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101090 discussions

Pinouts schema for DEC PRO console on printer port

by franco.tassone＠inwind.it

Hi all, I've heard of the possibility to have a serial console connected to the printer port of the DEC Professional series computers, and it is what I'd ike to have. Do you have any pointers to get it solved, or any hints ? The pinouts schema could be the best for me. Your help will be greatly appreciated. Franco

23 years, 5 months

Supply of DEC 11/23 11/73 front panel switches

by GOOI＠oce.nl

Hello Jay. I am sorry to say that I am not going to use those buttons in PDP-11's, but in my StarShip (click the starfield on http://home.hetnet.nl/~tshaj). I have developed the code for the main screen, with a correct view on the stars. The code allows for magnification and view opening angles. To use these "options" I am looking for 'nice' buttons, like the ones that HP uses. Those buttons have a LED in the middle to indicate that the button is active. If those buttons you have found at the surplus dealer have the LED in the middle of the button, I would like to buy several of them. Let's say 20 with the green colored LED and 20 with the red LED. I can pay via PayPal, or send cash $$ in a letter, what you prefer. Hoping you have found the correct buttons ... and willing to do the effort, kind regards, - Henk. (PS. would it help to say that I was one of the donators?) > -----Original Message----- > From: Jay West [mailto:jwest@imail.kwcorp.com] > Sent: maandag 28 oktober 2002 17:30 > To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org > Subject: Supply of DEC 11/23 11/73 front panel switches > > Found at a local surplus dealer... a whole container of those > square white > pushbutton switches that I am pretty certain are the ones > used on the "front > panel" of the 11/23 or 11/73 systems. > > They have the following markings.... > > I think they had them marked at 0.59 each, if these are the > right ones (got it at work actually, haven't had a chance to > go home and check they are the right ones) and anyone wants > any, let me know. > > Jay West

23 years, 5 months

Micropolis hdd

by dwightk.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "WOFTBO Data Recovery" <woftbo(a)cox.net> > >I have been searching for information regarding the assembly of a Micropolis 1991 hard drive. > >What is the best method to disassemble the case to access the latching area? > >Dave S Hi I've found that a hammer and a chisel work best with Micropolis drives. But that is just my opinion. Dwight

23 years, 5 months

All-In-One Interface For All Your Retro/Legacy Drives

by jingber＠ix.netcom.com

Gratuitously ripped from Slashdot: An anonymous reader writes "Individual computers have announced a new version of they're multi-format floppy controller the Cat Weasel. This new version (Catweasel MK3 PCI/Flipper) has a few surprises such as 3 different interfaces to connect it to the host computer and a socket for an original C64 SID chip :). 'The main purpose of the Catweasel has always been to allow access to non-standard disks using normal PC-disk drives, even if you usually need a completely different computer for that. The capacity of the drive does not matter in this case: A 5.25 inch drive with 1.2MByte capacity will read and write a C-64 disk with 170KByte as well as a 3.5 inch drive with 1.44MByte can access a 1,76MByte Amiga disk. Together with a company that has specialized in data recovery, we're working on the implementation of more than 1100 different disk formats, and it does not matter that this has been classified impossible by others before. Even the 800KByte disks from older Macintosh computers can be used in standard 1.44MB drives, although the original drives have rotated their disks at variable speeds.' Find out more at the Catweasel MK3 PCI/Flipper page."

23 years, 5 months

Anybody want Varian 620/F Reference Handbook?

by aek＠spies.com

> Is this, in fact, an office of Varian Data Systems? Varian's computer division was sold to Sperry in the mid 70's "Second Source Computers" bought what was left from Sperry in the 80's. I talked to Roger Lee at the company. 714/832-7724 voice, 714/832-3260 fax. rlee(a)sscitech.com. He repairs V-70's for some number of folks -- enough to keep him in business. He says there's even a 620i still running in England -- says the customer told him it only went down for repairs once.

23 years, 5 months

Grundy Newbrain problems

by lgomez＠cdromsa.es

A few days ago, i was looking for Grundy Newbrain schematics. Now i have it (if somebody need it, please let me know) -Thanks to Voyager- but i can?t solve the problem: When i turn on the computer, the 16 character display flicks for 10 seconds. After this i can see the image in TV or monitor screen: new?brain?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Uppercase are converted to lowercase Spaces are converted to ? Numbers are converter to alphabetical characters (1 to q, 2 to r, 3 to s ....) but in 16 char. display all information is ok. It look like add 32 to ASCII code to display, but it is not so, because ASCII(1)+32=ASCII(Q) Q not q If i move just a little the computer i can see the correct character in screen, but not spaces, it still as ?. It like there is a bad contact in componet board, but i've check all contact and i can't found the fault. Sombody know this problem?? There is not the flat cable conecting diferent boards. Thanks and sorry by my english. Luis

23 years, 5 months

Apple II Programmer's Aid ROM

by RCini＠congressfinancial.com

I just read about this in the A2FAQ. Does anyone have this Apple ][ ROM and manual? Rich

23 years, 5 months

I buy DEC equipment. Call me

by robert＠usce.org

Robert M. Campbell U.S. Computer Exchange, Inc. 386 East Maple Troy, MI 48083 Ph. 248 583-9000 Fx. 248 583-9009 robert(a)usce.org

23 years, 5 months

Anybody want Varian 620/F Reference Handbook?

by xds_sigma7＠hotmail.com

Yea, some old NMR machines of theirs have their minis inside them... I think thats why they bought Data Machines in the first place, though that is a conjecture. Will J _________________________________________________________________ Get a speedy connection with MSN Broadband. Join now! http://resourcecenter.msn.com/access/plans/freeactivation.asp

23 years, 5 months

Anybody want Varian 620/F Reference Handbook?

by xds_sigma7＠hotmail.com

No, since for one, Varian sold that subsidiary to Sperry-Univac in the late 1970s.. Also, the computers were actually made in Billerica, MA.. But the logo of Varian Data Systems was the same as that of Varian Associates, the parent company. Indeed, the logo is still the same. So my money says its a Varian Associates building. Will J _________________________________________________________________ Unlimited Internet access for only $21.95/month. Try MSN! http://resourcecenter.msn.com/access/plans/2monthsfree.asp

23 years, 5 months

Reading old disks on Linux

by pat＠purdueriots.com

Quite a while ago (and maybe more than once) we had a thread on reading/writing 'odd' disk formats. I thought about it again, typed a few words into google, and found this: http://fdutils.linux.lu/Fdutils.html#SEC22 It looks like setfdprm and superformat will do much of what's necessary in working with 'odd' format disks. I haven't played much with it yet, but I've verified it works for setting the density, heads, cyls, and sect/track of the disk to write to. However, it doesn't allow for setting an initial sector number - something that's necessary for some formats. Using the program "fdrawcmd" should overcome any obsticles, but will require more work to be useful. I just thought I'd pass this along in case people would find it useful. -- "This fucking university has shown time and time again that it is completely fucking incompetent when it comes to employing technology" -- Anonymous http://dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert2040637020924.gif

23 years, 5 months

Anybody want Varian 620/F Reference Handbook?

by pat＠transarc.ibm.com

I stopped by at the only used bookstore in downtown Pittsburgh last week. It appears that the place is getting ready to fold, as they've got everything on sale at ridiculously low prices, and there is a big "BUILDING FOR SALE" sign in the front window.... Since they've started liquidating, they've been letting people up on to their second floor, which was always their storage and "we'll never be able to sell this stuff..." area, and was always off-limits to customers in the past. In adventuring around up there, I found two copies of the Varian 620/F Reference Handbook, dated November 1970. This isn't really in my area of interest, but at $1.00/each, I couldn't resist, and I figured that there might be people here who would like them. Both copies are in reasonably good shape, though both have suffered a bit from being stored in a bad environment (this shop's storage floor is open to the sky in a couple of places - probably one reason they never wanted to let customers up there....). One has a small tear in the cover. If you want one of these, it's yours for the cost of shipping. Limit of one per customer. First two responses get 'em. --Pat.

23 years, 5 months

Looking for Symmetric 375

by jmkatcher＠yahoo.com

It's kind of an odd thing, but does anyone have a Symmetric 375 box that they want to pass to a good home. I remember wanting one badly when they were new and my memory was just jogged by seeing one at VCF. (It's a small 32016 based box running more or less BSD 4.2. Something with personality. Gosh I miss my Symbolics 3620...different of course, but certainly unique.) Many thanks in advance, Jeff Katcher jmkatcher(a)yahoo.com __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Y! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your web site http://webhosting.yahoo.com/

23 years, 5 months

Swapping boards on ST225 drives / Philips P3800 help

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

Hi, Dusting off my old Diamond system the other day got me thinking about trying to resurrect my Phillips P3800 (some sort of multi-user CP/M platform, early 80's I believe). It's another garage resident that I acquired a few years ago and then never had time to restore. It had been the victim of a basement flood when I got it and was dead as a dodo - plus the hard drive had roasted itself (I believe when the previous owner turned it on when it was still soaking wet, which is always such a very good idea...) I'm going from memory here, but believe that the hard drive is an ST225 - and the main logic board on the base of the unit was pretty well charred. What I did was find an identical model working drive and use its logic board with the frame and platters from the drive in the Phillips unit. Am I wasting my time even trying that? Or, assuming the data is intact on the platters still and survived the flooding, might I get a usuable drive by trying that? Maybe the logic boards are calibrated against some of the mechanical components within the drive for all I know. When I tried this the drive would at least then spin up (using a standard PC power supply for testing), but without fixing the power supply in the Philips and figuring out how to connect something to it (there's a whole pile of cables hanging out the back, to one of which presumably some sort of console connects) I don't yet know if I can actually read any data off it. Unfortunately I have no manuals for the unit, no system disks, no idea of the cabling, a possibly-dead hard drive, and a definitely-dead power supply. I'm also missing a tape drive for it (previous owner wanted to keep that) but hopefully it'll run without it. Never found anyone else who has heard of one of these, let alone owns one. On the plus side, the case is a nice shade of beige ;-) cheers Jules __________________________________________________ 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, 5 months

For Sale: Diamond D5 Wordprocessor

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

> But for those who've never heard > of it, let me provide a few details. thanks there to my sales agent... (ha ha, only kidding :) > The logic circuitry is on a lot of fairly small plug-in cards in a > cardcage inside. CPU, memory, 3 or 4 for the display, ditto for the > floppy controller, and a couple of interface cards for the keyboard and > printer. Or something like that anyway. There are no custom chips in > there that I am aware of. I pulled a few cards the other day when I took that photo of the insides - I was a little out on my dates; earliest copyright date I can see is 1977 and the last manufacturing date on any chip was sometime in 1979. card list sounds about right without wheeling the machine out of storage again, and no I didn't see any custom chips in my machine either. Think there are only two boards for the display, joined both on the backplane and the outer edge. Then CPU, memory, RTC, keyboard, drives x2, printer, and an unknown board (see below) > The printer (at least on mine) is a Hitype II. With that strange 50 pin > interface (separate control lines for selecting a character, deciding how > far to advance the carriage/paper, and so on). curious. Mine's definitely a Diablo unit and plugs into its own card within the cardcage in the system unit. But there's also a seperate card in there (oddly, marked as Diablo!) with a large connector on the outer edge (2 rows of pins, non-staggered) with nothing plugged into it. I have no idea what that's for - that connector looks purposeful though. There's not a huge amount of logic inside this thing so I suppose figuring out a circuit diagram wouldn't be too difficult and maybe then its function would be revealed. oh, and it's a 'proper' machine, in that it has wheels on the bottom ;-) cheers Jules __________________________________________________ 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, 5 months

Micropolis hdd

by dwightk.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Eric Smith" <eric(a)brouhaha.com> > >> I can't find it online anymore, but about two years ago I stumbled >> across this fascinating article which discussed the demise of >> Micropolis, presenting it as a case study of business fraud. >> >> My favorite highlight had to do with Micropolis claiming much larger >> inventories of hard drives than they actually had. This was to make the >> company look as if it were more valuable. This excess inventory was >> primarily made up of a special class of hard drive, which in the company >> records were listed as "very hard drives". In reality they were bricks >> that had been boxed in Micropolis packaging. > >Micropolis had their own problems, but I don't think we should accuse >them with out-and-out fraud without researching it a bit further. >The company that shipped bricks was Miniscribe, and one of their >executives was finally convicted when it was discovered that he'd >actually purchased the bricks on his credit card. (Note to self: >when buying materials for an inventory scam, pay cash.) > >I very much doubt that any company records used the phrase "very hard >drives", since that wasn't brought up by the prosecution in the trial. >Sounds more like a clever phrase a reporter came up with. > >> Apparently a few of them were even shipped to customers. > >The true story may never be known, but I don't think any shipped to >customers that weren't aware of the plan. Some customers may have >agreed to help Miniscribe with their inventory problems (as in lack >of), because the customer may have been more interested in the promise >of a real drive delivered later than the company going out of business >sooner. > >One of the surplus stores in the Denver area had a brick in their >display case with their disk drives; the brink had a sign saying >"Miniscribe 40MB". However, it was not an *actual* Miniscribe brick. > >Miniscribe was acquired by Maxtor and was known for a time as "Maxtor >Colorado". > >The only complaint I had with Micropolis was that their drives had a >very high failure rate. Hi At the last company I was at, we never had one ( Micropolis ) complete a 1 week burnin ( at room temp ), until they fiddled with something and the rate dropped to only about 3 out of ten per week. I knew we were making a mistake, at the begining when they said that they would give us free engineering time to help use get their drives to work on our machines. I stated such to management but was ignored. Dwight

23 years, 5 months

Fw: 4D 220 VGX: free for Shipping or Orlando,FL pickup

by CordaAJ＠NSWC.NAVY.MIL

The older SGI 4D twin towers (professional series) used a SCSI bus that was routed through a connector arrangement up through the smaller drive tower. Unfortunately, I seem to remember that because of the stub length off of these connectors, it violated the SCSI specs pretty badly. My guess is that because the early CPU cards that were fitted in these systems (IP4 and IP4.5) only supported async. scsi, they were more forgiving than a sync. system would be. BTW, I believe that one of the reasons for using ESDI vs. SCSI in these critters was that, at the time, the ESDI drive/controller combo was quite a bit faster than async. SCSI. They intended the SCSI interface for peripheral access only... That said, I did manage to get a SCSI drive working in one, but since I had the ESDI controller and drives, it didn't seem worth it at the time to pursue it further... As far as the twin tower power series, my memory fails me... I don't remember when they began supporting sync. SCSI, but my guess is that it began with the power-series CPU boards. -al- -acorda(a)1bigred.com > -----Original Message----- > From: Tothwolf [mailto:tothwolf@concentric.net] > Sent: Monday, October 28, 2002 2:16 PM > To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Fw: 4D 220 VGX: free for Shipping or Orlando,FL pickup > > > On Mon, 28 Oct 2002, Will Jennings wrote: > > > Eh? How are they SCSI? I had one of these once, the drive > in it was most > > definetly a Hitachi ESDI disk... They're such cool looking machines, > > too... > > If the system is a dual tower configuration, it almost always > uses ESDI > drives, but the single tower deskside 'cubes' always have a > SCSI bus in > them. AFAIK, the dual tower was retired around the time of > the 2x0, so I > guess it could indeed use ESDI drives. I have yet to have > seen a 2x0 in a > dual tower, but I suppose they might exist. A photo of the > system itself > would pretty much clear it up. > > The cpu boards in these are actually interchangeable for the > most part, > and the deskside chassis can accept up to two such boards > with up to two > cpus each for a total of 4 processors. The predator rack > chassis support > up to 4 cpu boards for a total of 8 cpus. > > -Toth >

23 years, 5 months

[OT?] Supra FaxModem

by voyager＠hol.gr

Hi, It may sound a bit offtopic, but it's near the 10yrs margin :-) I have an external 28.8 Supra FAX modem, the one with the 2 digit green LED display. It's never flashed, and contains one of the very early firmware versions. I recall that Supra had an extensive file list (including manuals in PDFs) for downloading at supra's site, then moved to Diamond, then nothing, they vanished. Could anybody help me locate a mirror of these files? I need the flash files to upgrade it up to 33.6 version (needs several consecutive flashes) and the AT command set that supported (the non standard commands). Cheers George

23 years, 5 months

Varian books claimed, thanks!

by pat＠transarc.ibm.com

<EOM>

23 years, 5 months

Educational Computer Corporation ?

by Qstieee＠aol.com

This could be right, because clearly "EDUcational COMPuter Corporation" could be shortened to "EduComp". EduComp was in the Hartford, Connecticut area in the mid-70's at least. EduComp morphed into QuoData, and QuoData morphed in Jenzabar. There is still a Quodata.com web site. When I dealt with EduComp they resold DEC 8's and 11's to schools along with some of their own software, plus co-developed ETOS on the 8's

23 years, 5 months

HPUX 10.20?

by geoffr＠zipcon.net

Where can I get HPUX media to install a couple Apollo 700's?

23 years, 5 months

Available: IBM 3164 terminals

by pat＠purdueriots.com

There's a few IBM 3164 terminals down at Purdue University Salvage and Surplus that are about to be thrown out. If anyone wants one, let me know, and I'll ship them for $5 + packing stuff + shipping. Respond soon, they'll probably be gone in a day or two. Pat -- "The Microsoft/IBM FORTRAN was adequate for teaching FORTRAN 77. But the performance was AMAZING! It could actually take longer to run a benchmark like sieve of Erastothanes with compiled FORTRAN than with interpreted BASIC." -- Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) http://dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert2040637020924.gif

23 years, 5 months

Micropolis hdd

by dwightk.elvey＠amd.com

Hi I see the rest seem to have a similar opinion of this manufactures drives. I got mine from experience. Dwight >From: "Jim Arnott" <jrasite(a)eoni.com> > >High explosives work well too. Shaped charge. > >(Why would *anyone* want to get inside a Micropolis drive? They're best >used as doorstops.) > >Jim > >Dwight K. Elvey wrote: >>>From: "WOFTBO Data Recovery" <woftbo(a)cox.net> >>> >>>I have been searching for information regarding the assembly of a Micropolis >> >> 1991 hard drive. >> >>>What is the best method to disassemble the case to access the latching area? >>> >>>Dave S >> >> >> Hi >> I've found that a hammer and a chisel work >> best with Micropolis drives. But that is just my >> opinion. >> Dwight >> >> >> . >> > > >

23 years, 5 months

Need SA400 help

by dwightk.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Glen Goodwin" <acme_ent(a)bellsouth.net> > >> From: Dwight K. Elvey <dwightk.elvey(a)amd.com> > >> One should note that double termination can also cause flaky >> operation as well. I've seen it twice now that I have a machine >> that has a flaky disk and I open it up and see a terminator >> on both drives. > >Would you and Fred please define "flaky?" What symptoms are exhibited by >an improperly terminated drive? Hi This can vary, from not working at all to the occational bad read or bad write of a sector. Some times it shows up as a data dependent problem. The disk formats fine but can't write all 1's or all 0's. In both of my cases, it would occationally damaged data on a write that would show up as a non-recoverable CRC error. Although it is recommended that the termination be on the last drive on the cable. I've never found it an issue when the two end drives cable connectors are only 2 to 3 inches apart. I have been known to put the termination, where ever it is handy, while trouble shooting( such as swapping drive ). I also alway tape the terminator to the drive that I remove it from. I don't know if I or someone in the future will need that terminator. If it is right there, I know it is the right one. Dwight

23 years, 5 months

Fw: 4D 220 VGX: free for Shipping or Orlando,FL pickup

by xds_sigma7＠hotmail.com

Eh? How are they SCSI? I had one of these once, the drive in it was most definetly a Hitachi ESDI disk... They're such cool looking machines, too... Will J _________________________________________________________________ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963

23 years, 5 months

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