test-drb

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101090 discussions

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

I have a MicroVAX II in a BA123 enclosure and I am experiencing some problems getting it to see the RD53. Whenever I try to boot I just get the error DEVOFFLINE and the Ready light on the front panel goes out when this happens (you can't get it to switch on again if you press the button a few times). The RD53 is known to work as it will boot in a MicroVAX 2000. The RQDX3 also works as I have tested it in a working MicroVAX II (BA23). I have tested the cable from the RQDX3 to the M9058 distribution board. I have also tested the cable from the M9058 to the front panel. I have tested the front panel button and it seems to be right (it shorts two terminals when depressed, leaving the Open Circuit when it is out). I have swapped the cables from the distribution board to the drive with another set. I am starting to suspect that the M9058 is at fault, I don't have a spare to eliminate this component, but I was wondering if anyone else has seen this problem and has any suggestions. Thanks Rob

14 years, 9 months

DEC GIGI (again)

by jws＠jwsss.com

I dug my GIGI out of the pile this weekend, during a visit to my stuff in Kansas City. I notice it is running out 4 bnc's and recall that the Dec monitor I had at one time had that sort of feed. Is it as easy as 4 of 5 wires (sync on green maybe) to get it going? I also have an aging cranky 24" Viewsonic which has BNC inputs, but when it goes poof, I'd love to have this as someething I can still run with an LED display. I know there is a GIGI discussion in the archive somewhere and will look for it to see if it had a monitor discussion associated with it. thanks Jim

14 years, 9 months

Early 3D rendition

by pontus＠update.uu.se

Hi I was sent this link with a film of an early 3D computer rendered animation by Ed Catmull and Fred Parke: http://nerdplusart.com/first-3d-rendered-film-from-1972-and-my-visit-to-pix… I'd love to know more technical details and also if it really is the first 3D film. Henri Gouraud published his techniques in 1971, this must be a very early application at least. Kind Regards, Pontus.

14 years, 9 months

TI CD 1400 Drive [for sale / offers]

by michael.99.thompson＠gmail.com

> On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 7:11 PM, Robert Borsuk <rborsuk at gmail.com> wrote: >> I need to get rid of this drive. ?I don't have the TI990 computer for it anymore. >> If I don't get any offers in the next couple of days I'm going to scrap it out (that said - this is not free). >> It's a TI CD 1400 branded drive. ?Magnetic Peripherals 944B drive. >> The unit weighs 175 pounds so it puts out of the standard shipping range. >> Please send any offers off list. ?Drive is located in Port Huron, Michigan. >> >> Rob Too bad you don't live further northeast. That drive would go nicely on either the 990/10 or the 990/12 at the RICM. -- Michael Thompson

14 years, 9 months

P112 boot rom 5.1

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

Are there any P112 users who have updated their P112 boot roms to version 5.1? I just got a batch of 5.1 roms from Terry Gulczynski and I find that they won't boot CP/M 2.2 as downloaded from p112.sourceforge.net. I have only a very crude understanding of what's going on under the hood, so I'd appreciate some help in figuring out what's wrong. -- 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?

14 years, 9 months

DEC PWS 500au boot failure

by bdwheele＠indiana.edu

Hey all! I went to fire up my DEC Personal Workstation 500au the other day and it doesn't boot up any more :( I don't get anything out of video or the serial console and the diagnostic lights all go out (00) rather than displaying an error or booting message. The battery in it was dead and I replaced it but to no avail. Anybody come across this before and know how to fix it? Thanks! Brian

14 years, 9 months

Looking for SunOS 4.1.* (sun3) cd image

by derschjo＠mail.msu.edu

I'm in the process of getting a mongrel Sun 3/400 machine running as a host for my Symbolics UX400. The UX400 support software requires SunOS 4.1 which I used to have on CD, but I now appear to have misplaced. (I have a copy of 4.1.4, but it only supports Sun4 machines ) Anyone have a copy they could make an image of? (and yes, I've confirmed that this machine will boot from CD.) Thanks! Josh

14 years, 9 months

Original Prices of DEC Equipment

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

I would like to find out the original prices of some of the DEC equipment I have when it first came out, preferably the UK prices. I only have a couple of catalogues but they don't cover all the things I am interested in. If anyone has catalogues and could scan the pages with prices and options etc that would be great. The equipment I am interested in are: MicroVAX II MicroVAX 2000 MicroVAX 3100 (Models 30, 40, 80, 95) VAXstation 4000 VLC VAXstation 4000 Model 60 MicroVAX 3400 PDP11/24 VT220 VT420 LA50 Alpha 433au DEC 2000 Model 300 AXP DEC Professional 350 Thanks Rob

14 years, 9 months

HP Moseley Plotter

by wdonzelli＠gmail.com

I have a small Hewlett Packard / Moseley plotter here, probably from the mid/late 1960s? available. I was going to scrap it, but maybe an HP fan might want this, as it comes from a not well known division of the company. It looks like it can do 11 by 17, and seems to have digital and analog inputs. Untested, a bit dusty and grungy. I figure there is about 15 bucks of scrap in it, so if anyone wants it for 10 bucks, please speak up now. Of course, feel free to offer more. Off list, please. Maybe 30 pounds, from 10512. -- Will

14 years, 9 months

Train shipping ( was Re: VT fixums )

by jonas＠otter.se

On Tue, 30 Aug 2011 20:36:58 +0100 (BST), ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > I havre no idea waht the official restrictuions are, but I've carried the > following on British trains (on serparate occasions) : > > An IBM PC/AT (got the comment from a fellow traveller 'That's some > laptop' ;-)) > > A DEC RS02 + 2 large bags of UNibus boards and printsets > > A complete GT40 > > An AR88 (RCA communcations receiver) You *carried* an AR88 on a train??? They weigh, what, 45 kgs? You must work out a lot... I used to have a BC-312M. I really regret having got rid of it. That was a nice piece of equipment.Not quite as heavy as the AR88 but quite heavy enough to break your foot if you dropped it on one of them. The foot would be severely damaged but not the BC-312M... /Jonas

14 years, 9 months

Need switch settings for...

by wh.sudbrink＠verizon.net

the Gimix 16K memory board for the SS-50 bus. Unlike the 32K card, there doesn't seem to be a lot of rhyme or reason to this one. Thanks, Bill Sudbrink

14 years, 9 months

RT-11 v2C Fortran

by iamvirtual＠gmail.com

Does anyone have an image of the Fortran DECtape which is compatible with RT-11 v2C? I have a copy which is labeled as being suitable for RT-11 v2C, but it does not have the 'fortra.sav' file. There is a 'forgen.com' file. Since RT-11 v2C doesn't support command files, I don't think the tape is for RT-11 v2C. Thanks! --barrym

14 years, 9 months

Can anyone ID this machine?

by alexeyt＠freeshell.org

A coworker of mine showed me this link. Whatever it is looks pretty sweet, but I don't think I've ever seen a similar machine. Anyone know what it is? Is it even a computer, or some sort of teletype switching office? http://i.imgur.com/tDA3X.jpg Alexey

14 years, 9 months

WANTED: More regional collectors

by tosteve＠yahoo.com

Hi, I run the website http://oldcomputers.net I get a lot of old computer systems offered to me for cheap or free, but most I don't want - too big, or too far away to pay shipping. A while back I asked for other collectors who would be receptive to these orphaned systems, and over 60 people have signed-up so far! But entire parts of the US are still open - the East coast is covered pretty well, but west of the Mississippi River these is almost no one until the coast. I've got Nathan in Iowa, Richard in SLC, but that's about it. Send me your name, email, and what you collect, and I'll try to get you some good stuff (some people got some REALLY good stuff). Thanks- Steven Stengel http://oldcomputers.net

14 years, 9 months

Macintosh Programmers' Workshop - Fwd: MPW turns 25!

by toby＠telegraphics.com.au

Some ccmp listers will have fond memories of MPW. I know I do. Still runnable on my PPC G4! (OS X 10.4) & I still occasionally need to build with it. --Toby -------- Original Message -------- Subject: MPW turns 25! Date: Sun, 04 Sep 2011 21:55:05 -0600 From: Dan Allen <danallen46 at airwired.net> To: development MPW <mpw-dev at lists.apple.com> Today, September 4th, in 1986, we completed MPW 1.0, 25 years ago! I just thought we should note the occasion. Dan Allen _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. MPW-Dev mailing list (MPW-Dev at lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/mpw-dev/toby%40telegraphics.com.au This email sent to toby at telegraphics.com.au

14 years, 9 months

VT fixums

by wdonzelli＠gmail.com

Just a reminder - this Saturday, just a few days away, RCS will be doing triage on our big pile of VT100s and VT100oids. We need the space! Incoming Cray! Failed VTs will be available for pickup at our open house in Providence, RI (see rcsri.org for directions). I may be able to move a few to the MIT Flea on Sunday. And of course, cash donations are very much appreciated, but not required. But appreciated. Really appreciated... -- Will

14 years, 9 months

TRS-80 Model II Digging

by nathan＠nathanpralle.com

Finally pulled out the TRS-80 Model II tonight with the intention of actually working on it for once (shocker!) and trying to get it operational. It powers up, drive spins, screen comes on, lights glow, etc. Insert any one of about 20 8" floppies that I have that are specifically for the Model Ii and..... Nothing. Well. BOOT ERROR RS, which is translated as, "Disk not in RadioShack format." I'd believe it for one or two, but all of them? It seems unlikely, although I could blame bit-rot perhaps. I'm hoping it has something to do with the hardware instead. Popping it open, the unit powers on and the drive head is dropped to the spinning disk, then lifted, then dropped, then lifted, and the error occurs. I cannot see if the head is close enough to the disk or not (and I have *no* idea of the tolerances anyway) and am not sure how I'd adjust it -- or drive speed, etc. if that's an issue. So, anyone got ideas? There *is* a remote possibility that all the disks I got were wiped either by the previous owner or in some sort of magnetic disaster, but they're well-labeled and came from a working haul, so I have to imagine that they're still good. Or at least, I'm hoping they are. (The bits are damned near visible on these things, after all.) Your ideas and good guesses welcome and very much appreciated. Nathan -- *Nathan E. Pralle* Computer Geek www.nathanpralle.com www.philosyphia.com www.twitter.com/NPralle

14 years, 9 months

TI CD 1400 Drive [for sale / offers]

by rborsuk＠gmail.com

I need to get rid of this drive. I don't have the TI990 computer for it anymore. If I don't get any offers in the next couple of days I'm going to scrap it out (that said - this is not free). It's a TI CD 1400 branded drive. Magnetic Peripherals 944B drive. The unit weighs 175 pounds so it puts out of the standard shipping range. Please send any offers off list. Drive is located in Port Huron, Michigan. Rob pics at http://tinyurl.com/3hdv62b

14 years, 9 months

cctalk Digest, Vol 97, Issue 5

by ceby2＠csc.com

Rich, >> You could force an 8 bit boundary on the resulting data, but things >> like sector headers are sometimes deliberately encoded in >> fluctuation sequences that don't conform to rest the data encoding. >That's hardly deterministic, and would certainly not work on, for >example, a disk written by a PDP-10 (36 bit words represented as pairs >of 18 bits + parity), to take a popular example. There *are* no >deterministic outcomes, especially in archival work. There is only >interpretation. Precisely, yes. But even with byte encoding of bitstreams you have an endian problem. At some point the capture system imposes its personality on the process and you simply have document what you've done so the upstream ('viewer'/'accessor') toolset can take it into account in post processing. The adding of metadata context is what contributes to the deterministic outcome, rather than attempting to force raw capture into a rigid format. >http://www.boogles.com/local/papers/tcfs-thesis/thesis.html >This is Brian Zuzga's 1995 undergraduate thesis at MIT on a project to >archive the backups done at the MIT AI Lab using what they named "the >Time Capsule File System". Nihil novi sub sole (Ecc. 1:9-10). Thanks for the reference. I must have come across it before at some point as it seems very familiar. But it wasn't a work I was referencing yet in preparation. I'm studying it closely, along with things like the UPF. What strikes me is how there are several originating documents around effort followed by long silences and lack of back references. It may be down to the relatively cursory nature of my work so far, but it seems adoption of these formats and processes has been either quiet or limited. Is that a misapprehension on my part? Any other efforts you think I should investigate? -- Colin

14 years, 9 months

Old printer tricks, HP LaserJet 6P

by vintagecoder＠aol.com

Thanks! ------Original Message------ From: Charles E. Fox Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts ReplyTo: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Old printer tricks, HP LaserJet 6P Sent: 4 Sep 2011 10:43 At 05:16 AM 04/09/2011, you wrote: >I received an old HP LaserJet 6P. According to the doc it has an IEEE-1284 >interface (B and C ports). The PCs I have don't have parallel ports. Will a >USB to parallel converter cable "just work" or how should I hook this up to >a Windows XP box? Also, any comments on this unit? I remember seeing >some threads with people praising/damnning various HP models. Thanks. My HP Laserjet 4050 works fine with a USB to Parallel cable. Charlie Fox Charles E. Fox 793 Argyle Rd. Windsor Ont. 519-254-4991 N8Y3j8 www.chasfoxvideo.com

14 years, 9 months

Old printer tricks, HP LaserJet 6P

by vintagecoder＠aol.com

I received an old HP LaserJet 6P. According to the doc it has an IEEE-1284 interface (B and C ports). The PCs I have don't have parallel ports. Will a USB to parallel converter cable "just work" or how should I hook this up to a Windows XP box? Also, any comments on this unit? I remember seeing some threads with people praising/damnning various HP models. Thanks.

14 years, 9 months

scarcity of digital preservation efforts - was Re: eBay... Yikes! (Adrian Stoness)

by ceby2＠csc.com

Toby, >One thing to consider is how the format deals with damage.... Good thought. I wonder if that integrity functional role could be delegated to the container format rather than the payload element. The payload doesn't get internally marked up with checksum blocks, but we rely on LZW/LZW2/other as the guarantor of file integrity. The rest of the scavenging is done by the metadata/descriptor element (like card 1 = byte [xxx]-byte[yyy]). Any damage or ambiguity is noted in this external metadata rather than the actual capture blob. The container ensures that the integrity of the contents are the same as when they were created. The descriptor describes what was known at creation time. Workable? Regards, Colin Eby

14 years, 9 months

mess.org

by dm561＠torfree.net

> Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2011 13:00:24 -0400 > From: Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> > > On Sep 1, 2011, at 12:52 PM, Glen Slick <glen.slick at gmail.com> wrote: >> I haven't noticed many "rabid Microsoft fanboys" on this list, > > Oh, there are definitely one or two. I'll be nice today, though. ;) > Hello? <wiping froth from chin...>

14 years, 9 months

scarcity of digital preservation efforts - was Re: eBay... Yikes! (Adrian Stoness)

by ceby2＠csc.com

All - Thought I'd de-cloak from lurk mode long enough to canvas opinion or archival formats (again). I'm considering this from a digital media (not paper to digital) at the moment. Considerations for paper and software are similar though. There are many dozen image formats for diskettes and disk drives, just as there are for photographic and paper images. My thought was to avoid the problem by using a non-format. Stay with me on this... basically persist the data in as raw a format as possible, with an externalised, self defining descriptor, all wrapped up in an open archive format to form a single file. The concept being that the long term storage format is just a not the viewer format. You maintain a converter from the storage format to a current viewer format, but you don't actually store the data in the current viewer format. By current viewer, I mean PhotoShop, Acrobat, etc. Here's the basic file layout: xxxxx.zip : raw.bin (a simple sequential byte copy) descriptor.xml ( instructions on how to carve it into sectors, raster lines etc.) *Don't get hung up on *.zip... I know LZW is encumbered... this is just an example. The actual scan output is the raw.bin. It no formatting data at all. The descriptor tells you everything you recorded about the file at scan time which helps you to interpret the data stream later. That could be ratster format, page markers, etc. This should work for a broad range of data for an already digital data format. The problem I have with this approach is where a scan doesn't result in actual digital information. Yeah, ok it's all bytes on disk, but what I mean is sampled data versus byte for byte representation. Paper tape and punch cards are examples of data which is unambiguous in a digital sense, because it contains a fixed encoding stream, with a self evident data word boundary. A card is one character a line, tape one character per linear unit. All you have to do is store the whole thing as a byte encoded stream, and put the metadata in the descriptor (card 1, card 2, etc...). Where this falls down is say for instance, an MFM diskette scanned with a sampling board like a CatWesel. In this case the data returned is basically analogous to sampled analog signals. It's clock ticks between fluctuations. The fluctuations are binary. But their interpretation is based on sampling rate and media rotation. You can sample at higher and higher rates and get more sampling data, if you are working blind. This is less of a problem if you know something about the subject. But otherwise discretion has to be applied to interpret what you've captured. That worries me. I like deterministic outcomes, especially in archival work. You could force an 8 bit boundary on the resulting data, but things like sector headers are sometimes deliberately encoded in fluctuation sequences that don't conform to rest the data encoding. That throws your interpretation of the data off, unless you already know what the sector header formats look like. The only way I can think of to follow the inside-out / no proprietary archival format approach you basically don't transpose to bytes at all, but leave it as sampled fluctuations... not even bits. As with other viewer approaches, you apply the transposition only when you attempt to view the data, not when you store it for archival purposes. Thoughts? Third example... a booked scanned becomes a byte stream of bit map data stored in the raw.bin. The descriptor then encodes the page transitions and raster format, plus discretionary metadata. I like that much better than PDF, TIFF and JFIF. I realise these formats are unlikely to die out, but I like the idea of a common archival format which is self documenting better. I'd be interested in hearing people's (non-flame) comments. Regards, Colin Eby

14 years, 9 months

RQDX3 DEVOFFLINE Problems

by jack.rubin＠ameritech.net

> What I need now is to borrow or buy an M9058 to test with, and ideally a > qbus extender so I can use an oscilloscope to work out which component is > failing. > > Regards > > Rob All the M9058 is getting from the box is power - you can easily remove it from the chassis, supply power directly from an external supply (solder temporary feed leads above the board fingers if you don't have the right connector). Makes testing a lot easier. Jack

14 years, 9 months

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