<disks did the trick. Other empirical evidence was accumulated when the
<demagnetizer shut itself off while I was using it near the disk, (thermal
<shutdown to prevent meltdown I guess). That disk was unusable until the
<demagnetizer reset and I could use it more carefully.
When the thermal cutout opened there was a momentary spike. At that point
rather than radom magnitisation you nailed the disk with a fixed field
and really magnetized it. The powered demaggers whould be moved in a
circular patter from surface contact to about arms length befor powering
off to avoid that.
FYI when wiping disks I use a ceramic magnet and move it uniformly over the
surface in a circular pattern ten move it away while continuing to move it.
works just as well as a line powered demagnetizer.
Allison
Another pass through the bulk-erase procedure should do it. I've had lots
of diskettes and tapes which were rejuvenated by a serious bulk-erase.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Charles E. Fox <foxvideo(a)wincom.net>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Sunday, May 02, 1999 5:30 AM
Subject: Re: Fun with degaussers
>At 07:18 PM 5/1/1999 -0700, you wrote:
>>At 09:50 PM 5/1/99 -0400, Tim wrote:
>>>That said, 12 (or even 6) is way too many errors for a floppy disk.
>>>Cleaning the heads, re-aligning, or buying new media (there are lots
>>>of places that still sell 8" floppies) may be the real solution.
>>
>>The issue isn't with the disk I don't believe (I don't have an alignment
>>disk to prove it so I can't be sure). The goal of demagnetizing is to
>>recreate a uniform state of non-magnetism on the media.
>>
> Yesterday one of our local industries was selling off some equipment to
>benefit Jr Acheivment, so I went down, found a 5 1/4" disk file with a
>bunch of disks, and was told I could have it for $ 2.00. The lady on the
>desk, however was determined no data could leave. I came home, returned
>with a bulk tape eraser and demagnitized them on the spot.
> However when I tried to format them with my trusty XT it spit them out as
>"can't read track 0" on both A and B drives. I formatted the disks
>successfully on a Compaq clone and a Commodore PC10, and now the XT will
>read them. Any ideas?
>
> Regards
>
> Charlie Fox
>
>
> Charles E. Fox
> Chas E. Fox Video Productions
> 793 Argyle Rd. Windsor N8Y 3J8 Ont. Canada
> email foxvideo(a)wincom.net Homepage http://www.wincom.net/foxvideo
>
I have found a Sony CDU 6100 external CDRom drove with interface card and
cable. Circa 1988.
Does anyone know where I could find a driver for this?
Thanks,
Hans
The state (Qld, Australia) main roads department are selling a job lot of 16
x HP1000 A-series systems.
http://www.qits.net.au/hp1000/
Are these the same HP 1000's that are listed in the Comprehensive Computer
Catalog as being introduced in 1976? The pictures on the Main Roads Web page
do not look that old.
Phil
in Brisbane, Australia
- just a few km from that stash of HP1000's, but they are way out of my
league.
<Bah, it's a VAX, it should be running VMS. I totally fail to understand
<why, especially now that licenses are free for hobbyist use, anyone would
<want to run UNIX on a VAX! A system like that should be part of a nice VM
<cluster!
Here, here! The OS (VMS) is a classic too!
Allison
>Ok, so on my distribution disk if I boot it up it comes up as RT-11 V20B
>SJ but if I boot DXMNTFB.SYS it comes up RT-11 V20B FB. What's the
>difference? Floating point?
SJ is the single-job monitor. One job is all you have, period.
FB is the foreground-background monitor. You have two jobs. The
foreground job is the higher-priority job. When it blocks, the
background job gets a chance to run (actually, completion routines
for the jobs are slightly higher than the jobs themselves).
So, you can run a data collection program in the foreground, and
the data reduction or storage program in the background.
If you need to direct terminal input to the foreground, you type
<Control-F> first, then type... To then have terminal input go
to the background job, type <Control-B>.
Later versions of RT-11 had foreground/background and up to 6
system jobs (with priorities in between background the foreground).
Megan Gentry
Former RT-11 Developer
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com |
| Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg!world.std.com |
| Compaq Computer Corporation | addresses need '@' in place of '!' |
| 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43 | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ |
| Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler |
| (603) 884 1055 | required." - mbg |
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
Ok, so on my distribution disk if I boot it up it comes up as RT-11 V20B SJ
but if I boot DXMNTFB.SYS it comes up RT-11 V20B FB. What's the difference?
Floating point?
--Chuck
Ok, it looks like the only way I have of getting source code from the 'net
on to the disks is to use EDIT and the "stuff text down the serial line"
hack in hyperterm. Assuming that I set hyperterm to send text slowly. What
are the minimum commands in EDIT to:
1) Open a new file.
2) Go into Insert Mode
3) Exit insert mode and save the file.
--Chuck
Ok, does anyone have an extra RQDX3 breakout board? This is the board that
connects to the controller and then it has connectors for an RX50 and MFM
hard drive(s).
--Chuck
Executive Summary: Very Cool.
Ok, the adventure is nearly complete, the solutions are found, all that is
left is to collect the crystals at the back of the cave. Recapping the
RT/HT-11 saga ...
Overview, I've been recussitating an H-11 with dual H27 8" floppy drives
into working condition. This constitutes the first complete working example
of a PDP-11 in my collection. The system consists of a M7270 w/FIS,
M8044-Dx, H-11-5 serial, H-11-2 parallel, and H-11-Z floppy card. This
system was picked up at a local auction in two lots (one the H11 the other
the H27), the cable to the H27 had been cut off.
After taking apart the system, verifying the operation of the PSU, I put
together the minimum system (CPU, memory, and serial card) and powered it
up. I got the ODT prompt and that was cool. But I had no software for the
machine.
I then saw an advertisement for an H-11 with software that was near by and
asked if I could copy his disks. He said ok, and off I went box of disks in
hand. Only to find they were the wrong type. I scrounged a couple of mangy
disks and managed to get the HT-11B distribution disk and a disk called
"DCOPY" copied. The disk labelled DCOPY also included FORMAT so this was
the disk to have.
Next I got hold of the correct format disks from a fellow list member, and
formatted them on my system. After formatting I tried to Dcopy them and
sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. I suspected my drives.
Round 2 with the H-11 software owner and I format 10 disks at his place and
dcopy 10 volumes of software. One of which is the HT-11 distribution
(RT-11V10A). Encountering problems I tried the PIP command "/K" which
Megan's note described as a bad block scan. When I did this I found _lots_
of bad blocks on the disks. Very weird! The disk surfaces looked fine but I
doubted Control Data Corp was going to honor their 5-year warranty :-)
So I came home again late. At home I took the worst disk and used a
tape/video demagnetizer on it and then tried to reformat it. Half the bad
blocks went away! (now down to 12). A few more rounds of this and I finally
got the technique perfectly.
Disk Demagnetization:
Take a stack of 1 or more but not more than 5 disks and
place them on a flat surface.
Run a demagnetizer horizontally and vertically over the disks
starting beyond the edge of the disk, crossing the disk, and then
passing over the opposite edge.
Hold the Demagnetizer about 1/4" above the disks and move it
around clockwise and anti-clockwise several times, then while
moving it in circles, slowly lift it up until it is about 12"
above the disks and turn it off.
The whole operation should take about 20 - 30 seconds.
Once I did this, the disks would format and scan with zero bad blocks and
zero retrys (no marginal blocks either).
To initialize a disk in RT/HT-11 (ver A or B) the following steps are used:
1) Format the disk.
2) Run PIP and type "DX1:/Z" (this will ask for confirmation)
3) From PIP type "DX1:/K" (this will scan for bad blocks)
If you get through step 3 with no bad blocks and no retries you have a
solidly formatted disk and it is ready for use.
Another mystery was some of the programs on the disk, in particular:
MACRO.SAV
ASEMBL.SAV
EXPAND.SAV
Because on my disk MACRO quit into ODT and ASEMBL failed to interpret the
macros correctly.
In the DOC file for DCOPY that the author wrote, he gave the steps to
reassemble DCOPY.MAC and they were:
.R EXPAND
*DCOPY=DCOPY
.R ASEMBLE
*DCOPY=DCOPY
.R LINK
*DCOPY=DCOPY
It turns out that EXPAND is the "macro" part of the macro assembler, and
MACRO is the RT-11 MACRO-11 assembler from V02 (it crashed on the V01 disk)
Now with good media in hand, I make one more pilgrammage and I should have
everything I need to really enjoy this system.
Thank you everyone for your help, it has been invaluable!
--Chuck
Hey DEC DECMATE folks!
The fellow whose msg is copied below is looking for some advice on
re-belting a DECMATE II. As I have neither experience nor manual on the
machine, I feel some of you may help instead as you're the types who really
could.
Email directly to Bill. The machine is somewhere in Minnesota. Thanks muchly!
Regards, Chris
-- --
>Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 21:42:58 -0500
>From: wdoherty <wdoherty(a)uswest.net>
>To: cfandt(a)netsync.net
>Subject: decmateII
>
>My mother-in-law (you can see why this is important to me!) has a
>DECMATEII Cira 1983. The belt on the printer broke. DEC will sell her
>the belt but nobody knows how to put it on. can you recommend sites,
>collectors, or hobbyiests who may have this knowledge? She is also
>willing to sell to a collector.
>
>Thank you,
>Bill Doherty
>
>
-- --
Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian
Jamestown, NY USA cfandt(a)netsync.net
Member of Antique Wireless Association
URL: http://www.ggw.org/awa
On May 1, 5:07, R. Stricklin (kjaeros) wrote:
> Oops, you're right of course. The Indigos use keyboards that only pretend
> to be PS/2 compatible. My R4400 Indigo does not use an actual PS/2
> keyboard. I thought it did, but double-checking reveals my mistake.
>
> Sorry for the mis-information.
Easy mistake to make :-) I had to think for a few minutes to be sure that
an R4400 Indigo wasn't PS/2, because Indigo^2 keyboards etc are, and the
keyboard connector is on the same board as the R4400.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
I picked up a Rockwell Aim65 today for zero cost and seems to be in great
shape. It looks like a large calculator and the housing is in very good
condition. Also picked up a few HP cables for no charge.
Someone posted a few pages from the Lunar Module software (called
"Luminary") on a web page at:
http://www.pacifier.com/~garyn. If interested, grab it soon, as it won't be
there for long.
Its about 1800 pages long!
Its written in assembler and dated 12/19/1969
Neat!
<It would help rather more to know what kind of printer it is. The fact
<that it's a DECmate narrows down the range of possible printers somewhat,
<but really isn't enough.
there were three common ones used with it. LQP02 (daisy wheel), LA50 and
the LA75.
Are we sure the failed belt is not the RX50?
<Although I'd strongly recommend that anyone still using a DECmate for real
<work give some serious consideration to moving to something a bit more
DECmate II/IIIs are common enough a spare could be found. More likely the
RX50 fails and they can be found. An DMIII is a more modern substitute
and they tend to have long lives.
What is missed is that a DM with all the other packages also has far more
than word processing capability. Those are not easily duplicated on
a PC running wordstar.
Allison
>Just taking the keyboard and nametag is not preservation, but trophying.
>But while I discourage the wanton disregard for the actual hardware, which
>is really the part that's worth preserving, I realize not everyone has the
>facilities to store such a large artifact. I suggest you try to find
>someone in your area who is capable of and willing to store the beasts.
>
Two things please: 1..Alex posted this message since he doesn't want
to canabalilize so we need not give him that advice and more importantly,
2..Alex found it, he is a collector not a preservationist, so he can do what he
wants. We should appreciate the notice without, what I read as, criticism.
p.s. sorry for the original half-done post.
Yours in good faith.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------
Kevin Stumpf * Unusual systems * www.unusual.on.ca
+1.519.744.2900 * EST/EDT GMT - 5
Collector - Commercial Mainframes & Minicomputers from
the 50s, 60s, & 70s and control panels and consoles.
Author & Publisher - A Guide to Collecting Computers &
Computer Collectibles * ISBN 0-9684244-0-6
.
>Just taking the keyboard and nametag is not preservation, but trophying.
>But while I discourage the wanton disregard for the actual hardware, which
>is really the part that's worth preserving, I realize not everyone has the
>facilities to store such a large artifact. I suggest you try to find
>someone in your area who is capable of and willing to store the beasts.
>
Two things please: 1..Alex posted this message since he wan
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------
Kevin Stumpf * Unusual systems * www.unusual.on.ca
+1.519.744.2900 * EST/EDT GMT - 5
Collector - Commercial Mainframes & Minicomputers from
the 50s, 60s, & 70s and control panels and consoles.
Author & Publisher - A Guide to Collecting Computers &
Computer Collectibles * ISBN 0-9684244-0-6
.
On Apr 30, 15:49, Mike Ford wrote:
> One of my friends picked up a SGI Indigo (he calls it a purple), and he
> doesn't have a keyboard for it (or mouse I suspect), what will work? He
> tried a PC keyboard I think, and got "keyboard error".
The keyboards used on Indigos and Personal IRIS machines are custom
keyboards -- you need the right one. They use custom 3-button mice as
well, which plug into the keyboard. The Indigo versions use a 6-pin
miniDIN connector which looks like a PS/2 connector, but the pinout,
voltages, and protocols are completely different. Indys and later machines
use a
standard PS/2 keyboard and PS/2 mouse. A good source is Greg Douglas at
Reputable Systems:
http://www.reputable.com/
A useful source of information is the "This Old SGI" document, at
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Pines/2258/4dfaq.html
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
This one will NOT be converted into a bar:
http://www.vintage.org/crap/vax1.jpg
(the gap on the right is caused by an uneven floor in the warehouse)
http://www.vintage.org/crap/vax2.jpghttp://www.vintage.org/crap/vax3.jpg
Look at the size of that power connector!!!
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't rub the lamp if you don't want the genie to come out.
Coming this October 2-3: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0!
See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details!
[Last web site update: 04/03/99]
I've dug out my copy of the manual for the Apollo Guidance Computer. The
files total about 165K; I don't think it's appropriate to mail them to the
list. But if you want a copy:
* Ask me and I'll send you one.
* Maybe DejaNews has the posts.
* Rich Drushel (who typed in the whole manual!) has a home page at:
http://junior.apk.net/~drushel
I didn't see the manual there but maybe I missed it. If anyone
e-mails Rich and finds he has a later version, please tell me.
I also have a separate 24K file (by Rich) with a giant picture of some of
the keypads and a bit of extra detail about the AGC. I'm not sure the
picture wasn't copied from the manual.
The message below was Rich's "foreword" to his posting of the manual. It's
fascinating, it's not too long, and Rich can explain the subject better than
I can. BTW, I had forgotten the fact that the computer changed over time,
each Apollo spacecraft had a few slightly-different "terminals", and the LEM
had its own version(s) of the computer. If you want to write a simulator,
your work is cut out for you.
-- Derek
Article 131741 of alt.folklore.computers:
Path: news.u.washington.edu!uw-beaver!cornellcs!rochester!udel!delmarva.com!news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!howland.reston.ans.net!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!wariat.org!junior.wariat.org!drushel
From: drushel(a)junior.wariat.org (Richard Drushel)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Apollo Guidance Computer (Block I) [0/4]
Date: 14 Jan 1996 14:48:02 GMT
Organization: Akademia Pana Kleksa, Public Access Uni* Site
Lines: 69
Message-ID: <4db532$if8(a)wariat.wariat.org>
NNTP-Posting-Host: junior.wariat.org
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]
The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC)
revised 9601.14 by Richard F. Drushel (drushel(a)apk.net)
Periodically there are questions on alt.folklore.computers about what
kind of computers were used on board the spacecraft in the Apollo moon
program. Here are the definitive answers, reproduced directly from the
Apollo Operations Handbook for spacecraft SC 012--better known as Apollo 1.
After the fire on 27 January 1967 which killed astronauts Gus Grissom,
Ed White, and Roger Chaffee, NASA began a massive investigation into the
accident. Its 3-volume report, "Investigation into the Apollo 204 Accident",
published 10 April 1967, contains not only the accident report, but also
a wealth of supplementary data documenting the Apollo Command and Service
Modules. Included is the complete Apollo Operations Handbook, which gives
blueprints, block diagrams, schematics, theory of operations, how-to-fly-it
instructions, you name it--including the computer system.
I have broken Section 2, Subsection 2 (Guidance and Navigation
System (G&N)) into 4 parts for ease of posting. This is pages 2.2-1 to
2.2-48 of the Apollo Operations Handbook SM2A-03-SC012, or pages 443-488
of Volume II, Part 1 of the Apollo 204 Accident Report. Two of the four
figures in this section I reproduce as ASCII art; I've tried to keep it to
80 columns, but in a couple places it spills over, so don't read this with
your word wrap on. Of the other two figures, one is a beautiful line
drawing, and the other is a 4-page foldout block diagram. If I get around
to it, I'll put the text up on my WWW home page and make .GIFs of the
artwork.
This description of the Apollo Guidance Computer is only absolutely
correct for SC 012. A sister ship, SC 014, was completely dismantled during
the accident investigation, and some changes were made in the ship design.
Also, since SC 012 was a Block I spacecraft, it was never intended to dock
with a lunar module--it had no docking probe and tunnel--so any computer
programs dealing with translunar injection and lunar orbit rendezvous are
absent. As for hardware changes, I don't know if it was due to the fire, but
at some point before the manned lunar missions, the Bus A and B voltages were
increased from +28 VDC to +65 VDC. This had grave implications for Apollo 13:
the thermostatic switch for the heater in the oxygen tanks was never upgraded
>from +28 VDC, it shorted out during a manufacturing test using +65 VDC,
causing the heater to fail on for 8 hours, baking the inside at 1000 degrees
F and exposing the bare wires which shorted out so explosively in space.
Other changes from the state of SC 012 include the main hatch (changed after
Apollo 1) and the plumbing for the oxygen tanks (changed after Apollo 13).
The museum-quality sets in the 1995 Ron Howard film "Apollo 13" show
that the Block II computer keyboard was different from that of Block I. I
hope to add some ASCII art pictures of this sometime soon.
The Lunar Module computer was evidently similar to the AGC. At least
it shared the 1201 and 1202 error codes (which occurred during the lunar
descent on Apollo 11, nearly causing the landing to be aborted). I have not
found documentation similar to the Apollo Operations Handbook for the LM.
I've tried to catch all the typos, but some may remain. If you
find any, please let me know.
Enjoy! I did when I read it; that's why I was motivated to type it
all in :-)
*Rich*
--
Richard F. Drushel, B.A., Ph.D.| ColecoVision AA DDDDD AA M M
===============================| Family A A D D A A MM MM
Come to ADAMcon VIII | Computer AAAAAA D D AAAAAA M M M M
Cleveland, Ohio U.S.A. | System A A DDDDD A A M M M
5-8 September 1996 |==============================================
See the ADAMcon VIII Home Page | http://junior.apk.net/~drushel/adamcon8.html
Hello, all:
Last night, I finished uploading the final AIM65 book; the AIM65 User's
Guide.
The next projects: First Book of KIM, and PC/AT Tech Ref.
[ Rich Cini/WUGNET
[ ClubWin!/CW7
[ MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking
[ Collector of "classic" computers
[ http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/
[ http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/pdp11/
<---------------------------- reply separator
>Wow! That is a lot of functionality packed into the PIP command! And here
>I thought it was only for copying files :-)
RT utilities are deceptively simple and yet powerful.
I have a copy of the RT-11 System reference card here in front of me, so
if you need anything else, just ask...
>Now I'm dying to go home and try these out. Thanks Megan.
Any time...
Megan Gentry
Former RT-11 Developer
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com |
| Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg!world.std.com |
| Compaq Computer Corporation | addresses need '@' in place of '!' |
| 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43 | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ |
| Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler |
| (603) 884 1055 | required." - mbg |
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
