test-drb

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101090 discussions

by trash80＠internode.on.net

Hi folks - there used to be a web site where you could register and list your "classic/old computer(s)". I'm not looking to do that but am trying to find something from years gone by that I think was on that site. I thought it was https://www.old-computers.com/ or http://oldcomputers.net/ but it's neither of those. My googlefoo has been unable to track it down assuming it still exists. I know at one stage the owner was thinking of closing it down because of hacks or spamming of forms or something like that. Does this ring a bell with anyone? Thank you!! Kevin Parker <https://t.sidekickopen08.com/s2t/o/5/f18dQhb0S7n28cFFdQW752kH81jkhdLW1_k-L- 1qZM43W3s0v_y2M0f8BF4c2NfHml5Hf6Bq4h603?si=8000000004908274&pi=997afdd6-85ea -4056-b2dd-7a9b54226840>

5 years, 1 month

Pinging Jay West

by jwsmail＠jwsss.com

Sent out a request via multiple channels to you WRT a local STL system.? can you give me a call or ping back. sent to your emails, discord and other channels. thanks Jim

5 years, 1 month

Funky electronics chain Fry?s is no more (Seattle Times)

by sieler＠allegro.com

Gavin Scott wrote: > We all had a love/hate relationship with Fry's, but they were an > institution and will be missed. Sometime after his story, Gavin moved to the Bay Area to work for my company. One day, I started to buy something at Fry's and they asked for my phone number. So, I gave the the office number. The salesman entered it, and said "thank you, Mr. Scott". I was still "Gavin Scott" to them 15 years later :) Oh, the "seal of quality". Not only did it scream "do not buy this item", but it was a very useful thing ... although not for reasons Fry's expected. Many times, I'd be looking at some newer tech item (e.g., a 4-bay RAID enclosure), and see that over half of them had the "seal of quality". I quickly developed a rule: two more seals meant: stay away from this product! Stan

5 years, 1 month

ISO IBM flex cables made by Chabin

by aek＠bitsavers.org

I'm making some replacement cables and paddle cards so I'm on the lookout for these connectors on cable assemblies. http://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/dasd/21ED/chabin_4.jpg You'd think there would be piles of them around since they were used as the interplanar connecting cables in lots of IBM products.

5 years, 1 month

Original Intel 8085 training briefcase with tapes

by rdawson16＠hotmail.com

Just on a chance, would anybody have the paper workbook that goes with this kit? It is a 8085 SDK board in a briefcase, power supply and tape player that was probably part of a class they presented. Mine works fine, including the Sony Walkman in the case, I am listening to the 10 or more training tapes. The whole kit is pristine, but no paper - the workbook from the kit. Anybody help me on this, or want it? I revisit things now and then, and this is one of them. It may need a new home. Randy

5 years, 1 month

archive of DEC Notes

by spacewar＠gmail.com

Does anyone have contact information for the proprietor of this site: http://www.activityclub.org/decnotes/ The site has an index of messages archived from DEC's internal "Notes" (kind of their equivalent of UseNet). It appears from the "Download this site" page that at one time it was possible to download an archive of the actual content, but the hosting used for that only provides one week of free hosting, which has expired. I don't need the entire archive (though I'd like to get it), but I'd especially like to get messages from milkwy::23class_semiconductor and ricks::decschips.

5 years, 1 month

Massbus - was: Re: VAX 11/750

by michael.99.thompson＠gmail.com

The PDP-10 KL10 at the RCS/RI was used to control a real-time flight simulator at Sikorski. It had one of the RH20 Massbus controllers connected to a DTR01 cabinet holding a DR01 chassis. The DR01 was, I think, connected to a DR11 chassis that had A/D and D/A converters boards inside. You could use the same DTR01 subsystem to connect two PDP-10s together with Massbus, or connect a PDP-10 to a PDP-11 with Massbus. -- Michael Thompson

5 years, 1 month

FW: List your old computer

by erik＠baigar.de

Hm, just adding that my venerable SUN SPARC UII runs WEB server, ssh, web proxy, sub-version, and is my "cloud" via rsync and of course serves email. Over the last 7 years it got rebooted only twice, because the provider needed to relocate it in the server farm and during one of these reboots we replaced a failed disc in the array. I am pretty sure it would have ran without reboot the full 7 years with one good disc left...

5 years, 1 month

VAX 11/750

by jbglaw＠lug-owl.de

Hi! Just stumbled over https://www.ebay.de/itm/265064917329 . Is it a system somebody of you is offering? Given that it would need to be shipped through Europe and is in unknown condition, I'd probably bid a few Euros on it. MfG, JBG --

5 years, 1 month

FW: List your old computer

by cclist＠sydex.com

On 2/25/21 2:05 AM, Peter Coghlan wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: > I don't think so. My Raspberry Pi running Linux becomes choked by memory leaks > when I leave it running more than a few months. No amount of killing processes > or other fiddling with the operating system tools available allows it to > recover and the only alternative I can find is to reboot it. My VAX/ALPHA > machines/clusters just keep on trucking until the next power failure. I suppose it depends on what's being done. I've got an OrangePi PC running headless that's nothing more than an email relay and an Internet radio server. Until we had power cuts because of the summer wildfires, it ran more than a year. It's been running since power returned. I've got a OPi Zero hooked to a stereo system (headless again) running nothing more than mplayer. Various modems/routers and other appliances have been running BusyBox as an embedded OS. They pretty much escape notice. --Chuck

5 years, 1 month

Funky electronics chain Fry’s is no more (Seattle Times)

by decguy＠songdog.eskimo.com

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/funky-electronics-chain-frys-is-no-mo… So sad to see them go. There was a Fry's store close enough for me to visit occasionally. What will I do now when I actually want to examine the merchandise before I pay for it?

5 years, 1 month

Massbus - was: Re: VAX 11/750

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Chris Zach > technically the MASSBUS cable is just an extension of the Unibus No. For one thing, the MASSBUS has no lines for carrying memory addresses. So there is no way to even build a box that 'translates' MASSBUS to UNIBUS; the semantics ('the things you can say', basically) of the two busses are so very different. (The MASSBUS is actually two separate busses; a control bus, and a data bus. The former has 5 lines for 'register address', but that's all. While the control bus is asynchronous, the data bus is synchronous.) Noel

5 years, 1 month

SaturnCalc, Graph, and WP disks uploaded

by mark＠matlockfamily.com

Hi all! Spent some serious time this evening with the RX02 drives: I managed to download the images of the SaturnCalc 3.0, Saturn Graph, and Saturn WP software to RX02 images. I think it's set right, can someone take a look at the images and see if they are good? Should be RT11 format, RX02 (of course), I recorded from both sides of the disks (they're double sided, hole punched by the vendor) and are at https://www.crystel.com/bob You should see the disks and the meta files. Let me know if they work, I need to get to bed. Either burn them on real RX02's or read them with a SIMH image. C Chris, I am very interested in Saturn Calc for PDP-11s specifically for RSX. I downloaded your floppies and will take a look at them soon. You mention that they are in RT-11 format. Do you know which PDP-11 OS the Saturn software was for. They had versions also for RT-11, TSX and RSTS. Later they had native VMS and MSDOS versions. There are images of RX50s for RSX Saturn Calc, Graph and WPS at Malcolm?s web site. https://avitech.com.au/?page_id=2570 <https://avitech.com.au/?page_id=2570> He also gave me some documentation that I have scanned and put up at http://www.rsx11m.com/SaturnInstall.pdf <http://www.rsx11m.com/SaturnInstall.pdf> http://www.rsx11m.com/SaturnCalc.pdf <http://www.rsx11m.com/SaturnCalc.pdf> http://www.rsx11m.com/SaturnCalcRef.pdf <http://www.rsx11m.com/SaturnCalcRef.pdf> Saturn products on the PDP-11 and VMS used their own license key systems. I do have valid licenses for Calc and Graph for VMS and have them running on a MV3100-80. It would be great to get the RSX version running. I used it extensively back in the day and it would be wonderful to preserve it. Best, Mark Matlock

5 years, 1 month

PDP11 (Qbus) boards available

by boris＠summitclinic.com

Have been told by my wife that PDP-11 stuff not coming along with us when we're moving and so time to get it off to a good home. All of it is QBus and material in first batch is what I've got at home and will try to get pictures of another 2 systems in storage locker this week. Locker contains 2 QBus systems, one is a small system with about 64 Kb of RAM and other is larger, also a Qbus system. I powered them up when I got them but that was close to 30 years ago so power supplies will need to be checked out first. Also have a small 4 slot Qbus card cage H9281 which has a DRV11 board in it (photo not shown). Pictures, in order, are 4 channel 12 bit D/A converter, unknown QBus board, programmable real time clock, what I thought was manual for DataTranslation A/D converter but not, A/D converter, have no idea what Dilog board is, box of DEC cables, a few manuals, MINC manuals, 11/23 together with I suspect is a DRV11, not sure what board with bus extensions on top is, bus extender, blank 2 slot board and another board which was part of a parallel interface between MINC and 11/34. Would preferably like to get rid of everything at once. Haven't looked at cost of shipping out of Canada. Alternatively, send me an email off list is you want to pick it up in person. I live in Kamloops, BC. Photographs can be found at: http://drgimbarzevsky.com/Photo2020/PDP11/20210223_photos/PDP11_index.html Boris Gimbarzevsky

5 years, 1 month

SaturnCalc, Graph, and WP disks uploaded

by cz＠alembic.crystel.com

5 years, 1 month

Keys for startech 25U server rack

by cctalk＠gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net

On 2/23/21 7:43 AM, Joshua Rice wrote: > Deviant Ollam on Youtube does some fantastic lectures/videos on physical > security, and makes it horrifyingly clear how pointless locks and > physical security often is. Locks, of any type, only keep honest people honest. Actually stopping would be bad actors is an entirely different problem. To whit, many locks / enclosures are simply tamper evidence tags. -- Grant. . . . unix || die

5 years, 1 month

: Re: MSI 6800 EPROM Software

by frank＠tuccio.net

Message: 5 Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2021 21:45:24 -0600 From: Jon Elson <elson at pico-systems.com> To: Brad H <unclefalter at yahoo.ca>, General at ezwind.net, Discussion at ezwind.net:On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: MSI 6800 EPROM Software Message-ID: <60347A54.5070803 at pico-systems.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed On 02/22/2021 01:31 PM, Brad H via cctalk wrote: > Hi there, > > A longshot I'm sure - but I am wondering if anyone familiar with MSI (Midwest Scentific - SS50 bus system) would happen to have a copy of the software for their 1702A EPROM burner, I think the model is PR-1. I just picked one up and am eager to see if I can use it to read/burn 1702As, something that has been an issue for me for a while now. > > Reading them is pretty easy. BURNING them is crazy. They need an 80 V power supply, and I think you XOR the address or something as you apply the programming voltage. Jon Actually, programming a 1702 only requires a -48 volt pulse for each address. Here's the datasheet: https://www.jmargolin.com/patents/1702a.pdf

5 years, 1 month

Intel Developers' Insight CD-ROM collection archived anywhere?

by glen.slick＠gmail.com

Does anyone have a collection of Intel Developers' Insight CD-ROMs in physical form or as images? The only physical CD-ROMs I have are a two disk set from February 1998. I don't know what time period these were available. Maybe mid or late 1990s to early 2000s? They have a variety of information on them such as datasheets and manuals that might not always be easy to find online anywhere anymore. As one example of something that I was recently unable to find online anywhere is a copy of either of these, which might have been available on some of the Intel Developers' Insight CD-ROMs: 297372 16-Mbit Flash Product Family User?s Manual 297508 FLASHBuilder Design Resource Tool Those are mentioned in various Intel flash memory datasheets and databooks from around the 1995 timeframe. The February 1998 CD-ROMs contain a copy of the Intel Flash SOFTWAREBuilder, which appears to be related to but different from the FLASHBuilder tool.

5 years, 1 month

Keys for startech 25U server rack

by cclist＠sydex.com

I dropped by the local e-waste recycler and picked up a Startech 25U server rack for $100. (This one: https://cdn.cnetcontent.com/75/26/75261816-2cf3-43e9-a0b3-1e63752d781e.pdf). Heavy bugger, complete with glass door. I was as surprised as the guy who helped me load it to find that it barely fit in a Gen2 Prius (I left the truck at home). It came with an HP EO4500 PDU, with all 4 power strips (I have no use for this, so if you do, drop me a line. Maybe we can work out something). They also tossed in all of the bags of unused parts. But--no keys! Do all Startech Duraracks use the same key? Anyone know? --Chuck

5 years, 1 month

MSI 6800 EPROM Software

by unclefalter＠yahoo.ca

Hi there, A longshot I'm sure - but I am wondering if anyone familiar with MSI (Midwest Scentific - SS50 bus system) would happen to have a copy of the software for their 1702A EPROM burner, I think the model is PR-1. I just picked one up and am eager to see if I can use it to read/burn 1702As, something that has been an issue for me for a while now. Many thanks, Brad

5 years, 1 month

TI 960

by aek＠bitsavers.org

I'm assuming these are 960s Not very often you see paper tape software for them Price is absurd for the mixed bag that is there https://www.ebay.com/itm/Texas-Instruments-Mainframe-Computers-With-Parts-a…

5 years, 1 month

PDP-11/70 progress (and a cry for help)

by derschjo＠gmail.com

Hi all -- Thought you all might be interested in an update, and I'm also looking for advice in debugging the current issue I'm hitting. After replacing the clock crystal on the TIG, the system started showing signs of life, but the Load Address switch would stop working after being powered on for 10-30 seconds, but would work fine single-stepping via the KM11. Brought the DAP board out onto the extender for debugging and the problem went away. Reinstalled the board after cleaning the slot (again) and the problem hasn't recurred since. First bad backplane connection, I'm sure it won't be the last. After this, addresses could be loaded, data could be toggled into memory. But instructions wouldn't execute; Tracing through the microcode with the KM11 indicated that the microcode flow was aborting early and returning to the main console loop (via BRK.90) before the instruction fetch at FET.00; this was due to the TMCB BRQ TRUE H signal being stuck high. Probing of the TMC board revealed a bad 74H30 at E70, which had its output stuck at 1.65V or so, just high enough to confuse things. Now instructions would execute but the PC would contain garbage after execution of an instruction, after tracing the microcode and staring at the flow diagrams all signs pointed to the PCB register (twin to the PCA register that is used for storing PC data) having trouble. Garbage in the PC after execution was always in bits 6-11, everything else was fine, which pointed to a 74S174 at H47 on the DAP board. Replaced and now instructions execute! Mostly. They seem to execute properly when single-stepping instructions, or running off the RC clock at a clock rate of about 16-20Mhz, any faster than that and things stop working correctly. This is what I'm currently banging my head against -- if anyone has any experience with the 11/70 or wants to stare at the manuals for a bit (and who doesn't?), I'd appreciate any extra input. There are a number of different issues, I'm currently focusing on two-operand instructions that take an immediate argument (MOV #10, R0, or ADD #42, R5) for example. The behavior here is a bit befuddling and I can't quite figure out how it ends up happening, given the microcode. I'll use ADD as a representative example. An ADD #10, R0 instruction (followed by HALT) poked in at address 1000 executes properly -- R0 gets 10 -- but afterwards the PC is corrupted: it contains 2, rather than 1004. In the general case, "ADD #X, R0" ends with PC containing 2 + <original value of R0>. (MOV shows the exact same behavior, except that there's no addition, obviously.) This value of PC is shown in the Address lights, as well as when examining the register from the front panel (at 17777707). When single-instruction-stepping the processor this instruction executes perfectly: R0 gets R0+10, PC is 1004 afterwards (both in the Address lights and when examining from the front panel). I have verified with my logic analyzer that when running normally (i.e. not single-stepping) the microcode executes the proper sequence of instructions -- which is the same as executed when single-stepping except at the very end: In FLOWS 4, after the D00.90 instruction executes, a branch is taken to BRK.90, which exits back to the console loop. I don't believe there should be any other differences in execution between the two paths -- other than the branch at the end there are no conditional branches or conditional operations based on whether the CPU is single-stepping or not. There's a signal somewhere in there that has just gone a little bit slow... the trick is finding it. For reference, the microcode sequence (starting at FET.03, see pg. 5 of http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/1170/MP0KB11-C0_1170engDrw_Nov75.pdf) is: 334 (FET.03) 260 (FET.10) 343 (IRD.00) 022 (S13.01) 027 (S13.10) 205 (D00.90) 260 (FET.10) 343 (IRD.00) 010 (HLT.00) 316 (HLT.10) 164 (FET.04) 240 (BRK.90) 352 (BRK.00) 170 (CON.00) You can see it fetching and executing the ADD instruction, then returning back to FET.10 and executing the next instruction, which is a HALT instruction (because all other memory contains 0 at this point). I believe this is what causes the "+2" portion of the final (incorrect) PC value. (What's extra odd -- literally -- here is that if you start with a "1" in R0, the final PC is 3... seemingly indicating a fetch/execution of an instruction at an odd address, which you'd think would cause a trap instead...) I've been staring at this awhile and I'm puzzled; everything seems to execute properly, the instruction is fetched and decoded, and the immediate value is fetched, the ALU does the right thing and the result is properly stored in R0. And then the PC gets screwed up, and I'm not quite sure how that's possible from looking at the microcode, so I'm not quite sure where to start looking. I sort of suspect the PCB register again, as this is related to the difference in behavior between single-stepping and normal execution: the branch back to the console loop *doesn't* update PCA from PCB, whereas the branch back to the fetch / decode loop does. Anyone have any bright ideas as far as what to poke at? Thanks as always, - Josh

5 years, 1 month

Systems Concepts SC-4 computer

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Lars Brinkhoff > Anyone ever heard of the Systems Concepts SC-4 computer? Given the SF address, and Peter Samson's signature, this is the _the_ Systems Concepts. Never heard of the SC-4, though. One oddity: the cover letter is dated 1972, but it talks of "the main G.E. computer". GE's computer business was sold to Honeywell in 1970, though? Noel

5 years, 1 month

IndiZone collections

by compoobah＠gmail.com

Curious if anyone on here knows if the contents of any of the earlier IndiZone CDs from SGI are posted? A copy of IndiZone3 came with my copy of IRIX 6.2 a number of years ago, and while the games aren't the sort that would impress a modern XBox user I thought they were kind of neat and showed off the equipment and thoughts of the 1995-era, but I also have some earlier SGIs that would be IndiZone 1/2 era. I found a couple lists of the contest winners (but the CDs have more), and an occasional download link, but nothing complete for either. Anyone have links or lists of what was on them?

5 years, 1 month

Systems Concepts SC-4 computer

by lars＠nocrew.org

Anyone ever heard of the Systems Concepts SC-4 computer? "This is an two's-complement 18-bit machine, with 16 general registers and a 16 level priority interrupt system. Its programming ascpects are explained in great detail in the SC-4 Reference Manual, of which a draft is enclosed. Below are times for some typical instructions. Add word on stack (not top word) to general register 1.5 us Multiply general register by memory word 6.2 us Jump 750 ns Push and Jump 1.5 us Compare Immediate 750 ns" >From page 6 here: http://people.csail.mit.edu/saltzer/Multics/MHP-Saltzer-060508/filedrawers/…

5 years, 1 month

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