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

FS (a little OT): Telular Phonecell SX5 GSM Fixed Terminals (x2)

by spectre＠floodgap.com

I know that there's a few people on this list who mess around with homebrew GSM networks and OpenBTS, so I'll offer these here first. I am getting rid of my two Telular Phonecell SX5 fixed GSM terminals. These are 2G devices that present a phone line and a serial port. They have dial tone emulation and can allow a regular phone handset to send and receive calls. (There is some fax support but I've never used that functionality.) The serial port is directly connected to the GSM modem so that you can also use it for sending and receiving SMS text messages, which is the primary purpose it served here (so I could ping the house sensor network if the server line was down). The reason I'm getting rid of them is because 2G is being sunsetted in the USA and T-Mobile, the last 2G carrier, will dismantle its nationwide 2G network by the end of this year. DO NOT BUY THIS IF YOU WANT TO USE IT FOR THAT PURPOSE unless you are using a regional carrier you know will support it. On the other hand, if you want a fixed box (or both of them) for your own private GSM network, such as with an OpenBTS base station, then this will serve you hopefully as well as it has served me. Both units were purchased new and I have been their only owner. They include manuals, power supplies, spike antennae and power cords in the original boxes. SIM cards are not included and I have removed their old lead-acid battery backups for weight and because those died long ago. I'm asking $60 each, or $100 if you want them both, plus shipping. I'm open to other offers. Please E-mail me off list. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- FORTUNE: You're wise, but not wise enough not to read this sort of drivel. -

5 years, 10 months

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Mac Performa 6214CD FTGH from San Antonio, TX (re-post; now tested)

by mark.tapley＠swri.org

All, Still trying to find a home for this system (re-post but with more information, testing) For the visually oriented, here are pictures showing the machine running: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11j__mCYOFuBAil58hAdhmSK5GMaqmcUL?us… Things in the pictures but NOT included in the giveaway are: 1) ADB cable (Mini-DIN4) (the one in the photos was borrowed from another system for testing) 2) ?square? ADB mouse (also borrowed) 3) Power strip You get everything else. Mac Performa 6214CD, PowerPC CPU, 3.5? floppy and CD drive on front face Apple Extended Keyboard II (NO ADB CABLE) Apple Apple Desktop Bus Mouse II (round - not working) Apple Multiple Scan 15 Display (matching, includes cable) APS external SCSI hard drive enclosure and cable (Centronix on the hard drive end, DB-25 on the Mac end) Epson Stylus Color 740 ink-jet printer with a spare (unopened) cartridge UMAX Astra 1220S flat-bed SCSI scanner. ZIP drive with SCSI interface Cables Pile of accompanying software including at least: DeltaGraph Now Up-To-Date and Contact Sad Macs, Bombs and disasters Retrospect Backup Astra Scanner Driver All Free to a Good Home. You want this if: a) you can afford shipping or pickup from San Antonio, TX, 78254, and b) 15 years after ?Take this job and shove it? came out you finally acted on it, quit your job and set up your own home office and accounting business, and now you want to relive your glory days. All items tested May 23, 2020. Everything worked, with the following exceptions: 1) The round ADB mouse included does not work. The keyboard does work and the square ADB mouse worked when plugged into it, so the fault is probably in the round mouse. 2) The printer doesn?t move any ink to the page. The ink is dried out, so I?m not at all surprised. I expect it to work with new cartridges, but did not test that. There is an unopened replacement cartridge included, so you can test at least the black printing if you open that. Replacement cartridges available at: https://www.compandsave.com/Epson_Stylus_Color_740_Ink_Cartridges_s/1396.htm under $4 each. Everything else about the printer seems to work. I hooked up to it via USB using my MacBook and software from http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net and it responds as expected for an ink-jet with dried-up ink but otherwise functional. 3) I have no ZIP cartridge to test the ZIP drive. It is recognized on the SCSI bus as a removable-media drive, power light comes on, etc, but I don?t know that it reads or writes. 4) The Mac OS 8.5 on the drive will not allow me to set the year to 2020. 5) Backup battery is dead, so the unit won?t remember dates between shutdown and startup again. 5) The door to the monitor?s controls is broken, and just taped back into place. Things that do work include the floppy drive, the CD drive (plays audio CDs), all other aspects of the computer itself and the external drive, the keyboard, and the monitor. Driver software and media for scanner and printer are included. The scanner works, I scanned an image with it and it came up clear. The glass could use cleaning, though. Please, please, please take this as a group, I really don?t want to split it up. Shipping will be challenging; if you are out of driving range but want it, contact me and we can talk. If you are in driving range and want it, let me know and we can meet half-way. Not looking to make any money, I just don?t want to throw it away and don?t want to lose money giving it away. - Mark 210-522-6025 office 210-379-4635 cell

5 years, 10 months

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Looking for Diablo 44m filters

by cz＠alembic.crystel.com

Hi all! More non-discussion, technical stuff: I'm starting to work on restoring some of the old Evecon-6 servers that I used to lug to conventions 30 years ago. Right now I just dragged out my Plessy 20mb disk drive which is a Diablo 44 Perkin Elmer monster. Yep, the one with the 10mb platter on the bottom and 10mb removable platter on the top that looks like an RL01 pack but of course is not. First up is powerup, oddly enough it is powering up which is good. Second is the filter: If the filter is plugged the heads will crash, and this filter does not look great. It's a Cambridge Filter Corp CFC 1246159GO which maps to a Perkin Elmer part number of 302709-001 Google isn't helping, anyone know where I can get another filter or how I can clean/purge this one (if possible) Thanks! C

5 years, 10 months

1
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Living Computer Museum

by ggs＠shiresoft.com

I just received an email from the Living Computer Museum that they were suspending operations. It wasn't clear from the email what that actually means. TTFN - Guy

5 years, 10 months

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Living Computer Museum

by c.murray.mccullough＠gmail.com

I was interested in computers from grade 11; that would have been in 1967. I got my first microcomputer in 1978, a Heathkit H8 - terribly priced here in Canada. From there I went to the Coleco ADAM. It was essentially an APPLE II clone, well the OS was. Not sure what has become of ADAM-user groups and whether any computer history museum mentions it or not! Happy computing! Murray ?

5 years, 10 months

1
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Building an IBM 3270 terminal controller

by lproven＠gmail.com

https://ajk.me/building-an-ibm-3270-terminal-controller -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven ? Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

5 years, 10 months

2
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Anyone using RK06/07 drives?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Bill Degnan ` >> I think I have a spare set of boards for the controller. > I might be interested if no one else wants this. You'll need a backplane too - and that's non-trivial. (I'm in the process of producing one for a KE11-A.) The RK611 is a 9-slot (although several slots are just SPC, and can be ignored). Hence the plaint on my 'PDP-11 Models' page: http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/pdp11/PDP-11_Models.html "DO NOT just keep the boards, and discard the box, bulkhead panels, cables, etc. Everyone does that, as a result of which we are now over-supplied with boards - but the cables, boxes etc are now rare (un-obtainium in some cases ..) These are all now worth a lot more than the cards are!" Noel

5 years, 10 months

4
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SAIL (was ALGOL-W)

by mark.kahrs＠gmail.com

As a past occasional maintainer of SAIL, I'll add my version of history: I believe the compiler originated as a class assignment for Jerry Feldman's compiler writing class. As noted, Dan Swinehart was one of the principal contributors. The addition of LEAP to SAIL was a direct result of Feldman's past work at Lincoln Labs. SAIL was used by everyone for everything at the AI Lab because of it's "kitchen sink" philosophy including the link to assembly language inside the language. Eventually, a source language debugger called BAIL was written by John Reiser. With the slow and steady decline of the PDP-10 and the ascent of Unix, SAIL went off into the sunset. [MWK,AIL]

5 years, 10 months

2
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Anyone using RK06/07 drives?

by cz＠alembic.crystel.com

I think I have a spare set of boards for the controller. C

5 years, 10 months

2
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CHM software

by rdawson16＠hotmail.com

Follow up to the Living Computer Museum discussion... I can understand why CHM does not allow access to the hardware, But what about the software? It should all be downloadable. Randy

5 years, 10 months

2
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Early Nubus history

by aek＠bitsavers.org

Did anyone ever do any research into the early history of Nubus, wrt Western Digital, TI or Steve Ward/MIT/Numachine?

5 years, 10 months

3
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Algol W [was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC]

by paul＠mcjones.org

On May 27, 2020, Lars Brinkhoff <lars at nocrew.org> wrote: > Al Kossow wrote: >>> Algol W was from Eroupe? >> Algol W was from Stanford, written by Wirth when he was there > > I wonder if there's any connection to Stanford's SAIL language? Good question. I believe the answer is ?Wirth was initially involved with both?. Here?s a bit of history in the Preface to a SAIL manual: HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGE The GOGOL III compiler, developed principally by Dan Swinehart at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Project, was the basis for the non-LEAP portions of SAIL. Robert Sproull joined Swinehart in incorporating the features of LEAP The first version of the language was released in November, 1969. SAIL's intermediate development was the responsibility of Russell Taylor, Jim Low, and Hanan Samet, who introduced processes, procedure variables, interrupts, contexts, matching procedures, a new macro system, and other features. Most recently John Reiser, Robert Smith, and Russell Taylor maintained and extended SAIL. They added a high-level debugger, conversion to TENEX, a print statement, and records and references. http://pdp-10.trailing-edge.com/decuslib20-01/01/decus/20-0002/sail.man.html And here?s a 1964 Stanford TimeSharing Project Memo by McKeeman and Wirth on Gogol: Gogol is a simple, integer arithmetic language used under the PDP-1 time sharing system at Stanford. This memorandum includes the syntactical definition of the language and a number of sample programs as well as a brief description of the operational characteristics of the compiler. Gogol was designed to permit fast compilation of efficient machine code directly into memory. The speed of compilation together with the accessibility of the text editor make program de- bugging relatively rapid. The examples presented here plus the availability of the compiler should form an adequate basis for learning to use the language. More detailed information depends heavily on a knowledge of PDP-1 hardware. https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:jy391jj5758/jy391jj5758.pdf

5 years, 10 months

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Replacing cables sheaths?

by cruff＠ruffspot.net

Thanks for the suggestions. I currently have Rescue Tape brand self adhesive silicone tape on the cable, but it looks like it is causing corrosion of the spiral-wound metal shield wires. The wrap around heat shrink might cost more than just buying a new adapter! It looks like there is an 1/8" split wire loom that could work, or perhaps Plasti Dip spray would make a reasonable coating.

5 years, 10 months

1
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Living Computer Museum

by jfoust＠threedee.com

At 09:25 AM 5/28/2020, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: >Nothing like asking people to jump thru hoops before you let them >do you a favor. :-) Much of the effort of running a thrift store is disposal of donated material that has no rapid resale value. - John

5 years, 10 months

5
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Back to tech: TK50 restoration and thoughts

by cz＠alembic.crystel.com

Ok, so to get back to technology I have been working on fixing the TK50's I have here along with attempting to look at some old tapes from Bob's basement. It's been interesting. So far one of the units works well with one of my tapes (stored indoors for about 20 or so years) after a good cleaning with 95% isopropyl alcohol. From RT11 I was able to initialize the tape, write 40mb of .DSK image files, and consistently read the files back (to a VM: memory drive) and diff/bin them to make sure they are the same. Good. First test: A second TK50 drive I had banging around. This one will read the tape, but fail about half way through. May still be a bit dirty, will clean and check. Second test: Checking some of the tapes from Bob's basement. In addition to getting the PERQ tapes out of there I had a few TK50 tapes mixed in, most with degaussed stickers on them from long ago. These tapes appear to have been Vax 8650 load tapes of some sort, no idea if there is any value to the data but one was labelled Micro-pdp11 diagnostics and since I know those are backed up I started with that one. It loads, but fails with a DUP IO output error. It also messes up the tape head so I have to clean it after testing. Most of the dirt is at the bottom of the head. After cleaning the drive can load and read the "control" tape which has all of those image files on it, so it doesn't damage the drive. Still I see why taking the cage top off the TK50 is a good idea. :-) Took the cartridge apart and here is what I see: https://i.imgur.com/xHhiBAW.jpg This is... not good. Dirt or something on the bottom of the tape. Now these did spend the last 20 years in a pretty dank basement with an oil fired house heater so there is probably that. Still I used a Q tip on the tape with isopropyl alcohol and it came up dirty inside the cart and out: https://i.imgur.com/TB91gGx.jpg Also odd that the tape is wrapped in two different "levels" on the spindle. Maybe that's normal. So a question: Can one clean tape with isopropyl alcohol? In theory if I could get the controller to slowly run the tape onto the take-up real to the EOT marker I could soak some cotton swabs and use them to clean the tape before it hits the heads (to minimize head wear). Or I could just chuck these tapes and see how a couple I am buying from Ebay hold up. This is mostly an academic exercise: It gives me something to do. But I am wondering if the tapes were crudded by the environment or if this is just natural tape degradation. I do have one final tape that was in a closed tape holder so it might be better (it's clean on the outside). Will see.... C

5 years, 10 months

1
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Replacing cables sheaths?

by matti.nummi＠hotmail.fi

You can use cable lacing. It does not make it pretty(er), but usable. If You don't want to remove the connectors or cut the cable You cannot add any new sheath? There may be some fabric/wowen expandable sheaths which have been used on power cables earlier but I have no precise knowledge. Something like when You push it, it bulges. BR Matti

5 years, 10 months

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Living Computers: Museum + Labs

by RichA＠livingcomputers.org

Hello, everyone, As I'm sure all of you are aware, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a crisis with devastating effects on many cultural organizations, and more especially on those which rely on public gatherings and special events to achieve their mission. Since before we opened to the public in 2012, our philosophy has been a simple one: To understand computing technology of any period, you need to experience that technology at first hand. The current global situation has made it difficult for us to serve our mission, and given so much uncertainty we have made the difficult decision to suspend all operations of LCM+L for now. We will spend the months ahead reassessing if, how, and when to reopen. Because that will not happen in any short time frame, the staff, including me, have been laid off. On a personal note, the last 17 years, since July 2003, have been a time of growth, excitement, and backbreaking labor which I would not trade for anything. The friendships I have formed, in the community at large (and it is international in scope) as well as among my colleagues here, are a comfort to me. I'll be subscribed from a personal address once that is moderator-approved. Thank you all for your interest in and support for Living Computers: Museum + Labs, and our previous incarnations. It means a great deal to us as we wind down the current implementation. Rich Rich Alderson Sr. Systems Engineer/Curator emeritus Living Computers: Museum + Labs 2245 1st Ave S Seattle, WA 98134 Cell: (206) 465-2916 Desk: (206) 342-2239 http://www.LivingComputers.org/

5 years, 10 months

2
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In search of Apollo DN100 Technical Reference Manual

by ian.finder＠gmail.com

Hi folks, I've recently acquired an Apollo DN100 I'd like to restore to former glory. Sadly, there are no schematics anywhere that I can find. I have seen this alluded to, but do not have a part number- anyone got a lead? Even better would be to find anything describing the PALs in the system. Separately, there is a 14" Priam DISKOS hard drive in here- not with the Priam interface used by the later SAU2 Apollos (DN300, etc.) but something else- perhaps the early ANSI interface option provided by Priam. If anyone has leads on - 1) The failure modes of these drives and 2) A replacement ? advice would be much appreciated. Thanks, - Ian

5 years, 10 months

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In search of SGI IRIS 1400 / 2000 era technical reference manuals & schematics

by ian.finder＠gmail.com

Title says all. Thanks, - Ian

5 years, 10 months

1
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Replacing cables sheaths?

by cruff＠ruffspot.net

Does anyone know of an effective technique to replace the sheath of a cable without needing to reterminate the ends? On all of the Apple power adapter cables I've used the plastic sheath starts to fall apart, but the adapter itself and the cable conductors are still useable. Something that results in a reasonably flexible coating that doesn't look like a horrible accident happened to the cable? :-)

5 years, 10 months

3
2
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Last MSV11-P question: Using them as Q bus memories

by cz＠alembic.crystel.com

Ok, so we banged the MSV11-P revision B/C memory issues into the ground (looks like the problem is burst mode DMA on Q Bus can cause random failures that corrupt disks) however does anyone know if the bug will affect the board if you use it as a normal Q bus memory board? In other words, if you put the board *below* an 11/73 or 11/83 so it reports as a non-PMI memory will it still have the same problem? I'd like to run my system with a full 4mb of memory, using my normal parity 2mb board and a 2mb MSV11-P board that was from an 11/83? Inquiring minds want to know :-) C

5 years, 10 months

1
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Algol W [was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC]

by paul＠mcjones.org

> On May 26, 2020, Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote: > > On 5/26/20 6:39 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: >> >> >>> Algol W was from Eroupe? >> >> Algol W was from Stanford, written by Wirth when he was there > > Actually, by Dick Sites > > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/stanford/cs_techReports/STAN-CS-71-230_Algol_W_Ref… <http://bitsavers.org/pdf/stanford/cs_techReports/STAN-CS-71-230_Algol_W_Ref…> Dick must have done a lot of work on that version, but an earlier manual by Henry R. Bauer, Sheldon Becker, and Susan L . Graham says: The project was initiated and directed by Professor Niklaus Wirth, who proposed many of the ideas incorporated in the compiler and suggested ways to bring them about. Joseph W. Wells, Jr. and Edwin H. Satterthwaite, Jr. wrote the PL/360 System in which the compiler is embedded, the linkages to the compiler, and the loader. Although the authors did the bulk of the programming for the compiler, valuable contributions were made by Larry L, Bumgarner, Jean-Paul Rossiensky, Joyce B. Keckler, Patricia V. Koenig, John Perine, and Elizabeth Fong. http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/cs/tr/68/98/CS-TR-68-98.pdf And Ed Satthertwaite wrote a source-level debugger for the system. More on Algol W here: http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/ALGOL/algol60impl/#ALGOL_W and more on the designs that led up to it here (search for the names Wirth and Hoare): http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/ALGOL/standards/ in particular: N. Wirth and C. A. R. Hoare. A contribution to the development of ALGOL. Communications of the ACM, Volume 9, Number 6 (June 1966), pages 413-432. ACM Digital Library <https://doi.org/10.1145/365696.365702> "Euler caught the attention of the IFIP Working Group that was engaged in planning the future of ALGOL. The language ALGOL 60, designed by and for numerical mathematicians, had a systematic structure and a concise definition that were appreciated by mathematically trained people but lacked compilers and support by industry. To gain acceptance, its range of application had to be widened. The Working Group assumed the task of proposing a successor and soon split into two camps. On one side were the ambitious who wanted to erect another milestone in language design, and, on the other, those who felt that time was pressing and that an adequately extended ALGOL 60 would be a productive endeavor. I belonged to this second party and submitted a proposal that lost the election. Thereafter, the proposal was improved with contributions from Tony Hoare (a member of the same group) and implemented on Stanford University's first IBM 360. The language later became known as ALGOL W and was used in several universities for teaching purposes." [Wirth 1985 <http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/ALGOL/standards/history/#Wirth…>]

5 years, 10 months

1
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history is hard

by sieler＠allegro.com

Fred writes: ..."MS-DOS 3.3 did not even come with a disk cache." and discusses problems with SMARTDRV (in MS DOS 4.01 and later). I'm not sure if it was technically a form of caching, but the AmigaDOS delayed floppy write (well before MS-DOS cache) caused enormous problems for Amiga users. (It may well have contributed significantly to the lack of market success.) Basic problem: you save something to a floppy, and pull it out. You now have a corrupted floppy. You needed to wait a few seconds for the OS to decide "well, looks like I better flush the last few dirty sectors out to that floppy". (I contend it was a form of write caching, designed to speed writing to floppies where writing tended to occur in nearby places.) Stan

5 years, 10 months

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Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

by jwsmail＠jwsss.com

Seems of interest.? Will be interesting to play with. https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/microsoft-open-sources-gw-basic/

5 years, 10 months

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Looking for docs, software for Lomac DAVID

by camiel＠camicom.com

I?ve received a Logical Machine Corporation (Lomac) DAVID system, which appears to be successor to the Lomac ADAM. The system consists of the main box with an 8? floppy drive (labeled ?DAVID PROCESSOR?), a keyboard/monitor box (labeled ?DAVID DISPLAY?), and a printer. I am looking for both documentation and software for this system. The first thing I need to sort out is how to connect the display and processor. The display has a single cable with a male DB-25 connector; the processor has a connector labeled ?DISPLAY?, but it?s a female DC-37 connector. If anyone ever had or worked with one of these, perhaps they remember if there was some kind of adapter in between. Camiel

5 years, 10 months

1
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Pdp11/05 boot media

by doug＠doughq.com

Hi everybody I'm the proud owner of a PDP11/05 system with a couple of 8" floppy drives. I believe they are likely to be RX01s. Does anybody on the list have some boot media that they could provide. I understand that the controller can't format the disks so I'm in a frustrating state where I don't know where to start. Doug Jackson Canberra Australia.

5 years, 10 months

9
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HP 9817 Usage

by Anders.Gustafsson＠pedago.fi

You may want to have a peek at the sync separator I built for my 9000-340. The schematics are available over at VintHp I am also in the process of building a PS/2 and USB to HIL adapter: http://www.dalton.ax/hpkbd/hil/ As for disks. This is one option: http://www.dalton.ax/hpdisk/ Ansgar's HPDrive is another: https://www.hp9845.net/9845/projects/hpdrive/ -- Med v?nlig h?lsning Anders Gustafsson, ingenj?r anders.gustafsson at pedago.fi | Support +358 18 12060 | Direkt +358 9 315 45 121 | Mobil +358 40506 7099 Pedago interaktiv ab, Nygatan 6 (kontor), Nygatan 7 B (kurslokal), AX-22100 MARIEHAMN, ?LAND, FINLAND >>> <cctalk-request at classiccmp.org> 2020-05-26 20:00 >>> Should I look at buying a monitor that can support the composite video sync and get an HIL keyboard (or build an adapter)? Does the machine not support using a terminal over the serial port as a console at boot?

5 years, 10 months

1
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HP 9817 Usage

by tangentdelta＠protonmail.com

Hello! I have an HP 9817 and its accompanying 9133D disk drive unit. The disk drive seems like a rather large can of worms, so I've been ignoring it. I re-capped the 9817's power supply. It powers up and it passes all of its diagnostics according to the LEDs on the motherboard. I can see that it is outputting a picture on the composite video connector, but I don't have any displays that will accept the weird sync frequency that it uses. I also do not have an HIL keyboard to use with the machine. I traced out the RS-232 TX and RX on the 50-pin serial connector on the back, and verified that it matched up with the hand-drawn schematics on the HP Museum website. Using that information, I build a serial cable. Unfortunately the machine does not appear to use this serial port as a "console" at power-up. I tried messing around with the DIPS switches according to the manual but none of the settings I tried resulted in the machine using the serial port at boot. I noticed that one of the DIP switches will enable/disable a "remote keyboard" feature. Enabling it causes the machine to fail the power-on test with a "device not found" error code. I didn't write down the exact error code. Should I look at buying a monitor that can support the composite video sync and get an HIL keyboard (or build an adapter)? Does the machine not support using a terminal over the serial port as a console at boot? Thanks

5 years, 10 months

4
4
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History is hard

by sieler＠allegro.com

I accidentally attributed text from Liam as being from Fred C, ""MS-DOS 3.3 did not even come with a disk cache." Sorry Fred! Stan

5 years, 10 months

1
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IBM 3178 keyboards available in MN

by chrise＠pobox.com

A friend has unearthed approximately (5) of these IBM keyboards in his dad's shed in MN. These are not PC keyboards but instead likely 3178 terminal keyboards. They probably came out of 3M a very long time ago. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B8kw9xdaeikwzKzyL0ts3HZZg96K7Yov/view?usp=… I have persuaded my friend not to trash them until I see if there is interest in them here. They are dirty and their working status is completely unknown. Contact Gary: w0ghz(-at-)comcast.net if you are interested in them. Reference: IBM 6052101 https://deskthority.net/wiki/IBM_%22Blue_Switch%22_3178-C3_Terminal https://terminals-wiki.org/wiki/index.php/IBM_3178 Chris -- Chris Elmquist

5 years, 10 months

3
2
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Updating the VAX GCC backend from cc0 to MODE_CC

by abs＠absd.org

The gcc VAX backend is in danger of being dropped if it doesn't get converted from the older cc0 to the newer MODE_CC implementation. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz <glaubitz at physik.fu-berlin.de> has started a bountysource entry https://www.bountysource.com/issues/91495157-vax-convert-the-backend-to-mod… and asked for people to post it anywhere it might be found interesting, in case anyone would like to add to the bounty, or collect it :) (I find it quite amusing to it mixed in between entries like "Optimize NumPy SIMD algorithms for Power VSX") You could easily argue that modern gcc is too big to be practical to run on a VAX anyway, but making practical a requirement for classiccmp.org would rule out _so_ much fun stuff :) Thanks David

5 years, 10 months

1
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3 stylewriter printers available for pickup only, Fairfield, IA

by billdegnan＠gmail.com

Came in through vintagecomputer.net that I am passing along. Anyone out there near Fairfield, IA and looking for three Apple Stylewriter printers let me know and I will put you in contact with the woman who has them. I was told that there was a few other things, but no computers. They're pick up only. The woman asked that she be told 1) phone number 2) your location Please contact me ONLY through https://www.vintagecomputer.net/contact.cfm because this is the most reliable means of contacting me. I find Gmail sends a lot of group posts and replies straight to the spam folder. I do not know the donor nor do I know about the hardware. I don't know the deadline for retrieving them. I do not know nuthin. I will bundle together the persons who inquire and forward to her to decide whom to contact. Bill

5 years, 10 months

2
1
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Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

by cisin＠xenosoft.com

On Sat, 23 May 2020, Boris Gimbarzevsky wrote: > Thanks for that really detailed review of microprocessor history! A post to > save. But, read carefully the corrections that others made! Such as Noel pointing out that I was mistaken in assuming that there was a direct progression in 4004 -> 8008 -> 8080, and Liam's discussion of the Commodore BASIC. I never had a Commodore 64. But, I had an MSD drive for a C64 connected to an IEEE-488 board in a PC. > After your detailed discussion of the bizarre variety of early Intel > microprocessors I now recall why I refused to have anything to do with PC's > in late 1980's. Well, there were advantages and disadvantages. The Motorola approach produced a better product. BUT, it meant that software was delayed for new products. It took a while before the good third party software showed up for the Mac. OTOH, the Intel processors were a series of little steps, so it was usually almost trivial to upgrade code to a new series of processors. It took Micropro less than a week to port their 8080 CP/M Wordstar to the 8088 PC. It then took them much longer than that to prepare new manuals. Some internal structures had patches on top of patches. Such as Segment:Offset memory addressing, and figuring out that the PC FDC could not do a DMA that straddled a physical (not Segment:Offset) 64K boundary, although Int13h didn't realize it and have a suitable error message - some later versions of DOS had occasional mysterious problems with FORMAT that were easily solved by adding or removing TSRs to move the location of its TPA. > I've never liked M$ software as it seems whenever they produce a good > product, they dump it and come up with something far worse and stop > supporting the old one. "Oh, but it is DANGEROUS to use a product past its [arbitrary, marketing chosen] SELL-BY date." >> 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. And, the REAL history is much more interesting AND WEIRDER than the fictional variants. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

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Standard Cocktail Napkin Size [WAS: RE: history is hard (was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC)}

by t.gardner＠computer.org

On Sunday, May 24, 2020 11:23 AM Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote in part: <snip> >> On Sun, 24 May 2020, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote: >>The final media size was determined by Shugart Engineering led by Al >> Chou from the size of the 8-track tape drive that the 5?-inch FDD was >> to replace in Wang and other systems. As near as I can tell it was >> not the same size as a ?standard? cocktail napkin. >"standard"??!? >"I believe in standards. Everyone should have [a unique] one [of their own]." - George Morrow I have seen napkins that are about 5.25". I did attempt to see if there is a "standard" cocktail napkin size and as best I can tell it is today 5-inches square not 5?-inches square. A friend who is a veteran of the paper products industry provided me an actual cocktail napkin circa 1980 (a promotional give away for his business) that he recalls was procured to the then standard size which I measured as 5-inches square. Apparently cocktail napkins have not deflated over the intervening 40 years :-) This supports Adkisson's recollection that the customer wanted something about the size of a cocktail napkin and Chou's description of the development process that tried to maximize the size of the disk that could be received in a drive which in turn was designed to fit into the then existing 8-track tape drive slot. Tom

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cctalk Digest, Vol 68, Issue 25

by athornton＠gmail.com

> On May 25, 2020, at 10:00 AM, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > > The topic for my talk next week. Unix had virtualization in 74. The second > Unix port ran under OS/360's VM in 78. _Ahem_. It ran under VM/370. Most (all?) models of the IBM 370 had virtual memory, as had the (not widely-available) 360/67. OS/360 is one of several operating systems for the IBM 360 and successors. I grabbed the Princeton v7-to-370 port sources, and I have a VM/370 r6 machine set up on Hercules, but I have not yet made the attempt to combine the two. Many years after that, also at Princeton, I sysadminned PenguinVM, which as far as I know was the first publicly-available Linux/390 machine. Adam

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DECstation 220 Diagnostic "Test for Shutdown return"

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

According to a manual a friend has, the DECstation 220 outputs a diagnostic code on the parallel port. If I have interpreted it correctly the code being output by my machine is "Test for shutdown return". Does anyone know what that might mean? Regards Rob

5 years, 10 months

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GWBASIC Source Code

by c.murray.mccullough＠gmail.com

GWBASIC- (Gee-Whiz BASIC) is a Microsoft product, designed much along the line of IBM?s BASICA, that did not need a ROM BASIC and was interpreted. Not necessarily basic in design or purpose as defined by Oxford English Dictionary & Wikipedia and Computer Desktop Encyclopedia, some(purists) say the latter two shouldn?t be used with the former, GWBASIC nevertheless was an important development in the early years of our hobby. Little has been mentioned about the source code: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/microsoft-open-sources-gw-basic/ It?s available on GitHub for download and use in WIN 7 to 10 as far as I know! At that time(1983) in micro-computing history it did what was intended, help microcomputer owners/users with limited processor and memory capabilities. Serving this purpose, was there a better BASIC? No doubt. I used ADAM-BASIC, much like APPLE BASIC, to write silly-little programs or more-sophisticated ones. Hobbyists, experimenters and early microcomputer lovers had another tool to master. It?s success may be attributed more to marketing than anything else but early microcomputer users were happy to get their hands on something new. And, Microsoft knew marketing, not as well as APPLE, but the game was capitalism and getting software out the door! Being first or second was not necessarily the primary reason for rising to the top. And today: Is LOGO or Python any better teaching tools than GWBASIC for beginners? I hardly doubt that. Happy computing. Murray ?

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13W3 to HDMI/DisplayPort

by aperry＠snowmoose.com

Anyone here know of a SVGA-to-HDMI (or DisplayPort) adapter that a 13W3-to-SVGA adapter so I can connect my Sun frame buffers to a HDMI display? I am hoping someone here has already figured this one out. alan

5 years, 10 months

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looking for VME board manuals

by rp＠servium.ch

Hi all I acquired a "few" VME boards over the years, and I finally have time to deal with some of the less cooperative ones. I'm looking for the following VME board manuals (any information is welcome, especially pinouts for the front panel or P2 connectors, jumpers, how to re-create the nvram contents etc. ). * Themis Sparc 10MP (not 20MP which is an entirely different board with a different front panel) * Force SPARC CPU 10 * MVME3600 (user's or installation manual, I can only find the programmer's manual) also looking for manuals for some HP VXI boards (more for completeness than because they're necessary, the boards are pretty self-explanatory unless you need to recreate the cables): * HP E1499A (V/382) * HP E1498A (V/743) * HP E1480A (V/362) Also anything about the Mercury RACE MCH6 or MCV6 system that's more than a marketing brochure (actually, I'd even take a marketing brochure). I have some i860 and PowerPC boards but absolutely no idea where to start. And of course I'm also looking for software, but I'm not holding my breath... thanks! Rico

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The massive effort to rebuild an LK201

by sales＠elecplus.com

Yes, I know this will never again be used on a terminal, but the lengths to which he went are extraordinary to me! https://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?f=7 <https://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=23965> &t=23965 He could have bought several new in box LK201, with terminals, for what he spent on this project! 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

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DECstation 220/Olivetti M250E Documentation

by rob_j37＠hotmail.com

I have a DECstation 220 (an Olivetti M250E under the covers) that needs repair. I have a pocket service guide, but I have not found any other documentation. Is there any? Thanks Rob

5 years, 10 months

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Alternative Monitor for VAXmate

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

As it looks like I am not going to be able to repair the monitor board for my VAXmate I am wondering if I can do anything with the outputs from the I/O board to drive an external monitor instead. The connector to the monitor board has RGB+Intensity outputs at TTL levels. The horizontal sync has a frequency of 26.6KHz, active low with the high voltage 3.7V, Vertical sync is 60Hz. I don't believe that corresponds to any known standard, does it? I had a go at building this http://www.dasarodesigns.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/pet-composite-video- adapter.jpg feeding its output to a composite to VGA device to see if it would convert it to VGA, but no luck. Any ideas? Thanks Rob

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13W3 to HDMI/DisplayPort

by cruff＠ruffspot.net

Just bought an Extron RGB-HDMI 300 (A) that handles VGA and other RGB type signals and has HDMI output. I've connected it to my VAXstation 4000/60 (very successfully), and my IIgs (reasonable but this is at the low end of what the unit can manage). Output on either my Sony 46" TV or Apple 1600x1050 monitor. Found one (pull from service) at surpluscrestron.com for $53 shipped. It didn't come with the power supply (12 V @ 1 A) and needed this connector (https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/molex/0395000002/WM7732-ND/1280583) to attach the power supply.

5 years, 10 months

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2.11bsd unix resolver

by rshepprd＠gmail.com

On Solaris it?s the ?hosts? line in the /etc/nsswitch.conf/ file. Perhaps something similar in BSD. Sent from Mail for Windows 10

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Early Nubus history

by michael.99.thompson＠gmail.com

> > Date: Sat, 23 May 2020 07:07:52 -0700 > From: Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> > Subject: Early Nubus history > > Did anyone ever do any research into the early history of Nubus, wrt > Western Digital, TI or Steve Ward/MIT/Numachine? > I was a member of the IEEE-1196 committee that wrote the NuBus standard and IEEE-1101 committee that wrote the mechanical standard for the NuBus. Eike Waltz and I did a lot of the mechanical standards work. The members of the IEEE-1196 committee were George White (Chairman) R. Gordon Cook, Mark Garetz(CompuPro and IEEE-696), Richard Greenblatt(MIT AI Lab, LMI Founder), Ron Hochsprung(Apple), Richard Kalish, Rikki Kirzner( Dataquest), Gerry Laws(TI), Rae Mclellan(Bell Labs), Gregory Papadopoulos(MIT), Dan Schneider, Dave Stewart, Michael Thompson(me), Jim Truchard(Founder National Instruments), Eike Waltz, *Steve Ward*(MIT), and Fritz Whittington. George White went from MIT->Computer Automation->Western Digital->TI->Corollary->Intel. Corollary's cache technology was licensed by DEC and many others. My memories of this committee are a little vague after 40 years, other than being very impressed with the other members. I will see if I kept any notes >from the meetings. -- Michael Thompson

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H960 repo stabiliser feet redux

by steven＠malikoff.com

Here's my conclusion to the H960 stabiliser feet thread from a while ago where I was after measurements of the originals. And thanks for all the help from cctalk (especially Noel) who supplied dimensions and photos. I finished these last year but moved on to other projects and hadn't returned to the list to discuss them, so I am doing that now. I made a pair each for my two H960's. The feet consist of welded steel load-bearing frames with a C-profile that fits snugly onto the H960 base, a lower leg from a shelf bracket and a support strut. The leg is located by a steel bolt. The bolt has the head machined to a disc, I was going to turn the taper and machine the slot but I lost the photo of the original bolt that a listmember had posted so I left them at that. They could do with nickel electroplating sometime. The frame is super strong, although I have not physically loaded them to any great extent. The outer end has a threaded adjustable pad the same size (AFAIK) as the originals, which are still available. I found some correct size el-cheapo ones at the hardware store that did the job just fine. The frame is threaded for the pad post and a nut on the pad then locks the pad from turning. The outside aesthetics are taken care of with a 3D printed hollow shell modelled from the measurements of the original casting. It slides onto the leg and is secured by the bolt. The shell CAD model still needs some work to get the fit and front holes right, and a few other things but overall they look fine and obey the 6 foot rule. A few coats of satin black enamel helps hide the print layering a bit. Photo showing the frame (spray finished in silver epoxy primer, what I had at hand), the other frame inside a shell, and some of the test shells: http://www.surfacezero.com/g503/data/500/Stabiliser_feet_01.png As attached to one of the H960s. (I have yet to do the kick panel, may laser cut that sometime): http://www.surfacezero.com/g503/data/500/Stabiliser_feet_02.png Steve.

5 years, 10 months

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TK50 cleaning and unloading issues, new thought:

by cz＠alembic.crystel.com

With the 11/83 running pretty well I decided it was time to derack it and try putting in a TK50 tape drive. I have two and a TQK70 controller (which should work with a TK50) so I popped it in and started to test. On the first unit the tape was already loaded and "stuck". Cleaned the head by lifting it up, cleaning with isopropyl alcohol on clean no-lint swabs and it unloaded properly. Now loads and unloads with no issues on two tapes. Second unit was a bit more interesting, even with a clean head it would not unload. It would spin the tape, get to the point where the leader was on the way through the head system then it would blink endlessly. Took it out and moved the tape with a screwdriver through the hole and found the problem: The leader tongue had bent backwards a bit and as a result it was getting caught in the head slot when rewinding. The TK50 controller must be smart enough to detect the increased torque and stopped before ripping the tongue through. I took it off, bent it back to straight, put it in and now the tape loads and unloads properly. I wonder if later model LTO tape units have the same tongue and leader and can be swapped into a TK50. Another question: Under RT11 what device is a TK50? Is it MQ or something else? And is there a utility to allow a TK50 to be written >from a SIMh image to real tape like PDP11GUI? Thanks! Chris

5 years, 10 months

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(V)HDL Toolsets

by cube1＠charter.net

As I wrote in my last post, but write here for use as a separate thread: I'd be interesting in hearing from folks what toolsets they have used for HDL (VHDL in particular). I started with Xilinx ISE and then graduated to Vivado for later chipsets - unfortunately, Vivado seems to be something of a dog, in terms of time to compile HDL and synthesize logic. JRJ

5 years, 10 months

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Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Fred Cisin > we can start by considering the 4004. 1971. ... Then came the 8008, > with EIGHT bit data bus, and 14 bit address bus (16K of RAM) ... It is > important to note that each Intel chip consisted of "minor" modifications to > the previous one. I know you didn't _say_ the 8008 was based on the 4004, but your text can give that impression. "The [8008] was commissioned by Computer Terminal Corporation (CTC) to implement an instruction set of their design for their Datapoint 2200 programmable terminal. As the chip was delayed and did not meet CTC's performance goals, the 2200 ended up using CTC's own TTL-based CPU instead." The 8008 was started before the 4004, but wound up coming out after it. (See Lamont Wood, "Datapoint", pg. 73.) This is confirmed by its original name, 1201 - the 4004 was going to be named the 1202, until Faggin convinced Intel to name it the 4004. Noel

5 years, 10 months

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Looking for old Suns

by silvercreekvalley＠yahoo.com

Hi, Every now and again I have a bit of time to mess with old computers - and usually for whatever reason - its Sun machines for me. I?ve had loads over the years, played with them and passed them on. Does anyone have anything old Sun wise available in the UK? I?d love to find an old VME bus machine but anything old or interesting. I can travel to pick stuff up etc, social distancing observed of course :D Anyway - PM me if you have anything that?s restorable :) Cheers Ian

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