test-drb

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

101090 discussions

by jbdigriz＠dragonsweb.org

Richard <legalize at xmission.com> wrote .. <cut> > "will be available"... I assume that means sometime in the future, > because I looked at both sites and couldn't find anything. > > FYI, dark blue text on a black background is a very illegible color > scheme. Here's a direct link: ftp://dragonsweb.org/pub/ti/docs/ jbdigriz

13 years, 8 months

XT-IDE V2 PCBs are here!

by LYNCHAJ＠yahoo.com

Hi! The XT-IDE V2 PCBs are back! They allow classic PC/XT type computers to use parallel IDE hard drives and also remote booting over a serial port. They are very useful boards. The PCBs are $12 each plus $2 shipping in the US and $5 elsewhere. Please send a PayPal to LYNCHAJ at YAHOO.COM and I'll send your board(s) right away! Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch

13 years, 8 months

Odd PDP-11/84 Unibus behaviour

by iamcamiel＠gmail.com

I'm noticing something on my PDP-11/84 that I can't explain. I've "repaired" the broken power-supply by partially replacing it (http://flic.kr/p/cKTBn7). The 11/84 runs fine now, except that it won't boot if I put the Unibus terminator (M9302) in. Without the terminator, it works fine, and I can access controllers on the Unibus. According to the manual, however, an M9302 was part of the basic package. I'm seeing this behavior with two different M9302 modules, as well as with two different Unibus adapters. Any explanation welcome...

13 years, 8 months

Scanning DS990/1 manuals, schematics

by jbdigriz＠dragonsweb.org

These will be available at my site, dragonsweb.org and ftp.whtech.com, and I've notified bitsavers.org also. What's done so far: 2262325-9701 "DS990 System Model 1 Site Preparation and Installation" 2262326-9701 "Model 770 Intelligent Data Terminal Upgrade Instructions to DS990 System Model 1" 2262327-9701 "Model 771 Intelligent Data Terminal Upgrade Instructions to DS990 System Model 1" 2262570-9701A "DS990 System Model 1 Field Maintenance Test Operating Procedures" 993023-9701 "Operating Instructions for Model 770 Intelligent Data Terminal" Scans taken on an Epson Workforce 323 at 600 dpi, 1bit/sample. They need some post-processing, mostly straightening, but I have such a big pile that I'm focusing on scanning them all in right now, and will correct later. The .tifs are there if anyone else wants to start on the post-processing. Also pdfs which make the need for straightening glaringly evident :-) Many, many thanks to Guntis Sprenne for providing these, and my apologies for the delay in getting to them. jbdigriz

13 years, 8 months

Looking for a vintage S100 power supply

by nick.allen＠comcast.net

Hey everyone, I am looking for a original S100 power supply (transformer, diode and caps) unregulated and 8v/18v/-18v. Looking for something fairly compact (like the one in an Altair 8800). If you have one assembled, or ever piece parts, I would be interested in purchasing it or trading for it.

13 years, 8 months

Wanted: IBM 2315 packs

by jules.richardson99＠gmail.com

Hi all, Does anyone happen to have any IBM 2315 disk packs[1] available? The National Museum of Computing in the UK are at the point where they're looking for a few as part of the restoration of their 1130 system. [1] or functional equivalents to the genuine IBM ones, if any exist; by the sounds of it packs from various sources may physically fit, but sectoring / disk surface / other details vary. thanks, Jules

13 years, 8 months

IBM 7090 documents and tapes- follow on

by vigor＠chariot.net.au

We currently house the former WRE 7090 on our farm in South Australia. We have what appears to be the complete computer system as it was turned off, with 7090 computer hardware including a 1401 front end and magnetic tape drives - about 20 large cabinets in all. All computer manuals are included, with program printouts for system programs and diagnostics, as well as punched cards for loading and scheduling jobs via the 1401. We are not looking for more documents or tapes. A couple of our manuals are somewhat damaged, and some of our punched cards have been dropped, damaged or lost, but in general there seems to be enough backup documentation in good condition to recover any lost programs or data. We are interested to know what other 7090's there are still relatively intact, and what, if any, work is being put into their systems. The 7090 would not be a cheap computer to run, as it uses huge amounts of power and therefore needs considerable air conditioning. In its latter years after the ESRO space program finished, the WRE 7090 was used amongst other things for recording mineral exploration data. There is at least one Australian company using restored 7090 magnetic tape drives with programs emulating the 7090 magnetic tape drivers to recover this stored data. It is interesting that the magnetic tapes are still readable after so many years in the South Australian Department of Mines environmentally controlled storage. Susan Freebairn _____ From: peter at vanpeborgh.eu To: lawrence at ljw.me.uk; cube1 at charter.net; michaelv at virginiairrigation.net; henridhosty at hotmail.com; IanK at vulcan.com; cctech at classiccmp.org; aek at bitsavers.org; wdonzelli at gmail.com; lin.jones at tnmoc.org; scmobjectenquiries at ScienceMuseum.ac.uk Subject: Fw: To all with interest in IBM 7090 - follow on Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2012 11:21:40 +0100 Guys, Original email attached. Two new thoughts: * I do seem to have generated some strong interest for the 7090 documentation, which is good. And some controversy as to who should receive these bits: US or UK (perhaps Australia?). The 7090 was an American invention but this one was used in the UK. Perhaps each of you with a strong interest could make a case to us for receiving this material. The decision of the deceased owner's family, the clearing team and myself to be final. * Something which might influence decisions: the materials are paper, metal and plastic. The paper is slightly damp, the metal has corroded in some cases and the plastic has some mould patches. None of which make the material unusable in any way but I thought I must be clear on this point. I should have done so in the original email, sorry. Kind regards, peter vp || | | | | | | | | Peter Van Peborgh 62 St Mary's Rise Writhlington Radstock Somerset BA3 3PD UK 01761 439 234 || | | | | | | | | ----- Original Message ----- From: Peter Van Peborgh <mailto:peter at vanpeborgh.eu> To: cube1 at charter.net ; michaelv at virginiairrigation.net ; henridhosty at hotmail.com ; IanK at vulcan.com ; cctech at classiccmp.org ; aek at bitsavers.org ; wdonzelli at gmail.com ; lin.jones at tnmoc.org ; scmobjectenquiries at ScienceMuseum.ac.uk Sent: Monday, August 06, 2012 12:21 PM Subject: To all with interest in IBM 7090 Guys, I am sending this to all who have registered an interest in the IBM 7090 and museums. Sorry if I got some people wrong! This computer started life at AWRE in the UK (nuclear weapons design?!) and finished in the Medical Computing department at Manchester Uni in 1970, where it ran for 10-20 years. It had 4 channels, 32K memory, card reader, card punch, 300 LPM barrel printer and ?20 mag tapes. It also had an IBM 1401 for printer I/O. I have now surveyed the stuff available. There is no hardware. It is a lot of (probably complete) hardware documentation, cicuit diagrams, s/w documentation (IBSYS, etc) also. Also a lot of mag tapes of mixed content and some card trays of mixed content. Are any of you out there interested? It is all quite heavy so transport will be a challenge, but surmountable! The stuff will be available in the first week of September. Any sensible offers will be considered. It might go on eBay but I will wait until you guys respond first. Kind regards, peter vp || | | | | | | | | Peter Van Peborgh 62 St Mary's Rise Writhlington Radstock Somerset BA3 3PD UK 01761 439 234 || | | | | | | | |

13 years, 8 months

need a keyboard for a Televideo Tele-PC 1605

by rampaginggreenhulk＠yahoo.com

or does anyone know if any other rj11 T* k/b will work w/the 1605. Doesn't hurt to ask.

13 years, 8 months

slowest supercomputer still in operation

by mtapley＠swri.edu

At 12:00 -0500 8/7/12, Fred wrote: >What IS a "supercomputer"? >(some people define it in terms of speed!) ...the obvious question, and one we have been over multiple times. I'm envisioning, but have nothing like the skills to create, a 3 dimensional plot. X-axis is year of introduction, Y-axis is available RAM (or equivalent quick-access memory), Z-axis is MFLOPS or suitable measure of computation throughput [1]. Dots might be color-coded by relative price, adjusted for inflation, to essentially encode a 4th dimension, but one normally correlated to Z-axis. Or one might use color for one of the other possible axes (bit width, I/O bandwidth, etc.). I suspect a surface could be constructed in that plot that would allow one to reasonably define anything above the surface to be a supercomputer, while anything below it not a supercomputer. I'm sure exceptions could be made (Distributed.net? The PlayStation 3 array?) but maybe it would cut down some on the inevitable argument. Does this already exist somewhere? I note http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PPTMooresLawai.jpg which is on the way toward what I'm thinking of. [1] Yeah, that's a whole other discussion on its own. And I have totally ignored the question of I/O capability, so there could be lots more axes on the plot. I know, it's not an easy question to answer, no brickbats please! -- - Mark 210-379-4635 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Large Asteroids headed toward planets inhabited by beings that don't have technology adequate to stop them: Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward.

13 years, 8 months

Dates (was: Re: OS/8 dates)

by bqt＠update.uu.se

On 2012-07-16 06:27, "Jerome H. Fine"<jhfinedp3k at compsys.to> wrote: > It is obvious that we disagree on my basic premise - that internally, > sufficient > bits be available to represent the date starting at a date far enough in > the past > to handle many old dates in the countries which would use the operating > system. Some operating systems such as VMS achieved most of that > goal. On OS/8, Unix and RT-11, as just a few examples, it would have > required a decision to double the number of bits over what was actually > used. What I think we seem to disagree on is the idea that this could ever be solved in the general case. You always will have some restriction on dates in a computer system. So the question becomes what would be reasonable restrictions. For a system like OS/8, I think that the original design, using only 3 bits for the year was a little too little, but the extension made, which added two more bits, allowing a range of 32 years was more than reasonable, given the right requirements for memory usage on PDP-8 systems in general. Doing something equally complex as can be done on a PDP-11 would not be justifiable on a PDP-8. PDP-11, then again, have issues which means the solution used on VAXen was not really justifiable. To reiterate - on a VAX running VMS, the date is kept in modified julian date, using 100ns increments stored in an 64 bit integer. Using 64-bit values, and doing arithmentic on them, is not cheap on a PDP-11, nor very nice from a storage point. Now, RSX eventually did support most of this, but it's not something for weak machines, and it's still a pain. Unix choose 32-bit integers, counting seconds since 1970. Also a rather restricted range, and yes, it will run out in 2038, or something like that (someone else can look up the specifics, it's widespread, and simple to calculate yourself if you want to). However, it was a reasonable choice for Unix when initially done on a PDP-11. Storage was important, more so in the age of the PDP-8. Every single bit was counted. You did not waste a whole word. To do so was horrible. Good code managed to squeeze a bunch of instructions into also being data, thus reusing bits whenever. > For OS/8 and RT-11, the simple solution would have been to use half a > word for the month and day (not sure what half a word is called on a PDP/8) > and a full word for the year. Half a word would still be half a word. And such a waste as you suggest would never have been acceptable on a PDP-8. > Probably, the question of having adequate support for the date was the > real decision. I have seen multi-million dollar systems which ignore the > date (like a micro-wave) and only provide the time. But if there is a > disk drive with files and dates to be noted when the file was created > and at least modified (and perhaps referenced), then there can always > be a reason to use dates on some files which precede the start of the > operating system - to note when the information within the file was > actually created is just one possibility. > > If this above basic premise is not considered adequate to justify allocating > a word in memory for the year rather than 5 bits in the case of RT-11 > (eventually 7 bits to manage dates from 1972 until 2099) and however > many bits were used in OS/8, then there is really no point in this > discussion. OS/8 use 3 bits for year in a file date. It was never extended. However, two more bits was inferred based on the current date. Often works well enough, but files older than 8 years old will display wrong. And yes, using more bits than this was not considered acceptable at the time. > In respect of such vital information as the date, saving a few bits was not > justified in my opinion. The fact that VMS arrived later than OS/8 and > RT-11, but allowed dates much before VMS was ever released suggests > that DEC had begun to realize that the date was important. The same > with RSX-11. I think it's fair to say that it has always been understood that there are times when you want to represent larger date ranges, but it's a tradeoff that has to be made. And for systems like OS/8, the tradeoff was done the way described above, and I think that it was a reasonable decision. Only with VMS was storage and processing powers becoming cheap enough that you could really afford to be more generous. RSX date format do indeed give a really large range, and is very wasteful of bits. But that was done to keep processing to a minimum. So there is a good reason for the RSX choice as well. The RSX format is a headache if you want to do some kind of things, but for what the kernel uses it for, it's really simple. > >Johnny Billquist wrote: > >>> > >On 2012-07-13 19:00, "Jerome H. Fine"<jhfinedp3k at compsys.to> wrote: >> > >>>> >> >Johnny Billquist wrote: >>> >> >>>>> >>> >[Snip] >>>>> >>> >Ooo. So TECO-8 actually lie in their documentation... Even worse. >>>>> >>> >A year in the range 1986-1994 would just have looked like 1970-1977. >>>>> >>> >That's ugly of them. >>> >> >>> >>What seems even more evident to me is that DEC took >>> >>(as most other companies did as well) the attitude that >>> >>even the internal representation of date and time was >>> >>not important enough to allow the same information to >>> >>be exchanged between operating systems on a consistent >>> >>basis. >> > >> >Sorry, but I fail to see the point. The internal representation of a >> >date will almost by necessity be different between different OSes and >> >hardware. Having a bunch of 16 bit values represent a date on a PDP-8 >> >would be incredibly stupid and difficult, not to mention that OS/8 >> >have no concept of time to more detail than a day. And even that needs >> >to be updated manually every day. > Your assumption differs from what I would suggest - see above. I'm not sure it's an assumption difference. I think I made an observation. Maybe if you point out what assumption I made, then I can comment on it... >> >So, ignoring the internal format, which can't really be portable >> >anyway, you then get to representation. There will always be dates >> >that cannot be represented in whatever format you choose. So what is >> >the point of bringing up that argument? It is nice if the dates that >> >you might reasonably expect to be processes be possible to express on >> >the system. As for communicating with other systems, in the >> >communication I would suspect/expect that you use an intermediate >> >format (a nice text string for example) that both agree on. And then >> >you can convert from the internal format to and from this intermediate >> >format, as long as the date is within a range expressable on that system. > That would be one solution, but other solutions are available. The > most important point is to have sufficient internal bits to start with. As I have already noted that there can never be "sufficient number of bits", let's skip that part. I also pointed out that the internal format cannot be the same within all OSes, running on different architectures. If you disagree on any of these two points, let me know, and we can have a discussion about those. Assuming you agree with the above, then there is no avoiding going through some intermediate form when communicating between different systems. What other solution do you claim is possible??? >> >When you go outside the date range for the system, you can either try >> >to do something reasonable, or give an error. I think that is a choice >> >that is best left to the writers of the code to decide on a case by >> >case basis. > I agree - the point I attempt to make is to stress the requirement > to have sufficient internal date range to start with - see above. Ok. Let's back up here. Are you suggesting a common internal representation of dates on all systems? What range would you consider "sufficient"? Also, what format would you propose that would be equal between all computers, having different word lengths, different capable CPUs, different speeds, different resolution clocks, and so on. And which is truly future proof? >> >By the way, Unix express time as a number of seconds since Jan 1, >> >1970, 00:00 UTC. > Which I think provides a maximum year of 2038 if 32 signed bits > are used. Far better would have been to use 64 bits with a > higher resolution such as milliseconds and start at least as far > back as 1900. Except that today people are not really satisfied with millisecond resolutions. Unix systems nowadays have things that goes to microseconds, and soon I suspect people will start having issues with that as well. And dates before 1900 are definitely not unheard of. >> >And time is horribly complex. You know that even if we keep it fairly >> >modern, different countries switched from Julian dates to Gregorian >> >dates at different times, the last being Russia, in the early 20th >> >century. > I am well aware of the nature of how complex the subject of dates > and time can be. To start with, the Common Era (aka Gregorian) > Calendar is not used as the primary date representation by even a > majority of the Earth's population. However, with respect to using > computers, the countries and societies which first started to use > computers and the internet primarily use the Common Era Calendar > and I would suggest that the only dates which early computers did > support were Common Era (Gregorian) dates. I doubt that time > zones were even considered at that early stage, let alone considered > important enough to support internally, let alone externally. And > even if Russia was considered important enough as a market for > computer systems, I doubt that anyone would have remembered > that the country adopted the Gregorian Calendar less than a > hundred years prior. > > As for just how complex time actually is, the biggest problem > that few people realize is that the length of the year can vary by > many minutes from the average length of the year. I seem to > remember that the variation can be about 15 minutes. Every > so often, a leap second has been used to keep clocks synchronized > with astronomical time (that UTC you mentioned above). The > average person completely ignores that complexity, but now > with the internet, operating systems must know the time very > accurately. But the date is a completely different matter. At > any one location, the date changes, on average, every 86,400 > seconds - except when a leap second occurs - and having a > few extra bits internally to handle the year is, in my opinion, > essential. > > So the initial decision for the internal representation of the date > was the base date or earliest date to be represented. Many, > probably a majority of operating systems used a very restricted > choice which reflected the emphasis on using as little storage as > possible. In my opinion, that was a bad choice. You use what you have. Or don't use what you don't have in this case. Which was memory. When memory was expensive, you did not waste it on something you didn't really need. And having an over-expressive date format would have been considered extremely wasteful. I think it was a reasonable choice, and in fact the right choice at that time. If I wrote a new OS for a PDP-8 today I would still not do something overly complex or large in size. You simply can't afford such a thing on a PDP-8. >> >If you really think that you can come up with a reasonable, portable >> >design, that is "universal", I think I know of a few organizations >> >that would like to hear from you. > A "universal" design would be to use Julian Days (just a count of > the number of days from an agreed upon date - which has already > been accepted by astronomers) instead of dates. Then, convert from > Julian Days to whichever local calendar is favoured by the party > using the date. But that has already been rejected by most societies > and only a small percentage of the population are even aware that > Julian Days exist. There are too many reasons for most societies > to not use Julian Days - mostly religious in nature which requires > a seven days cycle to support a holy day every seven days. The > French attempted to start a new calendar, but failed - probably > mostly on the seven day cycle. VMS uses the modified julian day. The french attempt at a 10 day week failed because people got upset when they realized it meant less weekends. :-) Not that 10 hours per day felt all that great either... >> >Until then, I'm pretty much satisfied with things the way they already >> >are. Yes, OS/8 have been broken for 10 years now. But to fix it >> >require more than just changing the internal storage for the date. >> > >> >RSX got fixed, and depending on which bits you look, it might stop >> >working right 2070(?), 2099, 2155 or 34667. >> > >> >I don't know about RT-11, but I do know that RT-11 is totally separate >> >from RSX, and any problems are not shared, but unique. > I noticed you are aware of the TECO discussion on dates for > a number of different operating systems, so you probably > already know. > > RT-11 will break on January 1st, 2100 in the same manner as > OS/8 has already broken - there are no more bits in the date > word to handle more than a range of 128 years starting in 1972. > > The only solution is the add additional storage to hold more bits > for the year. Thus far, I know of only one other individual > (who supports RUST) who is serious about adding those extra > bits to the RT-11 file system, but there is no agreement as yet > about how to do that. If no one else will even discuss the question > of how dates for files in RT-11 can be used and extended beyond > the year 2100, then eventually a unilateral decision will be made - > or not as the case will be. Since it is probably not going to be > very important for RT-11 to support dates after 2099 except > for someone running RT-11 on an emulator (will any actual DEC > hardware still be running after 2099), the matter is probably only > of academic interest or only for hobby users - if any still exist > in 2100. Is file dates in RT-11 exactly the same format as system date? In OS/8 they differ, since two additional bits were added to the system date, but file system dates do not have that. Apart from that, yes, RT-11 dates will indeed break at some point. That's a problem in RT-11, which people who know and care about RT-11 needs to solve. And it is still a unique problem in RT-11. No point in trying to involve RSX, Unix, VMS, or any other OS in that discussion. Johnny

13 years, 8 months

napier's bones

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

Does anyone here know of anyone who makes sets of napier's bones? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

13 years, 8 months

regarding mobile radio uP, firmware, etc.

by rampaginggreenhulk＠yahoo.com

??? Take for instance older Motorola Spectra and Radius models. These things seem to employ some sort of microprocessor. Questions is which kinds?

13 years, 8 months

Fw: To all with interest in IBM 7090 - follow on

by peter＠vanpeborgh.eu

Guys, Original email attached. Two new thoughts: a.. I do seem to have generated some strong interest for the 7090 documentation, which is good. And some controversy as to who should receive these bits: US or UK (perhaps Australia?). The 7090 was an American invention but this one was used in the UK. Perhaps each of you with a strong interest could make a case to us for receiving this material. The decision of the deceased owner's family, the clearing team and myself to be final. b.. Something which might influence decisions: the materials are paper, metal and plastic. The paper is slightly damp, the metal has corroded in some cases and the plastic has some mould patches. None of which make the material unusable in any way but I thought I must be clear on this point. I should have done so in the original email, sorry. Kind regards, peter vp || | | | | | | | | Peter Van Peborgh 62 St Mary's Rise Writhlington Radstock Somerset BA3 3PD UK 01761 439 234 || | | | | | | | | ----- Original Message ----- From: Peter Van Peborgh To: cube1 at charter.net ; michaelv at virginiairrigation.net ; henridhosty at hotmail.com ; IanK at vulcan.com ; cctech at classiccmp.org ; aek at bitsavers.org ; wdonzelli at gmail.com ; lin.jones at tnmoc.org ; scmobjectenquiries at ScienceMuseum.ac.uk Sent: Monday, August 06, 2012 12:21 PM Subject: To all with interest in IBM 7090 Guys, I am sending this to all who have registered an interest in the IBM 7090 and museums. Sorry if I got some people wrong! This computer started life at AWRE in the UK (nuclear weapons design?!) and finished in the Medical Computing department at Manchester Uni in 1970, where it ran for 10-20 years. It had 4 channels, 32K memory, card reader, card punch, 300 LPM barrel printer and ?20 mag tapes. It also had an IBM 1401 for printer I/O. I have now surveyed the stuff available. There is no hardware. It is a lot of (probably complete) hardware documentation, cicuit diagrams, s/w documentation (IBSYS, etc) also. Also a lot of mag tapes of mixed content and some card trays of mixed content. Are any of you out there interested? It is all quite heavy so transport will be a challenge, but surmountable! The stuff will be available in the first week of September. Any sensible offers will be considered. It might go on eBay but I will wait until you guys respond first. Kind regards, peter vp || | | | | | | | | Peter Van Peborgh 62 St Mary's Rise Writhlington Radstock Somerset BA3 3PD UK 01761 439 234 || | | | | | | | |

13 years, 8 months

Repairing a Laserjet (from II to 4000)

by jgevaryahu＠gmail.com

Hmm. It looks to me like the metal with the black goo on it (which is scraped off with a razor in the video) once had a piece of thin foam glued to it. Like many things made out of that type of foam, (i.e. keytronic keyboards, and the anti-noise foam inside certain dec, sun, and other older machines), the foam has turned into sticky goop after a number of years (and probably exposure to ozone inside the printer), causing the solenoid to stick. Just a guess, since I don't have one of those nearby to take apart. -- Jonathan Gevaryahu jgevaryahu at gmail.com jgevaryahu at hotmail.com

13 years, 8 months

Composite Black and White monitor dead

by terry＠webweavers.co.nz

Hi Guys, I posted this note on Vintage Computer Forums, and thought I'd see if anyone could help here too. T actually an acceptable looking TRS-80 Model 1 monitor I snagged for $3 but I figure the principles are the same regardless. It's dead. No raster and no glow in the tube neck. The board does heat uo though and there is that smell of old electronics being startled awake after many years. I've done no tests yet, but I have Sam's Facts for the model 1, and they provide a troubleshooting guide for the monitor and say what voltages should be on cetain components. I suspect something to do with the AC power supply of maybe horizontal sweep. Some faulty power transistor maybe? What I would appreciate from anyone who knows, is a link to a page or doc which explains how composite B/W monitors work. The Sam's document is great >from the perspective of troubleshooting detail but it does assume you know, conceptually, just what's going on. I don't and I'd like to get some understanding before I start poking around. Incidently the SAM's fact PDF covers the 110V version while I have a 240V one. There are some differences, one of which is there appears to be no fuses in the AC circuits! Thanks Tez

13 years, 8 months

Shrinkwrapped DEC software available, UK

by witchy＠binarydinosaurs.co.uk

Fellow cctalkers, I rescued this lot from work before it was binned but I'm not sure how much interest there'll be for it. Free as long as you pay shipping or collect >from Cambs, UK: 1 Storageworks Command Console 2.1 Several 'Serverworks Manager' kits. If nobody's bothered I'll take them to recycling. Cheers! -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection?

13 years, 8 months

Free to good home - DEC TS05 Tape Drive - Manchester UK

by julian＠jnt.me.uk

Dave It's not the practicality of shipping it that's the issue, it's just my preference was for someone to turn up and take it away as it's the simplest option for me. Selfish, I know. But it worked out for everybody involved... Julian On 03/08/2012 09:12, Dave McGuire wrote: > >?? Good grief, these are not large or heavy devices.? You know the TS05 is a little tabletop drive, right?? Not much bigger than a big PeeCee. > >????????????? -Dave

13 years, 8 months

WTD: Polaroid Palette film recorder software / docs

by classiccmp＠philpem.me.uk

Hi guys, I think this could possibly count as the longest of long shots, but I figure it's at least worth a go :) About a month ago, I picked up a Polaroid HR-6000 film recorder. This is one of their "Digital Palette" series film recorders (of which the CI-3000, CI-5000, HR-6000SE and ProPalette 7000 and ProPalette 8000 are also members). The machine works fine, as long as you run it on a Windows XP machine. Even then, the software is finicky and prone to crashing out in strange and mysterious ways. Being Windows, a reboot is usually required to fix things. I'd like to see it working on one of my Linux boxen :) I've managed to reverse engineer the Polaroid driver to the point where I have a reasonably complete list of the basic SCSI commands and sequencing required to get something output. However there are several things I haven't managed to figure out - the huge stack of magic numbers, for instance. What I'm after (the Holy Grail so to speak) are either the header files or the full source code for the Polaroid Interface Toolkit. This was an SDK Polaroid used to give out free to developers back-in-the-day, and nearly all the software I've seen was derived from it. A copy of this and/or its accompanying documentation would likely answer the last few of my questions about the command set and hardware. I'm also interested in documentation and software for the Palette and Digital Palette series - especially but not limited to: - Parallel Port Interface Specification Manual (probably useless, but may contain info useful for figuring out more of the SCSI command data blocks) - Digital Palette Product Specification Manual - SCSI Parallel Interface Specification Manual - the "Digital Palette Test Software" disk (GENTEST and DP2DIAG), Polaroid part number / tool number 13437 For what it's worth, I also know software existed for the following platforms: - DOS (Polaroid Palette for DOS) - Windows 3.1 (Zenographics SuperPrint for Polaroid Palette) - Windows 95/98/XP (Graphx RasterPlus 95, now sold by Photogize for a rather silly amount of money) - Mac Classic (Polaroid Palette Export for Macintosh) - Amiga (ASDG Art Department Professional) - NeXT (eXTRASlide -- http://www.kevra.org/TheBestOfNext/ThirdPartyProducts/ThirdPartySoftware/In… ) - Atari ST (can't find any evidence of this beyond Polaroid's marketing materials) Whether copies of any of this software (besides RasterPlus) still exist is another matter entirely... If you've got any of the stuff above (or anything else which could be useful) please either reply here or send me an email. Thanks again, -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/

13 years, 8 months

Finding a Honeywell 316?

by wackyvorlon＠me.com

My father worked in a mine in the '70s that was using a Honeywell 316 for process control. I was thinking it might be neat to see if I could track one down. What are they worth the days? How common are they? Sent from my iPad

13 years, 8 months

"Color and Black and White" - textbook

by rampaginggreenhulk＠yahoo.com

anyone familiar w/the 2nd edition? If so describe the cover for me. If you have a copy you don't need, let me know.

13 years, 8 months

Good article in Time on the TRS-80 Model 1

by terry＠webweavers.co.nz

Time Magazine sets the record straight on the microcomputer history forgot, the TRS-80 Model 1 <http://techland.time.com/2012/08/03/trs-80/>. I'm pleased to see my Dick Smith System 80 site linked to the article. One mistake though. You needed at least 32k for disk operations on a TRS-80 Model 1, not 16k (-: Tez

13 years, 8 months

Looking for DEC VT125 Maintenance print sheets (since VK100 MP is AWOL)

by jgevaryahu＠gmail.com

Does anyone have a copy of the DEC VT125 Maintenance print sheet set? The mp sheets are DEC part number #MP-01053-00 These should hopefully be slightly easier to find than the VK100 MP sheets. These are needed for repairing a VK100 and for a project reverse-engineering how the hardware worked, since it turns out the VT125 uses an almost but not exactly identical state machine "engine" for drawing vectors to the VK100. This VT125 information should be extrapolatable to the VK100 hardware which preceded it. The Tech manual for the VT125 is on bitsavers as part of the VT100 Tech manual revision 3 ( http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/terminal/vt100/EK-VT100-TM-003_VT100_Techn… starting on page 6-70, pdf page 316) I'd be more than willing to scan (at high quality) or photocopy the MP sheets if anyone has a copy they could lend me. A good quality 11x17 1:1 photocopy of the originals is better than nothing, as long as the tiny labels on the schematics are still readable. (If all you have is a poor photocopy, though, let me know! A poor copy is better than no copy at all!) I am fine paying for shipping, handling, finding/digging out of a pile, etc. P.S. Does anyone have a VT125 and the means to dump the three code roms on it? I'd love to get my hands on a copy of those as well. P.P.S. Does anyone have a VT125 and a desoldering station/know-how to remove and dump the ?five? proms on it? They're not immediately necessary but it would be convenient to have copies of their data for the future and to help with potential repairs. P.P.P.S. If anyone has a not-installed VT100->VT125 upgrade kit which they are willing to sell, let me know off-list. -- Jonathan Gevaryahu jgevaryahu at gmail.com jgevaryahu at hotmail.com

13 years, 8 months

Anchor Electronics in Santa Clara a.k.a. Solid State Music (SSM)

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

Hey All! I was over at Anchor Electronics today getting some parts for a PDP-1 replica I'm finishing. I was reading the About page on their website and learned that Anchor Electronics was founded by the same guy who founded Solid State Music, maker of many fine S-100 boards and other personal computer products throughout the 1970s and 1980s. I thought it was interesting so I am passing it along. http://www.anchor-electronics.com/about_us/about_us.html -- Sellam Ismail VintageTech ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintagetech.com Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap...The truth is always simple.

13 years, 8 months

List mod?

by tothwolf＠concentric.net

I've sent two emails to the list since last week that appear to have been held in some sort of mod queue, and I'm not sure what to do. I tried sending Jay West an email and got no reply. Does anyone else know who might have mod access? The first time it happened I resent the email and it still didn't make it through. The second time (with a different email) I didn't bother to try to resend. The only thing the two emails have in common is that they both included links, but none of the links are related in any way, not even the domain names in the links.

13 years, 8 months

remaining S-100 PCBs on-hand

by LYNCHAJ＠yahoo.com

Hi! There are 8 S-100 Serial IO board, 10 S-100 8088 CPU board, and 6 S-100 backplane PCBs remaining in case anyone is looking. They are $20 each plus $3 shipping in the US and $6 elsewhere. Please send a PayPal to LYNCHAJ at YAHOO.COM and I will send your PCBs right away! Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch

13 years, 8 months

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