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

Pointer to commercial site for microfiche scanners

by mmcfadden＠cmh.edu

I found this on the Web www.mekel.com Makes microfiche and microfilm scanners OT: Most unusual use of a scanner, scanned x-ray film images of chicken legs, to determine bone density. Mike mmcfadden(a)cmh.edu

25 years, 11 months

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Computers available in Portland, Oregon

by fauradon＠mn.mediaone.net

Sorry I ignored the first line of your post. Wow Lots of good stuff.... Unfortunately for those of us not in the area. Anyone in Portland willing to do some brokering (sp) Francois -----Original Message----- From: Zane H. Healy <healyzh(a)aracnet.com> To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> Date: Wednesday, August 02, 2000 2:16 PM Subject: Computers available in Portland, Oregon >NOTE: If you can't pick up in the Portland, Oregon area don't bother >reading. I really do not have time to deal with shipping I'm afraid. > >OK, the time has come for me to part with a *LARGE* chunk of my collection. >I'm plaining on retaining basically all the DEC stuff and a few other >systems. However, that still leaves a LOT of systems that need to go. >There is a lot of Apple ][ systems of various models, as well as several >Apple ][ clones. A whole pile of Amiga stuff, and lots of other systems. > >A fairly complete list, that doesn't mention how many of each type I have >can be found at http://zane.brouhaha.com/healyzh/MuseumNoFrames.html The >list also doesn't mention all the manuals and other bits and pieces that >I've got for the systems. > >I'm interested in interesting trades, as I'm still looking for additional >DEC stuff (nothing to big though). I'd also be interested in cash. >Basically make an offer. I'm willing to part with just about anything in >the collection, with a few exceptions, IF the price (or trade) is right. > >Unless you can pick it up during the week in the morning, I won't be >available on weekends until the 26th most likely, though I might be able >squeeze something in on the 12th or 13th. > >There will be some DEC stuff available at a later date most likely, and I'd >currently not mind getting rid of my collection of DECmate III's, and the >Rainbow. Plus I've got a DECstation 5000/133 that I want to get rid of, >and I'd intertain offers on the PDT-11/150, PDP-11/03's, Pro380, and a >basically new TU81+. > >Basically I've been thinking about doing this for nearly a year, as my >interests have shifted from the various home systems to PDP-11's and >systems running OpenVMS. > > Zane >| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator | >| healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast | >| healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector | >+----------------------------------+----------------------------+ >| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | >| and Zane's Computer Museum. | >| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

25 years, 11 months

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Subject: Re: Scanning microfiche? (Long)

by bobcaar＠cyberdude.com

This seams like a great idea to me. If you disconected the internal light, you would have no problem doing this. You could even rig up an autoloader for it. T.H.x. Devon >>At 10:12 AM 8/1/00 -0700, Chuck McManis wrote: >>However, if you "think analog" you'll see that you can in fact scan >>these with a cheap scanner but you will need to optically expand them >>to get the gain. Using a standard darkroom enlarger with a 10x >>enlargement to a piece of onion paper on the bed of the scanner would >>work. > >Is that a day dream, or have you actually tried this >enlarger/onionskin >approach? I know using a scanner for 2D-ish 3D objects works great, >but scanning a projected image? When a transparency-adapted scanner >scans, doesn't it turn off the internal light and rely on the >transmissive light? Wouldn't you want to do the same with the >projected image? > >- - John

25 years, 11 months

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Computers available in Portland, Oregon

by healyzh＠aracnet.com

NOTE: If you can't pick up in the Portland, Oregon area don't bother reading. I really do not have time to deal with shipping I'm afraid. OK, the time has come for me to part with a *LARGE* chunk of my collection. I'm plaining on retaining basically all the DEC stuff and a few other systems. However, that still leaves a LOT of systems that need to go. There is a lot of Apple ][ systems of various models, as well as several Apple ][ clones. A whole pile of Amiga stuff, and lots of other systems. A fairly complete list, that doesn't mention how many of each type I have can be found at http://zane.brouhaha.com/healyzh/MuseumNoFrames.html The list also doesn't mention all the manuals and other bits and pieces that I've got for the systems. I'm interested in interesting trades, as I'm still looking for additional DEC stuff (nothing to big though). I'd also be interested in cash. Basically make an offer. I'm willing to part with just about anything in the collection, with a few exceptions, IF the price (or trade) is right. Unless you can pick it up during the week in the morning, I won't be available on weekends until the 26th most likely, though I might be able squeeze something in on the 12th or 13th. There will be some DEC stuff available at a later date most likely, and I'd currently not mind getting rid of my collection of DECmate III's, and the Rainbow. Plus I've got a DECstation 5000/133 that I want to get rid of, and I'd intertain offers on the PDT-11/150, PDP-11/03's, Pro380, and a basically new TU81+. Basically I've been thinking about doing this for nearly a year, as my interests have shifted from the various home systems to PDP-11's and systems running OpenVMS. Zane | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator | | healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast | | healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

25 years, 11 months

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HP 35401 protocol extensions ?

by jate＠uwasa.fi

Hello all! Does anyone know of the autochanger extensions for HP 35401 eight tape jukebox ? It's based on an HP 9144 cartridge drive and is compatible with it in normal operation, but I can't find the autochanger extensions *anywhere*! I'm hoping to write a driver for NetBSD and I have it working in "9144-mode", I'd just like to use the changer too:) If nothing helps I'll just chuck it back to my screaming dual-processor, WIN/TCP enabled HP 9000/550:) TIA, -- Jarkko Teppo jate(a)uwasa.fi

25 years, 11 months

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Discontinued IC's: Fairchild (?) MB15604; FPGA?

by xds_sigma7＠hotmail.com

Tony, Yeah, I think it is something gross like a mask-rom or somethin, I used to have one of those chips and never could find any info.. neat package though (pga, has a shiny silver colored square in middle). Anyway, yes, the logo is for Fujitsu, and the MB prefix is also an indicatiton of it being a Fujitsu part. Fairchild's logo is more of an italicized F.. Will J ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com

25 years, 11 months

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Classic gaming

by jfoust＠threedee.com

MSNBC story on classic gaming: http://www.msnbc.com/news/439998.asp - John

25 years, 11 months

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Radio Shack Wire-Wrapping Tool

by healyzh＠aracnet.com

A week or two ago I expressed my doubt that you could still get Wire-Wrapping tools from Radio Shack. Well, I got one on Sunday, so I figured I'd share the part number since the stores ar clueless for the most part (I was dumbfounded to find someone that more or less knew what I was talking about). Wire-Wrapping Tool P/N: 276-1570A It's one of the little ones that looks a little like a Jewelers screwdriver, and it cost a whole $7.49 so needless to say I was just a little bit happy. Now I can finally redo the serial ports on the DLV-11J in my PDP-11/73 :^) Zane | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator | | healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast | | healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

25 years, 11 months

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Discontinued IC's: Fairchild (?) MB15604; FPGA?

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

The CPU card in the Prime 2455 uses 17 pin-grid-array packages with what I think is the Fairchild hallmark (an 'F' with a bar above and a bar below), and the part number is MB15604. Is this an FPGA? Can anyone point me to a datasheet for this device, somewhere on the net, perhaps? Or, failing that, a copy in some format? tia, -doug quebbeman

25 years, 11 months

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PDP-11/34 & RK05 Questions

by pdp-11＠swbell.net

I am getting my PDP-11/34 and my RK05 disk drives and packs tommorrow, and I have a few questions.They have have been in storage for years, and, although they have been kept dry, they are probably dusty. Can anyone tell me how to clean the drives and the disk packs before I use them? Thanks, Owen

25 years, 11 months

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EPROM Folly (was: Re: Discontinued IC's:...

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

* Basically, it's an FAMOS-based EPROM chip in a plastic package and can be * programmed by a regular EPROM programmer - but as it's got a plastic * package, it can't be erased or reprogrammed (hence the addition of OTP) - * If it can't be erased or reprogrammed, why not just call the damn thing a * PROM?????????????????? Two ways to erase: 1. Just wait a long time. The bits will start fading after a few decades, maybe in a good chunk of a millenium they'll all be set back to the factory state :-). 2. X-Rays. Lotsa lotsa X-rays. Tim.

25 years, 11 months

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Unusual Power Cord

by mbillian＠erols.com

I recenlty wrote a posting in search of an unusal power cord and some missing keys for a Compucorp 140 calculator. After contacting many collectors on the net who didn't know of a source for the cord, I found one at a shop in California. If anyone's interested they can be bought unused for $8 at: Mercury Document Imaging Company, Inc. Joel F. Volk (818) 782-1221 www. PanasonicCopiers.com (Office Systems) www.MercuryBizSupplies.com (Office Supplies) "power cord (fits 1 in dia socket with 3 pins in equilateral triangle on 3/8" spacing), 'chg sign' key, 'reset' key and the key with 2 bell shaped curves on it (or a complete junk unit)". Mitch Billian

25 years, 11 months

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Fujitsu IC Info needed

by Innfogra＠aol.com

Does anyone have a listing of Fujitsu chips? I have a bunch of MB15140s that I would like to know what they are. I believe they were used on the 8" Hard Drive line. I have had other Fujitsu chips but have never seen an index. Thanks. Paxton

25 years, 11 months

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Discontinued IC's: Fairchild (?) MB15604; FPGA?

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> The first time I was exposed to programmable logic it was with "PAL"s. > These are fuse programmed and-or-invert gates tied to an array of > interconnects. The term PAL was trademarked by the parent company (whose > name escapes me at the moment MMD?, but AMD bought them) and so the generic TI's PALs have their numbers printed on the chip as PAL162LA, etc., so I would have guessed TI... -dq

25 years, 11 months

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Another reason to preserve systems

by rdd＠smart.net

Greetings, A short while ago, I just thought of yet another reason to preserve computer equipment, particularly that which is the most durable. While doing some research for someone else pertaining to application service providers (ASPs) - which I don't like, I began thinking of things mentioned by Sun and Microsoft that give me the creeps: the thought of programs, applications, operating systems and, worse yet, one's own data, aacessed by, and stored somewhere on, the Internet, not locally. A user would have no control over one's files. If enough people will be foolhardy enough to fall for the marketing hype, and begin using "network appliances" instead of computers, 10, 20, or 30 years from now, will home computers with local mass storage even be sold, or be legal to own, for that matter? After all, we know what mindless sheep most people appear to be when it comes to following the herd and not thinking for themselves. BTW, what I've been researching is the danger of the use of ASPs for medical claims processing, and when one begins digging into this, one begins to see the commercial and governmental interests involved in people's medical records, and it's not nice. There's the problem with non-objective medical information presented by web sites such as WebMD/Healtheon (which also want to process medical claims as ASPs) due to conflicts of interest who have advertisers and shareholders to consider. For those in the US, some may be surprised when they learn the realities of HCFA and the HIPAA, and how much privacy they stand to lose by laws promoted by certain politicians (including the president) as increasing privacy, when they really do just the opposite - not to mention the temporary moratorium on national IDs for everyone to be used for medical purposes, ...then there's the work towards the creation of a national database for medical records. I won't even begin to touch on such areas as the commercial and governmental influences involved with the A.M.A. (no wonder many physicians don't belong to it!) and conflicts of interests that affect nonpprofit web sites such as Intellihealth (look into its connections with Aetna, and what Aetna has done to people's health with it's HMOs) and Medem. Before anyone flames me, please look into this yourself if you value your health and the confidentiality of your medical records... then express your concerns to your physician. -- R. D. Davis rdd(a)perqlogic.com http://www.perqlogic.com/rdd 410-744-4900

25 years, 11 months

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microfiche and scanning

by Innfogra＠aol.com

In a message dated 8/1/2000 1:00:15 PM Pacific Daylight Time, jim(a)calico.litterbox.com writes: > Get a photographic enlarger and hack the film holder > to hold the fiche, then blow the fiche up optically to 12x17 The trouble with this is the time to do it. 10,000 fiche is at least 40, 000 pages. Doing this manually would take years of spare time. For a large volume the best answer is to invest in one of the Canon Fiche to CD-ROM Printers that has been mentioned earlier. I know a couple of people who do this as a service business (and have been doing it for several years now). The equipment should be available used if one wants to save money. I have contacts in the microfilm equipment business if you want to contact me offline. Paxton

25 years, 11 months

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Commodore 64 available

by spc＠armigeron.com

I received the following from a friend on another mailing list (not computer related) and thought I would forward it here. Please respond directly to Rosalie if you are interested. -spc (Thought you guys might be able to help her) Forwarded message: > From trailpal(a)mailcity.com Thu Jul 27 20:25:48 2000 > To: spc(a)armigeron.com > Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 17:25:01 -0700 > From: "trail pal" <trailpal(a)lycos.com> > Message-ID: <LOEBMBGPIOHNEAAA(a)mailcity.com> > Mime-Version: 1.0 > X-Sent-Mail: off > Reply-To: trailpal(a)lycos.com > X-Expiredinmiddle: true > X-Mailer: MailCity Service > Subject: Re: [dw] UPS rant > X-Sender-Ip: 134.4.50.89 > Organization: Lycos Communications (http://comm.lycos.com:80) > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > Content-Language: en > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > Sean - > > I have a commodore 64 from around 1980, plus associated printer, tapedrive, diskdrive, joysticks, and software. Any ideas on : > a) possiblity of working? > b) possibility of selling it to someone? > Oh, yeah, I also have books on programming the 4-voice midi synth in it and something called a "memory map". > > Just wondering whether to hang onto it or find it a better home. > > Rosalie

25 years, 11 months

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microfiche and scanning

by jim＠calico.litterbox.com

Since y'all are talking seriously expensive hardware ($50,000 and up), here's a much cheaper thought. Get a photographic enlarger and hack the film holder to hold the fiche, then blow the fiche up optically to 12x17. This quadruples the size and thereby reduces the necessary reslolution from 5000x5000 to 1250x1250, which a top end consumer scanner or midrange pro scannershould be able to do. The scanner may set you back a thousand dollars or more, but the other 49,000 buys a lot of photographic paper and chemicals... -- Jim Strickland jim(a)DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- BeOS Powered! -----------------------------------------------------------------------

25 years, 11 months

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SCSI settings HP 7980 S tapedrive

by fmc＠reanimators.org

wanderer <wanderer(a)bos.nl> wrote: > Does anyone know how to change the SCSI id settings on a HP 9 track > tapedrive model 7980 S? It's current setting is 3 but that is > conflicting with my disk. There is no thumbwheel and there are > no visible jumpers to find. It's on the front panel. You press: You see: OPTION TEST * NEXT CONF * NEXT INFO * NEXT ID * ENTER ID (blinking #) Hmm, I would think you could press PREV and NEXT to cycle through at this point, and ENTER to set the ID, but the drive I'm fiddling with (actually a Tandem 5160) doesn't want to let me use PREV or NEXT here -- I bet I have to play with a CONF option to unlock the SCSI ID. And I don't have the manual handy right now. -Frank McConnell

25 years, 11 months

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Remote Services Consoles REVEALED!

by agraham＠ccat.co.uk

Chuck wrote: > I found DEC document EK-KCRSC-FS-001 "Remote Services Console: Field > Service Manual." Sometimes I'm sure God is a computer collector. So if I pray I might find that boxed Jupiter Ace then? :) > The dial in line uses the DDCMP protocol to insure data > integrity. I'm not > sure what this means in terms of being able to dial it from a PC. You won't be able to unless you've got DECnet running on your PC AND have some form of DDCMP protocol stack.......it's asynchronous DECnet. a

25 years, 11 months

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Switch-Mode PSU Failure Modes, Repairs, & Parts Substitutions

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

Good Morning, I hope everyone had a great weekend, I sure did (not Classic-Computer related so I won't bore anyone with the details)... Subsequent to my first post about my Prime PSU, Don Maslin sent me a howto on repairing switchers, that was written by Keith Lofstrom. The howto is fairly comprehensive, but does assume that most repairs are taking place due to bad PSU design. I'm not sure mine failed due to bad design. It was dusty, and after I removed it, I found that the 2455 cabinet has an interestingly-design set of airflow guides that's above the cage; it's basically a sheet of thick plastic with holes in it, so that the dual-squirrel-cage blower dumps air into the cage through these holes. While there was some airflow, once the PSU was out, I could see that many of the holes were clogged up with dust and lint, and thus I think the PSU simply overheated inside the cage. One additional data point that I thought I'd mentioned, but may not have, is that: The system was up and running fine, no evidence of any problems. I shut the system down that night, and then the next day when I turned it on, I got nothing. I did not see any evidence that the PSU briefly came on and then died; it simply never came on. >From what I've gathered from the comments posted about switcher operation, and from Keith's howto, it seems like something failed that is part of getting the secondary supplies "jump-started" to an up-and-running state. So, as long as it was powered up, it would continue to operate. But once I turned it off, the portion of the PSU (something between the primary and secondary supplies? Something like that big power resistor, maybe?) that gets the secondaries going, couldn't get them going. So, has anyone else been in a similar position? Do I have a fair chance of simply replacing the parts I've found that failed, reinstalling it, and being successful? There is a 5v adjustment that needs to be made before bringing the system up all the way, and while I hate to use the system itself as a dummy load, I don't have the Prime bus pinout, so I can't easily determine what's what. One of the things Keith discusses in the howto is about parts substitutions. Most of his comments are w/r/t transistors and the like, and he suggests using as replacements devices that have voltage and current capacities that are increased over the part that failed. He goes on to say you need to test each such substition with a curve tracer before finalizing each such substition. However, I don't think any semiconductors failed for me. He says that in a good design, there are some power resistors protecting the switcher transistors, and from my examination to date, it appears that Prime did in fact put these in the design. I'm going to remove the other 3 of the 4 that are in that area to be sure whether any did or did not go open-circuit, as there is significant thermal discoloration of the underside of the PCB in that area. How reasonable a course of action is this? What's likely to happen should a problem still be present? I'm thinking that worst case, the parts that failed will just quickly fail again, putting me back at square one. As always, thanks in advance for any help y'all can give me! regards, -doug quebbeman

25 years, 11 months

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Info Needed: QBus board

by kyrrin＠bluefeathertech.com

I have a dual-height QBus board from Micro Technology that I cannot identify. I suspect it's a tape/disk/both controller. Model is MQD19. It has the following headers: 2x10-pin, 1x20-pin, 1x34-pin, 1x60-pin. Any ideas? Thanks much. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner and head honcho, Blue Feather Technologies http://www.bluefeathertech.com // E-mail: kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com Amateur Radio: WD6EOS since Dec. '77 "Our science can only describe an object, event, or living thing in our own human terms. It cannot, in any way, define any of them..."

25 years, 11 months

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FREE: TEK 611 Storage Display Unit manual

by jott＠saturn.ee.nd.edu

Hello - I have a TEK 611 Storage Display Unit Instruction Manual free for shipping charges. john -- ************************************************************************ * * * * John Ott * Email: jott(a)saturn.ee.nd.edu * * Dept. Electrical Engineering * * * 275 Fitzpatrick Hall * * * University of Notre Dame * Phone: (219) 631-7752 * * Notre Dame, IN 46556 USA * * * * * ************************************************************************

25 years, 11 months

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Back to the A1097C monitor again

by agraham＠ccat.co.uk

Dick wrote: > Take a close look, think about it, and see if you'd rather do > that than just > letting it sit with the hardware it's supposed to go with. ATM I just haven't got the time to dedicate to that sort of project. Even when my gf and little one go to the US this week (she's a US citizen) I've got 110 other projects to do including a new bathroom! At least I'm in the museum room proper though, unfortunately I've discovered I've got enough stuff to fill it 3 times over! This means I've got to rent storage space.......

25 years, 11 months

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Looking for E&L Instr. MMD-1

by arrigo＠vision.caltech.edu

Dear all, I'm looking for an E&L Instr. MMD-1 with the original manual in the 3-ring binder with blue plastic cover. I would also be happy to find manual alone or a copy of the schematics and monitor sorce code listing. Of course I'm also interested in the MMD-2. Thanks in advance, -Arrigo

25 years, 11 months

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4004 manual needed (fwd)

by vcf＠siconic.com

Can anyone help this guy out? Apparently, he's from Brazil. It's cool to see folks down in South America getting into the Classic Computer thing. Reply-to: gandalf.the.wizard(a)zipmail.com.br ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2000 16:13:15 -0300 From: gandalf.the.wizard(a)zipmail.com.br To: vcf(a)vintage.org Subject: Old Manual Greetings!! Congratulations for your home page! It is really the best resource I've seen about old computers. I am looking for a electronic version (.pdf, .doc, etc.) of the manual of the MCS-4 kit. As I know it was based on Intel 4004 microprocessor, used the 4001 ROM and 4002 RAM. I found some scanned pages of data sheets of these chips at http://www.piercefuller.com/collect/i4004/, but could not find the manual of the entire kit. I also find some parts of the manual, but they were not complete. Some chapters and tables were missing. (http://digiweb.com/~hansp/ccc/machines/mcs-4/index.htm). I also searched Intel's site, but found nothing. I will apreciate any help you can give. Thank you. Best regards, Ricardo Mecelis ________________________________________ Promocao Dia dos Pais PDA daVinci - Assistente pessoal digital onde seu pai podera utilizar para diversas ocasioes por apenas R$399,00 na MicroSite. Compre agora. http://www.microsite.com.br/produto.phtml?id=2443?&prop=1905 Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details!

25 years, 11 months

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Whatever happened to the Flat-Pack (was Re: Discontinued IC's)

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

> There's also the weird secondary market that exists because of military > programs. TI has previously sold the IP and remaining dies for end-of-life > parts to other firms who then either continue production or package the > dies to meet military needs -- which is great if you need something in > a flat-pac... Whatever happened to the flat-pac? It seems to me to be a package that has many of the same advantages of modern SOIC's, but maybe 30 years ahead of its time. Was it a manufacturability issue? Was it a "proprietary" issue? The flat-pacs I worked with were ceramic or ceramic/gold, but it seemed pretty straightforward to me to do the same thing with plastic. Am I wrong? Besides, many of the flat-pac pinouts were different than the DIP pinouts, and this was actually a good thing in the case of many TTL IC's which had power and ground pins in weird places... It seems to me that in most cases SOIC IC's follow the DIP pinout (though I'm sure there are exceptions.) Tim.

25 years, 11 months

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Scanning microfiche?

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

Not so much related to classic hardware directly, but instead the *documentation* for classic hardware *and* software: OK, let's say I've got a couple thousand sheets of microfiche, 4" x 5". Each sheet contains ~200 paper pages of text and drawings. I want to digitize at least part of this, possibly OCR'ing it too. Each 8.5" x 11" printed page on the microfiche is about 0.15" x 0.2", so the magnification factor is about 50. That means if I want the equivalent of a 75 DPI scan of the full-size version, that I need to scan the microfiche at about 4000 DPI. The el-cheapo (i.e. a couple hundred $) scanners I see on the shelves here seem to top out at 2400 DPI. And 4000 DPI is the "minumum acceptable" number in my above calculation. If I can do 4 times better than that, so much the better. In my experience most 75 DPI scans of 8.5" x 11" text don't OCR well at all, you need more resolution. So what are my choices for higher-resolution scanners? My *other* hobby happens to be large-format photography, so if the resulting scanner is also good for 4" x 5" negatives and/or transparencies I won't complain :-). It looks like there are 35mm film scanners with 2700 or 3000 DPI resolutions available for a few thousand, but I think I need to do better than that. Of course, I can go in the darkroom and enlarge the microfilm, but doing that for each of the thousands of sheets is going to be tedious. Yeah, I know, it's already a tedious job! Finally, do *any* scanners have documented interfaces? i.e. say I find myself a nice SCSI-connected high-speed high-resolution scanner. Am I going to be reduced to point-and-drool with Windows 98, or can I actually hook the scanner up to a real computer? We're talking about many tens or hundreds of gigabytes of data here, so I'm willing to invest some effort to automate the acquire/compress/archive process. Tim.

25 years, 11 months

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HP82161 tape splicer??

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> > > Has anyone ever seen a splicing jig and tape (or any other form of repair > > > kit) for the tape cassettes (HP82176??) used in the HP82161 tape drive. > > > I'm trying to read some old tapes and the magnetic tape on one of them > > > has come unstuck from the leader. I think it would be possible to stick > > > them together again. > > > > How wide is the tape? If it's not too narrow, you could try 1/2" audio > > I think I've been lucky for once. I cracked open the cassette and extracted > the ends of the tape. I held them against the tape in a random > compact cassette [1] and they seem to be the same width. Which means I > can use a cassette tape splicing block and tape. I know I have one of > those _somewhere_, but even if I can't find it, I don't think they're > particularly hard to get... I've not tried it yet, but it's > well worth a try. I'm a little surprised that some digital casettes were manufactured using the sonic-welding technique, instead of using screws to hold together the shell halves. FWIW, they do make digital cassette with screw assemblies. And yes, as you've discovered, digital cassette tape is the same width as audio casette tape. The differences are in the oxide formulation. Digital casette tape needs little in the way of frequency response, and the response curve should be as flat as possible, whereas (IIRC) audio casette tape tends to bump up the low and high ends. Also, digital tape needs a very low dropout rate, so they end up with a more uniform oxide coating. And, I've never seen them use metal or chromium dioxide for digital cassettes. Lastly, the substrate needs not to stretch, so long tape lengths are out. regards, -dq

25 years, 11 months

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Part Needed (not quite 10 years old)

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

In a message dated 7/31/00 4:21:30 PM Eastern Daylight Time, pechter(a)pechter.dyndns.org writes: > Folks -- > > This may be off topic -- but I'm looking for a power adapter > IBM P/N 85G6670 (IBM Field Service FRU 85G6689) for an IBM 755CSD > laptop. > > Does anyone have a source? dont have one to spare, but a power supply from a 360 and any 750 or 755 series will also work for you. DB Young ICQ: 29427634 hurry, hurry, step right up! see the computers you used as a kid! -> www.nothingtodo.org

25 years, 11 months

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SCSI settings HP 7980 S tapedrive

by wanderer＠bos.nl

Does anyone know how to change the SCSI id settings on a HP 9 track tapedrive model 7980 S? It's current setting is 3 but that is conflicting with my disk. There is no thumbwheel and there are no visible jumpers to find. Thanks, Ed -- The Wanderer | Geloof nooit een politicus! wanderer(a)bos.nl | Europarlementariers: zakken- http://www.bos.nl/homes/wanderer | vullers en dumpplaats voor Unix Lives! windows95/98 is rommel! | mislukte politici. '96 GSXR 1100R / '97 TL1000S | See http://www.bos.nl/homes/wanderer/gates.html for a funny pic. of Gates!

25 years, 11 months

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Need Thermistor Cross-Reference

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

Hello, I need a cross-reference for a part which Tony has identified as a thermistor; it carries the printed designation MCI 307138 and that's it. I found a company called Midwest Components that makes a line of thermistors they call Thermodisc, but after contacting them, they indicated that this was not a part of theirs and might not be a thermistor. As an alternative... There is an undamaged one on the main board. If I remove it, can someone suggest a way to determine its specifications by use of a test circuit of some kind? tia, -doug quebbeman

25 years, 11 months

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Scanning microfiche?

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> I was thinking (I could be wrong) that a scanner could take in the whole > 4" x 5" microfilm sheet at once, and then I could write some software that would > parse the whole-sheet image into frames, do some automatic cleanup on each > individual frame, and compress. Am I walking down the wrong path? Yes.

25 years, 11 months

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Chieftain or Gimix?

by dogas＠leading.net

From: Sellam Ismail <foo(a)siconic.com> Subject: Chieftain or Gimix? There's two I'd kinda like to buy or swap time on... I have some TSC software that might work fine on them. Were there derivitave OSes for either of them? One Cheiften passed by a long time ago on ebay and advertised a 68000 processor. Cool. wow - Mike: dogas(a)leading.net

25 years, 11 months

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HP82161 tape splicer??

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jul 30, 18:37, Tony Duell wrote: > Has anyone ever seen a splicing jig and tape (or any other form of repair > kit) for the tape cassettes (HP82176??) used in the HP82161 tape drive. > I'm trying to read some old tapes and the magnetic tape on one of them > has come unstuck from the leader. I think it would be possible to stick > them together again. How wide is the tape? If it's not too narrow, you could try 1/2" audio splicing tape (thin self-adhesive mylar tape, usually white or yellow). The technique is to butt the two ends together, tape over (the non-oxide side!) with the adhesive tape at right angles to the tape, and trim with a razor blade or fine scissors. For 1/4" or bigger magnetic tape, I usually trim the join very slightly narrower than 1/4" to help prevent binding. I've done this successfully on compact cassette tape (1/8"), microcassette tape, and 1/2" magtape and VHS video tape -- the latter usually to put the leader back on if it's snapped. > No, I wouldn't trust the result for very long, but it might be good > enough for me to recover the few files on said tape that I didn't manage > to read before it broke... -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

25 years, 11 months

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Scanning microfiche?

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

* Assuming you're scanning old DEC fiche, might there be a way * to reduce the cost by making the final electronic copies * available for sale to others? It might also make sense to * put the collection online and sell subscriptions or one-shot * looks to view it. Or does Compaq refuse to allow * redistribution of these old docs? There certainly isn't any problem with distributing *existing* fiche. The problem comes with new copies, especially when the copies get distributed. What I'd like to do, as a first step, is to take the fiche with all the pocket service manuals and get those onto CD-R in some form. Then work out a deal with DEC so I can give away those CD-R's just like I give away PDP-10 and PDP-11 DECUS freeware CD's. I don't want to make any money off this, and in fact I think it'd be wrong to make any money off it :-). Tim.

25 years, 11 months

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HP82161 tape splicer??

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

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25 years, 11 months

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Scanning microfiche?

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

*>As for the $0.07 per page, maybe Tim should indeed buy his own scan/copying *>machine for many thousands of bucks. Well, I already do have a fiche viewer, I was just looking at a way of making it more widely available, and making it digital, with the intention of putting it on modern/denser digital media as time goes on. I can duplicate/enlarge the fiche in my darkroom, the material cost for a duplicate 4"x5" sheet is about $0.50. The stuff prints onto conventional photographic paper really nicely, although at about $0.50 per 8"*10" print it isn't cheap to do even a single sheet of fiche (somewhere between $50 and $100) photographically. Those Xerox-machine based page-printers are the real winner costwise, though I'm not real happy with the printed pages I've had made for me in the past quality-wise. As to the quantities, there seem to be about 250 fiche sheets in a one-inch stack, and my stack is about 18" high. That's 250*18=4500 pieces of fiche. And each piece of fiche is somewhere between 50 and 200 printed pages of text; that's about 450 thousand printed pages, by my calculations, using an average of 100 printed pages per fiche. In my experience, a 300 DPI scan of a page of text or line drawings reduces down to about a 30 Kbyte GIF. As Eric pointed out, there are more efficient ways to compress images, maybe 10Kbytes is reasonable. 10 Kbytes * 450000 pages = 4.5 Gigabytes. So it'd fit on a 8 or so CD-ROM's. As a smaller sub-example: The stack of fiche containing all the PDP-11 related pocket service manuals (CPU's, boxes, terminals and peripherals) is only about 45 pieces of fiche. They're packed pretty full, so that's about 10000 printed pages. They'd all fit nicely onto a fraction of single CD-ROM, by my calculations, even if it was as crude as a 30 kByte .GIF per page. OCR would be nice for keyword searching, too... * I would certainly kick in $1K toward such a project. My experience is that * you _have_ to have an auto scanner, this move/frame/press stuff is just too * hard to keep your brain focussed. I was thinking (I could be wrong) that a scanner could take in the whole 4" x 5" microfilm sheet at once, and then I could write some software that would parse the whole-sheet image into frames, do some automatic cleanup on each individual frame, and compress. Am I walking down the wrong path? Tim.

25 years, 11 months

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Kewl new find

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jul 29, 19:56, Tony Duell wrote: > > http://www.siconic.com/crap/BMC-1.jpg > > http://www.siconic.com/crap/BMC-2.jpg > > http://www.siconic.com/crap/BMC-3.jpg > > http://www.siconic.com/crap/BMC-4.jpg > > http://www.siconic.com/crap/BMC-5.jpg > > http://www.siconic.com/crap/BMC-6.jpg > > The right-hand side has three DIN connectors, labelled L-PEN (lightpen), > > TV (probably an RF connector), A-CMT (?). Finally, there is a DB-25 > > CMT _might_ be a for a cassette recorder. Firstly that would be an > 'expected' interface on this sort of machine, and I think I've seen a > similar label in some Epson or Sharp manuals > It would be unusual to have RF on a DIN connector -- I'd expect composite > video, or maybe separate video and sync. How many pins are on this > connector? And are there any connectors (again, how many pins) on the > C-CRT board? Tony, if you can't view the JPEGs that Sellam put up, I can tell you that they show: the L-PEN socket is a 180-degree 5-pin DIN the TV socket is a 6-pin DIN the A-CMT socket looks like an 8-pin DIN (same form factor as a 7-pin DIN) the RS-232C socket is a DB-25S the socket on the back of the FDD card is a 34-pin 3Com header, like the ones on a Beeb the socket on the back of the C-CRT card is single-in-line 18-pin connector, looks like about 0.1" pitch, male pins, green shroud with male pins, keyed by having cutouts in two corners (in the same way a 64-pin DIN header is keyed) -- I can't remember what these are called but I've seen them before. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

25 years, 11 months

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Any sources for used raised flooring?

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jul 29, 20:17, Eros, Anthony wrote: > With any luck, I may be putting up a small building to use as a computer > room in the next few months. It won't be huge (24 x 12), but I'm toying > with the idea of putting a raised floor in it. Does anyone know of a source > for surplus raised flooring? That's not very much bigger than mine. I got mine from someone (in the UK) who clears commercial/industrial buildings before they're reused or demolished. It was very cheap (compared to new prices) but there was a fair amount of work involved in cleaning the glue off the old supports, checking all the screw threads, cutting the supports to the right length [1], sorting out the damaged/warped panels [2] and those that were slighly odd sizes (mine are nominally 600mm square but a few turned out to be 590 x 600 or 610 x 600, presumably for edges). And don't forget that you need different supports for edges and corners, for most types. BTW, the same source I used had lots of fancy lighting fittings, suspended ceilings, air ducting and fittings, electrical fittings (including floor boxes), doors, etc at knockdown prices. Since there's a lot of metal in the supports, and the panels are normally steel-clad, you might indeed find something at a scrapyard, as Sellam suggests. One of my friends got secondhand flooring from a university that was moving its computer room. Ask around -- I've heard of places that take up the floor and fill it in with concrete screeding to reuse the room. If you can make your want known before that happens, you have the opportunity to remove the panels and supports. If you get second-hand flooring, mail me for tips. I now know more than I really wanted to about the do's and don't of secondhand computer floors :-) It *is* worth doing, though, if you can find some. I'm really pleased with mine now it's all done. [1] You might not have to do this -- my floor had originally been raised about 20" high and I only wanted a little over 6". [2] The panels are pretty heavy, and if not stacked sensibly -- mine were in 8' high stacks -- they have a tendency to warp over a long period of time. Warped tiles mean uneven floors or tiles that rock slightly. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

25 years, 11 months

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FW: Got some old Q-Bus boards here. Any value? Anybody want to make offers?

by kyrrin＠bluefeathertech.com

Heads up, LSI-11/PDP-11 folk: Found this on Usenet. I've dealt with Ben on other stuff, and have found him to be very reliable and quick with shipping. If you want any of the stuff listed, contact him quick! He may end up sending it the gold scrapper otherwise. -=-=-=- <snip> -=-=-=- In article <3983748d.32999379(a)news.ma.ultranet.com>, you say... > Subject: Got some old Q-Bus boards here. Any value? Anybody want to make offers? > From: benmyers(a)ultranet.com (Ben Myers) > Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec > > I picked up some old Q-bus gear locally here today. Several systems, > two of which are home-grown, mounted on large sheets of particle > board. Many are DEC boards, some are made by long-gone companies, > names I do not even recognize with my longevity in this business. > Here's what I've got in DEC boards. Some boards are full-width with 4 > edge connectors. Other are half-width with 2 edge connectors. > > First, the half-width cards, showing quantity, part#, description: > (2) M8017 (50-12499, ASYNCHRONOUS LINE INTR) > (4) M8047 (50-13128, 32K 18-bit MOS MEM) > (3) M7270 (50-13004, LSI-11 CPU) > (3) M7941 (50-11573, PARALLEL LINE INPUT) > (1) M8186 (50-13326, KDF11 CPU) > > Now for the full-width cards, one of each: > M8012 (50-12569, BOOT TERMINATOR AND DIAGNOSTIC MODULE) > M7948 (50-11994, LSI-11 FOUNDATION MODULE) > M8189 (50-14313, KDF11-B) > > If you're also interested in the non-DEC Q-Bus boards, let me know. > > Oh, yeah. Also a Maxtor XT1140 disk drive, a venerable Seagate > ST251-1, an apparent Rodime drive, a Micropolis 1304, a DEC RZ57, and > a pair of 8" floppy diskette drives. > > I also have a couple of backplane/card cage items. > > Worse comes to worse, I can always pull the gold chips, sell the whole > collection to my corner electronic scrap dealer. But if you can put > it to good use, make me an offer on one or all boards. All boards > APPEAR to be in good condition, but I can't give any warranties on > this stuff... Ben > > > Ben Myers > Spirit of Performance, Inc. > 73 Westcott Road > Harvard, MA 01451 > tel: 978-456-3889 > eFax: 810-963-0412 (preferred; to send a fax, use like any FAX number) > fax: 978-456-3937 > MC, VISA, AMEX accepted. > > -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner/Head Honcho, Blue Feather Technologies (http://www.bluefeathertech.com) kyrrin [a-t] bluefeathertech {d=o=t} com "I'll get a life when someone demonstrates that it would be superior to what I have now..." (Gym Z. Quirk, aka Taki Kogoma)

25 years, 11 months

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Any sources for used raised flooring?

by Anthony.Eros＠compaq.com

With any luck, I may be putting up a small building to use as a computer room in the next few months. It won't be huge (24 x 12), but I'm toying with the idea of putting a raised floor in it. Does anyone know of a source for surplus raised flooring? -- Tony

25 years, 11 months

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Scanning microfiche?

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

* Want an old Beseler 4x5 enlarger? As the French said, "We've already got one" :-) * You would need to use a short focal *length lens ( < 50mm) to do the frames one at a time. The enlarger is located at the one place in the basement where I can crank the head all the way up to the top of the column. At that height a 50mm is just about right for each frame. Tim.

25 years, 11 months

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Scanning microfiche?

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jul 29, 8:05, CLASSICCMP(a)trailing-edge.com wrote: > Finally, do *any* scanners have documented interfaces? i.e. say I find myself > a nice SCSI-connected high-speed high-resolution scanner. Am I going to be > reduced to point-and-drool with Windows 98, or can I actually hook the > scanner up to a real computer? We're talking about many tens or hundreds > of gigabytes of data here, so I'm willing to invest some effort to automate > the acquire/compress/archive process. Yes, some HP scanners, U-Max, Mustek, Plustek, and a few others are documented. You should probably look at the SANE project (Scanner Access Now Easy) which runs on various flavours of Unix (and there was a WinSane project under way last time I looked, but you asked about real operating systems so I won't mention it :-)). http://www.mostang.com/sane/ is the homepage, but it doesn't seem to want to talk to me just now, so you might try ftp://ftp.mostang.com/pub/sane/ or http://linux.com/howto/Hardware-HOWTO-22.html -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

25 years, 11 months

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OT: notebook floppy drive pinout

by richard＠idcomm.com

Has anybody got the pinout for a TEAC FD05HF -030-U FDD? It appears there are 26 conductors including power on its fine-pitch single-in-line single-sided flat cable. I got a wild hair and decided to adapt it to my S-100 hard-card board, since there's room. Thanx Dick

25 years, 11 months

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Remote Services Consoles REVEALED!

by cmcmanis＠mcmanis.com

:-) I found DEC document EK-KCRSC-FS-001 "Remote Services Console: Field Service Manual." Sometimes I'm sure God is a computer collector. Connections: Connector Local Console Terminal A1 CPU Conole Port A2 Optional to Comm port B1 Connection to modem B2 Now the way it works is it can use the modem from an existing dial-in line which presumably the customer would already have. So where you would normally have: Console >-------------> Computer Modem >-----------==> Comm port You get +---+ Console >---+ R +------> console | S | Modem >----+ C +------> comm port +---+ This lets the modem be used to dial in the console or on the comm port when not remotely diagnosing issues. Buttons on the front control baud rate, the mapping is: out out out 300 in out out 1200 out in out 2400 out out in 4800 in in in 9600 Baud T is the terminal and should match the console port setting Baud M is the modem (1200 baud preferred :-) The various modes: REMOTE - modem can dial into the console. Light blinks when no one is dialed in REMOTE USER - modem is connected to the comm port USER PORT - all operation is transparent console and modem connect "straight through" to the other connector LOCKOUT - modem can't be used to get to the system. The dial in line uses the DDCMP protocol to insure data integrity. I'm not sure what this means in terms of being able to dial it from a PC. --Chuck

25 years, 11 months

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Scanning microfiche?

by djg＠drs-esg.com

Looks like people have answered all execept >Finally, do *any* scanners have documented interfaces? i.e. say I find myself >a nice SCSI-connected high-speed high-resolution scanner. Am I going to be >reduced to point-and-drool with Windows 98, or can I actually hook the >scanner up to a real computer? > Some companies do allow the information out or people reverse engineer it. I have used http://www.mostang.com/sane/ with my scanner under Linux. Not a huge number are supported. I have also seen a shareware one http://www.hamrick.com/vsm.html for the film scanners but never used it. If you find a good solution to OCR let me know, I have looked at it a few times and it always looks like too much work to clean up after it. 300 DPI true resolution is what I considered the minimum for an acceptable looking scan. David Gesswein

25 years, 11 months

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Tandy/Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 4

by ethan_dicks＠yahoo.com

> On Fri, 28 Jul 2000, John Honniball wrote: > > > Oh, and if you try to boot a non-bootable disk, you get a > > nice friendly message about that disk being a data disk -- > > now why couldn't they make it say something when there's NO > > disk?? I've seen boot blocks that contain enough code to print out a message that you've tried to boot a data disc. Trying to boot an unformatted disk in such a machine will likely result in the endless seek. Eventually, manufacturers moved that functionality into the ROM/BIOS code, but in the PDP-11 days, you could boot a system by writing bits manually into device registers to initiate a transfer of the first part of the disk into low core. I used to know the exact ODT sequence to boot an RL-11 in an 11/24 because I didn't own RL02 boot ROMs. It was about three or four commands. It worked because it takes a human a finite amount of time to enter in all the commands and that gives the drive time to read the block between, like, the third and fourth steps, removing the need to write a boot block that initiates a transfer and loops until the controller shows that the operation is complete. It all comes down to how smart you want the machine to be at boot time versus how flexible you want the booting scheme. -ethan ===== Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to vanish, please note my new public address: erd(a)iname.com The original webpage address is still going away. The permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/ See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Kick off your party with Yahoo! Invites. http://invites.yahoo.com/

25 years, 11 months

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Scanning microfiche

by aek＠spies.com

"I might suggest that several of us get together to buy a Canon, but that probably is only sensible for some of us in the same geographic area. Anyone else in Silly Valley interested?" see my previous post.

25 years, 11 months

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Scanning microfiche?

by aek＠spies.com

If you have 1000 sheets to scan, there are services that do this for around 6 cents / scanned frame on the fiche (prices vary on resolution). I had some samples made from a few DEC fiche, and 300dpi effective is the MINIMUM scan that is usable. Because of the thousands of sheets of fiche that I have, I'm thinking of buying a Canon fiche viewer/scanner in early fall (around 10K). If you have DEC fiche that you're thinking of scanning, you may want to check with me before spending any money on having yours scanned.

25 years, 11 months

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