test-drb

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

101090 discussions

by legalize＠xmission.com

Any ideas on how I would go about putting this humpty dumpty back together again? Its a Visual 500 terminal, and its significant because a) in two years of monitoring ebay I haven't seen any other Visual Technology terminals offered b) it has graphics capability (Tektronix 4010 emulation) <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/images/damaged/visual-1.jpg> <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/images/damaged/visual-2.jpg> <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/images/damaged/visual-3.jpg> <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/images/damaged/visual-4.jpg> <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/images/damaged/visual-5.jpg> <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/images/damaged/visual-6.jpg> <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/images/damaged/visual-7.jpg> <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/images/damaged/visual-8.jpg> <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/images/damaged/visual-9.jpg> This thing was so poorly packed that even the spacing posts in the keyboard were sheared off. The circuit boards don't appear damaged and amazingly the tube doesn't appear damaged, but obviously the case is pretty heavily smashed. The ebay seller accused me of trying to rip them off by claiming damage and then made a big stink about me giving them negative feedback. I think there was *one* inflated pillow style spacer on the top of the unit when I opened it. They also tried to claim that UPS packed it, which seems like utter bullshit. I've been thinking that I might be able to glue enough of the pieces of the case back together to get something stable enough to have the electronics working again. (I've never attempted to power it on and man, was I pissed when I opened up this box!) I suppose it would be prohibitively expensive to try and recast a new plastic enclosure for it... -- "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

New DEC museum entry :D

by witchy＠binarydinosaurs.co.uk

Hi folks, It always pleases me to bring some new DEC stuff into Binary Dinosaurs, but it's even better when it's in good condition and still working nicely :) Tonight I drove a grand total of 62 miles to *edit* bollocks, while I was typing this the machine I was going to crow about nuked the power to my house :) Aaaaaanyhoo, it's a Professional 380 with RD52 and RX50 coupled to a nice VR241 for display purposes, running P/OS 2.2. Or at least it was until the power gave out. To be fair it hadn't been powered up for a few years so I really should've taken it into work and started it up on the 'doesn't matter if it blows' mains but hey ho. No magic smoke so I wonder what's up with it..... It came with an LA210, LVP16 plotter, several boxes of Pro manuals and loads of P/OS disks and software distros. In a word: nice. Unless it's going to keep nuking my mains :) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection?

19 years, 3 months

The Lightning Empiricist: Analog Computers in the real world

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

I just re-discovered (after decades since I last saw it) a remarkable newsletter/journal/marketing tool titled "The Lightning Empiricist". If you Google for it you will find stuff from 55 years ago (some of it through/via the Computer History Museum). Good stuff. Highly recommended. Tim.

19 years, 3 months

plotters again

by hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca

Inspired by all that talk of plotters last week, I lugged the box containing the HP9872A upstairs and opened it for the first time in 6 years. A few repairs later, an evening in a comfy chair with the manuals (it's nice to have manuals for a change), and some doodling on the 9815 calculator which drives it, and the plotter is zip'in and zoom'in about. Yup, it's pretty neat, esp. with the built-in character generation with scaling. The weak point in this scenario however, is the torture of programming the 9815 and problems with the tape cartridges and drive of the 9815. Those cartridges and drive may have been OK in the day, but today with the gooey wheel issue and failing elastic bands in the cartridges they're nothing one wants to rely on. Given that the plotter uses HP-GL as the control language, I began to think along the same lines as Chuck wrote about a day ago: building a simple parallel interface to the plotter HP-IB port that does just the data transfer (minus all the HP-IB device selection, etc. functions) to connect it up to a more flexible/modern source/controller machine. That's just a thought at the moment so there's no immediate need, but I'm wondering if there are any HP-GL plot files (or collection thereof) out there which would then be available to simply throw down the line at the plotter to draw cute stuff and exercise the plotter. I'm not really thinking of programs or graphics software packages that generate HP-GL, as that would require particular hardware/systems to execute on. Rather: just straight ASCII-text HP-GL files that were previously generated or hand-coded, sort of in the same spirit as 'ASCII-art' was produced.

19 years, 3 months

cctalk Digest, Vol 42, Issue 73

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2007 20:42:15 +0000 (GMT) From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Subject: Re: New DEC museum entry :D (not the breaker sub-thread) >Does the word 'wonmdering' have any meaning to oyu? Who is this oyu? I can't speak for him/her/it, but not to me. Or is this Zen or some deep philosophical question for us to ponder? m

19 years, 3 months

Watch out for Alexandra Carter (resolved)

by vp＠drexel.edu

I feel bad for starting this thread, because the machine arrived today. The postage stamp indicated that it had been posted on February 16 (more than ten days ago -- so I was making all this fuss when the machine was already on its way). Having said that, Ms Carter is really mad. If she had simply given me the date she posted the package instead of filing the non-payment report I wouldn't have blown my top. Anyway, thanks to everybody for their support and helpful suggestions. **vp

19 years, 3 months

New "D" drive -- WD Caviar

by dm561＠torfree.net

--------------Original Message: Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2007 22:28:26 -0800 From: Hollandia at ccountry.net Subject: Re: New "D" drive -- WD Caviar To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Message-ID: <200702260628.l1Q6SOoZ011678 at mailproxy1.ccountry.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Mr. DePermentier, I apologize for not mentioning this originally. The only jumper settings possible on the "C" drive are Device 0, Device 1 and Cable Select. Sorry for the omission. Kurt >Hi why don't you set the C: drive to Master and the D: drive to Slave. > >Al DePermentier > > --------------Reply: Nitpicking: Primary and/or Secondary Device (Drive) 0 and 1 are in fact the correct unambiguous names for the drives (although you will also see them referred to as Disk 1 and 2, e.g. in Fdisk, so maybe first & second would be even better). Two drives with single partitions will _usually_ be labelled as C: and D:, but if there are partitions or an unusual configuration C: and D: could refer to either drive, the same drive, or even neither one (unlikely in your case). To sum up: If you have a secondary IDE port that's not in use, use it for the second drive, jumpered as master, and leave the "C:" drive as is. If there are two drive connectors on the cable, use the one at the end. If you only have one port available or the BIOS only supports two drives, (and you have a 2-drive cable) it depends on whether you really have a CS cable (unlikely, but you can tell by looking for one of the wires (pin 28) being cut, or the corresponding insert missing from one of the connectors). If yes, set the new drive to CS, plug it into the unused connector, and it _should_ work. If not, i.e. you have a standard cable where all pins are connected, set the "C:" drive to Device 0 and the new drive to slave; in this case it doesn't matter which connectors you plug into which drive. mike

19 years, 3 months

New "D" drive -- WD Caviar

by dm561＠torfree.net

---------------Original Messages: Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2007 10:53:33 -0500 From: Patrick Finnegan <pat at computer-refuge.org> Subject: Re: New "D" drive -- WD Caviar On Monday 26 February 2007 01:29, M H Stein wrote: > 1) Actually, according to WD it's a 10-pin drive, but CS is still pins > 1&2. However, I doubt that an old 486 would recognize CS, even with an > 80-conductor cable; the existing one probably works because it's > treated as a master with a 40-conductor cable. The host has nothing to do with cable select working. It only really depends on the drive and the cable. That's why it's called "cable select" and not "host select". One drive gets set to master, and the other to slave, based on their cable position. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org --------------Reply: You're right, of course; as long as the MB grounds pin 28 CS should work with a CS cable (mind you, this is a Packard-Bell, so anything's possible ;-). But since this is a 486 and the drive is not the original, it's quite likely that it has a normal non-CS cable; for a single drive jumpering CS or Master would work equally well, but a slave drive would require moving the main drive jumper and configuring as dual Master/Slave. I've certainly never seen a 486 with a CS cable as standard equipment (or even a stock 40-pin CS cable for that matter, although they're easy to make). Then again, this _is_ a P-B... Still best to use two IDE ports with both drives master (or CS) if possible. mike

19 years, 3 months

8-bit WD IDE adapter + CF?

by doc＠mdrconsult.com

The penny finally dropped. A few days ago someone mentioned that a CF-IDE adapter worked with an 8-bit controller. I think. Something about compact flash and 8-bit anyway. Does that mean I can replace the dead IDE drive on a WDAT-140 or -150controller with compact flash? Doc

19 years, 3 months

Chris M. on arty computers and Mindset

by c.murray.mccullough＠gmail.com

The quintessentail 'arty' machine I still say is the Coleco ADAM! Not so much for its external appearance but my its internal structure was worth crowing about. And it was a bargain in 1984's 8-bit computer crash. Oh. So sad! And 'artsy-fartsy'. Haven't seen that term since I came across a hang-out/bar/folk-arts place in Tokyo in 1997. Happy computing! Murray :)

19 years, 3 months

Floppy Diskette Interface Signals & Timing

by river＠zip.com.au

Hi, I've been trying to find (on the net) information regarding the signal timing for the 3.5inch floppy diskette drive. I want to play around with one and connect it to one of my home-brewed systems (6502 or 8085), but I need to know the timing of the signals, plus what the different logic levels means on some signals, etc. I can get plenty of information regarding the 34-pin connector and signal names, but nothing on timing and logic levels. I'd be most happy if someone could illuminate me to where I could get this information. river

19 years, 3 months

Off-topic but still funny.

by fireflyst＠earthlink.net

We were talking in the ccmp IRC channel and I thought I'd share this hi-larious photo: http://tinyurl.com/2884e4 Enjoy.

19 years, 3 months

Google on hard drive failures

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> is there currently or will there ever be a good long time > permanent solution for good promising backups? no you have to assume that you will migrate digital files to media capable of being read reliably until the next generation of mass storage arrives. all of the other protections (redundancy, error correction, etc.) need to be in place as well to protect against migration of data that has already been corrupted. the good news is that transfer rates and bit density increase with time, so old data is easier to migrate the bad news is the amount of data to migrate is increasing exponentially

19 years, 3 months

New DEC museum entry :D (not the breaker sub-thread)

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

> Tony Duell wrote: >> Does the word 'wonmdering' have any meaning to oyu? > None to me. > Nor for me. Does the word milliard mean anything to you?

19 years, 3 months

'woz' IIGS approx value?

by witchy＠binarydinosaurs.co.uk

Hi folks, Had a mail from someone wanting to know how much her 'Woz' GS is worth and does anyone want it? It apparently 'has everything' so I've asked her to define what that means, as 'everything' for the GS is quite a pile :) $50 - $150? -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection?

19 years, 3 months

Fwd: [comp.sys.dec] Selling my VAX, Alpha, PDP-11 and other s

by legalize＠xmission.com

This message has been forwarded from Usenet. To reply to the original author, use the email address from the forwarded message. Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2007 07:55:52 +0900 Groups: comp.sys.dec,alt.sys.pdp11 From: Tim Sneddon <tesneddon at bigpond.com> Subject: Selling my VAX, Alpha, PDP-11 and other spares (was Re: Selling my PDP-11/83 and various spares...) Re: <45d4fdf3$0$16270$88260bb3 at free.teranews.com> Id: <45e20788$0$16343$88260bb3 at free.teranews.com> ======== All, Most of my PDP-11 stuff has been sold. However, I do have a collection of Q-BUS VAX spares, some Alpha bits, SCSI stuff. some more PDP-11 stuff I didn't even no I had, a few manuals and some other bits and pieces. I won't be listing any of this stuff past this coming weekend as I will no longer have any storage and all this stuff will be going in the bin. I will be listing quite a lot of the items mentioned above over the next two days. http://search.ebay.com.au/_W0QQsassZtesneddonQQhtZ-1 Regards, Tim. PS. Once again, apologies for cross posting. -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

19 years, 3 months

New "D" drive -- WD Caviar

by dm561＠torfree.net

------------Original Messages: Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2007 17:02:01 -0800 From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> Subject: Re: New "D" drive -- WD Caviar To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <45E1C109.17821.6AF8FBA at cclist.sydex.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII On 25 Feb 2007 at 16:05, Hollandia at ccountry.net wrote: > The new drive has jumper settings for SLAVE, NASTER and SINGLE, but so far > as I can tell, none for "cable select." The drive is a 6-pin jumper block drive. For CS, jumper pins 1&2 of J8; leave other jumpers off. > 1) How do I set this new drive for "cable select"? > 2) Will wrong BIOS settings caues the drive's existence to not be recognized? Not usually--the drive should at least be able to identify itself to the BIOS. Cheers, Chuck -----------------Reply: 1) Actually, according to WD it's a 10-pin drive, but CS is still pins 1&2. However, I doubt that an old 486 would recognize CS, even with an 80-conductor cable; the existing one probably works because it's treated as a master with a 40-conductor cable. My suggestions: If there is a second (unused) IDE port, set the second drive as single master (no jumpers or 4&6) and plug it into the second port. If not, change the existing drive to dual master (pins 5&6) and set the second drive to dual slave (3&4). 2) Unlikely, but possibly, especially since AFAIK that BIOS does not have an auto-detect option; in any case, if the BIOS is set incorrectly you will almost certainly have trouble when you start using that drive. mike

19 years, 3 months

HP battery eliminator connectors - found

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

I've brought this up on the list a couple times, and the concensus among fellow HP'ers was always "these connectors aren't around anymore". Some are happy to just push a resistor into the 21MX battery connector, but I have one of the HP connectors built specifically as a battery eliminator plug and I wanted more. The resistors can fall out if just pushed in or not make good contact. After working with someone at AMP (Tyco), the following information is available: These are the old AMP "MR" (miniature rectangle) connectors. Here's the parts for a HP 21MX battery eliminator plug, with AMP part numbers & mouser prices: Pin housing (cap) 1-640511-0 $0.82 Strain relief (shell) 350522-1 $1.24 Live split pin contact (tin, 26-18 awg) 640545-1 $0.17 (need 2) or Live split pin contact (tin, 26-24 awg) 640579-1 (need 2) or Live split pin contact (gold, 26-18 awg) 640545-2 $0.40 (need 2) or Live split pin contact (gold, 26-24 awg) 640579-2 (need 2) These are all current production parts and still available new. The only mismatch - the HP plugs were black and these are red :) If I build up a bunch of battery eliminator plugs, I wonder if I can get $20 each on ebay ;) Hope this helps folks! Jay West

19 years, 3 months

New "D" drive -- WD Caviar

by Alwrcker82＠wmconnect.com

Kurt, in most cases Device 0 is C drive and Device 1 is drive D, it can't hurt to try. Al DePermentier

19 years, 3 months

New DEC museum entry :D (not the breaker sub-thread)

by vp＠drexel.edu

Brent Hilpert <hilpert at cs.ubc.ca> wrote: > Regardless if the OP has repeatedly said as you say [...] > > He might also be permitted to make his own decisions [...] Oh, give it a rest **vp

19 years, 3 months

New "D" drive -- WD Caviar

by Hollandia＠ccountry.net

Mr. DePermentier, I apologize for not mentioning this originally. The only jumper settings possible on the "C" drive are Device 0, Device 1 and Cable Select. Sorry for the omission. Kurt >Hi why don't you set the C: drive to Master and the D: drive to Slave. > >Al DePermentier > >

19 years, 3 months

Bare Bones Kit?

by grant＠stockly.com

I have had a few people comment on the price of the Altair Kit. Currently it takes a LOT of time to prepare a kit because of the amount of small parts involved. (resistors, capacitors, IC sockets). I am considering a kit that contains only custom parts and parts that get a big benefit from quantity orders. For example, I would ONLY include the case, power supplies, PCBs, ICs, switches, wire, and fasteners. I would provide a BOM with parts, quantity, and DigiKey part numbers (for the exact parts I would have bought) Making this change reduces the number of parts in the kit from 820 to 124. :) The overall price would go down because of the parts not included, and even more for handling. I want to price it so I don't loose money, but also make it available to more people. What is the price threshold you would have on buying one of these things? Grant

19 years, 3 months

Watch out for Alexandra Carter (eBay seller)

by vp＠drexel.edu

Anybody done business with eBay seller Alexandra Carter (alexandracarter)? She used a very neat trick on me. I bought an HP 5036A Microprocessor Lab 8-Bit Computer from her (eBay 160080545681) and paid for it with a money order which was received on Feb. 3, 2006 (USPS tracking number 0103 8555 7499 5332 2386). She then claimed to have sent the HP 5036A via USPS but has not produced a tracking number despite the fact that I specifically had asked for one. Anyway, when I pressured her about the item, she filled a non-payment dispute against me, to prevent me from posting negative feedback on her. This is despite the fact that on Feb 9, she sent me an eBay message (sitting in my eBay messages folder) confirming receipt of payment. I have been told that she has pulled this stunt before on another buyer and only delivered the goods when he threatened filing a USPS mail fraud complaint. So watch out for Alexandra Carter despite her 98.6% feedback rating. **vp

19 years, 3 months

FW: Re: old rare diskdrives? (Rejected E-Mail to "MC=?iso-8859-15?Q?SELE"_at_Ni

by ebubekr＠web.de

hi guys, I am searching after a old (very old) harddisk drive and want to ask do you have any? or any ideas where can I get that? thanx abu ak regards *Von:* "Mark Csele" <MCSELE at NIAGARAC.ON.CA> *Gesendet:* 16.02.07 21:07:23 *An:* <EBUBEKR at WEB.DE> *Betreff:* FW: Re: old rare diskdrives? (Rejected E-Mail to "MC=?iso-8859-15?Q?SELE"_at_Ni Sorry, I don't have parts for sale. The only sourec I know-of is ebay or you could try the old computer group (cctech at classiccmp.org ) to see if anyone has parts available. msc Professor Mark Csele Niagara College, Canada 300 Woodlawn Rd., L-23 Welland, ON, L3C 7L3 (905) 735-2211 x.7629 E-Mail: mcsele at niagarac.on.ca URL: http://technology.niagarac.on.ca/people/mcsele Author of "Fundamentals of Light Sources and Lasers", Wiley, 2004 >>> <ebubekr at web.de> 2/13/2007 4:32 PM >>> *Von:* "Mark Csele" <MCSELE at NIAGARAC.ON.CA> *Gesendet:* 23.01.07 20:16:26 *An:* <EBUBEKR at WEB.DE> *Betreff:* Re: old rare diskdrives? (Rejected E-Mail to "MCSELE" at Niagara College ...) Your e-mail was REJECTED by the Anise anti-spam filter, or by one of two virus scanners, and was never received by the recipient. Please re-send your message with a meaningful subject line such as one of the following: Photonics, Lasers, Program Inquiry, Computer technology, history of ..., Rankine, fundamentals of lights, etc. You may also use a generic breakthru code by simply including the words 'Niagara college' in your subject line. Inclusion of such a subject will ensure the message gets through. Sorry for the inconvenience but 95% of all e-mail received at this address is spam. If you did _not_ send the attached e-mail, simply ignore this message as the original was deleted. As the system runs, the database of addresses and search patterns grows and rejections like this will become rare. If all else fails, please leave a fax at (905) 736-6005 with your email address and it will be added manually to the database. >>> ebubekr 01/23/07 14:11 >>> hi, I have see some disk drives on your homepage and want to ask you if sale the magnetic and coils from the odl diskdrives? or do you have a idea where can I get any? thanx abu ak regards Erweitern Sie FreeMail zu einem noch leistungsst?rkeren E-Mail-Postfach! Mehr Infos unter *http://freemail.web.de/home/landingpad/?mc=021131* [http://freemail.web.de/home/landingpad/?mc=021131] Viren-Scan f?r Ihren PC! Jetzt f?r jeden. Sofort, online und kostenlos. Gleich testen! *http://www.pc-sicherheit.web.de/freescan/?mc=022222* [http://www.pc-sicherheit.web.de/freescan/?mc=022222] Viren-Scan f?r Ihren PC! Jetzt f?r jeden. Sofort, online und kostenlos. Gleich testen! *http://www.pc-sicherheit.web.de/freescan/?mc=022222* [http://www.pc-sicherheit.web.de/freescan/?mc=022222]

19 years, 3 months

New "D" drive -- WD Caviar

by Alwrcker82＠wmconnect.com

Hi why don't you set the C: drive to Master and the D: drive to Slave. Al DePermentier

19 years, 3 months

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