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101090 discussions

Fujitsi 2444AC 9-track tape drive/PDP-11

by w2hx＠w2hx.com

Hello friends, I recently acquired a NIB 9-track for use in my (someday to be operational) PDP-11/23+ or PDP-11/73 (I've lost track of the details). I got it on ebay for $150 but the shipping from CA to NY was not insubstantial :). The ebay ad showed a well-used unit but when it arrived it was clearly new in box! Nice when that happens :) Some pix: http://w2hx.com/x/VintageComp/Fujitsu-2444AC/ It is VERY heavy! Took me and my 17 year old (and a lot of sweat and swearing) to get it up to the attic where my burgeoning little vintage computing lab is shaping up. I should mention, I'd like this tape drive to be able to work in either the various DEC OS's available (RT-11/RSX/others?) and also Unix/BSD which I plan (hope) to get up and running. Now for some questions. 1. I've been told the QT13 is a very good card to interface here. I've been looking for a while on ebay without luck. I do see a QT14 on ebay right now at a good price, but I am not familiar with the "S" card business and what that means for use in a PDP-11 backplane. 2. Anyone have a QT13 for sale? Or based on my dec and unix interests, is there a better/recommended card? 3. Anyone have the 50 pin cables/connectors available? If not I feel confident I could make these up. But I thought I'd ask in case someone has a set getting in their way 4. Anyone ever make a pertec to USB project? Might be interesting to get access to old tapes on more modern computers? Thanks all! 73 Eugene W2HX

7 years, 1 month

Service for converting CD-ROMs into ISO files?

by pdp11＠saccade.com

Hi, I have a stack of a few dozen CD-ROM disks with various files (old software, backup files, photos). I'm willing to pay a reasonable rate to have somebody read each of these in, convert them to .ISO files or some other reasonable format, and either make them downloadable or put them on a thumb drive. Does anybody know of such a service? I can find lots of services for converting audio CD's into MP3 files, but nothing that specifically handles data CD-ROMs. Any leads most appreciated. Please reply directly, as I don't often check this list. Thanks, jp

7 years, 1 month

Hayes Transet Manual and Software

by silent700＠gmail.com

One of my few remaining Holy Grail items, I got a Hayes Transet 1000 this week. My three-part Hayes stack is now complete. I've scanned the manual and quick-ref card. The scan is not up to the quality of my usual work, as I tried a new technique using a DSLR instead of a scanner so I wouldn't have to take the manual apart. The results are good enough to read, but that's about it. I'll re-do it again someday with the proper tools. Here's the link: http://chiclassiccomp.org/docs/index.php?dir=%2Fcomputing/Hayes I have two manuals for the config software (alas only the Mac version of the software itself), which I'll try to do soon. I'll image the Mac disk as well. If anyone has the PC version of the software, I'd love it have it. -j

7 years, 1 month

Looking for Silent 700 printhead

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

I have two Silent 700 terminals (model 745) that I bought quite a few years ago (nonworking). Couldn't find a schematic. Last week I just happened to search for one - and found a complete service manual with theory of operation and full schematics! So I got them on the workbench. The more worn one wouldn't print anything on the paper but was otherwise working. I found that the nylon printhead pressure adjustment wheel had split and fallen off the solenoid shaft into the case, along with the pressure spring. Then it would print, but I promptly discovered that the printhead has several "dots" missing in a pattern that could not be accounted for by the driver circuitry. I confirmed it by swapping the printhead from the other one, and now it prints perfectly. So at least I have one working now :) The second one in half-duplex mode will only beep (Ctrl-G), CR and LF in half-duplex mode, so I know the keyboard is alive and there is power. But it otherwise won't move the carriage forwards (including space), or print any characters at all. Before I go to the trouble of diagnosis and repair, does anyone have a good printhead, or know where I can find one? No point in fixing it if the characters won't be printing properly when I'm done... thanks Charles

7 years, 1 month

Old CE manuals

by cctalk＠emailtoilet.com

Still cleaning out for Nevada move. http://www.myimagecollection.com/cemanuals/ Last 2 are interesting. 2075 Processing Unit and some Russian machine EC4001. Number sounds familiar from my eBay sojourns. Available for cost of Media Mail shipping. These buggers are heavy. As last time, all or nothing. Donald

7 years, 1 month

RS2030 MIPS workstation

by pete＠dunnington.plus.com

Anyone know much about early MIPS workstations? I'm trying to get a MIPS RS2030 to boot, without much luck so far. It goes through the selftest but stops with the internal LED display at "5" accompanied by a continuous beep. Known problems: - The Dallas DS1287 battery is flat; I can hack a 3V lithium onto that. I assume it should still work to some extent even if the contents are lost? - The RAM is highly suspect. I think it needs a minimum of 8MB to start up. It has a good complement of SIPPs, but some of them are definitely non-original and are actually 30-pin SIMMs that somebody has done a rubbish job of soldering short stiff wires onto. So I'd like to know what the RAM spec really is, whether I need to reprogram the Dallas chip (and if so what goes where), and what the diagnostic numbers on the internal LED mean. Anyone? -- Pete Pete Turnbull

7 years, 1 month

I need some education (PDP)

by sales＠elecplus.com

So I called my buddy of 20+ years. Got old PDP junk left? Like what kinda junk? PDP 8 or 11? Hmm, got PDP 8 boards and BA11 boxes. PDP11 makes no sense, it is a series, 11/70 or what? I know NOTHING about this stuff. I told him slide in boxes with flippy switches. He laughed and said he will send me over a list of all the OLD DEC stuff left in the warehouse. Shipping will be from Calif. Pickup avail, or shipping, for rack stuff. Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

7 years, 1 month

found in the shelf - Case study of control data corporation 1958-1967 by Steven Arnold Estrin B.S.B

by couryhouse＠aol.com

Found in the shelf in smecc library - Case study of control data corporation 1958-1967 by Steven Arnold Estrin B.S.B ?a master's? thesis -? anyone know? him or this? Ed# at SMECC

7 years, 1 month

Decrepit old HDD

by sales＠elecplus.com

I have the opportunity to purchase some old 50-pin SCSI, ESDI, MFM, RLL etc. drives. There is no way to test them, and there are no refunds. There are no dents or obvious signs of damage, but that means noting. Is there any way to resurrect these if they are dead/defective? Any interest? Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

7 years, 1 month

Dallas drive

by sales＠elecplus.com

I plan to go to Dallas next week for a quick run. Things I know are there: IBM XT and AT computers with kbds, no monitors. (3 pallets last I checked) CASES of NIB 360K internal floppy drives (not diskettes) for the original IBM PC Some hdd for the original PCs, new and used Defective IBM monitors (flybacks are no longer made) Parts for 5140 computers, some NIB (no kbds) Original DEC things that have orange flippy switches-WARNING! Smells like dead rats and rat poop. Nasty condition! Looks something like this https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11 Lots of NIB off brand old computers, PCs, like Apex by Compaq Most of the stuff is PC or laptop related Let me know what u want and what u want to pay, I will bring it home and ship. Car will only hold so much. Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

7 years, 1 month

Q Bus front panel

by aek＠bitsavers.org

I thought about it.. but.. https://www.ebay.com/itm/133019966845

7 years, 1 month

Honeywell Terminals?

by healyzh＠avanthar.com

Out of curiosity, how common are Honeywell terminals like would have been used on a DPS-8? Zane

7 years, 1 month

Keyboards added today

by sales＠elecplus.com

Some you might want, since they go to Link terminals. http://www.elecshopper.com/nmb-rt8255c-at-keyboard.html http://www.elecshopper.com/fujitsu-fkb-4700-series-keyboard.html http://www.elecshopper.com/nmb-rt-101-keyboard-complete.html http://www.elecshopper.com/link-t27-keyboard.html http://www.elecshopper.com/macro-mc-27-keyboard.html Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

7 years, 1 month

Procedure to convert a vax into a stand alone workstation in a LAN

by ce.murillosanchez＠gmail.com

Hello; In my quest to try to see what the problem is with my vs/60, I want to convert it into a networked stand-alone machine, i.e. not use clustering at all.? What is the easiest way to do this? I still want it to do DECnet and TCPIP. Carlos.

7 years, 1 month

Looking for DEC M8017-AA jumper settings

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Mister PDP > reading through the "DLV11-E and DLV11-F asynchronous line interface > user's manual", the diagrams of the DLV11-E and F do not line up my > module. Oh, must be a later board rev, one that's not covered in EK-DLV11-OP-001. (I should have compared your pic with the manual illustration, sorry.) {Checks} Yes, there is a D rev etch; see page 22-3 of the "Microcomputer Products Handbook" (perhaps the single most useful book for early QBUS stuff - anyone who's working with that stuff should get one - they're not too hard to find on eBait). The layout corresponds with the image of yours. Noel

7 years, 1 month

Looking for DEC M8017-AA jumper settings

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Mister PDP > I have this DEC M8017-AA / DLV11 module that I am trying to configure > ... the only manuals or resources I can seem to scrounge up are for the > DLV11-E, DLV11-F, and DLV11-J. > If anybody knows what the jumper settings are, or where I can find > them Huh? According to EK-DLV11-OP-001, an M8017 _is_ a DLV11-E? If you need config info for a DLV11 (M7940), it's available in the "LSI-11, PDP-11/03 User's Manual" (EK-LSI11-TM-003), available in BitSavers. Noel

7 years, 1 month

Looking for DEC M8017-AA jumper settings

by vintagecomputersmn＠gmail.com

Hello, I have this DEC M8017-AA / DLV11 module that I am trying to configure to act as a console. I have been trying to find a manual to tell me what jumpers go where, but the only manuals or resources I can seem to scrounge up are for the DLV11-E, DLV11-F, and DLV11-J. If anybody knows what the jumper settings are, or where I can find them, I would really appreciate it. Here is a image of the board I am trying to configure: https://ibb.co/MS3hphz Thank You, Gavin

7 years, 1 month

Modern Rack Rails in Classic Racks?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Zane Healy > How safe is it to put modern rack rails (HP) in a classic DEC Rack? May I ask why you're doing that? Are you trying to mount modern units in an old rack? If you're trying to mount old units (RK05's, BA11's, etc) in an old rack, I've been working on finding old slide-mounts; e.g. I know the thing to order for RK05's. Noel

7 years, 1 month

Q Bus front panel

by couryhouse＠aol.com

THAT IS? NEAT? AL NEVER? SAW THIS? BEFORE....THERE? WAS ALSO A? ?CHASSIS? THAT? DEC MADE? SORT? OF A LAB? COMPUTER TYPE OF THING THAT HAD? A? SWITCH AND LIGHT? FRONT PANEL AT ONE? TIME? FOR Q BUS??? I SEEM TO REMEMBER A? BROCHURE? ?ON IT ... AND IT IS? HERE.... SOMEWHERE. ED# In a message dated 4/29/2019 6:27:23 PM US Mountain Standard Time, aek at bitsavers.orgwrites: I thought about it.. but..https://www.ebay.com/itm/133019966845

7 years, 1 month

Tek 4010 emulator

by aek＠bitsavers.org

for people not following alt.sys.pdp11 https://alt.sys.pdp11.narkive.com/k2ZKIuuw/pdp-11-programs-for-tektronix-40… https://github.com/rricharz/Tek4010

7 years, 1 month

Raspberry Pi for vaxen turbochannel

by john＠ziaspace.com

> It occurs to me that the turbochannel slots have 4A each. It would be > entirely possible to print a whole open source board like the raspberry > Pi (or banana Pi, etc) on a turbochannel card and kill two birds with > one stone. I'n not quite sure why people are so interested in killing birds with stones, but perhaps that's a discussion for another time :) I've thought about doing something similar. I use my Raspberry Pis / small computers to do more than just MOP boot, serve NFS, and perhaps NAT or route to the Internet: https://hackaday.io/project/218-speed-up-pkgsrc-on-retrocomputers (it does need to be updated a little) It's not entirely clear whether you're talking about making a board that a Pi (whether Raspberry, Banana, or other compatible) can just plug in, or if you're talking about making a full TURBOchannel board that has a Pi on the board itself ("print a whole open source board"). If the full board, then it would make a lot more sense if it was interfaced directly to TURBOchannel and could present itself as various devices such as mass storage, ethernet and GPIO. Otherwise, why bother with the complexity? My VAXstation 4000/90 has a TURBOchannel adapter. It was not easy to find, nor was it cheap. I'm currently using it for a TC-USB card: https://web.archive.org/web/20170831062121/http://www.flxd.de/tc-usb/ So a Pi on a TURBOchannel card wouldn't be useful for any of my other VAXstation 4000/60 machines (nor VLC). Otherwise, it would make a lot more sense to instead mount a Pi in a 3.5" drive's space and use a Molex drive power connector to power it. One can even get fancy and get a 12 volt to 5 volt regulator to power the Pi. I looked in to the idea of using an ESP8266 in place of the AUI to give older machines wireless, but it seems this is hardly trivial: https://hackaday.com/2015/06/12/retro-edition-the-lan-before-time/ That also dissuaded me from imagining something that could plug in to the AUI port and interface with a Pi or other SBC. The same goes for a modern, inexpenive, small way to interface an SBC with the 10BASE2 ports on older machines. So I can't picture any better way to get ethernet from the back of the machine to a Pi / SBC, internal or otherwise, without an AUI and ethernet cable. How were you thinking of doing that? John

7 years, 1 month

Excessive amount of time in interrupt stack mode

by john＠ziaspace.com

> The system is mostly idle, RAM is mostly free (there's 32mb), > there is almost no paging, but the CPU is spending upwards of 70% of the > time in the interrupt stack mode. If I had to guess, I'd say the most likely culprit is ethernet. Try disconnecting ethernet, perhaps the AUI, too, and see if it's any different. John

7 years, 1 month

Greetings

by petermallan＠gmail.com

On 4/28/19 3:55 PM, Ray Jewhurst via cctalk wrote: > I am new to the list and would like to introduce myself. I > am a computer history buff who especially likes DEC machines. > I unfortunately don't own any hardware but I use Simh on a daily > basis. I would like to start off with a question. I see that Bitsavers > has a copy of VMS 1.5 and wanted to know if anyone got it working > with the Vax 780 simulator? > I hope to learn a lot from this group. Hi Ray, about 18 months ago, I did indeed install VMS 1.5 on a simulated (with simh) VAX-11/780. It was not particularly difficult, but it did take a bit more effort than I expected. Here is what I did and the problems that I came across. I am typing this from memory, so I might have mis-remembered the odd fact. The instructions tell you to create a bootable disk from tape using the DSC utility. However, DSC was something that ran in PDP-11 emulation mode on a VAX and was discontinued early enough in the evolution of VMS that it was not present on any of my simulated systems (VMS 4.x, 5.x and 7.3). I needed to build a VMS 3.0 system in order to complete copying the VMS 1.5 tape to disk. If you have a simulated PDP-11 system, you might be able to use that instead. Building the VMS 3.0 system gave me another problem in that I tried using a simulated TE16 (Massbus) tape drive to read the VMS 3.0 installation tape. This should have been fine, but actually I uncovered a bug in simh. Bob Supnik fixed the bug, but you do need to use an up to date version of simh to get the bug fix. If you need to use an old version of simh for some reason, then use a TS (Unibus) tape drive and all should be well. VMS 1.5 is primitive compared with later versions, but does have historical interest. Do let me know if you want any further information about my adventures with VMS 1.5. Cheers Peter Allan

7 years, 1 month

Unknown 1970 Tapedrive

by jos.dreesen＠greenmail.ch

Was given a tapedrive in rather bad condition, but it has no manufacturers name on it. Pics on ftp://ftp.dreesen.ch/Tapedrive Anyone recognizes this ? The paddle PCB says "paddle board, 7/9 level tape handler." Not even sure if it is a computer tape drive or an instrument / data logger... Yours if you pick it up ( and be prepared to spend quit some time to clean this one up. Unit has seen more this its share of water over the years) Location : CH Jos

7 years, 1 month

Newest Batch of Items from Sellam's VWoCW Just Posted

by sellam.ismail＠gmail.com

Good Monday Evening (or Tuesday Morning if you are beyond the International Dateline)! Here is the latest batch of computers and boards and peripherals and things that I've carefully curated for your consideration and consumption from my collection: Homebrew Small Form Factor S-100 System Indus GT 5.25" Floppy Drive (Atari) ADPI Easi-Disk 5.25" External Serial Disk Drive Camwil Printwheel - Pica 10 Camwil Printwheel - Elite 12 Diablo Black Cloth Ribbon Diablo HiType-I FIlm Ribbon (6 pack) GP Technologies Printwheel - Titan Legal 10 Xerox Metal Printwheel - Titan Legal 10 Xerox Metal Printwheel - Vintage 12 Toshiba T1950CT Laptop Toshiba T4900CT Laptop Commodore 1311 Joystick (boxed) Microsoft InPort Mouse w/Mouse Interface Articulate Systems Voice Impact Pro Dysan 100 MD2HD 5.25" Floppy Diskettes (10-pack) Curtis Electro Devices PR5200B 32x8 Memory Programmer Asante FriendlyNet Adapter Perkin-Elmer PC AT Single T4 4 Meg Transputer CompuPro CPU 8085/88 CompuPro CPU 8085/88 (incomplete) CompuPro RAM16 CompuPro RAM21 Comrex The S100 TimePiece JVB Electronics Spool-Z-Q 100 MATCO Data Products EPROM Emulator/Programmer Morrow Designs MM256K CompuPro/Viasyn SPUZ 64K Viasyn Interfacer 3A (bare board) Viasyn Interfacer 4 (bare board) Atari XG-1 Light Gun Atari XE Keyboard IBM PCjr Internal Modem IBM PCjr RF Modulator MOS Technology KIM-1 (Rev. A) Commodore KIM-1 (Rev. G) Radio Shack TRS-80 64K Color Computer DEC Celebris FP 590 PC Links to information on these items and more can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1I53wxarLHlNmlPVf_HJ5oMKuab4zrApI_hi… Photos are linked in the descriptions. I will be going back and adding photos for the last couple batches in the near future and will post an update when they are up. As ever, please contact me directly by e-mail via <sellam.ismail at gmail.com> to inquire or make an offer on a particular item. Thank you! Sellam

7 years, 1 month

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