So I've identified and corrected one problem
with the front panel and now the address lights
and switches seem to respond correctly to EXAMINE,
EXAMINE NEXT and DEPOSIT NEXT.
For those who might be curious...
U15 (74ls04) had apparently been replaced several
times. In particular, the area around the pad for
pin 11 was rather charred. There seemed to be some
conductivity between pin 11 and one of its neighbors.
I desoldered U15 and soldered in a socket. Then cut
the trace about 1/8" from pin 11, reinserted U15
with pin 11 bent out and "air wired" pin 11 to a
convenient hole-through a little further down the
trace. Much better!
So now, on to the data lights. With no memory board
installed, I get 0xFF (all 8 data lights on) for any
address. This is correct behavior, is it not? I then
put in the INDUSTRIAL MICRO SYSTEMS 8K MEMORY BD.
Checking each 4K (0x0000, 0x1000, ..., 0xE000, 0xF000)
I still get nothing but 0xFF. Try DEPOSITing 0x00 at
each 4K, still nothing but 0xFF. On the board, J1 is
jumpered at 0 (choices being 0-7). I assume that this
is the bank number and that would make this board 8K
starting at address 0. J2 is open (I have no idea what
this means).
By the way... on the front panel, when powered up, the
PROGRAMMED OUTPUT lights are all on. Is this correct?
Thanks,
Bill
Hello Dick:
In a message dated 7/2/99 6:15:07 PM Eastern Daylight Time, edick(a)idcomm.com
writes:
> IBM had people who were really worried about noise, hence wouldn't put a
> meaningful fan in the box. That little thing in the PSU (which dies more
> often than any other single component in any PC)
Not to doubt your word, but as owner of a small PC repair shop, my experience
(and records) would suggest that the following components have a higher
failure rate than power supplies or their fans. In order from highest
failure rate:
1) modems -- extremely susceptible to spikes -- our most common repair
2) CD-ROM drives -- easily damaged by jarring the unit -- we sell a lot of
replacements
3) floppy drives -- usually a victim of grit which is sucked in through the
drive by the power supply fan!
Side note: In '88 I had a gig with Gulf Oil/Cumberland Farms. Being a True
Blue shop, MIS insisted on nothing less than PS/2-80s at forty loading
terminals. About three months after installation, the floppies began to
fail. Inspection revealed that since Big Blue, in their wisdom, had failed
to build the little closure flap into the drives (probably saved them 10
cents per unit), these machines were not suitable for use in an industrial
environment without modification (replacing the drive).
Modifying these critters cost IBM a boatload on just this one project; I'm
sure there were many more.
Regards,
Glen Goodwin
0/0
The free stuff has all been claimed.
--
Brad Ackerman N1MNB "...faced with the men and women who bring home
bsa3(a)cornell.edu the pork, voters almost always re-elect them."
http://skaro.pair.com/ -- _The Economist_, 31 Oct 1998
On Tue, 6 Jul 1999, Max Eskin <max82(a)surfree.com> wrote:
>>Hi,
>>I'd like to know how people here store their junk parts, as I'm looking
>>for an efficient method myself. For the past several years, I've been
>>keeping them in ziplock bags in a plastic box, which is falling apart, and
>>also is useless for storing anything small.
On the same day, John Lawson <jpl15(a)netcom.com> wrote:
>My junk box? Very simple, elegant, straightforward:
>I just use a house.
>PS: The garage works for when the house is full. Like now....
And the barn works fine after that ;-)
I bought this place years ago, and probably what intriqued me then was
limitless (NOT) storage space. Of course then it was just electronics
in general, mostly old radios, and now the computers. The garage
building has a 2 car garage up front and beside that is an 8' x 20'
room I use as my electronic shop. Across the back is another room
which is 12' x 30' and has a garage door at one end. This room is
my general workshop along with storage for whatever wanders in.
Over the years, some of what I have hauled home has served as storage
for the rest of it. The back garage has 12 19" racks (solid steel sides)
laid over on their sides and stacked three high. Down the center of
the garage is other equipment racks where I have added shelves inside.
So never turn down a free equipment rack, especially one with wheels.
The are some DEC racks that are a steel frame with removable side panels
and the steel frame is put together with pop rivets. I have taken these
and removed the panels and drilled out the rivets holding the top side
rails and crossbars. I then cut the uprights down to around 30-33" and
drill and remount the top side rails and crossbars. Next I put a
plywood top on it. This particular style of rack has shelves that
mount on the inside of the uprights. I put in a few shelves, spaced
just right. In one rack I put a DECstation 3100 CPU box on the bottom
shelf, an expansion box on the next shelf up, and a TK50 expansion box
on the top shelf. For the keyboard, you can mount a board on the
front with angle brackets. The monitor goes on top and you have
a machine you can roll out of the way while you play with your latest
haul.
My wife owns a sewing shop, and as such is known by all the fabric
stores in town. When one of them closed up, she was contacted and
got the chance to go in and buy some of the furnishings. She bought
6 patterns cabinets for $10 each, put two in her shop and gave the
other four two me :-))). These are about 2'd x 2'w x 3.5'h. Since
I knew they would be heavy once filled, I grabbed the left over side
panels from the DEC racks, and put some reinforcing steel on the
inside and mounted casters (removed from other racks). Each side
panel was big enough to hold two pattern cabinets, and they were
all bolted to the side panels. Each of these cabinets has four
drawers which each have dividers, making them nice for organizing
stuff.
The point to all of this is that given a little imagination you can
combine various items of junk (hauled home treasures) together to form
storage space for your stuff.
Mike Thompson
Hi! Here's someone that emailed me searching for some leads to buy an old
Osborne. Please reply directly to him.
-Jason
Message: 28 of 28
Folder: INBOX
From: "Garrett Newnam" Garrett-Newnam(a)excite.com Add to Address Book
Filter Sender
Date: Wed, 07 Jul 1999 02:46:41 -0500
Subject: Osborne matters...
Header: Displaying BriefHeader Show Full Header
Hello there. Nice to be in contact with you... I'm an ex-Osborne 1 user,
and have been getting nostalgic about them lately. Especially since my
bright idea of installing PC components into and Osborne case (I mainly
use my PC as a recording studio, and the portability of say, an Osborne
Vixen, could really turn into a slick little "Portastudio", complete
with speakers, modem, and mouse).
Any leads for Osbornes for sale?
Garrett N.
Good Day All over the last few days a few items have come my way here's a
short list:
1. Mattel Aquarius and extras' all in their boxes
2. Apple GS with WOZ (so called limited edition),2 3.5 drives and 1 5 1/4
drive, KB and mouse
3. Several old manuals and mag's
4. digital VAXstation 4000/60 with built-in cd-rom drive no KB or monitor
with it.
5. Mac LCIII just the cpu no kb or other parts with it.
6. 10 brand new unopened copies of Win 3.1, Access 2.0, ProComm Plus, and
other software all brand new unopened. (I will be putting most of this up
for sale at $5 a box plus shipping).
7. About 15 Atari cartridges, have list them yet but I notice a few that I
had never seen before.
Well that's the short as some of the stuff is not yet 10 years old. Keep
computing John
I also saw were ZOOM acquired all of Hayes Corp. assets and name, another
great one dies. I wonder what this does for Hayes items that we all collect
?
<> put in the INDUSTRIAL MICRO SYSTEMS 8K MEMORY BD.
<
<Hi Bill
< If this is a dynamic memory board it may not work.
<None of the dynamic boards, I tried, seemed to work
It's static. I have one still as they are reliable as they come.
Do check that it's jumperd for Mwrite from the FP and that the FP is
generating Mwrite. Anotehr place to look is that the various *disables
(they disable the dat, control and address lines from the CPU.) arent
disabled as they are individual lines for data and other controls.
An imsai will run dynamic but its got to be the later design with
hidden refresh. Even then it's twitchy.
Allison
The following items are free to whomever wants to pay for shipping or
pick them up either in Ithaca (whenever) or Baltimore (Mariott Hunt
Valley, this weekend).
* CDS Unistar, one floppy, HD, a bunch of Data Translation DA/AD
cards, keyboard. No docs or discs, and the /usr partition is wiped,
so this won't do much good unless you already have one. I can supply
a copy of the manual for the same vendor's ISA card of like vintage,
if it will help. Works, at least to the extent that I can test it
with what's in /bin.
* NeXTstep v2.1 upgrade package. Includes OS on floptical.
* NeXT manuals, all in one box set:
Technical Summaries
Supplemental Documentation
Writing Loadable Kernel Servers
Operating System Software
Sound, Music, and Signal Processing: Reference
Sound, Music, and Signal Processing: Concepts
As always, first come, first served. Taking all of these items off my
hands simultaneously is welcome, but not necessary.
--
Brad Ackerman N1MNB "...faced with the men and women who bring home
bsa3(a)cornell.edu the pork, voters almost always re-elect them."
http://skaro.pair.com/ -- _The Economist_, 31 Oct 1998
Hi there,
I have run across two interesting machines:
Symbolics 3600
Symbolics 3670
built for AI applications. Since they are not in my line, here is the
telephone
number of the person who needs to remove them WITHIN THE NEXT TEN DAYS
(612) 379 - 7343 (Minneapolis, MN). Please contact him directly, not me; I am
simply forwarding this information.
These are NOT personal computer type systems, they are BIG !!!!
(Mainframe class). These are LISP machines.
Happy collecting
John G. Zabolitzky
Hi Tony,
>> The thing about Sinclair machines is that they are masterpieces of
>>design....
>
>I am not convinced they are good designs. We've had this discussion
>before on this list, but I will never be convinced that leaving out a
>couple of chips to save a few pence is a good thing if the result doesn't
>work properly.
Quite, but my point was that whoever designed them (Sir Clive or whoever)
REALLY understood what they were doing!
Although that said a lot of the design ideas could have (probably were) cribbed
>from books like "The Cheap Video Cookbook" etc....
>Never had a System 1, always wanted one. I've got some of the later
>Systems in racks, including the 6809 version...
Likewise, I'd love to get my hands on a System 1 - I've never even seen one "in
the flesh". I wasn't aware that they developed the "System 1" further, I'd
always thought/assumed that Acorn quietly dropped the system after the "Atom"
popped up.
<Mk 14>
>I have the tape interface. I think I saw the PROM programmer at an
>electronics show, so at least a prototype existed. Never saw any of the
>others.
One of my teachers at school was the only other person I've known who had a
Mk14 from new. I'm pretty sure he never managed to get any of the add ons other
than the tape interface, though ISTR he'd ordered the VDU and PROM programmer.
I think he ended up cancelling the orders due to non-delivery, the launch of
the VDU board was delayed several times ISTR. :-(
TTFN - Pete.
--
Hardware & Software Engineer. Sound Engineer.
Collector of Arcade Machines, Games Consoles & Obsolete Computers (esp DEC)
peter.pachla(a)virgin.net |
peter.pachla(a)vectrex.freeserve.co.uk |
peter.pachla(a)wintermute.free-online.co.uk | www.wintermute.free-online.co.uk
--
Hi,
I'd like to know how people here store their junk parts, as I'm looking
for an efficient method myself. For the past several years, I've been
keeping them in ziplock bags in a plastic box, which is falling apart, and
also is useless for storing anything small.
--Max Eskin (max82(a)surfree.com)
http://scivault.hypermart.net: Ignorance is Impotence - Knowledge is Power
As usual I don't know the guy, Contact him directly.
I could help pick up and ship if that's a problem with the guy.
Francois
----- Original Message -----
From: william rice <rice0067(a)tc.umn.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.marketplace
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 1999 3:50 AM
Subject: FS Next stuff in Minneapolis
> I have a bunch of next stuff that must go
> 030 cube boards $25 (2)
> 25mhz '040 cube 16/1gig with monitor and cable and keyboard $250
> 25mhz 040 color slab 24/380 17" sony monitor soundbox, cables,
> keyboard $250
> next laser best offer (3)
> external hdd 1gig $25 (2)
> black dove fax $5 (1)
>
> sgi iris 3130 complete $50
>
> all these are for sale in minneapolis.. I will ship if I have to tho...
> make reasonable offers if you dont like the price.. I just want to get
> rid of this stuff
>
> bill
>
1) For anyone needing to make travel plans or prepare items for exhibit -
there are now less than three months until the start of VCF III!
2) Down that same track, (since I just had the above revelation a few
days ago) there are some new pictures on the 'Computer Garage' website
that I've been shooting as I'm going thru machines and systems... "Field
stripping the RX02" makes up one quick little photo set... There are
others as well.
3) And for those of morbid curiosity (or those just in need of a good
theme for a nightmare B^} ) Hidden in the pages (but not too hidden) of
the 'Garage' are some shots from within (one of) the 'Computer Garage'
Warehouses!
Sorry, no panoramas from within the 'Garage' itself... Yet! <snicker>
-jim
---
jimw(a)computergarage.org
The Computer Garage - http://www.computergarage.org
Computer Garage Fax - (503) 646-0174
>>> Coming soon to www.computergarage.org - the CBBS/NW on-line archives
>>> Coming to VCF III (2-3 October 1999) - CBBS/NW live!
I've snipped much of the original message, so I hope you can wade through
the several threads interwoven under this general (off-) topic in the
embedded comments below.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Philip.Belben(a)powertech.co.uk <Philip.Belben(a)powertech.co.uk>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Tuesday, July 06, 1999 11:57 AM
Subject: Re: OT: A call to arms (sort of)
>
>> Well, in my case it was supposed to lead to the development of a really
>> open hardware platform.
>>
>> As for Allison's comment that SPARC is to "high end" I have to disagree.
>> The SPARC architecture was initally a lot less complicated than the
PDP-11
>> architecture. It is the funky MMUs that get in the way.
>
>I'm reluctant to enter this rather heated debate, but:
>
>Has anyone tried to build a SPARC - compatible processor out of standard
SSI and
>MSI chips?
>
>Has anyone any thoughts on how easy, or otherwise, it would be?
>
>Philip.
>
>
>PS since I'm in here:
>
>Dick - it's all very well to choose a bus because it is a popular, de facto
>standard, but if you don't conform pretty closely to the standard, you may
as
>well not have a standard at all. And what other reasons are there for
choosing
>ISA?
>
>Tony - OPEN doesn't mean everything is documented. It means you can
connect
>what you like to it. And know what to do to get it to work.
>
>Chuck (wasn't it) suggested having an OPEN hardware architecture for which
>anyone can build periphereals and CPU cards which, if they conform to the
OPEN
>spec, will be guaranteed to work. I think this is an excellent idea.
>
Yes, and then someone jumped in with the notion that everyone who produces
hardware for such a bus should make every detail of his product available to
whoever wants it, including his competitors, and then, of course, decried
the use of custom logic even though the equivalent SSI/MSI version would
take a PCB a couple of acres in size . . . well, that's a bit of a hyperbole
. Would you believe square meters?
>
>However, there is nothing wrong with using undocumented cards on the
OPEN-spec
>bus which happen to work because they were designed for the system on which
the
>spec was based. Win-win! Those like you who want a fully documented
system can
>have one. Those like Dick who want to be able to use cheap cards from the
50p
>bin at that shop in Notting Hill can do that too. As I said, win-win.
>
When I suggested that it might be advantageous to be able to use boards
which are available from that 50p bin I wasn't thinking of myself. There
are people who have complained bitterly about the $2 cost of this and that,
and it's their interests I was considering. I use cheap stuff when it's
available, but I normally don't have to leave my house to find it. I've
actually never had a copy of the ISA spec, nor has it been a problem, though
I've designed 20+ boards in use even today for the ISA.
My position is that it's not necessary to have anything open. It's
generally straightforward to build something that works on the ISA as it is
for most any widely used bus. Since it's not in the interest of any
commercial manufacturer to build products as open as Tony Duell would like,
though it might have worked in the past (that's DISTANT past), it's unlikely
we'll see that happen. If you want a bus to use under public scrutiny, it
will be only a matter of time before someone finds a way to try to make bit
of money that way, and the "open-ness" will fade.
>
>P.
>
I'm not the one who is concerned (a) about whether "the bus" is open or (b)
about whether it's standard. I find it hard to buy cards which do what I
want yet don't adhere to some standard, however, so I buy stuff that's
commercially available, or build stuff that's compatible with what I have to
run with it.
>
>PPS I am concerned about the report that the open software movement is
losing
>momentum. Does anyone have any more news on this? I read quite recently
that
>Intel is trying to negotiate with some of the Linux community to get Linux
>available for their next generation of processors right from the start.
The
>difficulty seems to be NDAs, not surprisingly. I hope they solve it (e.g.
no
>disclosure until launch date, free thereafter).
>
>P.
>
The reason the open software is losing momentum is that the people who do
the work don't mind pitching in but do mind doing the work for people who
won't do their own work. These folks are finding that getting paid helps
their inclination to do useful work. OTOH, many of those who provided the
"momentum" though not willing to do the work, are not willing to pay others
for it either. As an example, look at LINUX, and then look at the state of
its documentation.
Dick
Hi Gang:
This is a longshot, but I am looking for a schematic (or even a pinout)
for an LH Research power supply, model number IM203. It's 120VAC to 5
VDC@8A, 12 VDC and -12 VDC both at 1.5A.
There are two terminal strips (unlabelled) on the supply, one with 4
screws (AC input, by inspection), and one with 7 screws for the outputs.
It's not working (nothing obvious like rectifier or fuses) and I'm trying
to figure out why. I emailed the company without a reply.
Any info appreciated,
Kevin
--
Kevin McQuiggin VE7ZD
mcquiggi(a)sfu.ca
please see embedded comments below;
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Philip.Belben(a)pgen.com <Philip.Belben(a)pgen.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Wednesday, July 07, 1999 6:59 AM
Subject: Re: OT: A call to arms (sort of)
>
>
>>>And as I invented the term in this thread I get to confirm that Tony is
>>>using the correct definition :-) "Open Hardware" is hardware that is
>>>documented well enough such that anyone can recreate it from the
>>>documentation. This includes VHDL specs, PAL equations, etc.
>>
>> Are you guys familiar with the "Open Hardware Certification Program" (I
>> haven't heard it mentioned)?
>>
>> They've got a list of their own requirements at
>> <http://www.openhardware.org/conditions.html>
>
>
>Thanks, Tom, very interesting URL. I wasn't familiar with it, but it is
quite
>close to my view of "open hardware". I would tend to extend this so that
not
>only are devices supplied with enough info to write drivers, but they are
also
>supplied with enough info to connect them to computers using other buses.
In
>many cases this is the same, but it would help to have a definitive list of
>(say) what features of the bus they need / don't like / can take advantage
of.
>
>To return to Chuck and Tony's definition, yes, very laudable. But I don't
think
>you should _impose_ the requirement that everyone who builds hardware for
the
>open system should make everything public. And I like Dick's idea of
taking an
>existing standard, in the same way that Linux (for example) took the UNIX
>system, so that there is already a wide range of stuff available for your
>system. And users can build as open or closed a system as they like.
>
>Dick, I'm not sure what you meant by buying stuff "that does what you want
but
>doesn't conform to some standard" - that seems to be the opposite way round
to
>our discussion, which was about defining an open bus, and whether kit you
buy
>(which _does_ conform to the standard) will work with the bus we've
defined, or
>whether the differences between our open definition and the standard will
>prevent it.
>
What I meant by that comment was that if you decide on one standard, but a
function you feel you have to have doesn't, or you don't want to buy the
available hardware for some reason, e.g. cost, particularly in the case
where you have another potential solution, e.g. you have something that can
be made to work, you shouldn't be prevented by the standard, or by the lack
of information, from adapting what you want to use. Likewise, if you like
the majority of the signal set on ISA, except you don't like the way
interrupts work, you should be able to make that suit you. Then, supposing
you would also like to use a different interconnection arrangement, say, the
one used with VME, perhaps, then that should be OK too.
The bad thing about any standard is two-fold (at least). First, it prevents
integration errors by ensuring tbat you can plug whatever adheres to the
standard into a standard system and expect it to work, and secondly, itmakes
sure that maufacturers build cards that will work with others' cards.
Unfortunately, the resulting debate in standards committee meetings often
doesn't concern itself with how well something works as much as which mfg
has the largest installed base of "nearly" standard hardware. The problem,
you see, is that in a SCSI standards committee, a single vendor, e.g.
ADAPTEC, with enough installed base to overwhelm the market can defeat the
whole standard.
One point I was driving at was that since the interrupt scheme on ISA is
unpalatable to many, it can be ignored so long as cards being used don't
exploit that feature. There are plenty of video cards which don't use it.
There are simple ways of converting cards which do use it to use the
opposite sense if that's deemed appropriate. It's still easier to patch an
existing board than to reinvent the whole thing.
>
>ISA is a standard - of sorts. You can adopt it, and reap the benefit of
the
>standard, because a lot of kit will work with your system. Or you can
reject
>it, and said kit won't work with your system. You seemed to be suggesting
the
>adoption of a partial ISA standard. And some ISA kit will work with it,
and
>some won't. Fine for true open hardware, since you can tell what will and
won't
>before you buy it. But difficult to use the existing ISA kit with your
open
>bus, since it is the existing ISA kit that is not open, so you can't easily
tell
>whether the ISA card you had in mind will work on the modified bus. So why
>bother with ISA at all?
>
It would not be my choice to adapt cards about which I didn't know enough to
accomplish the task. However, given that much is known about ISA, including
its flaws, I find that signal set a good starting point. If you switch the
connector to be a DIN 41612 type, it's still a decent signal set, and if you
invert the interrupts, and perhaps make them level sensitive rather than
edge triggered, it might even be better. It's just that THIS PARTICULAR
existing "convention" if not standard, will lead to much easy-to-adapt
hardware, thereby leading to a useable test environment virtually right
away, while with other types, more effort is needed.
>
>On this point I agree with Tony. Edge connectors in slots, while fine for
the
>volume market, doesn't help the homebrew hobbyist. So if we choose an
existing
>bus on which to base our new open bus, choose one with indirect connectors,
like
>VME. True, few hobbyists will homebrew _everything_, but by the Chuck/Tony
>definition of open, they should be able to, if they wish.
>
>A system aimed at homebrew also makes it easier for designers to publish
designs
>which other people then build. Kits can be made of standard parts and not
>require custom PCBs. And when the bugs have been ironed out, then the PCB
>design can go off to the mass production plant...
>
>Philip.
>
>
>
>
>
On Wednesday, July 07, 1999 8:50 AM, Allison J Parent
[SMTP:allisonp@world.std.com] wrote:
> I'd like to know how people here store their junk parts, as I'm lookin
> for an efficient method myself. For the past several years, I've been
> keeping them in ziplock bags in a plastic box, which is falling apart,
> also is useless for storing anything small.
I like ziplock bags for small components, hardware, etc... They keep
everything sorted, they keep dust and dirt out, you can see through them,
and most importantly they're cheap. I dump the baggies with similar items
in to cardboard boxes and put them on shelves in a closet. Currently, I
have three closets that are FULL of this kinda stuff.
My refrigerator just went bad and I'm thinking about making a storage
"locker" out of it. I'm gonna paint it to match my equipment racks, and put
different handles on it to make it look more "industrial". It has built in
shelving, it's sealed against dust, it's on casters so it's easy to move,
and it's already paid for... :-)
The hardest items to store are "books" and "documentation". They take up a
lot of room, they're heavy, they're very sensitive to handling, and they're
often irreplacable. Books deserve the best possible treatment and need to
be kept on good quality book shelves. Prints, booklets, and other small
documents go in hanging folders in a filing cabinet.
Complete systems go in the garage / workshop. This 14' X 25' building is
where I keep the goodies.
Everything gets tossed in to a spare bedroom. I use the (RSS) Robertson
sorting system to keep things organized. I just throw it in a pile and it
magically sorts it's self out. Whenever I go looking for something, it'll
ALWAYS be on the bottom...
Steve Robertson - <steverob(a)hotoffice.com>
In a message dated 7/7/99 5:39:46 AM Central Daylight Time,
John.Honniball(a)uwe.ac.uk writes:
For the Texans here, Houston has an Ikea store.
Coincidance. I just spent $219 this past weekend for a
set of Sten shelving. 9ft by 6ft with a corner piece. 4 shelves
high. 20" deep. pain in the butt to put up.
Works good.
<< > I'd like to know how people here store their junk parts,
Well, for larger items, such as desktop microcomputers,
I can recommend a range of wooden shelving from Ikea
called "Sten". Ikea is a Scandanavian furniture
supplier (mostly in flat-pack form) but I doubt it's
available outside Europe.
>>
Hi Tony,
>Right. Again, it should be easy enough to do that. Hack an 8272 or
>something in place of the GCR path, keep the motor control hardware
>that you've already got.
Yes, shouldn't be too tricky.
IIRC the Sirius User Group were talking about trying to get permission to
duplicate the new floppy controller but I don't think they pursued the project.
After all they'd probably only sell a few boards to club members, and how many
people would want them if it meant not being able to access their existing
discs?
Hmmm, I think it may be time for me to dig up the 'phone number for the group
and renew old acquaintances; it's been about 5 years since I had any real
contact with them now.
TTFN - Pete.
--
Hardware & Software Engineer. Sound Engineer.
Collector of Arcade Machines, Games Consoles & Obsolete Computers (esp DEC)
peter.pachla(a)virgin.net |
peter.pachla(a)vectrex.freeserve.co.uk |
peter.pachla(a)wintermute.free-online.co.uk | www.wintermute.free-online.co.uk
--
Hi Glen, I'll keep this short as we're heading MAJORLY off topic here....
>Sorry to hear it. 95 OSR2.x is actually a bit more stable than the
>earlier versions, so if you're running something prior to 2.0 you
>may want to upgrade again (can't believe I'm saying this . . .)
On my home system I've found little difference in terms of stability between
OSR1 and 2 (I mainly run Office, IE4 and Frontpage, as well as some emulators),
but having supported WIn95 systems in two different jobs I'd not disagree with
that statement....
>> I'd be using Linux right now if I could get versions of the software
>>I need to use for it.
>
>They'll be here soon, we hope . . .
Quite, I've got some (little) experience with various flavours of Unix and it
would definitely be my OS of choice if I could get the software I need for
it....it's very frustrating.
TTFN - Pete.
--
Hardware & Software Engineer. Sound Engineer.
Collector of Arcade Machines, Games Consoles & Obsolete Computers (esp DEC)
peter.pachla(a)virgin.net |
peter.pachla(a)vectrex.freeserve.co.uk |
peter.pachla(a)wintermute.free-online.co.uk | www.wintermute.free-online.co.uk
--
>>And as I invented the term in this thread I get to confirm that Tony is
>>using the correct definition :-) "Open Hardware" is hardware that is
>>documented well enough such that anyone can recreate it from the
>>documentation. This includes VHDL specs, PAL equations, etc.
>
> Are you guys familiar with the "Open Hardware Certification Program" (I
> haven't heard it mentioned)?
>
> They've got a list of their own requirements at
> <http://www.openhardware.org/conditions.html>
Thanks, Tom, very interesting URL. I wasn't familiar with it, but it is quite
close to my view of "open hardware". I would tend to extend this so that not
only are devices supplied with enough info to write drivers, but they are also
supplied with enough info to connect them to computers using other buses. In
many cases this is the same, but it would help to have a definitive list of
(say) what features of the bus they need / don't like / can take advantage of.
To return to Chuck and Tony's definition, yes, very laudable. But I don't think
you should _impose_ the requirement that everyone who builds hardware for the
open system should make everything public. And I like Dick's idea of taking an
existing standard, in the same way that Linux (for example) took the UNIX
system, so that there is already a wide range of stuff available for your
system. And users can build as open or closed a system as they like.
Dick, I'm not sure what you meant by buying stuff "that does what you want but
doesn't conform to some standard" - that seems to be the opposite way round to
our discussion, which was about defining an open bus, and whether kit you buy
(which _does_ conform to the standard) will work with the bus we've defined, or
whether the differences between our open definition and the standard will
prevent it.
ISA is a standard - of sorts. You can adopt it, and reap the benefit of the
standard, because a lot of kit will work with your system. Or you can reject
it, and said kit won't work with your system. You seemed to be suggesting the
adoption of a partial ISA standard. And some ISA kit will work with it, and
some won't. Fine for true open hardware, since you can tell what will and won't
before you buy it. But difficult to use the existing ISA kit with your open
bus, since it is the existing ISA kit that is not open, so you can't easily tell
whether the ISA card you had in mind will work on the modified bus. So why
bother with ISA at all?
On this point I agree with Tony. Edge connectors in slots, while fine for the
volume market, doesn't help the homebrew hobbyist. So if we choose an existing
bus on which to base our new open bus, choose one with indirect connectors, like
VME. True, few hobbyists will homebrew _everything_, but by the Chuck/Tony
definition of open, they should be able to, if they wish.
A system aimed at homebrew also makes it easier for designers to publish designs
which other people then build. Kits can be made of standard parts and not
require custom PCBs. And when the bugs have been ironed out, then the PCB
design can go off to the mass production plant...
Philip.
> I'd like to know how people here store their junk parts, as I'm lookin
> for an efficient method myself. For the past several years, I've been
> keeping them in ziplock bags in a plastic box, which is falling apart,
> also is useless for storing anything small.
My setup due to volume and diverity of components is more involved.
I only have a 10x14 room that I use as my office and the wall space of the
garage on one side that I'm willing to fill. In that limited space there
are some 30-40 systems, their spares and 30+ years of electronics from my
radio and analog days.
For some components metal coffee cans where the quantity of one type or
class warrents it. Then there are the 30/40/50 drawer cabinates for small
parts. I also have the ~10x6x1.5" divided project bins, maybe another 12
of those for small volume parts. There are tubes of ICs enough to fill a
14x14x20" box. Then there are the copy paper boxes with larger peices,
boards, cables, disks, old radios, books and whatnot maybe another 12 or so
of them.
Things like cables I used often and small parts I keep at a hand are in one
of three 15x15x16 wood cubes with three drawers and prints are in a larger
three drawer that can hold C sized sheets.
I also have a lot of book shelf space for books! Any my major systems I
used every day are in a wall unit I built (to get 17" depth!) for the PC
and four 3100 series vaxen. Oh, and more books.
Zip lock bags are good for keeping items that must stay together or that
may have many little loose parts. For keeping memories and CPUs that want
anti-static a coffee can with lid works fine.
A decent shelf unit can really help storage too.
Allison
--- Max Eskin <max82(a)surfree.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> I'd like to know how people here store their junk parts,
I have several parts boxes (3 columns, 20+ rows, each box 1"x3"x5") that hold
ICs, IDC connectors, resistors, fasteners, relays, etc., for the larger
components. For teeny stuff, I use plastic film canisters. For loose SMT
parts, I have a box of sample capsules I got from a resistor company - 1" tall,
1/4" I.D., with a plastic window on the end. Cables are sorted by type and
stored in xerox paper boxes.
I also have this way of cutting and folding former 6"-reel magtape boxes into
display storage - cut the short-side top flaps in half, top-to-bottom. Fold
a long flap and the adjacent short half-flaps against the inside of the box
and glue them in place. Take the two remaining half-flaps and glue the
remaining long flap against them. It looks something like this...
+-------------------------+
|+-----------------------+|
|| ||
|| Open hole to inside ||
|+-----------------------+|
+-------------------------+
| |
| |
| Label area |
| |
+-------------------------+
I can stack them two or three high on a regular modular shelf, depending. I
find them good for high-profile stuff like SCSI supplies, monitor cables
and other odd stuff that needs to stay at the top of the heap.
Big stuff goes on modular shelving, but we've been over that ground in
recent months. For in the computer room, I use the stanchion/standard
style of shelving where you screw the vertical strips to the walls and
fit in brackets as needed. I have three walls out of four covered with
this stuff in my current room, floor to ceiling. It's a lot of space, but
I always find a way to fill it. ;-)
-ethan
-ethan
_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
What I use for storing my larger stuff (motherboards, drives, etc.) are Egg
boxes (not the ones that the actual eggs are in). Just go to your local
Giant Eagle (or whatever's local in your area). Ask them if they have any
empty egg boxes that you can use for storing stuff. They _should_ know what
you're talking about. They're pretty sturdy, and they usually have handles
in them. They'll usually give them to you for free, but I've found that it
helps to buy something from the store, then ask the cashier :)
Another thing that works _very_ well in damp areas are the wax-covered
cardboard 'crates' that they sell fruit and some vegetables from (If you
have a bulk store in your area). Those things are almost totally
waterproof, but they'll still get 'soggy when wet', but they won't rip
through as easily.
///--->>>
-Jason Willgruber
(roblwill(a)usaor.net)
ICQ#: 1730318
<http://members.tripod.com/general_1>
I have a pair of Kalok drives, a KL320 and a KL330 (20 and 30 Mbyte,
perhaps?), each on a sort of "hard card" thing for a PeeCee. The
interfaces are apparently made by Seagate.
I do not know what is on them, or even if they work. Any interest out
there? If not, I am going to scrap them out.
William Donzelli
aw288(a)osfn.org
>>Does anyone here know how I can transfer downloaded files from my PC to my
>>newly acquired Mac by floppy disk.. ?
>>Any help greatly appreciated..
>>Phil...
>
Hmmmm, something else
>to be aware of, I think you need the 1.44Mb floppy to be able to read FAT
>floppies, don't think that works with 800k floppies.
The Mac I just got is a "Macintosh Classic II" , and I think it has a 1.44
floppy
drive.. It has System 7.1 OS also..
So I will ask again if someone knows how I can teach the Mac to read floppys
>from my PC,
and also the reverse..
I will be downloading software and files from the internet to my PC, and
then I need to
put them on the Mac Via Floppy disk..
Can anyone help?
Phil..
Tony:
> There is a very big difference between being ignorant (and wanting to
> learn) and being clueless... I have never flamed anyone for the latter...
Did you really mean that? In my experience you flame a lot of people for being
clueless. I hope you don't flame ignorant people if they want to learn, though.
OT: There is a quotation about that, but I can't remember the exact words or
all four verses. Something like:
He who knows, and knows that he knows, is wise: follow him
He who knows, and knows not that he knows, ?[can't remember this one]?
He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, is teachable: teach him
He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool: shun him.
The fourth category seems to be the sort of cluelessness that Tony finds
annoying - and who can blame him?
Philip.
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This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept
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Hi,
I have a Sun EXP-2 external hard drive that I picked up. I'm trying to
find the specs on this but none of the SUN hardware FAQs seem to be
working. Can someone tell me what system it's for and the disk capacity and
other particulars?
Joe
>I'd like to know how people here store their junk parts, as I'm looking
>for an efficient method myself. For the past several years, I've been
>keeping them in ziplock bags in a plastic box, which is falling apart, and
>also is useless for storing anything small.
Indeed, "junk parts" covers everything from tiny surface mount resistors
to entire 400-pound tape and disk drives here :-).
Small stuff goes in the Akro-Mills style of plastic drawers. I long ago
gave up using those dividers that they give you a few of - small parts
just slip underneath way to easy.
Most all of the hardware collection resides in the same plastic drawers.
I've got the photo stuff drawers here pretty well segregated from the random
electronic and hardware stuff drawers, but otherwise there isn't a lot of
order. Well, that's not entirely true: the IDC connectors are nicely
arrayed by type (header, socket, edge connector) and size (10-16-20-26-34-
40-50-60) in a nice matrix. And the 1/4" and 1/2" watt resistors are
nicely collected and ordered too.
Moderately larger stuff (including even 3.5" disk drives) will fit into the
large plastic drawers.
Small PC boards generally get put in anti-static bags and then into cardboard
"Stor-All" letter file boxes.
Larger PC boards go into larger boxes. For instance, Unibus hex-height
boards go into an 18" x 12" box.
The next step up from PC boards are, of course, rack-mount chassis. These
generally get piled on top of each other or on shelves until they're tested
and put into a real rack. There's a big pile, probably three hundred pounds
worth, of various rack rails here waiting to be matched up with boxes.
Standard rack-mount drives (you know, like RL02's, etc.) get stacked on top
of each other if they're spares, put in a rack if part of an actual system.
Working tape drives always go into racks. Tape drives in the process of being
repaired generally occupy their own chunk of floor space. There's usually
a delay from repair to mounting in rack until I can convince someone to
help me heave it into a rack and stand the rack back up.
Random stuff (monitors, keyboards) go on prefab shelves, along with
cardboard boxes filled with PC boards.
9-track tapes, 14" removable disk packs, etc., go where God intended them:
into Wright Line media shelves intended just for the application. Admittedly
there's a few hundred 9-tracks in a pile in the corner waiting either for me
to put them to use or go recycle them.
There's hundreds of boxes of 8" floppies lined up on shelves underneath
my workbenches.
TK50's fit very nicely into 9" x 12" cardboard boxes, which are then
stacked upon each other.
--
Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com
Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/
7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917
Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927
Hi. I need help unsubscribing from this list. Here's the deal:
Currently, I use the addrfess review(a)thereviewguide.com to access eMail.
I subscribed (and currently use the reply address) tim(a)thereviewguide.com
. However, since then, I no longer have SMTP server that I can access. I
write eMAil via telnet and use pine. So when I try to unsubscribe, I gert
an error that I can't unsubscribe because I'm not subscribed.
I also didn't see a 'reply to' option under pine.
So how canI unsubscribe? CAn someone kick me? Any ideas?
Thanks,
Tim
Many, many, thanks to the person who posted the fix for gooey
print-hammer pads!! The one I got had turned viscid, so I scraped
it off, cleaned the tab, and affixed one of those little
peel-n-stick rubber feet. (one trade name is 'Bumpon'). It works
perfectly, and is just the right height.
Now I am diagnosing the machine.. it has a stuck something in the
keyboard/reader. Some keys print a different character, and a few
print only their shifted symbol, and vice-versa. Neither does Return
work, tho I can trip the pawl by hand and the carriage smacks me in
the knuckle every time. Reading a test tape produces the same
result. So I am going to spread out the manuals and figure out which
codes are getting mangled.
Other than that, it seems in good shape, still nicely oiled and
all belts in good condition... even the ribbon is still dark,
except for the portion that has been exposed for the last twenty
years, sitting on that lonely shelf...
According to the Laws of Surplus Attractionm can a PDP-8 be far
behind??
Cheers
John
Out bretheren on the Pacific Rim don't share our sense of ethics nor do they
revere the notion of intellectual property rights, or patents, for that
matter as we do. If you have a product made, say in Korea or Taiwan, it's
almost certain you'll have a competitor making the same thing using tooling
exactly like yours within a few weeks, and they don't have to earn
50Megabucks in NRE costs. If they never see a working model, as, indeed,
they may not, they're going to have a much easier time cloning your product
with the schematics and programmable device listings than without,
particularly if your product is just a board for a PC. In the latter case,
they often don't even know what it does, but just reproduce it and sell it
to someone who buys pirate copies of the doc or ships the product without.
If it's your product, YOU make the market, and THEY make the profit.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Tuesday, July 06, 1999 5:45 PM
Subject: Re: OT: A call to arms (sort of)
>>
>> > Odd... I've got several hundred (no exageration) service manuals here.
>> > All containing schematics, etc. In a lot of cases there's enough
>> > product.
>>
>> ???!!?!?!!!!
>>
>> Tucked away in just about _every_ manuafacturer's R&D department is a
>> room that contains as many of their competitor's products and manuals as
>> they can get their hands on. If you think that electronic companies do
>> not use this tactic to "improve" their products, you are wrong.
>
>Of course they do. But I won't accept that the service manual gives them
>that much help. And I can't think of a case where a service manual has
>been the cause of a clone.
>
>Given a working example of a product you can 'reverse engineer' it to
>better than the level of information in the service manual in a couple of
>weeks. Using only a DMM and a simple logic analyser. The former to get a
>rat's nest of the connections, the latter to assign useful
>names/functions to pins on gate arrays. Believe me, it's not hard.
>
>And I know that a lot of companies do just that to competing products.
>I've talked to people who do just that.
>
An automatic tester can give you a netlist in a day's time, assuming you
have a board and someone to program the tester. However, getting from a
netlist of a board with, say 1000 components on it to a schematic can take a
long time. By that I mean a LONG time. I've seen where it has taken a week
to get a correct schematic of a 3"x4" board. Now what about a 9" x 12" one?
>
>Therefore, the service manual isn't _that_ valuable. Not having it
>doesn't stop the above. And from what I've heard (and observed on classic
>computers), you would be very unwise to rely on a manual. Errors creep
>in. Things are missed out. Important details of things like signal timing
>can only be deduced from the product itself. In other words, even with
>the manual you are going to want to dismantle and analyse a real machine.
>
The sevice manual can shorten the time to do the job from weeks to days.
That's pretty helpful if you ask me.
>
>>
>> Service manuals do a great job of giving up company secrets! These days,
>> the things are generally marked "confidential" and do not leave the
>> buildings.
>
>I will assure you that restricting the service manuals like this doesn't
>hinder 'the competition' that much at all. What it does hinder are
>non-official service agents, though. That, IMHO is the main reason for
>restricting them. And I am not happy with that.
>
>>
>> William Donzelli
>> aw288(a)osfn.org
>>
>
>-tony
>
I have gotten RSTS/E V9.1 re-sysgenned on my 11/44 to include
support for RL02s, RK05s, RX02s, and a few other things.
I have spent some time getting the hardware configured properly.
As a result of the new sysgen, I can now init, erase, and mount the
RL02s. 'show dev' indicates the RL02 mounted, yet when I try to
write to the drive, get a directory, or allocate the drives, I get a
'Device not available' message from RSTS.
I have tried mounting them /PUBLIC, tried re-initing them, nothing
seems to change. If I try to do anything with them dismounted, I get
'Device not mounted' as you would expect.
I have the RSTS Orange Wall coming in a few weeks, until then I am
limited to the 'help' facility.
The RL02s are working fine, I have the docs and specs and have
verified that they are 'OK'. The scratch pack I am using was new and
never used before. During the Init process, I specified
three-pattern initialization, which completed normally in about 15
minutes, finding and marking three bad blocks along the way.
So... anyone have any ideas? What am I doing stupid? What am I
*not* doing? Calling all RSTS Gurus....
Cheers
John
>> I'll also point out that NRZI requires a lot tighter physical tolerances
>> on the alignment of the tape head (the reason why many drives don't support
>> 800 BPI NRZI at all) than 1600 and 6250 BPI (which allow substantial skew
>> between the tape channels as part ofthe spec.) If at some point the head
>> in your transport had been replaced or knocked around without properly
>> being re-aligned you might see something like what you're seeing.
>Would you? Most tape head/path adjustments are only really critical for
>'interchanageability' -- so that tapes on one drive can be read on
>others. If the head is slightly skewed, it will write a skewed tape, but
>it will also be expecting to read a tape that's similarly skewed (and
>that's what it will get).
>
>Now, admittedly if they're way out it's not going to work. But then it
>probably wouldn't read a 1600bpi distribution either.
What you say above is certainly true for tape systems where the same
head is used for reading and writing, and most small tape drives fall
into this category. But most 7-track and 9-track drives have separate
read and write heads, and these are often out of skew with each other.
Because the read and write heads are often part of the same assembly,
the necessary deskewing can be a combination of both physical
adjustment (to get the read head correctly aligned) and electronic
timing adjustment (to get the write pulses aligned on tape relative to
the read head.) There may be some drives where the write head is
physically adjusted and the read timings are electronically adjusted,
but this makes the entire procedure much more difficult - what good
does a master skew tape do you in doing mechanical alignment of the
write heads??? :-)
For most drives with electronic deskewing (and the Kennedy 9100 and successors
certainly fall in this category) when you get a replacement head it comes
with a set of "starting" electronic deskewing settings. I'll gladly fax
you the section of a Kennedy maintenance manual that details the procedure,
if you're interested.
>I would cartainly look for other causes before tweaking head adjustment
>screws.
Absolutely. Barring physical damage (a good drop onto concrete from
a few feet is enough to whack other things out of alignment) I'd look for other
causes first. The NRZI data path is different than the PE data
path, for one thing.
--
Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com
Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/
7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917
Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927
Hi Tony,
>My Sirius is very 'fussy' about the disks it will handle. It won't use
>most 360K disks. It will work with '80 track' disks....
Interesting, the only discs mine objects to are, surprise, surprise, 1.2Mb
ones.
I'm pretty sure that the discs I used in mine were a mixture of 48tpi and 96tpi
media, no problems with either type here.
>....One day I'll get some suitable drives to experiment with and see if I
>can get it to handle DS, or if there are other changes.
AFAIK the disc controller is exactly the same for SS/DS drives, IE no firmware
changes etc.
>Any ideas which version of MS-DOS that would be? I have 1.25 and 2.2 I
>think somewhere.
OK, I DO have a copy of 1.25 which will access the hard drive. However since
it's v1.25 it's only of academic interest - I also have a copy of (I think) DOS
2.11, complete in "Victor" colours, but that refuses to see the hard drive at
all. I'm told I need a different version of 2.11 which includes support for the
hard drive.
TTFN - Pete.
--
Hardware & Software Engineer. Sound Engineer.
Collector of Arcade Machines, Games Consoles & Obsolete Computers (esp DEC)
peter.pachla(a)virgin.net |
peter.pachla(a)vectrex.freeserve.co.uk |
peter.pachla(a)wintermute.free-online.co.uk | www.wintermute.free-online.co.uk
--
Hi,
>The Mac I just got is a "Macintosh Classic II" , and I think it has a 1.44
>floppy drive.. It has System 7.1 OS also....
>....So I will ask again if someone knows how I can teach the Mac to read
>floppys from my PC, and also the reverse.
You need a utility like "Dos Mounter" which lets you read/write MS-DOS format
discs; the Classic II has a SuperDrive in it so you'll have no problems if you
can find the software.
I can't help I'm afraid as my Classic II is up the shoot - the ROM on the
internal HD has failed (you don't have the facility to read ROMs do you???).
TTFN - Pete.
--
Hardware & Software Engineer. Sound Engineer.
Collector of Arcade Machines, Games Consoles & Obsolete Computers (esp DEC)
peter.pachla(a)virgin.net |
peter.pachla(a)vectrex.freeserve.co.uk |
peter.pachla(a)wintermute.free-online.co.uk | www.wintermute.free-online.co.uk
--
> Well, in my case it was supposed to lead to the development of a really
> open hardware platform.
>
> As for Allison's comment that SPARC is to "high end" I have to disagree.
> The SPARC architecture was initally a lot less complicated than the PDP-11
> architecture. It is the funky MMUs that get in the way.
I'm reluctant to enter this rather heated debate, but:
Has anyone tried to build a SPARC - compatible processor out of standard SSI and
MSI chips?
Has anyone any thoughts on how easy, or otherwise, it would be?
Philip.
PS since I'm in here:
Dick - it's all very well to choose a bus because it is a popular, de facto
standard, but if you don't conform pretty closely to the standard, you may as
well not have a standard at all. And what other reasons are there for choosing
ISA?
Tony - OPEN doesn't mean everything is documented. It means you can connect
what you like to it. And know what to do to get it to work.
Chuck (wasn't it) suggested having an OPEN hardware architecture for which
anyone can build periphereals and CPU cards which, if they conform to the OPEN
spec, will be guaranteed to work. I think this is an excellent idea.
However, there is nothing wrong with using undocumented cards on the OPEN-spec
bus which happen to work because they were designed for the system on which the
spec was based. Win-win! Those like you who want a fully documented system can
have one. Those like Dick who want to be able to use cheap cards from the 50p
bin at that shop in Notting Hill can do that too. As I said, win-win.
P.
PPS I am concerned aboout the report that the open software movement is losing
momentum. Does anyone have any more news on this? I read quite recently that
Intel is trying to negotiate with some of the Linux community to get Linux
available for their next generation of processors right from the start. The
difficulty seems to be NDAs, not surprisingly. I hope they solve it (e.g. no
disclosure until launch date, free thereafter).
P.
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intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they
are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify
the system manager.
This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept
for the presence of computer viruses.
Power Technology Centre, Ratcliffe-on-Soar,
Nottingham, NG11 0EE, UK
Tel: +44 (0)115 936 2000
http://www.powertech.co.uk
**********************************************************************
Despite the griping about the Kalok drives, quite a few people want them.
Being rather busy, both will go to the same person, thru a contest.
The question: What company was IBM's first "headache" in the disk drive
business?
The winner pays shipping, and some token amount for my time, box, and tape.
Bribery works, too.
William Donzelli
aw288(a)osfn.org
< I think you are refering to the single chip F8 ( 3780 ). The
<two chip F8 was considered the first 8 bit micro when I
<worked at Intel. I don't think history has changed much
<since then.
No I meant the multichip F8 (385x) from fairchild. It predates the 8080
by a tiny bit but not the 8008. The 3850/1 were made with N channel mos
Isoplanar technolgy that was not available when the 8008 (PMOS) was
designed.
<> Not true. It was still being made in the early 80s! I think DEC did
<> a last time buy in 84 or 85.
<
<I meant, new designs. Intel was using the 4040 series
<parts themselves until about '85 but the part was still long
<obsolete and not used in new designs.
Not specified previously. But true.
New designs from '73ish through the 80s tended to grab the newest or
similar but easier to use. For example people went from 8080 to 8085
or z80 for reduced chip count and/or simpler design.
In the 1971 through 1980 time frame I was:
1971 Sunrise electro ttl then later 8008, mobile data term
1973(early) Automated processess, early time code work for studios 8008
1975(late) Hazeltine, 8080 H1500, H1420
1976-8 TANDY TRS80, z80
1979(early) NEC Microcomputers, inc. (cmos micros, intel 2nd source, LCD
display drivers)
Kept all the data books I had! I rely on them for dates and tech notes.
The F8 was not a popular chip save for it made cheap systems, horrid
instruction set.
Allison
Please respond to the original sender, Martin. I'm just forwarding this on his behalf.
He's looking for a "local" collector for what looks like an excellent box.
-b
-----Original Message-----
From: Martin Baechtel <mbaechtel(a)chugach-dc.com>
To: 'bdobyns(a)clueless.com' <bdobyns(a)clueless.com>
Date: Friday, July 02, 1999 3:30 AM
Subject: Vax 11/750
... snip ... I will sell you my Vax 11/750 for $100. It has
6Mb, A RA80 disk with under 200 hours on it, A DH11-AE, DH11-AA (24 rs232
ports), FP750, DMC11, TU58, two LP11 And a spares kit and if you need a tape
drive A 9300 (125 ips 800/1600). If you need any VT200s I have 18 @ $!0.
each
martin Baechtel
w 703 413-8888 06:00 -16:00 edt
h 301 330-9079
Hi,
Great list, but no can handle the traffic. I unsubscribed several weeks
(months?) ago. Then come in this morning and, pow! Some how I'm back on
the list. Interesting list, but no can handle the traffic.
I sent unsubscribe again and got "You are not subscribed to list
classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu".
Gee, thats what I thought.
Also got this odd message sent: Sun 7/4/99 7:03 AM
Current settings are:
ADDRESS = Paul_King(a)ml.com
MAIL = ACK
PASSWORD = 931085786
CONCEAL = NO
Thanks,
Paul
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tim Hotze [SMTP:review@RyansPC.ryanspc.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 1999 2:53 PM
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
> Subject: Help
>
> Hi. I need help unsubscribing from this list. Here's the deal:
> Currently, I use the addrfess review(a)thereviewguide.com to access eMail.
> I subscribed (and currently use the reply address) tim(a)thereviewguide.com
> . However, since then, I no longer have SMTP server that I can access. I
> write eMAil via telnet and use pine. So when I try to unsubscribe, I gert
> an error that I can't unsubscribe because I'm not subscribed.
>
> I also didn't see a 'reply to' option under pine.
> So how canI unsubscribe? CAn someone kick me? Any ideas?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Tim
I wouldn't worry to much. The 8008, unlike the 4004 wasn't
<the first anything. The Fairchild F8 was the first 8 bit.
First the F8 set didn't predate the 8008. It was however the first minimum
chipset part to open the marrket to part list the 3780, 8048 and other
single chips MCUs.
<I would say that the 8008's only claim to fame was
<that it only made a short run and was replaced with
<the more long lived 8080.
Not true. It was still being made in the early 80s! I think DEC did
a last time buy in 84 or 85.
Allison
>And as I invented the term in this thread I get to confirm that Tony is
>using the correct definition :-) "Open Hardware" is hardware that is
>documented well enough such that anyone can recreate it from the
>documentation. This includes VHDL specs, PAL equations, etc.
Are you guys familiar with the "Open Hardware Certification Program" (I
haven't heard it mentioned)?
They've got a list of their own requirements at
<http://www.openhardware.org/conditions.html>
Tom Owad
<Has anyone tried to build a SPARC - compatible processor out of standard SS
<MSI chips?
Not familiar enough to say. It's my understanding the DIE is small and low
active device count for a cpu.
Allison
I don't think we disagree that much, but take a look at my comments embedded
in your reply quoted below.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Saturday, July 03, 1999 8:39 PM
Subject: Re: OT: A call to arms (sort of)
<snip>
>
>Well, IMHO there is _if you want to call the bus ISA_.
>
>There's no reason not to use this type of DMA on a homebrew system.
>There's no reason not to use cards that have the same form factor and
>same connectors and ISA cards.
>
I've seen little reason to use DMA at all when processors generally have the
capacity to move data at the bus bandwidth with block transfer instructions.
It's not a religious issue for me to call the bus whatever seems
appropriate. ISA is the "standard" developed around the PC. The signals
are, for the most part, the obvious ones for ANY microprocessor. The
interrupts are the exception, in that they use the ancient and stupid intel
method, namely positive-going and, as you said, edge sensitive interrupts,
which preclude the more sensible approaches to interrupt management.
>
>But as soon as you start changing signals, you no longer have an ISA bus.
>Some ISA cards will surely fail to work. That is _all_ I am saying.
>
Well, pehaps we don't want ISA bus. Perhaps we could benefit from the use
of the cheap and commonly available parts, though. I never used interrupts
or DMA in ten years on the S-100 bus. It was never necessary to do so. I
don't see why you're so worried about interrupts on the few ISA boards one
might actually want to use, e.g. serial I/O and disk adapters, along, maybe,
with video boards. There aren't really any terribly interesting parallel
I/O boards, and if you want to use IEEE488 stuff you'll play hell beating
the WIndows software to help you do it.
>
>> Leaving off the motherboard doesn't change the BUS to something else.
There
>> have been systems with multiple processors on passive backplanes for the
ISA
>> for years. You don't have to change one signal. Of course, if you leave
>
>If you want to have active-low interrupts, DMA as I described it above,
>etc then you do have to redefine some of the signals. Maybe not in name,
>but certainly in what they do.
>
>Suppose you don't have a central DMA controller. What do you propose
>doing with the DRQ/DACK signals? Sure you can make them effectively
>bus request signals. But now the peripheral card has to know to generate
>the address. And no standard ISA card would do that.
>
Just exactly which boards do you wish to use that do that? If they don't
yet exist I'd say there are some liberties worth taking.
>
>> off the motherboard, i.e. the circuitry that makes it a PC, then you
don't
>> have to use the otherwise useless 4x-color-burst crystal oscillator
either,
>
>I don't know what your problem is with that oscillator. It's trivial to
>generate. That really is the least of the problems.
>
It's just a useless source of noise synchronized approximately with our TV
electronics.
>> and you don't have to generate that inane 18... Hz interrupt and can use
>> something sensible instead, and you don't have to generate refresh
addresses
>> with one DMA channel, and you don't have to use DMA for the floppy which
>
>Actually, only PCs and XTs used a DMA channel for refresh. ATs and above
>have a separate counter for this.
>
Yes, but refresh itself doesn't need an address at all, or at least hasn't
since the 64k DRAMs came out with hidden refresh.
>
>> >> in general, to have DMA, first because the processors used on PC
>> >> motherboards have block transfer operations which operate at the bus
>> >> bandwidth.
>> >
>> >Why do you assume that ISA -> Intel processor? It may be something
>> >totally different, something that doesn't have efficient block transfer
>> >instructions.
>> >
>> Now you're confusing me . . . you just got through saying that the PC has
to
>> be there, Intel and all, or it's not an ISA bus. Perhaps you spoke (sic)
>
>You just said '...processors used on PC motherboards...'. Now most PC
>motherboards have an Intel, or Intel-compatible processor on them. So I
>think I was justified in thinking that you were implying an Intel
>processor here.
>
>> too soon? I made no such assertion! There are lots of processors which
>> have block transfer instructions which operate at the bus bandwidth.
Even
>> the Z80 did that.
>
>And IIRC the Z80 block moves were ridiculously slow...
>
Yes, perhaps it was ridiculously slow, but it was the bus bandwidth at the
time.
>
>> >I see a _lot_ wrong with the ISA signal definitions. For one thing the
>> >IRQs are edge triggered, active high, when any sane designer would make
>> >them level triggered active low (had IBM done this it would have cost
>> >them an extra couple of TTL chips on the PC motherboard. It would also
>> >have allowed the sharing of interrupts). For another thing there's no
>> >proper bus request/grant (multiple masters are almost essential IMHO).
>> >
>> You're certainly right about that! All that would have been needed is
that
>> they swallow their pride and use a sensible interrupt handler instead of
>> their silly 8259. In fact, they should have left all their LSI's off the
>> MB. The way their counters work, or don't, and the fact they're slow,
and
>> they're ripple counters so you have to read half of them twice . . .
don't
>> get me started . . .
>
>
>Don't get me started either. I sat down with the PC (and later...)
>techrefs, and I went through the schematics. Every so often I would
>exclaim 'They did WHAT???'....
>
>> which used it, I'd say that's a non-issue. You don't need the schematic,
>> though,since the board you'll be using will be an IDE interface with
onboard
>
>For the <n>th time, the aim is to get 'open hardware'. That means (at
>least to me) available schematics. Not schematics of things that _might_
>work the same (e.g. WD1003 .vs. IDE). It means scheamtics and
>documentation for the hardware that's actually in the machine.
>
So, you want schematics of the disk drives as well, and the keyboard, and
the floppy drive? . . . and when you have them, how are you going to stick
your 'scope probe into that IC, and how are you going to fix it when it's
broken. It's a custom IC, after all, and they will cost 10x what a new disk
drive costs if you try to buy just one. If "OPEN" means to you that you
have access and rights to all the intellectual property contained in your
computer, you might as well give up right now. If what you want is enough
information to program and use the devices you can buy, that's quite
possible as we sit here.
>
>> FDC. Those (FDC's) are well characterized and all you need to know about
>> the 1003-WAH is the command set, since IDE still uses it.
>>
>> The little IDE interface boards with 5 TTL's on them are easy enough to
buzz
>> out and understand. Data on the LSI's is easy enough to get, though you
>
>I've found it _very_ hard to get data on the typical ASICs that you find
>on modern PC motherboards and I/O cards. In fact I've not managed to do
>it in a lot of cases.
>
That's the reason, precisely, why you don't use them.
>
>I don't mean the 82xx chips that are on the original PC motherboards. I
>have the data sheets on those. I mean the all-in-one chip on a multi-IO
>card that does FDC, IDE, 2 serial ports, parallel port, etc.
>
There's no reason to use one, even if you could. The little 5-TTL circuit
works fine and just as quickly, for disk I/O. Now, since you hate the PC
MOBO so much, why would you want to use one of the PC-MOBO specific IC's?
>
>-tony
>
Hi Philip,
>That is indeed the one I had in mind. I think there may have been one
>or two other kit machines in that price bracket (Nascom?)
I'm pretty sure the Nascom I and II were pitched at something like ?199 and
?275 respectively when launched.
The ZX-80 and 81 were ?79 and the Microtan 65 was ?69.95.
Can't off-hand think of any others just now (well I can, but I can't remember
the prices).
TTFN - Pete.
--
Hardware & Software Engineer. Sound Engineer.
Collector of Arcade Machines, Games Consoles & Obsolete Computers (esp DEC)
peter.pachla(a)virgin.net |
peter.pachla(a)vectrex.freeserve.co.uk |
peter.pachla(a)wintermute.free-online.co.uk | www.wintermute.free-online.co.uk
--
Nope . . . and I made a "high-tech tie-tack" out of my 8008. I just powered
the box down, pulled the processor out, removed the 8008, bent the pins
around so as not to damage a good silk bib, and super-glued the tack to the
back of it. . . That box, an NBI word processor, used those hard sectored
diskettes with the holes around the outside. EEEK!
regards,
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Joe <rigdonj(a)intellistar.net>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Saturday, July 03, 1999 6:55 PM
Subject: Re: E-bay stupidity! was Re: height of folly
>At 05:15 PM 7/3/99 -0600, Dick wrote:
>>That's the price you pay, so to speak, for participating in a free-market
>>economy. The market determines what price the market will bear. If there
>>are more rich dummies (If that's how you prefer to think of them) than
there
>>are Altairs or 4004's then you'll probably never own one.
>>
>>Meanwhile, maybe I can get someone to slide me a few bucks for this old
>>stuff of mine . . .
>
> Sure I'll slip you a few bucks. Got any 4004s around? :-)
>
> Joe
>
Someone in Australia is looking for a Minisport
Notebook. This is too new for me to have in my
collection.
Reply to louise melov <melmedia(a)zip.com.au>
if you can help them out.
--Doug
>Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 07:02:16 +1000
>To: "Doug Coward" <dcoward(a)pressstart.com>
>From: louise melov <melmedia(a)zip.com.au>
>Subject: None
>Hi Doug,
>Remember the Zenith Minisport Notebook with the 2" diskette drive.
>Any ideas where I can get one.
>I tried posting an wanted ad in eBay. Got some bites, but nothing came of it.
>Should I try more auction sites, or is there something better I could do ?
>Thanks
>Eddie R.
=========================================
Doug Coward
Press Start Inc.
Sunnyvale,CA
=========================================
