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

by marc.verdiell＠gmail.com

Oh, that blue 1970's psychedelic color! The fast line printer! The vacuum column drive (drool)! And it is alive! Congratulations! Marc

10 years, 9 months

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'New' PDP-11 prints

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

So, I've been going through all my PDP-11 prints, looking for ones that aren't already online (so I can scan/upload them). I have a couple (see later message), but this is about something else. In doing the above, I ran across an LSI-11 print set (MP-00706) which is about 340 pages long, and contains prints for all manner of boards, some of which do not show up (for reasons I don't understand) when looked for in a common search engine (Google, to be precise). I will eventually be adding them to my list of 'online by unfindable print sets': http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/FMPSOnline.html (which I have recently updated with more finds falling out of the search of my collection of prints), but: does anyone know of any other similar large compendiums of prints online? In particular, I'm hoping there's a later equivalent (this one's from October 1978) which would show a lot of the later QBUS boards which we don't have prints for. As I previously mentioned, I've gone through a number of PDP-11 print sets which are online (11/05, 11/05S, 11/23, 11/34, etc) in compiling the initial list, but it seems like there are more out there. Please let me know of any others you are aware of, so I can trawl them too! Noel

10 years, 9 months

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Self modifying code, lambda calculus - Re: ENIAC programming

by mark＠markesystems.com

> I wrote X.25 software in Fortran:-(. We had some machine specific routines One of my first professional jobs after college was with a company that created after-market hardware and software for Apollo workstations. Despite having a good Pascal, I was tasked with (and completed) a port of a scientific word processor package (WordMarc), all in Fortran (77, at least). Since I ended up being pretty familiar with both the language and environment, I used it again to throw together a simple 8080 assembler in about a day, too. ~~ Mark Moulding

10 years, 9 months

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Self modifying code, lambda calculus - Re: ENIAC

by mark＠markesystems.com

> Early 3rd generation machines had special instructions to finagle their > way around self-modifying code: And some didn't: The HP 2100 and the PDP-8 (and I think the Honeywell x16s), instead of a stack, would store the return address of subroutine calls in the first word of the subroutine; obviously, this made recursive subroutines impossible without handling a stack manually. > Few CDCers of the time even knew that the STAR-100 existed. I remember Reading up on the early history of CDC, I stumbled across the "Little Character" - Seymour Cray's six-bit proof of concept for his first computer designs at CDC. Apparently, one was actually built, because it's now at the CHM. However, I haven't been able to find any significant information about this on the Web (my Google-fu must be failing me). Does anyone know where I could find some documentation about this machine? Performance specs (memory size, speed, etc.) would be nice, but I'd really like a detailed architecture and instruction set description - you know, in case someone wanted to make an emulator or something... ~~ Mark Moulding

10 years, 9 months

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would like to find blue dg et head looking terminal to go with small ecli...

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

yes ET! the one in the with the head in the yoke although anything blue and pretty would be better than nothing! Our Eclipse is not as grand as some photos ,,, and the tape drive is a small side by side reel unit that fits in the single rack here is a photo of ours.... http://www.smecc.org/data_general.htm had it for years need manuals etc and maybe some sales lit. or scans of advertising material to display with it... but yea... it cries out to have a terminal with it! In a message dated 9/22/2015 9:08:14 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, jwest at classiccmp.org writes: Jay Jaeger wrote... ---- ??? What do you mean by "blue dg et head looking terminal" ??? ---- I'd bet that he's referring to the Data General Dasher D200 terminal. I have one: https://www.flickr.com/photos/131070638 at N02/21058074082 But perhaps a better picture: http://maben.homeip.net/static/s100/data%20general/photos/DG%20dasher%20d200 %20front.jpg The D200 isn't always on ebay, but usually they show up mildly frequently there and seem to go around $200 to $250. There was another common terminal on eclipse systems. I'm not sure if it was in the Dasher series, but I believe it was called a "5821". I have one of these as well. http://www.museumwaalsdorp.nl/computer/images/GRP.jpg Lastly, a common combination system console (terminal)/printer that is VERY cool looking was the Dasher TP1 and TP2. Mine is a TP1. http://www.foxdata.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/IMG_0210.jpg J

10 years, 9 months

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would like to find blue dg et head looking terminal to go with small ecli...

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

that may have been the one i had.... In a message dated 9/22/2015 11:59:29 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, jwest at classiccmp.org writes: On mine, there is no "blank panel space" to the right of the screen. The screen takes up the entire horizontal width. Diagonally, the terminal "head" measures 21 inches so it's slightly unusually large for a terminal. On the back, under model number it says "5821NT".

10 years, 9 months

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PDP-11 Overlays

by jhfinedp3k＠compsys.to

Recently, there have been a number of references to using overlays on the PDP-11. There have also been strong suggestions that overlays were structured differently under the 3 operating systems: RSTS/E, RSX-11 and RT-11. Obviously, I understand how RT-11 overlays were set up, but for those readers who don't: ROOT - contains overlay code subroutines and data tables - data used by more than one overlay FIRST Overlay Region - size of the largest overlay in the region - one or more overlays and the data used by just that overlay SECOND Overlay Region - size of the largest overlay in the region - one or more overlays and the data used by just that overlay THIRD Overlay Region - size of the largest overlay in the region - one or more overlays and the data used by just that overlay FREE MEMORY Any overlay could be called from any location. About the only requirement was that the calling instruction code (specifically the code which followed the calling instruction) had to be in memory when the code returned from the overlay. In practice, the usual protocol was that an overlay in a higher region was only called >from a lower region or the root. I understand that RSTS/E and RSX-11 were a bit more complex. Can anyone briefly summarize and also provide a link to the details in the appropriate manual if it is available on the internet? Jerome Fine

10 years, 9 months

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Multi-platform distribution format (Was: Backups [was

by jhfinedp3k＠compsys.to

>Rod Smallwood wrote: > >On 21/09/2015 10:30, Johnny Billquist wrote: > >> >On 2015-09-21 02:11, Jerome H. Fine wrote: >> >>> You bring up a VERY notable lack of support by DEC of that >>> situation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! >>> >>> For both the DEC RX01 and the DEC RX02 8" floppy drives, >>> while it might have been possible that DEC engineers were unable >>> to initially figure out how to allow users to perform an LLF (Low >>> Level Format) on the 8" floppy drives, it seems certain that after >>> 3rd party manufactures figured out, DEC could also have supported >>> that function as well. >>> >>> Instead, DEC pretended that all 8" floppy media HAD to be >>> purchased PRE-FORMATTED from DEC. Well, if you >>> ever discussed that option with a DEC person, it certainly >>> did not seem like the individual was pretending. >>> >>> After I managed to locate a DSD (Data Systems Design) >>> drive which supported the DEC RX02 floppy drive function, >>> it was game over for that particular DEC monopoly. The >>> DSD drive was able to perform an LLF for either single >>> density or double density in addition to being both single >>> sided and double sided. >> >> Not that tricky. All you needed was a way to format into RX01 format, >> which is plain simple IBM single side, single density format. >> RX02 floppies have the same low level formatting. To use them in RX02 >> mode just requires flipping a bit in the sector header, and the RX02 >> drive is able to do that. > I am not sure that I understand your suggestion. While I agree that the RX02 was able to switch a single-density floppy to a double-density floppy (and visa versa), the difficulty, as you pointed out, was performing the initial LLF (Low Level Formatting) in the first place on Un-Formatted 8" floppies. That may have been easy with IBM hardware, but DEC made that impossible if all the user had was a DEC system. For readers unfamiliar with DEC vocabulary, the FORMAT command did NOT create a file structure! That command in RT-11 was INITIALIZE and something similar was probably used for RSTS/E and RSX-11. Note that under RT-11, the FORMAT command for the RX02 did NOT perform an LLF, but did set the density bit in each sector if an LLF had already been performed and was sufficiently intact to support clearing out all the data in the sector setting and the density bit to the value requested by the user. In practice, I found that when an RX02 floppy started having problems, the LLF was VERY rarely a problem. For reasons which were not understood, when the floppy media started to have read and or write errors, it was usually possible to have the RX02 floppy drive perform the software command which DEC called FORMAT and re-initialize all the sectors so that the media could be used again without any read and or write errors. That obviously would have required the LLF to be sufficiently present for the software and hardware to repair the problems and reset all the sectors as either single-density or double-density depending on what the user requested. I am not sure what conclusions can be drawn from this example. >>> Note that the RX50 was the same. DEC finally changed >>> their marketing policy with the RX33 drive which used the >>> same 3.5" HD floppy media as the PC. It was actually >>> possible to FORMAT those floppies under RT-11. >> >> No, DEC actually did support users formatting RX50 floppies on their >> own, but only on the Rainbow. >> >> Johnny > If it was possible to perform a LLF using the same RX50 drive on the Rainbow, what was the reason why an LLF could not also be performed on a PDP-11? There seems to be a number of possibilities: (a) There was some hardware that the Rainbow had which was missing on the PDP-11 systems (b) The firmware in the controller on the Rainbow supported an LLF, but the firmware in the controller on the RQDX1, RQDX2 or RQDX3 on the PDP-11 did not support an LLF (c) The Rainbow used a program which DEC supplied that could perform an LLF, but DEC did not supply such a program for the PDP-11 systems (d) Another possibility of which I am not aware. Is there an answer as to which possibility supported the Rainbow being able to perform an LLF using an RX50 drive, but that the PDP-11 systems with that same RX50 could not perform an LLF? >> Take me back to my desk in DECPark thirty years ago and I could have >> pulled out the internal documents on this. > > I cant do that so we will have to make do with my dodgy memory. > When floppy disks first appeared end users just wanted to take the > disk out of the box and use it. > They could not see why they should waste time preparing every new one. > They did not need matching to a particular drive as DEC's > manufacturing tolerances made sure any disk would work on any drive. > > In fact it was more difficult and expensive to provide pre-formatted > disks. > It was more about customer service and making sure the equipment kept > running. > > I heard the following story > > One customer went out and got a huge pile of unformatted (and > untested) floppys and a third party format program. > He expected DEC to make it work. > > The account manager asked to see his DEC maintainance contract and had > to be restrained from tearing it up. > Through the window of the office was building site and the inevitable > 50 gallon oil drum burning rubbish. > He was offered a choice; he could put the disks or the contract in the > burning drum. > > Rod Smallwood > > > > > DEC supplied pre formatted disks I don't know how to respond since different individuals will interpret your story in the opposite manner, So I will add my own experience when I used the RX02 drive from DEC along with the DSD RX03 floppy drive. Around 1990 after I had acquired the DSD RX03 floppy drive in a DSD 880/30 system, I also managed to acquire many brands of 8" floppy media. At that point, I had not yet managed to acquire any tape hardware such as the TK25 which supported a 32 MB disk image, so the floppies were my primary backup. I probably had about a dozen different brands of 8" floppies that required an LLF before they could be used. And since a double-density, double-sided 8" floppy media held about 1 MB (1976 blocks) as opposed to about 1/2 MB (988 blocks) for double-density, single-sided media, I set set about the task of enhancing the DEC DY.MAC RX02 device driver after I found the code in V04.00 of RT-11 which included support for double-sided media. What may be called "interesting" was that DEC had removed all of that optional code in DY.MAC by the time V05.00 of RT-11 was released. That might have had something to do with the fact that DEC never sold (that I heard of) an RX03 drive. In any case, adding and correcting the extra code was quite easy. The challenge was to also add support for a user buffer being above the 1/4 MB boundary in a PDP-11 with all 4 MB of memory when a Mapped RT-11 Monitor was used since the controller supported only 18-bit addresses. Another problem was that the index hole for single-sided floppies was offset about 1/2" from the index hole for double-sided floppies. That challenge was solved by using a DPDT switch to flip the sensors that were used on the DSD 880/30 and that supported using, as double-sided, floppies with the single- sided index hole. While a number of 8" floppies had been purchased that had the double-sided index hole, that was less than 10% of the total and after punching the extra pair of holes in single-sided floppies just a few times, it was very quickly apparent that the DPDT switch was a much better one-time solution. What was initially a surprise was that EITHER the single-sided OR double-sided index hole could be used with the same floppy to access the sectors even though the holes were in different positions. The timing did not seem to matter. Only the device driver software cared if the bit was set one way or the other, so flipping the sensors which were activated was an excellent one-time solution when the user (me!!) wanted to use a floppy with a single-sided index hole as a double-sided floppy. In any case, the code was enhanced, my version of DYX.SYS supported the RX03 double-density, double-sided floppy drive under a 22-bit RT-11 monitor. So I set about the job of the LLFs for double-sided 8" floppy media. As mentioned above, in addition to a couple of dozen 8" DEC floppies, I had about a dozen other brands. To make a long story short at this point, the results were "interesting". Every non-DEC branded 8" floppy could hold an LLF for double-sided, double-density. On the other hand, I seem to remember that only about 2/3 of the DEC 8" floppies managed to complete the LLF. The other 1/3 of the DEC 8" floppies could hold an LLF on the normal first side, but not on the second side. Obviously this story was somewhat different since it was not necessary to ask DEC maintenance to make the LLF capability with the DSD 880/30 to work - it already worked. In addition, there was no DEC maintenance contract in the first place and there was no 50 gallon oil drum. There was also no refusal by DEC to enhance the DY.MAC device driver to support the RX03 floppy drive since DEC was not asked. Over the decades since, I have always wondered how it was even possible for ONLY the DEC 8" floppies to be unable to take an LLF double-sided when every other brand managed to do so. There was probably one floppy that was so severely damaged that it would not take an LLF on either side, but that was a specific exception. Any 8" floppy which could take a double-sided, double-density LLF held the data successfully when used in practice. In any case, I also ask the questions: (a) Was it more difficult and expensive to provide pre-formatted disks? (b) FOR WHOM was it more difficult and expensive to provide pre-formatted disks (DEC or the user)? (c) Was it more about customer service and making sure the equipment kept running? (d) Was it more about DEC charging about TEN times the price for pre-formatted disks over the price for un-formatted disks and having a technician take the time to do the LLF (about 2 minutes for each double-sided, double-density floppy or about 30 floppies an hour)? At the time, I seem to remember that a box of 10 pre-formatted 8" floppies from DEC was about $ 50 while a box of 10 un-formatted 8" floppies was about $ 5 a box. If a technician could format 3 boxes of 8" floppies in an hour, that would seem to save that user about $ 135 which would probably be less expensive for the user. (e) Was it equally reliable and less expensive to use non-DEC unformatted 8" floppies if the user had the necessary hardware and or software to pre-format the floppies? Also, I want to be sure to add that in my experience, RT-11 is probably the best written and documented operating system that I have encountered. While there are still a few bugs that can actually crash the operating system and many enhancements were and are still needed, RT-11 is mostly stable and easy to use. RT-11 obviously lacks any security when running under an UnMapped Monitor since the user has access to all of the memory. Even with a Mapped Monitor, a user program can gain access to the Monitor. But RT-11 was not designed to be secure in the first place. So I still think that DEC did an exceptional job - especially since almost all programs written for the very first version of RT-11 can still run under the latest version. Jerome Fine

10 years, 9 months

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Reading a masked ROM the hard way (was Re: Wanted: ROM images from HP 9895, 82901/82902, and other HP-IB disk drives)

by spacewar＠gmail.com

Someone was kind enough to mail me the masked ROM out of his HP 9895 floppy drive. I've read it and mailed it back. It's an MK36000 series 24-pin 8KB masked ROM, with the same pinout as the Motorola MC68764 EPROM, so reading it with an EPROM programmer set for the Motorola part should work fine. In read mode, no programming voltage is applied, so there should be no risk of damage to the part. Unfortunately my Data I/O Unisite does too good a job trying to protect devices against reverse or misaligned insertion or incorrect device configuration; if it thinks the current drawn by the device is too low or too high, it aborts with a device insertion error. The MK36000 draws significantly less current than the MCM68764. I tried putting an appropriately valued resistor in parallel, but still got the error. I ended up kludging the masked ROM to the expansion bus interface of a TI Launchpad board with a Tiva TM4C1294 microcontroller (ARM Cortex-M4 based), using an SN74LVC245A buffer on the data bus because the Tiva is not 5V-tolerant. I wrote C code to read the ROM and send a hex dump out the USB-serial interface. Photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/22368471 at N04/21611518545/ As I've needed to use the expansion bus interface of the Tiva for other projects, even though this was a lot of work to read one ROM, the experience and maybe even the code may be useful in the future. The next issue is that it appears that the 9895 may permute the address and/or data busses, as the contents of the ROM don't actually look like reasonable Z80 code.

10 years, 9 months

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vintage datacenter furniture

by BHuntsman＠mail2.cu-portland.edu

This is sort-of off topic, but not entirely... I've seen a fair amount of furniture like in the following picture: http://dooki.com/supercomputers/ibm/ibm.s390g4.gif It looks well-made, industrial, and vintage (sort of). Anyone know who makes such things? Did IBM have a go-to desk manufacturer for their stuff, or just whatever the customer provided? Thanks! -Ben

10 years, 9 months

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Sheet Metal Fabrication Options?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Jay West > A couple items in my holdings have rust ... The only good solution I > could see is having the existing metalwork sandblasted and then > repainted. I've not checked, but I suspect that's "non-trivial-$". > Thoughts? Iff you have access to an air compressor, small sandblast units can be had at Harbour Freight for less than $50. If you don't have a compressor... well, that's considerably more money, but I find a compressor is a very useful thing to have. I feed our sandblast unit (one of the HF ones) with playground sand, a couple of $ per bag, which I feed through a sieve made of 4 pieces of scrap wood (frame) and some plastic door/window screen. (If you don't sieve it, the cheapo play sand has larger bits in it which tend to jam the nozzle.) And the sieve allows me to be _really_ cheap and sweep up the sand and recycle it. I refinished an H960 which I got which was in pretty nasty condition (very severe rust on the bottom surface, some rust elsewhere, e.g. on the uprights) using this rig, and some tins of spray paint (Rustoleum flat black), and it came out looking brand spanking new. (My attempt to do the same with a BA11 ran into some shoals, I screwed up the spray-painting - definitely an art! :-) Anyway, if you're up for doing it yourself, it's a useful capability to have in-house. Noel

10 years, 9 months

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Some amount of DG goodness

by shadoooo＠gmail.com

Hello, you have a very nice lot of DG stuff, indeed! I have a Nova 3 sitting on the garage, waiting for proper repair. However it's missing all the front panel switch levers, so I would need to rebuild them, not having had the luck of finding some at reasonable price. I have some picture of the original Nova 3 levers, however I didn't manged to have the exact size to fit an obtained plastic model very well. Would you mind to take one cover apart, and put it on a flat-bed scanner together with a clear ruler (in the same picture), so I can measure from the image the exact sizes? The profile is not the same, but I can obtain it from the camera pictures I already have, using your images as size reference for rescaling. Thanks Andrea

10 years, 9 months

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Overlay - one answer

by rodsmallwood52＠btinternet.com

And we have a winner of the overlay competition ..... From the CBASIC manual The CHAINstatement can load two types of programs: an overlay program generated by the linker, or a directly executable file. As I used CBASIC this must be where I got it from Rod Smallwood -- Wanted : KDJ11-E M8981 KK8-E M8300 KK8-E M8310 KK8-E M8320 KK8-E M8330

10 years, 9 months

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IBM 026 - Decision Data 8010 card punch on Ebay in

by marc.verdiell＠gmail.com

Wow. Thanks for sharing. What a beautiful looking machine. I hope one of us gets it. Marc ===================================== Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2015 18:36:20 +0200 From: Mattis Lind <mattislind at gmail.com> Not really a 026 but maybe contemporary with the 029: http://www.ebay.de/itm/Historische-EDV-Lochkartenstanzer-Card-Punch-von-1973 -2000-Lochkarten-/371439456530?hash=item567b845112 Not mine.

10 years, 9 months

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Sheet Metal Fabrication Options?

by brain＠jbrain.com

I was wondering if anyone has or knows anyone who has experience with low volume sheet metal enclosure fabrication? I am looking for a fabricator to build small (think game cartridge enclosure sizes) clamshell units (or similar). I thought before I start cold calling folks, I'd see if someone has already had some success. -- Jim Brain brain at jbrain.com www.jbrain.com

10 years, 9 months

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DG S/130 front panel switches?

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

So does anyone have a trashed/dead front panel for a Data General S/130 (S/200 would also work) that can be a donor? All I need are two switches/paddles/Covers, but my S/200 front panel is perfect so I don't want to rob from that for the S/130 project. One light blue, one dark blue... Crossing my fingers..... J

10 years, 9 months

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Some amount of DG goodness

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

I decided to raid the front panel of my S/200 to get a switch cover and a switch for the S/130; what can I say - I got antsy to see if the S/130 worked ;) When taking the S/200 front panel apart I found it really wasn't in great shape as it had appeared to be from the outside. A large number of the incandescents had broken off and were sitting loose and one of the switch covers was broken so someday I'll return to the S/200 but the S/130 restoration was completed as a result. Pictures (completely out of order) are at https://www.flickr.com/photos/131070638 at N02 but the first picture shows the cpu up. Once or twice, running the microcoded self-test produced a "Rom Error", but almost always it produces the desired result and loops on that test (checks microcode checksum, ability to execute and step microcode, a few CPU instructions & paths, and tests the lowest 16Kw of ram). Raising switch 0 halts cpu at microcode address 2 just as it should. I also noticed that on rare occasion, hitting "examine" on AC1 produces no result - but other than that I can store and read AC0-3 as well as several different sections of memory. Next step is to locate a 4045 board and see if I can get a console hooked up. After that, I'll need some way to get diagnostics into the machine. To that end, I could try restoring a HD, 8" diskette, paper tape, or dual cassette drive - but I'm wondering if there is any previous art for entering a front panel ditty and stuffing diags down the console port (from a PC)? Yes, google is my next stop ;) Thanks to several listmembers and especially Bruce for pointers and advice, as documentation is scarce and not organized the way my brain works. Best, J

10 years, 9 months

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DEC Alpha 3000 Model 600

by rodsmallwood52＠btinternet.com

I'm pleased to be able to report the successful installation of OpenVMS 8.3 - Alpha on my 3000 M600 It now runs Dec Windows on the graphics screen and a terminal on the serial port. TCPIP works and I can get to my local network OK. Now to find a browser. There must have been one Rod -- Wanted : KDJ11-E for my 11/94 M8981 KK8-E M8300 KK8-E M8310 KK8-E M8320 KK8-E M8330

10 years, 9 months

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TSS/8 with modern disks?

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

OK, there does appear to be larger disk support... now how about for RL02? Unfortunately the drive is not as smart as an RK (can't do spiral read/writes) so that would complicate things. However, each side of cylinder 0 is about 10KB, so 20K is available without having to move the drive head. I bet that would be enough swap area most of the time (it's not like most of us have 16 users all logged on simultaneously) :) -Charles

10 years, 9 months

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IBM 026

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> Well, here's an 029 (not quite what the OP was looking for, but good > enough for you all, I expect) for a not insane amount of money: > http://www.ebay.com/itm/281796720725 So I see this sold - anyone know who got it? Noel

10 years, 9 months

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IBM 026

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Marc Verdiell > thanks for taking care of a rare 026. Actually, IIRC this was an 029 - thread drift, after LCM (IIRC) enquired about a punch - for them, an 029 seemed as good as an 026. > this community is about celebrating people that have an interest in > saving old valuable hardware. Indeed, this whole list is about people saving computers that don't really have any _practical_ use any more. By definition, from a purely _functional_ perspective, their value is scrap. But our viewpoint is not that - we see them as interesting and historic artifacts - and in that light, their true value is set by that old mechanism, supply and demand. So some antique computers go for what I find remarkably low prices (e.g. QBUS -11 stuff) because there's a good supply, and other very similar machines go for a lot (that 11/70).because they are un-common. And IBM punches are not exactly common items... Noel

10 years, 9 months

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Backups [was Re: Is tape dead?]

by jfoust＠threedee.com

At 05:57 AM 9/20/2015, Liam Proven wrote: >On 20 September 2015 at 05:58, John Foust <jfoust at threedee.com> wrote: >> Someone's demonstrated you can hide in the firmware of hard drives. > >And access the hypervisor layer of an OS in various ways from programs >executing inside a VM. Yeah, that too. The easy recombination and modularization of malware makes it so much worse. I suspect there are quite a few easy ways that malware could hold hostage the typical VMware / Hyper-V / Veeam / NAS / SAN setups at many businesses, and easy money because it would be far easier to pay the ransom than to perform full disaster recovery. On a more classic-computer bent, though, I try to look backwards for wisdom about how this problem could be solved, and it's such a different world with the Internet and higher stakes and dependency on networked computers... it's not easy to solve. - John

10 years, 9 months

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VARM revision J transcription

by mouse＠Rodents-Montreal.ORG

Something like two and a half years ago, I got a copy of EL-00032-00-decStd32_Jan90.pdf, a one-image-per-page scan of a paper copy of the VAX Architecture Reference Manual. I don't know where I got it, but bitsavers has a file of the same name with the same MD5 checksum at /pdf/dec/vax/archSpec/EL-00032-00-decStd32_Jan90.pdf now, so it likely was there. I played with trying to build character-recognition software to convert it to text and eventually decided it would be quicker and easier to do it myself. I've just finished that. (I'm not sure whether it actually was quicker or easier....) The result is available from ftp.rodents-montreal.org in /mouse/docs/DEC/VARM/EL-00032-00-decStd32_Jan90.txt for anyone who would care to grab a copy. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

10 years, 9 months

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Backups [was Re: Is tape dead?]

by lproven＠gmail.com

On 20 September 2015 at 05:58, John Foust <jfoust at threedee.com> wrote: > Someone's demonstrated you can hide in the firmware of hard drives. And access the hypervisor layer of an OS in various ways from programs executing inside a VM. So, for instance, much malware self-inactivates if it detects that it's running inside a guest instance, so that anti-malware investigators cannot examine its behaviour. What is now being investigated (doubtless by both sides) is malware that can inject code into the hypervisor from within a guest. Once you've reached x86-64 Ring -1, then you're a god, you can do anything you like to any VM and no anti-malware in the VMs can prevent it. There is also research into using the increasingly industry-standard remote-management features in core chipsets to hide or distribute malware, again out of reach of any OS-level task. And there is the very controversial claim of malware that could transmit itself from machine to machine using speakers and microphone. It's a jungle out there, with all that that implies about parasitism, zombieism, concealment and stealth and creepy disgusting infections that hide for a lifetime then apparently explode out of nowhere. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R)

10 years, 9 months

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Backups [was Re: Is tape dead?]

by cisin＠xenosoft.com

On Fri, 18 Sep 2015, John Foust wrote: > As to why your antivirus didn't see it... there's always a few days > before the latest infection mechanisms are documented and added to > the AV updates. CryptoLocker has been around for a year. I don't think that McAfee nor AVG see it. "Well, it's not a VIRUS, . . ." > When I first heard about Cryptolocker, I wanted to give up consulting > and find a different career. Is there a way to crowdfund a hit?

10 years, 9 months

5
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IBM 026

by marc.verdiell＠gmail.com

Todd, Well, hopefully this community is about celebrating people that have an interest in saving old valuable hardware. Not bullying them. Saving substantial hardware involves a substantial personal investment in time and money. So, Todd, well done, congratulations on your buy, and thanks for taking care of a rare 026. And if you need any tips for restoration I would be happy to help (I have an 026 and an 029, both fully functional now). Marc ====================================== Message: 27 From: Todd Goodman <tsg at bonedaddy.net> Subject: Re: IBM 026 Message-ID: <20150918235900.GF30683 at ns1.bonedaddy.net> * Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu> [150918 07:25]: > So I see this sold - anyone know who got it? > > Noel Yes. I did. I'll let people know what's up when I receive it. Though i don't expect to get much time with it for a while. Todd

10 years, 9 months

5
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Garage sale in Silicon Valley

by tsw-cc＠johana.com

Various items that will probably be of interest here.? No reasonable offer refused. Hard copy??? You got it:DecWriter LA30? (modified to show lower case, yes it works).DecWriter LA36 (Decwriter II) Sun 4/110 floor standing model, 36 megs (if I remember correctly).Two SCSI boxes that go with the Sun, I believe one has an operating system on it.Apple LaserWriter Plus, two (UNOPENED) toner cartridges for it.ADDS Viewpoint 3A terminal. Just so you know it is "classic":JVC U-Matic (3/4 inch) video cassette recorder, with cables.? NTSC. Sorry I can't ship these, they are currently located in zip code 95008.PayPal accepted at time of sale. Make me an offer I can't refuse!

10 years, 9 months

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TSS/8 with modern disks?

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

I would think the fixed head media swapped faster than the RK's unlessthee fixed head media was really slow... Ed# In a message dated 9/19/2015 10:45:53 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, aek at bitsavers.org writes: On 9/19/15 9:44 AM, John Wilson wrote: > later TSS/8s already supported RKs > as data disks, unless I've gone senile). No idea how they managed that -- > UW-M's TSS/8 supported that. It should be in the monitor sources that we read.

10 years, 9 months

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TSS/8 with modern disks?

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

there was a time I really wanted a tss 8 system to use and even started colleting stuff for it in the late 70s but along came the 2000 f HP system I bought and I headed in that direction.. which gave be an HP destiny not a DEC Destiny. but still ... would love to find a tss-8 all together in the racks as used back then... Ed# In a message dated 9/19/2015 1:45:44 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, wilson at dbit.com writes: On Sat, Sep 19, 2015 at 12:30:13PM -0700, Al Kossow wrote: >When did the 4K user space(s?) actually swap? Did they round-robin or swap >based on activity? I would think they would stay in place until cpu-bound >jobs reached their time quantum. With only a couple of people on a 32k >machine, it may not even swap that much, depending on what the users were >running. I'd guess BASIC was pretty big. My understanding is that it's round-robin among runnable jobs, one time slice at a time. I.e. the simplest possible way. IIRC the monitor always takes up two fields (not swappable). One more field (so, 12 KW total) is the minimum necessary to run at all -- SI, FIP, and all the users can share that field with frantic enough swapping (which causes a pretty lights show on the RF08 panel). Any more memory than that means less swapping (or none), so it's kicking out the LRU job as needed. I have a hazy memory that SI and FIP *only* run in field 2? Could be wrong. BASIC runs in your 4 KW with you. I've never seen its sources so I don't know how clever it is about overlays and/or keeping your program on disk. It's a very limited BASIC. Strings are 6 characters. Not max -- *always* 6. Line #s max out at 2046. John Wilson D Bit

10 years, 9 months

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ISO 800-3827-10A_SunOS_Reference_Manual, part one

by aek＠bitsavers.org

Someone asked about uploading the SunOS 4.1 docubox I had scanned, so I finally got around to doing that today, but discovered that I never scanned the part 1, just the system calls of 800-3827. I suspect that I never had it. So if someone has that or a Solaris 1.x docubox a scan would be helpful.

10 years, 9 months

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PDP-11 manuals scanned/scanning

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

>> From: Jerome H. Fine >> a list of the actual links to the other PDF files which are >> available to be viewed would be appreciated. > I should probably throw together a web page with links to all the > PDP-11 files there (e.g. the one I just put together, of print sets > that are available inside other print sets), and link to that from my > home page. OK, done: http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/pdp11/PDP-11_Stuff.html I'll update it anything I put up anything else. Anyone and everyone is free, nay urged, to mirror any of the material that page links to on their own sites. Noel

10 years, 9 months

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TSS/8 with modern disks?

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

Some years ago I recall reading about possibly modifying TSS/8 to run on more recent disks instead of the ancient DF32 (a whopping 32Kword fixed head disk with up to three more slaved platters). Did anyone actually implement the changes? I know it wouldn't work well on a moving-head disk without significant changes, because the swapping is more or less constant. -Charles

10 years, 9 months

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TSS/8 with modern disks?

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

what is a O.O jay? In a message dated 9/19/2015 9:54:12 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, jwest at classiccmp.org writes: Ed wrote.... ---- Seems like a ssd would make an ideal fixed head replacement if it has to swap swap swap all the time? ---- O.O J

10 years, 9 months

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TSS/8 with modern disks?

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

Seems like a ssd would make an ideal fixed head replacement if it has to swap swap swap all the time? Ed# _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org) In a message dated 9/19/2015 9:44:07 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, wilson at dbit.com writes: On Sat, Sep 19, 2015 at 10:50:04AM -0500, Charles wrote: >Some years ago I recall reading about possibly modifying TSS/8 to run on more >recent disks instead of the ancient DF32 (a whopping 32Kword fixed head disk >with up to three more slaved platters). Or the RF08/RS08 -- luxurious compared to a DF32/DS32! >Did anyone actually implement the changes? I know it wouldn't work well on a >moving-head disk without significant changes, because the swapping is more or >less constant. A zillion years ago, the DECUS library had a TSS/8 hack to make it run on an RK05 (as the only disk I mean -- later TSS/8s already supported RKs as data disks, unless I've gone senile). No idea how they managed that -- the wordiness of the DF/RF controllers penetrates deep into TSS/8's soul. Maybe RFILE/WFILE weren't done compatibly with vanilla TSS/8? Dunno. John Wilson [0,3]@SID D Bit

10 years, 9 months

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ENIAC programming Was: release dates of early microcomputer operating systems, incl. Intel ISIS

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Dave Wade > Crispin Rope concentrates on the power of ENIAC and its usefulness Which is why you should look at the longer, later article: http://eniacinaction.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/EngineeringTheMiracleof… in particular the part I pointed out (bottom right corner of pg. 51), which talks about all the things that can be found in that early ENIAC code, e.g. subroutine calls with storage of return point, etc. I am far less interested in the comparison with other machines (in that article) than I am with the enumeration of what the 'program ENIAC' _itself_ could do - which seems to have been quite a lot. > to me a "computer" without self-modifying code is a programmable > calculator even if it has index registers... So a modern Harvard-architecture machine (e.g. AMD29K) with only ROM on the instruction bus is a programmable calculator? It's precisely that hypothetical which leads me to conclude that the fact that the 'program ENIAC' only had ROM for its code (actually, technically, that's quite not true - it could execute programs stored on cards, too) is not that important; I think the thing to look at is what its programs could contain. Noel

10 years, 9 months

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DEC RX8-E, M8316, M8317, M8365, M8366

by useddec＠gmail.com

I have a limited of M8357, RX8-Es for sale, first come, first served, for $175. I think I found the M8316, M8317, LQP01 interface, and LA180 interface, and will try to post a price in the next few days. Shipping within US is $10 for up to 10. Shipping from 61853.

10 years, 9 months

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SIMH PDP-8 question

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

I have Lunar Lander (in Focal) working again on my PDP-8/A with two RL02 drives (about which you have been reading a lot lately). It's been so long I don't remember where I got the text file (LUNAR.TX) from, but it's on both my RL02 OS/8 image and the physical pack... The rather unusual way I got the Focal program saved onto the RL02 was to punch the text file to paper tape on the Teletype, start Focal, read the paper tape from the Teletype, then save the "typed"-in program to disk. Think that's how I did it quite a few years ago when I got the system, too. So far my best game is 0.20 mph "perfect landing - lucky!" :) Takes me back to junior high in the 70's... Anyway, I'd like to do the same thing in SIMH (get the text file into Focal and then save it as a Focal program). Is there any way to do this with SIMH? Can I assign the text file to a paper tape reader, for example? thanks Charles

10 years, 9 months

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Backups [was Re: Is tape dead?]

by r_a_feldman＠hotmail.com

>From: Mouse <mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > >> I think a more important issue in backing up is "How many GENERATIONS > >to you keep around?" > >For many purposes, that's an important consideration, yes. There's >something (small) I back up weekly for which I keep the most recent >seven backups, the oldest backup in each of the most recent twelve >months, and the oldest backup in any year. I'm considering something >of the sort for my house backups - live replication to a backup host, >with a once-a-week freeze of the replica, storing past replica drives >on a scheme somewhat like the above. There is a ramsomware variant that encrypts the files but silently decrypts them when they are accessed. It does this for six months before deactivating the on-demand decryption and displaying the ransom message, the theory being that by that time all of the backups will be of the encrypted files, and thus will be useless for restoring good versions. As to how one can become infected, see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/27/malvertising_feature/?page=1. Major sites, such as The New York Times, Reuters, Yahoo!, and Bloomberg, have been serving malware -- including ransomeware -- through hijacked advertisements. No need to click on anything, the ad serves up the malware. BTW, where I work got hit with ransomeware in December. We were lucky that it first hosed the accounting/time tracking database, which generated errors when someone tried to enter her time. When I went to restore a backup of the database, I noticed the ransomware's html ransom note file and shut down the system before too many more files were encypted. We were able to restore everything (except the originally infected user's computer, which we wiped and reinstalled) from an unconnected backup drive. Bob

10 years, 9 months

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HP-41 User Library Programs and Documentation.

by hp-fix＠xs4all.nl

For the cost of shipment, the below is surging for a new owner. About nine books with program cards containing programs about: - Control - Electrical Engineering - Business - 81XX Processors assembly conversion - Math and calculus - Graphics and printing - Etc.. H-41 User Library Documents, some about filing new programs other copies of the actual User Library Books Program documentation belonging to some of the program cards. The weight of it is about 3kg so shipping will be in 2-5kg range. It is of cause as is, no warranty etc.. If interested contact me off-list

10 years, 9 months

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release dates of early microcomputer operating systems, incl. Intel ISIS

by spacewar＠gmail.com

I've been searching for introduction dates of early microcomputer operating systems, by which I mean only operating systems that run on computers using single-chip microprocessors such as 8008, 8080, and 6800, but not the LSI-11, IMP-16, HP 9830, etc. Intel's ISIS operating system for their MDS was first released in 1975, but I haven't been able to pin down a month. I'm looking for a more specific date for that, and for the releases of any prior microcomputer operating system. On Twitter, @hotelzululima suggested Motorola MIKBUG, introduced in 1974, but IMO it's a monitor, not an operating system. Hzl also suggested Forth, which I also don't really consider to be an operating system in the traditional sense, but if there's evidence of Forth or a Forth-like language available for a microcomputer prior to 1976, that would be interesting as well.

10 years, 9 months

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12" Floppy Disks

by barythrin＠gmail.com

Is he also in the UK? Details or dates would help. Did he say it was a floppy like disk or just disc like a platter? I have to look around but i actually have something that sounds like it but I've never looked up what it really was. Figured it'd be disappointing and newer than it looks lol. I dont have a web site to display pictures but i can look for it and email you or someone else a shot of it. ?My guess is its really a magnetic backup tape. ?I haven't measured it but venture i can take a picture of it in front of a trs-80 model 2 that has 8" drives for comparison. <div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: Adrian Graham <binarydinosaurs at gmail.com> </div><div>Date:09/15/2015 3:39 AM (GMT-06:00) </div><div>To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> </div><div>Subject: 12" Floppy Disks </div><div> </div>Morning folks, I've been contacted by a teacher who's looking for any information about 12" floppies. Am I imagining that they really existed? I'm sure I've seen one or seen adverts for them, maybe at Bletchley Park. Others he's contacted think he's getting confused with 12" laser discs but I'm not so sure. Anyone? -- adrian/witchy Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection? www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk

10 years, 9 months

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Canon Cat for sale

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

I have a Canon Cat in terrific shape for sale. It works just fine. The screen is bright and clean. It also comes with the Canon Cat printer. See photos here: http://vintagetech.com/sales/Canon%20Cat/ More information available upon request. Asking $1,400 or best offer. Thanks. -- Sellam ibn Abraham VintageTech ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintagetech.com Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. The truth is always simple. * * * NOTICE * * * Due to the insecure nature of the medium over which this message has been transmitted, no statement made in this writing may be considered reliable for any purpose either express or implied. The contents of this message are appropriate for entertainment and/or informational purposes only. The right of the people to be secure in their papers against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated.

10 years, 9 months

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ENIAC programming Was: release dates of early microcomputer operating systems, incl. Intel ISIS

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Al Kossow >> the machine had to be configured (via connecting up computing units >> with cables) > In 1947 ENIAC was modifed at BRL to be a stored program computer. Well, I did say "in the original ENIAC usage" it had to be configured by plugging! I was aware of the later conversion. > http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1339839 Crispin Rope, "ENIAC as a Stored-Program Computer: A New Look at the Old Records", IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 29 No. 4, October 2007 Thanks for that pointer. I couldn't get access to that paper (it's behind a paypal I don't have the ability to pierce - I would be grateful if someone could send me a copy), but in looking for it online, I did find the very similar: Thomas Haigh, Mark Priestley, Crispin Rope, "Engineering 'The Miracle of the ENIAC'", IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 36, No. 2, April-June 2014 which includes the same author, and is later, so hopefully more definitive. It's quite interesting: according to that, the conversion of ENIAC to a 'stored program' configuration, after a period of about a year of discussion and planning, took place starting around March, 1948, and the first problem was run using it in April, 1948 - and it cites a lot of contemporary documents to that effect. (As the article points out, this contradicts the long-and-widely-held impression, from a statement in Goldstine's book - and if anyone knew, it should have been him! - that gave the date of that as September, 1948.) Anyway, the new, earlier date is of course is very shortly before the Baby ran _its_ first program, in June, 1948. So there is a rather interesting question as to which 'computer' ran first. I'd always gathered it was the Baby, but this new data may overturn that. It is true that the 'program ENIAC' (to invent a term to differentiate that stage of the machine from the earliest configurations, which used the cabling method) did not store its program in the same read-write memory as data, as the Baby did, instead storing it in 'EPROM' (switches). However, I don't consider that very important; nobody says that a machine running out of PROM isn't a computer! The important thing is that it's a program, with things like subroutine calls >from different locations, address modification for data access, etc, and the 'program ENIAC' apparently had all that (see the list at the bottom of page 51 in the article). So it's likely indeed be the 'first computer'. Noel

10 years, 9 months

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12745 HP-IB Adapter

by ball.of.john＠gmail.com

So last week I did a rather insane 3000km road trip that had me travel through four states (Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montanna) and over an international line to pick up a "pack-loading HP disk drive". It turned out to be a rather nice condition 7925B with a 13037C controller in the cabinet. It has the usual nasty foam you gotta remove and replace but otherwise it's extremely clean inside and out and powered up trouble-free. Unfortunately I didn't receive any 13356A packs with it, nor did I receive the critical component I needed: the 12745 HP-IB adapter kit. I don't actually own any HP minis unless you include the PA-RISC HP9000 D350 but I have a number of machines that will support mass storage over GPIB/HP-IB, including a Silicon Graphics machine. Anyways while I found all the documentation I needed for the drive, controller and adapter and there's that one pack on ebay for a less-than-modest $350 I cannot find even a hint of anyone who has a spare 12745 kit for sale. Was this an uncommon addon or am I just not looking in the right places? -John

10 years, 9 months

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Paging Wayne Smith

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

Wayne, if you see this please contact me ASAP. Thanks. -- Sellam ibn Abraham VintageTech ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintagetech.com Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. The truth is always simple. * * * NOTICE * * * Due to the insecure nature of the medium over which this message has been transmitted, no statement made in this writing may be considered reliable for any purpose either express or implied. The contents of this message are appropriate for entertainment and/or informational purposes only. The right of the people to be secure in their papers against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated.

10 years, 9 months

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Spelling reforms [was RE: punchcard svg file available]

by RichA＠LivingComputerMuseum.org

From: Dave G4UGM Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2015 12:06 PM >> From: Liam Proven >> Sent: 10 September 2015 16:17 >> On 10 September 2015 at 15:42, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote: >>> He also said that the colored pencils that I manually did graphs with >>> were "COLOUR PENCILS". >> Sounds legit to me. But then in the old world we still spell the proper, >> old-fashioned-way. ;?) > I believe that historically "color" or "colour" was acceptable in English. Correct. "Colour" reflects Norman French, "color" reflects Latin. > It was the Victorians that pushed the current "English" spellings in an > attempt to "Latinise" or "Latinize" or even "Posh Up" English and Webster > who pushed the simplified spellings that the USA uses today.... However, it was far earlier than the Victorians. Noah Webster (1758-1843) only overlaps the Victorian era by 6 years; he was reacting against the aristocratic spelling norms of the 17th and 18th centuries, when Latin and Greek were held to be more important than English in the learning of the latter language. His spelling book was originally published in 1783. Rich Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Living Computer Museum 2245 1st Avenue S Seattle, WA 98134 mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

10 years, 9 months

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HP 2225A HP-IB Thinkjet Parts wanted (in Europe)

by Martin.Hepperle＠dlr.de

Hello, in order to repair a HP-IL device I am looking for remains of HP-IB (yes) Thinkjet Printers. I only need the PCB resp. the HP-IL chip on the PCB for desoldering and implanting into another PCB. The mechanics can be damaged or even missing. Martin

10 years, 9 months

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ENIAC programming Was: release dates of early microcomputer operating systems, incl. Intel ISIS

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From Dave > AMD29K isn't "Modern" Well, compared to the ENIAC it is! :-) To be serious, the 29K is fully what we now think of as a 'computer'; that's all I meant by saying it's "modern". > If you have to use another external mechanism to arbitrarily change the > program, then it's a calculator..... Alas, if you hold to that, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, because to me, a 29K with only ROM on the I-bus is clearly a 'computer'. Noel

10 years, 9 months

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Cryptolocker (was RE: Is tape dead?

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

I took on a brand new client a while back, and before doing any real work for them they were hit by cryptolocker. I hadn't yet even done a "IT Review" for them, so didn't yet know what systems they had in place. Thus, under the gun, I started looking at their backup setup, and found it "severely lacking". They did have a backup system from the previous IT guy, but due to the way it was set up it would have taken days to get the data off of it and all moved back into the correct spots. So given days of billable time/work or paying the ransom, we chose to pay the ransom as the most expedient solution. They only accepted bitcoin, and there was a deadline after which the ransom doubled or more. So we jumped through hoops to get a bitcoin account set up, funds deposited, etc. That was a rather convoluted process and took time (albeit less time than working with the existing "backup" system). Soon as the bitcoin was transferred to the hostages account, a key was received online via the TOR browser. Yep, the key worked, and decrypted all the data. A new (and easy/functional) backup system was put in place immediately thereafter. I've also talked to a few of my associates who own IT consulting firms, and any of them that decided to pay the ransom did in fact get a working decryption key. ZFS is a good solution :) Best, J

10 years, 9 months

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Additional config info for Camintonn CMV-250, CMV-500, CMV-254, CMV-504

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

So I have a couple of these Camintonn boards (a -500 and a -254, to be exact), both using 256Kx1 DRAM's. I wanted to upgrade them both (by adding memory chips) to be -504's (2MB), and I noticed that the -254 had a couple of jumper wires that the -500 did not, so I needed to know what those jumpers did. I looked online, and although there is a little bit of info, it doesn't cover those jumpers. My first thought was that they might be timing-related; one board used -12 parts, the other -15. However, after some poking around, I think (with 98% certainty, although I haven't traced etches to be 100.000% certain) that they actually allow the boards to be used with both 64Kx1 and 256Kx1 memory parts. I hereby offer up all the details in case anyone's interested: I found a document which described them as "Starting and ending address boundary" (alas, without giving any detail, but which confirmed they aren't timing-related). The clincher as to their function was the capacities of the various board versions: CMV-504 2 MB Memory Module CMV-254 1 MB Memory Module CMV-500 512 KB Memory Module CMV-250 256 KB Memory Module How do you get a 256KB board using 256K devices on a memory board that has to produce 16-bit wide words? Clearly, the board was first produced with 64Kx1 chips, and so it likely (like the similar NS23C) that it can be configured to use either 64Kx1 or 256Kx1 chips. Here are the details of how to do that: down near the fingers, there are a block of 6 solder pads, denoted thus: MPR NOS (Note that there is _another_ 'S' on the board, at the top.) On board #1, the CMV-254, it has jumpers on M-N, P-R (apparently the configuration for use of 256K chips), and etch cuts on R-S, N-O (likely the configuration for 64K chips). On board #2, the CMV-500, it has a slightly different PCB (likely a later rev), and has no jumpers, and has etch connections M-N, P-R (note - the same as the #1 board has jumpers). Hope this is useful to someone! Note that the board was normally sold with 1, 2, or 4 rows of chips. (Interestingly, there must be two ways to produce a CMV-500 - 1 row of 256K parts, or 4 rows of 64K parts. I've never seen one of the latter, but would be interested to know if anyone has.) I plan to verify that the board actually works OK with _3_ rows of chips (i.e. as a 1.5M board), with the appropriate settings - will update when I try that. Noel

10 years, 9 months

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