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

Performance-oriented development in the commercial

by asc135＠gmail.com

On Oct 26, 2011, at 4:48 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > Absolutely agreed, I was just getting tetchy about the juxtaposition of the > talk about little RTOSes for PICs and then Unix on the PIC32. It's a > nervous tic I have from working with too many customers whose only > experience with micros is the PIC (because they're too lazy to try anything > else) and insist on upgrading to a PIC32 because they think it'll be > compatible with their existing software base. > Though I've overcome it now (mostly), I had a very strong bias against PIC for many years mainly because of the technologically inbred nature of many of their fans. A few years back I started a new job to work on a project to replace an aging PIC-based door access control module. The new platform had already been selected by the time I started: ColdFire running an RTOS. This was driven mainly by the fact that the new parent company had a commercial line of HVAC controllers based on that processor. Not a bad choice but the dreams of code re-use were mostly unfounded. Interestingly, it turns out one of the reasons I was hired was to backfill the fan-boy who resigned in a huff because a PIC-32 wasn't selected. Amardeep

14 years, 8 months

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HP screen screen rot

by jonas＠otter.se

On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 20:03:45 +0100 (BST), ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: >> > I was referring to holding the faceplate on the CRT, not supporting the CRT= >> > . I plan to replace the metal band, padding with e.g. strapping tape if ne= >> > cessary. Does that make more sense? - Ian > It wworries me, I can tell you that. That metal band is fixed ot the > glass, it's also deliverately very tight. Somehow it supports the screen > glass during an implosion, protectggn the viewer. It's not just a mouting > band for the CRT. Do *NOT* remove the band!! It protects the CRT from implosion by putting compressive stresses on the faceplate, thereby counteracting the tensile stresses produced by the force of the air on it and thus allowing it to stand more stress. The same idea as pre-stressed concrete in other words. If you remove the band you will seriously weaken the CRT. /Jonas

14 years, 8 months

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HP screen screen rot

by IanK＠vulcan.com

Hello all, I recall a while back a thread on dealing with screen rot on ADM-3a terminals - surprising to me, because I have several of them and have had no such issue. But I do have nasty looking spots on a HP 9845A screen. Does anyone have specific experience with addressing this problem on this machine? Just to be clear, it looks like round mold colonies around the edges of the screen. It's likely that there's an anti-glare coating and something colonized underneath it. Again, I'm looking for specific details regarding this machine or another machine of the era using the same screen technology, and how you eliminated the colonies. :-) Thanks -- Ian

14 years, 8 months

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Integer pennies (was: Re:Spreadsheets)

by mtapley＠swri.edu

At 3:22 -0500 10/24/11, Fred wrote: >In many cases, "REAL" (actually "floating point") numbers are >inappropriate. For MONEY, I tried to get my students to use ints (and >calculate the pennies not the dollars), and then just move the PERIOD >when they display the results. How will they ever get rich moving the rounded-down fractional pennies into their own accounts? -- - Mark 210-379-4635 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Large Asteroids headed toward planets inhabited by beings that don't have technology adequate to stop them: Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward.

14 years, 8 months

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stack of Indigo 2's need to go

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

I think I have 6. Teal and Purple Impact 10000s. If you want one, make some kind of offer. I'd be willing to part out pieces too I guess if that's what people need I guess.

14 years, 8 months

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Performance-oriented development in the commercial computing world

by vintagecoder＠aol.com

Dave McGuire said: > Kinda like the "what constitutes a minicomputer" debate. > Nobody disagrees that, say, PDP-11s are minis, Sadly, I've heard many people call PDP-11s mainframes, and go as far as saying DEC was a mainframe company. > but nobody can coherently tell you why. I was thinking about this recently and I can't come up with a definition either. Maybe anything smaller than the smallest mainframe and bigger than the biggest PC? > People who know about this stuff just "know". Agreed. I aplogize for the crudity of this post's formatting (but not the content). Best I can do at the moment, posting as I am from an embedded (mobile) computer that is neither PC, mini, nor mainframe.

14 years, 8 months

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HP screen screen rot

by robgarn＠mac.com

As an alternative to the hot wire approach, I placed my moldy PDP-12 CRT+faceplate into a tub of PROSOCO Dicone NC9 "silicone sealand & adhesive remover." After about a week, the silicone seal had separated and was easily removed. I'm not sure how best to remount the CRT with the glass faceplate and metal surrounding rim without reapplying a RTV/PVA layer and re-bonding it all with silicone again. - Robert p.s. If you're in the Bay Area: there's a gallon jug of leftover Dicone NC9 for the asking. On Oct 20, 2011, at 7:34 AM, cctech-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > Message: 25 > Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2011 08:28:56 +0100 > From: "Rod Smallwood" <rodsmallwood at btconnect.com> > To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only'" > <cctech at classiccmp.org> > Subject: RE: HP screen screen rot > Message-ID: <AA472F3C2B81454EAD4B734855D4D4EE at dorsetsweets.local> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > I have fixed a few Rainbow monitors suffering from screen mould. > It may be crude but I just removed the outer glass by breaking it into parts > and then peeled off the offending plastic layer. > > The tube then goes back into the case and you end up with a narrow gap > between the bezel and the tube. > > If you are not used to working with glass and CRT's then this way is not for > you > > > Regards > Rod Smallwood --- On Mon, 10/17/11, Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote: > From: Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> > Subject: Re: HP screen screen rot > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Monday, October 17, 2011, 8:33 PM > On 10/17/11 5:06 PM, Ian King wrote: >> Hello all, >> >> Does anyone have specific experience with addressing >> this problem on this machine? > > The procedure is removal of the RTV between the safety > glass and CRT separating the two by > cutting through the RTV with a hot wire, then reattachment > at the corners. > > There are some examples on the web.

14 years, 8 months

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Any interest in an IBM 5160 XT?

by james＠slor.net

Would anyone on this list be interested in acquiring a working XT? I picked one up a few years back and just haven't had a whole lot of use for it, so perhaps there's someone here who would. It's in excellent condition (both cosmetically and functionally), and I can take pics if anyone has interest. General specs: - 640 KB RAM - 20 MB hard drive - 5.25" floppy - Currently running DOS 3.3a - Includes IBM 5151 TTL monitor (solid picture without burn-in) Thanks! James

14 years, 8 months

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PDP 11/70 Front Panel up for sale.

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

> Wasn't the 11/70 in a class of machines called "supermini" > computers...machines that were based on the architecture of > minicomputers, but with CPU extensions(e.g., multiple CPU modes[kernel, > supervisor, user]), larger memory capacity(including virtual memory > capabilities), and significantly improved I/O architectures and > bandwidth? I wonder if the poster of the auction on eBay misread > "supermini" and thought "supercomputer"? A complete 11/70 installation almost certainly included line printers, many terminals on multiplexers, timesharing software, a medium to large farm of massbus disks and tapes, etc. This meant it was usually in a room with a raised floor. Just a few years later (or even overlapping) the same departmental computer market was being sold 11/780's with very similar or identical peripheral complement. Contrast this with the (to me) more traditional -11 market of a computer that went into a lab with some custom and simple Unibus peripherals for data acquisition. To me at least the "supermini" concept was almost closer to a personal workstation (although e.g. Encores/SEL's are certainly superminis) but these often became departmental superminis well outfitted with high performance Japanese (Fujitsu) peripherals not the crufty old Massbus-hose type stuff. While I have a lot of respect for a complete 11/70 installation... at the same time all that Massbus stuff was pretty crufty compared to the new much smaller peripherals coming in from the low end by the early 80's. Classic computer collectors (including the E-bay seller) often focus too much on the CPU as defining the environment. Tim.

14 years, 8 months

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Need advice

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

Steven Hirsch wrote: > All, > > I very much need to sell off my workstation collection. There has been > essentially zero interest in my posting from last week on the subject. > I'm trying to figure out why. [...] > It cannot be price, since I didn't post any and am quite flexible in terms > of negotation. On the issue of price... you might be surprised. If you listed it on E-bay at 10 times what the stuff cost new describing it as the biggest and most historically important mainframe ever, you'd probably stroke more egos and raise more interest than if you continue trying to honestly find a good home for it.

14 years, 8 months

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QBUS PDP 11's available free in Yorkshire (UK)

by silvercreekvalley＠yahoo.com

All the machines have gone now. Thanks to the list for the interest.

14 years, 8 months

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Working as a systems programmer on IBM big iron

by vintagecoder＠aol.com

Responding to myself and Rich: I said: >> If somebody was actually a sysprog *at the time in an IBM shop* and >> can tell what was released and when they started copyrighting things, >> then great. Rich said: > I *know* what I'm talking about, with regard to access to IBM sources. I > was at SHARE in San Francisco when the great OCO debate heated up again, > and still have my button reading "When source is outlawed, only outlaws > will have source" in my collection. I remember the discussions of the > changes in US copyright law, including court cases, which allowed program > sources to be copyrighted and have the copyrights stand up, in > _ComputerWorld_ and _Datamation_ and other trade rags. So, since you were, what was the last release that was not copyrighted and what was the first release that was? And when was the change to OCO? Thank you.

14 years, 8 months

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Eagle TTL/MDA monitor and generic CGA monitors available

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

15$ each plus shippage. Both work well. CGA (Microway or something like that) may need a convergence adjustment though, not egregious, it's easy to do on big monitors, I'm sure it will be on this unit too.

14 years, 8 months

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John McCarthy

by aek＠bitsavers.org

We just heard over at CHM that John died last night.

14 years, 8 months

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moving IBM Sys 23/Datamaster, Atari stuff, other...

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

Datamaster -50$ plus shippage. It's going somewhere THIS WEEK, perhaps a dumpster if there's no interest. It weighs 95 lbs.It's dirty and has seen enough use to burn the screen a box of Atari 800xl stuff, cpu doesn't work, that's all I know, there's also a disk drive and printer in box, mostly pretty clean w/Atari covers, but cords are dirty - 15$ + also an atari 800xl in original box, not sure of details, could investigate 15$ + NIB Atart printer, contemporary w/the 800xl, 5$ + will combine shipping of course Hyperion, very yellow (almost orange), small crack in upper left corner, DOESN'T WORK, it did a few years ago. Perhaps something simple 20$ + I'll add more stuff tomorrow I'm in New Jersey

14 years, 8 months

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Sr. Server Engineer (Vintage Systems) at Living Computer, Museum,

by ken＠seefried.com

I know I will regret dipping my toe in this argument, because I'll dump some facts on very well established classiccmop groupthink, but hopeful it will help the few listmember who aren't yet reality-immune on this topic. I'm on my second decade as a hiring manager of one sort or another, from Fortune 10 companies to startups, and I'm a non-degreed candidate for these roles. And I was married to a IT recruiter for a decade. This is a US perspective, BTW...non US markets are more or less different. In particular, the UK isn't so different. It's the party line of course to blame HR in general and the recruiters in particular for being "gatekeepers" and not realizing how amazing the non-degreed candidate is. That's bullshit. The recruiters are *paid* to place people, and since much first tier recruiting has been outsourced, a placement is often the only source of compensation for these folks. Recruiters are continually looking for ways to fit a square peg in a round hole. The first thing a recruiter does when they get a requirement is to say "what of this are you flexible on?". You have no idea how far they will push this. "You want a programmer. My candidate has a computer", "You need a security expert? My candidate worked mall security for 5 years". "Project management? My candidate managed a Pizza Hut." These are not exaggerations, they are personal antidotes. Anyone who's ever signed up for a job search site knows how wide a net the recruiters cast. Recruiters are sales people, often not good ones, usually working on commission, trying to sell a hiring manager on whatever they have in the queue, no matter how bad a match. Period. Full stop. Conversely, it's very rare that a hiring manager says "I don't care how good a match the candidate is, if they don't have a degree, I don't want them". It happens, usually with a junior manager who hasn't been around the block a couple of times, but it's not the norm. Any of us who have been around for a bit all know that there are good candidates in any candidate pool. But there's a reason we all put "BS required" in those ads, and it is because it's a filter. It's not a have/not have filter. It's an asshole/not asshole filter. Hate to break it to folks, but getting through HR without a degree isn't that hard (been there, done that), but if your answer to "so you don't have a degree" is "let me read you the riot act about how stupid you are to require a degree", "degree requirements are bullshit and you should rely on the intangible things I think make me awesome" or "degrees are a waste of time, and the fact that most of your employees have one has no bearing on the fact that I'm in a special category", then don't be surprised if the HR drone says "I don't care how much I've got to make mortgage this month, I'm not going to try and sell this assclown to the hiring manager. There's a dozen other folks in the queue who can at least fake being a reasonable human being". So, bottom line, if you're "perfect" for the jobs, but you think you are continually getting turned down because you don't have a degree, you're wrong. You're either *really* not perfect, or you're toxic waste from a personality/attitude standpoint. Usually the later. Yes, I know...you're different/special/unique and none of this applies to you. SOP for this list. I'm just telling you what I've learned from dozens of HR orgs, a couple of hundred slots I've been responsible for filling and several thousand candidates I've had to weed through. Not that that matters.

14 years, 8 months

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Mathematica/NeXT - Re: Spreadsheets (was Microsoft flamage)

by mtapley＠swri.edu

At 2:20 -0500 10/25/11, Toby clarified: >You can run Mathematica on a NeXT without any optical drive or media (I >have a licence & have done so, on a slab). Right! I'm running Mma 3.0.2.0 on my NeXT 040 Cube (NeXTStep 3.2) right now. However I think it's significantly harder to find Mathematica 3.0 for NeXTStep than NeXTStep 1.0, which is why I suggested the latter route. -- - Mark 210-379-4635 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Large Asteroids headed toward planets inhabited by beings that don't have technology adequate to stop them: Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward.

14 years, 8 months

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Outlook in comparison

by cisin＠xenosoft.com

I am changing my opinion on Outlook. I just experienced the State Farm Insurance "Secure Messaging Center". In comparison, Outhouse is MAGNIFICENT! For example, the State Farm system will not permit cc'ing an email address outside of their system (my own!). What's so frigging secret about an insurance claim?? The State Farm system times out after 15 minutes while composing a message. When it times out, there is NO warning. No "1 minute until doom". No "want to extend/continue?". No "want to save?" No automatic save of compositions in progress! Their "systems programmers" have told them that their hands are tied, and that it isn't possible to implement those "features"! When I first started using PINE, I wasn't completely satisfied. But each "Modern" system that I've tried has made me appreciate it more. And this State Farm system makes Outhouse look good. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

14 years, 8 months

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Dennis Ritchie has died

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

Dennis Ritchie, co-creator of C and heavily involved in the creation of UNIX, has died. He was 70, and he was one of my heroes. RIP, Dennis Ritchie. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA

14 years, 8 months

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Spreadsheets (was Microsoft flamage)

by jonas＠otter.se

On Fri, 21 Oct 2011 21:09:01 +0100 (BST), ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > Interesting. This is not at all well-known (I know people who use Excel > and who need complex numbers who haven't found this...) > > I must look into this and see just what it does. In particular, is a > complex number something that's sotred in oen cell or two (if the > latter, it's a kludge!)? Do the normal arithmetic operators work with > them or do you have special functions (written in prefix as opposed to > infix notation) to do this? I'm not really sure since I found this by Googling, but it seems as if you have to enter complex numbers by entering a function. You can't just type "5+j8" into a cell, you have to go via a dialog box. The number will be displayed as "5+8j" (you can use anything you like instead of "j", it is an argument to the function and presumably[hopefully] does not take part in any calculations. What happens if you use "j" for one number and "i" for another, and then add them, is open to speculation. Could be interesting...) Any arithmetic operators have to be expressed via functions. In other words, clumsy to say the least, but it may actually work. Excel functions and macros, of course, are another subject. IMHO the designer of that functionality must have been an evil, embittered sadist who probably grew up pulling the wings off insects and attaching firecrackers to the tails of cats. /Jonas

14 years, 8 months

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HP 13181B Tape Interface

by wrm＠retro.co.za

Hi Etienne and all I remember Leon's name from Stellenbosch days. I recently managed to sign back onto the list -- thanks to whoever was responsible for that. I'm also in Cape Town, and I have some hardware I want to play with and some hardware I realise I will never get around to. The latter includes some Acorn RISC PC stuff, and a vast stash of BBC stuff. Two actual computers, and lots and lots of software and a few books. The only HP I have is an HP-85. Anybody else here from South Africa?

14 years, 8 months

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QBUS PDP 11's available free in Yorkshire (UK)

by silvercreekvalley＠yahoo.com

Hi, I discovered some more QBUS PDP 11 machines in an old storage unit I'm emptying. These machines are the rack mount style QBUS PDP 11's, and appear to be intact, although their disk drives have been removed. They all have CPU and memory. These are collection only from Yorkshire - but free of charge. I have 3 machines available and possibly some spare cards. These need to be collected next week unfortunately. Any interest email me directly. Thanks Ian.

14 years, 8 months

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Spreadsheets (was Microsoft flamage)

by mtapley＠swri.edu

At 3:22 -0500 10/24/11, Tony wrote: >There probably is a need for an 'engineer's spreadsheet' with proper >complex number support, but I guess the market is much less than for >'business' applicatiosn which only need real numbers. Mathematica can do that functionality, but probably not cost-effectively and not (current versions) on legacy hardware. (Mma v. 1 is included in NeXTStep 1.0, so if you can get that optical media together with a working optical drive (good luck there!) you are set). I have not tried MathCad, Maple, macsyma, etc., and at least the last one of those is on-topic and should run on the classes of machines (VAX-11/780, etc.) that might be found around Casa Duell. I have got (but sadly have not tried yet) a copy of muMath which might be able to do it on a DEC Rainbow. muMath's successor Derive (DOS/Windows) became the basis for the TI Nspire CAS, and early versions of that might also serve in this context. Has anyone got experience with doing complex arithmetic in any of these? -- - Mark 210-379-4635 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Large Asteroids headed toward planets inhabited by beings that don't have technology adequate to stop them: Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward.

14 years, 8 months

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Reading Amstrad PCW floppies on a PC

by lproven＠gmail.com

I've bought a copy of LocoScript 4 (or so) to run on my PCW9512+. However, I'd also like to get it running under the Joyce emulator on my PC. How might I read a PCW floppy into a PC disk image? It's a 3.5" 720 DD disk. My PC does have a 3?" drive and runs Windows 7/64 and Ubuntu 11.10/64. I possibly have an ancient copy of 22copy somewhere, but it runs under DOS which at the mo' my PC is not configured to boot... :( -- Liam Proven ? Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508

14 years, 8 months

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Spreadsheets (was Microsoft flamage)

by jonas＠otter.se

On Wed, 19 Oct 2011 21:42:03 +0100 (BST), ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > Did/does any spreadsheet, on any platform, allow you to put complex > numbers in the cells and operate on them? > > Yes, of course you can treat a complex numner as 2 real numbers and > define the appropriate operations -- any spreadsheet will do that. I did > it in Visicalc. But as I use complex numbers a lot in AC circuit > analysis, and I know others who do too, I am suprised no spreadsheet > handles them as well as my HP calculators. Surprise surprise, apparently Excel will let you work with complex numbers. It seems you have to install the "Analysis Pak" (which apparently is supplied with Excel, see e.g. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/load-the-analysis-toolpak-HP00… for the 2003 version). That of course doesn't mean that it handles them as well as your HP calculators :-) /Jonas

14 years, 8 months

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Kaypro-II video section

by elazzerini＠interfree.it

The computer-Kaypro II had a 9" green phosphor monochrome monitor composed of a LR30477 E39164 TOSHIBA CRT and a printed circuit steering Toshiba TLC-134-TV-0. I tried to supply it with 12Vdc and I noticed that the cathode of the CRT is lit, while the screen does not turns on and no shows light even using the knob back adjustment for the light intensity. Wishing to do TV repair technician I need the wiring diagram of the circuit electric drive Toshiba TLC-134-T-V-0. Is there someone who has it? Here some pictures: http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Kaypro-II/Foto2026.html http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Kaypro-II/Foto2018.html <http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Kaypro-II/Foto2019.html> http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Kaypro-II/Foto2019.html http://www.flickr.com/photos/67772736 at N07/sets/72157627837488485/ . Unfortunately I did not notice on the board (component side) or under the card (solder side) no sign of burning. I seem to hear at the power on of the CRT an high-frequency hiss. Having found the power supply of the Kaypro-II not working and not knowing whether it is the motherboard, I was first trying to see if the CRT works. As a signal source I am using the monochrome output of a PC 8088 XT video card because the kaypro-II accepts distinct signals: video, Hsync and Vsync. It could be not true that the polarities of these signals are useful as a signal generator to test the video section of Kaypro-II. Any suggestions would be great. The schematic much more. Enrico

14 years, 8 months

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Fixed point financial data versus floating point - Re: Spreadsheets (was Microsoft flamage)

by vintagecoder＠aol.com

The same thing can happen in COBOL. All the guys when I started on IBM knew the native data types and which ones to use for what. A few years ago somebody asked me to give a training session to some guys who had 2 to 8 years with COBOL on IBM and nobody in the room (about 15 people) had any idea about anything, not one of them ever opened an IBM manual. Lucky for them and their employer, they never actually wrote any code, they just cut and pasted and were using packed decimal for money. ------Original Message------ From: Fred Cisin Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts ReplyTo: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Fixed point financial data versus floating point - Re: Spreadsheets (was Microsoft flamage) Sent: 24 Oct 2011 19:38 On Mon, 24 Oct 2011, Vintage Coder wrote: > Agreed. It's not floating point (no mantissa/exponent) and the user has > complete control over the decimal point, which is imaginary as far as > the representation goes. There is no decimal point in the data, only > digits and a sign. The name "packed decimal" seems like a safe way to > differentiate it from floating point while giving a hint to the internal > representation (two digits to a byte). As most everyohne here knows, the 80x85 family has some minimal support for both packed and unpacked BCD. But the lack of a widely known data type using those in C and BASIC results in way too much software being written with inappropriate data types, such as "float".

14 years, 8 months

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Fixed point financial data versus floating point - Re: Spreadsheets (was Microsoft flamage)

by vintagecoder＠aol.com

Agreed. It's not floating point (no mantissa/exponent) and the user has complete control over the decimal point, which is imaginary as far as the representation goes. There is no decimal point in the data, only digits and a sign. The name "packed decimal" seems like a safe way to differentiate it from floating point while giving a hint to the internal representation (two digits to a byte). ------Original Message------ From: Fred Cisin Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts ReplyTo: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Fixed point financial data versus floating point - Re: Spreadsheets (was Microsoft flamage) Sent: 24 Oct 2011 19:11 On Mon, 24 Oct 2011, Vintage Coder wrote: > Decimal math (hardware supported) is used heavily in financial > processing with IBM COBOL. No loss of precision because the type is base > 10. BCD is very similar to what IBM calls "packed decimal". Although with a radix of 10, which MAKES SENSE for financial, I still think of that as being scaled integers. It is not an exponential structure like the IEEE Floating Point Representation Standard.

14 years, 8 months

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Integer pennies (was: Re:Spreadsheets)

by john＠yoyodyne-propulsion.net

On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 3:53 PM, Mark Tapley <mtapley at swri.edu> wrote: > How will they ever get rich moving the rounded-down fractional pennies into > their own accounts? If you do that you'll end up in Federal "Pound you in the Ass" prison. -- Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: ?"The Future Begins Tomorrow" Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net -------- "If a free society cannot help the many that are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich." -John F. Kennedy

14 years, 8 months

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HP 13181B Tape Interface

by etienne＠tlabs.ac.za

Hi All, I'm a nuclear scientist and serial hobbyist out in Cape Town, South Africa. I'm helping a friend restore some old HP machines. We have a 13183 Interface set to swap for a 13181B Tape Interface. We will also happily pay for it and cover the shipping costs to wherever you are. As a point of interest, we are also currently restoring a MITRA 125. If anyone has any info on this machine we'd really appreciate it. Best Regards Etienne Vermeulen and Leon Heinkelein

14 years, 8 months

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HP 2116 restoration: Feasiblity and "what to look for" advice needed!

by colineby＠isallthat.com

Jules,? Excellent! That's really helpful. I've seen a crate of 21xx cabling and gubins as ?which?needs?investigated, and there's a whole room of HP goodies to sort, not to?mention a handful of later related systems. I have the tape drive back at the house for a clean and checkup. It looks pretty hopeful, but will need a few things. -Colin Eby Jules Richardson <jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote: Colin Eby wrote: > All, > > I've located two HP 2116 systems, a B and a C. Hi Colin, I'll save you a little bit of effort (at least on the 'B'), as here's my catalogue of the very same machines from four years ago :-) ?? http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2007-November/063044.html ... although I never did get chance to look into whether the 'B' system had any 'hidden' core. It was about a fortnight after posting that message that all my visa stuff went through and I hopped the Atlantic permanently to the US,? so I never did get the chance to do any more with either system. cheers Jules

14 years, 8 months

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"Previous": a 68K NeXT Cube emulator

by lproven＠gmail.com

As a friend has just given me, gratis, a full copy of NeXTStep - 3.0, with upgrade CDs for 3.1 and 3.2 - I thought I would go looking for some way to run them, as I have yet to find a NeXT box that is both [a] complete and [b] which I can afford. It's not there yet, but this looks interesting and promising... http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=20126 -- Liam Proven ? Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508

14 years, 8 months

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HP 2116 restoration: Feasiblity and "what to look for" advice needed!

by colineby＠isallthat.com

All, I've located two HP 2116 systems, a B and a C. I've also got access to period Teletypes, 2748A paper tape reader requiring restoration, and the uncatalogued back stores of a museum. I'm strongly considering a restoring one working system from the two for museum demonstration and display. If you were me, or have had experience with these systems before, what would you keep in mind or look out for? Assume for the moment I have the time and skills myself or available from colleagues to carry out the work. All thoughts and contributions gratefully received. Some background and progress: * neither system has been in "conservation friendly" storage conditions. * the museum has fairly extensive HP collection, which makes missing component location more likely if required * the museum also has a range of HP instruments which might be used to create an interactive industrial control or scientific computing display My first steps so far: 1. Conduct background reading research using internet sites and scans. Thanks to all the following for making these resources available * Al and Bitsavers, * http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/HP21xx/HP2116.html (B Hilpert) * http://rikers.org (Tim Riker) * http://www.hpmuseum.net/ 2. Begin basic physical evaluation of the "C" system: a. Basic cleaning of the cabinet and vacuuming out of components -- so far excluding the card cages (ran out of time) b. Begin inventorying components and starting photographing them The verdict so far is that environmental damage appears limited to the front panel and some limited contact corrosion on the chassis and panels. There's mildew evident on the some cabling, but not really showing on what I've seen on the backplane wire-wrap so far so far. The cards are in a muddle though. This is what I've catalogued: ================================================= <Rack 1> 1 - 22 EMPTY <Rack 2> 101 A101 Front Panel Coupler 102 A102-105 Arithmetic Logic 103 A102-105 Arithmetic Logic 104 A102-105 Arithmetic Logic 105 A102-105 Arithmetic Logic 106 A106 TIMING GEN (clock) 107 A107 Instruction Decoder 108 EMPTY -- Missing A108 Shift logic (this could be in the loose boards) 109 EMPTY 110 EMPTY 111 EMPTY 112 EMPTY 113 EMPTY 114 EMPTY 115 EMPTY 116 EMPTY 117 EMPTY 118 EMPTY 119 EMPTY 120 EMPTY <Rack 3> 201 A201 I/O Control 202 EMPTY 203 EMPTY 204 EMPTY 205 ?? *not yet identified* 206 A13 MDB (this is supposed to be in slot 13?) 207 POWER FAIL (not sure what this is in relation related cards 208 POWER FAIL 209 POWER FAIL 210 POWER FAIL 211 ?? 212 A4,6,16,18 Inhibit Driver (should be in the 2116 B according to #1) 213 A4,6,16,18 Inhibit Driver (should be in the 2116 B according to #1) 214 A4,6,16,18 Inhibit Driver (should be in the 2116 B according to #1) 215 A4,6,16,18 Inhibit Driver (should be in the 2116 B according to #1) 216 MMD / XV Driver ( should be associated with a core board ) 217 SSA ( should be associated with a core board ) 218 A2 219 A8,9,14,15 Driver Switch (should be in the 2116 B according to #1) 220 MDB ( system should only have one of these ) 221 EMPTY 222 EMPTY <Loose> Looks like two or three core stacks and four cards: POWER FAIL ?? ?? ?? =================================================== Given that some of these cards look like they are from the wrong machine, all the memory slots are unpopulated (some are stuck in the IO rack), I'm guessing that the guts of this system have been mixed and matched with others, possibly the "B" model -- either that or just shuffled. I won't know until I've started to look at the "B" model for comparison, and of course, completed the cataloguing of this one. -- Colin

14 years, 8 months

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Information on the PPS-4/1 4 bit microprocessor wanted

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

> The PPS-4 was actually a bit more 'sophisticated' than I > first thought. One other thing that was unexpected was > that they are powered eg. 0 and negative 9V. I wonder why it's like that... The early 70's LSI was mostly PMOS. Simpler devices were often a good match to a 9V battery in handheld devices where that was the target. You wouldn't believe how much effort was put into putting LED drivers on the same chip where they could (often they couldn't and the LED driver was off the main logic chip.) More complex PMOS logic often had special supplies for clock and enable lines. You often find small switching converters (magnetics or charge pump) to generate the required voltages. A little later high-density NMOS also would use oddball voltages (both positive and negative depending on application) for density's sake. e.g. 8080A. Some good examples of how some handheld devices generated the necessary oddball voltages at http://www.jacques-laporte.org/HP35%20power%20unit.htm Tim.

14 years, 8 months

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Thinking of selling collection

by snhirsch＠gmail.com

All, I think the time has finally come to narrow down the scope of my collection for the sake of space, marital bliss and sanity. I need to shed a healthy assortment of Unix workstations, most in operational form. I have printed docs for some and DVDs full of software for all. Not looking to get wealthy, but I would like some modicum of reimbursement given the condition and completeness. I will not ship any of this - you must come to Burlington, VT and take it away (or arrange to have that done). Would love to have the entire collection go to one person (and will adjust fiduciary expectations accordingly). It will take some effort to pull together a detailed list, but here's a rough rundown to guage interest: IBM RS/6000 43p - Complete set of AIX 4.3 media - Has 100Base ethernet adapter installed HP Visualize B2000 - Complete set of HPUX 11i distribution media - Complete set C/C++ development tools SGI Iris Indigo R3000 - Basic machine - no 3d graphics SGI Iris Indigo R4400 - Every option known to Westerm Man, including 3d graphics (I have a couple of Iris Indigo keyboards and mice. These are not common items) SGI Indigo 2 (Teal) R4400 CPU SGI Indigo 2 (Purple) 768MB Memory, Uber hi-end graphics board, 100Base ethernet. I _think_ it's an R8000 (IP26). Sun Ultra 5 Sun Ultra 2 Sun Ultra 60 - Very tricked-out machine with 2x 450 Mhz. SPARC cpu and lotsa memory. Has U160 SCSI controller. (I have Sun keyboards and mice a-plenty) (I also have a gorgeous, early Sparc 2 with a box of S-Bus cards, but I'm planning to hang on to it) --> Lots and lots of Solaris distros on CD and DVD. 2x DEC Alpha Multia. I know one is operational. Slower than death warmed over, but very high "cute" factor. DEC Alpha PC64 w/ 256MB of memory in PC case. Operational system DEC Alpha PC164 motherboard (maybe 2..) DEC Alpha UP2000+ system w/ 2x 700Mhz. 2MB cache 21264 - This is a beast. Huge power supply, Adaptec 29360 controller, several disks. - Was my pride and joy until it went flakey. Might be good for parts or a demonstration of poorly-characterized electromigration on ageing VLSI parts. --> I have several complete sets of install media for Digital Unix 4.x through Tru64 5.something. License keys for everything. - I have 2GB of memory for it, but the machine won't POST with it installed. DEC 5000 MIPS-based workstation (bare system, but works last I knew) DEC VAXStation 3100 - Condition unknown - Have a box of VMS 5.x docs, Ultrix CD, Full set of VMS media. Also: Boxes full of spare boards and widgets for many of the above. Full 5-ft. Shelf of documentation on the Alphas I'm not exaggerating when I say this will fill a van :-) Please feel free to drop e-mail with additional questions and/or interest. I really would hate for this stuff to end up on a barge to China for gold reclamation... Steve --

14 years, 8 months

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S-100 8086 CPU board

by lynchaj＠yahoo.com

Hi! At long last the S-100 8086 CPU board is done and ready to go. I will make a manufacturing order for PCBs in the next few days or so. If you would like to be included please contact me at LYNCHAJ at YAHOO.COM to get on the list. http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/w/browse/#view=ViewFolder&param=S-100%208086%2… http://s100computers.com/My%20System%20Pages/8086%20Board/8086%20CPU%20Boar… These PCBs will be $20 each plus $3 shipping in the US or $6 elsewhere. John has CP/M-86 running on the S-100 8086 CPU board with a debug monitor and BIOS. Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch

14 years, 8 months

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No subject

by lynchaj＠yahoo.com

Hi! At long last the S-100 8086 CPU board is done and ready to go. I will make a manufacturing order for PCBs in the next few days or so. If you would like to be included please contact me at LYNCHAJ at YAHOO.COM to get on the list. http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/w/browse/#view=ViewFolder&param=S-100%208086%2… http://s100computers.com/My%20System%20Pages/8086%20Board/8086%20CPU%20Boar… These PCBs will be $20 each plus $3 shipping in the US or $6 elsewhere. John has CP/M-86 running on the S-100 8086 CPU board with a debug monitor and BIOS. Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch

14 years, 8 months

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cctalk and cctech List subscriptions

by ljw-cctech＠ljw.me.uk

Due to the large number of pending subscriptions to cctalk and cctech I am about to 'reject' all of them and request that anyone still waiting to subscribe please re-subscribe at which point they will be approved quickly. Please make sure you only request subscription to one of the lists. To re-iterate: cctalk is un-moderated, cctech is moderated cctalk is a superset of cctech Anything posted to cctalk appears immediately Anything posted to cctech is cross-posted to cctalk immediately Anything posted to cctalk OR cctech is (cross-)posted to cctech if the moderator (me!) feels it is on-topic - therefore they will always be a delay before postings appear on cctech There are some posts in cctech which are bypassing moderation - we hope to sort this out soon. -- Lawrence Wilkinson lawrence at ljw.me.uk The IBM 360/30 page http://www.ljw.me.uk/ibm360

14 years, 8 months

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hp calculators

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

I'm about to get something to replace my old TI85 I had from high school. Lots of you here rave about the HP's offerings. Indeed, I wanted to get, but couldn't afford an HP48g when they were new. I don't have much need for graphing now, but I do need scientific calculation. The HP35s seems good for that. Or should I just jump in and get the HP50g? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

14 years, 8 months

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Information on the PPS-4/1 4 bit microprocessor wanted

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

> I am also the proud owner of a Mattel Battelstar Galatica anno 1979 week 14. > > The chip used in this vintage handheld game is labeled B6001EA > and I guess it's a Rockwell International PPS-4/1 micro controller > (a PPS-4 cpu with clock, ram and rom) from sources I found on the net. Many of the Mattel games of that era were variants on Rockwell calculator chips. Not unrelated to 4-bit general purpose CPU's of the era, but the game chips were way closer to the calculator chips. Read the interview with the game's designer, Mark Lesser: http://www.digitpress.com/library/interviews/interview_mark_lesser.html Tim.

14 years, 8 months

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Retro Computing Roundtable podcast

by david＠classiccomputing.com

A new show is posted! A whopping two-parter at 55 minutes each, with Blake Patterson as our guest from bytecellar.com / toucharcade.com Retro Computing Roundtable podcast, show 17 Get it through iTunes or listen online @ http://bit.ly/pAJWKs or download it directly @ https://public.me.com/dgreelish Best, David Greelish President, Atlanta Historical Computing Society

14 years, 8 months

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help me get off this list

by rdawson16＠hotmail.com

anything would help... I cant read 20 Tony Duell emails a day

14 years, 8 months

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More HP Calculators

by ploopster＠gmail.com

I understand that the build quality of the 49G isn't up to the build quality of the 48SX. How does the build quality (I'm mostly interested in the build quality of the keyboard...) of the 48GX, 48GII, and 50G compare with the 48SX? How do they compare with that of the 49G? Peace... Sridhar

14 years, 8 months

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RIP Roger Tallon

by stephane.tsacas＠gmail.com

He was a French designer, and he invented the word "minitel", among other things. Read more on the wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Tallon -- Stephane http://en.freedonne.org join my Kiva or BOINC team!

14 years, 8 months

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Cctech or cctalk

by benjamin.soelberg＠gmail.com

Hi All I finally got aproved after waiting "for a while" :-) If i were to ask about the pps-4/1 would it be here or on cctalk ? Med venlig hilsen/Regards Benjamin S?lberg

14 years, 8 months

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Assembler for 21xx and hp1000 systems...

by lbickley＠bickleywest.com

I've been assembling from source code most of the HP diagnostics for the HP2100 and HP1000 systems. To do so, I used Eric Smith's original "asm21" - and found that a number of diagnostics didn't assemble correctly. I updated it - and subsequently Terry Newton joined the project and made more updates. Between us, over the course of several months, we've managed to debug asm21 to the place where we have not found any more errors in several additional months of use. asm21 runs under both *NIX and Windows environments as it is written entirely in Perl. Te get a copy, do an anonymous FTP to bickleywest.com and cd to the asm21 directory. Download (binary) asm21_107.zip If you're using Firefox, Chrome or Opera, simply use: ftp://bickleywest.com/asm21 to get to the directory, then right click on asm21_107.zip to download it. BTW: Terry created a great testing environment - scripts and software that allowed us to assemble source code and subsequently check asm21's binary output against HP's binaries which had been created under one of their OSs. Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley, AF6WS Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

14 years, 8 months

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Dennis Ritchie has died

by jonas＠otter.se

On Thu, 13 Oct 2011 20:59:46 +0100 (BST), ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > I am very sorry to hear that. > > I am sure he won't get the media hype that followed the passing of Steve > Jobs last week, but I am also sure that dmr had a much greater influence > on the sort of computing that I am interested in than Steve Jobs did. > > :-( Sad indeed. Seeing that OS X is in some sense Unix-based, I would say DMR won... /Jonas

14 years, 8 months

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hp calculators

by jonas＠otter.se

On Thu, 20 Oct 2011 20:18:06 +0100 (BST), ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: >> years ago). How hard is it to replace the batteries? > > Very easy. > > The battery pack clips into the bottom of the machine, you just slide > it > slightly forwards (towards the '0 key end' of the machine and lift > the > rear edge to get it out. > > The battery pack contains 2 AA-size NICd cells connected in series, > normally by a double-spring thingy (that;s a highly techncial term, > of > course). The housing is made in 2 parts which were glued together. > You > cna crack the glued joint, take it apart, and fit new cells. > > But actually, I don't recomend doing that. It's better to cut away > the > pack housing ad the front end, where the cells touch the contacts in > the > calculator. Then silde out the old cells and slide in the new ones -- > taking care of the polarity (since HP calculators were designed for > use > with their own battery packs only, which only fitted the right way > round, > there is no reverse-polarity protection. The cells will be held in > place > when the pack is clipped into the calculator, and you can remove the > cells easiy for charging in a normal charger, thus avoiding possible > damage to -C models. > There is a *much* easier way to do it, which doesn't mutilate the pack anywhere as badly. Cut through the strip of plastic which runs along the pack between the batteries at one end, using e.g. a pair of side cutters or a scalpel. The strip will now flex out of the way sufficiently for you to be able to prise the batteries out, one at a time. Then push the new batteries in the same way. This operation doesn't weaken the pack mechanically to any noticeable extent, it can be used just as before, and the batteries can be replaced any number of times. OTOH it is harder (not very) to get the cells out to charge them in a normal charger. Note that the contacts in the calculator are simply large rivets soldered in to circuit board fingers. That solution is a bit of a let-down IMO, as is using the battery as a load to reduce the voltage from the charger, simply limiting the current with a whopping big resistor. It could have been done a lot better, and not much more expensively. Everybody who had an HP-25 (just about everybody who didn't have a TI-57) when I was at University learnt to do this. /Jonas

14 years, 8 months

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Up for grabs (free)

by frebird2＠swbell.net

(2) MODEL 7600 rackmount cases, each populated with 8 Preston SCI floating differential amplifiers, model number 8300 XWB-B.? Can't tell you if any of the amplifiers are working or not, I do not know.? They appear to be in good condition. I also have (4) Mitsubishi 2019CEB40 CRT's.? Three of them look unused - they still have a blue plastic sheet covering the faceplate and have been stored in the original shipping crates.? All of the tubes are coated with a white phosphor. ? If you are interested, contact me offline and I can provide photos of the equipment or additional information.? Location is St. Louis.

14 years, 8 months

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cvhp.c - Oops

by lbickley＠bickleywest.com

In my last post I included a small C program to strip high order bits and "zero" characters from 21xx .tap files. Unfortunately, I posted an old version. Here's the correct version: cvhp.c ------ #include <stdio.h> main() { int c, d; while ((c = getchar()) != EOF) { if (d=(c & 0x7f)) putchar(d); } } ------ Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley, AF6WS Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

14 years, 8 months

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