On 15 Dec 2007 at Robert Nansel <bnansel at bigpond.net.au>:
> * Delay lines: I have a junk magnetostrictive DL on the way. I
> don't know if it works.
Golly, if you're talking about producing your own drum, a
magnetostrictive delay line would seem to be like a walk in the park.
Find some nickel wire; make a large-looped coil with the turns
supported by something like neoprene spacers so that they're
mechanically isolated; put a coil on each end. Shock-mount the whole
affair in a box.
The Packard-Bell 250 was a great little machine along the lines that
you're contemplating. Used delay-line memory and had a 22-bit word.
You could plug it into a 115-volt wall outlet. Few transistors and
lots of diodes, IIRC. Really one of the earliest minicomputers
around. There are several that are extant. I recall seeing the
memory in a 250 and being surprised at its simplicity.
> I was thinking I would implement a data stack and a return stack,
> each being made of short recirculating buffers to hold the top two or
> three stack entries, with the older entries swapped to longer buffers
> with corresponding longer access times. Allowing for the overall
> insanity level of this project, is this seem a sane strategy?
Sounds pretty complicated to me. Why not a simple one-plus-one
architecture? It may not be fast, but then, no drum- or delay-line-
based machine is going to be a speed demon...
Cheers,
Chuck
Would I be more-or-less correct if I assumed that the bulk of hard-
sectored diskettes in use fell into two groups: 16-sector 5.25" and
32-sector 8"? I know that there are other physical formats, but I'm
wondering if that would have 90% coverage?
Thanks,
Chuck
-----REPLY-----
Chuck,
If I were to pick two of the most common, I would pick 10 sector 5.25" hard
sector floppy disks and the 32 sector 8" hard sector floppy disks. There is
a less common 16 sector 5.25" hard sector floppy disk as well used on Vector
Graphic, AES, Exidy Sorceror, and a few other exotic platforms.
Of course, none of the hard sector media are exactly common...
[drifting slightly off thread but in a related manner]
BTW, I did get Catweasel Vector Graphic working. I am in testing now and
will be changing the output format to support the simulator work underway
presently. Nothing major; just time consuming and the usual stuff.
My Catweasel programs seem to work fine but are not really designed for easy
modification. Quick hacks rarely are. It turns out to be major oversight
though; there are even more diverse and incompatible disk formats for VG
than for NorthStar or Heath which is really saying something.
The frakkin' hard sector disk formats are just crazy in the ways things vary
>from one vendor to the next and even within different OS's from the same
vendor. "No rules for hard sector disks" is a profound understatement!
Thanks!
Andrew Lynch
Apple I is Vince's deal -- www. brielcomputing.com (or maybe it is "brielcomputers.com" or something like that...)
-----Original Message-----
From: "Matt Lichtenberg" <kerobaros at gmail.com>
Subj: Small SBC kits for Christmas!
Date: Sat Dec 15, 2007 9:23 am
Size: 918 bytes
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
So, every year I like to get myself a little something; this year, I'm
probably going to be getting a new computer (outside the realms of
this list), but I'd also like to get some kind of single-board kit
that I can work on.
I'd like something along the lines of a ZX-81 kit, although it looks
like those are selling for somewhere around $250, when you can find
one. SpareTimeGizmos' Elf 2000 kit also looks fantastic, but I don't
have an 1802 or an 1861 to use in the thing, and I'd rather not hunt
any down. (If anyone wants to get rid of theirs, though, let me know.
*grin*)
Has anyone seen any similar kits out there? They don't have to be
useful for anything, just fun to play with, and not horribly difficult
to put together. I can solder fairly well, and I'm mean with a
multimeter, but I don't have the money for my own oscilloscope; I just
use other peoples' when they're not looking. Thanks, folks!
~Matt
The SDS9300 I used to service had a drum memory, unfortunatley can't
remember the type but I do recall that the drum was slightly tapered and
had a rising bearing assembly. As the drum finally ran up to speed it rose
an amount to bring the heads to the correct position and gap.
Basically a "parking" system, when stopped the drum had dropped, so the
heads were not at their working position. Heads were adjusted for position
with the drum stopped using gauges, so as it was stopped and down you did
not risk damaging the track. Spin it up to speed and the heads
automatically got to the tracks and flying height.
I recall it being about 2ft in diameter and about 4ft tall took about 30
seconds to come to speed and had its own motor generator set as it ran on
a dedicated 60 cycle supply not the usual 50 we have here in the UK. I
think it had 4 banks of 24 heads in fixed position. It was the one bit of
kit we did not touch, a specialist used to fly in from the US once a year
to check it and rewrite the timing tracks.
Mike
Al,
A while back you asked for the Versaplot sources, I have them here with a port to the PC DOS (Ryan-Mcfarland Fortran).
I also found them on the web:
http://history.dcs.ed.ac.uk/archive/apps/edwin/randomvms/
A google of versaplot turned this up, and also some manuals in what looks like troff format.
It looks like all the DECUS stuff is out there itoo f you google a bit.
I would like to see your MOVIE.BYU!
Randy
_________________________________________________________________
i?m is proud to present Cause Effect, a series about real people making a difference.
http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/MTV/?source=text_Cause_Effect
Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:52:29 -0800
From: "Rick Bensene" <rickb at bensene.com>
> Some of the smaller drum-based computers from the late '50's and earlu
> '60's (transistorized) had drums that didn't rotate nearly as fast as
> 6000 RPM.
I don't know--the drum on the IBM 650 spun at 12,500 RPM, was 4
inches in diameter and about a foot long.
This is not a project I'd launch into lightly. In the 70's and 80's
Meshna would occasionally offer a mil-surplus drum unit for sale
usually from some some airborne installation (i.e. used in radar).
Lots of heads and no guarantee.
The precision necessary in the mechanicals is pretty daunting. The
heads fly at a few micrometers above the surface of the drum, which
pretty much mandates some sort of clean-room environment. The
bearings would need close to zero runout and getting the surface of
the drum coated smoothly enough, either by plating or with a magnetic
emulsion would also be an obstacle.
If you have a good precision machine shop and mechanical engineering
skills at your disposal, you could try it.
Personally, I'd rather work something up with a magnetostrictive
delay line memory--easier to build and quite robust--and just as
"vintage".
I recall that even in the 70's, drums had their problems. On the CDC
STAR, every so often, a station would go down because of a "drum
error"--more frequently than the disk drives encountered errors. You
could make the heads on a Univac Fastrand II drum "ping" just by
jumping up and down on the floor near the monster. I also recall
that the ADL folks at CDC were working on a "super drum"--a very high
speed unit that spun in a vacuum(IIRC) to be used as a paging store
for the STAR. I recall the Neil Lincoln mentioned that the time
between the observation window being clear and coated with drum
surface was typically a few minutes at best.
There's a nice story about the Manchester Mark I drum here:
http://www.computer50.org/mark1/gethomas/manchester_drums.html
About the only item of the correct size and tolerances that's readily
available today, it seems to me, would be the drum unit out of a
laser printer or copier. I don't know if the OPC layer could be
easily stripped off and replaced with oxide, but it might be worth a
try.
If you're really serious abou this, I'd be willing to donate a head
>from a CDC 808 disk unit--4 bit parallel recording.
Cheers,
Chuck
Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:55:51 -0500
From: "Andrew Lynch" <lynchaj at yahoo.com>
Subject: KayPro II keyboard schematic?
>Hi,
>I recently bought a KayPro II keyboard. It contains a nice Keytronics
>mechanical keyboard and really nice case. I'd like to convert it to a
>parallel ASCII keyboard or just reuse its case but was wondering if anyone
>had the schematics?
>Please let me know if you have the KapPro II keyboard schematics. Thanks!
>Andrew Lynch
-------------
How about leaving the keyboard intact and just adding a simple serial>parallel
converter between it and the VG box? Add an EPROM for code conversion
if necessary.
I've got some serial interface cards for Olivetti typewriters (with schematics) that
you could probably hack fairly easily if you didn't want to start from scratch; even
FIFO buffers for typeahead, although you wouldn't need that with a Vector.
mike
>
>Subject: Re: Homebrew Drum Computer
> From: Gordon JC Pearce <gordonjcp at gjcp.net>
> Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:42:34 +0000
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
>On Friday 14 December 2007 14:19:06 Jules Richardson wrote:
>
>> Very interesting project. Won't standard tape heads only work reliably if
>> the magnetic material's passing by at quite a narrow range of speeds,
>> though? Google suggests that's 1 7/8" per second, which isn't very fast at
>> all - a drum that can do a few tens of RPM seems possible, but 6000??
>
>I don't think it makes a difference. The higher the speed, the larger the
>voltage from the flux transition, but that shouldn't be a problem (within
>reason). The head gap and medium speed dictates the "resolution" of the
>system. You can think of it as being like trying to write with different
>sizes of pen nib.
>
>Look at reel-to-reel audio recorders - they may run at a variety of speeds,
>giving a tradeoff between audio quality and recording time. You can use a
>higher flux density with a larger head gap (and a correspondingly larger
>drive signal), but you need to haul the tape through faster to maintain the
>bandwidth.
However the inductance of the head windings are a significant factor in
how high you can go for bandwidth.
>On playback, you get the problem that higher frequencies produce a higher
>voltage, hence the need for equalisation (not unlike the RIAA curve for
>magnetic record pickups).
>
>In this case you probably just want to detect the presence or absence (or
>possibly polarity) of a pulse. Equalisation won't be a worry.
At low bit densities it's not an issue otherwise you get into peak shift.
Low being around 300FCPI (Flux Changes Per Inch) based on testing I did
30 years ago. I was using the best ferrite heads I could get my hands on
>from top of the line analog casette decks. Those heads were very limited
and heads from 1/4" machines performed far better and still limited me
to under 600FCPI at 15ips (~4800 bits sec) for NRZI and I could hit 9.6k
using phase encoding. Most audio heads are not so hot for saturation
work.
Allison
>Gordon
>
>Subject: Re: Homebrew Drum Computer
> From: Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk>
> Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 08:19:06 -0600
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
>Robert Nansel wrote:
>> Certainly I could trash a few old cassette decks, or even get some
>> floppy R/W heads to experiment with audio recording tape super-glued to
>> a soda can, but I really want to get at least the performance the old
>> machines could produce, so that means a reasonably fast drum RPM,
>> somewhere around 6000 RPM, say.
>
>Very interesting project. Won't standard tape heads only work reliably if the
>magnetic material's passing by at quite a narrow range of speeds, though?
>Google suggests that's 1 7/8" per second, which isn't very fast at all - a
>drum that can do a few tens of RPM seems possible, but 6000??
Correct, there is a relationship between gap width and media speed.
I've used casette heads to 10ips but above that there are problems.
one is the total inductance of the winding limit the upper frequency
reponse (used as saturation recording head) to around 40khz and thats
pushing it.
Allison
>
>If I've got my numbers right, a small 6" drum has a diameter of approx 19" and
>at 6000rpm will take 1/100 seconds to do a single revolution. That's 1900" per
>second past each head - roughly 1000 times the typical operating speed of a
>cassette deck.
>
>Build several low-speed soda can drums - equivalent in number to the word
>length of your machine, then read/write data in parallel... (OK, that's a
>humourous suggestion, but it wouldn't surprise me if someone hasn't tried it)
>
>cheers
>
>Jules
> My main component storage is a set of interlocking drawers arranged in a
> block about 4 feet wide by 3 high. Some drawers are square-fronted
> (about 1.5" sq) and some are double-width. The resistors are in
> double-width drawers, with two E12 values per drawer. First row is
> 10/12 ohm, 15/18 ohm, 22/27, 33/39, 47/56, 68/82. Next is 100/120, etc,
> then 1k0/1k2, etc, and so on up to 680k/820k, then the last row is
> assorted "1M to 8M2", "10M and over", "less than 10R", "high wattage",
> and things like that. For E24 and closer-tolerance values, I just put
> them in the drawer that's got the nearest-matching label. Capacitors I
> have squeezed into 1 row, one decade to a drawer, and a couple of bigger
> drawers for larger electrolytics. The really big ones are in a box
> elsewhere.
So spookily similar I'm now very very worried ! or perhaps its a British
thing.
> To give an example of how the ICs are stored, there's a drawer for "LS00 -
> LS80" or thereabouts, with the lower end of that range stored in the
> front and the upper half in the rear section of the drawer. So there
> are 4 or 5 drawers for each logic family. Two places I used to work had
> one drawer per type but that's overkill for my collection.
One drawer for 2-4 types for Ic's Transistors diodes.
Mike
> Message: 6
> Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 06:12:19 -0800 (PST)
> From: Mr Ian Primus <ian_primus at yahoo.com>
> So, now I think I need to actually, finally organize my parts. You see, I
> started to do this a long time
> ago, and I have a lot of those little plastic drawers. I got about as far
> as the basic parts, and half way
> through the electrolytics. Everything else is semi-sorted into drawers,
> albiet with rather vauge
I set up some of those drawers years ago (more than 25, eek) resistors and
caps sorted by value, Ics transistors diodes by type #.
I was in small scale production and the system seemed to work well enough.
Untill recently I had a couple of regular products for customers who shipped
in parts so they had a set of drawers for themselves and a very basic stock
control system on an Excel spreadsheet. No longer in production but still
have the drawers, a pain to set up but many years ago, but I can find most
things I want in seconds.
> Otherwise, you'll spend two hours just trying to find that 330 ohm current
> limiting resistor you need.
Thats why I set it up.
> about - how bad is it to store IC's in those clear plastic parts drawers?
> Any problem with static?
> What about CMOS chips?
A lot of my personal stuff is older 74 flavours, that does not seem to
suffer static problems, Cmos is kept in antistatic foam or those black a/s
carriers that the I/c's are shipped in. I have a whole box full of empty
carriers if somebody wants them. I'cs shipped in A/s tubes are kept in tube
untill used.
The system has served me well over the years, a bit anal maybe but it worked
for me.
Mike
SEBHC - the Society of Eight-Bit Heath Computerists - has become a
Google group. If you are interested in the H8, the H89, the better half
of the H/Z100, or the ETxx trainers, please come join us. We maintain an
extensive archive of Heath 8-bit software, both HDOS and CP/M, as well
as a large collection of hardware and software documentation.
This is a great group which includes several ex-Heath employees as well
as others deeply versed in the workings of these computers.
The group is closed in the interests of sanity and to protect the
archive; if you're interested come to
http://groups.google.com/group/sebhc?lnk=gschg and request membership.
Jack
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.16.9/1155 - Release Date:
11/27/2007 8:30 PM
-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Richard <legalize at xmission.com>
>
> OK, with my new Origin 2000 machines, I was thinking that I could use
> these SGI drives+sleds that I had purchased previously, where the
> seller said they would work in Onyx2/Origin machines. However, while
> the sleds appear compatible, the drive interface is not.
>
> Is there any online guide that compares the different drive sled
> designs for SGI machines so that I can compare what's being offered on
> ebay to identify the machines that can use it?
>
> For instance, my drives have a high density connector that is only
> about 1" long, but the Origin 2000 has a high density connector that
> looks to be about 2-2.5" long.
>
> Is my only recourse to scrape through individual manuals to try and
> find diagrams?
> --
> "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
> <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
>
> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
Hi Richard
The ones I have seen take standars SCA drives ????
Power and data in the same connector ??? The Connector is a little more
rugged looking. same as a Later Sun.
- Jerry
Hi,
I recently bought a KayPro II keyboard. It contains a nice Keytronics
mechanical keyboard and really nice case. I'd like to convert it to a
parallel ASCII keyboard or just reuse its case but was wondering if anyone
had the schematics?
Please let me know if you have the KapPro II keyboard schematics. Thanks!
Andrew Lynch
LisaEm 1.2.0 is available for download right now, from the usual place:
http://lisaem.sunder.net/downloads.html
Many LisaEm users have complained that ROMs are too difficult to
extract. The new version of LisaEm solves this by allowing you to run
with out a ROM. If you wanted to try LisaEm, but couldn't because you
didn't have ROMs for it, now you can!
It emulates the functions of the Lisa Boot ROM as well as the Dual
Parallel Card without requiring a ROM, and allows you to boot into Lisa
Office System. If you've felt limited by only having a single
emulated Profile hard drive because you didn't have the Dual Parallel
ROM, the new version also emulates these, without requiring a ROM.
All you need is Lisa Office System and LisaEm.
As this is the first release of this feature, don't be surprised if you
encounter bugs. Please report any unexpected behavior so that I can fix
it. :-)
Additionally, I've added two movies that show how to install Lisa Office
System and MacWorks. (MacWorks still doesn't work properly on LisaEm
however.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lisa Emulator Change History
http://lisaem.sunder.net/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2007.09.19 - fixed romless floppy boot to always boot from floppy and not
switch to Profile.
2007.09.15 - debugging ROMless boot.
new bug: when trying to boot from floppy, if a profile exists
and is bootable, LOS starts up from the Profile instead of the
floppy.
2007.09.09 - David Cecchin's XPM icon in unix
2007.09.07 - added Save/Load PRAM to Preferences
- Quit now closes any open Preference window as well
2007.08.29 - libdc42 macbinii encoded dart to dc42 conversion bugfix
2007.08.16 - added LOS error codes to ROMless error handler
- fix raw screenshot crash
2007.08.13 - got both ROMless boot and ROMless dual parallel card to work
2007.08.06 - individual profile power controls + create new profile inside
a new menu named profile.
2007.07.28 - replaced all exit() and EXIT() calls with messages before
quitting emulator so at least we know what crashed.
2007.07.27 - ROMless works with both profile and floppy now.
- Fixed a bug with configuration saving.
2007.07.26 - Tracelog checkmark correction
2007.07.25 - added Zap PRAM button in main Preferences panel
2007.07.23 - ROMLess booting - floppy works
2007.07.19 - ROMLess booting start
2007.07.12 - RESET opcode supervisor mode bug fix.
2007.07.10 - CPU core tests
If you'd like to support this project, you can do so by sending me
something from my Amazon wish list. (Used books and DVD's are
perfectly fine with me.) The trains are for my kid. :)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/14EOBF86ARMDT/ref=wl_web/
Well, I've made lots of progress on the eternal task
of cleaning, sorting and organizing. I can now see my
entire workbench! I found half a dozen #2 Phillips
screwdrivers I hadn't seen in a while, and while
vacuuming, I probably picked up a couple pounds of
screws, wire insulation bits and solder drops.
So, now I think I need to actually, finally organize
my parts. You see, I started to do this a long time
ago, and I have a lot of those little plastic drawers.
I got about as far as the basic parts, and half way
through the electrolytics. Everything else is
semi-sorted into drawers, albiet with rather vauge
categories "Transistors... Diodes..." or completely
unsorted (Salsa jars, butter tubs, shoe boxes, coffee
cans and Altoids tins). So now, I need to sit down,
for a good long day, and sort parts into drawers.
And herein lies my question - how do you manage a
large parts collection? I mean, the phrase "junkbox"
generally referrs to a somewhat organized system of
finding parts, not just a copier paper box full of
parts. Otherwise, you'll spend two hours just trying
to find that 330 ohm current limiting resistor you
need.
So - how do other electronic hobbyists sort parts? How
far do you organize them? A drawer for each value of
resistor? Drawer for a range of values? What works
well, to minimize the time spend searching for
components? Also, another thing I have been wondering
about - how bad is it to store IC's in those clear
plastic parts drawers? Any problem with static? I've
never noticed any, but then again, so far I've only
got a handfull of basic TTL logic sorted out. The rest
are still in tubes and boxes. What about CMOS chips?
So, I'd be interested to hear what other people have
to say on the subject - and Jay, I hope this is
on-topic enough. I mean, these are all parts used for
repairing and maintaining on-topic hardware, so I
think it counts. All of us that fix this stuff need to
keep track of parts. The next time I need a 1488 to
repair a terminal that won't transmit, I don't want to
spend four hours trying to find it.
-Ian
------------Original Message:
Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 06:12:19 -0800 (PST)
From: Mr Ian Primus <ian_primus at yahoo.com>
Subject: Semi-OT:Storing electronic parts
Well, I've made lots of progress on the eternal task
of cleaning, sorting and organizing. I can now see my
entire workbench! I found half a dozen #2 Phillips
screwdrivers I hadn't seen in a while, and while
vacuuming, I probably picked up a couple pounds of
screws, wire insulation bits and solder drops.
So, now I think I need to actually, finally organize
my parts. You see, I started to do this a long time
ago, and I have a lot of those little plastic drawers.
I got about as far as the basic parts, and half way
through the electrolytics. Everything else is
semi-sorted into drawers, albiet with rather vauge
categories "Transistors... Diodes..." or completely
unsorted (Salsa jars, butter tubs, shoe boxes, coffee
cans and Altoids tins). So now, I need to sit down,
for a good long day, and sort parts into drawers.
And herein lies my question - how do you manage a
large parts collection? I mean, the phrase "junkbox"
generally referrs to a somewhat organized system of
finding parts, not just a copier paper box full of
parts. Otherwise, you'll spend two hours just trying
to find that 330 ohm current limiting resistor you
need.
-Ian
------------Reply:
Boy, does that sound familiar!
For resistors, I was lucky enough to have a lot of small plastic
boxes that Sprague used to put their caps into; they're stacked
up in a couple of small partitioned cardboard parts bins.
Things like tantalum caps, fuses, hardware etc. I keep in those
small partitioned clear plastic craft boxes.
Diodes and small transistors are in individual small paper
bag/envelopes, which in turn are in small cardboard boxes,
file folder style. You could use the same for resistors & caps.
Bigger parts go into the same partitioned cardboard parts bins
use for the resistor boxes.
ICs I keep loose in drawers, unless I have a lot of one type which I keep
in tubes; a few special MOS ones I kept in foam, but have had a
few go bad with pin rot from a certain type of foam. Just keep the
humidity reasonable.
The problem with semi-inflexible systems like drawers is adding
new items; I finally started a spreadsheet cross-referencing IC
numbers to drawer/compartment so I don't have to worry about keeping
them in any sequence and can also double up, and it also gives me an
idea of what I've got (as long as I remember to keep it current ;-)
mike
The machine is available in Portland Or or preferably, up the gorge in
Goldendale Wa. which is located about 100 miles east of Portland.
The machine could be shipped, but it would require a pallet for the
case, foam for the monitor and separate packing for the drive and boards.
I'm not sure how much it's worth. I have had an offer for $370. So I
guess thats a start.
The system includes the mono hi-res graphics monitor, space cadet
keyboard, full document (user) set, but no hardware prints (sorry)
and a frame tosser board. I'll throw in a couple bus mice, but they will
need to be rewired. I'll fire it up and verify that it still boots. (it
did 6 months ago)
If you pick it up in goldendale, I'll let you dig around in my shed for
other goodies.
The machine is badged as a XL400 but boot reports a XL1200. I assume
it's the extra memory and possibly software upgrades.
It has been stored inside, in a clean dry environment since I picked it
up about 7 years ago.
Jim Davis.
Hi Folks,
As many of you know, the venerable Mike Quinn Electronics in San
Leandro, CA (down by the Oakland Airport) closed last Saturday with
virtually no advance notice. If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area,
you know Mike Quinn is the one of the very last of the nitty gritty
electronics salvage shops left, with an emphasis on gritty.
I stopped by today, and mentioned to Maurice, the owner, that a lot
of people would have liked to have had one last shot at a visit. So,
he has extented an invitation to y'all to visit next week, Tuesday
through Friday February 7-10, 2006, during normal business hours, for
one last shopping spree. He is trying to find a buyer for the stock
in the store. This is almost certainly the last chance to visit. If
you can, it's worth doing whatever you have to do to make the
pilgrimage. Buy some stuff to thank Maurice for keeping it going all
this time.
There are zillions of connectors and components, heaps of
transformers and power supplies, scads of cables and keyboards and
monitors and other PC junk, a jet fighter console or two, a couple of
early 80's HP desktop computers (the ones with built-in BASIC, can't
recall the model numbers), lots of relays, and much more, all
arranged in an archaeologically interesting and un-seismically-safe
way. If you need it, they have it, and they might even be able to
find it.
Mike Quinn Electronics
401 McCormick Street (at the corner of Adams and McCormick)
San Leandro, CA 94577
Brian
A few days ago, someone asked about TRADIC. Tonight I stumbled upon a mention of this computer on page 204 of the book "Crystal Fire" (Michael Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson, 1997). The authors wrote, "In January 1954 Whippany engineers built a fully transistorized computer for the Air Force. Called TRADIC (for TRAnsistorized DIgital Computer), it used 700 point-contact transistors and more than 10,000 germanium crystal rectifiers in its circuits. Capable of performing a million logical operations every second, TRADIC was the first completely solid-state computer; it approached the speed of computers based on vacuum tubes."
By "Whippany" they meant the Whippany, N.J. location of Bell Labs.
I'm cleaning off my workbench and don't need this paperweight:
Archive 5945L-3 QIC drive with daughter-board.
It's a 60 mb drive but the card had no useful numbers.
I suspect it's a QIC-02 to QIC-36 adapter.
If anyone's still using such things, let me know, it's available!
Jeff Jonas jeffj at panix.com
Well, they may not be exactly "classic" but they were interesting
machines in their time...
I have two (2) SGI Origin 2000 systems.... It's an 8 node, 195Mhz
R10000, 512Mbyte, CD, 4Gbyte disk..
Has two HVD (high voltage differential as opposed to the current
LVD ).. interfaces on each... and a PCI card adapter.. and a bunch
of cables for connecting external disks and whatnot.
Both are free for the taking and are located in Tucson..., and both
were working when last turned off... stored in an air-conditioned
corporate office.
I'll help you load one or both onto your truck !!
Mike
I listed a CRT on ebay and received no bids. If anybody in the US would
like to pay for shipping, you can have it.
I was told it was a replacement CRT for a TRS-80 (model 3 or 4, I guess)
>from the guy who gave it to me. It is unused and thus has no burn in.
Search ebay for auction #120193025277. Or you can view a greater
variety of full scale images here:
http://home.pacbell.net/frustum/ebay/tube/
Even if you don't have a trs-80 with a dead tube, perhaps you can turn
it into a cool large screen vectrex instead.
Good Morning Mark
Have you had any luck or info on the Ricoh RH5500 drive.
Thanks
Colin
Official Airline and Sponsor of the Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2008
www.gulfair.com
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