test-drb

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

101090 discussions

by bob＠jfcl.com

Would anyone have a distribution for MRRT-11? I'd really like to find a copy if anyone has it or can give me a pointer. [What the heck is MRRT-11? "Memory Resident RT-11" - it's a hacked up version of RT-11 that runs diskless. It was an official DEC product sold in the late 70s.] Thanks, Bob Armstrong

13 years, 1 month

Who were the worst of the worst?

by rampaginggreenhulk＠yahoo.com

I disagree. By comparison it lacks features compared to the Tandy. As does the Sanyo. They share enough to make the comparison. I wouldn't for instance make the same comparisons between the 1000 and 2000. They're just too different, but in many respects the model 2000 is a more powerful machine.

13 years, 1 month

Who were the worst of the worst?

by rampaginggreenhulk＠yahoo.com

------------------------------ On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 11:21 AM PST Michael B. Brutman wrote: >On 2/14/2013 4:36 PM, Chris Tofu wrote: >> >> Um yeah. The Peanut was an anemic T1000. It's a fun unit if you can live or partially deal with it's deficiencies. I'm just glad I.wasn't suckered into buying one back then. The Sanyos, Peanut, and T1000 had similar video modes. Must have been a creeping hardware virus anomole. >> > >You have that backwards. The Tandy 1000 line was designed as a clone of >the PCjr. And in many ways, they did not make the same mistakes that >IBM made. For example, the location of the expandable video buffer ... I didn't say the Tandy came before the Peanut. The P* was an anemic T1K, the T* was a P* on steroids, same thing. Now what might be an interesting project would be to drop the guts of a Jr into a clone case and add functionality that way, instead of endlessly adding side carts. You'd need to piggyback off the 8088 socket in order to provide for ISA slots and other assorted madness. It's truly a pity no one offered such a solution when it would have mattered most...

13 years, 1 month

Wang VS7150, VS7010 and 3270s on eBay (London, UK)

by mj＠mjturner.net

Hi Just came across this on eBay and thought it may be of interest to the list: WANG VS7150, VS7010, 4 x 3270 terminals - Diskpacks - early 1980s Computing - Could be useful for Spares, Film Props, Collector, etc? ... Main processor is a VS7150. This was attached to another large cabinet which houses three large and heavy hard drives (believed to be 454MB). There is also a VS7010 and a VS75E, the latter of which seems to be missing some covers. There are also somewhere between 4 and 6 3270 terminals (see photo of single unit). There are also a quantity of the removeable disk-packs, which, if my memory serves me correctly, used to be 300MB. There is also an old line-printer with acoustic hood and some boxes of the flowline paper. ... Current price is GBP 950 and it's available for collection in London (UK) - seller is also willing to ship it anywhere in the UK. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/221183449983 Not affiliated with the seller in any way. -mj -- Michael-John Turner mj at mjturner.net <> http://mjturner.net/

13 years, 1 month

Who were the worst of the worst?

by rampaginggreenhulk＠yahoo.com

------------------------------ On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 11:19 AM PST Michael B. Brutman wrote: >On 2/14/2013 3:16 PM, Jason McBrien wrote: >> >> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" < >> cctalk at classiccmp.org> >> Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2013 3:38 PM >> >> Subject: Re: Who were the worst of the worst? >> >> >> >> Some of the Tandy 1000 series were stinkers. Weird proprietary ISA >> connectors, weird video adapters, weird versions of DOS that were >> incompatible with most utility programs. >> >> Not a clone, but no list would be complete without the PC Jr. IMHO. What an >> absolutely terrible machine. It was actually *less* PC-5150 compatible than >> early clones. >> >> > >You contradict yourself. You say the PCjr was not a clone, and then you complain that it was less PC-5150 compatible than early clones. > >Note that the PCjr runs most later software just fine, assuming you have enough memory. I think what broke the Jr has more to do with people coding to specific BIOS locations, which broke any "near" clone. In 1983 when the PCjr was introduced that practice was rampant. By 1985 there were enough other "near clones" with some unique hardware out there so that the practice would break other machines too. > >Case in point: Nobody complains about the 5140 Convertible being not compatible enough, yet it has a lot of the same general problems as the PCjr. (Using the NMI for keyboard handling, mapping the keyboard scan codes, etc.) > > >Mike I'm sure Jason can speak for himself, but... It would seem his point is since it was offered as a PC substitute, it should have been more "clone" then it was. While nowhere near a clone in the purest sense, an nearly exact copy, like a generic Taiwanese clone, it still should have been a more workable substitute for a PC. The AT for instance, while could be considered something of a steroidal clone, was worlds more compatible then the Jr. And add to that company's willingness to work around the AT's minor incompatibilities you had a ready upgrade solution to the PC. I'm not that familiar with the JX but something like that should have been the Jr. Or the model 25s. Some expandability, in reality could have been a good secretary's unit (strangely the model 30 seems to have been used more along those lines).

13 years, 1 month

RGB analog, sync on G to VGA or HDMI?

by chrise＠pobox.com

Are there any recomendations for a converter that can take RGB with sync on GREEN as input and produce a VGA (or HDMI) output suitable for driving a modern LCD? I seem to be accumulating numerous older pieces of gear that produce RGB output and space and reliability of the old tubes to which they connect is becoming more and more premium. Would like to be able to use an LCD as an alternative. A couple DEC VT240 came my way this weekend and they will need some TLC to restore but the VR240 that came along with them is in even worse shape. I'll give it my best shot but ability to use an LCD as Plan B would be nice. Any recomendations from success? Chris -- Chris Elmquist

13 years, 1 month

DOS (PC) FTP server testing needed

by mbbrutman-cctalk＠brutman.com

Hi, I made some changes in my TCP/IP code to make it behave better when packets are lost and it has to retransmit. The old code used to wait a fixed amount of time before retrying, which was painfully slow on a local connection. The new code is adaptive and should work much better on a wide range of connections. If you'd like to help me test it I have my PCjr running the mTCP FTP server with some old computer pictures, some software, and some text files. (I'll add more during the day to keep it interesting.) You can connect by going to the following address: ftp://96.42.84.69:2021/ That URL should work in most browsers (Firefox, IE and Chrome). Chrome tends to be a bit of a pig and it tries to preload the content that it finds, so if you see it going slowly it is probably due to multiple connections. The poor PCjr is only setup for 9 simultaneous connections. If you use an FTP client anonymous FTP should work fine. Note the non-standard control port - 2021. Which also means that if you are using a real FTP client (and not a browser) you should be using PASSIVE mode. (Port mode with a non-standard control port confuses most firewalls, and they won't pick it up. Most browsers use PASSIVE mode by default.) Uploading is not turned on for this test, but if you are dying to upload contact me and I'll give you the password. Fun facts: - The machine is a PCjr with a jrIDE sidecar, 20GB IDE hard drive, WD8003 ISA Ethernet adapter, NEC V20 CPU, and an IBM PC 5150 keyboard. Yes, this is the same machine that was recently maligned on the list. ;-0 - If you want to see how the TCP/IP code is holding up you can get statistics by using the "SITE STATS" command in a suitable FTP client. - This is a DOS machine - you have to use DOS filenames and paths, except for the directory delimiter - that uses the standard forward slash. (Using the DOS backslash was too difficult for most clients and browsers.) Also, if you use MGET remember that you have to use *.* and not just * for a filespec. Comments and bug reports are welcome. Use good judgement to avoid cluttering up the list too much ... Mike

13 years, 1 month

Who were the worst of the worst?

by rampaginggreenhulk＠yahoo.com

------------------------------ On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 1:16 PM PST Jason McBrien wrote: >> >> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" < >> cctalk at classiccmp.org> >> Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2013 3:38 PM >> >> Subject: Re: Who were the worst of the worst? >> > > >Some of the Tandy 1000 series were stinkers. Weird proprietary ISA >connectors, weird video adapters, weird versions of DOS that were >incompatible with most utility programs. 1000s didn't use DMA. O/w compatible afaik. I think there was a card that addedc the 8237 iinm >Not a clone, but no list would be complete without the PC Jr. IMHO. What an >absolutely terrible machine. It was actually *less* PC-5150 compatible than >early clones. Um yeah. The Peanut was an anemic T1000. It's a fun unit if you can live or partially deal with it's deficiencies. I'm just glad I.wasn't suckered into buying one back then. The Sanyos, Peanut, and T1000 had similar video modes. Must have been a creeping hardware virus anomole.

13 years, 1 month

NEC D765D

by rampaginggreenhulk＠yahoo.com

------------------------------ On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 7:17 AM PST Eric Smith wrote: >Fred Cisin wrote: > >> I don't remember what it was. Leading Edge? e-machine? Packard-Bell? >> Some sort of freebie thrown at him by some company's marketing. > >Chris Tofu wrote: >> O bruther. E-Machines, if even around then, wasn't making no clones. They made Mac video cards and monitors. And I'll have you know my Leading Edge/Sperry Model M runs rings around that Big Pyew. Supports 8" drives even maybe. > >I wrote: > >> I'm not sure when "then" was, but I think you've confused the company "eMachines" with the older UMAX/Supermac brand. eMachines was from their inception a PC clone company. Through acquisitions, eMachines was most recently an Acer brand, but has just been discontinued recently. > >Chris Tofu wrote: > >> Nuh uh. The original emachines at least sold mac cards. Check ebay. I still have my old Futura SX video card stuck in a IIcx. > >Which has nothing whatsoever to do with the *company* eMachines, which did in fact, as Fred stated, produce PC clones. In the 1980s??? Please provide proof of that.

13 years, 1 month

Introduction and IBM 1130 replica project

by Carl.Claunch＠gartner.com

Chuck Guzis wrote: > > Nice work! > > I remember the 1130. What are you doing for a card reader? I recall that the 1130 could only read column-binary--it was up to software to interpret the data into character codes. > > Has anyone done an FPGA emulation of the 1620? That one has a soft spot in my heart to the extent that I can still remember the numeric opcodes for many instructions. The 1401 occupies a similar place in my memories. Little IBM boxes were really cute. > > --Chuck At the moment, I use a high speed stream protocol over USB, via the brilliant fpgalink library by Bruce McClelland ( http://www.makestuff.eu/wordpress/software/fpgalink/ ) to a bit of python code on a PC which takes files and sends them as card column signals to my 2501 reader emulation logic in the fpga. I am mapping all the signals from the 2501 to the adapter circuits in the 1130, timing everything and modeling state as close to a real 2501 as I can determine, so that it appears that the photocells are detecting holes at the right time as the card virtually slides through the emulated transport, but the content of the columns that get turned into lights are stuffed into a FIFO by the link from the PC. However, someone has offered a small card reader that I will be gratefully accepting and utilizing. I plan to map the real reader as the 2501 and use my alternate 1442 reader/punch emulation over the fpgalink channels so that I can both read real cards and read files on the PC as virtual cards. Yes, the 2501 just delivered to the 1130 one bit for each of the 12 card rows, exactly what was punched in that column. The 1130 programmer would convert the Hollerith coded characters into whatever other coding they wanted in their program. Boot mode wired the signals a bit differently to provide a 16 bit result to the 1130 that was usable as initial program load instructions, that is done in the 1130 adapter logic, not in the 2501. Finally, various forms of binary coding were used in the 1130, such as the user program format and a special binary mode used by diagnostic programs, but all of those are just the status of holes in a column sent as 12 bits plus 0000 to form an 1130 word. My python program converts ascii files to Hollerith, as well as delivering binary mode files directly as card hole images. I don't personally know of any fpga emulations of 1620 machines, but there are excellent simulators available. Carl ________________________________ This e-mail message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the person to whom it has been sent, and may contain information that is confidential or legally protected. If you are not the intended recipient or have received this message in error, you are not authorized to copy, distribute, or otherwise use this message or its attachments. Please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail and permanently delete this message and any attachments. Gartner makes no warranty that this e-mail is error or virus free.

13 years, 1 month

VCF East pictures

by mloewen＠cpumagic.scol.pa.us

http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/VCF-East2012/ Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/

13 years, 1 month

Cyclone CVME961

by seefriek＠gmail.com

From: Benjamin Huntsman <BHuntsman at mail2.cu-portland.edu> > > Here's an odd one... > Anyone here ever seen, heard of, or have a Cyclone CVME961 board? > > > I have. The 961 was a pretty nice i960-based general purpose embedded controller that got a lot of use in real time systems and, as I understand, a lot of military stuff. i960CA of various speeds, memory, 2 serial ports and a mezzanine expansion scheme Cyclone called "Squall" that had a few options (I know there was an async serial card, think there was a SCSI card and ethernet card, but can't recall anything else). Not sure what specifically you want to know, but there is a good bit of info out there still at Google reach. Unfortunately, I decided i960 wasn't something I had time to play with, so all of mine are long gone. BTW...what you really want to find if this sort of thing is your kink is a CVME-965. 960HA, VME64, private and shared memory and 2 x Squall 2 mezzanine slots. The Squall 2 slots were much more useful, as Cyclone made all sorts of interesting options for it. I had, at least, SCSI, 2-port ethernet, various serial cards, some digitial input cards, etc. I sorta-kinda remember there was an ATM card; I didn't have one. Made whipping up a router on a card pretty easy, even if the preferred dev environment was Ada.

13 years, 1 month

let's try this again... how do you build a floppy disk?

by rampaginggreenhulk＠yahoo.com

------------------------------ On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 8:44 PM PST Chuck Guzis wrote: >On 02/16/2013 07:51 PM, Chris Tofu wrote: >> >> start with a disk... >> >> Then what? smear on some rust? is it sprayed on? once you get the >> chemistry correct it doesn't sound like the application portion >> should be that challenging. is there an adhesive applied first? >> Afterwards? Where's that Jeri lady. Get her on this LOL > >Well, no, you don't start with a disk. That would be silly. > >You start with a very wide blanket-on-a-roll of substrate. You mix the binder and oxide together in a thick paste and spread them on the sheet. I suspect that the thickness of the coating is regulated by a "doctor blade" setup. The coating is cured and then round disks are punched--the result is called a "cookie" for obvious reasons. It's then verified and inserted into the jacketing medium, sealed and packaged. Not so fast bucko. Got to flip the blankee over and coat that side. >The oxide coating on a 5.25" DD floppy is not much different from that of VHS videotape. I suspect that the demise of floppy manufacturing to more a case of video- and audiotape dying off. I would think what put the kybosh on both were advances in optical media, which became a solution for computer storage earlier then video. Both useful.posts though. Anyone think this can't be done? Is choice of substrate that critical? Question in my mind is how to control the thickness. This is why I had thought spraying would be appropriate. Maybe it is.

13 years, 1 month

DG Nova repair etc.

by RolexTM＠gmx.de

> The original Nova has a 4 bit ALU What do you mean? I think i did not get your answer. >> When I got my Nicolet, I had a similar sounding problem.It turned out to be a missing clock.Of course, yours may be soemthing different but you aregoing to need some schematics and a scope to track down.( I did mine without a schematic but I was lucky ).Dwight We already sighted most of the pdfs and schematics at bitsavers and simh. We have a scope and logic analyzer and some experience in component level repairs of electronics. This machine is just a bit harder to diagnose than for say our old VT100...the documentation is overwhelming and my brain has not adapted to it well atm ;) so i just hope to get somebody that has intimate knowledge of the machine.... The problem of the machine only running on single step and not on "run" may well be related to a missing clock, although i wonder if even single instruction stepping would work without clock since it also needs some form of clock to single step through one asm instruction...although i might be on the wrong train since there may well be more than one clock inside the machine.

13 years, 1 month

Introduction and IBM 1130 replica project

by Carl.Claunch＠gartner.com

Dave wrote: > > Has anyone done an FPGA emulation of the 1620? > > I don't think so. Of course there already is an FPGA emulation of the > 1130 by Richard T. Stofer which does plotting to an HPGL plotter. There is a video of his presentation to the 06 1130.org party here:- > > http://ibm1130.org/party/v06 > > I also have hacks to the SIMH emulation to drive an HPGL plotter. > Video of it in action here:- > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCUUgLvVvpg > Richards excellent work was what first got me involved with this - after watching his talk and contacting him, he shared his code and expertise to allow me to create a copy of his emulator. It inspired me to learn hardware design and electronics and to aim for my project. Richard designed his machine by designing hardware that would match the Functional Characteristics manual, analogous to how Amdahl designed an IBM compatible system by adhering to the Principles of Operations but adopting their own unique design within the machine. He did not have a goal to emulate the hardware console functions such as Single Step, Single Memory Cycle, Interrupt Run, Load, and so forth. Since I first got hands on experience with computers on an 1130, learning by using those controls and watching what my code was causing to happen, I wanted to recreate to that level. My machine is built to map almost exactly onto the logic gates of the 1130, as I used the ALDs (automated logic diagrams) to recreate the system. It is designed to run at the same speed as the physical 1130. It is therefore a cycle by cycle faithful recreation, allowing someone to see what changes when releasing the Start key in Single Step mode at cycle T4 of instruction phase E1, which is phase B of the clock. Certain conditions change or actions take place on specific phases of those cycles - this recreates them. I also mapped all the hardware adapter logic faithfully and built hardware to emulate all the signals that came into the 1130 from the peripherals. As a final step, I adapt real hardware I have, an Electronic Typewriter 50 (selectric ball type machine), to link to my hardware emulation so that it behaves the same. My keyboard is a photocell driven partially mechanical unit from a keypunch of the era, interfaced to link to the 1130 adapter circuits and present the exact signals that would come from the real 1130 keyboard hardware. I built the display light pedestal above the console printer to scale, as another example of my obsessiveness. My aim is to replicate the experience of running an 1130 hands on. This certainly is no denigration of the emulator built by Richard Stofer - it provides higher performance than a real 1130 and from a programmers standpoint is a truly faithful replica. For most people, that is all the recreation they want. Beyond that, there are software simulators such as the one hosted by Brian Knittel at http://www.ibm1130.org with a full set of 1130 software at the same site - highly recommended. This project has allowed me to meet a number of great people who have offered advice, aid and a supportive ear as I toiled away - I try to credit them all in my blog, but it is possible I haven't mentioned all of them. I am also indebted to Al Kossow and the Bitsavers archive for availability of ALDs and other documentation sufficient to produce this hardware level recreation. > But for the 1620 nothing so far. There is Java based emulator but the only software thats been converted is the diagnostics. Al did load up the other stuff he has to bit savers , but I havn't had time to look at it, as I got distracted by a project to connect some Creed equipment from a Ferranti Pegasus to a software emulator.... > Sounds like you are having some fun yourself. Hope it is going well. >> That one has a soft spot in my heart to the extent that I can still >> remember the numeric opcodes for many instructions. The 1401 occupies >> a similar place in my memories. Little IBM boxes were really cute. >> > >The 1620 I used wasn't what I would call "cute" but it was the second machine I programmed. I guess we are all bonded by an appreciation of early technology machines that were formative for us. Carl ________________________________ This e-mail message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the person to whom it has been sent, and may contain information that is confidential or legally protected. If you are not the intended recipient or have received this message in error, you are not authorized to copy, distribute, or otherwise use this message or its attachments. Please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail and permanently delete this message and any attachments. Gartner makes no warranty that this e-mail is error or virus free.

13 years, 1 month

Question about NeXT 17" B/W monitor

by IanK＠vulcan.com

Does anyone know the part number for the CRT in a 17" NeXT monochrome monitor? I've cast about for a schematic that shows it to no avail. I've opened up the monitor (N4000A), and the number is not evident. The internal frame bears a Sony name and number, SMC-311A. I fear the number may be hidden under the yoke - which I'd rather not pull free, for obvious reasons. Before I start getting dramatic with this thing, does anyone know the part number? I'm going to try rejuvenating the CRT, per a comment by Ethan a little while back (I acquired a B&K for $9 on ePay). Nearly all of the 17" CRTs have the same switch settings, but count on Jobs to have picked an off one. :-) So it seems wise to tap the collective wisdom before just crossing my fingers. Thanks -- Ian

13 years, 1 month

let's try this again... how do you build a floppy disk?

by rampaginggreenhulk＠yahoo.com

------------------------------ On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 8:36 PM PST Nigel Williams wrote: >On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 at 2:51 PM, Chris Tofu ><rampaginggreenhulk at yahoo.com> wrote: >> Then what? smear on some rust? is it sprayed on? once you get the chemistry correct it doesn't sound like the application portion should be that challenging. is there an adhesive applied first? > >There is a short section here about the raw materials and process: > >http://www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Floppy-Disk.html > >It would seem that the community might want to track down this document (book?): > >Aronson, Susan. Diskette Reference Manual. 3M Data Storage Products >Division, 1990. > >I notice that this fellow references this document too: > >http://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/drive.html Smashing research excellent research

13 years, 1 month

let's try this again... how do you build a floppy disk?

by rampaginggreenhulk＠yahoo.com

start with a disk... Then what? smear on some rust? is it sprayed on? once you get the chemistry correct it doesn't sound like the application portion should be that challenging. is there an adhesive applied first? Afterwards? Where's that Jeri lady. Get her on this LOL

13 years, 1 month

Northstar Dimension keyboard question

by rampaginggreenhulk＠yahoo.com

------------------------------ On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 7:17 PM PST Fred Cisin wrote: >> > I won it. It resembles a Keytronic 5150, but has something like an rj11 >> > (don't ask me how many conductors). Is it an IBM/K* internally? >> >No. > >On Sat, 16 Feb 2013, Chris Tofu wrote: >> How do you know? > >Because in 1983, Michael Swaine (Infoworld) called the Dimension, "PC >compatible". I fail to see what that has to do with the keyboard >How many "workstation" terminals did you get with it? exactly 0. is that a bad thing? the monitors that I see pictured with it look just like an Eagles. which could mean they are 5151 compatible. which could mean it might have more aspects of compatibility then you might think. in any event it's a toy to play with and now I have a keyboard. I have discs but something tells me they're not going to be what I want them to be. I know it doesn't run MS DOS natively but it might be fun to try. it's not intended to be a product tivity tool.

13 years, 1 month

Cyclone CVME961

by BHuntsman＠mail2.cu-portland.edu

Here's an odd one... Anyone here ever seen, heard of, or have a Cyclone CVME961 board? Thanks in advance! -Ben

13 years, 1 month

Northstar Dimension keyboard question

by rampaginggreenhulk＠yahoo.com

------------------------------ On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 5:44 PM PST Fred Cisin wrote: >On Sat, 16 Feb 2013, Chris Tofu wrote: >> I won it. It resembles a Keytronic 5150, but has something like an rj11 >> (don't ask me how many conductors). Is it an IBM/K* internally? >No. How do you know? >> I guess >> I should have asked before I bid/bin.

13 years, 1 month

any interest in an IBM Displaywriter

by rampaginggreenhulk＠yahoo.com

Yeah. Gone. ------------------------------ On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 6:30 PM PST Nigel Williams wrote: >On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 2:11 PM, Chris Tofu <rampaginggreenhulk at yahoo.com> wrote: >> I payed 100$, and had to pick it up in Queens/Nassau. I'll take 50$ plus shipping, from 08758. It works, but >> there is noticeable screen burn even when off. I have some disks, and >> the 8" drive cabinet. > >did someone end up taking this off you?

13 years, 1 month

any interest in an IBM Displaywriter

by rampaginggreenhulk＠yahoo.com

I payed 100$, and had to pick it up in Queens/Nassau. I'll take 50$ plus shipping, from 08758. It works, but there is noticeable screen burn even when off. I have some disks, and the 8" drive cabinet.

13 years, 1 month

Silver-oxide cells lifetime

by rampaginggreenhulk＠yahoo.com

------------------------------ On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 5:57 PM PST Chuck Guzis wrote: >For the third time, I've had to replace the three 357 silver-oxide cells in my HP16C calculator. That's probably very close to 15 years on average between sets--not bad. You make me wish I had a *real* HP calc :(

13 years, 1 month

Silver-oxide cells lifetime

by cclist＠sydex.com

For the third time, I've had to replace the three 357 silver-oxide cells in my HP16C calculator. That's probably very close to 15 years on average between sets--not bad. What surprised me was that one day, the thing was working nicely and the next, it was dead--no display, nothing. A voltmeter confirmed the power failure. I suspect the cells get pretty near their shelf life in this application. Is it usual for them to reach the end of their shelf life so suddenly? --Chuck

13 years, 1 month

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