Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way of defining our
interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in that x86 clone
PC running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have just unearthed in your
garage?
I've been trying to put the word about a bit locally that I'm interested in
rescuing vintage machines, but boy is it ever a struggle - sifting through
offers of "very big, old computers" that turn out to just be PCs running a
decade-old version of MS Windows is getting a little tiring (that's when
the "very big, old computer" doesn't turn out to be just a CRT monitor, of
course, which happened to me twice last week)
Maybe someone's cracked this particular nut and got the wording down just
right - or maybe everyone just lives with it. Setting a cut-off date of
1990 (say) wouldn't work, I think, because a) it might cut out a few
interesting non-PC/non-Apple items, and b) a lot of people out there really
seem to have no idea how *new* the item that they have is.
Idle thoughts for an afternoon, anyway...
cheers
Jules
Hi All:
I have been lurking for several years, although I was quite active in the retrocomputing community before that.
Work and other pleasures kept me a bit inactive until my retirement last summer. Just coming up for air!
I have several old DEC systems, including pdp-8s, pdp-11s, and VAXen. I am getting going on them again.
I have acquired some new (NOS I suppose) 82S131 ROM chips, and am looking to write some boot ROMs for my 11/34. Specifically, these are chips that fit into an M9312 Unibus terminator/boot ROM card. I want to create RX01 and RX02 boot ROMs. In DEC-speak, these are 753A9 and 811A9 part numbers.
The ROM images are available through Don North at (http://www.ak6dn.dyndns.org/PDP-11/M9312/). Thanks Don!
I have a one-size-fits-all new-fangled EPROM/PROM programmer, and I thought I had it made when I saw the chips.
Unfortunately, my programmer is too new to handle these chips. Sigh!
I wonder if anyone has a programmer they will either part with; or who I could send the 82S131 ROM blanks to, for programming.
Alternatively, if anyone has spares of the these chips (753A9 and 811A9), I can swap you blanks for them.
Thanks and I am looking forward to becoming active on the list and in the hobby/fixation again!
Kevin
mcquiggi at sfu.ca
All,
I've come across one of these systems. Is there any interest in these?
There are 3 RCA jacks on the back, but they aren't labelled. I know
that 2 are for a tape recorder and one is video, but which is which?
Anyone know off-hand? I'd like to verify if it works/runs OK.
It belongs to a friend of mine and he needs to get as much cash out of
it as possible. Any ideas/offers are welcome.
Thanks!
--
-Jon
Jonathan Katz, Indianapolis, IN.
Not sure if SCSI-3 is too modern. I have some plain ol' SCSI2 ones
going up soon, too.
Anyway, I have just listed a couple of ST19171W drives on the Bay of
E: items 270900073846 & 270900074301, I believe. Please excuse the
pimping - just thought someone might be interested. Opening price,
99p. (A buck fifty, roughly.)
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
> The genuine VT100 has a white phosphor IIRC, but the VT640 I
> say had a green phosphor CRT fitted.
All the DEC CRT terminals were available with customers choice of green, white, or amber CRT's. Probably some other phosphors I didn't see too.
The default phosphor was white for the VT100. My distant memory tells me that VT100-LC was the order code for the green phosphor I liked best (P31, long glow?).
By the time of the VT-220, amber was really popular.
Tim.
Come one, come all, to the Seattle Retro-Computing Society's first
monthly meeting of 2012! It will be held Saturday, January 28th from
11:30 AM to 5:00 PM (please note our new, later starting time).
Do you do any of the following with old computers? Will you be near
Seattle on Saturday?
+ Use, collect, and/or restore them
+ Play games on them
+ Write programs for them
+ Develop new hardware for them
+ Help other people do any of the above
If your answer was "yes," then the SRCS is for you! We exist so you can
show off your awesome stuff, bounce ideas off of fellow enthusiasts, and
be inspired by one another's achievements, plans and aspirations.
No idea is too big or too small, and we're not picky about what flavor
of vintage machine you prefer! Come on down and tell us about it!
The meetings are graciously hosted by the Living Computer Museum, which
is gradually fitting out a computer museum in Seattle's SODO
neighborhood. There will be refreshments, a Buy-Sell-Free-Trade table,
and enough table space & power to set up anything you may want to show
off!
For further details, please see our web page at
http://www.seattleretrocomputing.com/ and our mailing list at
http://groups.google.com/group/seattle-retrocomp . Hope to see you
there!
Gordon "gsteemso" Steemson
SRCS agitator-in-chief
--
The Seattle Retro-Computing Society
http://www.seattleretrocomputing.com/
From: Wolfgang Eichberger
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 1:34 PM
> you're right, Ethan. Playing with a real 36bit Machine would be a good
> pleasure. Personally, I never had the chance to work on one - except
> virtual ones. It'd be great to see one in action - live, but as far as I
> found out nothing survived here in Austria (correct me if I am wrong).
You can always play on our Tops-10 and TOPS-20 systems, which are
assuredly very real hardware. Just use the "Request a Login" button on
our home page at http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/ to sign up for
free accounts.
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.orghttp://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
>
>Subject: Ohio Scientific Challenger 1P
>
>All,
>
>I've come across one of these systems. Is there any interest in these?
>
>There are 3 RCA jacks on the back, but they aren't labelled. I know
>that 2 are for a tape recorder and one is video, but which is which?
>Anyone know off-hand? I'd like to verify if it works/runs OK.
>
>It belongs to a friend of mine and he needs to get as much cash out of
>it as possible. Any ideas/offers are welcome.
>
>Thanks!
>
>--
>-Jon
>Jonathan Katz, Indianapolis, IN.
Here is a link to the manual
http://vintagecomputer.net/OSI/Challenger_1P/C1P-UserManual.pdf
Here is a link to my hacked up OSI 1P just to make the point that no
two are going to be alike, the video could be different than the users guide.
http://vintagecomputer.net/OSI/Challenger_1P/
Note - the 1P is the same thing as a Superboard II with a chassis/cover.
Bill
I have seven P112 kits for sale. One will ship immediately. The other
six will ship a week later, which is when I expect some memory chips to
arrive. I'm taking orders first-come first-served, one per customer and
ONLY from people who don't have a P112 already. The price is $160 shipped
in the US. For outside the US, I expect the charge to be $10 more.
These kits include everything you need to end up with a working P112
computer except disk drives, drive cables, power supply, and terminal.
You also get a copy of the Walnut Creek CP/N CDROM and Rlee Peter's
Archive.
Email me with your intent to buy and I'll invoice the first seven.
--
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?
As I'm reducing my stash of DEC items I have the
following diskpacks available :
8x RA60 @ Eur 5/piece
20x RL02 @ Eur 25/piece
3x RL02 @ Eur 5/piece
2x RK06 @ Eur 10/piece
They are all in the Netherlands, pick-up is preferred.
Ed
--
Dit is een HTML vrije email / This is an HTML free email.
Hi Eric. I am looking for the printer out of the Rl-P1004A printer
/computer combination. Do you have one that you would sell that is
operational? Raymond C Phillips, LT USN Retired
raycretired at charter.net 10104 West Argent Road, Pasco, WA 99301 509
646 3485. If interested please quote a price?
Al writes:
> On 1/23/12 10:48 AM, Richard Atkinson wrote:
>> I suggest using Megaupload.com
>very funny.
Just to prove that I am at least 10 years behind the times and therefore on-topic, I'm going to suggest Napster.
I have completed scanning the manuals for the Cipher 1/4" Tape drive
and its QBUS interface, along with some Plessy software that came with
it. They are posted here:
http://chiclassiccomp.org/docs/index.php?dir=/computing
These aren't in my hard copy preservation pile, so if anyone wants
them (one 3-ring binder, about 3" thick) I will send them to you for
shipping cost from 60070. Otherwise, to the recycle bin they go.
-j
### Apologies for cross-posting / multiple copies ###
Call for Paper ACM conference Computing Frontier 2012
We are Glad to invite you to participate in the upcoming conference, IEEE
computing Frontier 2012
The 9th ACM International Conference on Computing Frontiers
May 15-17, 2012, Cagliari, Italy
Sponsored by ACM SIGMICRO
http://www.computingfrontiers.org
The increasing complexity, performance, cost and energy efficiency needs of
current and future applications require novel and innovative approaches for
the design of computing systems. Boundaries between state of the art and
revolutionary innovation constitute the computing frontiers that must be
pushed forward to provide the support required for the advancement of
science, engineering and information technology. The Computing Frontiers
conference focuses on a wide spectrum of advanced technologies and
radically new solutions relevant to the development of the whole spectrum
of computer systems, from embedded to high-performance computing.
Authors are invited to submit full papers to the main conference and Ph.D.
students are invited to submit an extended abstract for a special Ph.D.
forum and poster session We seek contributions on novel computing
paradigms, computational models, application paradigms, computer
architecture, development environments, compilers, or operating
environments. Papers are solicited in, but not limited to, the following
areas:
? Applications, programming and performance analysis of advanced
architectures
? Next-generation high performance computing and systems
? Accelerators: many-core, GPU, custom, reconfigurable, embedded, and hybrid
? Defect- and variability-tolerant designs, dependable computing
? Power and energy efficiency: architectures, compilers and algorithms
? Virtualization and virtual machines
? Cloud-, internet-scale, service-oriented and smart infrastructure
computing
? Compilers and operating systems: adaptive, run-time, and auto-tuning
? System management and security
? Impact of novel technology (e.g. NV memory, silicon photonics) on
computing
? Computational neuroscience, neuromorphic and biologically-inspired
architectures
? Computational aspects of intelligent systems and robotics
? Reconfigurable, autonomic, organic, and self-organizing computation and
systems
? Interfaces and visualization for emerging applications and systems
? Novel frontiers in computational science and scientific data repositories
? Storing, managing, analysing, and searching large data sets (" big data ")
? Sensors and sensor networks.
EXTENDED DEADLINES
Paper Submission Deadline January 25, 2012
Ph.D. Forum Deadline February 15, 2012
Author Notification March 7, 2012
We reformed the capacitors in all three power supplies in the PDP-8/I
at the RICM and powered on the CPU to see if it would show any signs
of life. It randomly lit some lights and would not react to the front
panel switches. Looks like we have some debugging to do.
The front panel power switch was corroded and burned. Any idea where
we can get a replacement?
Were can we get some Oshinos OL-1 bulbs to repair the front panel?
Does anyone have diagnostics for the 8/I on DECtape?
--
Michael Thompson
With this discussion of interfacing PC keybaords to vintage machines,
I've been thinking about a project I've had in mind for some time now..
Firstly soem backgroud. The HP9915 is essentially an HP85 in a
half-rack-width metal case. It could be run on a bench, or there was an
HP mounting kit top put it in an instruemtn rack.
Electornically, it's similar to the HP85. There is a buit-in tape drive.
Ther is no printer. There is no built-in monitor, but there's BNC socket
o nthe back that outputs TV-rate composite video (so getting a display is
no problem). The keyboard controled IC is present, but obviously there's
no built-in keyboard. There are some user-definable buttons on the front
which are wired as the programamble function keys on an HP85.
The keybaord row and commn lines are also buffered to TTL levels and
broufht out on a DB25 socket on the rear of the machine. There was an HP
keyboard that conencted here, this is basically just a matrix of switches
wired to a DB25 plug. It's the same matrix as the HP85 keyboard, and that
one is docuemtned in the service manual (although with at least one
typo!). However, the keyboards are much harder to find than the machines.
It's a 10*8 matrix with separate lines for the shift, control and
capslock keys (these lines are simply grounded by the the appropraite key)
My first question in designing this is :
Is there ever a time when you press 2 keys simultaneously on an HP85
(other than shift or control along with another key). In onter words, is
there ever a time when 2 locations of the keyboard matrix are closed at
the same time?
The reason I ask is that I can't think of one, and if such a case doesn't
have to be considered there's a very simnple interface (a mutlipezer to
sleect a scan line drivign the enable input of a demultiplexer to select
an input line) that could be used. It'd be 2 or 3 cheap TTL ICs.
I'd not want to connect a microcontroller directly to an external
connector in any case (risk of damaging it, I notice that HP had much the
same idea about the keyboard controller IC in the 9915, all the signals
brought out on the connector are buffered). Thing is, it's a lot easier
to replace a non-programmed TTL IC than having to program a repalcement
microcontroller. So I'd either want to add buffers even if I was goign to
try to use the microcontroller direcrly (which for reasons we've already
discussed I think it 'pushign it'). The mux/demux ICs wouldn't need any
more buffering IMHO, they could be simply wired to the connector.
Of course if I do need to be able to have multiple 'keys pressed' at the
same time, then I would haev to use the crosspoint switch or dual port
RAM solutions we've already discussed.
-tony
Does anyone on the list know if there is an adapter for TRS-80s (Model I/III/IV) to use PS/2 Keyboards?
Cloud-9 makes one for the Color Computer, but the keyboard matrix between the two families are slightly different.
My friend has a Model IV with a bad keyboard (the thin film ribbon is damaged) and replacement keyboards don't come up on eBay all that often.
Thanks!
Al Hartman
----- Original Message:
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:49:57 +0000
From: Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com>
On 22 January 2012 18:55, MikeS <dm561 at torfree.net> wrote:
> ----- Original Message:
> Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:59:25 +0000
> From: Pete Turnbull <pete at dunnington.plus.com>
>
>>> I dislike hyperterminal fairly intensely...
>
>
>> Just curious: what is it specifically about HyperTerminal that you not
>> only dislike, but dislike "fairly intensely" (other than that it used to
>> be supplied by Microsoft and runs in Windows)?
> As for me: I really dislike the business of selecting a session, attaching
> it to a specified modem device and so on. I want a comms program to just
> open up and point me at the serial port; I'll do the dialling, thanks.
------
Different strokes for different folks, I guess; for 'real work', i.e.
connecting to an external system/device, I actually like being able to
simply click on an appropriate icon and being transparently connected to
that system without selecting com ports, dialing numbers, etc.
------
> I do feel that the basic function of a comms program is to be a terminal
> emulator, though. HyperTerm compelled you to create a session, install a
> modem driver, choose a modem and so on, even if you just wanted to type
> ATI1
> ATI2
> ATI3
> ...etc.
> If you wanted a dumb terminal session, IIRC, you had to configure a null
> modem or a direct cable connection and point it at that. It was just
> obstructive.
------
Umm, no, not really; if all you wanted was to talk to a comm port then like
any terminal program you selected the comm port, baud rate and handshaking
and away you went, optionally saving the configuration to a session in case
you wanted to use it again. Of course most of the time you wanted to connect
to a _system_ or a _device_ and not a comm port, which would require some
additional setup like entering phone numbers, modem configuration
parameters, etc.
But yes, if what you wanted was to tinker with different baud rates,
handshaking, emulations etc. instead of just connecting to whatever, then
other terminal programs like Bray's Term, RealTerm, PuTTY etc. or even DOS's
ProcommPlus or Telix were indeed more flexible, and I use them all as well
>from time to time.
----- Original Message:
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:59:25 +0000
From: Pete Turnbull <pete at dunnington.plus.com>
> I dislike hyperterminal fairly intensely...
Just curious: what is it specifically about HyperTerminal that you not only
dislike, but dislike "fairly intensely" (other than that it used to be
supplied by Microsoft and runs in Windows)?
ADM-3A was for a long time the lowest common denominator in the terminal world. The VT-100 came later but became the next lowest common denominator. (Ignoring the VT52 in between.)
VT640 is a VT100 with a third-party (Retrographics) graphics board fitted into it. They were the cat's meow for plotting and graphics if you didn't have a real Tek 4010 on your desk. I am guessing that there are additional graphics features the Synclavier could use on a VT640 but that's just a guess.
ADM3A and/or VT100 emulation are pretty much expected on any terminal you would've bought in the late 70's onwards. And most all terminal emulation software for PC's claims to do them too (with different degrees of fidelity; MS-DOS Kermit really remains one of the best, with most windows terminal emulation packages choosing to emulate other terminal emulation packages rather than the real terminal!)
----- Original Message:
Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:53:19 -0500
From: "Bill Sudbrink" <wh.sudbrink at verizon.net>
Subject: RE: Cromemco FDC
...
> I run SA-851's on my 16FDC with a simply modified ribbon cable.
care to share the details?
m