- test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org - classiccmp.org

by Richard.Sandwell＠roebry.co.uk

Dave Brown wrote : => is a parallel => >port version. But there is another oddball ( 20? pin) connector => on the back => >too. What's it for? At a guess its a connector for an optional sheet feeder? //Rich

24 years, 4 months

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Classic Game Console Search

by Adrian.Graham＠corporatemicrosystems.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: John R. Keys Jr. [mailto:jrkeys@concentric.net] > Sent: 03 February 2002 03:53 > To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org > Subject: Classic Game Console Search > > > Does anyone on the list have one or all of these; The Adventure Vision > by Entex, the COSMOS by Atari, or the Microvision by Milton > Bradley? I > hope to get a Microvision in a couple days but the others are hard to > find. The COSMOS for example has only 5 known to be left and only 2 of > those are working units. I've got a Microvision with extra faceplate.....anything you need to know? a www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk

24 years, 4 months

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What's your specialty?

by Adrian.Graham＠corporatemicrosystems.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Sellam Ismail [mailto:foo@siconic.com] > Sent: 05 February 2002 14:55 > To: Classic Computers Mailing List > Subject: What's your specialty? > > Ok, now's your chance to discuss your specialty and get the > attention of > other folks who have stuff that you may want. I collect anything related to home computing apart from IBM-compatible PeeCees 'cos there's far too many of the bloody things and they don't interest me. My definition of the 'interesting' times is from the Magnavox Odyssey to the Escom Amiga 1200 (ie the last one, not the CBM one). I'm also very interested in the development of the early machines; how they came about, what thoughts and ideas were to go into them, what actually ended up IN them etc etc. This means I'm collecting documentation, books, software etc as well as the machines themselves. Anyone got a spare Magnavox Odyssey? :) I've got one game (Baseball) but no console...... Other news: I'm buying Bo Zimmerman's spare C65, and hopefully soon will be hosting several machines from the early development of Sinclair products, such as a prototype Spectrum board and one of the prototype Grundy Newbrains. Museum premises are nearly finalised too - 500 square feet of space over 2 floors; the only downside is I'm renting rather than buying so I'm limited as to what I can actually DO to the place. a

24 years, 4 months

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No one likes Otronas?

by Robert_Feldman＠jdedwards.com

Now Richard, my experience with Otronas is quite different from yours (or, more likely, what you heard). I used mine (an 8:16, which I still have) for 5 years in Peru on archaeological projects, without any problems. Other archaeologists I know at the Oriental Institute here in Chicago used them for a number of years in fieldwork in the Middle East. They even got John Walker (of AutoDesk, not of the Taliband) to write an Otrona version of AutoCAD (Version 1.4, which I also have) for them, which they used quite successfully for mapping their sites. In addition to "IRS types," a number of Otronas were used at the Jet Propulsion Lab, and (at least) one was used in space in Skylab. At the time Otrona went under, they were starting to produce a Tempest-certified version. I will have to admit that the 8:16 was expensive and only partially IBM-compatable, and the graphics emulation could could be terribly slow. But all-in-all, I was quite satisfied with my Otrona. Bob Feldman -----Original Message----- From: Richard Erlacher [mailto:edick@idcomm.com] Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2002 2:32 AM To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org Subject: Re: No one likes Otronas? I personally have never seen an item with a reserve that I felt was within range of what I'd pay. As for the Otrona ... which is a local product, having been made in Boulder ... these things were trouble from the "git-go" in that several things were known sources of trouble, including but not limited to the FDC. The only ones (in terms of organization users) I've ever seen with Otrona machines have been IRS types. I wouldn't want one, even as a gift. Now, I'm not a collector, i.e. I wouldn't want a non-functional i8080 chip either, no matter what the color. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: "Wayne M. Smith" <wmsmith(a)earthlink.net> To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2002 6:16 PM Subject: Re: No one likes Otronas? > > Just curious if anyone has an opinion on why this didn't move. > > http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2001112267 While I > > don't know what his minimum is, seems like anything in this family should be > > worth about $100 or so, based on what Kaypros and a few others go for. He > > had it up once before, and it didn't sell. > > > > And I'm not interested in the merits or demerits of eBay, reputations, yada > > yada yada. I just want to know what someone thinks why a classic like this > > didn't even get bid on, except by one guy (me). > > > > --John > > > > > > I don't normally bid on items with reserves, and I think many others operate the same way. People use reserves because they think > that starting low may generate a bidding frenzy that will drive the price up. It probably has the opposite effect by attracting > bottom feeders that will never bid high, and turning off some people who might actually be interested but don't want the additional > hassle of having to bid against the seller's reserve. > > -W > >

24 years, 4 months

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Orlando hamfest last weekend

by dogas＠bellsouth.net

Great fun. Lotsa driving. Lotsa great people, Lotsa classic computer stuff! First, I knew that Joe's CC reentry was being fueled by a *few* cool Intel MDS-800 systems so I brought down an Intel MDS 235 for him (that was originally his to begin with) to add to his growing 'Intel Gravatational Field' Joe and I started early Friday and Saturday and I scored all this real cheap: Technical Careers Instutute, Electrical Department's, X-80 (z-80 sbc) SUN SparcStations 1, 2, 5, 20 (all stripped except the 2,) and 2 keyboards TI-2500 Datamath LED calculator DEC puck mouse, LED Test Light Panel GenRad's/DEC M7516, M3107, M7546, M7608, M7609, ClearPoint, WQESD/04 Commodore VIC-20 ML and Monitor Cart and 3 Slot Expanders Commodore 1571 and 1541, Simon Basic Cart, Infocom's HGTTG (my perile sensitive (driving) sunglasses are wearing out) COCO Basic09, OS9, OS9L2, and Pascal docs (some lamer ebayer borrowed and kept mine) DANA Counter (for the 8 NIXIES) X-10 Telephone remote controller and a few split wall recepts. ARC 40A (rs232) Data Analyzer Books: PN's Inside the IBM PC TRS-80 Sales catalogs RSC-7, CCF-832, 8/24/82 Sale The new RTTY Handbook (Joe's) RTTY A-Z (Joe's) Mags: Rainbow 84, 87-92 Color Computer 3/84 (premier) - 11/84 Creative COmputing 10.11 - 11.4 Byte 3/84 TRS-80 Microcomputer News 4.5 - 5.7 PE Aug/76, Sept/76, Mar/77, Mar/78, 78 Electronics Experimenters Handbook, May/80 At the end, when we were about done, Joe stayed behind to guard our piles while I fetched the car to load up. When I returned, Joe had found *my* RCA VIP. I felt several blood vessels then pop behind my forehead... ;) There were also several classiccmps not picked up because of high prices like: Several TRS-80 100 portables and one with the portable floppy and a Model 4 SGI Indy Timex ZX81 There was also a cool computer (not purchased) from Chrystler that was a old 8080 (embedded maybe) multiboard system in a cardcage. It's 8080 chip was >from '74, and there were a few 2020 Emulator boards (??) in there two... There was even one 'Vintage Computer' table. This guy had CoCo stuff galore. He said that I was his only customer the first day. So I made some ancillary purchases from him for the coco and commie stuff mentioned above. Oh yeah. And I may just score a full rack with a PDP 8M and a few ASR 33 TTs based on a random conversations struck up while there with another shopper (!!!) ;) - Mike: dogas(a)bellsouth.net

24 years, 4 months

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32-bit bit slice?

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> Odd questions, perhaps: > Was there ever a commercial 32-bit machine built with 2901s? > Other bit slice devices? > > What is the longest word length machines done in bit-slice? > > Is there a practical limit to the word length of a 2901-based > machine? The Prime 400 was built using the 2901; it was 32-bit and supported a paged, segmented virtual memory space. -dq

24 years, 4 months

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Taking control of your collection

by Adrian.Graham＠corporatemicrosystems.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Lawrence Walker [mailto:lgwalker@mts.net] > Sent: 05 February 2002 06:00 > To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org > Subject: Taking control of your collection > > How do YOU limit your collection when you aren't a Sellam, John Keys > and others with warehouse space. Seriously. It must be a problem that > many of you have made a decision on, even when it wasn't your S.O. > giving an ultimatum. Any guidelines ? Be stern. Fortunately for me I've got an understanding gf who also packrats stuff :) I was supposed to be limited to one room in the house, but sharp filled up that, then the room next to it, then a spare room on the ground floor, then the garage, then a small storage room then a much bigger storage room, and now that I've got 500sq ft to play with who knows what's going to happen! I only have 1 rule; since I'm going to be exhibiting I keep the best/cleanest machine and pass on/sell the others. Obviously this gets broken for machines I'm exploring/fixing/hacking, or with stuff I think will be good for trades. Machines I'll collect till I stop are things like Lisas, Enterprise64/128, Memotechs etc - things I really *really* wanted when I was younger and which never quite 'made it' in the real world. a

24 years, 4 months

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Keyboard for Cifer T5 terminal.

by timwa＠snowgoons.fsnet.co.uk

Paul Williams wrote: >Pete Turnbull wrote: >>On Feb 9, 13:46, Paul Williams wrote: >>>Is there any form of address for Cifer on the terminal? I don't >>>even know which country they came from. >> >> The UK. A friend of mine went to work for them for a while in the >> late '80s, but I know very little more about them. Except that they >> made some quite cool black terminals, one of which I had until >> recently. > >You actually get rid of stuff occasionally? Shocking behaviour. > >It appears that Cifer made terminals and CP/M boxes. I haven't checked >the termcaps, but it appears that some were VT100-compatible (the ones I >used at Poly) and some weren't. Not adding any useful information, but I remember using a Cifer CP/M box at school (donated by a local major pharmaceuticals company IIRC, who didn't go to any of the trouble of deleting anything :-). Came with a massive 10MB hard disk and a 5.25" floppy, and a little greenscreen all in a single unit. We opened one up (after it had blown the magic blue smoke - the foam 'filter' on the cooling fans at the back had jammed the fan blades and it overheated rather horribly.) At the time I couldn't get over the fact that it had a Z80 for the main processor, but a 68000 (IIRC) driving the display hardware... As a 680x0 bigot, that always seemed the wrong way round :-). Cheers, Tim. -- Tim Walls at home in Croydon - Reply to tim(a)snowgoons.fsnet.co.uk

24 years, 4 months

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Classic Comp UUCP network.

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Sellam Ismail [mailto:foo@siconic.com] > start a fire with two sticks. Give me a break. And the only "noise" > there is on the internet is the noise that you decide to tune in to. > The internet is pull, not push. The internet of today is ... but you can only pull in large chunks. :) Perhaps you have no more trouble finding good information than you used to -- but I have to say that everyone else I've spoken to about this has almost given up actually trying to find information. > bigger, faster, > and better than the internet of 10 years ago, infinitely more useable, > infinitely more useful, and I'm sorry but there's no going back. Well, I disagree on all points except "bigger," and "faster." :) Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

24 years, 4 months

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Dead CMOS Battery - NEC Powermate portable

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 10, 21:30, Russ Blakeman wrote: > Not sure if there were rechargable litiums but they have had, and still > have, rechargeable alkalin batteries - my son has 2 sets he swaps in/out for > his Handspring Deluxe PDA (AAA). There are rechargeable lithium batteries. One type is lithium - carbon dioxide, and some *specially-made* lithium-manganese dioxide batteries are rechargeable. Don't try to recharge ordinary ones, they *will* exlode. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

24 years, 4 months

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Dead CMOS Battery - NEC Powermate portable

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 10, 23:04, Tony Duell wrote: > > Some (mostly non-consumer type) Lithium batteries use sulfur dioxide in > > them. Not the kind of thing that you want to rupture inside your PC (or in > > But presumably in solution, not as a gas... Yes, but I'm not sure what it's dissolved in; it's not very soluble in water. Probably there's something else there to help (like dissolving iodine in potassium iodide solution). > > your house!). For the ones of you that aren't familar with the stuff, > > sulfur dioxide is nuseating and toxic, and it also reacts with moisture to > > form sulfuric acid, INCLUDING the moisture inside your lungs! > > No it doesn't. It forms sulphurous acid (H2SO3), which is a much weaker > acid than sulphuric (which is what you get if you disolve sulphur > trioxide in water). Except that SO3 isn't very water soluble either, commercially it's normally dissolved in concentrated sulphuric acid, to make more sulphuric acid. > I an not suggesting that SO2 is particularly pleasant, but I am sure most > of us here have burnt sulphur as part of a school chemistry experiment > and lived to tell the tale. It's used as a bleach, and as a preservative in foodstuffs (look for sodium metabisulphite on the label -- it releases SO2 in acidic conditions). -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

24 years, 4 months

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THE best find of the weekend!

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 10, 21:15, Steve Robertson wrote: > Speaking of Daisy Wheel printers... I prefer to use a daisy wheel for > printing plain text stuff. Currently, I have a DIABLO 630 and am having real > difficulty talking to it. Seems like when I try to print anything, I get > buffer overruns, the wrong chatracters printed, and all kind of other > errors. I have tried every possible combination of comm settings, flow > control, etc... to no avail. Does anyone know where I can find the specs for > setup and handshaking for this printer. Some... this isn't direct from Diablo docs, but from a book I have that lists lots of RS232 setups: Diablo Systems, Inc: RO 630 Pin Function Direction 1 protective ground n/a 2 transmitted data from 630 3 received data to 630 4 request to send from 630 (note 1) 5 clear to send to 630 6 data set ready to 630 (note 2) 7 signal ground n/a 8 rec. line signal detector to 630 11 printer ready from 630 (note 3) 20 data terminal ready from 630 (note 3) Note 1: Pin 4 is always on (high) Note 2: Pin 6 must be on (high) before the 630 can receive data Note 3: Pin 20 can be used instead of pin 11 for hardware flow control -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

24 years, 4 months

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This weekends finds

by tothwolf＠concentric.net

This weekend's haul still doesn't top some of the $5 boxes I've bought >from other local spots, but it seemed like a good enough haul to mention. So without further delay... 25 data books and 3 computer books for $5 20 assorted twist-lock plugs and receptacles [many are available for trade, see my earlier email] 2 12ft. mac serial cables 1 'AT&T 353A3' cable with a BNC and a RJ45 connector 1 'modem' cable for a custom application, 25-30ft. 9/25 pin 4 14 pin dip IDC ribbon headers 1 25 pin gender changer 2 pkgs sip resistor networks 1 pkg 6 50 pin IDC ribbon cable connectors 3 assorted pc boards - misc assorted components and parts in the bottom of the box 1 Glenmarc Portion-Aire PV-200VP pneumatic actuated fluid dispenser controller Each of the above items excluding assorted stuff and the books cost me $0.50ea for a grand total of $18 plus $5 for the books. Strangely enough, I purchased the foot switch for the Glenmarc unit from the same shop about 6 months ago for $4 or so. Does anyone know much about that unit? I don't have the handpieces for it, but they seem to still be available from the manufacturer. -Toth

24 years, 4 months

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Diablo 630 flow control (was Re: THE best find of the weekend!)

by fmc＠reanimators.org

"Steve Robertson" <steven_j_robertson(a)hotmail.com> wrote: > Speaking of Daisy Wheel printers... I prefer to use a daisy wheel for > printing plain text stuff. Currently, I have a DIABLO 630 and am having real > difficulty talking to it. Seems like when I try to print anything, I get > buffer overruns, the wrong chatracters printed, and all kind of other > errors. I have tried every possible combination of comm settings, flow > control, etc... to no avail. Does anyone know where I can find the specs for > setup and handshaking for this printer. RS-232 interface? I don't recall the details precisely, but I used to be responsible for a bunch of HP 2601As which were badge-engineered Diablo 630s. As shipped by HP they did not do hardware flow control. There was a jumper on the top edge of one of the boards inside the printer that got it to do some sort of hardware flow control though (I think with it driving pin 20 to indicate whether it could accept data, but I may be confusing it with other HP serial printers of the day), and this was described (somewhat oddly) in one of the manuals that came with the printer. If I had that manual in front of me I could look it up -- I can almost see it from 15 years ago, but not quite. -Frank McConnell

24 years, 4 months

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RFC: ClassicCmp Demographics/Geographics

by rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com

At 05:46 PM 2/10/02 -0500, you wrote: >On Sun, 10 Feb 2002, Doc Shipley wrote: > >> Hey. >> Along the lines of last week's "specialty" thread, I'm kind of curious >> where the various members (including and especially lurkers) live. >> Maybe more to the point, where our various machines and parts dumps >> reside.... > >Yeah, that sounds like a good/useful idea. I'd be willing to do some work >on setting this up. I could even host the database... right now, using >a server on Purdue's campus. > >> I've managed so far never to touch a database, but this strikes me as >> an interesting-enough and simple-enough first project. I'm interested >> in listing and correlating several things: > >The last time I've really played with a database was back in Windows 3.1 >days with Microsoft Access. However, I know people that know what they're >doing and could assist me ;). [I'd propose a system set up on a Linux >server, not Windows of course.] Linux, bah! Set it up on a 64k floppy drive only CPM system using DBase version 1. Joe

24 years, 4 months

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RFC: ClassicCmp Demographics/Geographics

by jeff.kaneko＠juno.com

I seem to remember reading that "Ashton" was Tate's pet parrot. . . . On Sun, 10 Feb 2002 18:04:58 -0800 (PST) "Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" <cisin(a)xenosoft.com> writes: > On Sun, 10 Feb 2002, Jeff Hellige wrote: > > The Ashton-Tate product started with dBase II...there > never > > was a version 1. Myself, I always preferred Rbase. > > There also wasn't an "Ashton" in "Ashton-Tate". George Tate just > though > that publisher names like Prentice-Hall and McGrah-Hill sounded > neat. > > > He was once asked what the best moment of his career was. He > replied that > it was building a radio controlled blimp to use for advertising > inside > Comdex. He was then asked about the worst. "finding out that we > couldn't > use the blimp in Comdex" > > ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.

24 years, 4 months

1
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semi ot: cardreader connected to a PC

by djg＠drs-esg.com

My online PDP-8 is hung off the parallel port. If you use the iopl call to set privlages to do raw IO port reads and writes (must be root) then you can directly talk to the parallel port with inb and outb from a user program. I use the 1284 mode stuff which is probably more trouble than it is worth. >From what I remember the control signals are either input or output, the outputs can all be controlled by the PC and I think read. The data lines can be bidirectional. If you want it I can send you the source for my parallel port I/O routines, email me. Also you can email if you have questions and see how much I remember. For the simpler modes the stuff I found online a couple years ago was pretty good. I don't seem to have any at hand but can dig them up if you haven't found anything good. David Gesswein http://www.pdp8.net/ -- Run an old computer with blinkenlights.

24 years, 4 months

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No one likes Otronas?

by jeff.kaneko＠juno.com

Ah, yet another valuable application of E-Bay: Spamcop. Cool. Why didn't I think of that? On Sun, 10 Feb 2002 14:47:33 -0600 (CST) Doc <doc(a)mdrconsult.com> writes: > Don't get me wrong; I do a lot of after-auction business with > resellers I found on eBay. > What I don't like is a business/person who refuses to sell the > item to > a high bidder that didn't meet reserve (entirely reasonable), offer > to > sell the item off-eBay at retail or higher (still acceptable, if > irritating), and then *continue* to offer me high-priced crap by > email > after I've requested to be taken off their list. > That's when I complain to ebay. > > Doc > ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.

24 years, 4 months

1
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10Base-FL

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 10, 15:21, Tony Duell wrote: > > It's a pain to make proper AUI cables, but if they're short, you can use > > But IMHO less of a pain than tracing faults cause by so-called AUI cables > that are nothing of the sort! <grin> No other comment neccessary or desired. > > lower-quality cable. It's multiple coax inside. You should be able to > > Is it? The drop cable I got was 4 twisted pairs. A thicker one for the > power connections and 3 more for the Tx, Rx, Collision pairs. With an > overall foil screen. Hmm... I was about to say that's one of the cheaper office-type cables. I'd forgotten that the cables are actually four individually screened twisted pairs plus a pair for power. But if yours is only a single overall screen, then it's not full-spec AUI, which is thick, about 1cm diameter or a little more, very unwieldy, and bright blue. Not that it matters if it works -- the only difference between office-rated cables and the full-spec ones is that the office-spec is limited to a maximum of 12m (possibly less for some makes) while the full-spec is rated to 50m. It does mean that for some applications, office-spec won't do; for example if you use an AUI concentrator (the best-known being a DELNI) that isn't a repeater and it has an equivalent cable length which is quite long (15m ?), so you have to be careful about the length of office cables you attach to it. > Finding the proper cable in short lengths (i.e. not a 100m reel) is the > hard part. Soldering up the DA15 connectors is pretty easy. The best way is to find a long blue AUI cable and cut it up. For some reason, I find long ones are more common than short ones. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

24 years, 4 months

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DIGI-COMP1

by dittman＠dittman.net

Wasn't someone looking for a DIGI-COMP1? I saw one on eBay: http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2001170316 -- Eric Dittman dittman(a)dittman.net Check out the DEC Enthusiasts Club at http://www.dittman.net/

24 years, 4 months

1
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RS/6000 keyboard

by vance＠ikickass.org

Hi people. I am in need of an RS/6000 keyboard. I need it soon, though. It doesn't have to be a permanent arrangement (like a sale or something), it just needs to be a loaner. I am in St. Petersburg, FL at Dave McGuire's place. Peace... Sridhar

24 years, 4 months

1
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10Base-FL

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 10, 10:10, Robert Schaefer wrote: > From: "Pete Turnbull" <pete(a)dunnington.u-net.com> > > It's a pain to make proper AUI cables, but if they're short, you can use > > lower-quality cable. It's multiple coax inside. You should be able to > > find the pinout easily enough on the 'net, eg > > I was wondering, because ISTR the conventional wisdom on cat5 patch cords is > to purchase 'em new-- more cost-effective than making & testing 'em > in-house. Yes, except if you can get the cable, (or cannibalise a very long one) it might be cheaper to make your own AUI. > The longest one I need is ~2m and the shortest would be ~.5m depending on > how flexable the cabling is. Is there a shortest allowed length? No, you can connect the transceiver directly to the computer's AUI socket without any cable at all, providing there's room, you can get at the latch, and it doesn't impose too much mechanical strain. > My wife just asked for a cable modem, so network stuff > seems a lot more interesting all of a sudden! Don't hesitate! -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

24 years, 4 months

2
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Ongoing System/36 5362 saga ... PS

by ceby2＠csc.com

PS - Forgot to mention... the family's about to grow by one. I just forked out for a 5363 little sibling to the 5362. My flat's turning into an IBM orphanage. YES!!!! SCORE!!!!!!! Colin Eby Senior Consultant CSC Consulting

24 years, 4 months

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Ongoing System/36 5362 saga

by ceby2＠csc.com

Hi again folks, I'm back again for a frantic weekend of chores and housework before heading back out on the the road doing this roadwarrior/consulting gig. Between laundrymat runs I'm trying to push forward with this 5362 project. To date, I've gotten it to IPL consistantly, read a diskette and go into diagnostic mode. I've dug up some diskettes for it -- and may in fact have the SSP here now -- that's what the labels say, but I can't confirm it. The only problem is even the SSP diskettes appear to be password protected. I don't yet have installation documentation for the beast. So I'm not sure what the initial password would be. The SSP diskettes use an account called SYSSSP. Does anyone know what the default password for that would be? I'm also working on some password cracking information I found, to try and recover the existing installation. The only problem is I don't yet have a working diagnostic diskette, and the disk doesn't have the right routines installed anymore. Meanwhile, Al Kossow, has been slaving over a hot scanner with some 5360 maintenance docs. I'm working on a PDF version of those docs. With luck and a fast spin-dryer at the laundrette, I hope to have them finished in the next week or so. There's a buttload of them, so this is taking a while -- I'm setting up bookmarked TOCs to make them manageable/navigable. I'm doing the same with the few pieces I have from my own system. A number of other list members are trying to help me out -- and I thank everyone for their assistance. You'all know who you is. Colin Eby Senior Consultant CSC Consulting

24 years, 4 months

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No one likes Otronas?

by jeff.kaneko＠juno.com

I always considered this to be a *legitimate* application of E-bay (their retarded rules not withstanding of course). These assholes can't tell me *who* I can communicate with via e-mail, or for what *purpose*! Jeff On Sun, 10 Feb 2002 03:13:28 -0600 (CST) Doc <doc(a)mdrconsult.com> writes: > I think a lot of resellers don't expect to sell on ebay, they just > want contact info of people with a demonstrated (by bidding) > interest in > their product. > > Doc > ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.

24 years, 4 months

3
2
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10Base-FL

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 10, 8:46, Robert Schaefer wrote: > I didn't know about that. Are AUI cables easily made, or are they better > purchased? I need a small handful to connect my VAXen to the DELNI anyway. > I have two of the DEC mfgr'd 10Km^H^H^H^H20m cables, and two or three that > came with the DELNI that I expected to work. Another assumption on my part > I should look into. Big thick things? They're probably OK. It's a pain to make proper AUI cables, but if they're short, you can use lower-quality cable. It's multiple coax inside. You should be able to find the pinout easily enough on the 'net, eg http://www.techfest.com/networking/lan/ethernet5.htm#5.4.2 > > What is the ORnet transceiver connected to? > > Uhhh... $PC for testing, I believe. Some NE2k clone card most likely. It > was a quick go-nogo test. Should be OK, but make sure the AUI connector is actually enabled. Most cards have several jumpers to select between AUI and whatever else is there. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

24 years, 4 months

4
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32-bit bit slice?

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On February 9, Steven M. Jones wrote: > I believe Digital's VAX-11/730 is actually implemented using > AMD's 2900-series bitslice chips. Lemme go fetch a processor > handbook and get back to you... It is indeed. As is the FP11-A board for the pdp11/34, and the FPF11 board for the pdp11/23 and pdp11/24. Am2901 chips kick ass. I really like them. Back in 1987 or so I worked at Princeton University on the Navier-Stokes Supercomputer Project. The microsequencer for the vector ALU in that machine is an Am2910. That was LOTS of fun. -Dave -- Dave McGuire St. Petersburg, FL "Less talk. More synthohol." --Lt. Worf

24 years, 4 months

4
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32-bit bit slice?

by classiccmp＠crash.com

I believe Digital's VAX-11/730 is actually implemented using AMD's 2900-series bitslice chips. Lemme go fetch a processor handbook and get back to you... --Steve. Steve Jones smj(a)spamfree.crash.com (think about it) Aspiring Curmudgeon old: ...!think!liable!steve Crash Computing, Inc. older: steve (at) yoyodyne.mit.edu

24 years, 4 months

2
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Looking for URL

by jrkeys＠concentric.net

Anyone have url or email address for the Classic Tech Eletter? Thanks

24 years, 4 months

2
1
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Getting Irix or sub OS for used SGI boxes...

by claudew＠videotron.ca

Hi all I recently started to find some SGi boxes up here. Some old (Personnal Iris 4D/20, Indigos) some not too old (Origin 200!) These could be considered a bit rarer up here in Canada. All with blank HDs of course... But now I run into the problem of finding an OS for these....since Irix is expensive and/or hard to find... Ports of NetbsdMips or Linux for Mips seem incomplete, very experimental and only support a few boxes... I wonder if that what a wise decision of SGI to keep even old obsolete versions of Irix "closely guarded" like they have... I compare with Sun Solaris and the Sun decision to make it free...doesnt that make so much sense?...when we see SGI and Sun are struggling in a PC/Windows dominated market? I also think about SGIs decision of using all the proprietary simms and dimms in almost all of their machines, how wise was that? Anyone that can help me with my hunt for a cheap and recent to semi-recent version of Irix, please contact me. Thanks Claude

24 years, 4 months

1
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OT: What am I missing?

by jhfine＠postoffice.idirect.com

I have a problem - am I the one at fault? I am upgrading to a "newer" system and one of my concerns is adequate backup. Normally, I do a full backup about once a day - or once every other day. It has been suggested that the "newer" have a "RAID 1" controller which would use two 40 GByte EIDE drives. A "RAID 1" system uses two disk drives and keeps two copies of ALL files at all times. This provides a duplicate set of images - so that even if there are only intermittent errors with one drive, I would be aware of the problems before both drives became bad and (normally) have time to make a complete backup before I replace the bad drive. However, I am experiencing two difficulties: (a) The firmware/software for the "RAID 1" controller seems to NOT have anything that will alert the user to be able to identify which disk drive might be bad even after a drive failure, let alone intermittent errors. (b) Even though my current files are (seemingly) all correct and I have two duplicate copies, when I said that I was was going to restore from my initial back-up from CD (I currently have no data files, just the installed software), I was looked at as if I was a bit crazy - why would I do a recovery if there is nothing wrong? Even though I attempted to explain that a full back-up includes the total recovery from scratch - at least a few times at the beginning to establish that the procedure works, that attitude is considered overcautious to say the least - at the worst it is: "So what if you loose all you files, you can always rebuild the system from scratch if you have to?" These individuals seem to have never heard of data files - like in a legal office, the client records don't need to be kept since everything in published law books is how to start all over again after a fire. Is this attitude common in industry? Am I wrong? I know that my wife has a cousin who works for an accountant who NEVER makes a back-up of the client files. If I am correct, is there any way to get my point across or is this a Catch-22 situation?

24 years, 4 months

4
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32-bit bit slice?

by ken＠seefried.com

Odd questions, perhaps: Was there ever a commercial 32-bit machine built with 2901s? Other bit slice devices? What is the longest word length machines done in bit-slice? Is there a practical limit to the word length of a 2901-based machine? Ken

24 years, 4 months

7
7
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What's your specialty?

by thilo.schmidt＠unix-ag.org

On 10-Feb-2002 Tothwolf wrote: > Uhm, have you checked the output voltages since you replaced the diode? If > it only works for a few seconds before it shuts down, that should be > possible. I wasn't there when they tried to repair it. So I don't know if they checked the voltages after they saw it shut down in the first place. But they where pretty sure that the error is somewhere in the control circuits and no one (me included) wanted to touch those. :-) Especially after someone (who should know) told us that it's extremly difficult to fix such a PSU even if the schematics are available... > If they are not over-voltage, maybe it is shutting down due to > no load? Many switching supplies do that... I've seen PSUs not start up at all without load, but a PSU which starts up, detects that there's no load and shuts down again? Of course that would explain the large amount of control circuits... I'll add a dummy-load and try again. I think it could also be possible that the computer somehow has to tell the PSU what to do... bye -- Try to remove the color-problem by restarting your computer several times. -- Microsoft-Internet Explorer README.TXT

24 years, 4 months

2
1
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Keyboard for Cifer T5 terminal.

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 9, 13:46, Paul Williams wrote: > Is there any form of address for Cifer on the terminal? I don't even > know which country they came from. The UK. A friend of mine went to work for them for a while in the late '80s, but I know very little more about them. Except that they made some quite cool black terminals, one of which I had until recently. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

24 years, 4 months

3
4
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old laptop BIOS???

by mrgray＠gil.com.au

press the esc key when booting to get in cmos. you can find some some info no the t2200sx at (http://pilot.ucdavis.edu/toshiba) luck to you Alan

24 years, 4 months

1
0
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10Base-FL

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 9, 21:56, Robert Schaefer wrote: > Ooops-- I assumed you had one in front of you too. ;) The raylan is a > 15-port managed concentrator with (currently) 10bFL hot-swap cards > installed. Maybe concentrator is the wrong word-- that's what was used to > describe it to me. I was going from the tranceiver directly into the > raylan. I'm pretty sure I had Rx & Tx right, as I got a link light on the > raylan, and the error on the transceiver. Bad assumption on my part. When someone mentions "concentrator", I tend to think of something with several places to connect AUI cables, and I assumed that's how you'd connected them. It's basically a repeater, with it's own transceivers (instead of just AUI) and probably management/control of individual ports. It ought to work, with Rx on one connected by fibre to Tx on the other, and v.v. > Ok. They have a three-positon DIP switch, labeled `SQE TEST', `ALTERNATE > COLL MODE' and `FULL STEP'. Does that narrow it down? SQE TEST is the "heartbeat" function, or Signal Quality Enable setting, which is normally off if connecting the AUI to any kind of repeater, otherwise on. Try it both ways. ALTERNATE COLL MODE is to do with collision detect timing. On 3Com units (and they bought ORnet/Chipcom) turning it on is the default, and arranges that a single collision-presence (CI) signal is sent to the AUI interface. If off, CI is active all the time the collision condition persists, which is the normal setting for IEEE 802.3 compliance (the 3Com setting is an optimisation for certain interface chips). FULL STEP is to do with the signal sent at the beginning of a packet. HALF STEP is normally used for 802.3 Ethernet, FULL STEP is used for DIX Ethernet. It won't hurt to try both ways. Another possibility is that you have the wrong type of AUI cable (old ones use different shielding arrangements, and most "office" type cables are way below spec) or even the wrong kind of AUI interface for this device. Still another is that your fibre is too lossy, and the transceiver is seeing something, but not recognising it (there's a continuous series of pulses at 1MHz rate when it's active). Try cleaning the ends with iso-propyl alcohol, and swap the sides over. Blow out the connectors with dry compressed air and/or IPA. What is the ORnet transceiver connected to? -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

24 years, 4 months

2
1
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Classic Comp UUCP network.

by Huw.Davies＠kerberos.davies.net.au

At 07:46 PM 9/02/2002 -0500, Julius Sridhar wrote: >I would prefer DECnet, but a lot machines don't grok DECnet. Most of mine >do, though. No reason why we couldn't do DECnet as well. As I alluded to in a previous e-mail, there are other network protocols that we should try to preserve, just like we are trying to preserve the hardware. I understand that there's a reasonable DECnet implementation for Linux as well as real implementations for lots of DEC machines :-) There's also third party DECnet stuff from Xi? we used to run DECnet on a couple of our AIX boxes to maintain connectivity to the _real_ systems running VMS (this well before I "went with the flow" and put TCP/IP on the VAXen). Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies(a)kerberos.davies.net.au | "If God had wanted soccer played in the | air, the sky would be painted green"

24 years, 4 months

2
1
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WTT: Hubbell twist-lock connectors

by tothwolf＠concentric.net

I'm sure there are other folks on the list that have systems that use twist-lock connectors, so I am posting here before I contact a surplus company to work out a trade. I have the following Hubbell twist-lock connectors that are surplus to my needs: Qty Description Hubbell Part # NEMA 4 125V 30A Insulgrip Plug HBL2611 L5-30P 3 125V/250V 20A Insulgrip Plug HBL9965C N/A 1 125V/250V 20A Insulgrip Flanged Receptacle HBL3326C N/A 1 125V/250V 30A Insulgrip Plug HBL3331C N/A 1 125V/250V 30A Insulgrip Flanged Inlet HBL3334C N/A 1 125V/250V 30A Insulgrip Flanged Receptacle HBL3335C N/A 2 125V 15A/250V 10A Insulgrip Plug [Not UL Listed] HBL7567C N/A I am looking for these connectors to get power to my old SGI systems: Qty Description Hubbell Part # NEMA 2 125V 20A Insulgrip Plug HBL2311 L5-20P 3 125V 20A Insulgrip Connector Body HBL2313 L5-20R 4 125V 20A Single Flush Receptacle HBL2310 L5-20R 2 250V 30A Insulgrip Plug HBL2621 L6-30P 2 250V 30A Insulgrip Connector Body HBL2623 L6-30R 3 250V 30A Single Flush Receptacle HBL2620 L6-30R Hubbell twist-lock catalog: http://www.hubbell-wiring.com/new/sectionb.pdf If anyone wants to make a trade, email me directly. -Toth

24 years, 4 months

1
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Classic Comp UUCP network.

by fmc＠reanimators.org

Brian Chase <vaxzilla(a)jarai.org> wrote: > For the scenerio of running a private netnews network, it'd probably > make the most sense to just use NNTP over TCP/IP. Again, the "in > network" servers would have to only allow traffic between themselves. > Maybe, we could gateway in some of the better groups from the regular > Usenet hierarchy, and then create a vunet.* (or whatever) hierarchy > which is only carried within the network. If you want to run a private netnews network, you just set up another hierarchy and control who you feed that hierarchy to. This is pretty much transport-independent and you can use either NNTP or UUCP to do the feeding. You can also run it in parallel with less-private netnews feeds (e.g. Big 8, alt, geographic hierarchies, Usenet II) and even exchange feeds for the less-private traffic with hosts that don't have anything to do with the private netnews hierarchy. The difficult bit is keeping it private. It's way too easy for a site's admin to set up a new feed of everything to a site that might not be welcome at the party, and about the only recourse that the rest of the private network has is to stop feeding the loosely administered site if its admin won't fix the leak. It is also hard to detect outgoing leaks if they do not permit posts to leak in. One rule that you must have is: no cross-posts to groups inside and outside the private hierarchy (e.g. cross-posting to alt.folklore.computers and vunet.classiccmp is not to be done and preferably not to be allowed). It is generally suggested that you set up the feed for the private hierarchy as a separate feed (separate lines in the newsfeeds file, if you're running INN) so that this rule can be enforced. It might be worth looking at http://www.usenet2.org/ and the links there as something of a how-to. > But now we're not talking about vintage computers or software. We're > talking about vintage values--where there's a global network with the > intent to further education, research, collaboration, and general > discussion (pointless or otherwise). Personally, I'm sick of the over > commercialized monstrosity that the internet has become. Yes, you really should go look at http://www.usenet2.org/ . Consider that the plan was to have a viable alternative when Usenet became unusable, which was expected to happen but didn't (hasn't yet). Usenet II exists but is not really used today. -Frank McConnell

24 years, 4 months

2
1
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10Base-FL

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 9, 16:29, Robert Schaefer wrote: > Interesting. I don't know too much about the kit I have (I would > desperately love info on the raylan fiber concentrator &| it's SNMP card) > but from what I did see it's pretty standard 10bFL. The tranceivers are > `ORnet FIBER OPTIC TRANCEIVER' by chipcom. Model 9301T-ST, about 4" x 4" x > 2", and every bit of a pound and a half. when I connected the tranceiver to > the concentrator, the diag led on the tranceiver indicated `invalid data'. > That was just the carrier-- nothing else was plugged into the concentrator. > Perhaps I didn't test it enough-- there are three DIP switches on the end. A concentrator is the wrong thing to connect it to. Is your concentrator something you would normally plug some computers into? If so, it's like several transceivers. In other words, you're plugging something meant to connect to a computer (the transceiver), into something meant to connect to a computer (the concentrator). That's like connecting two computers on a serial line with neither modems nor a null modem cable between. Does the transceiver have a male 15-pin D-connector? Does the concentrator have a female 15-pin D-connector with a slide lock, or a male one with pins? If both are male, they don't match, and it won't work. BTW, if it's ORnet, it's old, and almost certainly FOIRL not 10baseFL. The size you mention bears that out, too. 10baseFL transceivers are mostly small, about half the size of a cigarette pack. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

24 years, 4 months

2
1
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Chips on Talon board for VAX

by rdd＠rddavis.org

A while back, I posted a message about a mystery board that came with my VAX-4000/200 manufactured by a company named Talon. This board has one 15-pin connector, a couple of 32x8 SRAM chips, a 68K CPU, assorted logic chips, and a couple of chips that I can't identify, such as: - Rockwell R65NC22J4 11484-39 9244 94314-3 - is this just a Rockwell version of a 6522 interface chip? - (unknown mfr.) 9206 SC11290CN There's one area where a second, much smaller, circuit board is attached to this one with chips between the two boards; however, there are many wires soldered between the boards holding the two boards together, and I'd rather save unsoldering them all as a last resort. Any thoughts on what this board might be? -- Copyright (C) 2001 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals: All Rights Reserved an unnatural belief that we're above Nature & rdd(a)rddavis.org 410-744-4900 her other creatures, using dogma to justify such http://www.rddavis.org beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.

24 years, 4 months

3
3
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What's your specialty?

by thilo.schmidt＠unix-ag.org

On 09-Feb-2002 Tony Duell wrote: >> OK, lets say the PSU is beyond repair for me and everyone else I asked. > I've lost count of the number of 'beyond repair' things that have left my > workbench working again :-) [...] > I can't believe it's any worse than the DEC PSU in the PDP11/44. That > darn thing has _3_ independant choppers, a full H driver for the (AC) > fans, and a fair amount of control electronics. And I've managed to work > on those. OK, you win ;-) >> I'm sure it's repairable with a lot of time and many years of experience. >> But neither I nor my fellow students have that experience. > > I don't want this to sound like a flame, but surely a 'student' is > supposed to be learning. In which case you might as well learn about PSU > repair :-). When I was a Ph.D. student I learnt how to fix SMPSUs, laser > printers, and so on. Because somebody had to do it :-) I knew this would backfire... :-) Well, this discussion has motivated me enough to sit down in front of that darn PSU again :-) At least I will learn something... [...] > If the PSU will run at all, there's probably not a lot wrong with it. My > first suggestion would be (as ever) dried up electrolytics. OK, I'll take that into account. bye -- To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk. -- Thomas Edison

24 years, 4 months

2
1
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Classic Comp UUCP network.

by fmc＠reanimators.org

Ron Hudson <rhudson(a)cnonline.net> wrote: > I don't know how UUCP works, is there a good primer out > on the net somewhere? Try these: http://www.uucp.org/ http://www.airs.com/ian/uucp-doc/ uucp is really a file transfer mechanism (Unix-to-Unix CoPy) with some remote-job-execution stuff layered on top of it. One host sends a file to another host along with instructions to run some commands that use the file, e.g. "rmail" to process a received mail message or "rnews" to process a received news batch. Hosts generally have some idea about what commands they will allow other hosts to ask them to execute. uucp can use any of several different protocols; the administrators at each end of a link choose a protocol based on the sort of link (e.g. whether it's 7- or 8-bit clean, perhaps other packetization characteristics of the link). Then there's all the infrastructure that was built to make this livable when it was all you could get. If you know I'm user "fmc" at node "west", and you're "rhudson" at "cnonline", how do you get here >from there? Well, maybe you know which hosts talk to which hosts between here and there and can construct a bang-path for the route, but you probably don't. This is where the UUCP Map Project and pathalias fit in: hosts would publish uucp map entries, these map entries would get collected into regional maps by the UUCP Map Coordinator for that region, and the regional maps would get posted to comp.mail.maps every so often. Interested nodes would take a feed of this group and feed the articles to pathalias, which would work out a database of how to get there from here. This would allow you to address your mail to west!fmc, and the mail software at your end would consult the database to figure out the best way to route the mail to west, and construct a !-path from that. When that Internet thing and the domain name system caught on, it became possible to set up a domain with a mail exchanger that would know to queue received mail for that domain as uucp jobs. That is how mail to reanimators.org works: it goes to one of my uucp upstreams and I poll them every hour or so to get e-mail. This removed a lot of the need for uucp maps and pathalias, and the maps generally fell into disuse (most folks didn't bother to delete their map entries when they moved on from uucp connections to IP connections) so the UUCP Map Project shut down about two years ago. -Frank McConnell ...!daver!west!fmc

24 years, 4 months

1
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No one likes Otronas?

by Innfogra＠aol.com

It didn't sell because it was listed in the wrong categories. Fatal error. If you are interested, send him an email with an offer. This is how you find those bargains. Paxton Astoria, OR

24 years, 4 months

1
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BBS systems on PDP-11s (was: Original Searchlight bbs...)

by timwa＠snowgoons.fsnet.co.uk

rdd(a)rddavis.org wrote... > Were most others here sysops of BBSs at one time as well? This brings > back memories of BBSing back when I was in college Indeed... Happy days :-). I was sysop of Protocol BBS in lovely Horsham, Sussex, UK up until late 1993 or so. Frankly, Fidonet was more enjoyable than most stuff on the internet if you ask me :-). The phone bills were a killer though (I was zone gatewaying for Amiganet, between zone 1 and 4 IIRC (US and Europe, anyway,) so nightly international phone calls were fairly scary...) That ran on the Amiga - I forget the name of the software I used, although writing my own was my first big project in C, so in the latter days it ran on my homebrew "Panorama BBS" software... If I ever get to recover the Miggy it's probably all still on there... To drag slightly back on topic, before that I had been a great user of Compunet, Prestel & Telecom Gold (BT's X.25 network,) all via the good old Commodore modem for the C64... A roaring 300 baud half duplex, or breaking the sound barrier at 1200/75 full :-). I really hope that modem is still in the loft somewhere... Anyway... Re. the suggestions of a sort of classic private network, I'd love to be involved somehow. I've always wanted to do something like that with packet radio, but never got round to it... Cheers, Tim. -- Tim Walls at home in Croydon - Reply to tim(a)snowgoons.fsnet.co.uk

24 years, 4 months

2
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No one likes Otronas?

by jeff.kaneko＠juno.com

Well, for one thing, this guy didn't list it under classic computers category: He used 'Other Antiques' and "PC's:Other'. NG. Secondly, judging by his opening bids amounts (and the likelihood of *very* high reserves), I would say that the seller is a crack addict looking to pay for his next fix. Either that or he's on acid . . . . Jeff On Sat, 9 Feb 2002 17:04:59 -0500 "John Chris Wren" <jcwren(a)jcwren.com> writes: > Just curious if anyone has an opinion on why this didn't > move. > http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2001112267 > While I > don't know what his minimum is, seems like anything in this family > should be > worth about $100 or so, based on what Kaypros and a few others go > for. He > had it up once before, and it didn't sell. > > And I'm not interested in the merits or demerits of eBay, > reputations, yada > yada yada. I just want to know what someone thinks why a classic > like this > didn't even get bid on, except by one guy (me). > > --John > > ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.

24 years, 4 months

1
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Classic Comp UUCP network.

by classiccmp＠crash.com

Why do it? Because it's there. We run old computers, why shouldn't some of us be into old protocols as well? [only a 1/2 ;^) here] I've been thinking I want to see what if anything of Usenet (versus NetNews, remember?) was left in the area and hook into it. The first reason that comes to mind is the way non-Bell DSL providers were dropping like flies. Add to that the ever-tightening restrictions on cablemodem terms of service. I'd just like to make sure I've got a back door that'll let me get mail in and out vs. a shell account someplace. The second reason is, admittedly, conspiracy theory type stuff -- I want to be ready to set up an ad hoc net that's a little more resistant to interception and resilient in the event of disruptions. Of course the latter means I should dust off my ham radio license and look and AMPRnet as well... The third and final reason is just because it might be fun to do. Perhaps for an unusual value of "fun" I grant you -- I do seem to rememeber having a heck of a time getting my first feed up and running and I came to the party way, way late -- 1990, as I recall, with a Telebit Trailblazer (Plus?) and a Sun 3/140... Anyway, I'm up for it. Next steps? --Steve. Steve Jones smj(a)spamfree.crash.com (think about it) Aspiring Curmudgeon old: ...!think!liable!steve Crash Computing, Inc. older: steve (at) yoyodyne.mit.edu

24 years, 4 months

1
0
0 0

What's your specialty?

by thilo.schmidt＠unix-ag.org

On 09-Feb-2002 Tothwolf wrote: > On Sat, 9 Feb 2002, Thilo Schmidt wrote: >> On 09-Feb-2002 Tothwolf wrote: >> >> > I've used a dremel tool to cut/grind away carbonized areas of boards >> > and replace it with new material or wire jumpers. >> >> Good point, when I'm at the university next week, I'll try to remove >> the charred areas around the diode. > > Well, unless you know for sure that the area is indeed carbonized, and > that is causing a problem, you should leave it alone. Usually this only > causes problems for high voltage or highly sensitive parts of circuits. Of course I don't think the charred area is responsible for the PSU failure ... it wasn't even there when it failed ;-) But it may become a problem later, so I'll check if the resistance is way below a few mega Ohms and clean it if necessary. > I imagine something else took out that diode, which is still causing your > problems with the supply. Maybe that's true, but maybe the diode was there to protect something that got damaged when the diode died. Or even worse the HP9000 got damaged... But the beast is old, there are a lot of possible points of failure inside and I don't even know how the PSU behaved when it was still operational. If I could figure out if and how the PSU interacts with the computer I could put another PSU in the case. But without that knowledge I'm stuck :-( bye -- The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..." -- Isaac Asimov

24 years, 4 months

1
0
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semi ot: cardreader connected to a PC

by quapla＠xs4all.nl

This question might be somewhat OT. I'm currently making a little interface comprised of 4 TTL IC's to let my punchcard reader work with a PC (Linux). I think I have the interface made as much close as possible with regards to the signals generated by the card reader, but I need some info on the parallel port itself. I have searched the web, but not all my question are answerd with regards to the possible usage of the control and status signals. What I need to know is if all the control signals can be controlled from a program (not sure if it will be a kernel device driver or a user driver). If so, I have better control over the reader, if not, it may make the interface a bit more complicated. BTW, the program will most likely use the parallel port in EPP mode, not in ECP mode. The reader is a CR11 aka the Documentation M200, and I found the user manual with very usable schematics on www.pdp8.net. I was also fortunately to find a supplier for the connector at the back, so I didn't have to change anything of it's orginality. Thanks, Ed --

24 years, 4 months

3
2
0 0

eBay: WOW L@@K R4R3 (no, really)

by Innfogra＠aol.com

I watched it close. No Bidders. Seems to me that he doesn't want to sell them very much. He indicated they will show up individually. We shall see. Paxton Astoria, OR

24 years, 4 months

1
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