Trying to figure out a fair value for the following:
Altair 8800b with two Altair floppy drives. System is clean but hasn't
been turned on since the 70s. No software or manuals available. Contains
the follow boards:
1 CPU
2 Floppy disk controller
3 MITS 16k dynamic memory boards (48k ram total)
1 MITS 8800 Disk BD1 Rev 0 x4
1 SIO board with 2 serial ports
1 MITS 8800 PMC Rev01 2k Prom Board
Can reply off list.
Thanks.
David
https://www.team6502.org/
This was on the Team 6502 facebook page
====================================================================
I just received an email from Bill Mensch that Chuck Peddle has died.
He died on December 15. Chuck Peddle was one of the team of eight
Motorola employees and engineers who worked on the 6800 microprocessor
and left the company for MOS Technology in 1974 along with Harry
Bawcom, Wil Mathys, Rod Orgill, Ray Hirt, Mike Janes, Terry Holdt, and
Bill Mensch.
Peddle considered the $300 price point of the 6800 a disadvantage, and
urged Motorola management to pursue a more affordable microprocessor
that could be used in a wider array of applications. When they
refused, Peddle convinced seven other Motorola employees, including my
father Terry Holdt, to pack up their homes and move across the country
to begin work on what would become the 6502 microprocessor at MOS
Technology, a wafer-fab company in Valley Forge, PA founded by a
former colleague of his from General Electric, John Paivinen. After
Commodore Business Machines purchased MOS Technology in 1976, Peddle
oversaw the creation of the Commodore PET computer, the predecessor of
the Commodore 64, the best-selling personal computer of all time.
While curating the information for the team6502.org website, one of my
favorite anecdotes comes from MOS Technology employee, Frank Slattery,
who wrote:
"What a great bunch of guys the Motorola eight were. I was the manager
of the layout people and it was my duty to make sure that the Motorola
eight had every opportunity to do their design work with no problems.
I was standing next to Chuck Peddle when he said to Jack Tramiel, the
CEO of Commodore Business Machines, 'With this chip we can build a
personal computer.' It was the first time I ever heard the words,
'Personal Computer.'"
The rest, as they say, is history...
Chuck was one of the giants of the personal computing industry. Now he
belongs to the ages.
Hi All,
I have a copy of this Intel book, 8048 Family Applications Handbook, January 1980. Does anyone know if scans of this book are online anywhere? I did a quick Google search and didn't find this particular book. If it isn't available anywhere I would like to get it scanned and posted somewhere (bitsavers?), but the only way I have to do a decent scan is destructive.
A picture of the cover is here: http://wrcooke.net/DSC01633.JPG
Thanks,
Will
"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"The names of global variables should start with // " -- https://isocpp.org
I wonder if there is any interest here...
-----Original Message-----
From: greenkeys-bounces at mailman.qth.net <greenkeys-bounces at mailman.qth.net> On Behalf Of John Lawson
Sent: 10 December 2019 17:41
To: greenkeys at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [GreenKeys] DURA Selectric ASR terminals free
Greetings List!
I have a couple of "DURA" Selectric ASR terminals. I also have some limited documentation on them. Neither of them work as far as I know. I tried to run the one in the pic when I first got it, but it's jammed - so on the shelf it went.
They appear to be an 8-level code, dunno if ASCII, EBCDIC, or what.
These are joining the ever-expanding list of "Projects Never to be Completed", so if anyone is interested, lemme know.
They are free, you pay shipping, they are about 50 pounds each and will require some thoughtful packing.
Local pickup is happily offered, and I could possibly be bribed into delivering them within a day's drive of Carson City (weather permitting).
Cheers
John KB6SCO
Carson City
So one of my RL02 drives (bought on Ebay years ago) is eating RL02
packs. Makes tings, then the disks have errors in my other RL02 drive.
Took a bit to figure out which drive was eating what, but I'm 100%
certain it's this newer drive.
So pulled the heads. The top one had significant gunk on it, the bottom
one a bit. Pics below.
Top: https://i.imgur.com/FELhF9X.jpg
Bottom: https://i.imgur.com/Tmsf5Nd.jpg
With alcohol and lintless swabs I managed to clean both of the heads up.
Top: https://i.imgur.com/gmACM4R.jpg
Bottom: https://i.imgur.com/SfZQV5F.jpg
Then put them back in the drive and mounted a scratch pack. With finger
on the load/run I let the drive spin up and when I heard tinging I
immediately spun down. Hopefully I didn't trash my scratch pack.
Top head has gunk, bottom one had a few flecks, but looks pretty ok.
Top: https://i.imgur.com/EAvgmuH.jpg
Bottom: (picture didn't upload)
Obviously the head is crashing, any idea why and if it's worth replacing
the head or should I put this drive out for parts? Yes I cleaned the
RL02 pack before putting it in.
Never dull.
CZ
Hi - I am looking for some help.
I have had a PDP 8e with RK05 drives that has run pretty reliably for many
years, but after moving it a strange symptom has come up, preventing it
>from operating correctly. I am hoping someone can advise.
Here is an example
1. Power up drives and PDP 8e
2. Load OS/8
3. Load ADVENT
4. Program loads, asks if I want instructions. I can enter Y or N and the
system responds. The familiar scrolling light pattern appears on the front
panel to indicate awaiting input
5. As soon as I attempt an action such as "S" (with no quotes) the front
panel freezes and I have to CTRL+C to exit ADVENT, dumping me to the dot
prompt.
Similar issue when running the MUSIC.SV program. I can load the program and
get up to the point of entering a song, but when I enter a song name the
system freezes on the first note.
BASIC works fine however. Which tells me that I have a CPU problem, not a
RAM problem but this is just my hunch.
Any ideas how to diagnose this? Running MAINDEC programs is always
frustrating. I am attempting to load the main DECX8 SYSTEM EXERCISER to see
if there are any clues from this as to the cause of the freezing system.
.
https://www.pdp8online.com/os/os8/os8_cmd.shtml#DECX8
Thanks
Bill
Got me an ADDS Envoy 580 (at least, I'm pretty sure it is -- it has no
model designation apart from "Envoy" but looks identical to Jim's pictures
at http://jimsoldtoys.blogspot.com/2016/05/adds-envoy-portable-terminal.html
).
It's non-functional at the moment so it's going to need some repairs, and I
can't find much on it -- anyone have anything?
Thanks,
Josh
An ad was emailed to me today with an interesting item: RCA 1802 processors. I thought there may be some folks here interested:
https://www.bgmicro.com/9z1509.aspx
Not affiliated in any way other than a customer.
Will
Signed up this new account exclusively for CCtech and CCchat.
Hopefully its working. Why do this? I had to shut off the
other subscription for spam reasons.
Allison
Hello,
Can anyone please point me towards a copy of the Tapestar utility package
for DOS? I have already contacted Qualstar and they cannot help. TIA!
-Ali
On Mon, Dec 16, 2019 at 8:42 PM jim stephens via cctalk wrote:
>
> Does anyone have any information on Infonet, which was a timesharing
> which CSC put out? I've got some info that it had a timesharing service
> called CSTS and would like info on that.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170421223052/https://wiki.cc.gatech.edu/folkl…
------
Jerry Reich has brought to my attention the operating systems written by
Computer Science Corporation (CSC) for its Infonet time-sharing network.
In the late 1960s, CSC developed CSCX, which was a highly modified EXEC II [*]
with time-sharing and multiprogramming capabilities. CSCX later evolved
into the CSTS time-sharing system used on the Infonet 1100s throughout
the 1970s. Commercial time-sharing networks were widespread during the
1960s and 1970s.
====
[*]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC_EXEC_II
------
EXEC II is a discontinued operating system developed for the UNIVAC 1107
by Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) while under contract to UNIVAC
to develop the machine's COBOL compiler. They developed EXEC II because
Univac's EXEC I operating system development was late. . .
EXEC II is a batch processing operating system that supports a
single job stream with concurrent spooling.
====
I have reason to believe that my very first exposure to digital
computers (in the spring of 1969, at a high school in northern
Delaware taking advantage of a Federal grant to equip a room
with some teletype machines and acoustic couplers) was to
"Conversational Fortran V" running on a Univac 1108 at Computer
Sciences Corporation. Presumably the operating system was CSC's
own modified version of Exec II (CSCX) rather than Exec 8,
but I believe the Fortran V language processor would have been the
same in either case. That taste of high-end timesharing was a
luxurious experience, never to be repeated -- the following year,
those same teletype machines were connected to an overloaded
IBM 1130 at the University of Delaware running BASIC.
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED126934.pdf
------
Walzl, F. Neil
The Development and Implementation of a District Computer
Education Program. Final Report.
Newark School District, Del.
Nov 75
. . .
During the 1968-69 school year, three major activities were
conducted. . . Computer time was purchased
>from the Philco Ford Company, Valley Forge, Pennsylvania,
and the Computer Sciences Corporation, Bala Cynwyd,
Pennsylvania. . .
====
https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/why-python-best
------
For you Fortran folks, I need to explain Fortran V.
Based on Fortran IV, Fortran V was implemented on Univac 1100-series
hardware (and probably other Univac systems such as the 494) by
Computer Sciences Corporation in the late 1960s. It extended Fortran
to include parameter statements?basically a way to define constants,
conditional compilation, and statement functions?basically macros
that produced in-line code.
In 1970, I went to work for Computer Sciences Corporation working
on systems testing of a new timesharing system they were developing
called CSTS. While some of my work was done in assembly language,
the majority was done in Fortran V. For me, it was the "best scripting language"
I had available. (It was also the only language I had available on CSTS
itself for a while.)
====
Does anyone have any information on Infonet, which was a timesharing
which CSC put out?? I've got some info that it had a timesharing service
called CSTS and would like info on that.
I've got info on the original version of the Pick system which IP was
owned by TRW and was called GIM.? The CSTS Infonet service provided
access in some way to IGIM, which is in a manual I just obtained.
So I want to know if there is any CSTS manuals or documents (ideally)
anyone may have.
Secondly it looks like rather than IBM mainframes for timeshare, the
systems that Infonet shared were Univac 1108s.? So looking for verifying
that.
Especially if the systems were all Univac was IGIM running on the 1108.
The time frame for the manual is 1974.? GIM dates from 69 to 70 from a
TRW contract.? Actual product was obviously running in one form in
1974.? There is information that it ran on PDP 11s as well in another form.
While searching for information with Google, I found some court
proceedings, including a precedent related to RICO charges on
individuals in Infonet.? If anyone finds the original indictment, or can
get to it on pacer, I'd appreciate a copy to read, or send message, I'll
supply the citation.? A better source like Pacer probably will retrieve
the original indictment.? I only find a decision which was reversed
related to the indictment.? I suspect there would be a lot of history in
the indictment around the 1980 ish timeframe of the indictment about how
CSC ran Infonet.
Short story on what you will find online a lot of spots is a precedent
set by the 4th Circuit of Appeals which resolved a technicality about
whether individuals and corporations were the same WRT charges.? The
ruling that RICO applied to individuals and not corporations was filed
by a trial court.? But the appeals court said that the actions if they
constituted RICO by individuals could be go back on the corporation they
operated in was the precedent. Obviously not a good one for corporations.
Thanks,
Jim
Is it classic enough to ask about on this list?
A friend of mine finds himself in the awkward position of being asked to
take on some RPG programming, but knows nothing about it.
Can anyone here suggest some good resources for a crash course in RPG?
Yes, any web search engine will throw up a lot of hits, but I'm hoping
someone here can help select the most useful ones.
Hi,
Would anyone happen to have or know the whereabouts of a technical manual and/or schematics for a Zetaco SCZ-2 controller?
Or the same for any other Zetaco SCZ (hoping that they all used the same back-plane presentation :) )
Many thanks
Sean (www.datageneral.uk)
Bower & Bailey LLP
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To continue validating modem functionality, I think it makes sense to
set up a closed loop phone system in my lab that will function well
enough to allow modems to connect to each other (dial tone, ringing,
busy signal, etc.).
I know I can probably whip something up with a 9 v battery and a piece
of cable with rj11s, but I think that will fall short.
That said, I went out to eBay to see if I could source a 2-8 line
something to help, and got smacked around with my lack of telephone
system knowledge.
So, any ideas (or links to eBay auctions) of brands/models/etc. I should
focus on?
Also, if anyone has any modems lying around gathering dust, I probably
should source a few more models. tcpser handles Hayes "+++" spec
correctly, but I should probably support TIES as well, to cite one example.
Jim
--
Jim Brain
brain at jbrain.comwww.jbrain.com
> From: Thomas Moss
> Probably a long-shot, but I'm looking for a DECtape drive for my
> PDP-8/e.
Long shot indeed! DECtape drives are one of the rarest DEC peripheral, and
un-surprisingly, one of the most valuable. (A TU56 sold on eBait for $7K back
in 2015.)
Would a TU55 do, or does it have to be a TU56? (The interface is basically
compatible, I think, but I have yet to dig into the details, so I can't
say for certain. But I think I recall seeing systems with one or the other,
and AFAIK the controllers aren't drive-type specific - the cabling might
be, though.)
Noel
I ran across this modem (circa 1982) and saved it, but I have no idea on
how to control it. Bitsavers doesn't seem to have a manual for it.
It's a big, blue plastic box and it looks wonderful. There is an array of
8 lights and 6 buttons; the HS button enables 1200 bps operation, otherwise
it is 300 bps. It echoes characters and responds correctly to
DataTerminalReady not being asserted, so I think that if I can find the
command set it might be functional.
It's a little more primitive than my original Hayes 1200 that I first got
in 1984. (I'm not expecting a standard command set.) A picture of it can
be found here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/zWBPimcpZNUch6G28
Thanks,
Mike
A collection just came to me. These are the original disks, with whatever labels are on them.
As a set. First come first served.
If you are in San Diego I?ll arrange a swap with you locally.
If remote, we can arrange shipping.
1.44MB unless otherwise noted.
Copyright years noted so version number might be determined along with what version of Mac it might support.
GRAVIS Mac Blackhawk Version 1.0 (2 disk)
ClarisWorks 4.0 (6 disks)
ClarisWorks Small Business Solutions Pack.
Correct Grammar For Mac Version 3.0 (2 disks)
APS PowerTools V 1.3.1
Mac ally Port Xpander Driver Program (copyright 1995-1997)
Welltris, Spectrum Holobyte (800K disks, S/N 013045, 2 disks)
MicroSoft Excel Version 4.0. (800K disks, 7 Disks, copyright 85-92)
MicroSoft PowerPoint (800K disks, 4 disks, copyright 87-89)
MicroSoft Mail Version 2.0 (800k?, Copyright 85-89)
Conflict Catcher 3 (800K 1 disk)
dantz Retrospect (2 disks, copyright 97)
Suitcase II, (400K disk, S/N 4200-0103685 Copyright 86)
Hayden Books - The Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh Disk. Contains:
Eudora 1.4
Fetch 2.1.1
InterSLIP 1.0
MacTCP 2.2
Stuffit Expander 3.03
TurboGopher 1.07
Nova Development - American Handbook of Business Letters (800k?, Copyright 90)
Aladdin Stuffit Lite (800k?, Copyright 87-92)
Aladdin Spring Cleaning (Copyright 96)
Connectix Ram Doubler (800k?, 1.5.1 hand written on disk, copyright 94)
CTSNET Macintosh Internet Signup
Since my Father in law as Mac Only, I had no idea where these came from
Windows Syquest SCSI installation Diskette 1, copyright 94
Windows 95 Syquest Installation diskette 2
DOS/Windows & OS/2 SCSI installation diskette 3
Hello,
I also was searching about a clear SMD specification years ago, I found
something in disk documentation from CDC, but doubts remain, because some
disks call the interface SMD, some other CMD, never understood the
difference...
Andrea
Hello,
well maybe my memory has blank spots.
I have two CDC Lark Disk modules I would like to revive, they are in good
shape, but only one has a cartridge included, and they are not identical.
Not sure if the other one could be employed without cartridge.
I never found a manual with exact model correspondence, I found years ago a
manual for very similar drives.
IIRC there was a sort of adapter board between SMD and (xxx blank spot)
interface. There was a description of the interface, it was really similar
to SMD, but wasn't SMD...
Maybe I should check again the Lark model number.
Andrea
Hi,
I?ve been trying to find *detailed* specifications (mainly detailed signal timings) for the SMD disk interface but all I?ve found so far are the interface specifications for individual disks (CDC, Fujitsu, etc). I?ve looked in the usual places (bitsavers mostly) and haven?t found the spec itself. If anyone has any pointers, I?d appreciate it.
Thanks.
TTFN - Guy