test-drb

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

101090 discussions

by rickb＠bensene.com

Hi, all, I recently was given a Rockwell AIM-65 single-board computer in nice physical condition, with the original keyboard and keyboard connector cable. I've downloaded all of the documentation that I can find, and have been trying to get it running. After doing a thorough visual inspection looking for any sign of detritus, especially anything metallic, as well as making sure all of the ICs were seated in the pretty-lame single-wipe sockets, and checking for any obviously cooked or overheated components. Everything looked really nice, and quite clean. All of the required chips were in place, and looked good, including the 6532 RIOT, 6520 PIA for the display, and two 6522 VIAs. All of the LSI's, including the 6502, were Rockwell-made parts, with date codes all within a reasonable time of each other. I checked across the +5V and GND power supply connection points, and found that it wasn't shorted, another decent sign. The machine came with all five of the ROM sockets filled with original Rockwell ROMs, including the two-ROM BASIC interpreter, the Assembler ROM, as well as the two Monitor ROMs, all installed in the sockets they should be installed in. The machine had six 2114's (1024x4 static RAM) installed in the lower three banks of user RAM, with two of the sockets unoccupied. I got two known good 2114's from my stock of parts and installed them in the two empty sockets, so that the machine would be in the 4K of User RAM configuration. I understand that the machine can be powered up with only the +5V supply, but the thermal printer will show as "down", as it requires the +24V supply. The +12/-12 supplies are also not required. I made sure that the RESET switch worked properly, and tested the KB/TTY and RUN/STEP switches operated properly. I set the KB/TTY switch to KB, and the RUN/STEP switch to RUN. I found a power supply that provides +5V at 5A, and tested it out on a dummy load to make sure it was healthy and had clean output, and it was fine. I connected it up to the +5 and +5 Return (GND) terminals on the power supply input barrier strip, and held my breath, and switched on the power strip that the power supply was plugged into. The result. Absolutely nothing. No sign of any activity on the display. I didn't expect anything from the printer, because it didn't have its +24V power. I left it powered for a little bit, checking for any chips that seemed unusually hot or anything else that seemed amiss, and nothing was obviously upset. The CPU chip warmed up slightly to the touch, but wasn't at all alarming in terms of its temperature. I pressed the RESET switch a number of times, and it made no difference. Oh well. I powered it off, and pulled the ROM chips out, and decided I'd pop 'em in my ROM programmer and compare them to the ROM images I'd downloaded off the net. The two monitor ROMs verified exactly. The Assembler ROM also verified correctly. One of the BASIC ROMs also verified properly, but the other failed the verification. Hmm...upon READing it into the programmer's RAM, I dumped it out, and low and behold, it read back as all 0xFF's. Oops.. I double checked that the ROM was properly seated in the programmer's ZIF socket, and it was. I tried READing it a number of times, and the result was always the same. This ROM must have expired somewhere along the way. I can blast a 2732 with the proper bits and build an adapter to make BASIC work once I get the thing running, and hope that maybe sometime I might find a good blank OTP 2532 ROM I can blast with the code, or find one already programmed somewhere. That said, the BASIC ROMs aren't required to get the AIM-65 to "boot up" in the Monitor, nor is the assembler ROM. I decided to set the BASIC and Assembler ROMs aside, and just re-installed the known-good monitor ROMs in the proper sockets. I double-checked that all of the RAM chips were properly inserted in their sockets by pulling and re-inserting them, as well as the 6502, 6532, and 6522's. The 6520 on the display board is soldered in, so no socket issues there. I powered it up again, and verified that +5V was present on all of the chips on the board, and that was fine, with every chip showing +5 give or take +/- .02 Volts. All of the GND pins were at 0V, with only tiny (sub-millivolt) noise on GND. I put a big dip-clip on the 6502, and got out my trusty Tektronix 2465 scope, and figured I check some of the basic stuff, like making sure that the clock generator was running, and that the 6502 properly would generate the Phase 1 and Phase 2 clocks that the rest of the system uses, as well as looking at the address bus and data bus to see if it was doing anything. The clock generator uses a 7474 dual flip flop, which I know have a tendency to go bad, so checking the clock was the logical first step. I powered it up again after hooking everything up, and probing around showed that the clock generator was indeed running, and had the proper voltage levels, timing, and duty cycle. The thought that maybe it'd be a simple fix, with a bad 7474, went out the window. The 6502 was pumping out the proper Phase 1 and Phase 2 clock signals, and both were very clean and within specifications. I looked at the address 0 line, and pressed the RESET button, and it'd wiggle for a short period of time, then go high. Hmm... I looked at the other address lines, and while not all of them wiggled, they all ended up at logic 1 after a short period of time, as if the CPU was stuck at address 0xFFFF. I did the same thing watching the data lines, and the symptoms were similar. They'd wiggle around a bit, then settle at logic 1 and stay there. I then watched the chip select signals for the ROMs to see if they were being addressed, and indeed, the low ROM was getting selected for a short period of time, then it'd get de-selected and stay that way. The other monitor ROM also got a short burst of select. So...it appears that the ROMs are being addressed, at least for a short time, and the processor is likely executing the code for a short time, but something causes it to lock up. I checked to see if any of the RAMs were being selected, and at no time during the short period of activity after a RESET did any of the chip selects on the 2114 RAMs go active. I then checked the PIA (6520) on the display board to see if it was being selected at all. Nope. Then I looked at the RIOT chip to see if it was being selected, and indeed, it is being selected during the short period of activity, but then, it goes deselected and quiet once the CPU settles in at 0xFFFF on the address lines. It appears that the address decoding circuitry is at least mostly functional, as the ROMs, PIA, and RIOT are being addressed. It's not exactly 100% sure that the address decoding stuff is working as it should, though. I thought that perhaps there might be something up with the 6502. I have a Commodore VIC-20 that works fine, and it has an original MOS 6502 in a socket, so I opened up the VIC-20, pulled the 6502 from its socket, and popped it in place of the Rockwell 6502 in the AIM-65. The behavior was identical. So, I'm pretty sure that the Rockwell 6502 is good. I should have popped the Rockwell 6502 in the VIC-20 and tested it that way, but didn't want to fuss with hooking the VIC 20 up to an old TV. I pulled all of the 2114 RAMs out, and popped them into an old calculator that I have that uses 2114 RAMs, and tested them out this way. The calculator ran just fine with the chips from the AIM-65 in place. I'd figure a bad RAM would likely cause the calculator to malfunction in some way. Not a thorough test, but enough of a test to validate that none of the RAMS were dragging the address or data busses down, and that they did properly do reads and writes. So, with all that said (sorry, I am verbose), I'm kind of at a loss as to what to do next to try to figure out what is wrong with the machine. Does anyone out there have any suggestions? I have a couple of spare 6522 VIA chips, but these shouldn't really be accessed unless the printer is trying to be accessed (which it might be during initialization at least), and the other VIA is for external interface use...and is probably initialized by the ROM, but neither of them should really be actively accessed other than a short burst of initialization. I could swap in my spare 6522's to see if it makes any difference, but I doubt it would make any. The unknown is the 6532 RIOT chip. I pulled up some data on the chip, and it appears to be a combination of a PIA (like 6520), 128 bytes of RAM (hmm...), and a programmable interval timer. I don't have any spares for this chip, so I can't just substitute in another chip and see if it makes a difference. The RIOT chip is used to scan the keyboard, and, after looking at the assembly source listing of the ROM Monitor, it appears the 128 bytes of RAM in the RIOT chip are used as the storage for the monitor. It appears that RIOT chips can be purchased, I found a place online in the US that has them for $9.95 each. Maybe I'll order one up. Maybe the RAM in the RIOT chip is not working properly? If that were the case, since it appears that the stack is stored in that RAM, the first time a subroutine was called and a return executed, it'd cause possibly 0xFFFF to be read as the return address, and that's where things go awry. I guess maybe I need to dig out my logic analyzer, and monitor the address and data busses, and trace out what is actually happening. But, I figured I query the list here to see if anyone might have some other things that I could do that might be easier to identify what's wrong with the thing. One thing that I have no idea about is the display subsection. Since the display PIA is never selected, I suspect that any code that initializes it and tries to put something up on the display never gets a chance to execute. The "smart" starburst LED display modules are all properly in their sockets, and +5 is delivered to the proper pin on each module, and there's no sign of unusual heating or anything else that might indicate a problem with the display modules. The PIA also has a clean +5 and GND, and doesn't show any sign of overheating. I have a small Motorola 6809 microprocessor development system with a couple of 6820 PIA's that I could probably write a quick routine to try to initialize the 6820 on the AIM-65 display board, and try to write a message out to the display to test it, but that seems like a lot of work. I'd rather just fix what's up with the AIM-65, and get it running. Any thoughts from those out there as to what to do next would certainly be appreciated. I always value the collective knowledge of the members of this list. Thanks, -Rick -- Rick Bensene The Old Calculator Museum http://oldcalculatormuseum.com

7 years

setting reply to in VMS 5.x MAIL

by billdegnan＠gmail.com

Is there a way to set the reply-to value in VMS 5 mail? I want to send mail as SYSTEM but anyone who receives the message on the outside world who wants to reply I'd like it go to to a different email address. I am working to solve the problem myself, but if anyone knows already and can help save me the time :-) Thanks Bill

7 years

AlphaServer ES47 in Portland

by BHuntsman＠mail2.cu-portland.edu

Anyone in the general vicinity of Portland interested in an AlphaServer ES47, for approximately $500 obo?

7 years

off topic- Hitachi V-1950F(R) and Nicolet 3091storage scope available

by useddec＠gmail.com

Both have manuals, and pics are available. Possibly a few Tek scopes also.. Please contact me off list with any questions or offers. Thanks, Paul

7 years

Help with TCBASX and TCRANX (PDP8/OS8/TC08)

by cramcram＠gmail.com

How do you run TCBASX.DG (TC01 Basic Exerciser) and TCRANX.DG (TC01 Random Exerciser)? When I run TCBASX.DG it almost immediately halts. Pressing makes the TC08 controller lights grind but no tape motion. TCRANX.DG is basically the same. Is there any documentation for these two programs? Thanks, Marc Howard

7 years

Anyone live near Walnut Creek, CA?

by tosteve＠yahoo.com

There's a weird Sord M23P (I think) from the early 80's at this elderly persons house in Walnut Creek, CA - East of the bay. She can't pack and ship it - it's too big and heavy. It was actually sent to her by mistake, it was supposed to be sent to my house, 500 miles away. It's nothing rare or valuable - you can actually have it if you go and pick it up - I really just want it out of her house. Let me know! Steve

7 years

COMX-35

by james＠slor.net

Anyone happen to have one for sale/trade?

7 years

Audio Devices, Inc. company history?

by cclist＠sydex.com

I've got a few old reels of milk-chocolate brown 7-track tape here and was wondering if it's possible to date them accurately. The reels themselves have the Audio Devices name molded into them; the rear white flange is quite yellowed with age. The tapes have been used quite heavily as they've been shortened to much less than 2400'. I know that AD and EMI had a merger agreement with Capitol on their vinyl business around 1967 and that the result was spun off as EMI. That leaves the tape business. It seems that CDC acquired some or all of AD in 1969, but I can find no details. Does anyone remember these folks? They used to be *the* major tape supplier in the USA. --Chuck

7 years

Core memory single-core datasheet

by jos.dreesen＠greenmail.ch

Not that I expect anyone to have a need for it, but just for the heck of it : here are a few datasheets for single cores ( From a Philips Databook 1973 ) ftp://ftp.dreesen.ch/Cores/CoreMemory_core_datasheet.pdf Enjoy.. Jos

7 years

updates to the Alpha Micro Phun Machine

by spectre＠floodgap.com

Besides link cleanups and custodial changes, there is now a model-specific page for the Eagle 450, one of the earliest ColdFire systems extant, plus performance statistics for many of the machines and several more newly uploaded freeware games. Hosted on an Alpha Micro Eagle 300. http://ampm.floodgap.com/ -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- It's not an optical illusion. It just looks like one. -- Phil White --------

7 years

M7264 Troubleshooting

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Josh Dersch > how is the backplane in the H11 currently configured? (i.e. what boards > are in what slots?) Could the issue here be something as simple as a > break in the qbus due to a misplaced board? He did mention that he had the console card in the slot next to the CPU, which I think is what you're referring to - but it shouldn't matter for ODT, which doesn't use interrupts, only programmed I/O. A QBUS system will work fine without continuity of grant (interrupt, DMA) lines to boards which only respond to DATI/DATO (memory, non-interrupt I/O, etc). Just for grins, I took my -11/03, and plugged the console card in a bunch of slots down, leaving several empty slots between it and the CPU, and it worked 'fine': ODT was fine, and it would run "BR ." programs fine, too. So unless there's actually a break in one of the 'broadcast' bus lines (e.g. BDALxx, etc) on that backplane, between the CPU slot, and the slot the console card is in, or something like that... I suppose it would be worth while checking BDALn, BSYNC and BDIN _on the console card_ (I'm not sure where he was looking at them, before) just to rule out the broken bus line possibility. One thing that's bugging me, though; he said "BDAL3-13 .. are all active and jump around in some manner". But for the ODT microcode loop trying to read the console CSR, i.e. 0177560, BDAL7 (0200) and BDAL3 (010) should be 0, i.e. un-asserted. So why are they jumping around too? Is this somehow related to the odd behaviour I was seeing on my machine with no console card, where the BDAL line was behaving in a way I couldn't understand? I'm going to look into that more, to try and understand what I'm seeing there, but it won't be today, which is 'crane day'! Noel

7 years

9-Track Magtape Drive ID

by nf6x＠nf6x.net

Does anybody here recognize the make and model of this tape drive? https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D7_mfdfUIAMcTly.jpg -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net> http://www.nf6x.net/

7 years

Updates to the Dick Smith System 80 site

by terry＠webweavers.co.nz

Apologies for cross-posting. I've added a few new bits and pieces to the Dick Smith System 80 site. If anyone is interested, take a look at the first three entries under this link. https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/system-80/whats_new.htm Incidentally, this month is somewhat of a milestone. It's 20 years since the site went live! Terry Stewart (Tez)

7 years

Found today

by imp＠bsdimp.com

Found the Ultrix poster from 1984 I was asking about today when cleaning out my truck: https://twitter.com/bsdimp/status/1134855890689855488 Warner

7 years

DEC QBUS power supply minimum load

by dj.taylor4＠comcast.net

The M7264 CPU thread reminded me of the collection of LSI-11 CPU's that I have and want to get up and running.? A very useful thread. This may have been covered some time in the past, but, my question is "What is the minimum load for the power supply in the BA11-M, -N and BA23 boxes?" Is it possible to create a load board, like the board you find in the sbox BA213 VAX's that ensure a minimum load on the power supply? Doug

7 years

11/93 next step

by rodsmallwood52＠btinternet.com

Hi ???? Well we are moving forward. The 160336 alternate RQDX3 address and vector have been confirmed as OK by one of our Techno Mages. So rather than an RX50 I'll give an RX33 whirl. A floppy disk way in means I can enhance the baseline RT system. Time to dig out all of the Q-bus controllers and see what else we can add. I have a Viking SCSI controller. That might be interesting as an alternative to the CQD. I think I may have Q bus controllers for my RX01 and RX02. AKA as 'Clonk City' 11/93 is no end of fun. Best thing since my brother fell in the slurry pit 60 years ago. Rod --

7 years

Uniprobe

by abacos_98＠yahoo.com

If anybody is interested in building? Jorge Hoppe's Uniprobe, I have some PCB's available. I made a few extra to keep the price down. Price is $40 ea shipped in the CONUS. These have Silver fingers rather than Gold but should still hold up well. Build information is on Retrocomp. Brian.

7 years

11/93 rebuild

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Holm Tiffe >> The "--list" command to 'dd' gives a whole bunch of stuff: > aha: > $ dd --list > dd: unknown operand --list I was talking about the program I had mentioned in the previous email, "dd for Windows". The "--list" command to it produced that long list of devices (the list you edited out of the reply), so it definitely works there. > Nobody in a PDP11 is interested what Windows thinks about partitions. Understood, but in my previous email I had given an example using a uSloth partition: >> dd-removable if=UnixRoot of=\\?\Device\Harddisk2\Partition0 count=4872 seek=131072 so when your reply mentioned "partitions" ("You have to have an already existing parition structure on the disk") it was natural to assume you meant those - especially since there was a plausible reading of your comment involving them (i.e. 'does "dd for Windows" only work on a disk with an existing uSloth partition structure on it'). > Most of the PDP11 SCSI Controllers could build two or more PDP11 disks > out of one physical device. That is what I meant with partition in this > case .. There is some logical information on the device, you simply > don't get the entire raw device on the pdp as you possibly think. That's a good point, and perhaps there's no existing way to write a SCSI disk >from a Windoze box in a way that the PDP11 SCSI controllers can grok. I don't know enough about how they work to answer that. > Tapes have no such restrictions Right, but one has to have a tape drive; the OP may not. Noel

7 years

DEC R80 HDA details

by shadoooo＠gmail.com

Hello, I'm in the process of cleaning and hopefully restore to operation of a DEC R80. The unit has some minor sign of corrosion, however it's VERY dirty, even inside the hood. The filters are obviously to be removed and replaced, as they are disintegrating. Also foam parts between the boards must be replaced. Aside from obvious parts, there's something that should be replaced / cleaned inside the HDA (foams, filters or rubbers), which could damage the disk permanently in case it's turned on after decades if not "cured" before? Anybody has some good pictures of the HDA inside, after cover removal? Thanks Andrea

7 years

Process accounting - did anyone ever use it?

by cctalk＠gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net

(Credit the Quotas thread for prompting this.) Did anyone ever use process accounting? Did they actually bill departments (funny money)? I was always intrigued by process accounting, but never had a use for it myself. I guess I can thank process accounting for causing the discrepancy that Cliff Stole tracked down that became The Cuckoo's Egg. :-) -- Grant. . . . unix || die

7 years

11/93 Rebuild - SCSI HD now boots RT11

by rodsmallwood52＠btinternet.com

Hi ??? Well I now have a bootable SCSI drive on my 11/93. Its not RSTS/E (yet) but it is RT 11 and reliable. Its a bit baseline but it runs. So next up was to see if we could get the RQDX3 to co-exist with the SCSI controller. I switched the base address to 160336 and it does not stop the SCSI drive booting as DU0. Had the RQDX3 been on the normal base address I think you would get the HD as DU0 and the two halves of an RX50 as the next two drives. But what happens to the RX50's when you move the RQDX3 to 160336 ? Rod --

7 years

How to format Dectape (TC08 + TU56)

by cramcram＠gmail.com

Hi, I fired up the 8/A tonight and the TU56's are failing diags. I want to format a tape for scratch use but I can't find the MAINDEC that does this (along with flipping up the backplane switch. Can someone refresh me on the proceedure? Thanks, Marc Howard

7 years

RIP: John Parsons

by wh.sudbrink＠verizon.net

I have unfortunately just discovered that John Parsons, who shared my interest in the Cromemco Cyclops and spoke at VCF East XI, passed away on March 29th: https://www.kentandpelczarfh.com/obituary/john-parsons Bill S. --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

7 years

Reddist offer: PDP-11/34a available for free in the Coachella Valley

by lproven＠gmail.com

https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/comments/bunk5m/pdp1134a_availabl… -- Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

7 years

Post?

by mark＠meba.com

Did my post for the HP printer get posted? I haven't seen it. Mark

7 years

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