I'm running 5.2 on this machine; would upgrading to 6.1 noticeably degra < performance? Would additional features balance out any slowdowns? Beside < new features, my entire manual set is for 6.1... Having manuals is a good reason to be at that level. being at 6.1 may slow it a tiny bit but it's worth it. The other end is for 6.1 I'd call a 200mb scsi the minimum acceptable where 5.1 you can get by with 121mb. However a 400mb-1gb small scsi should not be hard to find cheap. Allison

27 years, 4 months

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Need DTC brand Qbus SCSI board info

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Nov 26, 12:49, CLASSICCMP(a)trailing-edge.com wrote: > Subject: RE: Need DTC brand Qbus SCSI board info > >No LSI chips on board; only two ROM chips (82S123N's with paper labels "LSH > >1" and LSD0" typed on them) plus others are typical 74xxx-series chips (LS, > >S and 7400-series) except bus I/F chips are the typical DS8641N's. > >It is suspected to be SCSI as there is a 50-pin pin connector on the > >ejector end and a tag on the antistatic bag has "Probably SCSI" written on > >it by what is apparently a DEC dealer/reseller in Pittsburgh. > > 50-pin connectors might hint that it could be SCSI, but it could be > a lot of other things too. 8-inch SA800-type floppy is the most obvious. > > DTC also sourced some boards which were controllers for SA1000-type > and SA4000-type hard drives. It could also be a QIC tape controller; I've seen dual-height versions of those from about that era. I doubt it would be SCSI in discrete logic (no LSI) in that small a space. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

27 years, 4 months

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My adolescent fantasies FINALLY fulfilled!

by Arlen.Michaels.amichael＠nt.com

Aaron Christopher Finney <A_Finney(a)wfi-inc.com> wrote: >This is an ATR8000 with a CO-POWER upgrade board. Like you said, it was >an 8088 upgrade with 256k RAM and let you run MS-DOS and CP/M-86. In >CP/M mode, you could use the extra memory as a RAMdisk. Maybe what I have is just a partial system. There's nothing on my board that can run native CP/M (ie, no 8080 or Z80 processor). It's just one board carrying the 8088, RAM, (boot?) eprom, and logic. It's not even clear how it connects to anything else--apart from an empty dip socket in the corner and a couple of lugs to connect +5 vdc, there's no obvious electrical interface. Of course, I have no documents to help me :) Clearly I don't know what I'm missing: is there another base board that's supposed to go with this "Co-Power" card? >It wasn't just for the >ATR8000; they also made them for Kaypro, Osborne, Xerox, Zorba, and >Bigboard. Did they make a different model for each host computer, or did they use a single pcb design with different interconnects and/or eproms to suit each target system? <snip> >I got a bunch of price-lists/product brochures with this one, and will >scan it all and make it available in the next few days for anyone >interested. BTW, does someone have the actual owner's manual for it? >Funny enough, with all these books and papers, the only thing I am really >missing is the honest-to-god owners manual. A scan or copy of one would >be much appreciated. I'd love to find out more. Arlen Michaels amichael(a)nortel.ca

27 years, 4 months

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LA210 switches - here you are

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

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27 years, 4 months

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Front Panel Theory

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Nov 26, 9:42, Allison J Parent wrote: > Subject: Re: Front Panel Theory > < Do you mean if you execute a HALT instruction? > No. Halt is a instruction. WAIT/ is a device pin. > the WAIT/ state on z80 does not generate refresh as it's a extended T2 > state and refresh is not output until the cpu proceds to the T3 state. Yes, I know - but you wrote "halt" not "wait" so I was surprised (and it was late at night, so I didn't think about what you probably meant). -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

27 years, 4 months

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Need DTC brand Qbus SCSI board info

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>No LSI chips on board; only two ROM chips (82S123N's with paper labels "LSH >1" and LSD0" typed on them) plus others are typical 74xxx-series chips (LS, >S and 7400-series) except bus I/F chips are the typical DS8641N's. >It is suspected to be SCSI as there is a 50-pin pin connector on the >ejector end and a tag on the antistatic bag has "Probably SCSI" written on >it by what is apparently a DEC dealer/reseller in Pittsburgh. 50-pin connectors might hint that it could be SCSI, but it could be a lot of other things too. 8-inch SA800-type floppy is the most obvious. DTC also sourced some boards which were controllers for SA1000-type and SA4000-type hard drives. >It could be an earlier SASI type board too as the date codes on the chips >run from mid-1982 to a few from the first weeks of 1983. IIRC, that's >around the tail end of the SASI protocol days and beginning of the SCSI >protocol. >Anyway, I need to get info on this to see if it could be used on either my >MicroVAX II or MicroPDP-11/73. If it is a SCSI/SASI controller, it certainly isn't MSCP-emulating, which would make it not particularly useful for a stock OS. You can always plug it into a machine and scan the I/O page to see what address it turns up at. This will give you a big hint as to what it emulates (if anything!) -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927

27 years, 4 months

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Arrgh!

by kyrrin＠bluefeathertech.com

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27 years, 4 months

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more interesting finds!

by JRichardson＠softwright.co.uk

missed the start of this thread, but: >NOTE: X-Window terminals were often crammed full of memory (2 to 16meg >generally), usually SIMS. This often gets stripped first, even before the >surplus shop gets it. they generally (always? think it's actually part of the system design on some boxes) need a boot ROM to boot from a host system (maybe some sort of binaries for the terminal held on the host server too?). I gather that these ROMs were often purchased seperately from the terminal itself (presumably several giving different configurations for a particular terminal were on offer) and so you may have a terminal without the ROM, in which case getting hold of one might be interesting... cheers Jules >

27 years, 4 months

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rescued and available

by allisonp＠world.std.com

Hey S100/CPM fans... I managed to collect the following: 5 Compupro 85/88 cpu cards 8085/8088 5 Compupro System support cards (extended interrupts, RTC and more) 3 Compupro Disk-1 DMA floppy controllers (does both 8 and 5") 2 Compupro DISK-3 DMA Hard disk controller (MFM) 1 CCI Printerfacer printer buffer card MANY Compupro Interfacer I/2/3/4 cards Some compupro RAM16, RAM20, RAM21 All expected to be good as they were removed from regular service in 93/94 time frame and clean. I also have DOCs for the boards maybe more. Also several Intergrand dual disk mounting boxes for hard disks or floppies. These can mount full height floppies or hard disks and have nice power supplies. Suitable for MFM or SCSI drives. They have MFM drives likely quantum D540 (31mb RD52) or fugitsu. I have several dual 8" disk boxes with drives(2sided). Expectations they are good. Also several loose full and half height two sided drives. I also have several S100 crates (compupro, TEI and Intergrand) all heaver than a small train. Two are BIG as they mount a pair of FULL height 8" drives. Power supply is a moose! And terminals... All Telvideo 9xx series and all work. I've already taken out what I want so this is the EXCESS. Offers to me off line. Shipping for the boards can be done. The boxes are local pickup only as they are big and heavy! terminals may be shipable. This will not be on Ebay or others. I'd like to get a nominal amount plus shipping for my effort and the 100 mile trips it took to get them. Allison

27 years, 4 months

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Dismantling an AT keyboard entirely

by Philip.Belben＠pgen.com

>> A lot of people don't like key clicks. I do. When I worked at IBM I >> received a lot of dirty looks for typing on a 3279 terminal, in an open > > Not half as bad as the looks _I_ got for using a Flexowriter to punch a > tape in a public terminal room at Cambridge University about 10 years ago > (everybody else was using _silent_ video terminals, mostly BBC micros). Was I there? I don't recall the incident. >> plan office, without turning off the key clicker. Now that really was >> loud! > > I have a keyboard somewhere with a little solenoid in it that hits the > metal baseplate for a keyclick. Now that is loud! 3278 and 3279 were similar, except that it wasn't the metal base plate. I never dismantled one, but it sounded like one of those plastic resonators you get in some toy guns. Philip.

27 years, 4 months

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Front Panel Theory

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< know about is the Ithaca Intersystems DPS-1. It's pretty! And it's th < only one I've seen that had breakpoint capability. It was a "soft" front pannel where the switches interacted with a limited amount of rom like the altair 8800B. The Heath H8 and several others did nearly the same thing but used an octal keypad. Allison

27 years, 5 months

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Into the modern age

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>One thing I'm a bit surprised by is the speed of the video being much >faster than I'd imagined it would be. Now to get some software to run >on it; I've found some stuff already, but can someone point me at some >share/freeware software to run under DecWindows (besides the DECUS >archives)? In particular, I remember using an ephemeris program in school >that I could swear was freely distributed. A lot of precompiled binaries are available by anonymous ftp >from ftp.cenaath.cena.dgac.fr - but many (most?) of these are available more conveniently from one of the DECUS collections. Just about anything that runs under X-windows on a Unix platform will run under DECWindows on VMS. Generally the difficulties in porting are comparable to porting between two different Unix platforms. (That's what that endless maze of "#ifdef"'s is in there for in the first place!) >Does the DECUS hobbyist license cover all versions of VMS/DECWindows? That's a good question, and I thought the license terms itself would say. But the copy I have from http://www.montagar.com/hobbyist/license_terms.html is silent on the subject! Comments on comp.os.vms tend to indicate that 6.1 is covered, but that 6.2 isn't (because 6.2 is still "currently supported" commercially.) >I'm running 5.2 on this machine; would upgrading to 6.1 noticeably degrade >performance? Would additional features balance out any slowdowns? Besides >new features, my entire manual set is for 6.1... I forget how much RAM you have, but if you have more than 16 Mbytes you won't have any problems. If you have 16 Mbytes or less, you might be a bit tight on memory and would incur some paging/swapping, depending on what you're doing. Tim. (shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com)

27 years, 5 months

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Into the modern age

by A_Finney＠wfi-inc.com

I finally got a monitor for my VS3100 m38 and was playing with DecWindows all night. Really cool. One thing I'm a bit surprised by is the speed of the video being much faster than I'd imagined it would be. Now to get some software to run on it; I've found some stuff already, but can someone point me at some share/freeware software to run under DecWindows (besides the DECUS archives)? In particular, I remember using an ephemeris program in school that I could swear was freely distributed. And a couple more questions for the experts: Does the DECUS hobbyist license cover all versions of VMS/DECWindows? I'm running 5.2 on this machine; would upgrading to 6.1 noticeably degrade performance? Would additional features balance out any slowdowns? Besides new features, my entire manual set is for 6.1... Aaron

27 years, 5 months

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FW: H-11 (LSI-11) for trade or sale (SF Bay Area)

by kyrrin＠my-dejanews.com

Heads up folks! This fellow's got an H11 for sale/trade in the Bay Area. You want, get in touch with him directly. -=-=- <snip> -=-=- On 25 Nov 1998 22:27:15 -0800, in alt.sys.pdp11 you wrote: >>From: John Mock <kd6pag(a)qsl.net> >>Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp11 >>Subject: H-11 (LSI-11) for trade or sale (SF Bay Area) >>Date: 25 Nov 1998 22:27:15 -0800 >>Organization: Spam Haters >>Lines: 15 >>Message-ID: <87ogpvt1do.fsf(a)mongrel.kd6pag.ampr.org> >>NNTP-Posting-Host: op204.value.net >>X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.2 >>Path: blushng.jps.net!news.pbi.net!205.252.116.205!howland.erols.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news1.best.com!vnetnews.value.net!not-for-mail >> >>Would like to trade for amateur radio gear (non-HF) or test equipment (non- >>boat-anchor due to space considerations). I think it includes manuals, >>drawings, and various paper-tape crud; 'was always too busy to do anything >>with it. I'm now in much too small of a place to keep it, and it's just >>occupying space in the van waiting for a new home. Too much stuff to ship >>but will happily deliver to most parts of the Bay Area (especially Sonoma >>Co., where someone [whose e-mail address was lost] had expressed interest >>before). Or perhaps the Sacramento region, as i'd like finally to make it >>to the snow country this year and the stuff's in the way of that. >> >>Please make an offer, including destination, as this time, i need to deal >>with this quickly. >> >> -- KD6PAG (or in UUCP notation, 'qsl.net!kd6pag' >> to evade the spammers) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner and head honcho, Blue Feather Technologies -- kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech [dot] com Web: http://www.bluefeathertech.com "...No matter how we may wish otherwise, our science can only describe an object, event, or living thing in our own human terms. It cannot possibly define any of them..."

27 years, 5 months

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Need DTC brand Qbus SCSI board info

by cfandt＠netsync.net

I have what is believed to be a SCSI board from DTC. It is a dual-wide Qbus module. "DTC" is silk-screened on the component side plus a FAB number, ASSY number, REV number and S/N. Nothing on the ejector tab. Those numbers likely do not mean anything to a search of DTC SCSI board info files but here they are anyway: FAB 007-00003, ASSY 007-00002, REV 02, S/N 3028C2. No LSI chips on board; only two ROM chips (82S123N's with paper labels "LSH 1" and LSD0" typed on them) plus others are typical 74xxx-series chips (LS, S and 7400-series) except bus I/F chips are the typical DS8641N's. It is suspected to be SCSI as there is a 50-pin pin connector on the ejector end and a tag on the antistatic bag has "Probably SCSI" written on it by what is apparently a DEC dealer/reseller in Pittsburgh. Absolutely no part or type number on the component side and nothing on the solder side. Searching the DTC website was useless as the only thing they talked about in the Support area was all their PC-type SCSI boards. Nothing on any web search turned up anything either (figures, it's such a relatively old thing) unless there's actually a website the search engines could not see . . . It could be an earlier SASI type board too as the date codes on the chips run from mid-1982 to a few from the first weeks of 1983. IIRC, that's around the tail end of the SASI protocol days and beginning of the SCSI protocol. Anyway, I need to get info on this to see if it could be used on either my MicroVAX II or MicroPDP-11/73. Anybody have any ideas on this? Any old DTC or independant DEC reseller catalogs from the early 80's have any info on this? Thanks in advance. Happy Thanksgiving to the Stateside gang!! In addition to the good things we are given in life such as family, friends and the life we have, give thanks for our ability to keep and study the old computer and electronic technology: hobbies we are fortunate to enjoy. Regards, Chris -- -- Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian Jamestown, NY USA cfandt(a)netsync.net Member of Antique Wireless Association URL: http://www.ggw.org/freenet/a/awa/

27 years, 5 months

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Tektronix 4051

by rigdonj＠intellistar.net

Hi all, More progress on the 4051. I finally tracked down the original manuals and was able to get them. Man, are they in sorry shape. Not just mold and mildew but even termites in them! I spent all day cleaning them page by page. I was able to save most of them. The worst damage is confined to the outer pages and the edges so most of the real info is intact. Here's what I ended up with, besides the two books that I mentioned early. (Book 1) 4051 Service ROM Pack 067-0962-00, 4051R05 Binary Program Loader, 4051E01 ROM Expander Instruction Manual, 4051 Option 1 Data Communications Interface 021-0188-00, Data Communications Inteface Unit Instruction Manual 021-0065-00, 4051 Option 10 RS-232 Printer Interface 021-0189-00. (Book 2) Graphic System Reference Manual 070-2056-00 (Book 3) 4051 Graphic System Service Manual Vol I 070-2065-00, 4051 Graphic System Service Manual Vol II 070-2086-00, RS 232 Printer Interface for 4051 (data sheet) 021-0189-00, 4051R01/4051R05/4051R06 data sheet 062-3106-00. (Book 4) 4907 File Manager Operator's Manual 070-2360-00. (Book 5) Plot 50 ????? (title page missing), Plot 50 Introduction to Graphic Programming in BASIC 070-2059-00. (Book 6) 4051 Editor 4051R06 070-2170-00. BTW Paxton and Phillip were right, the model of the disk drives is 4907 not 4097. Happy weekend everybody and happy Thanksgiving to the ones of us here in the US. Joe

27 years, 5 months

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Front Panel Theory

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< If you're suggesting that the breakpoint capability of the DPS-1 < front-panel was merely something that tickled a ROM monitor and told it < drop a software breakpoint, then BZZZT! That would be cheating. It was a mix of rom and some hardware but, yes! < >From the hardware description, it looks like it was a real ICE-like < hardware breakpoint, and you could break on address, data, or status < conditions. If I could recognize the part numbers in the schematic, I < might even be able to pretend I know how it works. :-) That was the part hardware part. Compared to ICE is was far more crude. Allison

27 years, 5 months

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Vaxstation 3100 basics

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< The box is a model VS42A and has a 3.5" floppy and 2 X 100Mb internal SC < hard drives. It has what looks like 8Mb of RAM to me, whatever is on th < main board plus a 4Mb extension. Ok you have a 3100, with 12mb ram (VMS runs in 4 or more). This is plenty. The two RZ23l drives are plenty of space for VMS. < < On powering up it says KA 42-A v1.3, does a hex countdown and finishes w < a ">>>" prompt. < < Command "b" causes it to display ESA0 and stop. < Command "?" gives an error message. < Command "c" causes a drive to start. It then displays an error message " < ERR PC=00000000" and then lists a table I can't decipher that seems t < list drives and includes "VMS/VMB" and "Ultrix" along the top. It then h < prompt " [ESA0:] >>> ". < At that point command "b" results in a series of errors: < 83 BOOT SYS < ?41 DEVASSIGN,B < 84 FAIL ESA0 is the eithernet. So it was trying to NETBOOT! The boot device is likely DKA300. DKA is disk, scsi bus A X00 is the device number. < How can I find out if it has an operating system? or have I already prov < it hasn't? Try booting! >>> B DKA000 through 700 see if they all fail. < It looks like it is at least NEARLY 10 years old. 9 max. depending on model maybe less than 5. Though KA42A is likely a 3100 M30 nice little box actually. Allison

27 years, 5 months

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Front Panel Theory

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< Do you mean if you execute a HALT instruction? If you do that, the Z80 < behaves as if it's continuously executing HALT instructions, performing < repeated bus cycles, including the RFSH signal part. No. Halt is a instruction. WAIT/ is a device pin. WAIT/ will hold cpu operation at the point where a read write or IO( read or write) operation takes place an freezes it until released. Most hardware front pannels used wait/ (or ready/) to stop the cpu. the WAIT/ state on z80 does not generate refresh as it's a extended T2 state and refresh is not output until the cpu proceds to the T3 state. so for those front pannels operatios were done this way: read an address; waiting that that address with data and address leds as the would be for bus contents. CPU is waiting in M1 state for z80 case (instruction read). Write data: Same as read case but the contents of the data switches are written to the current ram address. the write pulse is from the front pannel (cpu still waiting). RUN: remove wait/, operation procedes from where you are. STOP: Assert wait/ LOAD ADDRESS: JAM jump to address into cpu. the jump instuction is a buffer with it's imputs hard wired to C3h (JP in z80) and the address bytes that follow gated off the 16 front pannel switchs. Wait is re asserted to stop after the jump. LEDs will now contain the new address and data from the address in the switches. hardware front pannels are generally a lot of chips but no smarts. Allison

27 years, 5 months

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Call for final Elf99 design input

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< Not everyone has a Quest Elf. I, too, want to go beyond it, but for < aesthetic reasons, I want to stay close to the original. My vision is < a compromise between what we had in 1977 and what we would have wanted < if we could have gotten it for the same price. When I built my Elf, I < followed a friend's advice and installed a wire-wrap socket for the CPU < He rolled his own I/O ports, with relay drivers and built a robot. I < never did add anthing to mine, and quickly ran out of things to do with Doing all that with a bas elf wasn't hard but very awkward. It didn't latch the high address so 256bytes were it. IO was what it was(switches and the Q led) There was no easy expansion without corrupting the base design so that some of the simplest programs did not run. < I always wanted an Elf II, but couldn't afford the board. I wish now I Same here but at teh time I was into S100 and just wanted to play with the 1802 a tiny bit and that was cheap. < had saved for it. I got a 32k PET instead. Ah, well; choices. In any < case, I liked the slots idea on the Elf II, but I don't recall too much < materializing for it. The Elf II at the Computer Museum of America in < San Diego has a plexiglass box over the boards and all the slots full. < One was memory. I don't know about the other two. For that matter, the Memory, Parrlel ports, serial ports, 1861 video board(may have been a base level board option). The most highly developed elf was the one from Netronics (ELF-II) The VIP had a ram card, rom card, IO card and a sound effects card. Never saw any of them. They were real easy to make. My idea of a 1802 system was more like the 1802 Eval board rom RCA that was unlike the elf series. My 1802 wish list for the record. Up to 32kram, 32k rom using standard pinouts so the 32k rom can be EEpro, Eprom or flash. The 28 pin site can also accept 24 pin devices (6116, 2716, 2732...). Minimum of one parallel out and one parallel in. Elf style front pannel for programs with 6 hex leds (address and data). data input would be toggle switches as they while not cheap are easy to get and mount. serial port, bit bashing serial IO gets tiresome and is limited in speed. VIP style cassette IO (tape storage) proto area with holes enough to build a few IO things. Bus brought to one connector (VIP compatable) The reason for that is there are Tbasic, Pilot and other languages and tools that all want more than 256 byts and Q-led. If some one were to do it a "advanced 1861" in FPGA. the 1861 was a primitive device that did video DMA, With a little design effort a similar device and be put in FPGA that would provide 256 horizontal by 128 vertical using 4k of ram as a bit map. This enough to better graphics and even display 32x16 characters using a 8x8 cell. Going much further with 1802 is self limiting as it was slow and actually a crude CPU. It was also like the PDP-8 in that it was blessedly simple. Allison

27 years, 5 months

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more interesting finds!

by Innfogra＠aol.com

Joe, I wish I were there. You should hang the DG core plane on the wall. They are great art. I think all core you get should be kept. Usually there is so much good (old) gold in them they go to scrap first. While later core planes, including the DG, didn't use much some of the early examples are spectacular. And, who knows, someone might want to get an old Nova 800 running again. The small pizza boxes are Sun compatible X-Window Terminals. Plug in a multisync SVGA monitor (preferably one good to 1280X1024), PS/2 mouse and keyboard and you should be able to get it to come up and run digs somewhere in the windowing system. I say Sun compatible because of the keyboard port. It would be interesting to know if Sun chips or the 68020/68881 chips were in it. Usually generic X-Window terminals used Motorola chips. If it had Sun chips it would be a Sparkstation of some kind. Probably not a Spark though, no SCSI port. HDS (Human Designed Systems) made terminals to be hooked up to mainframes. Almost all terminal makers brought out a X-Window terminals for Ethernet networks. HDS was well respected, I'm not surprised that some of their machines got out there. Most X-Window machines had this many ports, Sun keyboard excluded. They were platform independent, relying on TCP/IP and X- Windows which usually booted from ROM. This one looks like it would hook up to any kind of Ethernet you had, keyboard, mouse, parallel printer, modem, serial tablet, are there any leftover ports, oh yes the Sun Keyboard (or the PC keyboard if you hooked up a Sun one). My guess is that this is a later Motorola based X-Window terminal that is nearly plug and play on a Sun Solaris Ethernet system. NOTE: X-Window terminals were often crammed full of memory (2 to 16meg generally), usually SIMS. This often gets stripped first, even before the surplus shop gets it. Look for signs the case has been opened. If you can, check the machine yourself. Spark clones have 32 to 64 Megs of Ram, have good trading value. the earliest of these are about 10 yrs old so they can be on topic. Let us know what else you find! Paxton PS I see more current info out there after reading the mail. If it is an intel/TI system those are fairly rare and, I think, worth collecting.

27 years, 5 months

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Front Panel Theory

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Nov 25, 23:44, Allison J Parent wrote: > Front pannels don't work with Z80s if... DRAM depends on the z80 for > refresh. Reason is the stopped state is a very long wait state. Do you mean if you execute a HALT instruction? If you do that, the Z80 behaves as if it's continuously executing HALT instructions, performing repeated bus cycles, including the RFSH signal part. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

27 years, 5 months

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Call for final Elf99 design input

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Nov 26, 0:31, Ethan Dicks wrote: > I don't think you answered the same question I did. The "essential" thing > and the thing that there was only one vote in favor of was having the 2101 > sockets IN ADDITION TO the 62256 socket. So far, only one person, Hans, > has asserted that the 2101 sockets are a good thing. Add my name to Hans'. I don't mind if I can only have one or the other at any given time, but I happen to have a few 2101s and it would be nice to use them. > Not everyone has a Quest Elf. I, too, want to go beyond it, but for > aesthetic reasons, I want to stay close to the original. That sounds just like my ideal :-) -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

27 years, 5 months

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Vaxstation 3100 basics

by jolminkh＠nsw.bigpond.net.au

I have managed to find and cobble together enough bits of hardware to have an operational vaxstation .... I think. I've never played with one before or even seen one. What now? The box is a model VS42A and has a 3.5" floppy and 2 X 100Mb internal SCSI hard drives. It has what looks like 8Mb of RAM to me, whatever is on the main board plus a 4Mb extension. On powering up it says KA 42-A v1.3, does a hex countdown and finishes with a ">>>" prompt. Command "b" causes it to display ESA0 and stop. Command "?" gives an error message. Command "c" causes a drive to start. It then displays an error message "ISP ERR PC=00000000" and then lists a table I can't decipher that seems to list drives and includes "VMS/VMB" and "Ultrix" along the top. It then has a prompt " [ESA0:] >>> ". At that point command "b" results in a series of errors: 83 BOOT SYS ?41 DEVASSIGN,B 84 FAIL How can I find out if it has an operating system? or have I already proved it hasn't? None of the stuff I have found on the web so far goes this basic. It looks like it is at least NEARLY 10 years old. Thanks Hans Olminkhof

27 years, 5 months

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Call for final Elf99 design input

by allisonp＠world.std.com

The basic elf was an 8bit address only design. The high order bites were not latched. It's memory was 256bytes (2101s) and an optional 32byte fuse prom. When the prom was enabled it overlayed the first 32 bytes. The upper address bytes were meaningless as no logic saw them. Very limiting design. < > > o Circuit to ghost EPROM at $0000 until first address access at $80 < > < > I still would go for a better decoding - just the high bit is to short < > Maybe there are some spare gates to use ? < < Wait a minute. We have been having an extensive offline conversation < and you said that 32K of RAM and 32K of ROM is enough. It can be more o < of either, at a cost of gates and complexity. The VIP had 512bytes at 8000 and up to 4k at 0-0fffh/ < > Esential to be as close as possible to the original design. < < One vote for, several against or abstaining. if you stay close to the quest design you cannot have much (and none of the options) all of the options are desirable as most people added them somehow or another. < I'm not inclined to do dual 1852's. We you and I have discussed, the 18 < uses three ports, the switch/display is another port, leaving three lef < over. While ports are scarce, they are no so scarce as to overshadow th < benefits of a bit-programmable I/O port. Use port one to select banks of ports (RCA app note). Then ports are cheap and it only takes another latch. ARE 1852 available and what do they offer over a simple cheap port. < > Data transfer via Q is way more fun (Hi Alison :). < > And since we don't need high speed transfer (2400 is ridicoulous i < > we can do 110 :) a complete software solution is a great thing to do. < < I have no problems in principle with a software UART, but I do have < something to say about the speed. 2400 baud is *not* a ridiculous < speed, especially if you want to talk to an external device that has < a fixed clock, say, a serial-to-LCD board. The other issue with a < software UART is timing. If you use a hardware UART, it needs a < crystal of a particular frequency, but the CPU does not. You can then < "clock chip" the 1802 up (to use a Mac term) and not recode your serial < routines. Use the q led and EF1 for casette port. Uart for TTY/term. < I still have yet to hear why the 1855 Multiply/Divide Unit is worth < the real estate. Sure, it's a neat chip, but unless it has a purpose, < I can't see including it. Never mind finding it. < but if I maximize the appeal of the standard I/O ports, I'm likely to se < a few dozen. If I can't sell 60, I can't afford to invest in 100 PCBs. And if its only the quest design I have one already. It's appeal wears off real fast and it's was not designed with expansion in mind. Allison

27 years, 5 months

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Front Panel Theory

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< Not trying to be a snob here, but true "Front Panel Theory" can only be < practiced on a computer where the 'innards' are exposed. Most < microprocessors are too integrated to support a "real" front panel. This < one of the reason they died out fairly quickly in the micro world but li < for quite a while in the mini-world. Wrong, wrong wrong. They died because of a multitude of things one being ROM monitor is cheaper to implement than 16-22 switches and more flexible. That and after you've baned the loader in 5 times and basic still isn't up and your finder hurt... Plus it made the machine intimidating and complex looking compared to say a KIM-1 The 8080 altair had one and it was quite useful but there were more switches and TTL on the board than the CPU, RAM and IO combined! Allison

27 years, 5 months

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Front Panel Theory

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< This might be a bit of an odd question, but can anyone point me in the < right direction to find info on theory of operation of a front panel? < have a z80 based computer which I built a few years ago (wire-wrapped) < which uses an eprom for program storage. I would like to add a front < panel (switches and lights) to it to get better aquainted with the old w Find a copy of bursky's book The S100 Bus Handbook. Front pannels don't work with Z80s if... DRAM depends on the z80 for refresh. Reason is the stopped state is a very long wait state. theory wise it's farly simple but there are a lot of repeated circuits as you have to buffer everything and do some work centered around the CPU timing. Allison

27 years, 5 months

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Santa Ana ACP Store

by DaveyGF＠aol.com

Does the ower have an email address? I would love to ask him about his Altair computers.. David

27 years, 5 months

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Audio Cassette formats; what about ADAM?

by adavie＠mad.scientist.com

It's replies like the one below that make my education seem woeful to me. A -----Original Message----- From: Allison J Parent <allisonp(a)world.std.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Thursday, November 26, 1998 3:54 PM Subject: Re: Audio Cassette formats; what about ADAM? >< What about the ADAM computer from Coleco??? It uses a digital tape that >< holds (around) 256K or so... (Never set mine up yet). >< >< Is there any way you could run that thang thru an audio player and have >< PC routine re-digitalize it, or are you stuck with read a thing and >< serial-send it over to another PC? > >No! It's digital saturation like a floppy and the encoding is to the >flux reversal timing. > >Adam is digital stauration recording like a floppy only slower, audio >tape is audio frequency/phase change and the medium is the linear portion >of the BH curve. They are very different from each other. > >Allison > >

27 years, 5 months

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Audio Cassette formats, was: RE: Recent Finds & Thoughts

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< > Yeah 44100Hz/16/stereo eats up space perdy quick, which is why < > I'd like to try or hear from someone whose tried the various FYI, protable casette recorders 3db point is 11-14KHz for the better ones and they typical ones used 9.5-12.5KHz is more realistic. Sampling above 20Khz is wasting bandwidth and recording time. Even the fastest audio formats (sudding and TARBEL187bytes/sec) had bandwidths below 5KHz. Allison

27 years, 5 months

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Front Panel Theory

by cmcmanis＠freegate.com

Not trying to be a snob here, but true "Front Panel Theory" can only be practiced on a computer where the 'innards' are exposed. Most microprocessors are too integrated to support a "real" front panel. This is one of the reason they died out fairly quickly in the micro world but lived for quite a while in the mini-world. Basically an ideal front panel contains enough switches to set any memory address, load any register, and start, stop, and single step the CPU, and enough lights to monitor both system state and the current address. Many older panels let you look at several things simultaneously but later ones like the PDP-11 and PDP-8 panels used selector switches to multiplex the lights and reduce cost. --Chuck At 06:03 PM 11/25/98 -0600, you wrote: >This might be a bit of an odd question, but can anyone point me in the >right direction to find info on theory of operation of a front panel? I >have a z80 based computer which I built a few years ago (wire-wrapped) >which uses an eprom for program storage. I would like to add a front >panel (switches and lights) to it to get better aquainted with the old way >of doing things. Unfortunatly, my knowledge of microprocessor-based >systems post-dates the era of front panels. The eventual goal is to build >a hands-on display to show how systems were bootstrapped. (without >letting people abuse a 'priceless' altair or imsai) > >Thanks, >srw > >

27 years, 5 months

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Audio Cassette formats, was: RE: Recent Finds & Thoughts

by cswiger＠wilma.widomaker.com

Mark[SMTP:mark_k@iname.com] sez: >I have many old computer cassettes, and have been thinking of >recording them onto a computer in order to preserve their >contents. The signal from computer tapes oscillates between >two levels, right? This being the case, it should be possible >to record them using 1-bit sampling. Perhaps record with 8- or >16-bitsampling and then convert down to single bit. > >Are there any programs to do this conversion? I imagine the >equivalent of a Schmitt trigger (in software) would work. What >about playing back a 1-bit audio signal? Are there any standard >audio file formats that can be used to store 1-bit data? Well, there were/are many formats to put data onto tape, the only one I'm famalier with is as you said a FSK or frequency shift keying, using one tone for a mark or '1' and another for a space or '0'. See http://www.threedee.com/jcm/audio/index.html for some work in this area. >Actually recording tapes to audio CDs is quite wasteful since >you can only get 70 minutes or so on a CD (an issue if you have Yeah 44100Hz/16/stereo eats up space perdy quick, which is why I'd like to try or hear from someone whose tried the various levels of RealAudio or open std. MP3 compression - using those one can get hundreds of hours of 'not bad' audio on a single CD. (e.g., one 30 minute radio program = about 5Mb of MP3). Chuck cswiger(a)widomaker.com P.S. Nerds 2.0.1 on PBS tonight

27 years, 5 months

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Dismantling an AT keyboard entirely

by Philip.Belben＠pgen.com

>> The only time that I would think the clicking would give someone a headache >> would be if they were locked in a sound-proof round all-white room with no >> windows, and dome ceiling, but then again, that's just my opinion. > > Try teaching an operation or programming class in a room full of > thosed damned clicky keyboards. You'll fire up the chainsaw before > an hour is out to drown out the racket. A lot of people don't like key clicks. I do. When I worked at IBM I received a lot of dirty looks for typing on a 3279 terminal, in an open plan office, without turning off the key clicker. Now that really was loud! Philip.

27 years, 5 months

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Front Panel Theory

by scott＠saskatoon.com

This might be a bit of an odd question, but can anyone point me in the right direction to find info on theory of operation of a front panel? I have a z80 based computer which I built a few years ago (wire-wrapped) which uses an eprom for program storage. I would like to add a front panel (switches and lights) to it to get better aquainted with the old way of doing things. Unfortunatly, my knowledge of microprocessor-based systems post-dates the era of front panels. The eventual goal is to build a hands-on display to show how systems were bootstrapped. (without letting people abuse a 'priceless' altair or imsai) Thanks, srw

27 years, 5 months

1
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Old 386 and 486 pc's

by manney＠lrbcg.com

>One was an Everex with a mondo-scarce RLL drive. . . Which one? RLL's aren't _all_ that scarce. manney

27 years, 5 months

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Call for final Elf99 design input

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< This means no CHIP-8. :-( No it means CHIP-8 graphics are out. Chip-8 can be hacked for other devices like terminal io. Also the resolution of the VIP was slow low that a matrix of leds might be doable as a display. as a possibel subtitute. Allison

27 years, 5 months

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more interesting finds!

by rigdonj＠intellistar.net

I went to a scrap place yesterday and found a couple of interesting items. One is a 16K core memory board for a Data General Nova. Huge sucker! It's marked "DATA GENERAL CORP DGC NOVA 800 16K MEMORY STACK copyright 1973". Anyone need this or should I just hang it on the wall to admire? I also found several odd looking boxs that are labled as HDS ViewStation. they're made by a company called Human Designed Systems. They're about 2" tall and 12" square. They have connectors for all the following; thick and thin ethernet, twisted pair, sun keyboard, standard PC keyboard, RJ serial port, DB-25 serial, DB-25 parallel, PS-2 mouse and standard VGA video. Does anyone know what these are or why they have so many ports? Joe

27 years, 5 months

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Call for final Elf99 design input

by yakowenk＠cs.unc.edu

On Tue, 24 Nov 1998, Ethan Dicks <erd(a)infinet.com> wrote: ] I am cranking along with the capture of the Elf99 design (on OrCAD for DOS, ] a 10-year-old program, no less). I wanted to throw out what I have ] descided on and ask for suggestions on what is not set in stone. ] ... I didn't speak up before, but I'm sitting on the "interested" side of the fence. As for my personal preferences, modern chips are fine, if they are cheap, easy to use, readily available, and relatively standard (so they are likely to remain available for a while yet). I never had an Elf of any sort, so I don't have any attachment to any particular aspect of that. So to me, being 1802-based and being cheap/easy would be the big attractions. If I could populate the entire board for under $20, that would probably be enough to pull me off the fence entirely. Cheers, Bill.

27 years, 5 months

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Dismantling an AT keyboard entirely

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< The keyboard should now work. Mine does -- I typed this on it. You forgot one step in the disassembly... NOTE where each key is removed from. Otherwise I typed this on it. becomes Y riowd kida no wq, ;) Allison

27 years, 5 months

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MacDraw (?) and other software wanted

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

www.eden.com/~arena/jagshouse/ previously, he had over 50 meg worth of old mac apps online, but had to remove them due to obvious copyright reasons. thankfully i was able to pull copies down in time. he still has info on internetting an old mac. In a message dated 11/25/98 6:19:17 AM Pacific Standard Time, jruschme(a)exit109.com writes: << > Does anyone have any drawing software that"ll run on it that they'd be > willing to send me? Me, no, but I think someone else mentioned MacCrypt. Also, lok for a site run by a guy named Jag. >>

27 years, 5 months

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Cray Y-MP & Convex for auction in UK

by mark_k＠iname.com

Hi, In case anyone is interested (and has loads of space and a large truck), apparently Cray Y-MP-EL and Convex mainframe computers are part of an auction to be held on 8th December near Honiton, Devon, England. The URL of the auctioneers is http://www.saqnet.co.uk/users/mstcommercial If anyone decides to go to this, please let me know (I may want to scrounge a lift off you...). -- Mark

27 years, 5 months

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Recent Finds & Thoughts

by mark_k＠iname.com

On Sun, 22 Nov 1998 Gareth Knight wrote: >Marvin wrote: >>Having *finally* gotten a CD-R unit hooked up, it occurred to me that >>perhaps recording all the cassette data tapes to CD would be a worthwhile >>thing to do. Has anyone else tried this? I would think it would be >trivial >>to hook up a stereo to computers, and thus load both data and programs. > >You mean record the audio on to a different track? Yes, it certainly is >possible. There was a commercial device out for the Sinclair Spectrum in >1990 that included 30 games on one CD. I think it was made by Codemasters. >I've only seen it once at a car boot sale but it appeared to be a basic to >be a basic CD player with some leads to plug into the tape port. That's what I understand it consists of. A very high speed turbo-loading routine is used; tapes would have trouble coping with this. The first track is probably a normal-speed file containing the loader code, and the other tracks would be the games recorded at high speed. (Can anyone confirm this?) I have many old computer cassettes, and have been thinking of recording them onto a computer in order to preserve their contents. The signal from computer tapes oscillates between two levels, right? This being the case, it should be possible to record them using 1-bit sampling. Perhaps record with 8- or 16-bit sampling and then convert down to single bit. Are there any programs to do this conversion? I imagine the equivalent of a Schmitt trigger (in software) would work. What about playing back a 1-bit audio signal? Are there any standard audio file formats that can be used to store 1-bit data? The final 1-bit audio files should be highly compressible, so they could be archived with zip etc. to reduce size. If sampling at 44.1kHz, the uncompressed 1-bit sample would use about 5.4K per second. For a five-minute tape, that comes to under 1.7MB. Sampling is of course the best way to preserve software, rather than converting the files themselves; with a sample an exact duplicate of the original cassette can be created, and things like copy-protection and turbo loaders are no problem. Actually recording tapes to audio CDs is quite wasteful since you can only get 70 minutes or so on a CD (an issue if you have hundreds of cassettes). My approach would be to archive tapes as described above; of course burning an audio CD is useful for transferring the data back to the source computer. -- Mark

27 years, 5 months

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more interesting finds!

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>I went to a scrap place yesterday and found a couple of interesting items. >One is a 16K core memory board for a Data General Nova. Huge sucker! It's >marked "DATA GENERAL CORP DGC NOVA 800 16K MEMORY STACK copyright 1973". >Anyone need this or should I just hang it on the wall to admire? Someone with a Nova could want it :-) > I also found several odd looking boxs that are labled as HDS ViewStation. >they're made by a company called Human Designed Systems. They're about 2" >tall and 12" square. They have connectors for all the following; thick and >thin ethernet, twisted pair, sun keyboard, standard PC keyboard, RJ serial >port, DB-25 serial, DB-25 parallel, PS-2 mouse and standard VGA video. >Does anyone know what these are Very versatile terminals. Plug in a monitor, plug in a keyboard, you have a terminal over the DB25 or RJ serial connector. Plug in the Ethernet, you have TCP/IP and LAT connectivity. I believe that certain models were also X-terminals (though I never used any as such.) > or why they have so many ports? So you can hook up whichever keyboard, printer, and computer however you find most convenient. :-) Tim.

27 years, 5 months

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No subject

by bgreen＠northwoodgeo.com

UNSUBSCRIBE CLASSICCMP Barry Green Web Manager Northwood Geoscience www.northwoodgeo.com

27 years, 5 months

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Apple Mac External Hard Drives For Sale

by fauradon＠pclink.com

Hi, Funny you had to post this today, I just bought two MAC SE without hard drives. May be we could work out a deal here. Francois ------------------------------------------------------------- Visit the desperately in need of update Sanctuary at: http://www.pclink.com/fauradon/ -----Original Message----- From: Phil Clayton <handyman(a)sprintmail.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Monday, November 23, 1998 12:58 PM Subject: Apple Mac External Hard Drives For Sale >I have two External Apple Mac SCSI Hard Drives that I no longer need.. >They were used on my Mac SE computer.. >They plug into the back of your Mac, and I suppose could be used in an >Apple II series computer if it had a SCSI interface card installed.. >Those interested please make me an offer on one or both of them.. > >1. MacDirect 120MB SCSI Hard Drive with SCSI Cable & Power Cord.. >2. CMS 60MB SCSI Hard Drive with SCSI Cable & Power Cord.. > >Both of these units work fine no errors.. >Both are formatted for Mac SE and boot to system ver 7.1 >Both have several Misl programs on them.. >Both are very clean units, well taken care of.. >Designed to sit under the Mac, and cosmetically match.. > >Those interested contact me privately at handyman(a)sprintmail.com >Thanks... >Phil... >

27 years, 5 months

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MacDraw (?) and other software wanted

by roblwill＠usaor.net

Hi! I have a Mac Portable with 4 MB RAM, 2400 modem, 40MB HDD, running System 7.01 Pro. Does anyone have any drawing software that"ll run on it that they'd be willing to send me? I'm also looking for a small web browser and TCP/IP dialer program for it. Are there any MIDI players for the Mac (like a Windows MediaPlayer)? What format are the sounds on a Mac, where do I get them (the Portable has no input, so I can't record anything), and how do I play them ? If there is an audio player for MacOS, where do I find one? I also have a few questions: - Just how rare are the models with the factory-installed backlight? I've heard that they're fairly rare, and the non-backlit versions are much more common. -Is there any possible way to fit a bigger HD into it? I've been told that the HD is a special type, and other ones won't work. ThAnX, -- -Jason Willgruber (roblwill(a)usaor.net) ICQ#: 1730318 <http://members.tripod.com/general_1> PS>> Please ignore the fact that some of these questions may be pretty basic, but the Portable is the first Apple I've had since a //c.

27 years, 5 months

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Call for final Elf99 design input

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< Options under consideration: < < o Sockets for two 1822/2101 256x4 SRAMs, the same style used by < the original Elf. < one 2116 outweighs that. <o A 1851 programmable input/output port -or- a pair of 4508 latches Use the one that is available. < wired as one input and one output port (as in the COSMAC VIP) Handy and useful, do the ports. < o A 1854 UART Desirable. < o A protoyping area of .1" spaced plated-through holes, nominally < a few inches long by one or two inches wide. < < o Either a dual 4042 address latch or a single 4508 latch. One or < the other is needed to implement more than 256 bytes of memory. < This would be optional in a machine built with dual-256x4 SRAMs. Consider 74hct373. < o A pre-programmed 27256 with a "library" of simple programs < (Accessible by enabling the ROM switch, setting the program < number in the switch register, then setting the control switches < to "run"). Good idea! I have sources for minimonitor and UT4(RCA) plus a buch of others in hex from articles. < Did I miss anything? Any other suggestions? I will not be including sp < for an 1861 because I have been entirely unable to locate a source. Long gone. < Do we still have any interested parties? I have saved the addresses of < all who have initially expressed interest, so I only really need to know < these features are attracting people or putting them off. Yes! Allison

27 years, 5 months

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My adolescent fantasies FINALLY fulfilled!

by Arlen.Michaels.amichael＠nt.com

> Aaron Christopher Finney <A_Finney(a)wfi-inc.com> wrote: > > I finally got an ATR8000. Man, I dreamed of having one of these every > night, reading the SWP brochure until it literally fell apart. Every time > I went to buy one on ePay, someone would come along and push the price > *way* beyond what I wanted to pay. Anyway, I just got one for $60 (I know > many of you think that's still ridiculously high, but I've been waiting > ~12 years for one of these things) that came with a giant stack of disks, > manuals, and cables. The usual CP/M stuff; Wordstar, Supercalc, etc. > Unfortunately, I'm at work and have to wait a few hours before I can try > it out. > > Well, at least now I will stop harrassing everyone who posts to the list > about picking one of these things up for $5... > How about the ATR Co-Power II? The one I found recently has an 8088 and 256K RAM, so I presume it was intended let an Atari run MSDOS. It looks like it dates from around 1984. Can you comment a bit more on the history of these ATR second processor cards and do you happen to know how many different types they eventually made? Arlen Michaels amichael(a)nortel.ca

27 years, 5 months

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Fw: Some DEC stuff still available

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

Saw this in comp.sys.dec, so I thought I'd post it in the list for interested parties. I'd LOVE to get the 11/750, but I'm a little too far away...... -----Original Message----- From: kshuff <kshuff(a)fast.net> Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec Date: Wednesday, 25 November 1998 13:45 Subject: Some DEC stuff still available > I still have the following stuff I'd like to see go to good homes, prices are >negotiable and do not include shipping... > > VT1200 Mono X-term base, 3 meg ram, no keyboard or mouse $25 OBO. Can throw > in a DEC VR260 mono monitor for an extra $25 > > VAXstation 3100 M38, 24 meg ram, RZ23, RZ24, SCSI floppy, keyboard, mouse, > VR262 mono monitor, external TK50, Ultrix 4.4 installed $200 OBO > > VAX 11/750, 8 meg ram, DMF32, TU-80, TU58, (2) boxes of spare Unibus cards, > all original console TU58 tapes and diagnostics, original Ultrix 3.1 on > 9-track magtape, older VMS on magtape, manuals, printset BEST OFFER, > MUST PICKUP in Eastern Pa. It does work :) > > Spare TU-80 9-track tape drive, bare unit, no cabinet BEST OFFER > > HP7475A Plotter, brand new color pens $45 OBO > >All items located in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in good and working condition. > > > > > Keith S. Huff > > kshuff(a)fast.net > --------------- > > "One World, One Web, One Program"- Microsoft Promotional Ad > "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer"- Adolf Hitler Cheers Geoff Roberts Computer Systems Manager Saint Marks College Port Pirie South Australia. My ICQ# is 1970476 Ph. 61-411-623-978 (Mobile) 61-8-8633-0619 (Home) 61-8-8633-8834 (Work-Direct) 61-8-8633-0104 (Fax)

27 years, 5 months

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Dismantling an AT keyboard entirely

by roblwill＠usaor.net

>Is that the same as the PC and the PS/2 keyboards? Those things are >terribly noisy, they give me a headache. I like the click, but it has a >high-pitched overtone. It does? I have an old PS/2 keyboard connected to my P200, and never noticed anything high-pitched. The space bar is a bit louder then the rest of the keys, and there's an occasional *sproing* from a stuck spring in a few of the keys. Other than that, it's a great keyboard. The PC keyboard is another good one. They both give the sure feel that a letter is going to come onto the screen (usually), unlike the new membrane (squishy-key) keyboards that almost have the feel of the Coco 2 keyboard. The only time that I would think the clicking would give someone a headache would be if they were locked in a sound-proof round all-white room with no windows, and dome ceiling, but then again, that's just my opinion. -- -Jason Willgruber (roblwill(a)usaor.net) ICQ#: 1730318 <http://members.tripod.com/general_1>

27 years, 5 months

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Call for final Elf99 design input

by dogas＠leading.net

Ethan. I hopfully have already been *counted*, but if I'm not.... Thanks - Mike: dogas(a)leading.net

27 years, 5 months

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what is a 'stringy floppy'?

by dcoward＠pressstart.com

I know that this is an old question, but I've been on vacation. And I'm just catching up on the last two weeks. SUPRDAVE(a)aol.com said: >i was talking to my manager who is just about ready to give me a complete and >working trs80 model 1 with ALL accessories. he also said he used something >called a stringy floppy with it which used a loop of string/wire to save data >with not quite the speed of floppies but certainly faster than cassette. has >anyone seen these or can explain how they work? he said there were carts that >were put into the drive so it seems to be a removeable media device? can >anyone explain further? I have one and some information in my Lobby display case. http://www.best.com/~dcoward/museum/display.htm ========================================= Doug Coward Press Start Inc. Sunnyvale,CA =========================================

27 years, 5 months

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Call for final Elf99 design input

by amc358＠interserv.com

> On Tuesday, November 24, 1998 2:48 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > The Elf99 will consist of the following: Count me in for one! > Did I miss anything? Don't forget the 'Q' LED. ;-) > Any other suggestions? I will not be including space > for an 1861 because I have been entirely unable to locate a source. This means no CHIP-8. :-( Al McCann amc358(a)interserv.com

27 years, 5 months

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11/34A/RK07 not booting. Help wanted

by mbg＠world.std.com

>>Yes. On every DEC drive I own (and I guess most others), track 0 is at >>the outside edge of the disk and the highest track is closest to the >>spindle. Allison/Tim will now post a list of exceptions :-) > >Only exception I know of is CD-ROM, which doesn't exactly have tracks, >but at least block 0 is on the inside and the higher-number blocks >are on the outside. I seem to remember something about the RD series disks (or at least the RD52 or RD53) installed in a PRO-series machine having the outermost track *not* track zero... Megan Gentry Former RT-11 Developer +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+ | Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com | | Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg!world.std.com | | Compaq Computer Corporation | addresses need '@' in place of '!' | | 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43 | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ | | Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler | | (603) 884 1055 | required." - mbg | +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+

27 years, 5 months

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Call for final Elf99 design input

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

At 02:47 PM 11/24/98 -0500, ethan wrote: > I am cranking along with the capture of the Elf99 design (on OrCAD > for DOS, a 10-year-old program, no less). I wanted to throw out what > I have descided on and ask for suggestions on what is not set in > stone. All the basic stuff sounds fine to me. > Options under consideration: > > o Sockets for two 1822/2101 256x4 SRAMs, the same style used by > the original Elf. I'd like that. PIO and UART would be extremely useful, probably more so than the prototyping area -- at least, to me. > o A pre-programmed 27256 with a "library" of simple programs That's a good idea. > Do we still have any interested parties? Yes :-) -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

27 years, 5 months

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salvage hardware (fwd)

by danjo＠xnet.com

Relatively NEWER stuff - but you never know...... > Sure post it but please include a note that the items will have to be > picked up the week of Nov 30th - December 4th. Thanks > Amy >>---------- Forwarded message ---------- >>Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 10:05:15 -0600 >>From: Amy Bryant <abryant(a)hamiltongrp.com> >>To: danjo(a)xnet.com >>Subject: salvage hardware >> >> I saw your name on the Internet as someone who is interested in older >> computer parts for free. I have 4 AST docking stations (no laptops) >> going in the trash unless I can find someone to come take them away. >> Also included box of parts with older hubs, bernoulli box, 5.5 " disk >> drives, keyboards, and lots of other stuff. >> We are located in the near north area just north of the loop. >> Please reply if you are interested. >> Thank you. >> Going soon.... >>****************************************** >>Amy Bryant 312.642.1825 >>Hamilton Communications Group >>ABRYANT(a)HAMILTONGRP.COM >>****************************************** BC

27 years, 5 months

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Info on Motorola Educational Board

by rcini＠msn.com

Hello, all: I'd like to start playing with the Motorola Educational Board that I got a few months back. I downloaded Xinu, a multitasking OS designed for it (and the dubject of several books). But, I'm having a devil of a time finding info on the hardware itself. Amazon has a book on it, but it's out of print. The book is "68000 Microcomputer Experiments: Using the Motorola Educationa Computer Board" Maybe someone has a pointer to schematics? Anything would be helpful. Thanks. [ Rich Cini/WUGNET [ ClubWin!/CW7 [ MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking [ Collector of "classic" computers [ http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ [ http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/pdp11/ <================ reply separator =================>

27 years, 5 months

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Posted tonight

by rcini＠msn.com

Hello, all: Here's what was posted to the secure area of my Web site: - Altair article scans: parts 1-3 and 10 What remains is parts 4 through 9. [ Rich Cini/WUGNET [ ClubWin!/CW7 [ MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking [ Collector of "classic" computers [ http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ [ http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/pdp11/ <================ reply separator =================>

27 years, 5 months

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Call for final Elf99 design input

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< < o A protoyping area of .1" spaced plated-through holes, nominally < < a few inches long by one or two inches wide. A thought, Since holes cost... Reduce that to several lines of holes on .1 ctenters with .3 spacing between lines. That will accept dips in the .3(std parts) and .6 for the wide parts. Allison

27 years, 5 months

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