test-drb

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

101090 discussions

by Antonio.Carlini＠riverstonenet.com

>2) What are the differences between the 4000VLC and the 4000-500? Are there >likely to be some serious gotchas in there? The VLC (as you know) is small, uses one low profile SCSI disk internally, has an external SCSI connector, supports a max of 24MB or memory and weighs in at 6 VUPs or so. There is no real expansion available. A VAX 4000-500 is bigger (coffee table size), usually comes with DSSI drives (although it can use SCSI with the right additional h/w) can have many disks, supports more memory (512MB max - 32MB min!) and runs at 24VUPs on a bad day (more if it is really a -700A or 705A). DSSI is available for storage and the box has a Q-bus. Whether any of this matters or not depends on what the VAX is supposed to do. If they wanted an OpenVMS compute engine, almost any cheap Alpha would eat both of the above for breakfast, so I assume that there is either a software constraint (e.g. VAX-only 3rd party s/w) or a hardware one (must use this Q-bus interface card). Antonio

23 years, 6 months

Brian Instruments BRIKON Mdl 723 Floppy Drive Tester / Analyzer

by rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com

Does anyone here have access to one the model 723 floppy drive testers with the analog/alignment attachment (option R)? If so can you send me the pin out of the I/O cable for analog attachment? I think there's only six or eight leads on it? Joe

23 years, 6 months

Altair-what do I do first

by dwightk.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Peter C. Wallace" <pcw(a)mesanet.com> > >On Wed, 25 Sep 2002, Patrick Rigney wrote: > >> > Better still, if you are testing the cards one at a time with an external >> > supply, tack on a 5V (set to 5.5 or so) crowbar on the output side of the >> > local 5V regulator -- no cut traces, only tacking on 2 wires >> > temporarily... >> > >> > Peter Wallace >> >> Peter, yeah, this seems like an easy approach. Question: could a simple >> 6.2V Zener be installed reverse-biased from the 5V regulator output to >> ground? Seems like you'd want inline fuses between the unregulated supply >> and the backplace as well for this kind of test... >> >> Patrick >> >> > > You would have to have a monster zener to be safe, probably 50 W or >so. Those arent that common. A crowbar circuit stolen from another supply or a >home made one would be better than a zener. > > Instead of a crowbar (that usually use SCRs), You could also use a >5.6v or so shunt regulator made with a big (20A) power transistor and a 5V >10W zener... > >Peter Wallace > > Hi I think you are all a little paranoid. Regulators rarely fail in storage. If it is blown, it most likely blew while the power was on and any damage has already long since been done. That being said, there is a failure that can happen in storage that is related to the regulation. Many regulators, especially the TO-3 types need the screw holding them to the board to have a vary good connection. If this is bad, the voltage will go unregulated and it will over voltage. You should remove and check under these screws to look for corrosion and clean the surfaces. I recommend a star washer between the PCB and nut/washer. This should be checked on any electronics that has been stored. Often this is a good point to restore some fresh heatsink compound as well. The old dry stuff is less effective. The most common failure is the old electrolytics and the tantalums. I've seen flames from a blown tantalum. If you connect a voltmeter to the output leads of any regulators and watch the voltage as you bring the line up with a variac ( adjustable auto-transformer ), you should be able to catch any over voltage before it does any harm. ( note: don't use a variac on a switcher supply! ) Later Dwight

23 years, 6 months

VAX 4000-500 near Texas?

by dittman＠dittman.net

> Dunno whether this is on-topic or not, apologies if not. Someone at > my institute needs access to a VAX 4000-500 or similar series machine for a > proposal for some project work. I intend to loan my Vax 4000 VLC to them, > but: > > 1) Does anyone near San Antonio Texs, have a qualifying machine that they'd > like to unload permanently, hopefully at a reasonably good price? I have a VAX 4000-500 I'm looking to sell, but I'm in Plano, Texas (northern suburb of Dallas). -- Eric Dittman dittman(a)dittman.net Check out the DEC Enthusiasts Club at http://www.dittman.net/

23 years, 6 months

RSTS/E Manuals???

by xds_sigma7＠hotmail.com

Hi, I recently accquired a really, really random assortment of RSTS manuals, >from V06B up to like V9.6 or so, and I'm attempting to make sense of what portions of docsets I have parts of.. If anyone has extra manuals, that'd rock, but I also could really use copies/scans/etc. of the documentation directories, since the only one I have is for V7.1 haha Will J _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx

23 years, 6 months

Keyboard adapter for ??

by lgwalker＠mts.net

I picked up an ordinary Fujitso KB at a thrift shop that had an adapter on the end of the cable. It's a small plug and the only markings on it were the common I/O arrows on the business end. One side is the regular F 5-pin Din but the male side is about halfway between a regular din and a PS/2 sub. It is in a 6-pin configuration but the pins are much thinner than usual. It only has 4 pins which would square with the 5v, grnd, clock, data requirements but it could have a pin(s) broken off since they're fragile and protrude from the shell about 3/8". Clockwise the 1 and 3 are missing. There's no center lock. Anyone have any idea of what this might be for ? Lawrence lgwalker(a)mts.net bigwalk_ca(a)yahoo.com

23 years, 6 months

CPM-8000 running

by dwightk.elvey＠amd.com

Hi Chris Groessler and I have been working with the CPM-8000 images that we found on the unofficial CPM page, along with manuals and such found elsewhere. Last night, I was able to get the CPM-8000 prompt and execute both commands that I tried ( DIR and USER ). There are still some minor issues but things should be moving right along ( why can't programmers realize that initializing variables is an important part of any program? ). I want to give thanks to Hans, without the hardware manual he scanned, I wouldn't have been able to figure out the address decoder PROM in my Olivetti M20 and find out how to bring my machine up to 256K of RAM ( needed by CPM-8000 ). We still have some work to do ( building up the disk with all of the files ) but it looks like a down hill trip from here. Later Dwight

23 years, 6 months

Altair-what do I do first

by kapteynr＠cboe.com

All good advice so far -- but one caution I forgot. My experience is that the CMOS chips from this period are THE MOST STATIC SENSITIVE chips that there are. It is much easier to damage these whith inappropriate handling than any modern stuff. Use paranoid static handling precautions. Since I usually work on these machines on those cold (dry) winter days when static forms easily, I also use a humidifier in the room where I work. -Rob -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-admin(a)classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-admin@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of J.C. Wren Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2002 8:08 PM To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org Subject: RE: Altair-what do I do first A less painful way may be to lift the output pin of the regulator >from its via. Or (and this is evil, but works, and is can be better than losing all your unsocketted chips), cut the trace after output of the regulator. You can always use a piece of foil tape or wire to effect a repair. This may detract from the ultimate value of the board, but you're far less likely to wreck it than removing irreplacable socketted chips. --John -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-admin(a)classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-admin@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Tony Duell Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2002 20:24 To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Altair-what do I do first > > Good move -- don't plug it in yet. _Neve_ plug in a classic computer without checking it first! [Good advice on electrolytic caps deleted] > In any case, detach everything from the power supply and check it out first. > Unfortunately, Altairs have no connectors for this, so you will have to > desolder the wires. > Some suggest powering it up slowly on a variable transformer, but I have not > tried that. > > After checking out the power supply voltages, unplug all of the cards and The amin problem with S100 systems is that the PSU lines on the bus are unregulated. The voltage regulators are on each card. And this means that a defective regulator _on a card_ will wipe out all the chips on that card, and may even put high voltages onto the bus lines and damage other cards. Therefore, do as suggested and get the unregulated PSU working first. Then take the cards (one at a time) and remove all socketed ICs. Make a diagram first, of course if you don't have the schematics/layout diagrams for that card. You'd better hope that the expensive/rare ICs (CPU, ROMs, RAM, LSI I/O chips) are socketed. Then put the (essentially bare) card in the backplane and check the outputs of the regulators on that card. Repeat for all the cards you have. Put the ICs back into a card before starting on the next one (unless you are a lot better organised than me!) Then, and only then do you put populated cards into the backplane and start testing logic functions. -tony

23 years, 6 months

VAX 4000-500 near Texas?

by mtapley＠swri.edu

All, Dunno whether this is on-topic or not, apologies if not. Someone at my institute needs access to a VAX 4000-500 or similar series machine for a proposal for some project work. I intend to loan my Vax 4000 VLC to them, but: 1) Does anyone near San Antonio Texs, have a qualifying machine that they'd like to unload permanently, hopefully at a reasonably good price? 2) What are the differences between the 4000VLC and the 4000-500? Are there likely to be some serious gotchas in there? - Mark

23 years, 6 months

DEC PDP-11/73 in GA

by xds_sigma7＠hotmail.com

LOL! Well, my parents apparently are willing to agree there's nothing called too many computers, so long as they are put away nicely, not filling the garage, spread through the house, etc.. Heh.. Will J _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com

23 years, 6 months

Xerox 820 lives!

by acme_ent＠bellsouth.net

> From: Don Maslin <donm(a)cts.com> > First off, Glen, is it an 820 or an 820-II? Since you have been in to > it, you should recall whether there is a daughter card that plugs in > vertically in the right rear quadrant of the motherboard. If it is > there, you have an 820-II. Cool! It's an 820-II. > Make sure that the heads are clean and that the guide rails for the head > assembly are clean and VERY LIGHTLY lubricated. The drive is scheduled for a good cleaning this weekend ;>) > There is a program named MFT45.COM (also MFT48.COM) that is capable of > single drive copy. It is a little tedious because of disk jockeying, > but it does do the job. MFT stands for Multiple File Transfer. More cool -- I'll check the diskettes that came with it to see if this program is present. > > --> Some of the utilities on the boot diskettes (FMT, for example) refer to > > hard disk drives. What's involved in attaching a hard drive to this > > system? > > If an 820, it is not a particularly reasonable thing to try. If an > 820-II, easy if you can find the Xerox add ons. Rather more difficult > otherwise. Would you happen to know the model number of the Xerox external HDD unit? > > --> The flimsy "User Manual" which I have states that the RS232 port may be > > configured to attach to a terminal or to a modem. How? > > Probably switching the port from DTE to DCE pinout. Sure, but I'm reluctant to make any internal changes w/o docs. As always, thanks, Don! Glen 0/0

23 years, 6 months

RSX-11 Kermit file transfer of binary files...

by bqt＠update.uu.se

Unfortunately I (somehow) missed the start of this thread, but I figured I might as well jump in. I don't even know for sure who asked the original question, but I hope this gets to whoever is interested. First of all, you need to set kermit to transfer binary files in order to transfer tasks (I figure it handles this if you allow it to automatically decide the mode as well). Second, kermit-11 can send attribute packets, which tranfers RMS information, along with the file. Third, KERMIT-11 is somewhat buggy. I wrote a patch or two to remedy the most obvious errors (which crashed KERMIT-11 if attribute packets were sent). However, I got tired of this whole thing, and wrote a program similar to uuencode/uudecode for RSX, which preserves everything, while converting to/from plain text files. I called it COD, and it's in MACRO-11. Not in all respects a beautiful program (the source, that is), but it works very nice, and it's free. Using this, you just throw your file at COD, transfer the text file, run it through COD, and you have your file back. It retains all attributes, contigous state, and some other meta information as well (such as file protection). If anyone need it, it is free, available in source at ftp://ftp.update.uu.se/pub/pdp11/rsx/tools/cod/ Johnny Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt(a)update.uu.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

23 years, 6 months

Altair-what do I do first

by rhudson＠cnonline.net

On Tuesday 24 September 2002 09:26 pm, you wrote: > Ron, > > You are seriously looking to potentially trade the machine? > > Erik > www.vintage-computer.com yes, seriously, my eyesight is not much good for soldering, or chip reading. Everyone - Please remember this is not the altair you think of with the blinky lights and switches, it does have a video out (some sort of terminal board) and floppy drives. It has been sitting in a garage for some time, and it's only an offer so far, not delivered.

23 years, 6 months

KDF 9 Core stores

by Lee.Davison＠merlincommunications.com

Pictures of two parts of the nesting store from this machine are now online at .. http://members.lycos.co.uk/leeedavison/kdf9/index.html Enjoy. Lee. ________________________________________________________________________ This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Star Internet. The service is powered by MessageLabs. For more information on a proactive anti-virus service working around the clock, around the globe, visit: http://www.star.net.uk ________________________________________________________________________

23 years, 6 months

An Important Announcement About VCF 5.0

by vcf＠siconic.com

Dear Vintage Computer Festival fan: It is with great pleasure that I announce that the fifth annual Vintage Computer Festival is being sponsored by the Computer History Museum. In conjunction with the CHM's sponsorship, VCF 5.0 will now be held at the Moffett Training & Conference Center at Moffet Federal Airfield in Mountain View, California. The dates of the event will remain October 26th and 27th. Moffett Federal Airfield is of course also the home of the Computer History Museum. This year's tours of the CHM's Visible Storage exhibits will be more tightly integrated with the VCF. The collaboration between the VCF and CHM will make for an exciting computer history experience. Admission to the event will be $10 per person per day for full access to Speakers, the Exhibition and the Marketplace, or $4 per person per day for Exhibition and Marketplace access only. As always, kids 17 and under will be admitted free, and parking is free. Important note for foreign nationals (i.e. non-U.S. citizens): because the Moffett Federal Airfield is a United States military installation, foreign nationals must undergo screening prior to being allowed on the base. We regret this inconvenience. If you are a foreign national (not a United States citizen) planning to attend VCF, please fill out the Foreign National Registration form on the VCF website: http://www.vintage.org/2002/main/foreign.php Your registration must be received by September 26, 2002. If you are a United States citizen, you do not need to register. Stay tuned for forthcoming announcements regarding VCF 5.0 or visit the VCF 5.0 website for more information: http://www.vintage.org/2002/main/ Vendor booths are still available! Best regards, Sellam Ismail Producer Vintage Computer Festival -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org * Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *

23 years, 6 months

2.4Mb 5 1/4" floppy drive?

by rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com

I was scrounging around last week and found a pair of HH 5 1/4" floppy drives that are marked "2.4" next to a disk symbol on the front. Just out of curiousity I picked them up and checked <http://marina.mfarris.com/floppy/Hitachi.html> and sure enough they're 2.4Mb floppy drives! I've never heard of these before. Does anyone know what the disk format is or where these are used? The drives are Hitachi model FD532EIU. The label on them says that they're made for IBM. They're in some sort of a plastic sled. Joe

23 years, 6 months

Pixel Machines

by pat＠purdueriots.com

There's a AT&T/Pixel Machines model 964d 'video thing' down at university salvage, and I was wondering if anyone had any information on them. It appears to have been produced in 1989 by an offshoot of AT&T called "Pixel Machines". Using google, the only result I can get that matches "Pixel Machines" and 964 or 964d is a thesis of some sort, which doesn't have a whole lot of useful information on the beast. As far as I can tell, it's some sort of redering/raytracing 'thing', and from its outputs, it appears like it might output NTSC video. I'm not sure yet if I want to bother lugging it up here - it's about 2ft x 2ft x 1ft in size, and looks like it might weigh as much as a small car. Thanks for any information you guys can turn up, -- Pat

23 years, 6 months

StorageTek 9708 Tape library

by wonko＠4amlunch.net

does anyone know anything about these? does anyone have docs? i'd love to get mine setup and working, but i can't seem to figure out details. like for instance, there is a db25 on the back, and the robot doesn't show up as a scsi id, are the robots on these things serial controlled? docs would be best. thanks all!!! -brian -- "Hope you don't have much traffic then... ya turn on any feature in a crisco and you tax the hell outta the cpu..don't be so cruel to that little 68030, he never did anything to hurt you. Really, he loves you and just wants to shovel the bits around. meanie" Derrick D. Daugherty

23 years, 6 months

DEC PDP-11/73 in GA

by healyzh＠aracnet.com

> Georgia's a little far for me to go, but I sure wish MY wife was this > understanding. She had a cow at the mere suggestion of bringing home a VAX > the other day. She is under the impression I have too many old computers as > it is. I say there is no such thing as too many old computers. Your wife is probably correct. Consider your self lucky, my wife is understanding. As a result, I'm the one that thinks I've got too many old computers. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, collecting old computers is a disease! DECitis is one of the more extreme and dangerous varients of this disease. Developing DECitis can be especially dangerous if you already suffer from Bibliomania. If you think I'm joking, think again. Zane PS at least the disease isn't as distructive as some.

23 years, 6 months

2.4Mb 5 1/4" floppy drive?

by rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com

At 02:15 PM 9/20/02 -0600, Will J wrote: >Those drives must be from an IBM control unit, such as a 3174, since I know >the drives in it say "1.4M" next to them. > I assume that you mean 2.4M. I did some searching on the 3174 and option 1048 for them is a 2.4Mb drive so that looks like that's where they came from. Later I checked the drives closer and I found a disk in the one that I hadn't looked at. It looks like a standard 5 1/4" floppy disk. It had a plain white label on it with no brand name. The lable says "DISKETTE TYPE 2.4MB 3174 CONTROL", "LICENSED INTERNAL CODE - PROPERTY OF IBM", "MACHINE 3174 P/N 25F8499 E/C A78831 ML90095 MICROCODE LVL B2.0" etc etc so it appears that it's definitely for a 3174. Joe

23 years, 6 months

Pictures Re: 2.4Mb 5 1/4" floppy drive?

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Sep 24, 14:24, Joe wrote: > I'm still trying to find out where the 2.4Mb 5 1/4" floppy drives came from. > The sled has IBM PN 25F8398 on it. I've searched Google and IBM's site for the number but didn't find anything. I found these drives in the same pile with some IBM RS/6000 cards. Does anyone know if the RS/6000 uses anything like this? I'd never heard of a 5.25" 2.4MB floppy before this, but I know that some models of the RS/6000 range and I believe also some PS/2 range had so-called "2.88MB" 3.5" floppies. I have one here (the drive,that is, not the RS/6000). They look just like ordinary 3.5" HD floppies except for the extra media sensor. They can use normal DD or HD disks, or special ED disks which have the media sensor hole in a different place to HD disks -- it's slightly further from the bottom edge, so if you put an ED disk in an HD drive, it would be seen as DD. However, the coating is a special barium ferrite rather than the normal cobalt ferrite, and for ED, the drive uses a vertical recording technique developed by Toshiba instead of normal longitudinal recording. If the disk in the drive you've found looks just like a normal HD floppy, that's what it is -- not an Extra Density one. Apart from IBMs they were also used in 3Com Netbuilder routers. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 6 months

Xerox 820 lives!

by acme_ent＠bellsouth.net

> From: Merle K. Peirce <at258(a)osfn.org> > The 820, is, I think, my favourite CP/M machine. Mind if I ask why? So far I still prefer my Kaypro 10, but my mind is always open ;>) > They can be twitchy > though, often stemming from dirty contacts on various cards. I'll keep that in mind. > I might have some Xerox manuals somewhere. They might be buried deep, > though. Want me to look? Only if it is convenient for you. > WordStar runs very nicely on the 820. I used > it for a number of years. Fortunately, I have WS 3.3, dBase II, and Multiplan. Anyway, thanks for the info. Glen 0/0

23 years, 6 months

Slightly OT: HP 9000/C160

by glenslick＠hotmail.com

Search eBay for A2580-60001. I think that is the correct part number for a 64MB module which works for this system. You can get a pair (128MB total) for $15 or less right now. >From: "Peter C. Wallace" <pcw(a)mesanet.com> >Reply-To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org >To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org >Subject: Re: Slightly OT: HP 9000/C160 >Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2002 13:55:33 -0700 (PDT) > >On Mon, 23 Sep 2002, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > > I've managed to pick up a memory-less HP C110 that was upgraded to a > > C160. Looking at Kingston's site, they want way too much for new memory > > for it. Does anyone have extra memory, or a source for memory? I've >also > > got an HP Apollo 715/50 - is that memory compatible? > > > > Thanks for the help! > > > > -- Pat > > > > > >715 memory is not compatible with C110 memory. You should be able to find >cheaper memory from one of the HP re-sellers. A friend of mine with a C110 >did >that and I dont think he paid more than $50 or so for 256M... Another >(perhaps cheaper) option is finding another C110... > > > >Peter Wallace _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com

23 years, 6 months

Xerox 820 lives!

by acme_ent＠bellsouth.net

> From: Dan Cohoe <dancohoe(a)oxford.net> > I have a very complete set of docs and software that I received in the last > month for the Xerox 820. > What do you need? Immediately, its probably easier for me to scan stuff than > to attempt to copy diskettes. This is good news! Whatever you can provide (at your convenience, of course) would be greatly appreciated. I'll be glad to pay for media, postage, etc. -- please let me know. Thanks, Glen 0/0

23 years, 6 months

FA: RCA 1802 Cosmac computer and various Cosmac manuals

by rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com

See <http://cgi6.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&userid=rigd…>

23 years, 6 months

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test-drb