I just moved, and all my stuff is still packed away,
including all my openvms CDs, which kinda sucks because I sorta need one right now.
in the interim I could get away with an ISO, if someone has one.
Any version would do, so if there's someone on the list that has one or could make one,
it'd be much appreciated.
As I said, I own the originals, bought from montagar, just not sure which box it's hiding in...
Dan.
_________________________________________________________________
>
>Subject: Re: PDF (Was: something irrelevant given the thread's migration)
> From: "bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca" <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca>
> Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2008 17:31:11 -0700
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
>Jim Brain wrote:
>>
>> Can't go with the "TXT FOREVAR" folks, though.
>SIX BIT ASCII IS STILL FINE --- LOOK AT ALL THE
>RARE L@@K ADS ON EBAY!
>> And to your other point, to be consistent, I must concur. It's a
>> hobby, and anything goes. I was only asking that a disclaimer be
>> applied, since the difference between "I code this up on my own
>> because it's a hobby and I think it's fun" and "I don't trust
>> pre-written apps and you should not either. Write them yourself all
>> times" is sometimes hard to distinguish.
>>
>> Jim
>>
>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.
I'd suggest Tiny Basic as a starting point. If you need less than that
how about a machine level monitor like ODT? Generally that's where I've
started for any machine, some form of keyboard monitor. It's also a
starting point for IO that can be used by more sophisticated software
or a language.
Allison
>
>
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.
When used with genuine DEC adapters, one?style worked
for printers (DCE), and the other style worked with terminals (DTE).
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.
If you're really in a pinch, you can always
pop the connector off of one end of the cable,
and re-crimp it by hand.
It's a bit cumbersome, but you can use a thumb-tack
to lift the gold contacts out of the connector, and then
use a small flat-blade screwdriver to push them back in.
Just be careful not to stab yourself in the process.? ;-)
As info. . .
T
Andrew writes:
> 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.
All MMJ cables are supposed to be crossover cables.
If you are using DB-9 or DB-25 adapters on the ends of the MMJ's, then
they have to be appropriate to the wiring for the device. Examples:
Rdy Out TX+ TX- RX- RX+ Rdy In
Adaptor Gender 1 2 3 4 5 6 Use with:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
H8575-A F 20 2 7 7 3 6&8 VTxxx terminal
H8571-C M 6 3 7 7 2 20 Digital printer
H8571-D M 6 3 7 7 2 20 Modem
H8571-E M 20 2 7 7 3 6&8 Female terminal
or LaserWriter
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you've got the wrong adapter, you may be able to open it up and
swap around pins 2&3, 6&20. Some are shells you can open up and use
the DB-pin-remover tools to swap things around, others are molded solid
and you can't take them apart so easily.
MMJ was a nice concept for serial cables.
Tim.
On 10 Dec, 2008, at 05:53, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote:
> Message: 25
> Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2008 21:08:36 -0500
> From: "William Donzelli" <wdonzelli at gmail.com>
> Subject: Raised floors
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
>
> 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?
An interesting question. I would have said they were common in the
late 60s but not in the early 60s. None of the 1301s (built 1962-65) I
have seen were on raised floors, maybe because 700 square feet of
raised flooring would have been expensive, but I suppose not compared
to 247,000 pounds for the computer itself. When I first started
programming them in 1969, I think all the ones I visited were on
raised floors, had 'tacky mats' and air conditioning, which often blew
out of the floor. On the other hand, when I went to work for a company
which made computers (in 1974) and which used them extensively for
software development, there were no raised floors, no tacky mats and
only one of the computer rooms had air conditioning because it was the
only one to used exchangeable hard disks, the rest used paper tape or
cartridge mag tape or one inch analogue tape for audio data which was
used as test input to sonar processing computers.
Just my experience, maybe not typical, and in the UK.
Roger Holmes
I salvaged several AT&T/Lucent/Avaya
D401A Digital Display Modules,
apparently from a Definity phone system.
The label says
D401A AT&T
89338 series 1
The module has 8 touch-buttons and LEDS
and an Itron DC 405A2 VFD
(one line of 40 characters,
each char a 5x7 matrix)
I'd like to use the entire module
since it has a microcontroller and power supply,
but I have no clue as to the interface.
Any help would be appreciated, starting with pinout.
I really need the internal programming document
with all the commands :-(
I'm trying to strike a balance between
researching the device to use completely "as is"
vs. salvaging entire assemblies
vs. salvaging just bare parts.
Sometimes it's easier to just redesign it
and salvage as many subassemblies as possible
than taking the time to reverse engineer the entire gadget :-(
Googling around found:
"This digital display module ...
adds a large easy to read 40 character display
to the top of the 7405D or 7434D voice terminals.
AT&T/Lucent systems compatible with this module are
Definity G1, G2, G3, ECS and ..."
Thanks in advance
-- Jeffrey Jonas jeffj-at-panix-dot-com
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
Anyone have docs on the 82971A EPROM/ROM module for the HP Integral PC?
Anyone have one of these that they have in use for some purpose?
I rediscovered one of these while cleaning up some piles of stuff.
I'm curious if there is anything interesting that can be done with one
of these.
Hi Jos,
Well done! At last I've been able to run EmuLith on my 17" G5 iMac under Panther. No idea how it compares with the original performance, but after recompiling with O2 it runs fairly quickly. Here's my comments:
1. Well, first, a big congrats!!!!
2. Why is it white on black when all the photos show black on white?
3. I used Sara to write HelloWorld.MOD, but Couldn't compile it (Disk5.IMG).
It complains about missing InOut (though InOut.OBJ is there).
Compiler runs though :-D
4. 768x592 seems to be partially implemented, it'd be nice to fully
implement it; though I'll try and run it on my external display.
(I get around my inadequate display by pressing RETURN ;-) )
I presume the microcode is different for the smaller display,
but the OS and libraries are almost the same, since I guess
the 4:3 Liliths were still used when the 7:9 ones appeared.
5. Lara wouldn't run, problem with DiskWindows.
Your user-base is increasing in leaps and bounds :-D
-cheers from julz @P
Tony,
Do you still have the documentation that goes with the MPF-I/88 computer
trainer?
If so, I know you said you didn't have a scanner, but how about taking
the manuals
a Kinko's or Office Depot / Office Max, and see if they can copy it.
I would be willing to pay for a copy of this documentation.
Please advise.
Thanks and
Regards,
Jim
> From: Mark Wickens
> Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 3:41 AM
>
> I am thinking about organising a meeting for people interested in the
> line of computers created by Digital Equipment Corporation.
I'm interested in pdp8/pdp11 lines.
I'm scrapping two NCR / ATT 3430 servers (MCA bus). If anyone wants the
whole machines, they are free for pickup in Evanston, Wyoming (82930) or
parts are available for shipping cost (and beer money, if the taker wants to
be generous). Both servers are Pentium 60's with two processor boards per
box.
I also have some boards for a Wyse 286 (I think). There are two processor
boards, one disk controller board, one video card and one serial / parallel
board. Free for shipping.
Email me directly. My address is "martinm" at the domain "allwest.net".
Thank you,
Martin Marshall
I've just been thinking about the problem of imaging/copying MFM hard discs...
I've run the numbers, and this seems right to me, but I'd appreciate a sanity
check.
Let's say you have an ST-412 drive you want to read. You've also got a
Catweasel or something like it, that has somehow had an extra bunch of I/O
lines added to it (to control the head select lines, etc. on the HDD).
An ST-412 rotates at 3600 RPM. That's (3600/60)=60 revolutions per second, or
1/60 = 16.66(recurring) milliseconds per revolution.
The drive's data rate is 5 megabits per second, but could be lower (or indeed
higher). But the spec says 5Mbps, and for the sake of argument I'm going to
stick with that...
(5Mbps/1000) = 5Kbits per millisecond.
5Kbits * 16.667 = 83.35 kilobits per track, absolute maximum.
A Catweasel records the data from a disc by measuring the time between flux
transitions.
If we assume every data bit on the disc is a "1" (MFM coding "01") then you'd
need to store at most 90,000 timing samples per disc track.
So hypothetically, if your "Catweasel or something like it" had 128Ksamples
worth of buffer RAM, and enough I/O lines to drive the HDD, you could read an
MFM hard drive track-by-track and copy it onto another drive of the same type?
Do my calculations look right?
With 304 cylinders and 4 heads, that works out to 304 * 4 * 83.35 = 101353.6
Kbits, which does seem awfully low to me...
Thanks,
--
Phil.
classiccmp at philpem.me.uk
http://www.philpem.me.uk/
ROBO5.8 wrote:
>Hi Folks,
>
>It's been interesting taking out my old CP/M stuff and getting it
>operational again.
>
>My system uses an 8bit TTL Keytronics Capacitive Sense keyboard. It was
>operational for about an hour and then it quit.
>
>It turns out that the keyboard uses little sponge pads to hold the
>capacitive disks and they have biodegraded into dust.
>
>So I went looking for an old 8b TTL replacement keyboard. So far no luck.
>
>I also looked for a black box solution that would take an AT or PS/2
>keyboard and convert it to a parallel port output. So far no luck.
>
>So let me turn to the experts and ask for advice and suggestions.
>
>Please advise
>Robo
I have to deal with the same problem, but I read somewhere that its possible to repair the existing keyboard by replacing the disintegrated foam with doublesided-sticky 3m grey 'exterior?' mounting foam of approproate thickness, and that's what I'm attempting. Better IMHO to repair the old rare keyboards than replace with something new but 'incorrect' for a given system, though a new keyboard can be a temporary solution until the old one is fixed.
You basically take keyboard apart, remove all the conductive discs but don't throw them away, scrape the remains of the foam off the bottom of the key plungers (can use goo-gone to help with this too), punch new foam disks from 3m grey mounting foam, clean off the old conductive paper discs (also can use goo-gone to help here), carefully apply discs to foam, and stick new foam+old discs back onto each key plunger. Apparently you should use a qtip with a small bit of goo-gone around the edge of each new foam disc to prevent the top and bottom from sticking together and 'pillowing' the foam disc.
It may be easier to first stick the conductive discs to the foam and use the disc as a guide for punching the foam, that way it will always be exactly 'on register'.
The trouble is you need to buy a punch to punch the foam into discs of the same (or slightly narrower) size as the shiny conductive paper discs are (or have it shave a small bit off the edges off of the conductive discs, if they're a tiny bit smaller it shouldn't hurt anything I'd think). I have not done this yet, and am not sure where to buy an appropriate punch (art supply store didn't have it).
If any of the aluminized-paper contact discs are 'beyond repair', I have NO idea how to replace those. Aluminum foil MIGHT work, but it doesn't sound like a good solution because its TOO conductive, I think.
I have 4 keyboards that need fixing in this way:
one keytronic kb3270pc (1986 firmware)
four victor 9000 US-type keyboards (manufactured by keytronic)
Fortunately (unlike the old digital group keyboard keytronic made with its completely insane #-shaped contact pads) I believe all 4 keyboards use the same diameter paper contact circles and foam, so I should only need one punch.
--
Jonathan Gevaryahu
jgevaryahu(@t)hotmail(d0t)com
jzg22(@t)drexel(d0t)edu
I work with much bigger, and usually much older, things than luggable personal
computers, so when a lady in my museology certificate class came up to me to ask
whether we would be interested in her friend's Osborne, I had to say "No." She
then asked me if I knew where her friend could donate such a system; I told her
I had no real idea, and that I would ask around.
So I'm asking the assembled multitudes: What should an old lady do with an
Osborne? Honestly, my only thought is to put it on That Auction Site(TM) and
see what market forces say, but that's too scary for a non-computer person, I
would think.
Thanks,
Rich
Rich Alderson
Server Engineer, PDPplanet Project
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
(206) 342-2239
(206) 465-2916 cell
> -----Original Message-----
> From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-
> bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of H?lscher
> Sent: Sunday, December 07, 2008 1:26 PM
> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
> Subject: RSTS/E problem
>
> Hi,
>
> after installing and SYSGENing of RSTS/E V9.6 I get the following
> error:
>
>? Beginning RSTS/E system startup...
> 88.12.07? 12:10????? Installing monitor overlays
> 88.12.07? 12:10????? Mounting disks
> 88.12.07? 12:10????? Assigning logical names
> 88.12.07? 12:10????? Starting error logging
> ?ERRINT - ?No room for user on device at Line? 1265
> 88.12.07? 12:10????? Setting system characteristics
> 07-Dec-88 12:10 PM?? Installing run-time systems and libraries
> 07-Dec-88 12:10 PM?? Setting terminal characteristics
> 07-Dec-88 12:10 PM?? Defining system commands
> 07-Dec-88 12:10 PM?? Setting printer characteristics
> 07-Dec-88 12:10 PM?? Starting spoolers
> ?Unable to start Print/Batch Services
> ?No room for additional jobs
That problem can occur for a number of reasons:
1.)?? You still have SYSGEN as the currently installed .SIL
?????? (Try "INSTALL RSTS", or whatever the name of the monitor was that you sysgen'd,
????????at the Option: <Start>??prompt)
2.)?? You don't have SWAP.SYS set to a large enough size.
?????C2 (Use the FILE option of REFRESH, and change the size of SWAP.SYS to at least 256 or 512.
??????? Later, if you need more swap space, you can use system commands to add another swap file.)
3.)????You didn't specify a?high enough JOBMAX when you did your?sysgen.
T
?????????????
Hi, saw the following post, Are the robots still available for purchase?
Alex
313-647-1314
Bradley Booth wrote:
>* Hello,
*>* I have two Hero 1 Robots that would be good for parts. They suffered
*>* at the hands of middle school children. Brad
*
Are they complete, other than not working?
Peace... Sridhar
http://www.outstandingelephant.com/jcquard/
(quote)
jCquard is a generally useless JavaScript library that you will probably (hopefully?)
never need to use ? unless you are the nostalgic type, you like to roll with the
old-schoolers, or you are convinced that the end is near and soon all we?ll have left are
stacks of punch cards with which to rebuild the entirety of our culture.
(endquote)
The program produces a image of a punched card given an input string. The biggest problem
that I can see is the text printed along the top is a crisp CRT font. They should have
digitized the character set from a real punched card.
Hi,
I'm looking for Software & Manuals for any of the MUMPS implementations for the PDP-11,
e.g. MUMPS-11, DSM-11 or M/11+.
Can anybody help?
Regards,
Ulli
I also found a small VDU, model PTS 6387, 220-240 VAC.
This one takes RS-232. The screen is 6".
IIRC, it writes 12 x 40 characters
Overall size : 10" W x 9" deep x 6" high (excl. feet).
Free for P&P from Denmark
Nico
Still cleaning-up.
I found some Philips cassette drives, using digital cassettes similar to
audio cassettes.
Every cassette accomodates about 250K. The format used is ECMA-34, IIRC.
Size : 9" deep, 5" wide and 4" high
One drive is loaded horizontally (think of the Exabyte 8505 etc), and the
other like the old Exabyte 8200.
The rubber bands are dired out / pulverized
Any interest ?
Nico
Emulith, my ETH Lilith emulator, is ready for download at :
ftp://jdreesen.dyndns.org/ftp/Emulith
Emulith is a register-level emulation, in C & X11-xlib, of the Lilith hardware.
Documentation, sourcecode and two diskimages are supplied, I will try to offer some more in the future.
You will need a reasonably fast PC running Linux and having at least 1280x1024 resolution.
First feedback I got shows that it also runs on OS-X ( altough I would like to know how he mapped three buttons onto one....)
Enjoy,
Jos Dreesen
Warning : server sits on a basic ADSL line.
Emulith, my ETH Lilith emulator, is ready for download at :
ftp://jdreesen.dyndns.org/ftp/Emulith
Emulith is a register-level emulation, in C & X11-xlib, of the Lilith hardware.
Documentation, sourcecode and two diskimages are supplied, I will try to offer some more in the future.
You will need a reasonably fast PC running Linux and having at least 1280x1024 resolution.
First feedback I got shows that it also runs on OS-X ( altough I would like to know how he mapped three buttons onto one....)
Enjoy,
Jos Dreesen
Warning : server sits on a basic ADSL line.
Message: 22
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2008 23:04:12 +0100
From: Angel Martin Alganza <ama at ugr.es>
Subject: Re: Sources for 8b TTL keyboards (Keytronics)
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: <20081207220412.GJ31191 at darwin.ugr.es>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
On Sun, Dec 07, 2008 at 05:27:51PM -0200, Alexandre Souza wrote:
> > I think I'm one of the only people in universe that has a stable
> > windows. My windows installation NEVER breaks. I have no trouble
> > with that. Period. But:
> > - I know how it works sufficiently not to install things that
> > will make that uninstable
> > - I have a good antivirus, this is the first program I install
> > when I boot windows at first time
> > - I have a set of services to disable
> > - I use process explorer to see what is running and disable
> > uneeded programs/services
> > - I don't instal dubious programs (e.g.: I know what I'm running)
> > - I have an ORIGINAL copy of windows
> > - I NEVER EVER EVER install windows updates, automatic or manual
> > - I NEVER EVER EVER let outlook express download images or open
> > automatically attachments
> > - I NEVER EVER EVER let MSN open automatically anything, run
> > things I don't know or install "emoticon packs"
> >
> > Tony, trust me. I have a WORKABLE and PLEASURE TO USE copy of
> > windows XP. Of course I have now a sizeable machine (Core 2 quad,
> > 4GB RAM, Geforce 8600, 22" LCD) but it worked just as well with my
> > old athlon 1800/512 ram. It is a matter of KNOWING what you do with
> > your windows.
>
>That is simply and absolutely ridiculous. Having such a powerful
>beast with so many absurd restrictions to get it to somehow work is
>outrageous. Such powerful boxes are to do intensive calculations on
>servers running real operating systems, or to just do gaming using the
>aberrant wannabe operating system. Working (reliably and comfortably,
>as Tony and many of us want) and Windowing are not compatible. :-)
I thought I would chime in at this point.
In the Mid 80's, my College had a perfectly functional PDP11 system. It
used provided support for RSTS-E, was well appreciated, reliable, and
the workhorse for all of the computing programs throughout the school.
The machine was in the computer room, its front panel was out in the
open, and nobody did anything bad to it. the most malicious piece of
software that was run was a program that I wrote that output human
readable character patterns sideways on paper tape.
In about 1988 (or so), the powers that be decided to replace it with a
Prime computer. All of a sudden, the student body was not very happy
about the replacement. The Unix like operating system didn't look like
RSTS-E, the terminals were HORRIBLE (They took away our beloved VT52's),
the editor EMACS, was not very friendly at all. All of our code was GONE!
Agreed that the machine was Bigger (tm), Faster (tm), More Functional
(tm), than the PDP we had, but the user experience was woeful. Needles
to say, that the student body decided that they had to find ways to
break the thing. Malicious software was created, the machine was
regularly halted from the front panel, and reliability went through the
floor. Eventually, they made a physical cage for the machine to reside
in that even the longest broom handle couldn't manipulate the front
panel switches !! At least the reboots stopped.
What am I trying to say here... You can get faster hardware, but if it
is operated in a HOSTILE environment, then you will have a bad time. To
a point, I agree with the snapshot concept of not installing arbitrary
software, and leaving an environment in a working state. If you are
patient, you *can* get a windows machine to operate reliably. But the
*last* thing you do is to install yet another random upgrade for yet
another piece of software without careful testing.
The windows concept simply does not translate to the classic computer
environment. There is no way that I can impact the operating system of
my CP/M system by simply running a terminal program (unless I
specifically perform a download). Likewise, there is no concept of
downloading a device driver that hasn't been tested on any of my PDP11
machines. The machine base was simply too small and too well
controlled. The modern environment is radically different, there are
hundreds of manufacturers of cards and motherboards, and other hardware,
and millions of equipment combinations possible. And, there is the
dreaded concept of BACKWARDS COMPATABILITY. Woe is me, as a
manufacturer, I have to support arcane cards in systems where they
simply may not work.... (Could somebody please explain why having an
ISA bus slot in a PCI system was a good idea!)
In summary - you can have a 'powerful beast' and have it work. you just
have to adopt a 'professional' attitude to running it, and not download
arbitrary software willy nilly. How do you do that when the modern
browsers are designed to download and execute arbitrary code??? By not
doing that!
Just my 0.02 worth.
Doug
I and a couple of other people thought it would be fun to build our own
stand alone video terminal. The prototype is a 3x5" PCB that is completely
self contained - all you need to connect is a VGA monitor, a PS/2 keyboard,
12V power, and a RS-232 connection to a host computer of your choice. The
idea is that you could easily stick one inside the case of an old VGA
monitor,
add a keyboard, and then have an ASCII terminal. No PC required :-)
I did the hardware design and PC boards, and James Markevitch did the
lion's
share of the firmware, with help from David Betz, Ethan Dicks and Dave
McGuire.
The firmware is all open source, GPL licensed, and is managed as a Source
Forge project. The microprocessors (yes, there are two used) are 8051 cores
and the firmware for both is written mostly in C using the SDCC compiler.
SDCC and the other development tools we're using are all FREE, mostly open
source, and the primary MCU can be in system programmed using a regular PC
and an ordinary serial connection. No expensive development tools or
special
hardware programmers are needed.
Enough firmware finished now to be a functional VT220 clone - it can run
EDT
and vi already - but there's still lots to be done. We'd like to find a
couple
more people to join the development team and help us finish off version 1.
In
particular, some of the major things that still need doing include -
Fonts (a VT220 has a surprisingly large number of DEC specific fonts)
Serial EEPROM drivers for saving setup and configuration data
Documentation, users manual and web pages (on SourceForge)
and of course testing
Some of the things we're thinking about working on after V1 is finished -
Emulating other ASCII terminals (ADM, TeleVideo, Wyse, maybe more)
Adding graphics (Tek 4006/4010/4014 emulation, ReGIS, maybe more)
If you're interested, I have two more of the prototype PC boards that I
can sell. And if you really want, you can always wire wrap your own without
a PC board - the schematics are available as part of the project
documentation.
email me and let me know if you are interested in working on the project.
Right now I'd prefer that the PC boards go to people who have the time to
actually help out with the project in the short term, so if so if you'd just
like to have one of the terminals but don't have time to help then please
stand by. There'll be another announcement when we have one ready for
release.
Bob