This is the E-mail that I sent, and the message I received when
inquiring about VAX hobbyist media.
-----Original Message-----
From: David L. Cathey [mailto:davidc@montagar.com]
Sent: Sunday, April 28, 2002 6:49 PM
To: bob_lafleur(a)technologist.com
Subject: RE: OpenVMS hobbyist license
>I am interested in obtaining the OpenVMS hobbyist license, but I see
>from your order from that it is SOLD OUT. Do you plan to have another
>version available soon? If not, is there another way I can obtain an
>OpenVMS license for hobbyist use? Thanks for any information you can
>provide.
Licenses are still available, it's the media kit for VAX that is
sold out. I'm not sure when we'll get new ones in at this time.
However, you can still register for licenses and use borrowed media to
bring your VAX on-line. If you need an Alpha, we still have several
Alpha kits left.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
David L. Cathey |Inet: davidc(a)montagar.com
Montagar Software, Inc. |Fone: (972)-423-5224
P. O. Box 260772, Plano, TX 75026 |http://www.montagar.com
Hi folks,
There's a sealed-bid surplus lot for sale on www.govliquidiation.com
with a Wright Line manual card punch and two paper tape readers of
unknown provenance -- the only snag is they're in Kapolei, HI
(Oahu).
http://www.govliquidation.com/auction/view?auctionId=60013
Might be a good catch for someone in the Islands.
brian
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
_| _| _| Brian Knittel / Quarterbyte Systems, Inc.
_| _| _| Tel: 1-510-559-7930 Fax: 1-510-525-6889
_| _| _| Email: brian(a)quarterbyte.com
_| _| _| http://www.quarterbyte.com
If anyone's interest, I have my Windows 1.03 auction up on eBay. This
will hopefully help fund some projects I'm working on...
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2030077275
I still have copies of Windows 2.0 and Windows/286 (version 2.1) that I'd
like to get rid of, but will offer to the group before I think about
eBaying them. $20ea gets it. They're the original install disks.. email
me off list if interested or you want a photo or something. All the disks
read properly in a 1.2M DSHD floppy drive.
-- Pat
==================BEGIN FORWARDED MESSAGE==================
>Return-Path: <arlen.michaels(a)sympatico.ca>
Just want to thank you for making the old manuals and image files
available on http://oldcomputers.dyndns.org/public/
I found things here (like the IMS information) I have been hunting for
years. I am still looking for documents etc for some other IMS S-100
boards dating from around 1980-84:
- A862 Z80 CPU
- A930 Floppy Controller
- A821 Winchester Controller
- A1100 Winchester Controller
- A1021 64K RAM
You don't by any chance have files for these, do you? :)
Best wishes,
Arlen Michaels
arlen.michaels(a)sympatico.ca
===================END FORWARDED MESSAGE===================
Greetings from
Fritz Chwolka - Duisburg
/ collecting old computers just for fun at www.alterechner.de \
I've got a couple Texas Instruments DIS1291's, and can't find a datasheet
for them. If anyone has a TI optoelectronics databook from around 1981 or
so and could put up a scan of the datasheet, I'd be most grateful. These
displays are made up of 6 tiny numeric displays in an extra long (20 pin
length, 1") 16 pin dip package.
-Toth
Well what's the cheapest way to get into somthing running real VMS? Even for
a single user (can I connect it to my home network and telnet to it from
linux)
(wishing for authorize just one more time....)
BTW I have PC-DCL (HMM gotta look up the source on that to see if it can be a
linux shell.....)
Ron.
>> 5.5 is available on CD, it's just not easy to get.
>
>If I had it, I wouldn't be asking. :-)
Do you mean 5.5 or 5.5-2? I certainly have the
latter (as, I expect, do many others) and I
may have the former. Assuming you have a
hobbyist licence and can find wherever it is
that says given the licence, you can have
someone make you a copy, then I can
cartainly do that - although you may find
it easier to get someone in the US to do
it for you.
>Is that a DEC (HP) product or Freeware?
LDDRIVER was a midnight project by an engineer
inside DEC and is now on the Freeware CDs
(and is accessible on the Web from the OpenVMS
home page - browse the latest online Freeware CD).
>> Actually on second thought this would probably be easiest on a SCSI based
>> VAX with an RZ25.
>
>How about a SCSI-based Alpha?
If you want to build a bootable VAX disk (even
just S/A BACKUP then using aVAX and a container file
is by far the easiest way). You can pull apart STABACKIT.COm
>from a VAX distribution and see what it does and
replicate by hand - but it's a fair amount of work!
> And how about an RZ26 that isn't more than
>65% full? If physical size really matters, I could throw an ST1480
>drive on the Alpha and have 424MB - plenty of room for this task.
The trick is to use a container disk that is
no more than 650MB (or 700MB). The problem
is that your RZ26 has too much room and you have no
control where things go unless you work at it very
hard - it's just *so* much easier to use LDRIVER
and a container file (on your RZ26 if you like).
>Would it be a problem for cross-platform? I know it's easy to make
No - just cluster a VAX with you Alpha for a
while and let it take the strain :-)
Antonio
On Jun 5, 23:59, Tony Duell wrote:
> If it's that much work to get it to compile, it's going to be less work
> to write my own from scratch. Intel Hex is hardly complex [1] and all I
> need is binary -> hex (so I can transfer files to my EPROM programmer...)
> which is the easier direction in general.
>
> [1] And I even have an Intel manual giving a semi-official version of the
> spec...
There's a flat-ASCII copy of the Intel spec, including type 3,4, and 5
records, for 8-, 16- and 32-bit formats, at
http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/IntelHEX/hexspec.txt
as well as my simpler description at
http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/IntelHEX/IntelHEX.txt
I'm sure you could just use James' code (plain C, no fancy C++ or other
complexities, and quite small) at
http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/IntelHEX/ihex.tar
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
>The Hobbyist license allows you to make copies of
>DEC/Compaq media, however, I'm not sure if it allows
>you to make copies of the Hobbyist CD's.
At http://www.montagar.com/hobbyist/terms_and_conditions.txt
it states that you can make *one* archival backup for
yourself of the Hobbyist media. I don't see anywhere that
states that you can copy that media for other hobbyists
(which, admittedly, you didn't claim it said you could do)
nor do I see anywhere that states that anyone else can
copy something for you.
Antonio
>
>Is it legal to distribute an ISO file of that to people with
>a hobby license? I have the later Hobbyist CD, but would
>love to have a copy of the original one.
No idea. I'm pretty sure I've seen trustworthy
people indicate that this can be done and that
the licence allows you to get media anyway
you can, including copying. If you can find
a statement to that effect on either the montagar
webpage or somewhere in the OpenVMS web
pages, that'll do for me. Quite how you convince
anyone that you have a hobbyist licence is
another matter.
Antonio
Is anyone here familar with a device called Disk-A-Tape? It's paper tape emulator that uses a HH 5 1/4" floppy disk drive. (The drive is mounted in a filler plate that fits in a mount for a HH 8" floppy drive). It mounts in a 19" rack and is about 8" tall and 12" deep. Besides the drive, it has a reset pushbutton, an Init/Job toggle switch, FWD/Rev toggle switch, Read/Write toggle switch, Emulate/Off/RS-232 toggle switch and a small 8 digit LED display and an AC power switch on the front panel. On the back it has a DB-25M and DB-25F connectors. There are two circuit cards in them, one small one and a larger wire wrap card. I haven't taken it apart and looked at the ICs on the boards yet. I picked up two of these today, mostly out of curiousity. They came out of what looked like some kind of CNC machinery controller. There was also a DEC PDP-11/04 in one of the chassis.
BTW I was searching the net for info on this and found this <http://www.fastec.com/xdisk/> instead. Interesting but I'm not sure it's it's related to what I have or not.
joe
IIRC, the pile of punch card equipment manuals I sent to Norm Aleks
included the 24/26 Operating Manual, the 24 Series Customer
Engineering manual, and schematics for the 24 and 56, and
Norm did solemnly promise to scan these and make them available
on the Web; why not drop him a line.
mike
------------Original Message----------
From: Sellam Ismail <foo(a)siconic.com>
To: Classic Computers Mailing List <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Subject: Replacement tube for IBM 026 Printing Card Punch
So I'm off to look for a 25L6 tube for my IBM 026. <snip>
>ISTR hearing mention a while back that the remote diag console on the 6K
>VAXen spoke a flavor of serial DECnet. Any experience with something like
>that? It would be useful, or at least interesting, to provide a remote
>console for them.
The remote diag consoles spoke (I guess) plain
serial between the console and the local DEC
Remote Diagnostic Console box and some
undocumented, secret (and now probably forgotten)
protocol between the RDC and its partner unit
at the support centre.
As for running DDCMP over the console line, it's
probably possible but usually not a good idea
(the console line is usually deliberately pretty dumb,
the principle being that it's harder to screw up that
way).
Antonio
ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote:
> Earlier this evening I was thinking about a project that will involve (in
> part) translating binary to/from IntelHex (or Motorola S-record would do,
> actually). Can you give me a URL for that source code you mentioned (or
> any other source code for a simular program).
http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~millerp/srecord/srecord.html
My recollection is that when I first tried to install SRecord version
1.5 (a couple of years ago) I found that it was written in a
sufficiently new dialect of C++ that it didn't want to go down the gcc
2.7.mumble that I was running on the intended FreeBSD box. One short
upgrade of FreeBSD later I had a newer version of gcc in the base
system and it was building and running SRecord.
#include <rant/c++/moving-target>
-Frank McConnell
>Sounds close. Maybe a DMR11 for Unibus? (We didn't have one for
>Qbus)
I know that machine also had a DMR11 but I'm
pretty sure that was a high speed parallel interface.
My docs are not handy, so I'm not going
to swear to it.
>Why do bugs matter?
In that machine's case, because I was using it
to support the Phase IV and Phase V WAN Drivers
code on OpenVMS VAX. In the general case, because
they've paid for my house (either because I had
to fix other people's or because other people
paid me to generate them :-) )
>
Antonio
On Jun 5, 0:09, Tony Duell wrote:
> > S-records. There is a nice source code file that exists for
reading/writing
> > Intel HEX files but I haven't been able to find a similar one for
S-records.
> Earlier this evening I was thinking about a project that will involve (in
> part) translating binary to/from IntelHex (or Motorola S-record would do,
> actually). Can you give me a URL for that source code you mentioned (or
> any other source code for a simular program).
Ages ago, I wrote a "loader" that will convert Intel HEX records to binary,
on a Unix machine (or about anything else with a C compiler). It's quite
powerful, being designed to handle multiple files, sparse files, patch
files, etc, for EPROM programmers.
I planned to make a whole set of HEX -> binary, HEX -> S-record, S-record
-> binary, etc, but I never quite finished. Most of this has been
available on my web site for a while, and I've just added a couple of files
for anyone who wants them.
http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/IntelHEX/
IntelHEX.txt is a simple explanation of comon HEX records (as
used by CP/M and some programmers, for example)
S-records.txt is a similar explanation of S-records (not written by me)
ihex.tar is the source/manpage for a binary-to-HEX converter,
written by my friend James Carter
mload.tar is the source/manpage for my HEX-to-binary and
S-record-to-hex converters, along with some notes.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
> >Is it legal to distribute an ISO file of that to people with
> >a hobby license? I have the later Hobbyist CD, but would
> >love to have a copy of the original one.
>
> No idea. I'm pretty sure I've seen trustworthy
> people indicate that this can be done and that
> the licence allows you to get media anyway
> you can, including copying. If you can find
> a statement to that effect on either the montagar
> webpage or somewhere in the OpenVMS web
> pages, that'll do for me. Quite how you convince
> anyone that you have a hobbyist licence is
> another matter.
>
> Antonio
The Hobbyist license allows you to make copies of DEC/Compaq media, however,
I'm not sure if it allows you to make copies of the Hobbyist CD's.
Zane
> > 5.5 is available on CD, it's just not easy to get.
>
> If I had it, I wouldn't be asking. :-)
It would be really nice if someone could make the first Hobbyist CD
available. As far as I'm concerned the V2 CD is basically worthless (OK, I
confess that's becuase I've plenty of real Compaq/DEC kits), however, the V1
CD has all kinds of cool stuff on it as well as various versions of VAX/VMS
between 5.5 and 6.1.
> > What you want instead of mkisofs is something called the "Logical Disk
> > Driver", IIRC. That allows you to create a CD sized ODS-2 logical disk
> > that you can copy stuff onto.
>
> Is that a DEC (HP) product or Freeware?
Freeware. Check the FAQ, it's probably got pointers.
>
> > Actually on second thought this would probably be easiest on a SCSI based
> > VAX with an RZ25.
>
> How about a SCSI-based Alpha? And how about an RZ26 that isn't more than
> 65% full? If physical size really matters, I could throw an ST1480
> drive on the Alpha and have 424MB - plenty of room for this task.
I'm not sure what it would take to build standalone backup on a disk
attached to an Alpha, or if it's even possible. As for a RZ26, I suspect
you'd have some major problems, however, I don't know for sure. The ST1480
would be a safer choice.
> Would it be a problem for cross-platform? I know it's easy to make
> a disk on your own machine bootable to standalone (SYSE and whatnot).
> I guess given the DCL script to make the standalone partition in the
> first place, it wouldn't be impossible to modify it to pull from
> someplace other than SYS$SYSROOT.
By cross-platform are you talking VAX vs. Alpha, or VAX vs. PC? In either
case I really don't know, the VAX vs. Alpha concerns me.
> Pity it probably won't fit on a ZIP disk - I'll have to physically
> move a drive from machine to machine.
I think for V5.5 you'll need roughly 150MB for the full install (at least
IIRC it will fit on a RD54).
> That's the easy part. I'll probably do it on SPARCstation instead of
> an Intel Linux box, but that's no big deal.
Hmmm, I like that idea! I think you just pointed out how I can save some
space!
Zane
>None. We either had a two-board Unibus set that provided an
>intellegent DDCMP connection (forget the model number, but *boy*
>were they expensive when they first came out)
Might that have been the DMV11? I had one
hanging off the UNIBUS of the VAX 8350 for a
while. Luckily noone ever logged a bug so I
never had to fidn out whether it worked or not :-)
>had one anyway), but it was hard on the CPU. We did have some
>old Qbus sync ports (DPV11?), but we never attached a MicroVAX
The older one was indeed the DPV11. The newer, spiffier and
more expensive one was the DSV11.
Antonio
I've got a pair of these Gandalf DOV 640's (Data Over Voice units) and I
was wondering...
1) Is there a difference between 'master' and 'slave' units? I have a
pair of what is marked 'slave' units.
2) Does anyone have a manual for these or can anyone tell me what the RDL
and TL switches do, along with the dip switches inside?
I'm not sure this things strictly meet the 10-year rule, but they should
at least be close to it.
Thanks for any info!
-- Pat
Anyone know anything about the Integra Systeme 2/5. Most likely a French
OEM. We just picked one up in a 6ft rack with a tape drive, two
removable disk drives, a Kennedy 9218 Format Control Unit and a Kennedy
1629 Half Duplex Interface.
We are told the system orginially came with 8 terminals.
I have not had chance yet to see how the units are identified inside the
cabinet.
From the front panel switches the processor is a 16 bit mini.
Any further information is welcome
-- hbp
>My best VAX processor is either the 8200 or a MicroVAX-II. Neither
>have Ethernet at the moment (I'm working on getting a DEBNT going).
The easy option is to buy or borrow a DELQA - but
I think we've been there before :-)
The alternative is to have someone who does have
a VAX running V5.5-2 and sufficient disk space to
build you a 650MB disk container file with OpenVMS V5.5-2
S/A BACKUP on it, drop it on a 700MB CD (or build
a 700MB container file and zip it up and drop that
on CD) and post it to you.
Then you pop the CD into your Alpha and copy
off the resulting container file, connect an
LD device to it and just add files to [000000]
until cooked.
Then take that and burn to CD.
If you had asked about two years ago I could
have done that easily. Right now I have no VAX
running V5.5-2. Why does your S/A BACKUP
have to be 5.5-2? Will not V7.2 do? All you
want to do is boot and install whatever
version of OpenVMS you have put togetehr, no?
Antonio
Scrap dealers don't pay much for big transformers due to the fact that they
are not worth very much.. You know something can't be too valuable when the
yard won't even give you any money for it, heh.
Will j
_________________________________________________________________
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
Hi,
I wanted to conduct some survey of the common practices (which
may or may not be good practices) to powering your very own mini
and maxi big iron in your home. I think this topic may be
embarrassing so PLEASE let's wait 10 days or so before flaming
and blaming each other for our risky ways of squeezing the last
amp out of our feeds. I would hope that in the end we could
summarize in a calm and sensible way what the general suggestions
might be to a safe but reasonable way of running equipment.
Here I go then. As you know, I have two hot-spots:
(1) 2 VAX 6000-460 and 8 to 10 RA90 and 2 RA8x and one HSC90
that I run in my basement. I have a dedicated 60 A 220 V 4-wire
line going right into that room. I have terminated that line in
a circuit breaker box and feed the computers with a 25 A 220 V
line. This is about 6 to 9 foot cable of AWG #10 that I run without
a metal conduit. (The other breakers feed German household stuff
that we still have in use here and there.)
I noticed that when I have everything on, the 25 A breaker gets
warm. Fairly warm. Not hot, but markedly warm. I made sure the
wires are screwed very tight and the breaker is seated right, but
still it gets warm. That worries me a bit.
Also, I think that my #10 wire is under-dimensioned after all.
Since all the consumers are essentially doing some (more or less)
good job of load balancing, eventually the neutral wire gets
quite a bit of load, possibly beyond 25 A. Theoretically up to
50 A. So, I should have used #8 or even #6 then.
However, the practical problem is that you can't fit #6 wire into
a breaker contact screw. And even #8 is going to be on the low
end with 50 A. The best thing would be if neutral was twice as
thick here. I am considering to put in two lines in parallel from
the same breaker through the same conduit (if any) the outlets
very close together.
(2) The VAX 11/780, UNIBUS, TU78, and TE16 in the garage.
They run off the same line (so that line is no longer dedicated.)
I spliced a branch off with split bolts and lots of electric tape.
for insulation. The branch terminates in a dedicated box with
the original outlets. The initially #8 AWG is distributed through
#10 wires to the various outlets. Even some #12 to the two
standard 110V outlets in that box.
My concern there is, of course, that (a) the split bolt construction
may develop resistance and increased heat dissipation. Also (b) the
way I downsize and distribute the #6 feet to smaller wires in the
outlet box may lead to overcurrent if the devices aren't connected
where they should. I did my best to have the big suckers on thick
AWG and shorter length than the moderate consumers. On the other
hane, turning the VAX 11/780 on is an extremely rare event right now
and will probably be in the future. Some hours per week perhaps.
I was concerned about what to do whe I have my VAX party (when
everything works.) If we want to turn it all on at the same time,
something might happen...
I regularly check the warmth of that breaker downstairs and now that
that spplit-bolt tap is insulated I can check that for heat. But it's
nothing I want to run 24/7 without attention. So, I know I have to do
something about it. I usually take the circuit off line when I am
done with it.
The problem of course is that to do it properly would require
upgrading the main feed, replacing the main breaker panel running
thousands of new wires, and sub-panels, where each machine essentially
has its own breaker, and of course the outlets and plugs need to be
all proper. Easy to spend $2000 or more in material and labor for that
upgrade. For equipment we run a few hours per week.
I'm really interested in hearing how others with minis do it. (If you
don't have a mini yourself but want to teach the dangers of electricity
and the demands of the NEC, please hold off for 10 days, O.K.?) Any
good or bad example is welcome.
regards,
-Gunther
--
Gunther Schadow, M.D., Ph.D. gschadow(a)regenstrief.org
Medical Information Scientist Regenstrief Institute for Health Care
Adjunct Assistant Professor Indiana University School of Medicine
tel:1(317)630-7960 http://aurora.regenstrief.org