test-drb

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101090 discussions

just for fun: Strong Bad isn't a vintage computer collector

by spectre＠floodgap.com

Strong Bad blows up his Apple-esque first computer and his "COMPY 386" that uses a Commodore typeface to preserve the 486 laptop that they took hostage. http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail159.html -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION! ------------------------------------

19 years, 7 months

VCF 9 plans...

by evan＠snarc.net

I know this is a bit early, but I'm arriving for VCF 9 on Thursday, Nov. 2 if anyone's looking to hang out in the evening. Cell is 646-546-9999.

19 years, 7 months

VZ200 available

by shawn.t.rutledge＠gmail.com

Anybody interested in one of these? Was going to put it on ebay but thought I'd ask first. It seems to work, too, and comes with the BASIC manual.

19 years, 7 months

Odd 8-bit ISA CD-ROM interface?

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

I have this board here, marked "Reveal / Part No. 14-004-008" with an FCC ID if BEJGCD-R420B. It is an 8-bit ISA card with a few jumpers (1-4 and 1-9) and a single 40-pin IDC connector. >From a bit of googling, it seems to be an ancient CD-ROM interface. That would be interesting as it's 8-bit and AFAIK, ATAPI devices are 16-bit only. There's not much on the card - a couple of buffers ('244, '245), an address comparator ('688), and a wee bit of logic ('32 x 2, '08, '00)... nothing to, say, latch two 8-bit writes into a 16-bit register. Anyone recognize this beast? Is it useful in anything besides a DOS/Win3.1 box? -ethan

19 years, 7 months

PCW's 25 worst tech products of all time

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

>Has anyone ever compiled a list of IBM PC and PC/XT >compatibles for >historical purposes (outisde of the no-name Taiwanese >clones, that is)? There are sites that attempt to enumerate all of the things that used 8088s or 8086s. I purpose to start a website one of these days. Perhaps some space could be reserved to host submissions which would attempt to do that very thing. Ick who cares about compatibles though? ;) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

19 years, 7 months

TD Systems Viking QBUS SCSI adapter info?

by pat＠computer-refuge.org

I've got a TD Systems Viking "VIK/QDA" QBUS SCSI controller, which I'm trying to use. Does anyone have documentation for this thing? It's properly configured to be at the primary (disk) MSCP controller address, and looks OK from the QBUS side, but I can't talk to any SCSI disks that I connect to it. This is what "show qbus" gives me on my VAX 4000/300: >>>show qbus Scan of Qbus I/O Space -20001468 (772150) = B440 RQDX3/KDA50/RRD50/RQC25/KFQSA-DISK -2000146A (772152) = 0B40 -20001600 (773000) = 0A0F -20001602 (773002) = 01FF -20001920 (774440) = FF08 DELQA/DEQNA/DESQA -20001922 (774442) = FF00 -20001924 (774444) = FF2B -20001926 (774446) = FF32 -20001928 (774450) = FFA6 -2000192A (774452) = FF9E -2000192C (774454) = 8400 -2000192E (774456) = 1030 -20001F40 (777500) = 0020 IPCR And, this is what "show uqssp" gives me: >>>show uqssp UQSSP Disk Controller 0 (772150) -DUA0 (@0) -DUA1 (@0) -DUA2 (@0) -DUA3 (@0) -DUA4 (@0) -DUA5 (@0) -DUA6 (@0) So, it's there, and responding to the CPU (and yes, it's the only MSCP device in the system, so it's not conflicting with anything else). I've tried setting the SCSI drive to several different SCSI IDs, and I've used drives from 540MB to 6GB in size, with no luck. When I try a "show uqssp" or a "boot dua0", the controller blinks its red LED, but the activity light on the drive doesn't light up at all (the SCSI ID on the drive was set to "0" when I tried booting from it). Any ideas? Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org

19 years, 7 months

8-inch substitutes

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

So, back to my 8-inch drive problem... Would a Shugart 851 be an acceptable substitute for a Qume 842? The client tells me that any of the following will work in his Fairlight CMI synthesizer: Qume 242 YE Data YD174 YE Data YD180 Mitsubishi M2896-63 I'm not clear where he got this list. I'm looking at the manual for the Qume and it claims that it's an electrical and mechanical match for the Shugart 850. Is this a close enough match? Also, the client is in the zipcode 53153. Is there someone near there who I can coax into taking a look? -- 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, 7 months

Houseclening - 3.5" drive trays

by cclist＠sydex.com

I've got about 15 of these to dump or give away. These are the gizmos that fit in a 5.25" HH drive opening and hold a removable tray with a 3.5" hard drive in it. Mostly IDE, a couple are SCSI-I and a few have built-in-fans. Some are still NIB. These do not work with the UDMA4 80-conductor cables (well, they do, just not in UDMA mode). The lot is yours for the shipping cost. Cheers, Chuck

19 years, 7 months

Housecleaning - "Monitor misers"

by cclist＠sydex.com

I've got 4 or 5 of these little boxes for 120v operation that hook in series with a PC keyboard cable (5 pin DIN) and the mains supply for the monitor (3 prong line cord; female IEC cord). They've got a 4- position DIP switch on the back to vary the time between 10 and 40 mintues. The idea is that if the DIPswitch selected time goes by without any keyboard inactivity will turn the monitor mains supply off. Some are the "Monitor Miser" brand; others are the IBM Options "Display Miser" brand--they're identical internally. Free to anyone who wants the lot and pays postage. Cheers, Chuck

19 years, 7 months

Housecleaning - Cipher 525 NIB

by cclist＠sydex.com

I've got a Cipher 525 full-height 5.25" QIC floppy tape drive-- writes DC600A tapes. New, in original bag and box. Free to anyone for the cost of postage. Cheers, Chuck

19 years, 7 months

DEC boot rom image sought

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

Yup, I know it's been asked for here time and again, but I'm going to try and keep it in folks minds ;) Would anyone have the DEC boot rom for the M9312 that boots off TMSCP TK50 & TU81 (MU)? Please check your M9312 boards and your PDP-11/44 boot roms for rom "E39A9" or part number "23-E39A9". If you have it, I (and a few others) would love if I could borrow it to make an image. Best regards, Jay West

19 years, 7 months

On the subject of boot ROMs...

by gordon＠gjcp.net

... does anyone else have a Baydel STBC multifunction card that they could read the ROMs off for me? I contacted Baydel, but sadly they'd just pitched the last of their QBus stuff prior to a move a few months ago :-/ Gordon.

19 years, 7 months

LCD TV's with Home computers

by vp＠drexel.edu

roger pugh <rogpugh at mac.com> wrote: > Does anyone have any experience running home computers, Commodores, > Sinclair's, Apple II's and the like on one of these modern LCD TV's. > Can they lock on to the cheap modulator signals or work with the > composite or RGB. > I'm thinking of getting rid of a bulky tv set and various rgb and black > and white monitors and use a modern solution. Because of space constraints I use a Samsung LCD-TV for my HP 86B, HP 9915A/B computers and my HP-IL video coverters. The display quality is very good, but the LCD-TV does not have the same flexibility in adjusting the display as analogue monitors, so the leftmost 1 or 2 characters are missing. On a Dell LCD monitor with composite input the display appears correctly, so results may vary between LCD panels. **vp

19 years, 7 months

looking for an M8637 module

by henk.gooijen＠oce.com

Hi all, I am looking for an M8637 PMI memory module to make my 11/84 happy. 1 Mb or 2 Mb, it's not really important. Who has a spare board and is willing to sell or trade it? thanks, - Henk. This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation.

19 years, 7 months

VAX 8600

by bqt＠softjar.se

Adrian Graham <witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk> wrote: > Aaaand done! > > http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/Museum/Digital/VAX8600/index.php > > :) Hey, nice machine! As a person who actually still keep one of these beasts alive, I have a few comments that might, or might not help you. First of all, it's a fairly loaded machine. You have atleast three unibuses, and since you have a TU79, I would think you also have massbus. Really nice. (First time I've actually seen a TU79, btw. Only seen TA79 before.) However, the buts... There is no memory in the machine. Do you keep those cards in a box somewhere, or are you missing them? Also, if you look at the bottom of the large cabinet, there is a box there, with a TOY in it. That TOY contains four lead batteries, that should not be left unattended for more than six months, or they will probably go bad. Without batteries, the machine will not boot. I think I have some document somewhere on how to bypass this if you don't have the batteries. Let me know if you ever get as far as trying to fire the machine up. Also, the smaller cabinet for the machine, that holds the first unibus box, the console Q-bus, and the RL02 drive is a very important item. The RL02 drive holds the console medium. This pack is extremely valuable for you. Without it, you'll have a inoperative machine, since the frontend boots from the RL02, and the frontend then loads the machine with all the microcode also read from the RL02. Almost all diagnostics are also on the RL02. Store it in a good place, and try to make copies of it. Oh, and is it an ASR-35 I see in the background? :-) The 86x0 machines are wonderful, and loads of fun to play with. As long as you have the power and cooling for them. Oh, and make sure you hook the power up right to it, since the fans for the machine are real 3-phase motors, and will run backwards if you get the phases wrong. And that will soon damage the machine as well. Johnny

19 years, 7 months

VAX 8600 (was Re: the last MIT ITS dec-20 (AI.MIT.EDU) is up for sale)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 10/18/06, Witchy <witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk> wrote: > On Tue, October 17, 2006 11:25 pm, Jules Richardson said: > > > > There's always the DECSystem 570 and the VAX 8600 to get your teeth into - > > *looks for picture of VAX8600, fails* Google Image search is your friend... http://hampage.hu/vax/e_1984.html I never ran one, but I used to walk past one in a semi-stripped condition at Lucent in Columbus, OH, c. 1997. -ethan

19 years, 7 months

ZRQC formatter issue

by drb＠msu.edu

Esteemed DEC Wizards, I'm trying to format a Seagate ST251-1 (40 MB MFM drive) connected to an RQDX3 using ZRQCH0 from XXDP25. The formatter runs for over two minutes, stepping the heads steadily, and announcing completion of over 50,000 LBNs written. It seems to write all of the low level format, then dies with this error: ZRQC SYS FTL ERR 00007 ON UNIT 00 TST 01 SUB 000 PC: 105472 Controller has reported a fatal error in the format program Status: FCT nonexistent The drive was originally used with WD controllers on 486 class MS-DOS machines. How do I get an FCT onto the drive? Do I need to somehow wipe some additional space on the drive to trick ZRQC into thinking this is a raw drive, or something? Thanks, De

19 years, 7 months

HP stuff on ebay

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

I noticed this in a different category than usual... ebay item # 250040699675 It's an HP 13037C rackmount controller. Doesn't power up, but, there's one day left at 14 bucks. Since it has a complete set of cables it's worth $14 just for that. This item is required for 7905/06/20 disc drives. There's also a 7970E in case no one noticed in the usual category. Jay

19 years, 7 months

Wow; $192 for a 5.25" floppy disk drive

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

Doing this with RS-232 is just dumb. It's clearly a USB application. I really believe that there is a relatively large market for such a device (USB to 5.25 (and possibly 8") interface). I'm thinking tens or hundreds of thousands of units (not a significant market penetration in a world with hundreds of millions of PCs in use and an additional 100 million sold annually, but enough to make design and manufacture easily justifiable). Because I think that this has much wider application than just "us classic computer collectors", I think that size, aesthetics and ease of use matter. Sure, the functionality can be achieved with a whole PC, and an old PC can be nearly "free". But that's not what the CPA firm that needs to access a client's old records on 5.25" diskettes wants. They want a nice, small, not too expensive box that plugs into a USB port and has a CD of drivers and file transfer software (including file transfer programs for non-Microsoft OS' ... even, in fact in particular, CP/M). I personally don't care about a cat-weasel type device that tries to capture every flux transition on the disc. I don't care about hard sector formats either (Heathkit, NorthStar) unless I can do them with no great extra effort. Being able to handle "any" soft-sector format with 128, 256, 512 or 1024 byte sectors, single or double sided, 5.25" (360k or 1.2MB) {and POSSBILY 8" (ok, for me, preferably)) is good enough and is relatively easy to do. A USB interface, a microprocessor and a floppy controller. And some software on the PC side for file transfer. Keep it relatively simple, relatively cheap, and still meet the needs of the vast majority of people who might have a use for such a device. While I might want to use this for CP/M (and the device should allow that, even if the extent of this is that it allows arbitrary read and write I/O to specific side/track/sector, and let software on the PC deal with the file system), the primary use of this is going to be for 5.25" PC diskettes (both 360k and 1.2MB) now that PCs no longer have 5.25" floppies. And, if it wasn't for the fact that there are USB 3.5" floppy drives, we'd soon need it for those as well, as floppy drives of all types and sizes are in their "end days".

19 years, 7 months

**for grabs** power supply H7868B fro R215F

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

Not sure about the power supply, but I would encourage you to consider putting the RF72s for sale on E-bay or something similar. When I was looking to outfit my VAX about a year and a half ago, DSSI drives were quite expensive for their size (generally at least US$40 for a RF72 (I wound up using a HSD05-AA and SCSI drives built into the BA440).

19 years, 7 months

Wow; $192 for a 5.25" floppy disk drive

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

Don't know if any of you saw this, but a 5.25" floppy disk drive just went for $192 on E-Bay tonight (Wed., 10/18). It was a "backpack" external parallel port drive, New Old Stock in Box, still shrink wrapped. I am strongly of the opinion that there is a far bigger market than is generally perceived for a USB floppy disk controller that will support 5.25" and even 8" drives, if only someone would develop the product.

19 years, 7 months

**for grabs** power supply H7868-B fro R215F

by henk.gooijen＠oce.com

Hi all, I am disposing some stuff I really don't want to keep. Most of it is of no interest, but parts may be ... So, if anybody want the PSU of the R215F pedestall it's available for shipping cost (from The Netherlands). Also the two RF72 drives, but they weigh a few kilos ... I will throw the pedestal in a collect bin, so the metal inside (heavy!) will get recycled. - Henk. This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation.

19 years, 7 months

Specific DEC diagnostic questions (FKTG & ZDLD)

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

The /34 passes FKAA, FKAB, FKAC, ZKMA, ZQMC, - and boots RT11. So it can't be totally hosed. Two diags give me odd results, and I'm not sure if they are saying something is failing or if I'm just not understanding what they're trying to say. ZDLDI0 - DL-11W diagnostic - It prints the following: CZDLDI0 DL11-W 11/44 MFM SLU 01 Devices Under Test --------this line is the complete ascii character set (A-Z, a-z, 0-9, !-+, etc.)----------- --------the above line (complete ascii character set) repeats here a 2nd time---------- ND PASS The odd part is the ND PASS. Where did my E go? It thinks it ended ok, but something seems amiss. I tried this on a VT100, and then on an ADDS VP to make sure it wasn't the terminal. Both gave identical results, both set to 8-1-N which is what the DL11 is set at. This MAY be related to the following... When I run FKTGC0 (11/34 memory management excerciser) it loops on a character set display similar to the ZDLD diag above. But it's not the exact same line every time. About once every 2 seconds it prints the character set line, then prints it again, and this goes on for long enough that I just halt the processor. The only docs I can find on FKTG show a switch option to inhibit TTY output. I select that and run the diag again, and it just prints an * on a new line about once every 12 seconds. I see no documentation telling me if you inhibit TTY output that it's supposed to print a * every so often, it doesn't seem to ever stop (maybe I'm not giving it long enough) so I'm a bit clueless as to if it is completing this diag and * means a pass, or does each * mean a test phase, or does a * mean "fail"? I'd appreciate any input on the two issues above! Thanks! Jay West

19 years, 7 months

General DEC diagnostic questions

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

I assume these are probably silly questions, but hey, it's just not clear to me :) In the PDP11 diagnostic handbook (1988) on bitsavers, some of the diagnostics mention setting CSR at 174, and SWR at 176 for various options to a given diagnostic. I am assuming that SWR is the console switch register. I thought on a /34 this was off in location 777050 (or something like that). So do I put those options in the keypad and hit LSR (which I thought put them in 777050) or do I need to put them in 176 before starting the diag? Also, is there something special about 174 that I'm not getting? Some of the docs say a particular diagnostic prompts "SWR=000000 NEW="... I assume the diags are querying if I even HAVE a switch register, and if I do, they don't print that question. Correct? Thanks for any education :) J

19 years, 7 months

Specific DEC diagnostic questions (FKTG & ZDLD)

by dundas＠caltech.edu

> On Saturday 21 October 2006 20:39, Jay West wrote: > > Tim wrote... > > > > I'd feel better if someone having a similarly configured 34 could run > > the same diagnostic and see if they get the same odd result :) If so, > > then I wouldn't mistrust my machine quite so much. > > You could always try using simh as your "reference" machine... :) That works well for many things, but not all. Bob, and the rest of the contributors including myself, don't simulate the entirety of the machine or peripherals such that diagnostics will necessarily successfully run. As a concrete example, memory CSRs are not simulated. Some diagnostics need this to work correctly so that they can set the wrong parity, etc. Cache is another feature of some of the models that is not simulated at all. I actually have SIMH modules for memory controllers (including CSRs) and the J-11 cache (but not other models) that I will submit for inclusion in SIMH someday. Nonetheless, Pat is right. SIMH (and E11, I imagine) can be an excellent reference platform for much machine behavior. John

19 years, 7 months

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