test-drb

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

101090 discussions

Introduction And Questions About Media Preservation "Mostly Dec Stuff"

by fsmith＠ladylinux.com

Hello, I been lurking here for a while and figure I come out of my shell to say hi and say how much I love reading most all the posts here. Now as to my question/questions and or dilemma. I have a bunch of old media. RK05's , RK06's, RL02's, RL01's , 8 Inch Floppies, RX50 Floppies , 9 track tapes among other things. Now before I run off and do something real stupid (Like damage the media by not properly handling it when archiving off) I figured I ask some advice. I know all about Bitsavers "Al Kassow I am so sorry but I bid up against you a few times and now that I have gotten to know you by lurking here It won't happen again." Bitsavers is a awesome resource and yours and others efforts there are VERY much appreciated and admired from my lil corner of the world. I have some sentimental attachment to some of this media as in its from my "PDP" days of the late 70's and 80's. But most of this stuff I just rescued. Lots of it has actual Dec Labels indicating multiple versions of RT11, RSX11, Older Vms etc. To get this stuff out there for all of you. What should I do ?? Put up a list with my best guess of the contents and see if anyone will help me and all of you out by getting the bits off the platters/media for people for years and years to enjoy ?? Or is this stuff so garden variety that I should just hook up my 11/34 , 11/73 and Microvax and get busy pulling off the bits and bytes before they become star dust or whatever old magnetic bits and bytes go to when they vanish from the media. ?? I don't have everything in place to read off all this stuff yet. I am having a dickens of a time getting someone to send me a BA23 I won on E-Pay so I can put together franken pdp (11/73 from many parts :-)) And I certainly don't have a RK06 laying around and or controller for example. All I ask is that anyone taking any of this media understand that some of it I want back after analysis and in every case if anything valuable turns up that it be posted publically. Sorry for the long winded post. Had a lot to say I been holding back now for months. I won't even touch on my piles of documentation that I need to start scanning in this post. Perhaps in the future :-) -- Kindest Regards, Francesca Smith "No Problems Only Solutions" Lady Linux Internet Services Baltimore, Maryland 21217

19 years, 3 months

ftp archives disappearing?

by aek＠bitsavers.org

>> The web as subsumed all of this, in an inferior fashion, IMHO. > Yeah, but I think of the things I used to easily find with archie and > now I can't find them at all with google even with targetted searches > for specific filenames. Google doesn't spider for filenames, just content. If a list of filenames doesn't show up on a web page, Google won't see it. As an example, I just did a search for "adsMstr_6-76.log" which can be found at http://bitsavers.org/bits/Datapoint/cassetteDumps/ and there were no hits from google, yahoo, altavista, or google code search. It is odd, though that Google doesn't find the page from http://bitsavers.org/bits/Datapoint/cassetteDumps/, so apparently it won't index content that is a directory. It would be interesting to know if there is a search engine that can in fact find a file by name. There are several files I have been searching for that I know the name of, but not where they might exist on the web.

19 years, 3 months

PDP-11/40 videos

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

>> MPEG is good. I don't think anyone will have objections to that. > >MPEG seconded. > I have loaded MPEG-4 videos to my site. I have also added a "Videos" link on the left-hand nav. The sound of the 11/40 fans running is pretty loud on the videos, but you can hear the hardcopy terminals as they are printing. You can see short videos (with sound) of the following: * 11/40 front panel lights blinking while running RSTS/E * SYSTAT on VT05 * SYSTAT on LA120 * SYSTAT on LA36 * SYSTAT on ASR33 * SYSTAT on VT52 I will do some better quality stuff later. These were done yesterday in a hurry while I had my digital camera in my hand. If anyone has anything they would like to see, I will try to handle your requests. Ashley http://www.woffordwitch.com

19 years, 3 months

PDP-11/40 videos

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

>Tom Peters said: >Can't *.MP4 be dropped into Quicktime for playback? Yes, it's not always >associated to QT, but I think it worked on everything I tried. .MP4 files play on my QuickTime player. They also were the smallest files of any format I've tried so far, except maybe the 5:36 wmv file that I just added from our Wofford Witch reunion back in 2005 when I got many of the old college crew and our professor together for a cookout and to play with the PDP-11/40 and talk about the "old days" 30 years ago.

19 years, 3 months

Components & Tools (Was: Re: baud modifier)

by stimpy.u.idiot＠gmail.com

On 12/03/07, Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > > Rob wrote: > >> [1] Maplin, the company, are still going, but their range of components > >> is a joke. They now mostly sell electornic toys, Lo-Fi, etc. > > I totally agree with you - if the stores exist to sell the same gimmicky > junk > that can be had cheaper elsewhere, then I'm not sure why they have the > stores > at all and can't put the huge rental / staffing costs to better use. These days, they seems to be dedicated to the (seemingly) infinite number of young men who want to put blue lights on and under their cars :) H. Gee's in Cambridge is a real blessing in comparison - wide range of > components and still staffed by people who know what they're talking about You lucky fellow, nothing like that in northwest UK that I know of About the best I seem to be able to do is CPC (ex Farnell), but as Tony commented the other day, the website is a disaster area for finding anything. I've had to resort to buying from Futurelec (Singapore?) for some ICs, mainly due to RoHS making some lines unavailable while the replacements haven't appeared yet. Hmm, which makes me wonder if we shouldn't have a section on the classiccmp > website for recommended places to get spares/components from? That's a cracking idea. Anyone know of good suppliers in the UK? RS seem to be useless these days too. -- Pete Edwards "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future" - Niels Bohr

19 years, 3 months

Future Domain docs?

by doc＠mdrconsult.com

Does anyone have documentation for Future Domain TMC-870 and TMC-885 ISA SCSI adapters? They both have 2 floppy headers, which I find extremely interesting. Unfortunately, they both have a lot of jumpers/DIP switches, which I'd like to ID. Adaptec has drivers and tools, but no info. Doc

19 years, 3 months

PDP-11/40 videos

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

> >Please not WMV. Please please please. > I won't do WMV!!! What do you prefer? Ashley

19 years, 3 months

Old terminal and some AES stuff.

by jrr＠flippers.com

I have two items here for free (you pick up) or the cost of shipping and handling/packing up. ADM-31 Terminal and User Reference Manual AES: Word Processing #103-2004-02 (2 floppies) and some other discs that I intend to wipe as they have "sermons &..." penciled on the covers (1983ish). BASE2, Inc Model 800 Printer Operators reference Manual (only) AES training for using the Word Processing program (looks like) - a bunch of single sided pages... John :-#)# PS - forgot to add signature with address - sigh! -- John's Jukes Ltd. 2343 Main St., Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 3C9 Call (604)872-5757 or Fax 872-2010 (Pinballs, Jukes, VideoGames) www.flippers.com "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out"

19 years, 3 months

Xerox 850 / 860 hardware differences

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

Out of interest, does anyone know how much hardware commonality there is between the Xerox 850 and 860? We've got an absolutely beautiful 860 at the museum, with all the trimmings documentation and software-wise. We've just been offered an unknown-working-status 850 main unit though, and I'm not sure what's best in terms of fate: a) Pass on it and offer it here in the hope that someone can use it [1], b) Pull boards, PSU, drives etc. as source of spares if they're transferrable to the 860, c) Just consign it to landfill [2]. [1] There's no keyboard, no display, and no printer. I'm not sure what chance someone would have of simulating those with modern hardware, even assuming that the main unit is working / can be made to work. [2] The drives are doubtless useful to *someone* for non-Xerox things I would have thought. It's in Welwyn, UK. Shouts of "I'm close to there and desperately need an 850 base unit to go with my 850 peripherals" will of course be gratefully received :-) I'd much rather a complete system be restored than a partial system be stripped for spares! [I don't actually know yet that the current owner's happily to release it to anyone other than the museum, though - but can find out if needed] cheers Jules

19 years, 3 months

baud modifier

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 01:17:07 +0000 From: Pete Turnbull <pete at dunnington.plus.com> Subject: Re: baud modifier >On 11/03/2007 09:53, David Griffith wrote: >> I'm thinking of a device that would step down the speed of an rs232 >> connection from, say, 9600 to 110. The idea is to allow a computer that >> can't do 110 to talk to an ASR33 teletype. Does such a device exist? >> What's it really called? Does anyone have any schematics for one? >I have a device called a MicroFazer that will do this. It was actually >sold as a printer buffer, but it has serial as well as parallel input, >and serial and parallel output, with several hundred K of buffer in >between. >-- >Pete =================================== I have a few of these as well (in case anybody wants one), but mine do NOT do 110 baud (150 minimum); are you sure yours does? Also AFAIK they were all unidirectional (except for XON/XOFF of course). Mine are serial to serial, 150 to 19200bd, 64K buffer BTW. mike

19 years, 3 months

Xebec Winchester controller

by aek＠bitsavers.org

What I have are the docs for the MSC-9305 ST506-GPIB interface which used the Xebec module. At one point it looked like the commands were compatible. http://bitsavers.org/pdf/msc/MSC-9305_ST506-GPIB_1980.pdf

19 years, 3 months

Report on vintage "Programmer Electronnic Control" alias "RAF Tornado Computer"

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

I showed the pictures to someone who worked on Tornado at Marconi Avionics. He said the box is definitely not part of either the CSAS (Command Stability Augmentation System) nor AFDS (AutoPilot & Flight Director System). He thought it was physically much too big for the HUD (Head Up Display). Roger Holmes.

19 years, 3 months

Report on vintage "Programmer Electronnic Control" alias "RAF Tornado Computer"

by erik＠baigar.de

Hi Roger, thank you for your detailed information. By accident I nearly missed your email since I was not listed to the cctalk mailing list. But this is solved now ;-) I will comment some points of your email now and hopefully I will find the time next week to investigate your other suggestions and hints on the machine. I will give an update next weekend. > > not know how long development of such an aircraft takes but > > the first take-off was in 1974 I think, so this would match > > the design of this box wuite well - what do you think? > Aircraft development takes a long long time. To make it worthwhile > the aircraft has a long service life. Whilst the computers are bullet > proof in an office/home, the temperature extremes, vibration, high G > forces etc in service means that many failures occur and PCBs could > be replaced many times over the years, so do not pay too much notice > of the dates on components of the boards currently installed. OK, I understand this. I do not know much about these issues, but on the internet often the COTS strategy is mentioned and in using standard components, I think moderen aircraft swap technology more often than was done in the 60s and 70s, right? > There were at least four 12 bit versions, and one 13 bit apparently. > Then 12 bit models were the 902, 102C, ARCH 105 and Minim or 12/12. Thank you - I will try to find information on the web in the next days. Compared to the Elliott machines the DECs are very common stuff ;-) > > Yes, that matches - the core memory module already has the > > label GEC. So this is (as I suspected) older than the CPU and > > taken maybe from a different design?! > You have it the wrong way around. The GEC name replaced the Marconi > name, which had earlier replaced Elliott. Core memory was very Thank you for this hint. I checked wikipedia and obviously GEC got involved very early and the name was changed to GEC later (1984). Sorry for my misunderstanding, now I got it. > convenient for military applications and was in use long after it was > replaced in commercial applications. Think of a missile or torpedo > held in stock for many years, stick a power plug into it and program > the target, pull out the plug and then launch it. Only then does the > internal power supply come up, the processor boots up and does its > thing. The internet claimes sometimes, that core memory is less sensitive to radiation, too. This might have been an advantage in certain military applications (really bad applications, honestly speaking). Data retenttion of the core memory should be quite good, but since reading is always destructive, there is the rist, that bad data gets written back. In the case of Programmer Electronic Control, they did quite a lot to adjust the core memory's dirver current automatically according to a temerature measurement of the core. As my experiments show, you have to reduce the current if temperatuere goes up. This physically understandable (1/T). > >> bit 920s before moving on to the Zilog Z8001. > > Hey, than you are a valuable expert on these - do you have > > got any source of intormation about the 920s? > Not directly but I may be able to help. Hey, that is even better. I highly appreciate, that you spend time in sharing your information! Thanks a lot in advance! > > > >> 9 Jump if negative > > RIGHT - all three jumps are relative ones > On the 18 bit machines these were relative to the start of the 8k > memory module the instruction was in. An interesting modification. In my case they are relative and you can jump +/-127 words (crossing any border). Here again, the box uses 1complement and thus jump 0x00 is the same as jump 0x80: An infinite loop! > >> 11 Store program counter (for function return) > > SIMILAR - This stores PC and then does a > > table jump > On the 18 bit machines, it actually stored the program counter + 1 > and the following instruction was either an 8 or a "/8", i.e. 24. Hmm, I do not understand fully what you mean by "the following instruction was either an 8 or a "/8", i.e. 24". The Programmer Electronic Control (Let's call it PEC in the future) stores PC+1 (as your 18bit) to the specified location into core. The new address is taken from the position in memory where the index register points to. So in my case this is a perfect table jump. > >> 12 Multiply > > RIGHT, unsigned multiplication > This should multiply the signed accumulator and the signed memory > operand giving a double length result in the A and Q registers. Results are as you mention, but if either operand is negative, the result contains wrong values. But maybe I check whether this depends on the content of the index register prior to the operation... > >> 13 Divide > > HMMM, the command takes very long but the results are > > very strange. I thought it might be some type of > > random number generation by an irreducible polynomal, > > but it is definitively not Divide. Maybe here is something > > different or wrong with the microcode. > This divides a signed DOUBLE LENGTH number in the A and Q registers > by a signed memory operand. IIRC the A register gets the result and > the Q register the remainder. OK, I will verify this in the coming days. Now I know what to look form but according to my records the results of this command always have been junk. > >> 14 Shift > > In PART: Here exist many subgroups of commands including > > shift left/right. Also the Q as you call it can be transferred > > to Accu and vice versa. There als is a MTA (MoveToAccu as I call it) > > which is a two-word instruction (most others are one-word) and > > transfers the word following this command into Accu. About > > 16 bit patterns have (at least to me now) the same meaning in > > this segment. > Shifting by the entire word length does transfer Q to A or A to Q Right. But here again, the bit 11 is the sign bit and thus the shift does not affect the bit 11 of the destination. I.e. bit 0 of A is moved to bit 10 of Q in shifting right for example. > (but the data disappears from the source). A load immediate > instruction would have been very handy. Yes, the load immediate is really nice. A block move does not exist on PEC. Essentially the immediate "MTA - Move To Accu" is one of two "two-read-cycles" instructions. Up to now I did not fugire out, what the other instruction does with the data read. Do you remember any "two-read" instructions in the Elliotts? > orders were encoded in the 14 order on the 12 bit machines with only > 256 numbers available compared with 8k on the 18 bitters. Yes, this seems to be absolutely correct! > >> 15 Input/Output and special (like interrupt return) > >> 16 to 31, as above but indexed by B register. > > > > NOPE - The box is 12-bit and does not have got this block. > > EVERYTHING is done via the index register I as I called it. > > Do you mean you cannot turn the B-register modification off? Correct: Everything is modified by the index register. Exceptions are the jumps, MTA for example. > Does it get cleared automatically somehow? You are clever - that is exactly what appens: Every instruction which is affected by this register (ADD, SUB, LDA, STA, ...) clear the register. So you have to load it right before each instruction. A severe constraint in my opinion is, that the index register can only be loaded from words 0-127 in the lower 4k. So this might be a bottleneck in memory since the table jump (I called it IDXCALL since it used the index register to get ne new address from) requires memory for each routine called, too. > > perhaps studying the Elliot would help to solve the remaining > > problems??!?!?!! > I am willing to try. Great! T H A N K S a L O T! > By the way, there are two 't's in Elliott. Thanks - is stored into my brain now ;-) > >> bootstrap, in later versions, this was just copied into core when the > >> machine was initialised. > > Interesting. The Programmer Electronic Control starts execution > > at 0x0a0 after reset. > Could it be that there is a value of 0x0A0 at location 0? No, if the machine is held in reset state, the PC is forced to 0x0a0 since the reset line is connected to the Set/Clear pins of the flip-flops making the program counter. Immediately after reset is set high, the first word is read and executed >from this address. > > But of course the application was different > > and the operation software was completely loaded via the big plug > > boefore operation. > I suspect the big plug is for the OMP (Operator's Monitor Panel), and Some kind of blinking-light console? Something like this exists for the Rolm 1666b, too. This would be cool to have! ;-) > yes the program would be loaded via this once, probably in the > factory or at a maintenance depot, and the machine would probably be > rebooted many times afterwards. If data gets corrupted, than the complete aircraft has to return to a maintenance depot for reprogramming the machine? So if there are 10 or 20 of these boxes in one aircraft, they need service quite often I think. Roger, how was your experience - was this reliable with the Elliotts or did you have to reporgram the pater tape loader quite often? In my case, the transputer setup generates some spikes doring it bootup. If PEC is already turned on, this corrupts the data in core memory. So I always do a memory-test on PEC after turn on (to adjust the core driver current) and than freshly program my test routines. > The 920 was unusual in that it booted into the highest level > interrupt, level 1, so no interrupts will be serviced until you go > down an interrupt level or two or three. So 15 7168 increases the interrupt level and after executing this once, the interrupt 1 can be serviced, right? What happens in the Elliott, if an interrupt occurs? Is there a jump to a certain address in core or is the new program counter itself read from core? I have to think how to figure this out for PEC.... Of course I have to apply signals to all possible interrupt sources, load a program trying the yet unknown instructions and watch wheter any irregularities or jumps occur. I will have to trap PEC if the idle-loop is left. This is a bigger project and I will need some weeks to check this. > The 15 order is coded thus: > > 15 0 to 2047 Input > 15 2048 Shift A register left 7 places and OR in a character from the > paper tape reader (via OMP) > 15 2052 (IIRC) Wait until character pressed on teletype and read into > A register (via OMP) > 15 4096 to 6143 Output > 15 6144 Output character to paper tape punch (via OMP) > 15 6148 Output character to teletype (via OMP) if I remember > correctly > 15 7168 Terminate current program level i.e. return from interrupt > 15 7169 Test if standardised IIRC, skip the next instruction if the > accumulator is zero or top two bits are different > 15 7170 Increment B and skip the next instruction if bottom 13 bits > are zero > 15 7171 Read the value of the control keys on the OMP > 15 7172 Move l.s. 17 bits of A to the m.s. 17 bits of Q. Bottom bit > of Q is zeroed > 15 7173 Move m.s. 17 bits of Q to l.s. 17 bits of A. Top bit of A is > zeroed > 15 7174 Move A to B > 15 7175 Move B to A > 15 7176 Set relative addressing mode > 15 7177 Set absolute addressing mode Thank you very much for this list. This gives me valuable hints and ideas what to try out next. BTW: Have there been timers on the Elliotts you know about? Since you are such an expert I am sure you have a nice collection of vintage hardware, right? Perhaps you even have got an Elliott up and running? Thanks again, best regards, Erik.

19 years, 3 months

Turning a VAX 11/750 into a workstation (Re: VMS for MicroVAX II/III (was Re: Value of a PDP/8?))

by pechter＠gmail.com

Nope... I did the install on the hardware in my DEC Field Service days... It was a VS11/VSV11 subsystem. Had a raster graphics box hung off an interface on the Unibus. Perhaps it was a CSS (special systems) item. The box was at Fort Monmouth in Central New Jersey. There were diags and manuals in the Fiche under that name. Bill On 3/11/07, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote: > > At 10:37 PM -0500 3/10/07, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > >Bill Pechter wrote: > >>The DEC VS11/VSV11 kind of did the earliest "Vax workstation." > >> > >>It was a Qbus graphics subsystem with 20 inch monitor which hooked up to > a > >>Unibus interface. > > > >I'm reasonably certain there was an earlier workstation > >configuration for VAXen. I think the earliest was a UNIBUS-attached > >graphical console for the VAX 11/780. > > > >Peace... Sridhar > > I believe you're thinking of the VAXstation 100 terminal (aka VS100). > > Zane > > > -- > | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | > | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | > | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | > +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ > | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | > | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | > | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | >

19 years, 3 months

PDP-11/40 videos

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

I just looked at my message in "digest mode", and the word wrapping was bad, so I am reposting. I've been out in my shop this morning getting some VT52 DecScopes out of the back corner to prep them for shipping. I decided to boot up the old Wofford Witch PDP-11/40, since it has not been booted since November. While it's up and running, I think I am going to set up my camcorder and take some videos of the front panel as the lights blink, the LA120 Decwriter III console during the RSTS/E V7 startup process, the ASR-33 teletype as it clanks away running SYSTAT, the VT05 terminal during a video display, as well as the LA36, VT52, RL02, RK05, etc. I will hopefully find time to put these videos on my web site http://www.woffordwitch.com later today. I will show how to load an RL02 pack, an RK05 pack, etc. Is there anything in particular anyone is interested in while I am making videos? Hopefully someone will find these little video clips interesting or useful. I know that there have been times in the past where somebody would acquire an RL02 drive or RK05 drive and wish that someone could show them how to load a disk pack properly. Let me know if there is anything else that might be of interest while I have a few minutes and am not being summoned by "she who must be obeyed". :-) Ashley http://www.woffordwitch.com

19 years, 3 months

PDP-11/40 videos

by tpeters＠mixcom.com

At 11:25 AM 3/11/2007 -0500, you wrote: >I just looked at my message in "digest mode", and >the word wrapping was bad, so I am reposting. > >I've been out in my shop this morning getting Um, no, actually the other message was preferable, this one is wrapped to a little tiny fraction of the width. I'd like to see the blinkenlights on the front panel. -T ----- 106. [Computing] B can be thought of as C without types; more accurately, it is BCPL squeezed into 8K bytes of memory and filtered through Thompson's brain. --Dennis Ritchie --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB: http://www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531

19 years, 3 months

baud modifier

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 09:47:28 -0700 From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> Subject: Re: baud modifier >Terminal switchers that accommodate baud rate differences are still >made: >http://www.networktechinc.com/srvsw-term.html# >Cheers, >Chuck ------------------------------------------- I've still got a few NC-16 Net Commanders that are similar to those units in case anyone's interested. Same as the one Tony mentioned, but single board, RS-232 only, 110 to 19200 baud. mike

19 years, 3 months

Meiko pictures.

by andy＠smokebelch.org

So I went into the erm, server room, and pulled apart the Meiko nodes and took some pictures. Apologies for the poor quality, all I had was a camera phone, not so great lighting (and an unsteady hand)... CS/860 (a.k.a. Concerto) : MK083 x 1 (Sparcstation 1+ host and link adapters etc) MK086 x 1 (Twin i860 + transputers) http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/CS860.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/CS860b.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/MK083.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/MK083b.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/MK086.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/MK086b.jpg CS/1 : MK009 x 4 (Quad transputer compute element w/256K) MK021 x 1 (8MB 'mass store', not sure if it has SCSI option) MK014 x 1 (Local host with monitor/boot ROMs, RS232 & GPIB) MK015 x 1 (RGB+S display element w/32K) http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/CS1.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/CS1back.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/CS1back2.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/CS1cage.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/MK009.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/MK014.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/MK015.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/MK015b.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/MK021.jpg And also an MK026 PC ISA link adapter. http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/MK026.jpg All of which I have no software for, yet... (fingers and toes crossed) And can anyone tell me which IBM mainframe I removed this CPU from (I've forgotten!) ? : http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/IBM.jpg And for nosey folks some shamefully dull photos of the server room/workshop, and floor of artists studios block (almost rerelict building) where it's located : http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/workshop.jpg http://media.emergency-music.org/meiko/floor.jpg (where I get to stash more stuff amongst other folks crap) Andrew ---------------- Andrew Back a at smokebelch.org

19 years, 3 months

VMS for MicroVAX II/III (was Re: Value of a PDP/8?)

by glen.slick＠gmail.com

On 3/11/07, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote: > Cool! is this the Caddy 6x drive? I collect the Plextor caddy drives > whenever I can find them. I think I'm up to 3 6x drives, and 1 8x > (which is the drive in my PDP-11). The Plextor PX-6XCS is indeed an external SCSI CD-ROM Caddy 6x drive. I'll keep my eye out for more of these if find them cheap locally. I just checked the Plextor manual for the PX-32CSi/e (Caddy) and PX-32TSi/e (Tray) series and they still have 512-byte Block jumpers. Those models don't seem to be too hard to find locally. There are some on Craigslist locally right now. > That is correct. Do you have the Hobbyist Licenses yet? You'll > probably want to start working on that first. > > Zane I don't have the Hobbyist Licenses yet. I'll take care of that after making sure the MicroVAX II/III hardware seems to be working. -Glen

19 years, 3 months

can someone here host mono?

by legalize＠xmission.com

If someone can provide me with an environment that will host mono and its asp.net clone, then I can build some web site tools for us faster than if I just have access to raw PHP/MySQL. This is currently in the "test" debian distribution, which XMission will move to when it comes out of test, but who knows how long that will be. At that time I'll have the environment available to me on my xmission account. -- "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, 3 months

Turning a VAX 11/750 into a workstation (Re: VMS for MicroVAX II/III (was Re: Value of a PDP/8?))

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 3/10/07, Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: > > I think a 11/750 makes a fine single-user VMS "workstation" ;-) > > Never trust a workstation that couldn't roll over you and smash you flat? I almost had an 11/750 land on me, but I was able to coax it out of the side door of a Chevy Astro mini-Van (alone) without getting squished or pinched. That was a fun experience. Thinking about the whole "11/750 workstation" concept - I wonder if one could take a qbus mono framebuffer and hang it off of some flavor of Qniverter? It'd be glacial compared to a real VAXstation II or VAXstation 2000, but presuming the framebuffer doesn't depend on anything peculiar to POST on a MicroVAX II, it'd be slick to see. For "real" work on an 11/750, any flavor of DMA-capable Unibus comms interface (DEC DMF-32, Emulex CS21...) and an authentic ANSI-compatible dumb terminal (VT100, VT220...) is just fine (but back in the day, the "power users" had two terminals on their desk, along with a serial switch box to manage "multiple sessions" in hardware). -ethan

19 years, 3 months

Value of a PDP/8?

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

Speaking as a youngster (I was in the sort-of midrange bracket, my elementary/middle school had a reasonably well equipped Apple IIc (& clone)/ IIgs lab that we actually learned programming on, then high school had 2 XT clones and 2 Mac Pluses for general use, and about 25 386s kept under lock and key for learning typing, then when I got to college I missed the VAX years-we were on Suns) the DEC bit was due partially to reputation and, perhaps, partially due to advertising (after the children's programming on PBS they ran McNeil/Lehrer, and right at the start they did the "brought to you by Digital Equipment" with the Digital logo. Still remember that). Anyway- I was old enough to remember the technical buzz about Alpha when it came out, and of course I later learned how 4BSD was written on and for VAXen. I don't have a huge DEC collection (VAX 4000/200, VAXstation 3100/76 (cobbled together, it seems to mostly work) DEC 3000, AlphaServer 1000a, Multia (my first machine, I was getting desparate...) Haven't found any PDPs in the area/within my price range, but based on my experience there are two manufacturers who do really nice console firmware, one of them is DEC (SRM/later VAX consoles), and the other is Sun. DEC marketing was terrible, though (arbitrary hardware limits, extreme proprietariness, random direction changing (sounds a bit like SGI...) It's a testament to DEC engineering, though, that HP hasn't been able to kill off the Alpha after several years of trying. It's back, at least for another month. It will be interesting to see what today's children are interested in. AFAIK few school districts do programming now, and most are running PCs.

19 years, 3 months

baud modifier

by cclist＠sydex.com

Terminal switchers that accommodate baud rate differences are still made: http://www.networktechinc.com/srvsw-term.html# Cheers, Chuck

19 years, 3 months

PDP-11/40 videos

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

I've been out in my shop this morning getting some VT52 DecScopes out of the back corner to prep them for shipping. I decided to boot up the old Wofford Witch PDP-11/40, since it has not been booted since November. While it's up and running, I think I am going to set up my camcorder and take some videos of the front panel as the lights blink, the LA120 Decwriter III console during the RSTS/E V7 startup process, the ASR-33 teletype as it clanks away running SYSTAT, the VT05 terminal during a video display, as well as the LA36, VT52, RL02, RK05, etc. I will hopefully find time to put these videos on my web site http://www.woffordwitch.com later today. I will show how to load an RL02 pack, an RK05 pack, etc. Is there anything in particular anyone is interested in while I am making videos? Hopefully someone will find these little video clips interesting or useful. I know that there have been times in the past where somebody would acquire an RL02 drive or RK05 drive and wish that someone could show them how to load a disk pack properly. Let me know if there is anything else that might be of interest while I have a few minutes and am not being summoned by "she who must be obeyed". :-) Ashley http://www.woffordwitch.com

19 years, 3 months

Value of a PDP/8?

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

Here's my six cents... I worked for DEC (twice). Better engineering and nicer group of people you would not find again. Rod Smallwood DEC Badge No 45083 -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ethan Dicks Sent: 10 March 2007 02:26 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Value of a PDP/8? > > Someone (Jules? broken attribution?) wrote: > > I feel the need to ask - what is it that makes DEC stuff so popular > > and collectible, versus other machines of the same time period? > > > > So... why? More of a community? Better documentation? Better > > hardware or software availability? What do collectors *do* with > > their running DEC systems anyway? Familiarity - for me, as well as many members of this list, it's a matter of accumulated experience on DEC boxes when they were new or recently retired. > I can only speak to my own reasons. It really comes down to 2 issues. > > When I started collecting DEC hardware it was pretty cheap on the > surplus market. My 11/05 cost $50.00 US and was runnable. Another $150 > and I had a pair of RX01's. The most expensive part was RAM. Nice start. As I've posted in the past, my start with DEC hardware was a $35 PDP-8/L in 1982 from the Dayton Hamvention. It took me 2 years of fiddling around with it until I ran across a copy of the module list and got it working. From there, it was to a PDP-8/a to which I added an RX8E/RX01 then an RL8A and RL01 and a VT52. Coincident with the PDP-8/a, I was using PDP-11s and VAXen at work, so I was pretty well established as a DEChead between High School and my Freshman year of College. I never got paid to program a PDP-8, but I'm happy I barely made the cutoff to program the PDP-11 for a living (1986-1987). Besides early access to the hardware, I'd say the appeal was how much cooler 12-bits and 16-bits and 32-bits was compared to my little 6502 and 1802 machines were at home. I could write "real" programs on a minicomputer at work or poke around with noddy stuff in BASIC and 6502 assembler at home. No contest. It didn't hurt that while I was learning PDP-11 machine language at work (typing in diagnostics with console ODT emulators), I was also working on Unibus and Qbus hardware. I got to learn all the low-level stuff _and_ get a paycheck for it. I never saw an HP or Data General in the flesh until several years after I was repairing PDP-11 boards and writing programs in MACRO and C. Speaking of C, I learned it on an 11/750 running 4BSD in 1985. A venerable platform if ever there was one (back in the days of "all the world's a VAX"). I learned the One True Brace formatting standard in that environment and retain that style to this day. So... in short - early exposure and access, then the chance to pick up older stuff on the surplus market for cheap or free. When nobody wanted 5MB RL01s, I was buying cheap RL01s. Later it was RL02s, then it was entire MicroVAXen, etc. So much of it was backwards and forwards compatible, I could play with what I could afford at home, then take my results to work and run stuff on really expensive iron ($100K+). Shame it's all so hard to find now. -ethan

19 years, 3 months

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