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

by bob＠jfcl.com

Is there a schematic for the H7441 regulator anywhere? There are several out there for the H744 but, although they are plug compatible, the H7441 is totally different. The H744 uses an LM723, but in the 7441 DEC appears to have rolled their own regulator using a bunch discrete parts and opamps. Bob

5 years, 9 months

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2
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Future of cctalk/cctech

by couryhouse＠aol.com

We use groups,io for the tom swift discussion group real handy to post photos, files and etc.. On Wednesday, June 17, 2020 Chris Hanson via cctalk <cmhanson at eschatologist.net; cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: On Jun 17, 2020, at 1:50 AM, Tor Arntsen via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > >>>> There is also groups.io, and it has some very nice features compared to > > Please please, no groups of any kinds. They're all horrible to use. Do you mean "web forum" where you say "groups?" > A > genuine mailing list like this is infinitively easier to keep track of > and read at leisure. Can't stand groups.io. I've found the groups.io <http://groups.io/> mailing list mode to be perfectly reasonable for a number of groups I'm a part of. And it has a forum-like front end for people who insist on doing everything through a web page. ? -- Chris

5 years, 9 months

4
3
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Ancient transistor ?computer board

by peter＠vanpeborgh.eu

Guys, I have acquired this board and have trouble assigning it to a particular computer manufacturer and type: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/byRPH3wCR2aqxGX9U8BZfFTT_XtF7QCKSyVXoNmGIk UheiJ5BWqxYaCWdEshppLGYkOqUD7fl9XNeVzO_tDRKVOtbC3Js7T-pOvNUHs9MY9A36fc7dU6ro 1i7hx9Uhcfc6ukEGIdC5Ac6aTQhEFFoeWBxiI6Z24hZdvq1r6vRb4o-Lj778Wbo15hwxu0JxMuxE tcopNv0FG0_g6nUv0Eofalqu4TmgPfUWVCd4Y4LdA0pnhDRMYF5c2ASzS00TsyukCVrUyr298tjo vztVzUGEPHNL1beVCriuQIBLITaEMX3N8EBDuxpfav0vHFuyy9yfAgUI4uJB9qT6aFGEk2KplIVt yNWZf9phTdj-jLtqns9WvdA9Ur2klrk4uPzMyWg6SKTKRlpMrvbJuMnqZodzxPFPvWCG5--kVVBD KRAXW8xOTOPyxXx0xrcPifO49ni2SFYIkZgTb9d4gzvJaM8ugEb-jqHlc7uqHz5glwe4PfoN838w zMozr43veZSNHRTm9IMfON-w7xvbVufJpa_MzhuaTlKf9pvVcRIuxfhG4pMeVq7K6phhHpsKPfG5 h4BRgDSimCE8mToI35IWS3Ty8j01-6bibKH_kB-t35aIdkv7JIC-YZ1sDoguSdyk8h1xbM2d9i_U LFQYVC0oCHESgEGdqzGO3ntgwmV4khjgaQkcp2Bk-TuC7Nwrl57JI=w654-h871-no?authuser= 0 https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/HvltevPwIvyJF0qiAJR6wCAkI4lHfFGL2Gos5uoT4a qEJNFBAwJ3m6XX8E6k0m515EYgZJMaCwFGXiGiTCkxDeT396EjsbkukK3_XYqNDjfU8o3Pbtdq8z vm_q7MXShANXVFUL2wjXEbAhvBug1h42tZnxpDaxTCeNIHjqF2bgs6J_S3wCjmx538E4AuHCHxrr CqIr8yvL7AGlZXCWe8u05YNNZbIrUCYHbTtxh15hc0SwfRPzQ2U2v-pPxHs7-rx5mPpwxovbp24a CdwLBf5RRvvEZWZgyDGKG8xdF-al4kQdZMgxrVVXFMse3ee_J-QaYgALUxckGeWp2QxM4wolrd8Q Y1PqaMaTgbws5WSrOeBBBZrhmrUeL4TzZAlCA4-FqtRpoPIA339y9JRixB8Q6LlUeNsWzlqGqkvC JSCHlh_hpCXgwemhOtF4B1CLvNGs-PSZjTsnj_KOeSgeINz5Sc6TCrHmnxCcIY6D42aKMJRHZ9I9 7Z02FLsKwN6IKLxjifZvrkmEX4L8qXLbd8cuF0uf1PMjwC9WNC1_QpOmMiJOrBloG9pdrHRGvmfR RPQE7c6_HxVklEpIbxqkLmQVkKF-oM8VYS3A11tvslxiZUcvQcEhuEYhPLoqTD8PDikYhxKyVLhq S0DC-bIVBDDLeqiegQelHFjhptKwgs-0Q5mMrxvE6rdsd6-ipEf5Q=w654-h871-no?authuser= 0 Smells of (early) 1960s transistorized. No helpful marking apart from * "GATE JJ01" on SIDE A. (components). * "C NT OL DATA" on side B (solder traces). Big transistors are Motorola "180376008". Also, any ideas what the "246 636 B" boxes are, they have four legs? Can any of you of mature years suggest anything? Many thanks, peter || | | | | | | | | Peter Van Peborgh 62 St Mary's Rise Writhlington Radstock Somerset BA3 3PD UK 01761 439 234 "Our times are in God's wise and loving hands" || | | | | | | | |

5 years, 9 months

8
9
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IBM vacuum tubes

by paul＠mcjones.org

Not exactly on subject, but problems designing the IBM 604 Electronic Calculating Punch due to the use of existing vacuum tube designs is discussed in section 2.4 of: Charles J. Bashe, Lyle R. Johnson, John H. Palmer, and Emerson W. Pugh IBM?s Early Computers The MIT Press, 1986 The book says Ralph Palmer set up a vacuum tube laboratory with the ability to manufacture small quantities of tubes. This helped them get credibility when they went to a vacuum tube manufacturer with a request for a design change to achieve the needed reliability for digital applications.

5 years, 9 months

1
0
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Duplicate messages

by julf＠julf.com

Hi! Anyone else getting duplicate messages from this list? I get 2 copies of most (but not all) messages, with the second copy often arriving significantly later. Julf

5 years, 9 months

6
6
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Unknown Intel blinkenlight panel circa 1973

by Rice43＠btinternet.com

Hi all. I recently bought a mystery blinkenlight panel. Closer inspection reveals it was manufactured by Intel in the early 70?s (1973), and some people on the book of faces suggested it was part of a ?device multiplexer?(?) I?m 95% confident it?s not strictly a ?computer? blinkenlight panel, but rather an attached device, but that still hasn?t helped me narrow down what exactly it was from. I?ve not seen any early Intel stuff as rack-mount, so i?m wondering if it was a prototype, or maybe a piece of internal/non-commercial hardware for Intel's own use. I?m hoping someone here might be able to shed some light on this mystery. Pictures: https://imgur.com/gallery/lD74oSy <https://imgur.com/gallery/lD74oSy> Thanks in advance. Josh Rice

5 years, 9 months

10
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TU58 dump tool on Linux?

by mattislind＠gmail.com

Is there anyone that has already built a tool to dump TU58-tapes on a Linux machine? I have the drive of course. There is PUTR. But it is DOS only and is written in assembler so it cannot be ported easily. The other option is running RT11 on a PDP-11, but then there is the hassle of getting the dumps off the RT11 file system. It is probably not too difficult to use relevant parts of the various TU58 Unix implementations out there to do something quickly, but if someone has already done it, it would be great to not reinvent the wheel. I have approximately 80 11/730 and 11/750 console and diag tapes that need reading. /Mattis

5 years, 9 months

7
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IBM 3174 screen controllers UK

by dave.g4ugm＠gmail.com

Folks, I think I now have too many 3174 controllers. I have 1 x Rack Mount - Token Ring Card + MFM Disk Emulator 1 x Large Tabletop - Token Card 1 x Large Tabletop - Ethernet Card <=> I am keeping this. 1 x Small Tabletop - Token Ring card but won't run TCPIP code. If anyone wants one of these I am happy to ship at cost but they are 220/240v and heavy so shipping to USA may be a problem. I have a selection of floppy drives that can be fitted but I recommend using a Gotek with FlashFloppy firmware. I also have the following spares:- 1. working PSU for rack mount 2. non-working PSU for the rackmount systems but I am sure it can be fixed 3. spare motherboard for rackmount 4. spare token ring card (if I can find it) 5. (I may have memory modules but can't remember where I put them 6. I think I have a 3299 multiplexor some where Feel free to e-mail off-list with questions. Dave Wade G4UGM & EA7KAE

5 years, 9 months

1
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Future of cctalk/cctech

by evanlinwood＠hotmail.com

> With Jay retiring, what are the hosting plans for these mailing lists? Hi Al, I didn't know about Jay retiring or what that means for the list - i.e. does it need to find new infrastructure, new administraton/management, or both? I'm a relatively background person in the vintage computing scheme of things but I do have an involvement in the data centre / hosting area & so if no better options were to come forward would be very happy to pitch in somehow.

5 years, 9 months

2
2
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Apple 1

by dj.taylor4＠comcast.net

I got a notice from ebay that an Apple 1 is up for sale: $1.5M plus $1 shipping, yikes! ebay item number: 174195921349 Doug

5 years, 9 months

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OT: Vacuum tubes/Valves/VEDs today

by cclist＠sydex.com

A good article in ED today: https://www.electronicdesign.com/communiqu/article/21133402/tubes-luckily-t… --Chuck

5 years, 9 months

1
0
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VHDL / IBM SMS Data gathering and HDL Synthesis Update

by cube1＠charter.net

Don't know if anybody much cares, but: The HDL synthesis aspect of the SMS data gathering / HDL synthesis application is coming along. I can now handle: - Oscillators (using a counter divider) - Delay lines (using a shift register, so limited to a reasonable number of FPGA clock clock cycles, so, say 200 ns is not unreasonable (20 bit shift register at 100 MHz). - Recognition and consolidation of individual signals into a "bus" when generating groups corresponding to a group of individual ALD sheets. (The individual ALD sheets use the individual signal names as they appear on the sheet). A simple database table associates a given individual signal with a bus, and identifies the bit in the bus that corresponds to the individual signal. So, I have not generated the IBM 1410 main oscillator, its main logic clock and its I Ring - used to control instruction decode. I have synthesized the logic clock into an FPGA and run it (with a slowed down 1410 oscillator so I could see what was going on.) Also, a word about VHDL - and the Xilinx Vivado. While GHDL is useful, I have found that Vivado is not slow at editing and *simulation*. Silly me - I got in the habit of synthesizing stuff before I tested it under simulation - partly because I didn't know any better at first. Vivado's waveform viewer has some advantages (and disadvantages) compared to what is available for GHDL. I have also started exploring a piece of "intellectual property" I can use - MicroBlaze - to allow my generated system to talk to my PC, via TCP, for things like lights and switches. (Kind of like how the Amdahl machines used to use first DG Novas, and later little UNIX systems for their consoles, giving them access to the internals of the machine.) I knew MicroBlaze existed, but now I have actually played with it a bit -- still learning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroBlaze

5 years, 9 months

2
2
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Malfunctioning VT240 - help please

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

OK. the keyboard is working properly as far as I can tell, data is going in and out, and I even swapped it for the keyboard on my VT220 and the same symptoms persisted. I just verified all four ROMs on the T11, and the ROM for the 8085, against the images I found on the MAME site. So far so good. One interesting finding - two of the lines (DAL3 and DAL1) on the T11 do change states several times, but once the self-test has crashed, they stay high with almost one volt of "wiggle". All the other data/address lines are either high, low or switching between a good 1 and 0. There are several places that the bus connects, including the ROMs, 1-bit dynamic RAMs and various octal latches & bidirectional buffers. I connected a 10 ma VOM between each line and ground (to make sure a low-resistance path (such as in the 'LS245 at E55) wasn't forcing it high somehow. All of the DAL15-0 lines requires more than 1.9 ma to bring it to ground (well, 50 mv burden at 250 mv full scale, anyway). That leaves the unlikely possibility that one of the octal TTL devices, or ROMs. has developed a weird internal pathway that only interferes with DAL3 & 1 on some bit patterns, but not all the time. Seems like a zebra rather than a horse. The only part that drives multiple low-order DAL lines at once besides the E19-22 ROMs is the E55 LS245. The T11 spec sheet says that a good logic 0 (<0.4 volt) should be possible with up to 3.2 ma sink... So I suspect the T11 has a couple of bad output pull-down transistors on those lines. Anyone got a spare T11 chip I can buy or borrow? Or send you mine to plug into your board and see if it fails the same way? :) thanks.

5 years, 9 months

8
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: Unknown Intel blinkenlight panel circa 1973

by couryhouse＠aol.com

Add on? solid state memory unit? some semi companies made tjem. For add to Dec and dg?? Dunno. A guess ....?? ed smecc On Sunday, June 14, 2020 Joshua Rice via cctalk <Rice43 at btinternet.com; cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: Hi all. I recently bought a mystery blinkenlight panel. Closer inspection reveals it was manufactured by Intel in the early 70?s (1973), and some people on the book of faces suggested it was part of a ?device multiplexer?(?) I?m 95% confident it?s not strictly a ?computer? blinkenlight panel, but rather an attached device, but that still hasn?t helped me narrow down what exactly it was from. I?ve not seen any early Intel stuff as rack-mount, so i?m wondering if it was a prototype, or maybe a piece of internal/non-commercial hardware for Intel's own use. I?m hoping someone here might be able to shed some light on this mystery. Pictures: https://imgur.com/gallery/lD74oSy <https://imgur.com/gallery/lD74oSy> Thanks in advance. Josh Rice

5 years, 10 months

10
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Thinking of selling my PDP's

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

I am getting closer to retirement (although not close enough) and I'm considering selling off my PDP stuff, especially if I downsize and move. Everything's working, but I just no longer DO anything with either system... the adventure was acquiring all the pieces, fixing them and learning the software :) Anyhow I have an 8/A with cloned Programmer's Panel (Vince Slyngstad and I made it around 2006) and limited function panel, 32K RAM board (also have core), Philipp Hachtmann's USB interface board, RX01 floppy, two RL02's, and a high-speed (optical) reel-to-reel paper tape reader. OS/8 is up and running. Several spare RL02 packs. It's all in a tall DEC rack with an H-(something) power control box. The ASR-33 is not included, I'm keeping that. Also an 11/23+ (11/03 chassis) in a corporate cabinet with two RL02's, a 16-line serial interface, VT-220 terminal. Also an RQDX3 which is connected to a loose 3.5" TEAC floppy drive. Have RT-11XM, RT-11SJ and TSX-Plus 6.50 (all 16 timesharing ports are working too). So, I am wondering if there's any market for them (preferably as complete systems). Shipping would be difficult due to the size/weight (I'm in rural south central Missouri). I'm not looking to give them away, or to part out, but would entertain reasonable package deals rather than deal with the "LQQK! RARE!!" bull on ebay. I can send pics to interested parties. Let me know, thanks! Charles

5 years, 10 months

3
2
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Is Power7 a bit too recent?

by dlr＠bungi.com

I have a bunch of Power7 720's I would like to get running, and I'm have a tough time tracking down any VIOS newer than 2.1. Does someone here have some 2.2.6 or later CD's they would like to sell me? Thanks! --

5 years, 10 months

1
0
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PDP-8/A transformer hum

by derschjo＠gmail.com

Hi all -- I'm working on a PDP-8/A I picked up at VCF West last summer. After a lot of cleaning and some power supply repair it's showing signs of life (CPU seems to be at least minimally functional, core memory is going to need some debugging.) The transformer in the power supply is humming quite loudly, however, and I'm curious if this is normal for the 8/A (or is typical for an 8/A of this vintage). I'm used to the supplies in various other DEC machines not being exactly silent but this is a rather severe 60Hz buzz that you can clearly hear over the fans when the machine is in operation. Thanks, Josh

5 years, 10 months

15
21
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Looking for Cobalt Qube cases

by laurens＠daemon.be

Hello, I'm looking for Cobalt Qube cases, preferably in North America. I would prefer non working Qubes as I don't want to deprive anyone of working ones. Doesn't matter whether it's a 1, 2 or 3. I'm looking to repurpose the cases. Thanks!

5 years, 10 months

2
4
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DS10 Alpha question = Sata Drive card?

by bobsmithofd＠gmail.com

Can anyone recommend a SATA card that will work with a DS10 Alpha, and which OS supports that card? thanks bob

5 years, 10 months

3
4
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TU58 dump tool on Linux? (Mattis Lind)

by john＠ziaspace.com

> Is there anyone that has already built a tool to dump TU58-tapes on a Linux > machine? I have the drive of course. > > There is PUTR. But it is DOS only and is written in assembler so it cannot > be ported easily. The other option is running RT11 on a PDP-11, but then > there is the hassle of getting the dumps off the RT11 file system. > > > It is probably not too difficult to use relevant parts of the various TU58 > Unix implementations out there to do something quickly, but if someone has > already done it, it would be great to not reinvent the wheel. > > I have approximately 80 11/730 and 11/750 console and diag tapes that > need reading. Just a thought - if the TU58 connects via serial, then what about running SIMH and giving it a serial device which is connected to the TU58? That could fix both problems - how to talk to the device, and how to deal with the data on the tapes. John

5 years, 10 months

1
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Compusad Compulogical Tutor User Manual Wanted

by billdegnan＠gmail.com

I am looking for a PDF or actual copy of this manual: https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_904547 Thanks Bill Degnan

5 years, 10 months

1
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Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

by commodorejohn＠gmail.com

Liam Proven wrote: > I don't know. There is a huge amount of tradition and culture in > computing now, and as a result, few people seem to have informed, > relatively unbiased opinions. There hasn't been much real diversity in > decades. > > 25 or 30y ago, people discussed the merits of Smalltalk or Prolog or > Forth; now most people have never seen or heard of them, and it's just > which curly-bracket language you favour, or does your preferred > language run in a VM or is it compiled to a native binary. Agreed. While I'm much more favorably disposed towards C than you are, the increasing homogeneity of almost all modern languages is discouraging and, I think, detrimental to the field as a whole. Forth and Smalltalk alike were eye-openers when I discovered them (and Smalltalk in particular was a breath of fresh air, after I'd spent years failing to ever really grok OOP with the likes of C++ and Java,) because both presented genuinely *different* and beautifully consistent ways to think about structuring and specifying a computer program. These days, though, outside of deliberately jokey ultra-esoteric languages, it's pretty much just a bunch of domain-specific Java/Javascript knockoffs from horizon to horizon. > I am just surprised that this (to me) rather inelegant design survived > and got to market, given what you've said about the same company's > ruthless drive for cost-cutting removed one PCB trace even though it > killed floppy-disk performance, or wouldn't use an extra ROM chip > because it was too expensive. > > It seems inconsistent. It's marketing - consistency there is a non-consideration, if not actively striven against. The whole saga with CP/M on CBM was a boondoggle - the CP/M cart existed because business customers wanted a CP/M add-in to run their spreadsheets and their whatnot, but it didn't end up being a good fit for reasons already stated (slow CPU, slow disk, 40-column only.) The 128 improved on those points, but not nearly enough to become competitive with the advancements CP/M machines had made in that time, and in the process wasted precious man-hours and drove up the cost and complexity of the unit - and all the while CP/M had been losing ground to MS-DOS in the business market for years! But marketing promised it, so it had to happen... :/

5 years, 10 months

21
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Amiga Joke of the Century

by healyzh＠avanthar.com

Tuesday night I was reading up to see what it might take to revive either of my Amiga 1200?s. As it happens, both appear to have fairly common failure modes. In reading up on the dead video, I learned that it?s often on the Composite Out, but not the monitor. I bought these two systems around ?97/98. I plugged the one with the dead video into the Monitor I?m using, and proceeded to use it for about an hour and a half. It works great with the Gotek floppy emulator. On a whim, earlier today, when I placed the order with AmigaKit for A3000 batteries, I included the hardware needed to put a IDE-to-CF interface in both the A600 & an A1200, PLUS, a second Gotek. :-) It looks like I?m going to need them. :-) Zane

5 years, 10 months

1
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Ever seen a Cromemco Cyclops in the wild?

by boris＠summitclinic.com

Funny how wetware memory works. I have that issue of Popular Electronics somewhere in my collection and would have seen the article as I would read it cover to cover after it arrived in mail. While looking at the issue again, remembered reading next article on PLL's so probably read the Cyclops article, decided that $25 was way too much for one chip and never bothered. However, I do have a lot of old RAM chips so might give it a try some day. What I do recall about that era that a 1024 bit SRAM cost about $10 in Canada. (That was in days when we made a profit selling beer for $0.25 at TGIF). Boris Gimbarzevsky >I think a Stanford AI lab has one in a display case. Any others out there? > >It was supposedly "commercial" but I don't even remember ever seeing >an ad for the Cyclops from Cromemco and I had a really good stash of >Cromemco literature and hardware. > >I do remember the BYTE article where you pop the top off of a DRAM >chip to make a Camera but that was 1983-ish, nearly a decade after >the Cromemco Cyclops was supposedly "commercial". In the discussions >I had in the 80's none of us seemed to know about the Cromemco >Cyclops having preceded it. > >Tim N3QE

5 years, 10 months

3
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Ever seen a Cromemco Cyclops in the wild?

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

Bill, thanks in particular for the reference to the August 1976 Cromemco catalog. I definitely remember the Dazzler graphics on the cover but somehow had lost memory of the camera on the second to last page. Tim

5 years, 10 months

2
1
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DEC Alphaserver 4100 CPU fans

by rlloken＠telus.net

So gentlemen, my Alphaserver 4100 shut itself down with a sad announcement about a dead CPU fan. I have a parts mule which has donated a CPU fan a couple years ago and I can take the second and last CPU fan from there but then I have no more fans. Can the CPU fan be obtained? Can they be rebuilt? The 4100 has a series of fans between the 3 power supply slots and the main backplane which I found could not be easily obtained so I tore them all apart and replaced the bearings with good results but I suspect that the lttle CPU fans will not respond so well to attempts at repair. -- Richard Loken VE6BSV : "...underneath those tuques we wear, Athabasca, Alberta Canada : our heads are naked!" ** rlloken at telus.net ** : - Arthur Black

5 years, 10 months

3
2
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Ever seen a Cromemco Cyclops in the wild?

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

I think a Stanford AI lab has one in a display case. Any others out there? It was supposedly "commercial" but I don't even remember ever seeing an ad for the Cyclops from Cromemco and I had a really good stash of Cromemco literature and hardware. I do remember the BYTE article where you pop the top off of a DRAM chip to make a Camera but that was 1983-ish, nearly a decade after the Cromemco Cyclops was supposedly "commercial". In the discussions I had in the 80's none of us seemed to know about the Cromemco Cyclops having preceded it. Tim N3QE

5 years, 10 months

4
3
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Kennett Classic Open / Looking for a Linux/scripting programmer $$

by billdegnan＠gmail.com

The Kennett Classic Gallery of Computing history and shop has re-opened per State of PA and County of Chester guidelines. I am looking for volunteers to help with moving some large DEC racks into the basement area, we decided to expand exhibits to one more room to make space for the bigger iron, printers, VAX systems, etc. We are installing new exhibits this month and any help would be appreciated. I am also looking for a Linux scripting poss. Python programmer for a paid project through my web programming business (degnanco.com) if anyone here is interested in a project. Contact me privately. Kennett Classic 126 S Union St. Kennett Square, PA 19348 484 732 7041 kennettclassic.com -Bill Degnan-

5 years, 10 months

1
0
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Old communications software

by sales＠elecplus.com

If any of you are looking for new in box Lantastic or Hayes Smartcom software, I have some for sale. https://elecshopper.com/Communications-Software-c47411005 Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

5 years, 10 months

1
0
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WTB: 64K S-100 board, Hard Sectored 5.25" floppies

by ethan＠757.org

Looking for a CompuPro RAM 16 or something similar that will work in an IMSAI 8080. Also looking for a few hard sectored (10 sector) 5.25" floppies Reply off list! Thanks! - Ethan O'Toole

5 years, 10 months

1
0
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VAXstation 3100 power supply

by peter.hicks＠poggs.co.uk

Hello I have a couple of VAXstation 3100s - a M38 which boots but has no output on the console port, and another model which has corrosion on the motherboard and a PSU which doesn't power up correctly. The voltage on all of the M38 PSU's pins is OK except for pin 7 (brown) which is +3.5v to +5.25v DC and is floating at about 0.6v with reference to ground. I suspect this is why the console port doesn't work (and the LEDs on the read suggest a RAM problem so I can't tell which chip is faulty), so I've set about troubleshooting. Does anyone have any suggestions above and beyond replacing capacitors? Peter -- OpenTrainTimes Ltd. registered in?England and Wales, company no.? 09504022. Registered office: 13a?Davenant Road, Upper Holloway,?London N19 3NW

5 years, 10 months

2
2
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Malfunctioning VT240 - help please

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

Until a few minutes ago, my VT240 was operating normally, but now it's unresponsive (fails during power-on self test). Normal behavior was: display a checkerboard, then two different intensity all-white bands growing slowly up from the bottom of the screen, then a beep and the expected "VT240 Monitor Error 9" (because I'm using an old B&W composite monitor instead of the DEC VR201 with special cable). Thereafter, normal operation. Now, it briefly displays the checkerboard (and all four keyboard lights turn on, then off); then the Lock and Wait lights come on and nothing else happens. Blank screen. Power-OK light on the back is illuminated and 5.19 volts measured on the board. Haven't checked +12 (or the internally derived keyboard +5) yet. Another possibly useful observation: I can press the Setup (or any other) key about four times and hear a keyclick sound each time. But then it stops playing the click sound if I keep pressing keys. This suggests that the interrupt on the CPU (a T11) is not being responded to. The technical manual is very detailed but does not describe the specifics of the POST, which could be useful in locating the failed circuit (or firmware). Can anyone with experience in debugging these terminals lend a hand? Should I even be looking at the main board, or the keyboard which also has an 8051 CPU?? thanks.

5 years, 10 months

2
1
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Alfaskop terminals and SPL programming language.

by kurtwig11＠gmail.com

S?g ovanst?ende - har du n?gra fr?gor kontakta mig - jag gjorde kompilatorn f?r SPL. Mvh Kurt Svensson

5 years, 10 months

1
0
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Seiko Epson Robotics Controller Boards

by jon＠jonworld.com

Hi everyone! My wife found some interesting VME-looking boards for sale on a surplus auction website. This is what we scored. Is there any interest for these here? 1x Main CPU SKP-220-3 4x Sub CPU SKP-221-3 (2 look good, one has a battery that exploded all over it, one labelled bad CMOS but had a bent pin.) 3x Servo SKP-222-3 1x IO Board SKP-184-2 I have no card cage, no documentation, and no way to test these. Some are labelled that they tested good in 2008. I'll happily supply pictures for those interested, but they're essentially 2U VME boards with MC68000 chips and the main CPU has an MC68HC000 CPU. They seem to fetch a fair sum on eBay, but just because they're listed at these prices doesn't mean that they actually sell at that price: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Seiko-Epson-Accu-Sembler-Robot-Control-Sub-CPU-B… -- -Jon +44 7792 149029

5 years, 10 months

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BYTE Magazines

by trash80＠internode.on.net

I know the response to this might be quite subjective and depends on your particular interests. Do BYTE magazines have any collectability (maybe even from a historical perspective or something else)? I have to make some decisions about space (the perennial problem for a collector of course) and I have quite a few of these taking up a few shelves. Thank you. Kevin Parker

5 years, 10 months

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Compaq Proliant parts

by julf＠julf.com

Anyone in need of a Proliant 6000 / 7000 CPU board (unused), and hotswap hard disk cartridges? https://imgur.com/a/3h9VBmH Julf

5 years, 10 months

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BYTE Magazines

by cctalk＠emailtoilet.com

Computer Museum of America might be interested. They have a Byte wall. http://www.myimagecollection.com/webpics/cmoabyte.jpg Contact Lonnie Mimms lonnie at mimms.com to see if he has any interest. Donald

5 years, 10 months

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Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

by rich.cini＠verizon.net

You know, reading about this made me dig out the info I had on the Character Oriented Windows ("COW") library. I was reading some of the docs and it occurred to me that it operated much like Windows (probably Windows 1), but what I couldn't find were any "sample" programs or tools to build a program based on the COW library. Does anyone have/know of a sample program that used the library? Was there an SDK for it or was it used only for Microsoft's products? Just looking for something new/interesting to learn about. Thanks! Rich ?On 5/22/20, 11:35 AM, "cctalk on behalf of Chuck Guzis via cctalk" <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org on behalf of cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: A quick look at the code indicates to me that the Intel translator CONV86 may well have done the translation in "strict" mode. Of course, there were other translators, but some of the stuff rings a bell. For example, the 8080 instruction INX B gets translated to SAHF INC BX LAHF all done because the 8080 16-bit instruction does not affect the zero and carry flags, but the 8086 instruction INC, does. So there's very likely a large amount (my experience was at least >30%) of cruft in the code. --Chuck

5 years, 10 months

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BYTE Magazines

by rshepprd＠gmail.com

That photo is the perfect opportunity to mention the wonderful cover art by Robert Tinney. Richard Sent from Mail for Windows 10

5 years, 10 months

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intellec MDS80 on eBay

by couryhouse＠aol.com

I assume this are not the standard Intel floppy drives???? On Sunday, May 31, 2020 Jan-Benedict Glaw via cctech <jbglaw at lug-owl.de; cctech at classiccmp.org> wrote: Hi! I just wanted to drop an email that there's a MDS 80 on eBay: ??? https://www.ebay.de/itm/333612000595 (Please note: The seller, Michael, is a friend of mine, and a former coworker.) Thanks, ? Jan-Benedict --

5 years, 10 months

3
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The X-Cap-Files

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

Today I was working on a new-to-me VT240 which hadn't been powered up in a long time (possibly 10 years). Hooked it up to an old 9" B&W CCTV monitor and everything was running fine for 20 minutes or so - when suddenly an astonishing amount of acrid whitish-gray smoke started pouring from the vents =8^ O So I yanked the power cord out and took the case off. Sure enough, one if not both of the 0.1 uF X-caps on the line filter had cracked open and my nose confirmed that was the source of the stench. Fortunately there is no damage to the PC board or surrounding components - even the caps don't look toasted, just split. Good thing I was sitting right there when they failed and could turn the power off immediately. I've read here and elsewhere about the spectacular failure modes of these caps, sometimes flames, but this is the first time I ever experienced it first hand. Maybe it's time for a look inside my VT220? ;) -Charles

5 years, 10 months

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AlphaMicro CPU Chip

by wmachacek1＠comcast.net

Hi, I've recently come across a CPU chip marked "AlphaMicro" . It has a date stamp of 8531 and appears to be of the 386 variety (1 5/8 x 1 5/8). It doesn't appear to be from Alpha MicroSystems. Anyone know who may be the maker of this chip? I can send a picture for those who'd like to see what it looks like.

5 years, 10 months

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intellec MDS80 on eBay

by jbglaw＠lug-owl.de

Hi! I just wanted to drop an email that there's a MDS 80 on eBay: https://www.ebay.de/itm/333612000595 (Please note: The seller, Michael, is a friend of mine, and a former coworker.) Thanks, Jan-Benedict --

5 years, 10 months

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ESDI terminator values

by cz＠alembic.crystel.com

Working on restoring this 11/83, I would like to replace the Fujitsu 2284E drive with a slightly larger capacity CDC/Imprimis WREN VI 94246-383 ESDI. I think I have the jumper configurations, however the problem is the disk does not have a terminator pack. Does anyone know what kind of resistor pack was used for the CDC drives? It's probably something very basic and easy to find at Digikey but what? Thanks! Chris (working away here)

5 years, 10 months

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Anyone know what an AM000076 (Dip 18) is?

by ian.finder＠gmail.com

Title says all, Backing up all the programmable parts in the Apollo DN100 and the CPU board has a few of these ceramic DIPs with the same Apollo P/N labels as the Am27S29 and similar programmable parts. Thanks

5 years, 10 months

3
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DtCYBER and/or CYBIS Resources

by Kevin＠rawfeddogs.net

Classic Computer Fans, I tried out the CYBIS release: http://www.Control-Data.info/CybisRelease.html on the DtCYBER emulator when it first came out. I've since forgotten most of what I'd learned. Recently I fired CYBIS back up and started relearning. Does anyone know if any user mailing lists for the DtCYBER emulator and/or the CYBIS release? At the moment I'm trying to find a Linux friendly terminal type that works with NOS's FSE. -- Kevin http://www.RawFedDogs.net http://www.Lassie.xyz http://www.WacoAgilityGroup.org Bruceville, TX What's the definition of a legacy system? One that works! Errare humanum est, ignoscere caninum.

5 years, 10 months

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Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

by cisin＠xenosoft.com

On Fri, 22 May 2020, Boris Gimbarzevsky wrote: > Thanks for posting the timeline of various Basic interpreters. I wasn't > aware that Gates/Allen also wrote Basic for C64. Microsoft did a BASIC for the Commodore PET. I wasn't aware that they did the C64. > Did download the 8080 Basic source code out of interest, but in early > 1980's had very little to do with IBM PC. PC was 8088, NOT 8080. BUT, an original 8080 source code can be run through some algorithmic translation to automagically patch it into something that is close enough to 8088. All of my knowledge of the following is third hand, and probably mostly WRONG. If you are lucky, maybe some of the folk here who actually KNOW this stuff will step in and give the right information. Sequence is only approximate. Well, we can start by considering the 4004. 1971. It was not the "FIRST" microprocessor, although the later chips based on it dominated the market. 4 bit data bus. It was designed to be able to make a whole range of Busicom calculators that could be essentially the same hardware, and changing ROM, or moving a jumper from cheapest model to most expensive model would void the warranty. Then came the 8008, with EIGHT bit data bus, and 14 bit address bus (16K of RAM) Then came the 8080, with 8 bit data bus and 16 bit address bus (64K of RAM) That brought about a giant surge in hobbyists trying to build computers, including the MITS Altair, etc. It is important to note that each Intel chip consisted of "minor" modifications to the previous one. That made it easier to modify a design or software from one to the next one. Minor patches tended to be all that was needed. THAT is important. 'course it means that some aspects are really weird due to being patched on top of patched, on top of patched, instead of redesigned. MEANWHILE, other companies started trying to get into the game. Motorola came out with the 6800, which was pretty cool. But, they were taking a long time to get around to the next ones, so a group of engineers left and started MOS Technology, and came out with the 6500. Motorola's lawyers were not amused. So, the engineers redesigned an all new, "non-infringing" one called the 6502. Motorola eventually got around to trying to design "the best 8 bit microprocessor", and came out with the 6809. They had designed from scratch, to try to make it the best, so it had so much different, that previous machines could not be easily modified for it, and had to be redesigned for it, and software needed to be re-written, not just patched. They had difficulty finding any takers, in spite of obvious design superiority, because most manufaturers were already established with other chips. BUT, Radio Shack built a machine called "the Radio Shack Color Computer" around a Motorola application note. Radio shack didn't want it competing with their other products, and didn't see any reason to include capabilities, so they had horrible constraints, such as chiclet keyboard, unexpandable RF video, cartridge slot instead of expansion bus, etc. A lot of the early machines were intel 8080, which had 8 bit data bus and 16 bit address bus, which meant maximum of 64K of RAM, although it was not very hard to cheat for 128K. Gary Kildall needed an OS for managing his source code on 8 inch disks that he added to his computer. He wrote "Control Program and Monitor", which later became "Control Program for Microcomputers" ("CP/M"). He tried to get Intel to market it, but they didn't think that there would ever be enough market to sell an operating system for a microcomputer. So, he started "Intergalactic Digital Research" Later, when the hobbyists grew up and lost their sense of humor, "Thinker Toys" became "Morrow designs". (they had been having some trademark issues) "Kentucky Fried Computer" became "Northstar" (they had been having some trademark issues) and "Intergalactic Digital Research" bcame "Digital Research Incorporated" Then Zilog came out with the Z80, which had major enhancements. BUT, code using those enhancements would not run on an 8080, so CP/M remained 8080, and many/most? programmers stuck with 8080 for marketable code. Intel came out with the 8085, which had DIFFERENT [incompatible] enhancements, so many/most? continued to stick with 8080 code. I think that the Radio Shack model 100 is 8085. A hobbyist named Steve Wozniak wanted to build a Z80 computer. But it was going to cost too much. At Wescon (trade show), he got a fantastic deal on some 6502 chips. Not what he had been wanting, but he could make it work, and he could afford them! He hooked up with Steve Jobs, who had some marketing ideas. They sold a bunch of "blue boxes", kited some checks, sold Jobs' VW bus and Woz's calculator, and put together a batch of kits. ($666.66; they later said that they had not realized the theological implications of the price) And, hence, we got "Apple Computer". Later, Apple Music (Beatles) talked to them about the name. Apple Music agreed to not get into computers, and Apple Computers agreed to not get into music. Hmmm. Atari and Commodore both ended up also using the 6502. Motorola Then Intel decided to build a "16 bit processor". The 8086 has a 16 bit data bus and a 20 bit address bus, for a maximum of 1M or RAM When the IBM PC wasbeing planned, there was a lot of difference in cost between 8 bit and 16 bit support chips. The 8088 was ALMOST the same as an 8086, but with an 8 bit data bus, which significantly reduced costs! From an engineering perspective, the 8088 is an 8 bit version of the 16 bit 8086. >From a MARKETING perspective, it's 16 bit, or maybe 32 bit, or maybe 64 bit, etc. If a 4 bit machine has a 128 bit Smell-o-vision port, marketing will call the machine "128 bit" The IBM PC was an 8088. IBM went to Microsoft to get BASIC for it. Bill gates put on a suit and met with them. The "Pirates Of The Valley" story of Microsoft cold-calling IBM to sell an operating system PINS THE NEEDLE ON THE BOGUSIMETER. The author of that fiction needs a hot soldering iron shoved 8 inches up his nose. Microsoft was happy to oblige on BASIC. One of the IBM engineers had an Apple2 with a Microsoft "Softcard" (Z80) to run CP/M. So, IBM asked Microsoft to also supply "the CP/M". Bill Gates explained that that was Digital Research. So, IBM went to Digital Research in Pacific grove to get "the CP/M". There was some "culture clash". IBM showed up in blue suits. There is an unconfirmed report that somebody at DR thought that it was a drug raid. I have looked out that upstairs window, and can imagine it. The IBM suits encountered barefoot workers in shorts and not all wearing shirts (both sexes?) female workers without bras. cats and a dog. plants. Surfboards and bicycles in every room. Gary Kildall wasn't even THERE! He had gone to fly his plane up to Oakland to visit Bill Godbout. Official story is that that was an essential errand to deliver some documentation (and no lower employee could have put some shoes on and driven up?). His wife was there, and he had told her, "They're just coming to sign a license agreement. Let them wait in the living room with the rest of the customers." IBM was not amused. IBM went back to Microsoft. I heard that Bill Gates told his people that anybody without a suit should stay home for the day. IBM said that they wante Microsoft to provide the OS. Bill Gates said, "we do BASIC. We don't do operating systems." IBM said that they intended to get the BASIC and the OS from ONE source. Bill Gates said, "Let me tell you about our new OS department!" Then Bill Gates went down the street to Seattle Computer Products and bought 86-DOS/QDOS ("Quick and Dirty OS"), including hardware to run it on, and the contract of Tim Paterson who wrote it. Microsoft had a new OS department. Motorola STARTED work on "The best 16 bit processor". Rather than patching something earlier, and being stuck with legacy oddities, they designed from scratch. So, it took longer. Motorola eventually came out with the 68000, which was the best 16 bit processor. (or 32 bit or 64 bit if you are in marketing) The Apple3 was a major financial setback. Much more money, for very little more. Apple started on a total redesign. It is rumored that for the Lisa, they explicitly avoided anybody with prior experience to avoid repeating previous bad ideas. 'course hiring brilliant folk straight out of college meant that nobody had the prior experience to know the consequences of building a machine for which software could NOT just be patched from previous versions. The Lisa was magnificant! and in a price range (>$20K?) where sales were to overpaid exectuvies wanting to impress other overpaid executives. It actually came close to putting Apple on the rocks. And, it was an ALL-NEW (and improved) machine. Old software couldn't just be patched, it had to be re-written. The brilliant recovery plan was to take the Lisa design and cut every corner that could be cut, to make a machine that could be sold for $500. Once they did, they found that they could still get away with selling it for $2K. it was mandated that the resulting machine would come with four significant pieces of software. By the time it was ready, those had become Mac-Write, Mac-Paint, Mac-Write, and Mac-Paint. But that was enough. The marketing people were smart enough to change the grumbling about building a computer for ignorant masses into "a computer for the rest of US" Later, Commodore (Amiga) and Atari (ST) used the 68000. There are some amazing stories (that i don't know) about that "technology swap" Intel came out with the 80286, 16 bit data bus with 24 bit address bus. with fewer limitations. But still a few significant ones, such as how to switch in and out of "protected mode". "It's like having to turn your engine off to switch gears on the freeway". Bill Gates called the 80286, "Brain dead." In "real mode", which would be limited to 20 bits of address, it is easy to cheat and enable A20, which permits 64K past the 1M boundary. THAT is required for Windoze 3.10 Then came the 80386, which could sorta be called a 32 bit processor. And the 80386-SX, which analogous to the 8088, was a 16 bit version of the 32 bit 30386, permitting building a software compatible machine using cheap 80286 support chips. 80486, which is kinda like a 80386 plus 80387 math chip, and the 80486SX, with is 80486 without the math processor. and Pentium. Intel had been finding out the hard way that it was difficult to maintain trademark of a number (Oldsmobile "442" notwithstanding) Other manufacturers would make a 80386 like chip and call it a 486, or an 80486 like chip and call it a 586, etc. So, they had a naming session. And the other entries were even worse than "Pentium". I'm surprised that that didn't backfire horribly! Consider: In about 1965, Honeywell bought Pentax from Asahi. Honeywell could totally legitimately have come out with a processor (joint venture with AMD/Cyrix/etc.?) and called it the "Pentaxium". Intel wouldn't even be able to object. Yeah, there have been more since then, but new stuff isn't interesting for another ten or twenty years. OR MORE for some of the boring current stuff. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com > As was working with PDP-11's at that time, really disliked 8080 instruction > set and got a C64 instead which was considerably cheaper than IBM PC and much > easier to write assembly code for. C64 basic is fairly ugly but bought a > 6502 assembler and just used Basic to display stuff on screen and call my > work was done in assembly language code. Had no trouble sampling switch data > at 1 KHz using my "toy" computer. A couple of guys from UBC Physiology > decided to build a programmable stimulator based on C64 which they were > trying to sell for $2K, considerably less than the ~$10 K that the dedicated > device that was commonly used then. Even though their timing specifications > matched the expensive device, a lot of researchers back then didn't want a > "toy" to be part of their lab setup so sales were few. > > Recently found a movie Pirates of Silicon Valley which had some of early > Microsoft history and, if depictions of individuals are true to reality, > explains why I far preferred Mac in comparison to ugly early windows. It > also helped that 68000 was a very easy processor to migrate to after 8 years > doing assembler/FORTRAN programming on a PDP-11. Couldn't believe it when I > had a full 512 Kb of RAM to play in.

5 years, 10 months

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history is hard

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Jon Elson > As far as I know, there was no VM/360. There WAS VM/370, which was out > in the early 1970's CP/67, which was a semi-product, and ran only on 360/67's, was basically the same functionality as VM/370. (I get the impression that the code was descended from CP/67, but I can't absolutely confirm that - although see Varian, below.) It was used by many customers who had purchased 360/67's. The 370/67's instruction set didn't need to be tweaked at all to run a virtualization (although it had added hardware to do virtual memory, which CP/67 needed); the '360 Principles of Operation' was defined in such a way that it could be virtualized. (Unlike, say, the PDP-11, where a RESET instruction in User mode is a NOP, and does not trap). All that's needed is the virtual memory hardware, because otherwise the real addresses of the underlying machine have to be exposed to the virtual machines. CP/67 was preceded by two earlier iterations: CP/40, which ran on a special 360/40 which has been hacked to have paging hardware added; it was likewise almost identical to CP/67 (a hacked version of CP/40, with the memory management of the 370/67 substituted for the special 360/40's, was booted on a 360/67). An older system, M44, which was similar in functionality (although not a perfect virtualization of the underlying machine), it ran on a modified 7044. One version of CP/67 provided a /370 virtual machine; it was used extensively by the MVS development team. CP/67 was also brought up on /370 hardware. Full details in "VM and the VM Community: Past, Present and Future", by Melinda Varian. Noel

5 years, 10 months

7
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is nexgen cpu and motherboard scarce or rare item? Ed#

by couryhouse＠aol.com

is nexgen cpu and motherboard scarce or rare item? Ed#

5 years, 10 months

1
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intellec MDS80 on eBay

by couryhouse＠aol.com

Still looking for the matching? paper tape reader and punch.? For one of these...Ed# On Sunday, May 31, 2020 Jan-Benedict Glaw via cctech <jbglaw at lug-owl.de; cctech at classiccmp.org> wrote: Hi! I just wanted to drop an email that there's a MDS 80 on eBay: ??? https://www.ebay.de/itm/333612000595 (Please note: The seller, Michael, is a friend of mine, and a former coworker.) Thanks, ? Jan-Benedict --

5 years, 10 months

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