Here's a variation of the pdp 11/70 with a chocolate-brown and white color
scheme: http://661.org/images/csis1170.jpg
--
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?
On Thu, 03 Nov 2011 19:01:41 -0700, leaknoil <leaknoil at gmail.com> wrote:
> I hate thinking anything in the defense department is running on a
> vaxstation 4000 still but, it's the government after all.
On Thu, 03 Nov 2011 22:13:53 -0400, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
> Besides, remember how procedure-oriented the US Gov't is. It's the
> world's best refuge for people who are incapable of independent thought,
> because there are rule books and procedure books for EVERYTHING. If
> said book says "thou shall run this on a VAX4000-96", even if a good old
> 3100-M38 would do the job just fine at about $20.00, you'll sign the P.O.
There are a lot of reasons that old equipment is (re)purchased by the Government, especially the Department of Defense. Most of the equipment in question is not sitting on someone's desk running a spread sheet, but is generally part of production equipment - especially test equipment. A production line is shut down and the contractor is allowed to close down and disperse the line. A then an action or foreign customer comes along and the contractor is called upon to reopen the line, generally on a short leash.
At that point the contractor can purchase new equipment (cheap), re-engineer and program the line (not so cheap and generally not quick), and re-certify the new line (not cheap and definitely not timely). This of course requires re-engineering and building the certification stations. Or the contractor can scrounge around and rebuild the line as originally constituted. The equipment isn't inexpensive for what it is, but the line is reconstituted by a bunch of techs in a fairly short time. The engineering and software is done and the unit stands certified as built.
A good number of years ago Hughes Aircrash shut down the TOW missile line and after storing the production equipment for a number of years was allowed to auction off the obsolete equipment. One of the many messes that we seem to be continually caught up in used up a goodly number to the missiles that were laying around and Hughes was asked to make more. They had a team of people running around buying up the old equipment wherever they could. An acquaintance got several times the new price for a HP 2115 that he had stored.
I chatted with an engineer and questioned the wisdom of buying and using old equipment. They had a bonus riding on getting production going in a fairly short period and the cost of going that route was a very, very small fraction of re-engineer the line.
The moral here is that paying $3k for an old VAX might in fact be saving $300k...
-> CRC
Well I bought a HP 9845B from a German seller, the m**** putted the whole
thing in a box with some airbags.
And of cause (TONY DON'T READ THIS) the monitor came loose of the case and
destroyed the monitor posts ;-)
Sh** why can't they pack classic computers in a decent way.
I'm getting very disappointed in epray, every time I find a nice bargain the
destroy it by shipping it the wrong way.
-Rik
On Thu, 03 Nov 2011 10:53:47 -0500, you wrote:
>> http://www.update.uu.se/~pontus/slask/front_paneler/
>
>Hey, there's one of mine on there!
>
>I didn't own the UCC 8/L when that photo was taken, but I have owned it for
>a few years now. Last time I checked, it worked, at least most of the time :-).
Not only is that Vince's PDP-8/L, it is the very same one I sold
to him (and it did "work when last turned on") :)
... and that is my picture (which I took with my Sony Mavica
digital camera back in 2003!) You can see my Tek 190A signal
generator and other odds and ends, sitting on the workbench my dad
built for me in 1977. You're welcome to use the pic, of course :)
-Charles
You all know what I meant by the vacuum 'leaking out' of a CRT, right
:-). Perhaps this analogy will help to explain why I said it.
We all know that the mobile charge carriers in most materials are
electrons with a -ve charge.
Now, suppose I take a metal sphere and charge it positively (as is done in
electrostatic experiments). In time it will discharge, it's common to say
'the charge -- the positive charge -- leaked away'.
But what actually happens, of course is that when I charged the object I
removed some of the electrons from it, leaving it with a net positive
charge, And the leackage that allowed it to discharge actually allowed
electrons to flow onto the metal sphere. So in this case, the 'charging'
means I removed some electrons from it, the 'leakage' allows them to return.
When a CRT is evacuated, the gas molecules are removed from the inside,
leaving a vacuum. When it leaks, air goes back in, returnign it to the
natural state. By analogy with the electorstatic experiment, it doesn't
seem so crazy to say the 'vacuum leaked out'.
-tony
On 2 Nov 2011, at 18:00, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote:
I am summing up some answers here. I hope you are comfortable with this.
> I'm pleased to see the project opening up (release of library source,
> etc). I was a bit uncomfortable with what I perceived to be a proprietary
> approach earlier on.
We always promised and we keep our promises.
> What would really be the clincher for me is the ability to take a sector
> image of the various machines, e.g. an Apple ProDOS or DOS 3.3 "*.po"
> image and write it to a diskette. I get the impression that it currently
> has the ability to read flux transitions and extract such sector images,
> but nothing mentions the capability of re-creating a track image and
> writing them out to media.
There are several image files for some platforms, we usually support one major as there usually are other tools to convert between these.
Speaking of MFM: It's used by so many platforms that we do one generic MFM dump, which can then be further processed, e.g. by adding a header for some emulator.
> I have an interest in archiving, but I'm also an avid tinkerer with old
> hardware and often need to generate "real" diskettes from a sector image.
>
> Some of the machines I would need to do this for:
>
> Northstar hard-sector
> Amiga 5.25 and 3.5
> C64 (GCR)
> Apple 2 and 3 (GCR)
> Intel MDS system (M2FM)
> ...
>
> etc.
>
> I have technical means for all of the above now, but they are inconvenient
> and/or require dragging out and setting up something particular to that
> one operation. "One stop" shopping would be great.
>
> If the unit is capable of doing this, please advise?
I think this and the quotes below originate all from the very same misunderstanding. KryoFlux _CAN_ be used to read data that can be transformed into IPFs. It's a feature, but you aren't locked to it. Like you can use your scanner to scan something, then load it in Acrobat and do a PDF. You can chose to use whatever imaging application you like, you are not forced to convert to PDF. In this case you could as well chose to convert the image file to PDF with a third party product. It's the same here. We made our STREAM format fully documented and open as well, so you can convert to whatever format you like. Take a look into the development section on our forums, there are third party apps that process and convert data.
Looking at the formats above... DTC supports, among many others, Amiga, C64 and Apple out of the box for reading.
Writing is _at the moment_ limited to IPF because we wanted to to the most challenging part first. We will be adding more sector formats to the write engine in the near future. It's fully expandable and it was made to be easily expandable.
> Thanks for pointing that out. They are welcome to use whatever
> business/IP model they wish, but this one bothers me enough that I would
> avoid the device.
Again, I think this refers to IPF. You are not locked into this format, but I don't think it's grossly unfair to ask those that want to use it on a professional basis to pay for it. To be honest, I haven't seen anything that compares to it, and I feel there won't be anything like it soon, if at all. It's not that I don't wish there should not be, I just don't think there are many engineers out there that can design such thing. I did not invent or program it, so I think I am allowed to say this. I would also like to point out that there aren't many willing to dedicate their time to developing tools for floppy disks as the niche is very small.
> And what prevents them from "archiving" anything you send them?
This question is SPS (Software Preservation Society) related. The project's scope is about preserving computer art, which usually means games. SPS shares these files with contributors that send in the same dump (e.g. you sent a damaged dump, lateron an undamaged one comes in... you would be given access). SPS also share games preserved with archives, libraries and museums. These assets were released into the commercial marketplace. It therefore makes sense to share between institutions, because you don't have to re-analyze something if you have a good preservation asset (unless it's a different version of course). A global collaboration makes sense and was the idea of the project.
You could of course submit data as part of an assignment where SPS would be working specifically for you. This only answers your question if you would be willing to trust a contractor.
> My feelings exactly. I can't imagine any professional archive taking this group seriously, and it is
> completely opposite of CHM's policy of preserving and making available any information on underlying
> media formats that we find.
We do share information, about formats and things. Just look at our site or simply feel free to ask if it's missing. The Emulator II format we reversed was not only put into KryoFlux, but it was also put into HxC for emulation. Afaik it always was free, is free, so the decoder is right there available as open source.
I posted the link to the WIRED article, and I would invite you to e.g. speak to the British Library and find out and get first hand information about our work for them. I can name you some other archives if you like, but would prefer to do this via regular email as I can't just post client information here.
> I sent them mail saying "I would want documentatino on how to talk to
> the hardware, because your GUI will not be suitable for me" (any UI
> that's suitable to most of pretty much any market has an excellent
> chance of being somewhere between unpleasant and unsable for me).
I replied to this mail, twice. At least I tried. The first came back because you blacklisted our ISPs mailserver. I have no control over it, I don't know who and if someone uses it to spam. Anyway. I switched to my private email on my own machine and server. It was blocked again because your system tries to retrieve a whois record from the denic. As it seems, they either don't provide it there or not at all (they are the registry for Germany, so what can I do about it?) - so again my reply was blocked. I got tired and put it to rest.
My reply, in short, was that the board has all standard components. There is no firmware flashed to the board, it's uploaded from the host software. If you ever used a 1541 with custom software... it's a bit like that. So all you need is take the ATMEL SDK and write your own code. There is nothing stopping you from using your own software with the board. I could say "why not use our firmware", but that would be a binary again and you said you don't run precompiled software.
The complete schematics are supplied with the software download and you can do with them whatever you like as long as you don't sell it (schematics or boards). I think this is a fair limitation.
One last, personal thing: There were some replies with "them" or "they". It feels a bit odd, like talking about someone in third-person when he's in the room. I follow the digest, so you can address me. I am not asking anyone to share my opinion or to spare me, so keep it coming. Thanks.
On the subject of hardware, I'd like to pass along a link that
details my efforts to clone three PALs--the AT&T 6300 video display
card HAL10L8; the Soundblaster 2.0 upgrade PAL16L8 and the Trantor
T130B SCSI controller ROM address PAL16L8.
http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/entry.php?314-Cloning-a-PAL-
HAL-%28Part-1%29
I don't know if I'd stick with SSI TTL for the "brute forcer", but it
worked well enough. I'd probably just use a cheap microcontroller if
I were starting afresh.
This appears to be a valid approach for pure combinatorial PALs and
HALs. Registered devices are a different matter entirely.
--Chuck
Thanks, I'll look at those.
------Original Message------
From: Dan Gahlinger
Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
ReplyTo: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: RE: Recommend an IRC server
Sent: 3 Nov 2011 12:40
Unreal is crap. :)
check out InspIRCd
though I used to use UltimateIRC
> Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2011 10:57:48 +0000
> From: vintagecoder at aol.com
> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
> Subject: Re: Recommend an IRC server
>
> From: Daniel Seagraves <dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net>
>
> > I run an Unreal ircd for a friend, it doesn't suck up too much. If you
> > don't need services it should be pretty straightforward.
>
> I prefer to avoid GPL-anything but it's not always possible. I'll look into
> this one a bit.
>
> Thank you.
>
>
>
>
>
Can anyone recommend an open source IRC server, preferably BSD or MIT-style licensed, that doesn't have dependencies on scripting languages or much else? I'd like a pure C, C++ etc. solution if possible.
I'm looking for something to test socket applications against. It doesn't have to be a super duper server or have zillions of features. Something basic would be good enough, but I will want to build and run it on several platforms.
Thanks.
On Tue, 1 Nov 2011 20:53:59 +0000 (GMT), ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony
Duell) wrote:
> You all know what I meant by the vacuum 'leaking out' of a CRT, right
> :-). Perhaps this analogy will help to explain why I said it.
>
Of course, it was perfectly obvious, although rather a nice way of
putting it I thought.
The analogy that immediately came to my mind was that of holes in a
semiconductor constituting a current of positive charges.
I suppose one could also say that debt leaks into my bank account and
is removed when my salary gets paid. All the while leaving a negative,
reducing charge of debt in the account.
/Jonas
I've been trying to contact Paul Anderson <useddec at gmail.com> for a couple
weeks but haven't gotten a reply. Does anyone know what's up? Paul, if
you're reading this, would you please contact me by private email?
--
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?
Has anyone sat down and worked out interchangeability of memory parts on
16-bit core based systems. I'm thinking in terms of things like PDP-11s
HP 21xx and DG Novas. I'm curious if anyone has compiled such a thing,
aside from direct part number comparison -- or has guidance of non-like
core stack replacement. I'm not planning on attempting to do anything of
the kind just now, but it might be useful to know what's possible as
supplies dwindle.
--Colin
----- Original Message -----
From: <cctalk-request at classiccmp.org>
To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2011 6:00 PM
Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 98, Issue 78
<snip>
>You have to consider the wife factor as well. A friend of mine gave
>me an Apple //+ a while back, and she threatened to insert it in him
>rectally. I have loads of my future 8-bit computer museum hidden in
>my loft for after the divorce... (;
<snip>
(Raises hand) - so would this be an embedded processor?
Graham
> Does the diellectric strength increase back to its original value on
> cooling again? If so, then this is not really a problem if you happen to
> heat a CRT part (pin, bit of the envelope) with a soldering iron while
> working on the device.
That would seem likely since the glass was once melted in order to make
the CRT. Whether continuous arcing damages the glass permanently or not
is another question. I would guess that the heat in itself does nothing
irreversible, but arcing does.
I found this in a text about types of glass and manufacturing procedures
for CRTs. It did not mention whether the damage was reversible or not.
Your observation about connecting a glass rod across the mains and
heating it certainly supports their warnings about reduced dielectric
strength.
On the other hand, I would suppose that severe localised heating could
cause the glass to crack due to local expansion creating excessive
stresses, so I would still be very careful with the soldering iron.
/Jonas
Al Kossow wrote:
> And what prevents them from "archiving" anything you send them?
I'm not really sure what you mean by that. People send us stuff to
archive. Sure, there is not much point sending SPS stuff if it's not
in scope for the project because that project is only concerned with
preservation of unmodified and undamaged commercial software. Our
commercial venture KryoFlux does provide a service to help people
generate IPFs. That is something else entirely and completely
independent from SPS (other than the same people are involved, and it
uses technology developed for SPS). That is a professional service as
you would expect, any data generated is destroyed as per an agreed
contract.
Nothing stops anyone "archiving" other people's data. Most people
don't do it because it is unethical - I am not sure why you might
think it would be different for us?
> My feelings exactly. I can't imagine any professional archive taking this group seriously, and it is
> completely opposite of CHM's policy of preserving and making available any information on underlying
> media formats that we find.
I'd be interested to understand why you think this. What are we doing
wrong? Is it wrong to want to fund our preservation work by starting a
commercial venture? What are we not making available? We've released
the IPF library source, including an extremely accurate, cycle exact
FDC emulator. We also have tons and tons of information on the SPS
website about how things work (WIPs). IPF files contain the
information about each disk formats, and now that is open, I am not
really sure what else we can do? I am genuinely interested, because we
do want to do the right thing (even if it might take us a while).
Thanks,
Kieron
Steven Hirsch wrote:
>> From their FAQ.
>
> (snip)
>
> Thanks for pointing that out. They are welcome to use whatever
> business/IP model they wish, but this one bothers me enough that I would
> avoid the device.
That section of the FAQ is not actually completely relevant in this
case. It refers to producing IPFs. If you want to write sector images,
then there is of course no real need to create IPFs anyway in this
case I guess.
Our IPF creation software is a commercial product, and helps fund our
preservation activity. Now that the IPF library has been open source,
there isn't anything stopping somebody creating something similar of
course, so that FAQ is out of date too.
Kieron
Steven Hirsch wrote:
> I'm pleased to see the project opening up (release of library source,
> etc). I was a bit uncomfortable with what I perceived to be a proprietary
> approach earlier on.
We got there eventually at least. :)
> What would really be the clincher for me is the ability to take a sector
> image of the various machines, e.g. an Apple ProDOS or DOS 3.3 "*.po"
> image and write it to a diskette. I get the impression that it currently
> has the ability to read flux transitions and extract such sector images,
> but nothing mentions the capability of re-creating a track image and
> writing them out to media.
That is not currently supported, no. We decided to do the hardest part
first, writing IPF files, and doing it really well. As stated on our
forums, other files, such as sector images, will come later. We are
doing some C64-related work at the moment, but the plan is to support
sector images for writing next.
It almost goes without saying that, if it's sector images somebody
needs for writing, then wait for that before getting a device.
> I have an interest in archiving, but I'm also an avid tinkerer with old
> hardware and often need to generate "real" diskettes from a sector image.
Yes, absolutely. This is definitely a missing piece right now.
I hope that helps clarify things.
Kieron
On Tue, 1 Nov 2011 09:06:45 -0400, David Riley <fraveydank at gmail.com> wrote:
> For example, most cheap clock radios have one 4-pin DIP running the whole show (and it's pretty much been the same chip since the '80s). It uses the 60/50 Hz zero crossing on the AC line to keep time, which gives it very precise time (Laurent Hammond, inventor of the AC synchronized motor which ran both home clocks and the Hammond organ, took advantage of this and now the power companies must make sure that the power cycles average 60/50 Hz over the day to a few ppm, if anecdotes inform correctly) and also gives it a handy time base for multiplexing half the LED segments. Normally, as mentioned earlier, a 60 Hz refresh frequency might cause a headache, but I imagine there are holdup caps on the LEDs so they're not quite so obnoxious.
>
> - Dave
The ability to depend on time error correction on the US power grid might be going away. There was supposed to be a test starting this last summer whereby the grid was not going to be corrected. However, at the moment, it's back in committee.
See: <http://radiomagonline.com/infrastructure/power/60hz-stability-going-away-06…> for a story written prior to the scheduled test and
<http://www.nerc.com/page.php?cid=6|386> the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (the folks who set the standards) blurb on the proposed test.
Perhaps it time to start looking for some of the early GPS network time servers that started showing up in the '80s (i.e. classic) to attach to those PDP's to ensure that one is not late for lunch...
-> CRC
Does anyone here know anything helpful regarding opening an hp32sii
calculator to fix mushyness?
--
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?
Has anyone ever heard of or even seen a Zenith CruisePad?
I never even heard of it until an attorney contacted me looking for one.
If anyone has one, or just the manual would be good, please contact me.
Thanks!
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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All,
I very much need to sell off my workstation collection. There has been
essentially zero interest in my posting from last week on the subject.
I'm trying to figure out why. Is it:
- My geographical location (Burlington, VT)?
- No interest in these specific items?
- Something else?
It cannot be price, since I didn't post any and am quite flexible in terms
of negotation. Would even consider trades if the incoming item(s) take
up considerable less cubic volume :-).
If it's the location, I'm starting to explore what would be required to
properly pack and ship, e.g. a 45 lb. Sun Ultra 60 with some assurance it
will arrive in one piece. It doesn't look like anyone in the area is
setup for injected foam packing anymore, and I just don't trust the usual
foam + peanuts anymore - too many broken units over the past few years. I
think UPS and FedEx hired the chimps from the old luggage commercials to
throw packages around during loading.
If I go to the trouble and expense of buying proper boxes and InstaPak
cushioning, it's going to average about $35-40 per unit for packing -
never mind freight costs.
But, would appreciate hearing from the community with alternate ideas.
It is going to kill me if I have to drag this stuff to electronic
recycling.
Steve
--