test-drb

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

101090 discussions

PET 2001 oddity

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

Hi, Ade. On Jan 18, 12:55, Adrian Vickers wrote: > It's not *quite* as bad as all that, it uses 2114's. Although they're not > made of unobtainum, they ARE made of "rareium" (or R@RE!ium on eBay - > probably the *WOW* *L@@K* isotope, knowing my luck :). Good! If it *is* a RAM fault, and you can't find one at a reasonable price, let me know. I think I still have a small number spare. > AFAICT, these are version 1 ROMs. Every socket is filled, and they're all > MOS6540s. Drat. Let's hope it's not a ROM fault. Sadly, my copy of "The PET Revealed" with its mostly-legible (!) circuit diagrams, shows the later board with 2332s. But I do have a copy of the MPS6540 pinout somewhere. > Harrumph. Guess which one it has... > > Still, I've no fear of making carriers, etc. - albeit time constraints & > lack of equipment will make it tough right now - at least until I can get > my MicroMAT going. > > >The good news, though, is that I have a > >chicklet-keyboard 2001-N as well, and if necessary, I could probably do a > >ROM dump for you (though IIRC it used to be on the 'net somewhere). I > >wouldn't need to move more than a few hundreweight of stuff to get at it > >;-) > > That might be cool (and *snap* about the tons of stuff, although having > seen your little collection I think you do have rather more to shift about > than me!). However, let me try out the RAM swapping & chip re-seating > first, and if that doesn't fix it, then we'll look into EPROMs & suchlike. OK. Give me shout if you want me to start burrowing. Or come and pay a visit... -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 3 months

PET 2001 oddity - solved!

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jan 18, 13:28, Adrian Vickers wrote: > Turned out to be dead simple; yet another blown 2114. > > I figured the chip @ $0400 (i.e. the start of BASIC) was faulty, seeing as > how the machine wouldn't take a single line of BASIC. So, I swapped the > appropriate bank out to another bank - and presto! BASIC worked again. Good! > Having done this, I then swapped *one* of the two chips (according to the > schematic, there are two chips for each $0400 block of memory - why is > this?) A 2114 is 1K x 4 bits wide, so they're used in pairs to make bytes. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 3 months

Maxtor drive goes under

by dwightk.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Dennis Eldridge" <bones(a)northrock.bm> > >It's always fascinated me how people have such strong opinions of one particular drive manufacturer over another. Commonly one will say that they have a certain make of drive and it's never failed them and they've tried this other one and they're dying left and right, etc. ad nauseum. > >I come at this issue from the perspective of a field service engineer and subsequently independant consultant. The fact is that, particularly with IDE drives, no matter the manufacturer, it's purely the luck of the draw whether one is blessed with a good production run. I get the feeling that, to cut costs, Hi I would say it is true in general that the luck of the draw is the case but having worked for a computer manufacture, I can tell you that at least one manufacture produced a line of drives that were pure junk. Most of the drives would not last a 36 hour running period ( well, not most but about 30% ). This is way beyond luck of the draw. Being a system manufacture, we worked with the drive manufacture on resolving the problem. It was never resolved to any useful level. We finally switched manufactures but it cost us a lot. The fact is that there are lemons out there, by design. The Segate 225's had a stiction problem that wasn't solved until the end of that products line. The drive we were having problems with were 2 and 4 gig drives. These had a servo information corruption problem ( that by design would always fail over time ). Dwight most manufacturers have the QC people working a couple of days a week, and even then they're not exactly the best paid position in the sweatshop. The same goes for cars - you just find the one you're psychologically comfortable with. No bearing on statistical reality, but to the buyer that manufacturer's product will always be superior, and faults will be more tolerable than those of the manufacturer who's product is "in the doghouse" for whatever reason. > >As for Dell going the way of PacBell, etc., well I can only say we've got what we asked for. We wanted cheap computing, we got cheap computing. If they raised their standards and correspondingly their prices, we'd run like heck to the next guy who offered their system for a couple of quid less. If you want a rock-solid system with total manufacturer's support and guaranteed uptime and all that jazz, you'd have to shell out over $50,000 plus support contracts, etc. Just like in the old days of some of the larger systems we discuss on this forum. Just my $12.34 (Like everything else here in Bermuda, my opinion has to be shipped here and customs duty paid <grin>). > >With apologies for the rant, > >Dennis (not Miller :-)

23 years, 3 months

Hobbled NVAX (was: VXT X terminal question)

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

Antonio Carlini <arcarlini(a)iee.org> wrote: > The VIC can > be disabled by "patching" the NVAX in some dynamic way (presumably > non-reversibly or at least only reversible in an obscure way). I assume the NVAX microcode was patched via its PCS facility by the boot firmware, not by making a different NVAX die with different microcode I hope, right? If so the abomination is to be reversed by reflashing the boot ROM with non-hobbled firmware (stolen from a friend with a non-hobbled machine). They had flash ROMs like all other NVAXen, right? MS

23 years, 3 months

MV3100 M90 / VAX 4100 (was: VXT X terminal question)

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

Antonio Carlini <arcarlini(a)iee.org> wrote: > The mainboards are the same (i.e. a KA50 *is* a KA52 etc.) Wow! I thought the CQBIC was not populated on the KA50. > and there is a console test that switches the identity > back and forth. Hmm. I do not suppose that this identity flag can be permanently stored anywhere other than in the firmware flash ROM. I'm sure DEC wouldn't want people to suddenly discover that their machine shape-shifts when the NVRAM battery is disconnected. So does this console test actually erase and reprogram a sector in the firmware flash ROM, or is the change only in effect until the next power cycle? MS

23 years, 3 months

Mac SE/30 accessories availability?

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jan 17, 20:19, Brian Chase wrote: > On Fri, 17 Jan 2003, Zane H. Healy wrote: > > > It's not just on a system like that. Earlier this week I got my first SGI > > system, a nice little O2. It's about the crappiest of the O2's, but it's > > still a *very* nice UNIX workstation. I thought that it was doing OK at > > surfing until yesterday when I wanted to check something on gamespot, it > > absolutly crawled to a halt trying to render the pages (well the browser > > did, the rest of the system was nice and responsive). I swear it took close > > to 10 minutes to get to the third page (the one that had the data I was > > curious about). Wow, that must have been some page! I use an O2 at work, and it's generally pretty good -- but some versions of Netscape are definitely "less good" than others. It's worth trying to get a recent version, or as an alternative, I think some versions of Mozila do pretty well. Make sure the O2 has plenty of memory. Adding 128MB made a huge difference to mine. > > I think I'll now run the browser on my Linux box and retarget it to the > > SGI's desktop (at least until I get an Octane). > > I'll wait to get an Onyx. Actually, the Origin 2000s are quite lovely, > too. They're still really off topic for this list. Yes, though so is an O2, really. Actually, an Origin2000 won't run Netscape much better than an O2 unless there's quite a discrepancy in the processors. My Origin2000 (8 x R10K @ 180MHz) can be outdone (for Netscape) by a fast R10K O2. And of course most O2000s have no display. But if I use an old Indigo Elan for the display, it speeds up dramatically, compared to using other displays. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 3 months

Update: BBC Acorn

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

>> just checked mine again and it's 25-ANC13-1000049 >> >Mine is 25-ANC13-1000034, and Rob O'Donnell said his is 25-ANC13-1000038. well if Rob's was the last then they obviously didn't do a very good job of numbering things :-) Unless Rob's was the last one released by Acorn, but they all sat in storage for a while... > Do either of you think you have a Disc 1 for it? no discs at all I'm afraid :-( hence why I was asking about whther there's a sensible ftp site to put them on so if a working set can be collected at least they can be archived somewhere (the same goes for manuals really, but scanning those would be a major pain I expect!) that used to be the problem - the hardware used to get thrown out but discs would lie around on shelves until someone did a bit of spring cleaning now and then; they would have been trashed seperately and maybe straight into a bin in the office :-( cheers Jules (who has too many systems that don't work for lack of necessary discs :-) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Everything you'll ever need on one web page >from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts http://uk.my.yahoo.com

23 years, 3 months

VXT X terminal question

by Fred.van.Kempen＠microwalt.nl

> > (Jumping on my horse again, making Ultrix run on VS3100 M76 > would take a > > screenful of code. I have the source if anyone wants to > take a stab.) > I have the Ultrix V4.50 source tree [no comment] and will be > porting it to Ugh. Make that V4.20, obviously. Development is done on my V4.5 box.. Shitty thing is, that I probably will also have to run a 4.2 system as a second-step system for bootstrapping, and I dont have a 4.2/vax tk50 or cd set. --f

23 years, 3 months

About Electronics Questions

by jss＠subatomix.com

With Tony et al as my inspiration, I have recently started to learn electronics. I've been at it a couple of days, and tonight I just had the "aha!" for how high-pass and low-pass filters work. I haven't come across anything yet that has me completely stumped, but if I do, is it appropriate to ask newbie questions about electronics here? I'm supposed to *answer* questions like that, but I just don't know. Typically, I call electronics conversations as on-topic because they are directly relevant to operating classic computers. Newbie questions, however, are more indirect. For another example, we'll help someone with a Windows program that somehow makes his/her classiccmp go, but I doubt we'll bother to teach a person in-list how to double-click. Is electronics any different? -- Jeffrey Sharp

23 years, 3 months

Mac TV

by xds_sigma7＠hotmail.com

To be honest, if I found a Lisa 1 for 10 bucks I wouldn't accept $1,000 for it.. I'd sell if for maybe a couple hundred, or preferably trade it for car parts/minicomputers/etc. I really wouldn't feel right about getting $1,000 >from another collector for something I got for so little... Now a reseller on the other hand... Will J _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

23 years, 3 months

T&B Ansley IDC connectors

by Charles＠socketcom.com

Unless you can find some new old stock you may be out of luck. CW Industries makes the IDCs in the same style but are darker blue than T&B Ansley. See: http://www.cwind.com/ DigiKey lists them in catalog B022 on page 18. I have one, unused 25-pin D female connector with strain relief that you are welcome to. -----Original Message----- From: Jeffrey H. Ingber [mailto:jingber@ix.netcom.com] Sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 4:17 PM To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org Subject: T&B Ansley IDC connectors Does anyone know where I can aquire the T&B ansley "light blue" IDC ribbon cable connectors that were used by MITS? Googling reveals that Tyco purchased this line of connectors in 2001, but I can't find any mention of T&B Ansley on their web site. Thanks, Jeff

23 years, 3 months

OT: Maxtor drive goes under

by bones＠northrock.bm

Interesting problem. I remember when I was fixing IBM PC's back in the mists of time we opened up an old 5MB Seagate drive and managed to get it spinning - with our fingers! It continued working quite reliably thereafter for quite some time, IIRC. However, there was another drive we tried that one, but it turned out it had suffered the worst drive crash in history - the RW head was literally *buried* in the disk, as if someone had taken a hammer to it. But it was a completely sealed unit beforehand. If you're desperate, you may try prying it open and twigging the platters. But it may well be more than just the stickies - my experience of late has been that drives are much better protected from that occurrance. Best of luck with that! Dennis

23 years, 3 months

Mac TV

by cb＠mythtech.net

>To be honest, if I found a Lisa 1 for 10 bucks I wouldn't accept $1,000 for >it.. I'd sell if for maybe a couple hundred, or preferably trade it for car >parts/minicomputers/etc. I really wouldn't feel right about getting $1,000 >from another collector for something I got for so little... Now a reseller >on the other hand... On the Lisa 1 topic... I just found out tonight that I in fact DID used to own a Lisa 1... I had always thought my only Lisa's were 2's and MacXL's (of which I have none any more). I was showing my brother my copy of Collectible Microcomputers, and he looked at the Lisa pictures. He said he always thought the double openings on the Twiggy disks were cool. I asked when he had seen one, and he said that the first Lisa we bought had those drives. I just about started crying. I could stomach the fact that all my Lisa 2's and MacXL's were either traded in or thrown out... but to now know that a Lisa 1 was also scrapped... it just kills me. -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

23 years, 3 months

HD quality (was: Maxtor drive goes under)

by mhstein＠canada.com

-----------Original message--------------- Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 17:06:29 -0800 (PDT) From: Brian Chase <vaxzilla(a)jarai.org> To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Maxtor drive goes under Reply-To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org On Thu, 16 Jan 2003, Philip Pemberton wrote: > Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > > The drive we were having problems > > with were 2 and 4 gig drives. These had a servo information > > corruption problem ( that by design would always fail over time ). > > Guess that rules out Kalok then. They bit the big one in 1994, way before > 2GB and 4GB drives started appearing... I'm going to guess Micropolis. Those drives were absolutely crap. -brian. --------------------------------------------- And then there was JTS... Other than Kalok and JTS, the only drives I consistently had problems with were the old ST-200 series Seagates. Mind you, they ran 24/7 for several years, but ultimately all (4 or 5) developed the stickies. Always embarrassing, because the systems were only shut down by me doing some kind of maintenance or mods, the old "but it worked fine until you touched it" syndrome. Fortunately, all they needed was a little prying & twisting with a small screwdriver on the spindle to free them up, and remarkably, they worked fine again with no problems or errors (to my great relief, and until the next time I shut them down). No problems with the old miniscribes though, still have a box full, all working, and no unusual failure rates with Micropolis either; it really is a matter of personal experience, not very meaningful statistically. And Philip, I'm going to write you directly about that paper tape stuff as soon as I sort it out; promise! mike

23 years, 3 months

IBM 5322

by xds_sigma7＠hotmail.com

My bad, forgot to say that you should choose the "inactive hardware product descriptions" box and then type 5322 in the "product number" box... The general search works too, for example type in System/3.. I was amused by the "System/3 Law Enforcement System".. must have been for a pretty small cop shop! Will J _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus

23 years, 3 months

Ampro cards

by rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com

I recently picked up two Ampro computer cards. I think they're PC/104 cards but I'm not positive. Your A60707 is the CoreModule XT Plus (CPU card). The other board is the MiniModule FSS, which is Floppy/SCSI/Serial controller. Does anyone have manuals for them? Ampro has a website but there's nothing on there about these cards and Ampro tech support hasn't been any help beyond id'ing the cards. Joe

23 years, 3 months

T&B Ansley IDC connectors

by jingber＠ix.netcom.com

Does anyone know where I can aquire the T&B ansley "light blue" IDC ribbon cable connectors that were used by MITS? Googling reveals that Tyco purchased this line of connectors in 2001, but I can't find any mention of T&B Ansley on their web site. Thanks, Jeff

23 years, 3 months

VXT X terminal question

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

Jim Strickland <jim(a)calico.litterbox.com> wrote: > Which one was the M76? Umm, the one that says "VAXstation 3100 M76" on the front. I'm not sure how else to specify it. It scribbles KA43-A on the console on power-up. MS

23 years, 3 months

cctalk digest, Vol 1 #391 - 45 msgs

by sml49＠attbi.com

> Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 18:48:13 +0100 > To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org > Subject: Mac SE/30 accessories availability? > From: Adrien Farkas <freddy(a)kotelna.sk> > Reply-To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org > > Hello, > > I'm owner of Mac SE/30 (asked regarding broken CRT tube a while ago). > Can aynone supply me with a list of accessories that can be inserted > into the slot? www.apple.com didn't help me very much, and the only card > I saw is 10base2/10baseT ethernet. are there any videocards for se/30? > or some other equip? > There definitely are video cards of several sorts that will work in that slot - some dedicated to use with specific monitors (ie: Radius); there's one which provides gray-scale functionality on the SE30's internal monitor. Check out <<lowendmac.com>> for info on all old Macs - in detail. I don't recall anything other than accelerators, Enet cards and video cards that were made for that slot but I could well be wrong. Seth Lewin

23 years, 3 months

Osborne OCC1

by acme＠ao.net

Thanks for sending 'em Bob, but I already have the Tech Manual here. Also, my home-brew email client throws out attachments (and html code ;>) Glen 0/0 From: Feldman, Robert <Robert_Feldman(a)jdedwards.com> To: Glen Goodwin <acme(a)ao.net> Subject: RE: Re: Osborne OCC1 Date: 01/13/2003 2:09 PM > Attached is a ZIP file with two JPEG images that are scans of pages from the > Osborne 1 Technical Manual that relate to the PS and wiring. They might be > useful to you. > > Bob > > -----Original Message----- > From: acme(a)ao.net [mailto:acme@ao.net] > Sent: Friday, January 10, 2003 4:03 PM > To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Re: Osborne OCC1 > > > From: Joe <rigdonj(a)cfl.rr.com> > To: Glen Goodwin <acme(a)ao.net> > Subject: Re: Osborne OCC1 > Date: 01/08/2003 7:55 AM > > > I recently had an OCC-1 that blew something in the PSU. That odd thing > was > > at it kept working! I wasn't really intersted in it so I gave it to Glen > Good > > . I expect that he'll troubleshoot/repai > > r it soon. > > Okay, Joe, I get the hint ;>) I'll take a look at it this weekend -- should > be > a quick and easy fix. > > Later -- > > Glen > 0/0 > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ------_=_NextPart_000_01C2BB23.FD2CA5E6

23 years, 3 months

VXT X terminal question

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

Antonio Carlini <arcarlini(a)iee.org> wrote: > Just to nitpick but although the UV3100-80 is indeed > based on the Mariah chipset, the UV3100-85 and > UV3100-88 are both NVAX-based IIRC. The -85 has the > NVAX VIC disabled by the console during initialisation. > I forget whether the -88 was slugged in the same way or not. Thanks for filling us in on the dirty secret. I thought DEC learned their lesson with VS II/RC. (Suddenly everyone needed a replacement BA23 backplane...) DEC is still my favourite hardware vendor of all time, but this artificial hobbling of hardware is a real black eye for them. Think about hobbling the (perfectly standard and generic) KA410 SCSI port to only one TK50Z drive, or the "strategic decision" to make VS3100 M76 run only VMS and not Ultrix. (Jumping on my horse again, making Ultrix run on VS3100 M76 would take a screenful of code. I have the source if anyone wants to take a stab.) MS

23 years, 3 months

Looking for : Sharp PC-1405

by liste＠artware.qc.ca

Or equiv (Tandy had them as PC-2 or something, iirc). The goal of my classic collection is to get one of every computer I've programmed over the years. One of the first computers I programmed was a PC-1405 (actually, I can't remember the exact model). I found one of these in a pawn shop. By brother "stole" it. I found another. This was my one classic computer that was helluva useful. So useful I took it with my places. And, well, I've just lost it. I've checked eBay and there are a few Sharp Pocket Computers, but W@W L@@K @ T3H PR1C3Z! Buy it now for "only" 300 USD! http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3000156764&category=15030 So, does anyone here have one they don't need and/or would be willing to let go for a reasonable price? -Philip

23 years, 3 months

Update: BBC Acorn

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jan 17, 20:02, Jules Richardson wrote: > just checked mine again and it's 25-ANC13-1000049 > > have lost the original post from the person who had the last unit to see where > that fits into the scheme of things. :-( Mine is 25-ANC13-1000034, and Rob O'Donnell said his is 25-ANC13-1000038. Do either of you think you have a Disc 1 for it? -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 3 months

DEC VT320 compatible PLANAR ELT320 FLAT PANEL TERMINAL

by whdawson＠localisps.net

Came across this on eBay. No bids yet: PLANAR ELT320 FLAT PANEL TERMINAL w/ EXTRA'S THE ELT320 IS AN ALPHANUMERIC VIDEO TERMINAL WHICH IS FUNCTIONAL COMPATIBLE WITH THE DEC VT320 TERMINAL AND ALSO INCLUDES NUMEROUS ADDITIONAL ADVANCED FEATURES. THIS TERMINAL CAN OPERATE ON-LINE TO A HOST SYSTEM OR THE HOST CAN BE PUT ON HOLD SENDING YOUR INPUT INTO PAGE MEMORY OF THE TERMINAL. THE TERMINAL STORES DATA RECEIVED FROM THE HOST, UNTIL YOU PUT IT BACK ON-LINE. AS IS THE CASE WITH ANY OTHER EMULATOR, THE ELT320 HAS SOME MINOR VARIANCES. THIS PACKAGE INCLUDES: PLANAR ELT320 FLAT PANEL TERMINAL MODEL # ELT320-P1 PLANAR SERIAL CABLE INSTALLATION AND USER'S GUIDE $19.99 opening bid, $14.00 S/H http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=11218&item=2301790285 Bill

23 years, 3 months

Mac SE/30 accessories availability?

by healyzh＠aracnet.com

> Zane H. Healy wrote: > > > There was at least one video card made for the SE/30, I've got one in mine, > > and I've got a SCSI-to-Ethernet adapter for network access. > > I remember the first Mac I used back in '89 was an SE/30 with a > grey-scale (8 bit) card made by RasterOps. It had a grey-scale monitor > to go with it too. That was when the Apple LaserWriter had more RAM than > the machine that was printing! Aaah, the smell of ozone. > > Simon I'm pretty sure the video card I have is colour, however, I've only actually hooked it up once, and that was years ago. What can I say, I got the SE/30 for it's small footprint and fast[1] processor, I didn't care that it had a video card in it, I needed the ethernet more. Zane [1] Of course fast being relative to the app, and at the time my primary system was a PowerMac 8500/180. Still the SE/30 with MS Word 5.1 makes a great word processor!

23 years, 3 months

Jump to page:

2026

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

test-drb