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

Up for Auction: Memory from the First Computer in Space

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Steven Malikoff > a Raytheon module from a Block 1 AGC > ... > I don't think the Block 1's were flown(?). Yes, but not on manned flights. (Researching this is made more complex because there were quite a few different AGC designs; AGC3, AGC4, AGC4B, AGC5 and AGC6, in addition to Block I and Block II.) Sources differ a bit: "Journey to the Moon" (Eldon Hall) says (pg. 107) that Apollo 6 was "the last flight with Block I guidance system equipment" - but it's not clear if that refers to the AFC. "Digital Apollo" (David Mindell) says (pg. 175) that Apollo 5 was "the first Block II computer flight". So somewhere around there. (Apollo 7 was the first manned flight, and the first Block II spacecraft, per Mindell, pg. 176 - note that Block II spacecraft apparently != Block II AGC - very confusing!) Both excellent books, BTW - highly recommend them both. Noel

10 years, 8 months

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Up for Auction: Memory from the First Computer in Space

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

didn't they keep craft intact for display etc? heh who stole the memory then!/ anything is FLOWN in space has a high value. we collect a bit of that but most is stupidly out of the price range. ed sharpe archivist for smecc In a message dated 10/28/2015 12:32:03 P.M. US Mountain Standard Tim, paulkoning at comcast.net writes:

10 years, 8 months

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EISA?

by seefriek＠gmail.com

Would anyone have a working EISA motherboard or smallish EISA machine they'd part with for a reasonable price? I find myself in need of one to resurrect some elderly kit I'd like to play with. Contact off-list. KJ

10 years, 8 months

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TTY paper - $5 per roll in St. Paul / Mpls.

by drlegendre＠gmail.com

Anyone in the St. Paul / Mpls area need paper for a Teletype? I had to buy half a dozen rolls to get a decent price, so I am making (3) spare rolls available at my cost of $5/roll. If you have interest, please send me a message off-list - thanks! -Bill

10 years, 8 months

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Dowalert tape recorder thingy

by dave＠661.org

Has anyone here ever used a Dowalert back in its heyday of the early 1980s? For those who don't know, a Dowalert is a device that resembles a tape-driven telephone answering machine. Dow Jones had an idea of broadcasting stock information over FM radio to this device for later perusal by subscribers. The device has a keypad upon which you'd enter numbers for particular classes of information you want. The broadcast would include a code detectable by the device. If the code on the broadcast matched one of those selected by the subscriber, the tape recorder would start recording. Then an alert light would turn on letting the user know that some new information is available. -- David Griffith dave at 661.org A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

10 years, 8 months

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Trying to get my RLV11 working

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Ben Sinclair > I think you had written something a while back that would test that > interrupt. Was that correct, or is there another diagnostic I can use > to test that? Well, I'm sure there's a DEC diagnostic for the DLV11-J, but I have no idea what it is. I did have a little ~20-instruction program that tests the receive and transmit interrupts, I'll send you the URLs for the source, and ODT script, forms. (Not sure what forms of object formats you can load into the machine.) > After changing those switches I accidentally put the M8014 above the > M8013. Luckily that didn't fry anything. (I'm not looking down in disdain, I've made a few similar mistakes myself! I usually try and stop and check twice every time I go to turn the power on after I've fiddled with the hardware, for precisely that reason.) > I've swapped them and now get slightly different results: I wonder if that's because there's no drive? Is this test suppose to need one, I forget (I think you said but I'm too lazy to look :-). Noel

10 years, 8 months

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Trying to get my RLV11 working

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Johnny Billquist > I wonder if it really uses 18 bit addresses in the console. Yes (if the question is 'for input'). What it puts out on the bus I haven't checked, definitely BBS7 plus the low 13 bits (0-12), dunno about BDAL13-21. > From: Ben Sinclair > For 18 bit addresses, I assume I would look at 74400 instead? No, that's only 15 bits. (In octal, each full digit is 3 bits. So an 18-bit address will range from 000000 to 777777; 16-bit from 000000 to 177777, etc.) Noel

10 years, 8 months

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Sale with a lot of ATT 3B2 stuff

by jws＠jwsss.com

This is a representative auction by the vendor. Look at all of his stuff for the whole story. VINTAGE-COMPUTER-AT-T-3B2-500-600-1000-UNIX-SYSTEM-16MB-MEMORY-WESTERN-ELECTRIC http://www.ebay.com/itm/321811268824 The buyer of his Lisp Machine is going to be sad. The vendor has broken off good to have spares and software for a working machine into separate auctions. Unlike the 3B2 stuff which is all parts. Not a nice thing to do if you are asking $9500 for the machine and only a few hundred more for the spares. Spares such as mice, keyboard, and software restore tapes. Nice. Thanks Jim

10 years, 8 months

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Microvax 3800 Soon to arrive

by lyokoboy0＠gmail.com

Hello. I seem to be getting quite a big assortment of DEC equipment over here as of late. Back in July I made a trip to Miami to pick up a PDP 11/34 with related equipment a while back and posted about it here on the list. I'm still working on getting the power supply on the pdp 11 fixed but am making good progress and learning a lot in the process. Recently a deal popped up on a microvax 3800 that was too good to pass up so I jumped at the chance to get it and it is on it's way to being shipped here. I have never dealt with any Vax hardware before. The closest I've been to one is running a simulation of a machine in the simh emulator. Is there any special hardware I will need to get this up and running? I have a couple of VT 100 terminals that go with the pdp 11 that should work nicely with the Vax. Is there anything a beginner with such hardware should look out for? I would like to try and disconnect the power supply and test it separately if possible to save myself the headache I experienced with the PDP 11. Any suggestions or other info much appreciated. --Devin

10 years, 8 months

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Trying to get my RLV11 working

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Ben Sinclair > I'm trying to get my RLV11 working Oh, I was going to mention this about the RLV11 - it's a Q18 device. So it _probably_ won't work in a system with more than 256KB of memory (which you don't, at this point, have, though). It would all depend on the OS, whether it understood that it couldn't DMA to anywhere above 256KB. (The controller should work OK in a Q22 system - it just won't drive the high address lines, so they will go to 0 - but it just won't be able to DMA to high memory.) > I have a PDP-11/23 in an H9273 backplane. I just got it working > reliably without the RLV11 boards installed ... > Here's my configuration: > Down the left side: M8186, M8044, M8044, M8043, M8013, M8014, and > M8012 (the BDV11) on the bottom. Here's something to try (to make sure the 8013 is passing grants OK); put the M8013/14 _before_ the M8043, and see if a test which uses interrupts on the DLV11J works. > I also looked at myself and get 005737, though I'm not sure what > it should be. I take it "17440" is a typo for '174400'? Anyway, neither would work: in 11/23 ODT, '174400' is the address of a word of memory, up near the 64K boundary. To get to the device registers, you need to type '774400'. If that doesn't work, the addressing on the RL11 board-set is wrong somehow. Noel PS: Speaking of typing addresses to ODT - My favourite pet 11/23 peeve: there is no way, from ODT, to read/write memory above 256KB! That can only by done by a program! (The 11/73 does not suffer this issue.)

10 years, 8 months

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Distilled water (was re: Model 152 PSU dummy loads)

by cruff＠ruffspot.net

Just to be pedantic, as this is the Internet after all :-), distilled water is a pretty good insulator, but not a "perfect" one. Neutral (pH 7.0) water always has a very small amount of the molecules disassociated into H+ and OH- ions. However, as others have stated, the effective value of the water resistor, compared to the load resistor(s), will be negligible.

10 years, 8 months

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FW: The last fix for a "All Shook Up" 33

by rdawson16＠hotmail.com

(pictures removed) From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com To: greenkeys at mailman.qth.net Subject: The last fix for a "All Shook Up" 33 Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2015 23:14:45 -0700 Wayne (ttyparts.com) and I had a disaster of a shipment on a ASR33, Fed Ex Ground did us no favors. In spite of a handcrafted wooden case, clearly marked UP arrows and FRAGILE, these guys tossed this thing around. The printer shipping bolts were installed. I told Wayne, are you sure you put them in? because I could not find them. There they were, in the bottom of the crate, sheared off. Obviously they dropped and tumbled his custom TTY wood crate, that he has used for years. HERE IS key is stuck, the printer rammed into the keyboard and bent it horizontal and vertical, fixed that. Wayne sent a test tape and we verify the printer is OK. Keys still do not print the correct letters, and tonight I find an actuator wire on the keyboard is broken. If anybody ships a TTY, I recommend this: Make the box a, 3x, 4x TTY sized double wall cardboard box, filled with peanuts, and the TTY nestled in the core of the surrounding peanut cushion. They are going to shake and drop it, and all that foam and peanut will give the printer a cushion and lower the G's the TTY and printer will experience. An 'UP ARROW' means nothing, nor does 'FRAGILE' Wayne's idea of a strong wood crate may have worked in the past, but today, it means 'don't care' this thing is packed for rough handling, they will toss it, drop it, tumble it because it is heavy as shit, and this wood case looks like it is built for this abuse. Wayne is a super guy, and I highly recommend anybody buying teletypes work thru him. he completely redid my machine, took it down for a total refurbrishment, and built it back up. Weeks of testing and alighnment too. This guy is the best - and I can attest to this on all the time he has spent recovering from the shipping guys to get me online Randy KF7CJW

10 years, 8 months

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HP Vectra stuff

by auringer＠tds.net

All, Also while cleaning I found a box of HP Vectra docs & a couple disks. Docs: Getting Started With the HP BASIC Controller HP 24540B & HP 24541B - Installation Guide 35743 HP Enhanced Graphics Display Installation Guide HP Enhanced Graphics Adapter User's Manual Disks: VECTRA PC UTILITIES AND DRIVERS ENHANCED GRAPHICS ADAPTER - UTILITY DISC All of this in a HP 82301A BASIC Language box. Again, beer money & shipping from 53714. -Jon

10 years, 8 months

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SCO Integra

by auringer＠tds.net

Hi All, I ran across the following while cleaning: A set of "draft" manuals for SCO Integra database software. It looks to be a complete manual set in 4 hardbound volumes. Also in the pile are 4 sequentially labeled 5 1/4" floppy disks that have "Dewitt" written on them. I don't have the resources to check the contents of the disks. There is a single page color promotional flyer for SCO Integra. Are these of interest to anyone? Here's a picture: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jja572/albums/72157660431177871 Available for beer money and shipping from 53714. -Jon

10 years, 8 months

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Mac IIsi - SoG?

by jules.richardson99＠gmail.com

Can anyone confirm whether a Mac IIsi spits out sync-on-green (and only sync-on-green) or not? I've found mixed info on the 'net so far. I've got a system here which makes encouraging startup noises, but isn't outputting any video to a VGA screen (adapter cable OK with my other Macs). If it's SoG-only, well, there's my problem :-) If it does output h/vsync like my other Macs then I need to look elsewhere (most likely nonsense NVRAM settings, I expect). cheers Jules

10 years, 8 months

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The last fix for a "All Shook Up" 33

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Guy Sotomayor > Peanuts do *nothing* .. The heavy item will "settle" and have nothing > surrounding it. The peanuts act a fluid during shipping. I can attest to this. I bought a largish disk drive, and it was shipped in peanuts. It came out the box at 45 degrees to the sides - it had gone in parallel to the sides. Luckily, no damage ensued, but it was pure luck. Noel

10 years, 8 months

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Order now ! PDP8 front panels

by rodsmallwood52＠btinternet.com

Hi Guys OK I'm open for orders for the choice of the following: PDP-8/e (Type A) PDP-8/e (Type B) PDP-8/f PDP-8/m Existing orders price as pre-paid New orders price will be advised based on batch sizes /f and /m are going to be a few dollars more as they need an extra screen for the logos. There are_twenty slots_ of which _five_ have already gone Ask for the file of designs if you don't have it. New panels in design stage for the 11/40 up to 11/70. Scans, Photos and "I want one" for the above to me please. Rod Smallwood

10 years, 8 months

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Trying to get my RLV11 working

by ben＠bensinclair.com

I'm trying to get my RLV11 working to eventually run my RL02, and am having some trouble. I have a PDP-11/23 in an H9273 backplane. I just got it working reliably without the RLV11 boards installed, so now I'm giving them a try again. Here's my configuration: Down the left side: M8186, M8044, M8044, M8043, M8013, M8014, and M8012 (the BDV11) on the bottom. I don't have the drive connected and am just trying to run the VRLAC0 controller test, which I believe should work without any drives connected. The switches on M8014 are configured to the defaults, according to: http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/qbus/EK-RLV11-TD-001_RLV11_Contr… That would be a vector address of 330 and a base address of 174400. Unfortunately, VRLAC0 doesn't look like it can see anything, but I'm not sure I'm reading its output correctly. What follows is the VRLAC0 output. I also looked at 17440 myself and get 005737, though I'm not sure what it should be. This is new territory for me, so any help would be welcome. Thanks! .R VRLAC0 VRLAC0.BIN DRSSM-G2 CVRLA-C-0 CVRLAC RLV11 RL01 DSKLESS DIAGNOSTIC UNIT IS RLV11 RSTRT ADR 145702 DR>START CHANGE HW (L) ? Y # UNITS (D) ? 1 UNIT 0 11/23 PROCESSOR (L) Y ? BUS ADDRESS (O) 174400 ? VECTOR (O) 160 ? 330 DRIVE (O) 0 ? BR LEVEL (O) 5 ? CHANGE SW (L) ? Y DROP ON ERROR LIMIT (L) N ? AUTOSIZE (L) N ? CVRLA SYS FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 001 SUB 000 PC: 017066 CAN NOT ADDRESS RLCS CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 CVRLA SYS FTL ERR 00001 ON UNIT 00 TST 002 SUB 000 PC: 017164 CAN NOT ADDRESS RLBA CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 CVRLA SYS FTL ERR 00002 ON UNIT 00 TST 003 SUB 000 PC: 017262 CAN NOT ADDRESS RLDA CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 CVRLA SYS FTL ERR 00003 ON UNIT 00 TST 004 SUB 000 PC: 017360 CAN NOT ADDRESS RLMP CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 CVRLA SYS FTL ERR 00100 ON UNIT 00 TST 005 SUB 000 PC: 017454 CAN NOT ADDRESS RLCS CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 CVRLA SYS FTL ERR 00101 ON UNIT 00 TST 006 SUB 000 PC: 017550 CAN NOT ADDRESS RLBA CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 CVRLA SYS FTL ERR 00102 ON UNIT 00 TST 007 SUB 000 PC: 017644 CAN NOT ADDRESS RLDA CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 CVRLA SYS FTL ERR 00103 ON UNIT 00 TST 008 SUB 000 PC: 017740 CAN NOT ADDRESS RLMP CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 ILL INTER 004 PC 017770 PS 000341 ILL INTER 004 PC 014460 PS 000005 DR> -- Ben Sinclair ben at bensinclair.com

10 years, 8 months

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Oddball question: really small terminals

by tmfdmike＠gmail.com

For reasons too abstruse to explain in detail I'm on the lookout for terminals that are, physically, really small - especially serial and coax 3270, and possibly twinax 5250. Yes you could do things with small laptops and PDAs with PCMCIA cards and adapters and software - I know a guy who kept a Psion Organizer configured especially for use as a terminal with SGI boxes. But that's Not The Same, and NOT what I'm after; I want dedicated purpose-built terminals; switch it on and It Works. And both DEC and IBM made 'real' terminals in a 'small pizza box' form factor, using a separate standard VGA monitor as a display; one could use those with a small LCD screen and achieve a similar result, and I might do just that - can anyone remember the model numbers of IBM 3270 and 5250 terminals that were built this way? But really I'd prefer a compact all-in one solution; a one-piece terminal. Any suggestions? I'm open to both LCDs and *small* CRTs. Preferably colour! Thanks Mike

10 years, 8 months

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PDP 8 panels. Feedback

by rodsmallwood52＠btinternet.com

Hi Guys I need to get some comments on the following. 1. Would a matt finish be better than the current glossy one? 2. Should the round holes be pre-drilled? Regards Rod

10 years, 8 months

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PET mono screens

by binarydinosaurs＠gmail.com

Hi folks, ROM problems aside does anyone know of a way I can test the actual CRT? Last night I borrowed the screen from another PET just to see if I get a garbage pattern from the board I'm repairing, but this one stays similarly dark so I need to sanity check both of them. Back when I was fixing my broken TRS80s I could use the CRT from a B&W TV, is there anything oddball about the PET CRT that would stop me going the other way and putting the tube in one of my spare TVs? Ta! -- adrian/witchy Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection? www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk

10 years, 8 months

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Scan of tape pile for Sun system

by jws＠jwsss.com

I recently got hands on what is supposed to be a Sun 4/260. INcluded are about 150 QIC tapes or so. I've gotten the fifty or so with labels scanned (labels on the tapes) so far and will make up a list soon. A lot of them have broken rubber bands, but the few that I could move by hand moved w/o indicating that the tape media was bad. I'm assuming all the rubber bands are shot. Anyway the labels make them seem worthwhile. Highlights are Ciprico Rimfire 3500 and Interphase drivers. There seems to be one set of Sunbin 3.0 tapes in the pile. So far the other release sets are incomplete. The second tape has 3 out of 5 tapes, but at least includes the boot tape. Also a driver for TTI vme bus (not sure what that is). AnDaTaco Optical disk drivers. Perfect Byte EXB-8200 SCSI driver. There are also compilers for C (Mercury), and for Fortran (Sun) . Also VXworks. https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B4AXJXpUCE-hRS1sSGlUOFIyNnc&usp=sha… Sorry for the bloated pdf. posted it for the impatient. You may have to download it to view it at all, 54mb right now. I will transcribe a full list of all of the tapes I have in ascii form in the next few days, but wanted to get opinions on whether this already exists somewhere else. Thanks Jim

10 years, 8 months

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filtering?

by simski＠dds.nl

Hi All, it seems that some of my messages do not get through to the list. Is there a filter on this list of some sort? -- Met vriendelijke Groet, Simon Claessen drukknop.nl

10 years, 8 months

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PROMs and EPROMs, specifically 2332/2532/2732

by witchy＠binarydinosaurs.co.uk

Hi folks, PET4032 repair continues with all ROMs, video RAM and dodgy sockets removed thanks to a hot air gun. Holes cleaned and I have new turned pin sockets for everything I've removed which I'll be fitting this afternoon. Since the ROMs came out OK I'm trying to dump them using my Pinmaster48 programmer, being from the 90s it doesn't read 2332/2532 PROMs but it WILL read a lot of variants of 2732 so I've made an adapter as found thanks to google and USENET: 2332 pin 18 to 2732 pin 21 (A11) 2332 pin 20 to 2732 pin 18 (Chip enable/Power Down) 2332 pin 21 to 2732 pins 20 and 24 via diodes with banding at the 2332 end (2332 Vpp) Wiring checks out and the diodes are aligned correctly so pins 20 and 24 don't interfere with each other, however the pinmaster continually gives me "continuity error on pin 20" Have I goofed somewhere? Cheers, -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection?

10 years, 8 months

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Model 152 PSU dummy loads - Re: NeXT Cube - powers on briefly then off again

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Ian Finder > so just on the safe side we'll cover some Engineering for Poets (or > Programmers) ROFL! Noel

10 years, 8 months

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NeXT Cube - powers on briefly then off again

by toby＠telegraphics.com.au

Hi, After a few years I wanted to try my Cube with the soundbox/VGA splitter configuration for the first time. (I have the fading phosphor N4000A so have been keen to have an alternate video solution.) However, all is not well. Using the keyboard power button, the machine powers on for a couple of seconds, just long enough to see a NeXT logo and grey desktop on the VGA (yay!) but then powers itself off again. Any clues? Thanks in advance --Toby (not having a good classic computing week)

10 years, 8 months

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US South: AS/400 system

by silent700＠gmail.com

Spotted on CL, not near it, no relation to seller, etc: http://jackson.craigslist.org/sys/5246929532.html AS/400 is a narrow niche in the hobby but a complete running system can be hard to come by. Also, terminals are nice. j

10 years, 8 months

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Substituting DSHD for DSDD disks (or DS2D if you prefer)

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

Chuck good to know we probably need some - I do not think we have any good clean ones new here... will check.... Ed# In a message dated 10/26/2015 9:50:44 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, cclist at sydex.com writes: On 10/26/2015 01:04 AM, COURYHOUSE at aol.com wrote: > and the first hp-150 drive set, the hp-9121, was single sided > double density SS/DD discs (270Kb). > > sure was glad when the 9122 came out! I supsect that the Sony SMC-70 may have been among the first systems to come out with the things. Fortunately, I still have several cartons (duplicator grade) of blank DSDD 3.5" mdedia. A few months ago, I gave away (FFS) about 1,000 of the things. I suspect that the the world's supply is far from exhausted. Lots of common word processors also used them (e.g. Brother). --Chuck

10 years, 8 months

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Substituting DSHD for DSDD disks (or DS2D if you prefer)

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

and the first hp-150 drive set, the hp-9121, was single sided double density SS/DD discs (270Kb). sure was glad when the 9122 came out! Always looking for more HP-150 stuff for our display... any one have a monarch butterfly advertising poster? Ed# _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org) In a message dated 10/26/2015 12:52:56 A.M. US Mountain Standard Tim, cclist at sydex.com writes: On 10/25/2015 11:12 PM, tony duell wrote: > Not always! The original Sony full-height drives (the 600rm ones) > have a disk-inserted sensor positioned exactly where that hole is. So > if you insert an HD disk the drive doesn't detect it. It is rumoured > this was deliberate (positioning of the HD hole) so that you couldn't > use the wrong disks and have reliability problems. Yes, the Sony OA-D32 drives. Single-sided 600 RPM. One *could* argue, that, given the data rate, it's already "high density" (of a sort). I worked out a BIOS for a Z80 CP/M system called a Preis around 1982, when the drive was pretty new. It was a luggable and had a hard disk option as well. I don't know whatever became of them--but I still have the BIOS listing in my files. I don't think that anyone had any thoughts about putting such a drive in with a controller that would do 1Mbps. Sony never alluded to it in their documentation. The battle of the "pocket floppies", IIRC, hadn't yet been settled in 1982. We could just as well have wound up with the Shugart/Dysan 3.25" floppy--or worse, the Hitachi 3" disks as used in the Amstrad machines. I've still got a couple of 3.5" ED drives, along with blank media--there was a trend that didn't last long... --Chuck

10 years, 8 months

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Quantum Link (Q-Link)

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

so this show is closer to reality than I thought?? not knowing quantum link none of the other services seemed to fit... Ed# In a message dated 10/26/2015 7:54:38 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, ethan at 757.org writes: > Originally I thought it was basing it on Comnet or Compuserve but after > reading these comments, I now think Quantum Link makes more sense. They > are doing a good job portraying the various personalities, especially the > disfunctional ones. In the episode where there is a room full of people and it's up on a projection screen -- I looked up the Quantum Link main page online and it seemed to match. http://toastytech.com/guis/c64gquantumlink.gif That thing -- Ethan O'Toole

10 years, 8 months

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Model 152 PSU dummy loads - Re: NeXT Cube - powers on briefly then off again

by cctalk＠beyondthepale.ie

> > OK, so a couple years back, I wanted to have some chemistry fun with the kids. > So, I got out the jump cables, clamped them onto some aluminum foil, stuffed > the foil into test tubes, filled the tubes with water, inverted both of them > in the same basin and sprinkled in a little salt, cranked up the car, and > sure enough ? bubbles started evolving off the foil and collecting in the > test tubes. > Just as expected, one tube was filling with gas twice as fast as the other. > Just as expected, when we held that tube over a candle, it went ?WHEEP? and > got hot (the flame was barely visible). > > Um? the OP had a 12V supply, right? How *do* you keep from electrolyzing > your coolant in this apparatus. Firstly, don't add salt. Secondly, the low resistance dummy load is going to soak up almost all of the current, leaving very little to go through the much higher resistance water resulting in very little gas production. If the minute amount of gas produced is still a problem, you could electrically insulate the dummy load from the water. However, this may also help to thermally insulate from the water it which is not what you want. > > PS. this is a cool experiment but suitable cautions apply. The most subtle > is: not too much salt, lest you start evolving chlorine gas instead of > hydrogen. Flammable to explosive gasses, 12V sparks, etc. etc? be careful > if you try to replicate this. Also, beware of the danger of shorting the jump cables together, either directly or via worn jewellery etc causing a large bang, melted terminals etc and possible damage to kids, self and car. Consider using something like a current limited bench power supply instead. Regards, Peter Coglan.

10 years, 8 months

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Quantum Link (Q-Link)

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

I received the email below, thought I'd pass it on... ----- Dear J West, I am writing to inform you about an article I have created about Quantum Link, an online service that was available in the US & Canada from 1985 to 1994. https://www.tinytickle.co.uk/quantum-link/ Quantum Link, originally available on the Commodore 64 computer, offered and pioneered many of the features we are used to having on the modern internet, such as e-mail, instant messagaing, shopping and chat rooms - to name a few. Quantum Link also featured the ground breaking game Habitat by Lucasfilm's, the first graphical massively multiplayer online game. https://www.tinytickle.co.uk/quantum-link/#mmo Q-Link was also made available on Apple & IBM compatible PCs from 1988. I was wondering if you could add a link from your website (classiccmp.org) to the piece to help spread knowledge of the influential, but now largely forgotten, Quantum Link service. The article has proven popular on social media, and I thought that it would be of interest to your readers. Any mention you could make on social media would also be fantastic. Any corrections, feedback or comments you may have on the piece would be greatly appreciated, either by email or via the comments form on the webpage itself. Thanks for your time. Kind Regards David Wilding

10 years, 8 months

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looking for Siemens T100 telexes in the US

by simski＠dds.nl

(As previous post did not get through, again a repost) Hi All, I was contacted via the greenkeys list for my spare parts of the two T100 telexes, but I think it should be possible to obtain them in the states. Is there someone willing to part of their broken or otherwise non/half functional T100 in the usa. they need the parts for a movie. -- Met vriendelijke Groet, Simon Claessen drukknop.nl

10 years, 8 months

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Anyone near Erie, PA? Pickup/Pack/Ship Help

by rickb＠bensene.com

Greetings, all, I have a contact in Erie, PA that has a piece of equipment that I need to get, but he is unwilling to ship it, and making a trip to his location to pick it up is pretty unlikely given time/expense. If there is a ClassicCmp'er that lives nearby Erie, and would be willing to pick up, pack and ship (at my expense) this item to me, I would be willing to pay for time/effort expended in doing so. The item is heavy, around 80 pounds. I could ship a very nice wooden crate to the packer who could use it to ship the item to me inside. All that would be necessary is to pick up the item, pack it securely in the crate, and take it to the closest UPS depot and drop it off to ship to me. If there is anyone out there who might be willing, please contact me by private Email: rickb /at/ bensene /dot/ com Thank you, Rick Bensene The Old Calculator Museum http://oldcalculatormuseum.com

10 years, 8 months

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Trying to fine out more information on a Comstar Process Control Compiler

by christian_liendo＠yahoo.com

So I purchased what was told to me was an Eprom Programmer. It's called the Comstar Process Control Compiler. With some digging, I am learning that this is a portable compiler that allows you to program larger industrial computers. I found an article from 1975 that talks about the unit. Development of a portable compiler for industrial microcomputer systems http://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/afips/1975/5083/00/50830033.pdf >From the article: "THE PORTABLE PROCESS CONTROL COMPILER The process control compiler shown in Figure 6 is a small portable unit designed for programming the Comstar 4 Industrial Microcomputer System. The programming can be accomplished with high reliability even in field conditions. The PCL instructions are keyed in via the compiler keyboard, then converted into machine language and loaded into the PROM chip by the compiler. The input functions are displayed directly on a 32 character alpha-numeric plasma display, ensuring the user of a correct input. All keyed-in commands are stored in a buffer which can be verified with a key command. Up to 256 bytes of data or instructions can be entered. Data are compiled and can be dumped into a clean erased PROM chip. As an option, EIA or TTY outputs are available so the program can be printed out for future reference. A compiler can also edit, erase or program PROMS in machine language." A company by the name of Warner & Swasey was an industrial machine company. They built all sorts of machines for industry. They had a sub division called Comstar which designed industrial computers The larger computers ran their own Process Control Language and so they developed this machine as a portable device to program the larger machines and then burn ROMs which then control the larger computers. The person I bought it from told me that the larger systems ran a chicken processing plant and that they used this system to program and troubleshot the system. The unit runs on an Intel 4004 and is programmed using Comstar's Process Control Language. I'm hoping someone would know more about this and can point me in the right direction.. I already checked Bit Savers The only other article that seems to talk about this is "Micros can provide more flexibility for less money" Computerworld Sep 25, 1974, Page 28

10 years, 8 months

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Siemens T100?

by simski＠dds.nl

(As previous post did not get through, again a repost) Hi All, I was contacted via the greenkeys list for my spare parts of the two T100 telexes, but I think it should be possible to obtain them in the states. Is there someone willing to part of their broken or otherwise non/half functional T100 in the usa. they need the parts for a movie. -- Met vriendelijke Groet, Simon Claessen drukknop.nl

10 years, 8 months

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Commodore and Atari

by sales＠elecplus.com

Is anyone interested in a Vic 20, Atari 800XL, or an Amiga? The Amiga appears to be missing a couple of things. No AC adapters for any of them. Complete key caps, no severe yellowing, no way to test. The Amiga resembles this one: http://www.oldcomputers.net/pics/amiga500.jpg Cindy --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

10 years, 8 months

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Couplers for Sun DB13W3<->VGA DE15 adapter

by echristopherson＠gmail.com

I have a Sun machine with a 13W3 framebuffer output, which is connected via a Monoprice VGA adapter to my LCD monitor. It works great, but the ends of the standoff bolts without nuts come together where the VGA cable meets the adapter; that is to say, the VGA cable's nuts are on the far side of the shell from its male end, and the adapter's nuts are on the far side of the shell from its female end. I'm wondering what I can put between the two to keep the cable from disconnecting from the adapter. Some searches seem to indicate I want some 4x40 (or 4-40) female-female (coupling) nuts; does this seem correct? -- Eric Christopherson

10 years, 8 months

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testing...

by simski＠dds.nl

Please ignore. it seems my mail does not get through the last couple of times. -- Met vriendelijke Groet, Simon Claessen drukknop.nl

10 years, 8 months

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HP2100 top card connectors

by wdonzelli＠gmail.com

On the HP 2100 series machines (and possibly 1000s?) - those top of the card connectors - are they the 2 x 24 contact on 0.156" centers types? -- Will

10 years, 8 months

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Retro Reproduction 2

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Rod Smallwood > Just refresh my memory. C+K are the what I would call PDP8 type? No, the C+K are the lever toggle switches, as used in the -11/05/40/45/70. Only the /20 uses the slide switches like the -8. > In an attempt to get ahead of the requests I have been trawling the web > for pictures of anything DEC that has a front panel. Well, if you're ready for more, I'll start sending you the info for the UNIBUS disk controller indicator panels (RF11, RK11-C, RP11-C), then! :-) > It would seem you are Mr Switches and I am Panel Man. !! You're definitely panels; I'm probably only going to do the toggle switches (if the ones I've found are the right ones). I think someone else has the slide switches under control? BTW, the terminology for the various display parts is a bit confusing, so let me lay out what I gather to be the official DEC terminology. For the "indicator panels" - which is the term for the complete assembly (for the RF11, RK11-C and RP11-C), the flat sheet of plastic with all the light captions silk-screened onto it on it seems to be the "inlay" (q.v. RF11 controller engineering drawings, pg. 187 of the PDF). The "bezel" is the thin white rim that goes around the 'inlay'. The formal name for the light shield (the piece of fibre-board with all the holes drilled in it) is 'Benelex' (Benelex is "general use, word fibre board"). Alas, it's no longer available, so any new light shields will have to use something else. For the PDP-11 front consoles, BTW, the terms are "bezel", "console panel" (the piece that is called the 'inlay' on the indicator panels), and "console PC board" (all this per the 11/45, /50, /55 System Maintainence Manual, EK-11045-MM-007, pp. 131-132 of the PDF). Noel

10 years, 8 months

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The Internet & our hobby

by seefriek＠gmail.com

From: Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> >Early internet systems--I'm not sure where to draw the line between >Usenet, ARPANet and Internet exactly often employed nothing more than >POTS networking, using nothing more than UUCP or similar methods. We were quite certain our Datakit X.25 network was on the Internet (late-80s/early-90s AT&T). Email/Netnews/File transfer all worked, though the addressing gyrations that were occasionally required were fairly demented. When we did NSFnet at Gatech, there was always some tweak to take into account some "Internet" peer someone desperately needed to talk to that was really a gateway into some baroque non-IP network. It was a more diverse time, with BITNET, DECNet & other OSI-ish protos, and SNA/APPN common. I became quite adept at sendmail ".cf" files. Good times. >I do miss the web-less Internet in some respects. >People were more polite back then--at least in their >written communication. You apparently ran on a very different early Internet than I did. KJ

10 years, 8 months

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Retro Reproduction 2

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Rod Smallwood > I'm in the drawing stage for 11/45 11/55 11/70 (common blank size) I think the 11/40 uses that same blank, too (with less holes than the other ones, as it doesn't have the two rotary switches); dunno about the location of the power switch, someone who has an 11/40 will have to send you measurements. > given a scan and measurements .. I can have a go at most types of panel. The ones I personally would like (after the 11/45 :-) are the indicator panels for the RF11, RK11-C and RP11. Guy will be using the RF11 panels too, not sure if he has started on producing them yet. > Now we need a ... switches source Let me see if the C+K ones I have ordered fit. If so, if I buy a large group directly from C+K, we might be able to get the price down to something reasonable, which would save us the hassle of two different kinds of toggles/actuators (one for the original panels, one for reproductions). Noel

10 years, 8 months

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Common Maxtor MFM drive failure mode -- any ideas?

by derschjo＠gmail.com

Hi all -- I acquired a Symbolics 3640 today and it came equipped with two "large" capacity Maxtor MFM drives (an XT-1140 and an XT-2190). The 1140 spins up fine and we were able to image it using Dave Gesswein's MFM emulator (yay). The 2190 does not, and it fails in precisely the same way I've personally seen three or four other Maxtor drives of the same era fail: It spins up fine, but when it goes to load the heads, it sounds like the voice coil positioner for the heads is "screaming" -- it emits a high-pitched, quite loud whine/buzz which persists until you power the drive down. The drive is unresponsive during this time. I'm fairly sure it's not a head crash or anything like that; having gone through this a year or so ago with a similar drive that was scratch anyway, I opened it up and verified that the heads weren't stuck, and I see no evidence of a head crash after disassembly. Further, the fault does not appear to be on the logic board -- we swapped in a board from a working 2190 tonight and afterwards the drive exhibited the same symptoms. I've had this happen to other 2190s and 1140s and a few of the ESDI drives in the same family, some of which were working in my possession for weeks before failing -- has anyone else seen this? Any ideas? I'd kind of like to recover the data off of the 2190 from the 3640... drat. Thanks, Josh

10 years, 8 months

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Olivetti M24 Bus Converter Card

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

Anyone have any ideas? If not I guess the UK card is cheap enough to take a chance anyway. Regards Rob From: Robert Jarratt [mailto:robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com] Sent: 24 October 2015 21:20 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts (cctalk at classiccmp.org) Subject: Olivetti M24 Bus Converter Card I have an M24 which does not have the bus converter card P1050). There are a couple of these cards on ebay in the USA, which makes it expensive for me, and I am not sure which of the two would be best anyway. There is another bus converter available in the UK, but it is PC1076 (IF 622), which my web searches suggest make it for the M280 (which was a 286 machine). Does anyone have any idea if this latter card might work in my M24? It certainly looks to be physically compatible. Regards Rob

10 years, 8 months

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AOL (Was: Substituting DSHD for DSDD disks (or DS2D

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

AOL was a good model for general consumers. also remember many people used AOL before the www was all the rage so... you stay with something you have alreay learned.and AOL was accessible anywhere in the world for the most part whereas podunk mom and pop ISPs had local phone numbers. This was important if I was say going to UK or France for more than a few days as dialing back to a podunk in phoenix would not only be damn expensive but the quality of connection thru the long distance would no doubt be horrible... Aside from our AOL account we had a podunk that had two brothers that seemed as stupid as Daryl and his other brother Daryl in the Bob Newhart show that ran it. Eccch! The game changer for local residents though was the cable companies and telecoms offering Internet service... same bill as their telephone or cable tv easy to sign up... and remember at first the hi speed connects were though the telco for us and we had AOL but after I quit travels just had a minimal AOL account... why? lots of people I have known for eons can still contact me there. Why do I still use it? because my friends know to reach me there. Why will I always have an aol account forever? well until all my friends pass on or I pass on it is a connection medium! Ed # Uptime seemed to be better on also than some of the podunks In a message dated 10/25/2015 12:40:46 P.M. US Mountain Standard Tim, cisin at xenosoft.com writes: [AOL] On Sun, 25 Oct 2015, ben wrote: > I suspect the reason they failed was not service > but a) PC's had games b) Ma Bell wanted a arm and a leg > for long distance connections. Some of their early efforts to COMPETE AGAINST the internet helped establish outfits like Netcom, and were a boost to ISPs. Perhaps Ed (still using AOL) would have some insight into what caused their decline. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

10 years, 8 months

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Oddball question: really small terminals

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

I wonder if - http://www.brielcomputers.com/wordpress/?cat=25 can be hacked to do Baudot at 60 wpm? Ed# In a message dated 10/25/2015 7:29:19 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, tmfdmike at gmail.com writes: These are the best bet I've seen for serial terminals so far: http://www.brielcomputers.com/wordpress/?cat=25 Just stick one to the back of a small LCD screen and I'm in business. But on closer inspection the site shows "out of stock". I'll email; maybe they'll do another batch. Or does anyone know someone who has stock? And I'm still left with the need for something for 3270... Useful thread though; all kinds of interesting things coming out of the woodwork :-) Mike

10 years, 8 months

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How to revive my E450

by toby＠telegraphics.com.au

Hi, I have an Sun E450 with 4 cpus installed that ran fine for a few years as a Solaris 10 box with ZFS boot. About 4 years ago I mothballed it and pulled the two boot drives out to store (ZFS was in a mirror configuration). This weekend I decided to see if it would come up again. Predictably, the NVRAM is dead. "The IDPROM contents are invalid" And it's forgotten its mfg-options. (I found info by Googling that this should be set to 49 for E450.) I'll have to do something about that. More surprising to me than the NVRAM failure though was that it produces the same result when I try to boot from either drive: ok boot disk Boot device: /pci at 1f,4000/scsi at 3/disk at 0,0 File and args: Bad magic number in disk label Can't open disk label package Can't open boot device It seems unlikely to me that both disks have died. Does anyone have any other ideas? Could it be related to the NVRAM failure? Here's what I haven't tried yet: - I haven't checked disk jumpers - I haven't tried to mount the disks and check them on another machine. This could be a bit of work, but I can get around to it. It's a long time since I set up this Solaris/ZFS install. Maybe I've forgotten some quirk of booting ZFS on old SPARC. Any suggestions welcome. (also posted to Sun Rescue list) --Toby

10 years, 8 months

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Fw: new message

by katelists＠trouts.org

Hey! New message, please read <http://plrpictures.com/longer.php?k5gqr> katelists at trouts.org

10 years, 8 months

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Fw: new message

by katelists＠trouts.org

Hey! New message, please read <http://azstar.1byteshy.com/saying.php?oa69> katelists at trouts.org

10 years, 8 months

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