test-drb

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101090 discussions

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

An NCR 3400 is available in Cary, North Carolina. See below. Please respond to the original sender. Reply-to: terry at eurosoftinc.com ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:45:59 -0500 From: Terry Stanfield <terry at eurosoftinc.com> To: donate at vintage.org Subject: NCR system 3400 We have an old NCR system 3400 here in our office that I would be very sad to send to the dumpster. Would you be interested? Unfortunately we are on the east coast. Thanks, Terry Stanfield Eurosoft, Inc., 1628 Old Apex Road Cary, NC 27513 (919)468-3003 ext 223 http://www.eurosoftinc.com --- -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

17 years, 4 months

vintage CPU instruction sets

by jules.richardson99＠gmail.com

All this talk of CPUs got me back onto thoughts of homebrew CPU design, which has been a stalled project of mine for the last year or so. So, has anyone come across a good online resource which compares vintage CPU instruction sets? It'd be useful to see what 'core' instructions* were most common back in the day and use that as a basis for my own homebrew effort; I think I can probably rustle up things like hardware multiply and divide, but really don't want an all-singing solution. KISS and all that. :-) * My hands-on knowledge is pretty much limited to Z80, 6502, 68000 and x86, and it'd be nice to go a little further back in time - but hopefully without having to download and digest many different databooks! cheers Jules

17 years, 4 months

Edmund Berkeley question

by evan＠snarc.net

Anyone know when Berkeley Enterprises closed?

17 years, 4 months

8008 chips

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: 8008 chips > From: "William Donzelli" <wdonzelli at gmail.com> > Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:28:41 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >> I have a bag of 35 NOS type "MF1103P" dated 722x, 18-pin plastic DIP, gold-plate >> pins, made by Microsystems International Ltd. (a briefly-existent Canadian >> chip maker). I believe these were 2nd-sourced 1103's, as MIL also made an >> MF8008 and MF1702. >> >> I also have a gold-capped C8008. One idea would be to make a period-style >> 8008 system with all of it. >> >> If I sell them can I retire to Monte Carlo instead? > >You could probably get a nice plane ticket. > >There is a "missing link" Intel RAM that many chip guys lust for. I do >not recall the number - 210something. The 1101 256 byte static ram. Later there would be the 2102 (1kx1) and 2102 256x4 that were important to small computeres. The 1103 was dynamic and while cheaper it was also hard to work with due to refresh and interface needs. Allison > >If I look thru my records I can probably remember, but I have too many >things to do right now. > >-- >Will > >--

17 years, 4 months

8008 chips

by doc＠mdrconsult.com

First, I know approximately nothing about old Intel chips, so forgive any incoherence. A friend of mine just came across a couple of Intel 8008 chips. Apparently, some ebay sellers think they're solid gold. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260099837541 As far as we can tell, that's what Mel has. Anyway, I told him I'd try to find out what it's actually worth and whether anyone here is willing to pay whatever's reasonable. He also has some later 8008s without the gold cap. Doc

17 years, 4 months

1Mx4 DRAMs (was Re: 8008 chips)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 12/15/08, Keith <keithvz at verizon.net> wrote: > William Donzelli wrote: > > > ...Why dont people collect i1103's ? > > > > They do. Some of the early RAM fetches HUGE money. Multiple hundreds > > for some of the real raries. > > Tell me about it. I've been looking for 1Mx4-bit 20-pin DIP DRAMs for > years. The closest I've come is some 26/20-pin surface mount. I have, too... I need 4 of them to upgrade my Rejuvenator in my Amiga 1000 from 1M of CHIP RAM to 2M of CHIP RAM (that and a "Fatter Agnus", but those aren't as difficult to find as the RAM itself). <http://amiga.resource.cx/manual/Rejuvenator_AgnusInstall.pdf> It's never been critical, so I've never bothered, but with the Sprit InBoard and the Starboard on the side (w/StarDrive SCSI interface), it would be a nice boost. Worst case, if I ever did start using my A1000 and really, really wanted it, I suppose I could cobble a daughter card up that would plug into the RAM bank on the Rejuvenator, but that's a lot of work for a very optional upgrade. -ethan -ethan

17 years, 4 months

cctalk Digest, Vol 64, Issue 42

by wbblair3＠yahoo.com

> I wonder if a really workable counterfeit could made from > other than a different chip with new paint? Hopefully that won't > happen, but with this kind of money involved who knows. There are discussions of this in CPU collector forums often. If the price is high enough, it's well worth it (to thieves). China appears to be a significant source for counterfeited chips, mainly "Engineering Samples," "Prototype" and "Confidential" supplementary-marked chips. And I can imagine that somewhere along the line, there were a whole bunch of ICs with exactly the same external appearance as the 4004 that could be remarked. If the buyer doesn't functional check the chip or open it up for die inspection, who'd know other than the thief who sold it?

17 years, 4 months

DEC system module (PDP-1/4/5/6) and CDC 1604/160A-type boards on eBay

by wmaddox＠pacbell.net

There is a DEC system module (PDP-1/4/5/6 era) in this lot, as well as several Control Data modules of the sort used in the 1604 and 160A. These are nice display pieces, but I'm well-stocked on both accounts, so I'm going to pass on this one. With 6 hours to go, the price is at $5 with no bids. --Bill http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270315494162 Lot of 8 Vintage Circuit Boards - 1960s

17 years, 4 months

Altos 580-10A on eBay

by michaelgreen42＠comcast.net

System is in excellent condition overall and comes with several books and even some software. http://cgi.ebay.com/RARE-Altos-580-10A-Computer-ORIGINAL-DOCS-AND-SOFTWARE_W 0QQitemZ120350775271QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item120350775 271&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1234|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A131 8|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A50

17 years, 4 months

68k homebuilts

by slawmaster＠gmail.com

Hi everyone As a 4th year computer engineering student with a part time job, I definitely have too much time on my hands, so I've been thinking about doing something like building my own computer. I remember playing with the 68k SBCs back in my assembly class, so I thought something from that family might be an interesting choice. It's ambitious, but ideally I'd like to do 16/32 bits and a few megs of memory. Have any of you built something like this? I'm looking for links to project pages, shared experiences, and advice on what processor to use. Reminiscence is welcome too, if you have fond memories of such a thing :) Thanks John Floren -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

17 years, 4 months

The first video game

by lproven＠gmail.com

I never knew there was a coin-op Spacewar! http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/13/tob_computer_space/print.html -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508

17 years, 4 months

8008 chips

by wbblair3＠yahoo.com

Rarest Intel chips in no particular order (from a CPU collector forum; posted in 2005; nobody disagreed): X8008 G8008 C4040 Purple C4040 Left Ground Strap 8080B 8080-8 8008 8008-1 MC8080 C4004 W #5 & Ground Strap

17 years, 4 months

1Mx4 DRAMs (was Re: 8008 chips)

by marvin＠west.net

ISTR that the 441000s were used in some of the RAM expansion boards for the HP laserjet Series II printers as well as some of the EMS memory expansion boards. I probably have a stash of them around here in boards, but it would also probably take a day of looking to find them :). > > > Not 411000s - those are 1Mx1s unless I'm quite mistaken. I have a > > > small pile of those. What I need (as mentioned in the subject line) > > > is 1Mx4, perhaps known as 441000s, perhaps by other numbers; and I > > > agree with Keith that they are uncommon in DIP format...

17 years, 4 months

Commodore PET RS-232

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Commodore PET RS-232 > From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> > Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 18:22:39 -0800 (PST) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On Fri, 12 Dec 2008, Dave Caroline wrote: >> should be a way/was a way to use the 6522 VIA chip it will need >> translation to rs232 levels though > >Does anybody here remember a thread from last month called: >Re: RS232 voltage level converter box > >(trying to figure out what a board with 1488s and 1489s was for) > DEC had boards like that for going from TTL to RS232 as modules and for current loop (TTY) to RS232 or the other way around. There were a lot of "things" that often had oddball interfaces like Ham radio tranceivers that could be driven by computer but only had serial TTL. Allison

17 years, 4 months

Amiga Video Toaster with Penn and Teller

by mikelee＠tdh.com

Anyone have a copy of or know if copies even exists of the videos done by NewTek with Penn and Teller?**

17 years, 4 months

Source for MMJ cables.

by bqt＠softjar.se

tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: > I don't have a source for MMJ cables, > but I do have a US/Domestic source for MMP's > (the offset modular connectors). . . > > http://www.gruber.com/GruberInd/pg.asp?FeatureID=38 > > They are .14 / each for flat cable, and .41 / each for round cable. > Last I checked, they don't ship internationally. > > > There are two different styles of DecConnect cables; > both inverted, and not inverted.?? The only difference > of course, is that one connector is flipped on one end. Correct. And excellent info. > When used with genuine DEC adapters, one?style worked > for printers (DCE), and the other style worked with terminals (DTE). Um. No. :-) Both printers, terminals and computers are DTE. DTE means data terminal (or terminating) equipment, while DCE means data communcation equipment. A typical DCE is a modem. DEC was one of the few companies that actually got this right, and made cables and connectors that actually followed the standard (well, until the switched to MMJ anyway, which was a standard of it's own). If just every computer manufacturer had read the specs, the world would have been much nicer, but what can one expect from companies who just didn't put in the effort because of money and lockins (most anyone), or just was too big to even bother (IBM). The other company I know of who was pretty good at actually following the RS-232 standard is HP. > Back in the early 90's, our office used uVax 2000's, > connected to VT220's. along with various printers, > connected using DEC MMJ <> DB25 adapters. > You couldn't simply swap the DecConnect cables > because of the inverted MMP's on some of the cables. > All of our cabling and adapters were unmodified DEC products. Well, which adapter worked was obviously based on which cable you had. :-) You still got four combinations, two of which would make you happy. Johnny

17 years, 4 months

Screen burn. How long does it take to affect a tube?

by ian_primus＠yahoo.com

Everyone has seen old monitors/terminals with text clearly burned into the screen, or a grid of fuzzy boxes where the character cells line up, wear from many years of use and abuse. While graphic color tubes can and do develop screen burn (the Macintosh menu bar, and Windows taskbar being commonly found etched into discarded color monitors), the burn-in problem seems more prevelant on older, monochrome tubes. I use a fair number of old monochrome monitors, and a couple of terminals I use every day. Yesterday, I accidentally left a computer and it's monochrome monitor running unattended for about four hours (I forgot to shut it off/got distracted). When I returned, I carefully examined the areas where text had been on the screen, and could not detect any burn-in, although I can tell that the left side of the display has an oh-so-faint browning to it. Now, I am almost positive that this was there all along, after all - this thing lived a hard life before I found it. But, it got me thinking, how long does text need to be on the screen to burn into a monocrhome tube? Four hours doesn't seem like enough time - otherwise every PC monitor would have the WordPerfect ruler burned into it. I did some searching, but of course, could only turn up things relating to modern plasma screen TV's, which apparently suffer similar degredation from use. Were there any studies conducted, or actual ratings for picture tubes like this? The sort of tubes I'm referring to are standard monochrome CRT's, like the ones used in terminals and monitors in the early 80's. On a similar note, I was playing with a system test utility program for the Commodore PET. It tests the RAM and ROM, loops continuously and displays the test results and running time on the screen. The Commodore PET also uses this sort of monochrome picture tube - and unlike most other machines, you can't shut off just the screen and leave the computer running. So, this test program alternates every second or so between normal and inverse video modes. Now, since the screen is flashing, it shouldn't damage the phosphors - since it is my understanding that the phosphor burn phenomenon isn't so much the phosphors wearing out, but related to them being constantly excited, and therefore heating up and darkening. Is this correct thinking? While I don't plan on running this test for extended periods of time, I do wonder about it's potential effect on the screen, if any. It's interesting to see what's already burned into screens though, it gives an insight into what the computer used to do. I have terminals with logon promts burned into them, menu systems, and at least one with a dire confidentiality warning permently etched into the tube. I've got a Monitor IIe with "Apple //e" burned into the top - clearly someone left the computer on without a disk in it for a very long time to get that clear of a burn in. So, like I said, I just got curious about the whole thing, and figured I'd see if anyone else knew more on the subject. Obviously, I always try to be careful and shut things off when I'm not using them, but, you know, mistakes happen. -Ian

17 years, 4 months

Harvard v. von Neumann

by ploopster＠gmail.com

[I tried to send this before, but I don't think it went out. My apologies if you're seeing this a second time.] According to my reading, the Burroughs B5000 and Manchester Atlas were both Harvard architecture machines, and the GE-645 was von Neumann. Am I correct in my interpretation? Peace... Sridhar

17 years, 4 months

Commodore PET RS-232

by ian_primus＠yahoo.com

What options are there for adding an RS-232 port to a Commodore PET? The computer's user port has a different pinout from the C64 (although it uses the same connector), and the port doesn't have the serial output signals the 64 does. Therefore, the quick and dirty hacks that worked great on the 64 to provide serial won't work on the PET. What communications options exist/existed for the PET, aside from Commodore-produced IEEE-488 modems? Does the ROM include routines to handle such communication, like the C64, or would software need to be created for a particular interface? Is there a teminal emulation software available for the PET? I have an 8032, and an 8050 disk drive - but of course, the 8050 is completely incompatible with nearly everything else - serial communication would be a big help. This is new territory for me - the C64, I know. The PET... I'm learning :) -Ian

17 years, 4 months

68k homebuilts

by emu＠e-bbes.com

John Floren wrote: > Well, I wasn't thinking the MC68000 processor exactly, just something > from that family. I *do* have some experience with FPGA, so I'll > consider doing that as well. So check google/wiki for Minimig. It is an amiga 500 clone with a real mc68000 cpu and all peripherals in an FPGA. Seems to be a lot of fun. Cheers

17 years, 4 months

[BBC-Micro] PSU Failure

by jules.richardson99＠gmail.com

Mark Haysman wrote: > Hi. > > The X2 class capacitors fail, causing that smoke. That seems the most likely cause to me. I don't think I've ever seen a transformer in a switchmode supply go into meltdown. Not that shorted windings can't happen, but it's a very uncommon failure IME... cheers Jules

17 years, 4 months

The first video game

by wgungfu＠uwm.edu

Actually, Nolan and Ted Dabney's first foray in to video games. The two designed and built it together. Always amazes me how Nolan's PR over the years has effectively wiped Ted's contributions, and in some cases sought to rewrite history. Marty ----- Original Message ----- From: "Adrian Graham" <witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Saturday, December 13, 2008 11:26:13 AM GMT -06:00 Central America Subject: Re: The first video game On 13/12/2008 15:14, "Liam Proven" <lproven at gmail.com> wrote: > I never knew there was a coin-op Spacewar! > > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/13/tob_computer_space/print.html Yep, it was Nolan Bushnell's first foray into video games but didn't get too much money because it was too complicated for the 'average' user. From my own Atari page: " Whilst working at Ampex (creators of the first practical video recorder no less), Nolan Bushnell had already created an arcade video game based on Spacewar, which was a game written by Steve Russell in 1961 for the PDP-1 >from Digital Equipment. Nolan's version was called Computer Space and it was being distributed by Nutting Associates. However, it wasn't as popular as he'd have liked (he said you had to read the instructions, and people didn't have the patience!)" -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection?

17 years, 4 months

HP 5036A built in demos

by glen.slick＠gmail.com

Anyone on the list have an HP 5036A microprocessor lab and not have a manual and not know that there are built in demo programs in the monitor ROM? RESET, FETCH ADRS, 0, 5, F, 9, RUN http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73ShZ6zasfs RESET, FETCH ADRS, 0, 5, 3, E, RUN http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSwRafN5BjE RESET, FETCH ADRS, 0, 5, 5, A, RUN http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNw8h4O_OrQ (turn your speakers on if you watch the videos)

17 years, 4 months

Algol W

by kahrs＠caip.rutgers.edu

Wirth was at Stanford at the time and there is a Stanford Tech Report that gives the grammar and usage of Algol W. I presume everyone knows the joke; Wirth is call by name in Europe and Call by Value in the US. IMHO (but of course), the significant contribution of 'W is Call by Reference and Call by Result.

17 years, 4 months

Bootstrappable language

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Bootstrappable language > From: "bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca" <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> > Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:27:12 -0700 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Dave Dunfield wrote: >> You don't need register to register operations to support a C compiler. >> >> Can you provide any details of your architecture and instruction set? >> >> It might be feasable to make a port of my Micro-C toolset to it... If >> not, it might be feasable to make a port of "C-flea" a virtual machine >> I designed specifically to support Micro-C (I've supported some pretty >> weird architectures by employing C-flea). >> >The architecture is like I said before a stretched PDP-8, with a >512 byte direct addressing range and more compleate set of alu operations. >I am exploring the idea that 18 bits is still the best size word size >for a small Have you lookd at DG Nova? Sounds like your traversing that same path. >computer or digital controller. The extra opcode bit is used to >support word & >byte sized operands, compared to the that of a 8 bit micro. The two more >address >bits negate the loss of byte addressing and give a bit more room for a >resident >OS rather than swapping core in and out. > >Using CPLD's also gives me the feel that a 18 bit simple cpu like my design >could have been developed as microchip computer similar to 6800 or 6502 >chip set around the time the Z80 was developed. Using 48 rather 40 pins >as packaging a 18 bit cpu with front panel support could have been >developed. > >A) Cpu chip. B) Swr/data/address bus display support chips . C) >data/byte swap buffer. > >> Micro-C is a very small, but reasonably powerful dialect of C - For an >> example, refer to the ImageDisk sources on my site ... ImageDisk and all >> of it's utilities are compiled with the PC version of Micro-C (as are my >> simulators, transfer tools and pretty much all of the other DOS based >> tools I've posted). >> >> Dave >> >> Btw: If you haven't written an assembler yet, let me know - I've got a >> universal table driven assembler generator which I developed to rapidly >> produce assemblers for many of the later architectures I supported. >> >> >Unlikely it will work , I have 9 bit bytes. >I have hacked, Jones's PDP 8 assembler to cross assemble for me. >Once I get the the single PCB board built later next year, then I >will consider porting Micro-C. I plan to only have about 64Kb + >bootstrap EEPROM, IDE interface and a two 6850 uarts >along with a front panel. I am not sure yet if the IDE interface will be >16 or 9 bits wide yet. > A table driven assembler can produce anything. Also a stack based language or even C can have the anythig stack related as multiple instructions only code efficientcy suffers and code size. An alternate way to go is a small emulation engine written in assebler to emulate a easier to compiler for virtual machine (P-code). The IDE can be 9 bits as the upper 8 (or less) bits are only used for data and a non required ops. I've done that for 8bits to simplify the interface and the only cost is 50% of the data space was not used, a minor nit as I had 500% more than needed. Allison

17 years, 4 months

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