> Well, finding a composite video point is trivial, therefore.
Inside the modulator can, I fear.
I had another look inside last night. The two metal cans appear to be
video circuitry (on motherboard) and modulator (separate). They are
linked by a 4-way ribbon cable of which one conductor is ground. I
suspect the remaining three of being video, line sync and frame sync.
(They could, I suppose, be composite mono, U and V but I doubt it)
> >Someday I must get a decent TV standard monitor - probably the Barco I
> >sold to my brother for use as a telly - but I ought to have a composite
>
> Err... You do not use a Barco monitor as a TV. It's far too nice for that. I
> happen to have one, you see.
Au contraire, the Barco is one of the few pieces of kit I _would_
consider using as a telly (the other being my Bush TV24 of course).
> Not of course. There were Barco's with built-in PAL, SECAM or NTSC decoders
OK, you win.
> >> What chips _other than the 8048_ are in this device? Is the video side
> >> custom or does it use one of the many Philips video chipsets? (Philips
> >> Prestel terminals tend to be stuffed with their Teletext IC's, for
> >> example...)
Pretty boring, I'm afraid - 8245 and 6110 plus about 20 TTL chips. I
can't read the numbers of the chips inside the video can unless I
desolder said can from PCB.
Philip.
> I met someone who had worked on the Olivetti M20 many years ago and
> could possibly still get a hold of some of these.
>
> The M20 is a Z8001 based machine with bitmapped graphics and can run
> PCOS (its own OS) or CP/M 8000
>
> Is anyone else interested?
Which side of the Atlantic is it on?
Philip.
bluesky6(a)ix.netcom.com (Benedict Chong) wrote :
> There is or was a prentice hall book on logic design that described
> the design of a PDP-8 workalike. I bought the book and told myself
> that one day, I'll build a PDP-8 with EPLDs. Like Allison, I ended up
> with 16 bits and then other things got in the way...
> The book is called top-down logic design or something like that.
The Art of Digital Design, an introduction to top-down design
by Franklin P. Prosser and David E. Winkel
Prentice-Hall 1987 ISBN 0-13-046673-5 025
I have a copy and can highly recommend it. It has a two complete design
descriptions of a PDP-8 CPU, one a state machine implementation the
other a microprogrammed one.
Talking of 16 bit extensions to the PDP-8, that is what the HP-2116A
appears to be, anyone konw that processor?
Regards,
Hans B Pufal
<From: Phil Sutherland <philsuth(a)mycroft.DIALix.oz.au>
<I recently tracked down the articles on the EDUC-8 as the first step
<towards building one. My plan to put it in the corner of my office as an
<"executive toy". However, by the time I get round to it I suspect I'll
<be using it as an educational toy for my (currently 1 year old) son!
On the build it yourself tack I've considered building my own TTL pdp-8 but
every time I put the paper down I end up with 16 bits. The basic 16bit
design was PDP-8 with four more address bits.
Allison
Just a test of the *Broadcast* facility. Trying to put up
a Calendar and Scheduling program on the web site 8-)
--------------------------------------------------
Performed by Auto-Remind : another fine product of
The Software Forge and danjo(a)xnet.com
--------------------------------------------------
>> Presumably if it has a UHF output it also has an internal modulator. Can't you
>> just tap off composite video from the input to that?
>
>It does indeed, and on a separate board, too!
Well, finding a composite video point is trivial, therefore.
>
>Someday I must get a decent TV standard monitor - probably the Barco I
>sold to my brother for use as a telly - but I ought to have a composite
Err... You do not use a Barco monitor as a TV. It's far too nice for that. I
happen to have one, you see.
>one as well (Barco is RGB, of course). At present the monitor I have
Not of course. There were Barco's with built-in PAL, SECAM or NTSC decoders
acording to the user manual for mine. (Barco User manual = 1/2 page explaining
the controls and about 40 pages telling you how to set it up, schematics,
waveforms, test points, etc).
>requires Video + Composite Sync - or it can free-run and generate sync
>for a TV camera.
>
>> What chips _other than the 8048_ are in this device? Is the video side
>> custom or does it use one of the many Philips video chipsets? (Philips Prestel
>> terminals tend to be stuffed with their Teletext IC's, for example...)
>
>I can't remember offhand, except that there are quite a lot of them.
>I'll have another look tonight.
Please e-mail me a list when you get a chance and I'll see what I can find out
about them.
>
>There seem to be two large rectangular metal cans - one with its own PCB
>(probably the UHF modulator) and one on the motherbaord (VHF for US?)
Possible VHF for europe. There are 625 line transmissions on Bands 1 and 3
according to some info I have.
>
>Philip.
-tony
They're extremely rare. Rarer than almost anything except an Apple I.
Just before I was lucky enough to be gifted mine from a saintly
old-timer, I saw one sell for $650. That's the only one I've ever seen
for sale, and the seller said he'd received over 60 inquiries. He also
said he could have gotten more if he wanted to drag the bidding on for
another couple of weeks.
I am aware of a gentleman who may be willing to part with a 5110 + dual
8" external drives + printer, but he wants a "very generous offer" for
it and the shipping alone would be a killer since the total weight is
about 200 lbs (he's in PA).
BTW, do you have a web page for your collection?
Kai
> ----------
> From: Anthony Eros
> Reply To: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu
> Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 1997 7:32 AM
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
> Subject: IBM 5100
>
> High up on the list of wants for my collection is an IBM 5100. I
> passed on
> one several years ago at a Goodwill (arrrgh!), but I'd sure like to
> track one
> down now.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> -- Tony Eros
> proprietor -- FooBear's Cluttered Cellar Classic Computer
> Collection
>
Anything that will do downloads with Zmodem, Ymodem or Xmodem
I just need a start. I think the most popular is called BOBTERM
----------
> From: Faiaz, Michael C. HSD <FAIAZMC(a)hsd.utc.com>
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
> Subject: RE: Atari 850 Interface
> Date: Wednesday, August 13, 1997 3:27 PM
>
> I may have one. Can you be more specific, as to which term program you
> need?
> Mike
>
> ----------
> From: Bill Girnius
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
> Subject: Atari 850 Interface
> Date: Wednesday, August 13, 1997 12:16PM
>
>
> Welp! I finally got one. Case got a little damaged in shipping,but it
> looks
> like it will still work. Is there anyone out there that still uses the
> 8bit Atari's that can send me a copy of a Term program on an Atari 8bit
> format disk so I can start downloading stuff to my 8bit atari's?
I may have one. Can you be more specific, as to which term program you
need?
Mike
----------
From: Bill Girnius
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
Subject: Atari 850 Interface
Date: Wednesday, August 13, 1997 12:16PM
Welp! I finally got one. Case got a little damaged in shipping,but it
looks
like it will still work. Is there anyone out there that still uses the
8bit Atari's that can send me a copy of a Term program on an Atari 8bit
format disk so I can start downloading stuff to my 8bit atari's?
> Presumably if it has a UHF output it also has an internal modulator. Can't you
> just tap off composite video from the input to that?
It does indeed, and on a separate board, too!
Someday I must get a decent TV standard monitor - probably the Barco I
sold to my brother for use as a telly - but I ought to have a composite
one as well (Barco is RGB, of course). At present the monitor I have
requires Video + Composite Sync - or it can free-run and generate sync
for a TV camera.
> What chips _other than the 8048_ are in this device? Is the video side
> custom or does it use one of the many Philips video chipsets? (Philips Prestel
> terminals tend to be stuffed with their Teletext IC's, for example...)
I can't remember offhand, except that there are quite a lot of them.
I'll have another look tonight.
There seem to be two large rectangular metal cans - one with its own PCB
(probably the UHF modulator) and one on the motherbaord (VHF for US?)
Philip.
[G7000]
>
>Yes thanks, I have four or five. I don't expect to use the thing until
>I can find out how to get composite video or RGB out, since I don't
>possess a television.
Presumably if it has a UHF output it also has an internal modulator. Can't you
just tap off composite video from the input to that?
What chips _other than the 8048_ are in this device? Is the video side custom
or does it use one of the many Philips video chipsets? (Philips Prestel
terminals tend to be stuffed with their Teletext IC's, for example...)
>
>Philip.
-tony
I met someone who had worked on the Olivetti M20 many years ago and
could possibly still get a hold of some of these.
The M20 is a Z8001 based machine with bitmapped graphics and can run
PCOS (its own OS) or CP/M 8000
Is anyone else interested?
Ben
At 10:17 AM 8/12/97 -0700, you wrote:
>buy a ton of Apple IIe/IIc's and Commodore 64's - like a warehouse full.
[...]
>hit age 50 (in approximately 2015) they're going to have to buy one, and
At which point you would be deeper in debt than the US Gov. from all the
storage costs... 8^)
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
sinasohn(a)crl.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
At 09:14 AM 8/12/97 -0800, you wrote:
>Unfortunately, the high demand for common "trendy" machines (i.e. IMSAI's,
>Altairs, whatever) often displaces the preservation of machines which
>are much rarer, which are far more important historically, and which
>present far greater difficulties to preserve, maintain, and use.
Keep in mind that Value <> importance/significance/etc. Value represents a
combination of many variables, including visibility, size, trendiness, etc.
There are plenty of relatively valueless items running around the world that
are incredibly significant, while a whole lot of insignificant things
command high prices on the open market.
If I wanted to invest in classic computers, it would be IMSAI's, Osbornes,
and Apple I's. But I want to collect them, so I've got an Epson, an NEC, a
m100, etc.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
sinasohn(a)crl.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
On Wed, 13 Aug 1997 12:27:11 -0400, allisonp(a)world.std.com
mentioned:
> Despite have seen a few and being even an EX-digit I've never played
> with the PDP-9. Is any there that can describe the archecture and
> instruction set? Mostly curiosity here.
I think I've got a processor handbook for the -9 at home; it's
either that or the -15 (which was an up-rated successor to the -9).
I'll dig it out and post a few bits when I get home. (If I'm sober
enough. <insert grin as appropriate>) I seem to remember my first
impression was "bizarre machine"...
______________________________________________________________________
| | |
| Carl Richard Friend (UNIX Sysadmin) | West Boylston |
| Minicomputer Collector / Enthusiast | Massachusetts, USA |
| mailto:carl.friend@stoneweb.com | |
| http://www.ultranet.com/~engelbrt/carl/museum/ | ICBM: N42:21 W71:46 |
|________________________________________________|_____________________|
Despite have seen a few and being even an EX-digit I've never played with
the PDP-9. Is any there that can describe the archecture and instruction
set? Mostly curiosity here.
Allison
> > collectible. (What is the G7000 anyway? Yes, I did buy it! It has an
> > 8048 as the CPU, of all things!)
>
> It is a video game system that is compatible with the Magnavox Odessey^2
>
> Do you have any cartridges for it. If not then I have a few duplicates.
Yes thanks, I have four or five. I don't expect to use the thing until
I can find out how to get composite video or RGB out, since I don't
possess a television.
[For those of you not in the UK, here one requires a licence to operate
"Television Receiving Apparatus", which I think includes any TV with a
UHF tuner, but not a monitor. The licence fee is (without looking up
either the current fee or the exchange rate) about $120 a year, and I am
not prepared to pay this. So I don't have a TV - and seldom miss it.]
Philip.
Welp! I finally got one. Case got a little damaged in shipping,but it looks
like it will still work. Is there anyone out there that still uses the
8bit Atari's that can send me a copy of a Term program on an Atari 8bit
format disk so I can start downloading stuff to my 8bit atari's?
> > The 'speculators' who are out to try to make a quick buck on these
> > machines while having no regard for their preservation or history will
> > only make life much more difficult (and expensive) for those who would
> > preserve both the machine and its history.
>
> I think that there will always be people around who don't have the "purest"
> motives for doing anything, and collecting computers is no exception.
> Antique dealers could be considered collectors only in it for the money, BUT
> without that force being present, a lot more collectibles would be in that
> great landfill in the sky.
Dig the mixed metaphor!
Seriously though, there are two processes at work here. One is that
those who grew up with such machines have got the nostalgia bug. This
starts prices rising, which in turn attracts speculators. The latter
fuel the second process - articles get published about how fast the
market is growing, etc.
One hopes that in a few years time, they will become unfashionable once
again, and we will see a return to the situation when these machines
first became unfashionable - they crop up at car boot sales, etc., for
not much money.
> Another thing to think about is the opportunity that the speculators
> provide. I don't recall the number of museums spread around the world, but
> it is at least a dozen or two :). Right now, I am in the learning stages of
> finding out what it takes to run a museum and donations seem to be a
> biggie. If a non-profit status museum is available, I can't imagine any
> speculator trashing something instead of taking a tax rightoff.
Do keep us posted! There are plenty of us on this list who dream of
converting our private collections into musea when we retire - or
before! - who would welcome any info on the subject.
> And yes, this type of stuff WILL make it harder for people to collect
> computers. HOWEVER, we are still at the stage where the perceived value of
> most older computers is not very high thus making it relatively easy for
> anyone who has the desire to get a fairly complete selection of computers
> relatively inexpensively. And since we seem to be some of the few concerned
> with the preservation of old computers and their history, that leaves us in
> a rather responsible position and I think the future will look back kindly
> at our efforts!
And however much we dislike the price spirals that occur, we must
remember that unless people know that collectors want these machines,
they'll put them in the dustbin.
That is one reason why, unlike Sam, I do not often haggle. If people
know that the Philips G7000 videopac computer that they priced at four
pounds at the car boot sale will get snapped up for that amount of
money, and tell people at work etc., others will think twice about
throwing out the PDP8 or whatever. If, however, they price it at L4 and
can't even get that for it, they will think that computers are not
collectible. (What is the G7000 anyway? Yes, I did buy it! It has an
8048 as the CPU, of all things!)
> > Are *you* prepared to pay $500US for an Osborne or a TI99-4a ???
No, but I'd rather pay $500 for an Osborne than see the last remaining
one disinegrate between the teeth of a rubbish crusher like that PDP9.
On Tue, 12 Aug 1997 07:33:33 -0700 (PDT), Mr. Willing graced us
with these words:
> On Tue, 12 Aug 1997, William Donzelli wrote:
>
> > I also talked to a guy that deals with old computers. Two weeks
> > ago, he _finally_ scrapped out a bunch of old machines - really
> > old. Amongst the deaths were various PDP-8s, two PDP-9s, a
> > Burroughs mainframe, and an IBM 7090 of some sort.
>
> I think; I may scream!
I had the same sort of reaction when I heard the news through
different channels. Needless to say I was less than pleased. However,
Mr. Donzelli believes there to be hope in this; he states that the
guy in question was willing to let him know about future systems
like that.
> *How* do we reach these people *before* things like this happen?!?
That's the proverbial $64,000 (65,536?) dollar question. I guess
we'll have to get to know the various scrap dealers (and especially
"recyclers") in our areas.
> (preferably without starting a mad rush from yuppie collector
> wannabes!)
This is another hot-button issue with me, having seen what the
price of Altairs and the like is now. (No, the price is not
justifiable - other than the machines are very "trendy" right now
and speculators think they can make a killing on them.) However,
given the size of things like PDP-9s and mainframes, I doubt that
systems in that class are likely to fall victim to "speculative
collection". Some of the smaller machines in the PDP-8 class might,
but the PDP-8/I I just acquired filled half of the rear of my
minivan (the other half had an Interdata Model 4 in it) - a bit
too large for the average yuppie. You've got to be pretty sick to
collect things the size of refrigerators (yes, I know, I fit the bill).
Cheers.
--
______________________________________________________________________
| | |
| Carl Richard Friend (UNIX Sysadmin) | West Boylston |
| Minicomputer Collector / Enthusiast | Massachusetts, USA |
| mailto:carl.friend@stoneweb.com | |
| http://www.ultranet.com/~engelbrt/carl/museum/ | ICBM: N42:21 W71:46 |
|________________________________________________|_____________________|
High up on the list of wants for my collection is an IBM 5100. I passed on
one several years ago at a Goodwill (arrrgh!), but I'd sure like to track one
down now.
Any ideas?
-- Tony Eros
proprietor -- FooBear's Cluttered Cellar Classic Computer Collection
I seem to have received an email which has bounced thru a few people. I'll try
to give attributions where possible.
Dave Jenner:
> Is this the same SCO that is receiving the PDP-11 Unix petition?
> Heaven help us!
Unknown:
> I saw a thing on SCO's webpage about submitting a success story to win a
> prize. I decided it was time for some shameless plugging!
> Look what I got in return... He almost gets the point...
Daniel Seagraves:
> >
> >I have a PDP-11. I bet it would make for some
> >pretty decent advertising if you'd give me the
> >source to compile Unix on it... :)
Jim Sullivan:
> Well, since much of the early UNIX development was done on PDP11s, a version
> of UNIX could possilbe be found for it, but it's probably very old and
> out of date. Of note, my first job in the industry was with a company
> called Human Computing Resources (later HCR, later merged with SCO).
> HCR was one of the pioneers in the UNIX industry and was the provider of
> UNIX ports and layered implementations of UNIX across many platforms,
> including PDP11s. PDP11/Unity was one of our products. Of course, we
> don't sell it anymore and haven't sold it for over a decade.
The Answer
----------
The answer for Daniel Seagraves is to fill in the petition asking SCO to
sell the source code for these old UNIXes. SCO does hold the legal rights
to these old systems. We're hoping that they will be encouraged by the
petition, and help people like Daniel out.
The petition is at:
http://minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au/PUPS/ and choose the top hyperlink.
The petition has been formally presented to SCO, and we're waiting on
an answer back from them. The signs seem good, though!
Cheers,
Warren
At 06:53 AM 8/12/97 -0700, you wrote:
>>Bruce, and everyone else. I just heard from Bill. He got in a car wreck
>>going over to Bruce's place to pick some stuff up. Not knocking ya Bruce
>>but from now on we can call a wreck - getting Bruced 8-) He is OK but in
Or perhaps being "Whit"led (it was Bill Whitson?) could mean willing to go
to any length (including getting your car hit and breaking bones) in order
to rescue classic computer stuff? 8^)
Hope he gets well soon!
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
sinasohn(a)crl.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
> I have some. I also live in the UK (Cambridge) so shipping won't be
> much. I actually have a Superbrain Jr. I can't remember what density
> disks it has but I will check tonight. What model is yours.
Excellent. Thank you very much. I too shall check such things tonight
- if I can (I have no documentation at all)
> Did the company Intertec make any other machines?
According to Kai Kaltenbach's recent post, it seems they made something
called a Compustar. The name doesn't ring any bells for me, however.
If you're in Cambridge, you ought to belong to the Cambridge University
Computer Preservation Society. I think Richard Davies (rjd27(a)cam.ac.uk)
will be able to tell you more.
I shall be at CUCPS next term, on 4th November, hopefully demonstrating
the Tektronix 4052, if you're interested.
Philip.
