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General Announcement: Vintage Computer Festival East 4.0, this weekend!

by evan＠snarc.net

For immediate release: MARCH, VintageTech, and the InfoAge Science Center announce the Vintage Computer Festival East 4.0 * What: A celebration of computers, technology, and culture from the 1940s - 1980s. Open to the public * When: June 9-10. Lectures from 10am-2pm, exhibits from 2pm-6pm both days * Where: InfoAge Science Center, 2201 Marconi Rd., Wall Township, N.J., 07719 * Cost: $10 for one day, $15 for two days, free for 12 and younger, free parking * Contact: Evan Koblentz, evank at midatlanticretro.org, 646-546-9999 ------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- -------- Do 8 bits excite you more than 64? Prefer blinkenlights over SVGA? Yearn for the days of input via toggle switches and paper tape? Or just want to play some Pac-Man? Then check out the Vintage Computer Festival East 4.0, June 9-10, at the InfoAge Science Center in Wall, New Jersey. This year's event is again hosted by MARCH -- the Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists. The Vintage Computer Festival began in 1997 in Silicon Valley, migrated eastward in 2001, and became a MARCH event in 2006. So what is a VCF? Imagine an antique car show where every owner let you test-drive his car, and where Henry Ford gave a lecture and signed autographs! It sounds unreal, but that's what happens with vintage computer technology at every edition of the VCF. This year's edition of the VCF East will feature 20 exhibits of computer technology from the 1940s to 1980s. Visitors will have the opportunity to use an IBM punch-card machine, witness a legendary Digital Equipment Corp. PDP-8 minicomputer in action, and experience all the top brands of 1970s microcomputers from companies like Apple, Commodore, and many others. Older S-100 kit computers, single-board computers, portables, and even analog and prehistoric computer technology will be demonstrated. On the extremes, we have one exhibitor preparing to show an authentic NASA Apollo flight computer, and another who'll display the most classic videogame console ever -- Atari -- play it 'til you drop! Read the full exhibitor list at http://www.vintage.org/2007/east/exhibit.php. If that's not enough, then listen to some of our guest speakers. The highlight this year will be a 30th anniversary panel in honor of Commodore, which was headquartered nearby in West Chester, Pennsylvania. The panel's star is Chuck Peddle, inventor of the famous MOS Technology 6502 chip, used in a wide variety of classic single-board computers and in microcomputers such as the Commodore PET and the Apple II. Peddle will join us via live videoconference, in which he promises to share previously untold stories, after which he'll answer audience questions. Commodore engineers appearing live at our show will include Bil Herd, Bob Russell, and Dave Haynie. We'll even have a birthday cake featuring the famous Commodore "Chickenhead" logo. Other speakers this year include Herb "Dr. S-100" Johnson, who'll explain the history of the CP/M operating system; Bill Degnan and Sellam Ismail; who together will give a crash-course in vintage computer discovery and restoration; and others to be announced. In addition, Ismail will give a second talk, but the topic is secret! You'll have to be there to find out what he plans. Yet another highlight of the VCF East 4.0 will be our new VCF Theatre, organized by acclaimed technology filmmaker Jason Scott. His films include "BBS: The Documentary" and the upcoming "Get Lamp" about text-adventure games. At the VCF Theatre, he'll be screening vintage computer-themed movies all weekend long in the afternoons. New this year is the donate-to-sell booth. Here, everyone is welcome to donate vintage computing items, with all proceeds to help MARCH build its computer museum. Our museum directly benefits future generations, so do your part and give something to this wonderful non-profit cause! (We request that any unsold items be re-claimed before you leave the VCF.) Did we mention the prizes? We'll have t-shirts, vintage computer replica kits, books, and maybe a surprise or two. All you have to do to win is show up, and be there when we announce winners each day. Finally, should your historic technology interest extend beyond just computers, then you've come to the right place. Our venue at the InfoAge Science Center is historic in itself. The facility began life in 1912 as an R&D center for Britain's Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co., and then spent several decades as Camp Evans, a top-secret laboratory of the U.S. military. RADAR that first spotted airplanes over Pearl Harbor and mankind's first radio signal to the moon were invented here, along with numerous other achievements. Today, the center is on the National Register of Historic Places and is a Black History Site. It's also home to the National Broadcasters Hall of Fame and an assortment of non-profit clubs all related to the history of technology, with a local focus. Driving directions, lodging information, exhibit details and more are posted at www.vintage.org/2007/east/. * For more information about MARCH, visit www.midatlanticretro.org * For more information about the InfoAge Science Center, visit www.infoage.org * For more information about VintageTech, visit www.vintagetech.com General questions? Want to exhibit or have a vendor booth at the VCF East? Member of the media? Contact VCF East producer and MARCH president Evan Koblentz, evank at midatlanticretro.org, 646-546-9999.

19 years

MODCOMP II Rescue Revisited...

by lbickley＠bickleywest.com

A number of you probably remember me "announcing" in Jan, 2007 that I had rescued a MODCOMP II/12 from a lab here in Silicon Valley. The link for that is below (sorry, it's slow - the pictures are large). http://bickleywest.com/modcomp.htm After a lot of work cleaning up both the CPU and I/O chassis I began checking out the system. It turned out that the I/O chassis was in pretty bad shape. I went back to the lab facility where I found the MODCOMP II - looked through several more buildings - and found another lone MODCOMP II I/O chassis. I went through the "salvage" process again - and finally picked it up about a month ago. It was in a lot better shape than the original I/O unit. And the really great news - it was an identical configuration to my original I/O chassis. After cleaning it up, doing all the usual capacitor, power supply checking - I powered it up - and everything "looked" good - and no bad "cooking" smells ;-) I cabled up the CPU and I/O unit, powered 'em up - and to my amazement the front panel controls seemed to work O.K. I then did the usual hand memory tests - and core memory worked O.K. every location I tested. I then wrote a bunch of small diagnostics (in machine code) - and found that I/O was not easy to code - but I did enough to check that the console in/out ports worked O.K. Today I loaded diagnostic monitors, and diags - and most of the system - including I/O is working! The really good news is that all 64K (words) of core memory passed the long manufacturing memory diagnostic - which even tests for "hot cores" failing. It's been months in the making this critter come alive - but it sure feels great when the diagnostics tell you that you are on the right track :-) Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

19 years

New pcb design for S-100 prototype board available

by aek＠bitsavers.org

If you are doing a design with on-board regulators in the 21st century, why not use integrated switching rather than linear regulators? Heat dissipation will be MUCH lower if you do this.

19 years

ebay "unpaid item strike" -- what's the consequence?

by marvin＠rain.org

If you are listed as the buyer, you should still be able to leave appropriate feedback. Just be aware that the ebay system supports retalitory feedback by the other party even though Ebay officially disallows it (they lie consistantly.) Generally, you can avoid retalitory feedback by just not leaving feedback. The other way is to "snipe" the feedback at the 60 day limit of when you can leave feedback (or so I've been told.) > From: Richard > > Well the seller is still being an asshole and refusing to answer a > simple question about how the item would be shipped. He says he's > going to relist it and stop wasting his time with me because I'm > "playing games". Some people love to do things the hard way! He's > wasted much more time dicking around trying to make a dispute out of > this instead of just answering the question I posed to him after the > sale completed.

19 years

How do I get my money back? (from dishonest ebay seller)

by vax9000＠gmail.com

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&Item=260115466844 I sent her $50 post office money order, including some extras for better packaging. But she did not answer emails, and she did not send me anything. She cheated some 10+ other people in the same period of time. I know, she had negative feedback back in 2002 before these recent auctions. But her auctions did not look like fraud when I bid. I heard that it is classified as mail fraud. If I report to the mail office, at least they are going to send her a letter to threaten her. Does anybody here have such experience? How do I proceed? Help please. vax, 9000

19 years

New pcb design for S-100 prototype board available

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

I would be interested if the shipping cost to the UK is not too much. A single 12 slot board with connectors but no metal work or card guides would Be as stripped down as you could go. Rod -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of David Griffith Sent: 04 June 2007 07:41 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: RE: New pcb design for S-100 prototype board available On Mon, 4 Jun 2007, Rod Smallwood wrote: > >On top of that, S100 motherboards are still fairly easy to find. If > anyone's >interested, I'll have some ready for sale in a couple weeks. > > And how much will they cost ? > Populated? > Whats included? > How many slots? I'm not sure how much they'll cost. Most of them are 12-slot boards, mostly Morrow Wunderbuss models of one sort or another. There's a big CompuPro chassis with 20-slot board and power supply. I also have a bunch of assorted cards. With summer approaching, I'll likely have more time to sell off this stuff. Oh, and those of you who wanted those 8-inch drives, I still have your names. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

19 years

Repairing the damage.

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

Hi I probably failed to make my self clear. 1. Yes MOP is part of a whole heap of programs that go to make up DECNET 2. MOP stands for Maintenance Operations Protocol and that what is was for. 3 It pre dates DECnet (Well at lest internally in DEC) 4. It can be run on its own. 5. It's a much lower level system than LAT or LAVC that run at the application (top) level of the OSI Model 6. It runs at the network level (Layer 3) in the seven layer OSI model 7. Of course there is a physical network and enough of a driver in the firmware in the target VAX to exchange frames with the MOP running in the boot server. (I found a list of them) So in that sense it is running a subset of Decnet. However let's not confuse a low level maintenance tool with all the good stuff the full version of Decnet gives you. 8. Its twenty-five years since I was a product manager in DEC SWS. No wonder I'm a bit hazy on this stuff! Regards Rod Smallwood -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Rick Murphy Sent: 04 June 2007 14:14 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: RE: Repairing the damage. At 04:23 PM 6/3/2007, Rod Smallwood wrote: > >Your server (the VAX 4000-200) does have to be running DECnet. Er no it >doesn't and isn't. I attended a 1976 DEC engineering meeting where this >was discussed. It just my personal memory has a long access time. >Download and run was around long before Decnet was thought of. I'm not sure why I'm responding to this troll, but I can't resist. The server must be running a MOP listener. That's the protocol that the client uses when you boot the ethernet device. MOP is a DECnet protocol. For many versions of VMS, the way you get a MOP listener is to install DECnet. For VMS 7.0 and later, there's a separate MOP listener that provides just that part of DECnet. >There's no Decnet or any other normal network involved. Crap. You MUST have a network to run a Local Area VAXcluster. You know, a *Local Area Network*? LAVC booting uses DECnet to boot. You can't make any of this work without a LAN, without DECnet. I suppose you'll keep flailing around hoping that something will work, blaming others for your mistakes. Enjoy yourself. >I am also >beginning to suspect that the whole cluster thing is another GRH (Giant >Red Herring) Huh? Nope, if you followed the very detailed directions you've been given, you could diskless boot the server. You could then try to get a disk set up and booted. Not a red herring at all. >Whats actually happening is an old diagnostic tool is being used to >download and run a program on a remote system to exclude the disk >drives from the test. LANCP is not an "old diagnostic tool" it's actually fairly recent. Using CLUSTER_CONFIG as you're supposed to will use it to set up the client download. Did you try that? Probably not. -Rick

19 years

3174 Terminal Controller

by ian_primus＠yahoo.com

Well, this has been one of those ideas that has been at the back of my mind for a long time - I would like to interface one of these IBM terminals I have around the house to something. Anything. I was thinking about an emulated mainframe on Hercules or something. But the thing that brings this to the foreground in my thoughts is that today I had to troubleshoot a 3174-51R at a customer's site. This thing is connected, via a rather unusual cable, to a Cisco 2500 series router, so that means the 25 pin connector on the back must be some form of X.25 or something like that. I know that the fellow at corestore.org has been able to get a real IBM terminal to telnet into an emulated system via a terminal controller with built in ethernet (although I have never seen one). Anyone done this before? What do I need to hunt for? I now have one piece of the puzzle that I was never able to find before - the manual for the 3174-51R. Now the terminal controller's operation can be deciphered. But, of course, I don't have the 3174. -Ian

19 years

3174 Terminal Controller

by James＠jdfogg.com

> But the thing that brings this to the foreground in my > thoughts is that today I had to troubleshoot a 3174-51R at a > customer's site. This thing is connected, via a rather > unusual cable, to a Cisco 2500 series router, so that means > the 25 pin connector on the back must be some form of X.25 or > something like that. I know that the fellow at corestore.org > has been able to get a real IBM terminal to telnet into an > emulated system via a terminal controller with built in > ethernet (although I have never seen one). This is usually SDLC that is source-route-bridged over IP. S390 Open System Adapters (or whatever they called the ethernet/ip adapters for old S390's) could talk SRB/IP. It's been 13 years since I played with these. So, on the "cluster controller" (3174) end you have stock SDLC via synchronous serial on either RS232 or V.35. On the server end you'll need to get hercules to emulate an OSA.

19 years

New pcb design for S-100 prototype board available

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: New pcb design for S-100 prototype board available > From: "Ethan Dicks" <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> > Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2007 17:38:18 -0400 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >> Grant Stockly wrote: >> >> > Someone built one of my Altair replica PCBs and went to great lengths to >> > make sure the date code on the ICs was older than 1975. They also >> > sourced the old brown cylindrical resistors. > >I've been known to do that, but for much more trivial examples - when >I built my 1976-design Elf, I did the best I could on chips (my CPU >and memory were of the period, but I have not yet tracked down a 74L00 >for the clock divider circuit), but I was happy to have a bin of ;) L00? I bet I have a few that are pre ELF. >vintage brown cylindrical resistors for the pullups. I had to >compromise on the regulator - the oldest one I could find in my junk >bin was an LM340T. I have a shopping bag of those resistor, really! the LM340 was period and valid but, I have 7805s that are date coded 7951 (last week of '79). Somewhere I came across a few baggies of them as they are handy. I also have 1uS 2102s, 5101 and other old ram. >Obviously, the computer doesn't care, but I wanted something that >would have looked as if I had made it when I first got into computers >as a kid. A complete indulgence to nostalgia. :) they dont care. I tend to build new hardware using that old stuff as I've had it for that reason, that is to build with. > >-ethan

19 years

B&C Microsystems 1409 Prom Burner

by mmcarmo＠adelphia.net

Hi John, I just purchased a B&C Microsystems 1409 Programmer. Do you have the manual? If so, I'd appreciate a copy. Sincerely, David

19 years

more eBay stuff

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

http://cgi.ebay.com/Rare-MultiBus-Network-Board_W0QQitemZ200112940595QQihZ0… otay. What type of network are we talking here? http://cgi.ebay.com/Manx-Aztec-C-8086-to-C6502-C65c02-cross-compiler-RARE_W… pretty cool i must say... http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Intel-Multi-bus-Monitor-Module-Board-1975_W0QQi… ok, where's the plug go? Or is that it in the upper right hand corner? Or is that a switch? Or neither? http://cgi.ebay.com/Rare-IBM-PC-Assembler-Language-and-Programming_W0QQitem… LOL LOL LOL http://cgi.ebay.com/Nearly-complete-set-of-200-Byte-Magazines_W0QQitemZ3301… my back hurts just thinking about picking all that up... ____________________________________________________________________________________ Now that's room service! Choose from over 150,000 hotels in 45,000 destinations on Yahoo! Travel to find your fit. http://farechase.yahoo.com/promo-generic-14795097

19 years

NorthStar Advantage "Graphics CP/M"?

by legalize＠xmission.com

What is it? I didn't know the Northstar's had graphics capabilities. Ebay items # 140125262346 140125261472 -- "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/>

19 years

who invented IDE? (Chuck Guzis)

by CaptnZilog＠aol.com

>In the beginning it was *interesting* working with different vendor >implementations of ATA. For example, Maxtor, initially swapped the >order of the words in the "total number of sectors" field in the >IDENTIFY command return. I remember back when 386's were over our "capital expense" limit ($1000) at work, we would piece together 386's for the engineers to get them the best machines. We were buying Conner 80MB drives at the time, so we built this guy a machine with a Conner-80MB in it, and a few months later he was running low on space and wanted another drive, so we bought *another* (same model) Conner-80MB. No matter what I tried, they would not work together either way around as master/slave. Looking at the model#, one was "rev-A" and one was "rev-B". We wound up throwing a Maxtor 80MB in with it - with *either* Conner drive and a Maxtor, it worked fine. Found it quite humorous that two drives from the same manufacturer wouldn't work together, but both worked fine with a competitors drive. ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.

19 years

N* Advantage Tech manuak scanned

by dave06a＠dunfield.com

For any North Star Advantage owners... I have scanned the complete NorthStar Advantage Technical manual and posted it to my site (look under the North Star Advantage listing). This is a BIG book, and a very large (30M PDF) scan. It contains full technical descriptions, schematics etc. for the North Star Advantage computer. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html

19 years

digital camera capabilities

by tim.walls＠snowgoons.com

Tony Duell wrote... > The right way to get better depth of field for oblique shots is to tilt > the lens (!). > [...] > The problem is that no digital camera has a tilting front. In the interests of completeness, I should say that this isn't strictly speaking true. Canon make EOS mount tilt/shift lenses, which will work on any of their digital SLRs (three of them, 24, 45 and 90mm IIRC.) In fact, their APS-C sensor DSLRs are in many ways ideal - the smaller-than-35mm sensor size means you're unlikely to see any vignetting even at extreme ends of the available movements. (For the uninitiated, a lens intended for tilt/shift, such as the TS-E lenses or anything made for a technical/view camera, needs to project an image circle significantly larger than the imaging plane (film/sensor), to allow for moving the projected image around as you move the lens. The extreme ends of the movements on the tilt/shift FD mount lens I use on my film camera are marked in red - this indicates you're going to start seeing vignetting if you tilt/shift this far because the image circle no longer covers the whole film area. Because most (not all) digital SLRs use smaller APS size sensors (~25mm longest edge IIRC rather than ~36) this is less of a problem.) That said, the Canon TS-E lenses are considered 'speciality' lenses and priced accordingly; unless you're going to make a living out of architectural photography not really a serious recommendation. My recommendation for a cheap digital starter kit for doing what you want would be the bottom of the range Canon digtal SLR (EOS 400D in Europe, 'Digital Rebel XTi' I think in USA - identical camera, but US market apparently demands a 'cool' name like 'Rebel'.) Buy it body-only, and buy the Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro lens as well. The EF-S is a beautiful lens at a very reasonable price; top-notch quality, the effective focal length given the smaller sensor in a DSLR is around 90mm, which is pretty reasonable for what you're looking to do, and most importantly it can do true 1:1 macro for when you want the photos of individual chips on that motherboard. It's also compatible with the Canon ringlight flash if you find yourself doing a lot of macro. The only caveat is that being an EF-S, it's not compatible with full-frame DSLRs or film SLRs (EF-S lenses take advantage of the smaller sensor & mirror size in DSLRs to extend the optics further back into the camera; if you could mount them on a film cam (which you can't, the mount prevents it,) the back of the lens would smash the mirror. Oh, that reminds me, in a conversation a while ago possible sources of weak acid solutions were being pondered. I meant to mention then, but it didn't seem worth an entire post - photographic stop bath is a weak acid solution, and readily available (in the UK, your high street Jessops still stocks most photographic chemistry, for the timebeing at least.) 'Normal' stop bath is acetic acid based I believe, you can also buy odourless (or more accurately 'less obnoxious odour') stop bath which is usually citric acid based. Cheers, Tim -- Tim Walls at home in Leeds EMail & MSN: tim.walls at snowgoons.com

19 years

Repairing the damage.

by rick＠rickmurphy.net

At 04:23 PM 6/3/2007, Rod Smallwood wrote: > >Your server (the VAX 4000-200) does have to be running DECnet. Er no it >doesn't and isn't. I attended a 1976 DEC engineering meeting where this >was discussed. It just my personal memory has a long access time. >Download and run was around long before Decnet was thought of. I'm not sure why I'm responding to this troll, but I can't resist. The server must be running a MOP listener. That's the protocol that the client uses when you boot the ethernet device. MOP is a DECnet protocol. For many versions of VMS, the way you get a MOP listener is to install DECnet. For VMS 7.0 and later, there's a separate MOP listener that provides just that part of DECnet. >There's no Decnet or any other normal network involved. Crap. You MUST have a network to run a Local Area VAXcluster. You know, a *Local Area Network*? LAVC booting uses DECnet to boot. You can't make any of this work without a LAN, without DECnet. I suppose you'll keep flailing around hoping that something will work, blaming others for your mistakes. Enjoy yourself. >I am also >beginning to suspect that the whole cluster thing is another GRH (Giant >Red Herring) Huh? Nope, if you followed the very detailed directions you've been given, you could diskless boot the server. You could then try to get a disk set up and booted. Not a red herring at all. >Whats actually happening is an old diagnostic tool is being >used to download and run a program on a remote system to exclude the >disk drives from the test. LANCP is not an "old diagnostic tool" it's actually fairly recent. Using CLUSTER_CONFIG as you're supposed to will use it to set up the client download. Did you try that? Probably not. -Rick

19 years

11/04 or 11/34 PSU free for collection (UK)

by pete＠dunnington.plus.com

I'm having a bit of a clear-out, in order to make enough room to work in :-) The first item I've found that I don't want is the power supply from an 11/04 or 11/34, DEC part no. 70-13323-00. This is the big black box that goes on the back of the BA11 enclosure, and includes the two fans, the cables, etc, but not the power regulator bricks (it has space for four). It was in working order last time I checked. It's very heavy, so pickup from York only (unless you really want to spend a fortune on carriage). -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

19 years

Properly "classic" digital cameras (and imaging) (was Re: enough already (was: digital camera capabilities))

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 5/30/07, Gordon JC Pearce <gordon at gjcp.net> wrote: > I have a digital camera that is now (and in fact, as of last friday) 10 > years old ;-) Mine is quite safely "over the line" - my first digital camera was a QuickTake 150 http://manuals.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Manuals/cameras/0306677Qck… I picked it up at the Dayton Computerfest (same place as the Hamfest, but was in March or August of each year until they stopped having it a little while back). I first encountered one in 1995/1996, then bought one for myself for a whopping $35 a few years later when I had the chance. All I'm missing is the closeup lens. > The image quality is *definitely* not as good as an SLR, or even a > pointy clicky Instamatic. Great for grainy lo-fi shots though. With 1MB of fixed, on-board, Flash ROM, and no media socket, the QT150 holds 16 pictures in "bad" mode, or 32 pictures in "worse" mode. It's always 640x480, which, by itself, isn't the worst thing in the world. The problem is the amount of lossy compression it needs to fit 16 pictures into 1MB translates to "a lot". The other significant problem I see with this camera is that because Apple bundled some 3rd-party software with it, they never made the software available for download. The pictures are "QuickTime Compressed PICTs", meaning that the outer wrapper is a standard Mac PICT file, but the payload can only be untangled by an Apple QT library (I tried many unsuccessful workarounds). If you don't have the QT150 install disks, I don't know that you can load any other package to gain them. OTOH, once you have loaded that library, all apps on the machine (Photoshop, ImageViewer...) can manipulate the pictures. I'd hold this camera up as an example of a) an evolutionary dead-end, and b) the fact that Apple wasn't always spot-on-the-mark. In its era, it was a passable camera - one button to take a picture (no manual settings beyond a timer or compression factor), but all the other offerings of the day, and even Apple's QuickTake 200 (a rebadged Fuji DS-7 if my research is correct) had removable storage, allowing one to effectively ignore memory limitations to the extent of one's budget. Being a fixed-focus camera, it's terrible for close-in shots. Your choices are to position the object a few feet away so that it's in focus (and perhaps too small to be clear), or to snap on a fixed magnifier lens and squint through the eyepiece to attempt to focus closer in. At the place I first encountered the QuickTake 150, we never could get sharp pictures with the close-up lens. I used the QuickTake 150 more than any other digital camera from 1995 through 2003 (when I upgraded to a DSLR). If you ever get the chance to play with one, I can recommend it, but only to see how far digital cameras have come in the past 10 years (it was discontinued in 1997). The horrible lossy compression makes it nearly unusable for any sort of "busy" subject matter. -ethan

19 years

S-100 Systems

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

Hi Having read all the correspondence on S-100 systems there are three possibilities. 1. Restoration 2. Reproduction or Replica 3. Reinvention Restoration In a restoration you are trying to get the system back to what it was when first made. So when possible you would use components made at the same time the system was. Can be done and is done. Does need a knowledge of older electronics and good parts sources. Reproduction or Replica Here you are attempting to make a system as close to the original design as possible but using recently manufactured versions of the original components. Where do you draw the line? Well FWIW my take on this is if it fits in the original holes and performs the same function or is the same value then the fact that it may not look exactly the same as the original is OK. Makes a nice kit project. My preference would be a Northstar Horizon. (wood effect box and all) As far as I know nobody owns the rights and the company was not sold it just folded up. Reinvention Say a copy of old S-100 system on the outside only That means the box and front panel are new but as the original. Inside,there are new electronics simulating the old system. Good route for the run the old software fans. Rod Smallwood

19 years

DEC PC's and parts

by useddec＠gmail.com

I have 6 or more DEC PC's and parts which are really getting in my way. Any interest before I part them out? Feel free to contact me off list. Thanks, Paul Anderson >

19 years

New pcb design for S-100 prototype board available

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

>On top of that, S100 motherboards are still fairly easy to find. If anyone's >interested, I'll have some ready for sale in a couple weeks. And how much will they cost ? Populated? Whats included? How many slots? -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of David Griffith Sent: 03 June 2007 21:36 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: New pcb design for S-100 prototype board available On Sun, 3 Jun 2007, Grant Stockly wrote: > A motherboard would be very expensive. About $250 cost for 12 slots > at a production quantity of 50. On top of that, S100 motherboards are still fairly easy to find. If anyone's interested, I'll have some ready for sale in a couple weeks. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

19 years

3.5" Altair CP/M

by grant＠stockly.com

At 04:45 PM 5/15/2007, you wrote: >On 5/15/07, Grant Stockly <grant at stockly.com> wrote: >>I have a tarbell floppy controller card that has been rewired to access >>3.5" disks using a standard PC 3.5" disk drive. I have 3 disks that the >>Altair can boot off of and read, but my windows computer can't do anything >>with them. I've tried rawread.exe and diskinfo.exe and they both choke on >>the disk. I assumed that if a disk could be written with the standard 3.5" >>disk drive on the tarbell card then it should also be read on the same >>drive connected to a modern IBM compatible. > >Are you using a 1771 based SD Tarbell card, or a 1791/1793 based DD >Tarbell card? That might make a difference. Its an MDL-1011D with an FD1771-B01. What's the deal with this chip? Is it formatting the the disk as 360k? I can scan the modification sheet and card if anyone is interested. I'd really love to make a disk image of the disk to share with people. I might have to write a bootstrap program that reads from the serial port and writes to a disk. Grant

19 years

ebay "unpaid item strike" -- what's the consequence?

by legalize＠xmission.com

I purchased a Qume QVT-101 terminal on ebay. I asked the seller how it would be packed for shipment. They didn't respond. I asked again. They didn't respond. I asked a third time, they responded "It will be shipped the usual way". I responded that since I've never purchased anything from them before that this doesn't answer my questions about how the item will be shipped. I don't want to receive damaged terminals from ebay anymore. I explained this to the seller. Instead of answering my simple question and reassuring me that it will be properly shippe, they just immediately open an ebay dispute on me and then have turned it into an "unpaid item strike". I've appealed the strike with ebay, but I doubt I'll get any love from them. So my question is -- what does this mean for me? Is it just listed as harsh negative feedback? -- "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/>

19 years

Repairing the damage.

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

I am beginning to wonder if everybody is talking and nobody is listening. ************************************************************************ *************** * The target machine is not running anything except low level firmware !!! * * No DECNet No Tcpip No VMS - Nothing !!!! (It can't-disk drives inoperable) * ************************************************************************ *************** However after wading around in sea of online manuals I think am beginning to find out the things they don't tell you. Given that there has to be some form of communication between the Boot server and the target. Then what's left is this MOP thing. As you can specify that the boot device is the ethernet adaptor (EZA0: in this case) when you try to boot from the target system it must be sending out some kind of request packet with an ID attached. It can't be a node name or an IP address. There's no way tell it what they are!! What it does know, is its MAC address which is hard encoded into the interface. The server has to respond to the request (Remember No Decnet and No Tcpip available) somehow or other. So what is it that runs on the server does not use Decnet or Tcpip and can load images into the target machine? We can rule out @SYS$MANAGER:CLUSTER_CONFIG_LAN which expects Decnet and screw's up TCPWARE. I'm out of ideas at this point. Rod Smallwood -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dave McGuire Sent: 03 June 2007 00:44 To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only Subject: Re: Repairing the damage. Importance: High On Jun 2, 2007, at 3:22 PM, Rod Smallwood wrote: > The abortive attempt to cluster the two Vaxes and copy data has left > me much further back than when I started. > The network and terminal server connections are gone because I can't > start TCPWARE up. > It complains about a license and and something called NETCU (What the > hell is that?) and aborts the loading of TCPWARE. > > Lesson learned,= the boot from a cluster server idea is flawed and can > damage an existing setup. > Its probably one of those things everybody has heard about but never > actually done. You can't be serious...? Cluster-booting of VAXen is something that has been happening in thousands of multiple-VAX installations for two decades. I did it myself when I was still a teenager. It is nothing unusual. I am sorry to hear that the attempt hosed your machine. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

19 years

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