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DEC H-500 trainer manual anywhere on the net

by spasticcolin-cctalk＠yahoo.com

had a manual in the '70's but no trainer. now no manual and trainers are available.

17 years, 4 months

Raised floors

by vern4wright＠yahoo.com

I see one response saying that they predated the electronic stored program computer by about 40 years. Perhaps, I wasn't around that early. But I recall a GE installation at a university of the late 1950's that had the raised floor that became standard in the 1960's. As were a couple of IBM 7xxx systems. OTOH, a 650 I knew in 1957 was on concrete, as was a 1401 as late as 1967. Cabling was an issue, cooling the other. The 1401 was in a well-air conditioned room, and the cabling was OVERHEAD!! Damn cheaper than raised floor. Until the large systems of the middle 1960's required cabling be out of the way, it was as much a matter of convenience as anything else - you need to be able to truck trays of cards, paper, tapes in and out, and cables made that a problem. I'd be interested in the turn of the 20th-century-raised floors. Must make a note to look that up. Vern --- On Tue, 12/9/08, William Donzelli <wdonzelli at gmail.com> wrote: > From: William Donzelli <wdonzelli at gmail.com> > Subject: Raised floors > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Date: Tuesday, December 9, 2008, 6:08 PM > Here is an aspect of computer history not yet touched - when > did the > industry standardize on the 2 x 2 raised floor? Certainly > they were > common in the 1960s, but were they standard in the 1950s? > > -- > Will

17 years, 4 months

68k homebuilts (FW: MC68000 ECB SBCs?)

by lynchaj＠yahoo.com

Hi! I asked my friend Rolf in Germany about 68k home brew computers using ECB bus. Here is bunch of information on the subject which is in German. Fortunately the schematics are universal and there is Google Translate to handle the translation. He also has a nice photo shoot of the N8VEM SBC so you can see the home brew computer to give you an idea of what sort of system it is. http://www.hd64180-ecb.de/html/n8vem.html Although the N8VEM SBC may not be all that useful in a completed ECB 68k project, it could be used as a host processor while the 68k SBC is in development. If the /BUSRQ & /BUSAK lines are used, the 68k CPU can assume control of the ECB bus until the 68k releases it. That might be useful to use the Z80 SBC temporarily for a "kickstart" processor. In any event, the ECB backplane, ECB bus monitor, and ECB prototyping boards could be used "as is" with an ECB 68k SBC. Presumably developer could use the Disk IO and Terminal Replacement Board once those are completed as well. A 68k SBC certainly would be a welcome addition to the N8VEM project and I think you'd enjoy working with the team of builders. Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch -----Original Message----- Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2008 3:09 PM To: Andrew Lynch Subject: Re: MC68000 ECB SBCs? Hello Andrew, Am 13 Dec 2008 um 17:20 hat Andrew Lynch geschrieben: > > Hi Rolf! Do you know of any MC68000 or similar SBCs for the ECB? If > so do you have any links? > > I recall seeing a MC68008 ECB board on eBay once. > > Thanks and have a nice day! > > Andrew Lynch > > Info only in German. http://www.drcrazy.de/nkc/ http://www.schuetz.thtec.org/NKC/doku/cpu.html http://www.ndr-nkc.de/compo/68000/index.htm http://www.ndr-nkc.de/compo/datenblatt/processor.htm http://www.ndr-nkc.de/compo/doku/mc.htm http://www.audioschaltungen.de/Konzept.pdf MC68010 ECB BUS 16bit Version I have uploaded Files. You can download this when paste it into your Browser's Address bar. "http://www.hd64180-z80180.de/assets/download2008/68000_ct8410.zip" ca. 12,3 MB "http://www.hd64180-z80180.de/assets/download2008/68000_ct8411.zip" ca. 75,9 MB "http://www.hd64180-z80180.de/assets/download2008/68000_ct8412.zip" ca. 36,7 MB "http://www.hd64180-z80180.de/assets/download2008/68000_ct8412_2.zip" ca. 31,5 MB "http://www.hd64180-z80180.de/assets/download2008/68000_ct8501.zip" ca. 27,6 MB "http://www.hd64180-z80180.de/assets/download2008/68000_ct8501_2.zip" ca. 16,8 MB "http://www.hd64180-z80180.de/assets/download2008/68000_ct8501_3.zip" ca. 10,9 MB "http://www.hd64180-z80180.de/assets/download2008/68000_ct8505.zip" ca. 7,75 MB "http://www.hd64180-z80180.de/assets/download2008/68000_ct8506.zip" ca. 24,1 MB "http://www.hd64180-z80180.de/assets/download2008/68000_ct8510.zip" ca. 28,0 MB "http://www.hd64180-z80180.de/assets/download2008/68000_ct8511_0.zip" ca. 48,7 MB "http://www.hd64180-z80180.de/assets/download2008/68000_ct8511.zip" ca. 5,53 MB "http://www.hd64180-z80180.de/assets/download2008/68000_ct8511_X.zip" ca. 24,7 MB "http://www.hd64180-z80180.de/assets/download2008/68000_ct8512.zip" ca. 39,4 MB "http://www.hd64180-z80180.de/assets/download2008/68000_ct8602.zip" ca. 12,6 MB Thank you! Have a nice day! Rolf

17 years, 4 months

vintage CPU instruction sets

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

>>>>> > 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;... Have a look here: http://www.ourcomputerheritage.org/ Around 40 machines from 1950 to 66. 17 machines from Elliott, 11 Ferranti, 3 Leo, 4 English Electric, 2 BTM and 5 ICT. For me the Elliott 900/920 series is particularly interesting, 4 op- code bits, a B line modifier and 13 address bits. I worked on compilers for this before writing one for the Zilog Z8001 to replace the 920 ATC. The language was Coral 66, and Algol 60 derivative for real time computing. The 900 had no OR,XOR or NOT instructions, but it did have a negate and add instruction, and if you had a word in memory holding the constant -1, then a negate and add -1 could be used to do a NOT. From this and the built in AND instruction could be built the other bitwise logic operations. There is no subtract operation either which meant that the order of evaluation had to be changed around within the compiler to use the negate and add instead. The other conditional jumps had to be constructed from jump zero, jump negative and unconditional jump. Increment but no decrement. No stack, no immediate operands, an accumulator (A) and a right side extension (Q) and a B register which could be used to modify any instruction allowing access to all 256k memory words (though only 128k of program). No carry flag so multi word arithmetic was hard work, including software floating point, thankfully built into hardware in the 920ATC. My other personal interest is the ICT 1301 which is memorable for having no program counter, in being 4 bit parallel, 12 digits serial, having no indexing instructions and being programmable purely in decimal. Even core memory is decimal, if you try to execute a non decimal digit the machine would stop at instruction fetch. If you directly hand key an instruction with a non decimal digit in the address field, the core memory will not respond (the CPU sees a zero) and stop the machine with a parity error unless parity checking has been turned off.

17 years, 4 months

OT: Forrest Mims resurfaces

by cclist＠sydex.com

A bit of spam in my inbox today from Jameco, shows that Forrest is still cooking up stuff: http://www.jameco.com/Jameco/PressRoom/recipe1.html Cheers, Chuck

17 years, 4 months

Source for MMJ cables.

by andy＠smokebelch.org

Hello, A little while ago I bought a "new" 10ft MMJ cable from That Website. Today I came to use it and discovered it was a crossover cable. So, my question is where can I buy a straight MMJ - MMJ? 10ft would be fine, longer perhaps better, and ideally a UK source. Whilst on the subject of DEC, I'm also looking for an ethernet card for a PDP 11/53 and perhaps a TK drive (assuming that if on power-up the drive wheel just spins continually and you can't lift the handle, the drive is broken). Cheers, Andrew ---------------- Andrew Back a at smokebelch.org

17 years, 4 months

IBM 5110

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

is it likely I'd be able to read disks from this system on one of the following (all equipped w/8" floppy drives): IBM System 23/Datamaster Canon AS-100 NEC APC

17 years, 4 months

Looking for a 1/3 height Apple II type diskdrive

by jos.mar＠bluewin.ch

Subject says it all : I need to replace the floppy drive in my Lilith. The floppy PCB is so crappy that further repairs are pointless, PCB traces fall off whenever a soldering iron comes with smelling distance. Willing to pay reasonable amount, location Switzerland Jos.

17 years, 5 months

9 DEC H-500 Trainers on Epay

by innfoclassics＠gmail.com

Spotted on ebay... DEC H-500 computer logic trainers. I thiink it is a reasonable price and there is the chance to make an offer. Front panels look PDP-8 vintage. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200279483013 No connection with the seller, just spotted what I hope is an interesting item. Pax -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA

17 years, 5 months

WangEmu 2.1 released

by frustum＠pacbell.net

A new version of my Wang 2200 emulator, version 2.1, was just released after a three year snooze: http://www.wang2200.org/emu.html This version runs on Win XP/Vista, PPC OS X, or i386 OS X. Full source code is included. The big changes are support for large format disk geometries due to emulation of the intelligent disk controller protocol, 2200B mode, the ability to print directly to the parallel port, and a massive code clean up. Release notes: http://www.wang2200.org/emu/relnotes_2.1.txt

17 years, 5 months

68k homebuilts

by lynchaj＠yahoo.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 -----REPLY----- Hi! If you are interested in home brew computing you are welcome to join us on the N8VEM home brew computer project. It is currently Z80 CP/M based but if you would like to explore 6800/6809/68k designs you could design your own SBC and reuse the peripheral board designs we have already. There is an SBC, an ECB backplane, an ECB bus monitor, and an ECB prototyping board available now. There have been 68k based ECB designs in the past although I am not an expert in how those work. As long as it uses +5, GND, Address, Data, and a variety of control bus signals it should work though. A Disk IO board (IDE and NEC765A FDC) and a Terminal Replacement Board (uses VGA monitor & PS/2 keyboard) are in the works. Several builders have projects as well such as a USB & network peripheral (!) which allows running CP/NET. There is another builder with a project that allows wireless serial communications and numerous interfaces to relays, etc. That same builder made an AT keyboard interface and a 20x4 LCD display with NVRAM controller. In short, you could focus on your 68k SBC design while leveraging the peripherals and standard bus components already available. Take it for what it's worth. You can contact me offline if you'd like more information. There are photos, schematics, PCB layouts, ROM images, parts lists, BOMs, and bunch of other stuff on the website. The PCBs are all $20 each. Good luck with your project! Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch http://groups.google.com/group/n8vem http://n8vem-sbc.pbwiki.com/

17 years, 5 months

ACCRC Sealed Bid Auction for Vintage Computers

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

The Alameda County Computer Resource Center (ACCRC) is forced to liquidate its computer museum due to the current economic climate. The VCF has been contracted to auction off the ACCRC museum to raise needed funds for their non-profit operation. I have put up the first batch of machines at the following URL: http://www.vintage.org/special/2008/accrc/ In order to use the system you must have a VCF Community ID. Getting one is simple: just following the links and prompts when you visit the site above and read the instructions. I have been cataloging the hundreds of items in the ACCRC museum and will be putting up auction lots weekly until the collection is dissipated. There are still many items to go (with lots of duplicates) so check back every week to see the latest batch. All items are offered as-is. Functional condition is unknown unless specified in the item description. For more information about a particular item, please contact the VCF and your inquiry will be answered as soon as possible. Winning bidders will be notified at the close of the auction (see below for closing time). In the event of a tie bid, the winning bid will be the one submitted the earliest. Upon receiving a winning bid notification, payment and pick-up at the ACCRC facilities in Berkeley, California, is preferred. Payment from winning bidders is due within 72 hours after the close of the auction. Non-payment will invalidate your high bid and the item will automatically go to the next highest bidder (no exceptions). Upon request, items will be packaged and shipped at bidder's expense plus a $25 handling fee. Payment in the form of cash, money order, or PayPal (in that order) is preferred. Personal checks will be accepted on the condition that they first clear the bank. All items must be sold. No reasonable offer will be refused. Your purchases will go towards supporting an organization that over the years has provided nearly 20,000 refurbished computers to needy organizations and individuals worldwide. 100% of the proceeds of this auction will go directly to the ACCRC (minus the handling fees, which are covering my time...barely). Please contact me DIRECTLY with any questions you might have of any of the items. I'll be happy to get more notes and photos on particulars items of interest from inquiring bidders. http://www.vintage.org/special/2008/accrc/ -- 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, 5 months

USB Model M

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 10:51:25 +0100 (CET) From: Christian Corti <cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de> Subject: RE: USB Model M I think this is not the classic IBM keyboard we're talking about. *The* classic keyboard has the part number 139140x where x differs from country to country. This is what's on the label of my keyboard (a rather new one, the oldest one I have dates from 1987 and came along with my 8550-021). There's no IBM logo on the bottom, only the oval grey logo on the top left. 1391403 55-0749972L 1386716 EC 528557 EC 528693 1992-06-23 MANUFACTURED IN UNITED KINGDOM (C) IBM CORPORATION 1985 PRINT BUILD TEST INSP 14A 60A (sig.) (sig.) Christian PS: The US version of the keyboard is the model 1391401. -------------Reply: Probably no point in arguing with someone who, because his particular keyboard does not say "Model M," therefore insists that "IBM *never* called the (Model M) keyboard a Model M." Presumably even if I sent him a picture of one of my 1391401s plainly labelled "Model M" he would not be convinced any more than he is by others on here and the extensive Wiki entry. Oh well...

17 years, 5 months

More terminals and microcomputers to go in West Sussex, UK

by paul＠frixxon.co.uk

Here's another batch of things that I don't have time to play with. Same deal as before -- tell me you can come and collect them from Crawley, the sooner the better. Most of these are easily obtainable, so they will go to landfill if they aren't claimed. Sharp MZ-700 2 x Amstrad CPC 464, one boxed and clean, the other with the inevitable cracked cassette cover DEC Letterwriter 100 DECserver 200/MC (DSRVB-A) 2 x Commodore Amiga 500 Acorn Electron and games TI Silent 700 (the enormous briefcase one with acoustic coupler) 2 x DEC TK50Z drives 2 x Commodore 64 Motorola EXORterm 155 -- no keyboard with this. AVID video editing unit and the BBC micro that it was used with I've put photos of some of these on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/frixxon/ Paul.

17 years, 5 months

HP Omnibook 600C startup disk?

by IanK＠vulcan.com

I picked up a nice little HP Omnibook 600C from someone here on the list, and after a few minutes of playing with it the hard drive decided it did not like its new home. Hey, no worries, stuff happens. It's a PCMCIA hard drive, so I plugged a CF card into a PCMCIA adapter and voila!, I have a new C: drive. But unfortunately, when the disk did its swan dive it took with it all the custom drivers and such that HP loads on it. That may explain why I can't get apparently simple things to work. So, does anyone have one of these machines or its startup disk, and are you willing to share? Thanks -- Ian

17 years, 5 months

Looking for Olivetti Quaderno

by derschjo＠msu.edu

Title says it all... I've been looking for one of these for awhile. Picked one up off eBay awhile back but it was totally trashed (though I now have several spare batteries & accessories if I ever find a working one...) Anyone have one for trade/sale? Thanks, Josh

17 years, 5 months

IBM 2.5" WD-280 80MB Drives: Free + Shipping

by trag＠io.com

I'm cleaning house a bit. I have four IBM Model: WD-280 2.5" hard drives. The interface is not IDE nor SCSI. I once managed to Google up a page with an extensive listing of 2.5" drives (laptop service company?) which indicated that the interface was something else, the name of which I no longer remember. Anyway, I have no use for these. If you do, email me, pay shipping and they're yours. If I do not hear from anyone in one week I will dispose of them. Two of them are still factory sealed. A third one's bag is opened but the drive passes a non-electrical inspection. The fourth one has an ominous rattle coming from inside as if the head arm is swinging around loose. If you do not want the fourth one, I am happy to ship only three. Other markings on the drive include: P/N 06G6449 FRU P/N 95F4708 MLC C99714 I hope someone has a use for these unusual drives. Jeff Walther

17 years, 5 months

Small bootstrappable languages (Was: Re: PDF...)

by mtapley＠swri.edu

At 22:26 -0600 12/10/08, bfranchuk wrote: >Any good leads as am still looking for a small boot strapable langauge >here. Tiny C will not work >as my instruction set does NOT have register to register operations. I >plan to have a wopping >48Kb system as that was BIG memory 1975 ish. At 12:00 -0600 12/11/08, Jim Battle summarized: >Ben you have said these three things in this thread: > >(1) "Any good leads as am still looking for a small boot strapable >langauge here." > >(2) "Tiny C will not work as my instruction set does NOT have >register to register >operations." > >(3) "I could do Forth but it would be slow as I have no >auto-incriment registers and wound >need to use memory variables." Ben (?), I note that on: http://www.altair680kit.com/index.html or more specifically, http://www.altair680kit.com/manuals/Altair_680-VTL-2%20Manual-05-Beta_1-Sea… Grant Stockly refers to "VTL-2" from Gary Shannon and Frank McCoy. The manual says it requires 768 bytes to implement on a 6800 (which has, admittedly, a pretty flexible instruction set, including good stack operations). Not knowing anything more about your system or the language than what I've posted above, I still suggest it might be worth a look. -- - Mark 210-379-4635 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Large Asteroids headed toward planets inhabited by beings that don't have technology adequate to stop them: Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward.

17 years, 5 months

My return to Classic Cmp - San Diego, software archive, etc.

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

Hi Vern! Certainly Don was always happy and joyful to help out in any way he could with the contents of his archive and his ability to make odd-format floppies for any CP/M user. If you ever get to the archive, you'll find several dozen floppies (Compupro and VT180) that I sent his way. In the 1990's I was encouraging him to make disk images and make them publicly available. Tools at the time were teledisk etc. He was worried about copyright issues with a massively public on-the-net archive, he said. Tim.

17 years, 5 months

Paper vs. PDF vs... (was: Re: Sources for 8b T...)

by mtapley＠swri.edu

At 22:26 -0600 12/10/08, Tony wrote: >Of course paper has the advantage that ... it withstands a >hot soldering iron a lot better than any computer does :-) Hm. I assume this refers to soldering iron settings below, as Ray Bradbury would put it, "Fahrenheit 451"? -- - Mark 210-379-4635 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Large Asteroids headed toward planets inhabited by beings that don't have technology adequate to stop them: Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward.

17 years, 5 months

Apple II keyboards

by us21090＠yahoo.com

All, I'm looking for a final accurate answer. When the Apple II's came out, the keyboard had a power-light that looked like a lit up key at the keyboard's lower left corner, below the shift key. Apple II+'s had a power-light that was (nearly) flush with the case. See these for comparison: http://www.vectronicsappleworld.com/ads/ads/appleii/howto2.jpg http://www.computercloset.org/apple2Plus.htm The question: Did Apple ever produce II's with this flush-power-light keyboard? I know the II and II+ lines were sold concurrently, so it doesn't surprise me if, for a time, the hardware was identical. All I've read (and which sounds definitive) the only initial difference was the ROMs. See the 1980 price list mid page two: http://www.barse.org/blog/archives/apple1980pricelist.pdf . In time, the II+'s motherboard's did go through changes Other, slightly related info It has an Apple II 16K model #: A2S0016. The motherboard is a Rev 4, which, if I understand it correctly, was used for both II and II+'s. The silkscreen on the MB near the "apple computer inc" text (above ROMs) says 1978. The manufacture date code (handprinted on MB corner near slot 0) is 7928-- 28th week (mid July) 1979. It has the AppleSoft/Auto-Start ROMs, but these were available as an upgrade. (The previous owner also added memory to 48K plus a language card). Oh yeah, the previous owner lost the lid!! All this is consistent with it being an Apple II. BUT one kicker is that the keyboard has a (nearly) flush power light that are used in II+'s. Thanks, Scott

17 years, 5 months

Bootstrappable language

by mc＠media.mit.edu

bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca wrote: > Any good leads as am still looking for a small boot strapable langauge > here. Tiny C will not work > as my instruction set does NOT have register to register operations. I > plan to have a wopping > 48Kb system as that was BIG memory 1975 ish.>> > Your best bet is to write a byte-code interpreter in your native instruction set. If your architecture Turing-equivalent it doesn't matter what operations are missing. Tiny Basic, UCSD Pascal, Logo, Java, Scheme and lots of other languages have been implemented this way. Sure, this might be slower than a "native implementation," but you can always bootstrap a native compiler later if you have the time. Byte-code interpreters typically run faster than "regular" interpreters. If you can find it, I would recommend UCSD Pascal. It is a full-featured language (structs/records, etc.). I ran this on the Apple II in about the amount of memory you have.

17 years, 5 months

OT? Heavy duty web hosting needed

by tosteve＠yahoo.com

Hello, My entire classic computer website is down for exceeding my monthly bandwidth allotment. I exceeded 60 Gigs in 2 weeks. Can anyone recommend a good host? I need 150+ Gig/month bandwidth. Thanks! Steven Stengel http://oldcomputers.net

17 years, 5 months

Kennedy tape drive 9600

by silvercreekvalley＠yahoo.com

I'd like to try and get a Kennedy tape drive (9600) up and running and wondered if anyone had any advice or possible interface cards? The unit is complete and appears to be working, I have two 50 pin connectors on the back, and the ribbon cables to IDE connectors. This is the PERTEC interface I'm assuming? I'm ultimately wanting to connect this to a PDP 11, but initially it would be good to connect this some how to a regular PC. Are there any cards available to do this? I do have older PC's (this is vintage computing after all) ie with ISA slots which I'm guessing would be required. Anyway, any pointers/leads appreciated. Thanks Ian.

17 years, 5 months

Happy DEC-10 day...

by mbg＠world.std.com

17 years, 5 months

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test-drb