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

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

I think the real gotcha will be the DOS drivers. The 802.11b DOS driver+hardware combo I know about is PCMCIA. ORiNOCO Gold is PCMCIA, has MS-DOS drivers, has 128 bit WEP and was a highly respected card when it was new. PCMCIA card to ISA slot ... I remember some bridges that have Windows 95 or Windows NT drivers for the bridge itself. It's not pretty. Tim.

15 years, 6 months

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802.11b ISA?

by silent700＠gmail.com

For fun, I'd like to mix old with slightly-less-old and put an 802.11 wireless card in my old Compaq 386 luggable. Does anyone know if there is a card that is both ISA and has DOS drivers? Doing WEP would be a bonus, 128-bit WEP more so. If no WEP, I can set up a separate AP for it but it would be nice to take it on the road (being a "portable" and all.) The Cisco AIR-ISA34x series seem to fit the bill. One chart I found: http://www.kmj.com/cisco/340a.html ...suggests that the ISA342 will do 128-bit WEP. so maybe that is the one to find. Any other ideas/suggestions/experience? -j -- silent700.blogspot.com Retrocomputing and collecting in the Chicago area: http://chiclassiccomp.org

15 years, 6 months

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Teletype Tales Part 3

by pu1bzz.listas＠gmail.com

> I hope you have enjoyed reading this, Sure I did, congratulations Bill!

15 years, 6 months

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Teletype Tales Part 3

by wh.sudbrink＠verizon.net

_Teletype_Tales_ Part 3 - How I Spent My Christmas Vacation If you're still reading, don't worry, this is the last part... but it is a bit long. This year I ended up with a good chunk of "left over" vacation time. My employer implemented a "use or lose" vacation policy and my boss, a _really_ nice guy, was insistent that none of his staff was going to lose any. So I ended up on vacation for the last two weeks of 2010 despite having a rather heavy feature request list on my plate. What to do? Spend a lot of time with my family of course but after a discussion with my wife it was decided that part of my Christmas present would be several uninterrupted days of hobby time. Time to "bite the bullet" and get that teletype working. Or end up with a big pile of levers, cams, spring, cogs, etc. The day came and I jumped in with both feet. I took a few pictures and made a few notes. Then I pulled all of the cables off of the call control unit, popped out the h-plate and lifted the typing unit out. I guess I half expected springs and gears to go flying everywhere but it came out neat and easy. Even after all of the work I had done before, the filth was incredible. In addition to much more dog hair and bug bits, there was oil soaked chad and this "goop" everywhere. But now I could see the source of the goop. Under the typing unit, there was what had been a large foam rubber pad. It had decayed into crumbly dust that, when exposed to oil, turned into the goop. Clearly, more cleaning was required. Do another halfway job? Nope, take it all the way apart. Four screws later and the call control unit lifted out. Two more after that and the keyboard was free. One last screw and the tape reader was out. Now I could fully clean the subbase. Lots of detergent, warm water, gentle scrubbing and, finally, paper towels and it was squeaky clean. I still didn't have the guts to try and disassemble the typing unit or the keyboard, but with access to their undersides, I was able to clean a lot more gunk out of them with a combination of light instrument oil, canned air, paint brushes and toothpicks. Well, that had to be a good bit better. I put it all back together. Getting the h-plate back in isn't too hard once you get the knack. Plug in, local mode, a definite improvement. The carriage movement wasn't perfect but it was much better. The keypress encode/decode now seemed to match in almost all cases. Two problems remained, no line feed and no bell. I took the typing unit back out and looked carefully at the area of the line feed mechanism. It was substantially different from the illustrations in the documents. At this point, I made what turned out to be a great decision. I brought out the KSR to see if its line feed mechanism looked like the docs. The h-plate in the KSR was already out as a result of its previous misadventures. Pulling the cables to the call control unit was easy and I lifted out the KSR typing unit. Its line feed mechanism seemed to match the docs. As I looked at it, I realized that it didn't seem to be damaged in any way. I hand turned the motor a few revolutions and everything seemed OK. I decided I would give it a try, installed in the ASR. I spent a little while, giving it the same cleaning I gave the ASR typing unit. One interesting "tidbit" about this typing unit is that, sometime in its past, it clearly "ate" a ribbon. There were bits of shredded ribbon all through it. My hands were black. To make a long story short, the KSR typing unit worked perfectly in the ASR, bell, line feed and all. During the test, I didn't reconnect the reader to the call control unit because the reader control mechanism is part of the ASR typing unit and I was concerned that the reader might "run wild". So now I'm looking at the docs, wondering how hard it would be to transfer the punch and reader control over to the KSR typing unit. The punch seemed like it would be almost trivial. It was, _almost_. The punch essentially just bolts onto the side of the typing unit. There are eight small levers that control which holes are punched and there is a large lever that provides the "power". The small levers simply drop into place, connecting with push rods in the typing unit. The large lever connects to a rotating shaft in the typing unit. Here's where the trick is. The lever connects to the shaft via a sleeve. The shaft has holes all the way through it, the sleeve has holes on both sides and screws go all the way through the sleeve and the shaft. There is almost no play in the connection... almost. I took out the KSR typing unit and transferred the punch mechanism to it. I put the KSR typing unit back in, threaded in some tape and tried it. Shredded tape. What??? Everything sure looked OK. The "bit" levers looked like they were all moving correctly, the large lever seemed to be going through its motions. I spent a long time watching it. Finally, I tried putting it back on the ASR typing unit. Shredded tape. WHAT!!! What could possibly have changed? Maybe I attached the sleeve for the large lever to the wrong holes? No, those are the only holes in the shaft. That's when I noticed that little bit of play. Just three or four degrees. That couldn't possibly make any difference, could it? I held the play all the way clockwise and tightened the sleeve screws. Shredded tape. I loosened up the sleeve, held the play all the way counter-clockwise and retightened. Perfect! I moved the punch back to the KSR typing unit and, with my new knowledge, got it attached and working. After the punch experience, I spent a very long taking exact measurements of the reader control mechanism that needed to be moved to the KSR typing unit. It is a complicated little assembly, consisting of a cam controlled lever that moves based on whether a solenoid is energized and in turn opens and closes a switch as the cam rotates. It looked like the location tolerances of the whole thing would be about a sixteenth of an inch. There is a spring that attaches to the lever and keeps it pressed tight against the cam. I transferred the mechanism. Attaching the spring turned out to be the hardest part of the whole job. The lever end of the spring is "permanently" attached, but the other end has to thread through a tight space and hook over a small pin that is part of the typing unit frame. I fooled with it for more than an hour. What finally worked was to tie some plastic fishing line to the end of the spring, guide the line to the pin and use the line to stretch the spring over to the pin. I used a piece of "coat hanger" wire to coax the loop at the end of the spring over the pin and then finally reached in with a long thin scalpel to cut the line and pull it out. "There's the easy part done," I said to myself. I figured I would spend the rest of the day getting the lever, solenoid and switch lined up correctly. I put the KSR... well, now it was really the ASR, typing unit back in and fired it up. The bit gods, or maybe Rube Goldberg himself, smiled upon me. It worked the first time. Now to talk to the world. I don't have anything that is currently configured to "talk" current loop but I have a current loop to RS-232 converter. I'll spare you the details of frustratingly confusing documents that aren't clear about which wire pairs the 33 is sending on and which it is receiving on, but I will mention that the current loop to RS-232 converter is pretty old and populated with tantalum capacitors. Guess what caught fire? Fortunately, B&B publishes the schematics for the converter on the web. They also publish a nice little document that shows how to wire up a 20ma current source for the loop. In case you didn't look before, the pictures are here: http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/images/teletype/ P1010006 and P1010007 show the converter and the current source, built in an old RS-232 patch box. The pin sockets had been previously damaged, so I removed them and soldered the circuit directly to the PC board in the patch box. Oh, the external power connector on the RS-232 converter melted when the caps burned, so the patch box also supplies power to the converter. But that was it for the problems. The 33 now talks to itself perfectly in local mode and talks to the world over the RS-232 converter. I've hooked it up to one of my IMSAIs and to my Altair 680. So, that's about it, the end of an almost ten year "saga". What's left? Two things, one big but minor and one small but rather major. The big minor thing is the back panel to the stand. It's missing, it's big, but you can't see it unless you pull the unit away from the wall and walk around back. Its absence doesn't seem to hurt anything and I'm not even sure the unit originally had one as there are no scuffs or scratches where you would expect if one had been installed. Now, the small major thing is the small screw (Teletype part number TP183112) that holds the paper tape reader cover in place. It is physically small, but it is major because the cover bounces around during normal operation without it. It seems to be a rather special screw, more like a threaded rod. If I can't get an original, I will probably try to fabricate one myself. Oh, the last thing is the KSR unit. It is partially operating, no bell or line feed and under the wrong cover. I'm going to hang on to it for spares if anything in the ASR breaks. I guess I really lucked out in my recent restoration. I didn't have to dig deeply into the keyboard or the typing units... knock on wood, I can't imagine what horrors of finely tuned springs and levers lurk in them :-). I hope you have enjoyed reading this, Bill Sudbrink, January 2011

15 years, 6 months

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Teletype Tales Part 2

by wh.sudbrink＠verizon.net

_Teletype_Tales_ Part 2 - Waiting For Another Day For ten years (Really? Ten? Well, more than nine.) the two teletypes have sat in a corner of my basement. From time to time, I made requests (public and private) for help, but nothing I could offer (mostly unlimited pizza and beer) could entice anyone knowledgeable to come give me a hand. That's not to say that no progress was made however. Most of the progress came in the form of further acquisitions. The first was a nice shiny chad bin. There was a chad bin with the ASR when I got it, but the plastic had degraded to an opaque milky yellow and the "lip" that is supposed to hold it in place had broken off and been lost. When I got the ASR, the bin was being held in place with masking tape. The "new" bin is whole and crystal clear. It has just the slightest golden tint to betray its age. I also went to work getting original prints of all of the model 33 documentation. I got them in bits and pieces over the years, some bought, some gifts, a single section here, a collection there. I'm now confident that I have a complete set, in fact, I think I've ended up with two complete sets and three copies of a few of the sections. The best part came on Father's Day of 2002. A greenkeyer pointed me to a shop that had some "new old stock" model 33 parts. The prices weren't too bad and my wife agreed to let me get what they had as my Father's Day present. They didn't have any KSR covers, but they had a complete ASR cover, brand new, punch, reader, top cover, front metal nameplate and mode select knob. Pictures here: http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/images/teletype/ The P53* pictures are before installation, the P10* pictures are installed. There are also pictures of my recent work, described in part 3. I unscrewed the reader and punch covers from the old cover and put that on the KSR. Better than nothing. I made occasional attempts to further clean and lubricate the ASR, still afraid to really take it apart. I did manage to get the carriage to move somewhat but not really well. The punch seemed to work, punching values that matched whatever it printed. It would punch a line feed, but the paper wouldn't budge. It would also punch a control-G but the bell would not ring. I never made any attempt to hook up the current loop. Everything I did was in local mode. End of part 2.

15 years, 6 months

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Teletype Tales Part 1

by wh.sudbrink＠verizon.net

_Teletype_Tales_ Warning, this is rather long and in three parts. If you are not interested in TTYs, just skip this and the next two emails. Part 1 - Ancient History My very first interaction with a computer, in 1976, was via an ASR33 teletype. I continued to frequently use ASR33s for the next several years. A good friend of mine actually owned one. Consequently, I have a definite nostalgia for them and wanted to add one to my collection for a long time. I finally acquired one in December of 2001. Actually, I got two model 33 teletypes, an ASR and a KSR. They came from a HAM radio operator. The ASR is on a floor stand and the KSR is a tabletop unit. The ASR had been well used. It was dirty, inside and out, full of dog hair, bug bits and even some broken light bulb glass. There was "goop" all over that I took to be coagulated lubricant but it turned out to be degraded foam rubber (but that part of the story comes later). The cover was yellowed with some cracks here and there. The KSR wasn't much better even though it had been stored in a box. As a matter of fact, it was worse because it had been moved around in the box but the shipping screws were not in place. This allowed the typing unit which is "free floating" to shift around and smash the plastic cover to bits. When I got them home, I immediately put the KSR away for "another day" under the assumption that it was badly damaged. I tried to carefully clean as much of the crud out of the ASR as I could without actually taking anything apart other than taking the cover off. I should point out here that, while I'm not bothered by the complexity of electronic circuits, I find mechanical complexity (lots of levers, gears, cogs and the like) a bit intimidating. After the cleaning, I hand turned the motor a few revolutions. It turned freely, so I went ahead and plugged it in and switched it on to local. The motor hummed nicely, there was no grinding or other bad noises. The hammer pad had been replaced with a plastic faucet washer, held in place with shrink tube. It seemed secure, so I slid some paper in and pressed a few keys. It was clearly trying to do something but it was definitely not right. The hammer was striking the type cylinder but the carriage was not moving. Moving the paper around, you could see that sometimes the struck character corresponded to the pressed key, sometimes not. I asked for help on both cctalk and greenkeys (I really wanted to try to get someone to come "on site" and work on it with me) but didn't get anything very useful. Sadly, I put the ASR away for "another day". End of part 1.

15 years, 6 months

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Copy II PC Ver 6 on modern hardware

by aek＠bitsavers.org

Does anyone know around what CPU speed CII PC stops working at? It falls over not being able to calibrate to CPU speed on a 800MHz Athlon

15 years, 6 months

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Looking for the DECnet Kit For MicroVMS

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

I want to install DECnet on my MicroVAX II running MicroVMS 4.6. I know that I can do this by copying the relevant files from a full-fat version of the VMS 4.6 install tape (which I have). The thing is that I would like to do it "properly" if at all possible by using the actual optional DECnet product for MicroVMS. Does anyone have this? Thanks Rob

15 years, 6 months

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the new manx is live

by legalize＠xmission.com

Manx is an online catalog of computer documentation. The new manx is up for beta testing here: <http://manx.classiccmp.org> Paul Williams created manx as a series of perl scripts and a database of online computer manuals. Paul has graciously provided us with a copy of the data from the database from which I reverse engineered a compatible implementation in PHP. Later, Paul provided me with the perl scripts which I used as a referene for finishing off the PHP implementation. The new manx is an open source project hosted at <http://manx.codeplex.com>. Please use the issue tracker on codeplex to report any problems you find with this new manx. You can also browse the existing issues in the tracker to see the planned enhancements. The main planned enhancement to come is supporting users and roles to allow community contributions to the database so that new additions don't have to go through a single person. Thanks to Paul Williams for providing the database dumps and scripts and Jay West for hosting the finished application. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/> Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>

15 years, 6 months

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bitsavers RSS feeds enhanced

by legalize＠xmission.com

I've enhanced the bitsavers RSS feeds to provide links to the individual folders and not just the files. So if you see a new entry and want to browse the folder containing that entry, its only one click away. PDF <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/bitsavers-pdf.xml> Bits <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/bitsavers-bits.xml> I've made the script change just now, so it will reflect in the RSS feed itself as its generated in the future. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/> Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>

15 years, 6 months

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Event with BBC Micro & Domesday speakers.

by andy＠flirble.org

An event in London on Thursday 10th February that may be of interest, that has ex-BBC speakers that were involved with the creation of the BBC Micro and the BBC Domesday project: http://oshug.org/event/7 Regards, Andrew

15 years, 6 months

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Monroe and Northstar on EBay...

by mdavidson1963＠gmail.com

There are two older systems currently listed on Ebay, both with low bids (for now). The first is apparently a Northstar Advantage (item #320639197081, currently at $15), and the second is a Monroe OC8820 (item #170589045980, currently at $59). The Northstar has 2 bids, the Monroe none. The Monroe was listed earlier at a price of $99. It got zero bids and the seller relisted it. I tried to find some info about the Monroe (even though my significant other would have a cow if another computer showed up at the house) and all I could find were references to people having fits trying to create the properly-formatted floppies for it. Anyone know anything about the Monroe? I thought I'd point these two machines out on the list in case anyone was interested in them. Mark Davidson mdavidson1963 at gmail.com

15 years, 6 months

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Single sided HDDs [was Re: HP drives]

by thomas.gardner＠sbcglobal.net

> Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2011 19:18:46 +0000 (GMT) > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Subject: Re: Single sided HDDs [was Re: HP drives] > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Message-ID: <m1Pc0mv-000J48C at p850ug1> > Content-Type: text/plain > > > FWIW, there was a period about the turn of this century when most of > > Far too modern for me to have seen, let alone worked on... :-) > > > Maxtor's production was a single disk drive with only one side used. In > > addition to saving the head assembly there were enuf other cost savings > > make it worthwhile. One example is that it is relatively easy to > > load/unload a bottom head on the ID, thereby making the higher capacity > > OD real estate available. > > Did this drive lift the head off the platter on power-down (e.g, by using > some kind of ramp)? The most modern drive I pulled apart, admittedly > about 5 years older, landed the heads on the platter (as the older > winchesters I've repaired did). If it lands the head(s) on the platter, I > can't see any mechanical benefit to having only one head, even if it does > use the inner cylinder as the landing area. > > -tony I never saw the drives but I was told they had a head lifting ramp mechanism on the baseplate at the ID. Makes for a very simple mechanism compared to other head lifters. Tom

15 years, 6 months

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Talking of odd HP interfaces (PCIB)

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

Has anyone come across, or more importantly does anyone have any technicla data on, an HP interface called PCIB (Personal Computer Instrument Bus, I think). It was used to link some simple-ish measuring insturments to a personal computer host (either an ISA sloted thing or an HP150). I've read the apporpriate HP journal and the manuals for the insturments nad host PCBs. I understnad it consisted of a high-ish speed parallel bus and a serial link on the same connector, the latter being opto-isolated at the instrument end. I would love to have a pinout of the interface conenctor, signal specifications, timing diagrams, etc. Does that exist anywhere? -tony

15 years, 6 months

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H960 rack available

by quapla＠xs4all.nl

Available for one who wants it, a Dec H960 rack. No sidepanels, nor a masthead. Note, the rack is in the Netherlands. Will go to the scrappers at the end of June. -- Dit is een HTML vrije email / This is an HTML free email.

15 years, 6 months

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FFS: DEC 3ph PSU

by silent700＠gmail.com

Came out of an SA600 rack where it was probably feeding RA90s. Model # is 881A. Sent to you for the cost of shipping from 60074. Also have the companion UPS for it, which is of course really heavy. -j -- silent700.blogspot.com Retrocomputing and collecting in the Chicago area: http://chiclassiccomp.org

15 years, 6 months

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HP color samples on Vintage Computer forum

by cclist＠sydex.com

All: There's a posting over at Erik's VC Forum from someone with some vintage HP color samples, complete with documentation: http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showthread.php?23397 I don't know if they're of interest, but I figure that it's more likely that vintage HP folks are more likely to hang out here. FWIW, Chuck

15 years, 6 months

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Controlling printer attached to VT220

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

I have a VT220 as the console terminal for my PDP-11/23+, running at 19200 baud. For the occasions when I want to print something, I have connected a KSR43 Teletype (300 baud) to the VT220 printer port. It works well, if slowly, after straightening out the usual RS232 control line issues. Is there a keyboard sequence to turn the printer on and off, without going into the VT Setup menu? (If I just turn off the TTY it hangs the VT220, presumably waiting for a RTS/CTS). I can't find the VT220 User's Guide online and the available Installation (and Technical) manuals don't seem to have any discussion. thanks Charles

15 years, 6 months

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Single sided HDDs [was Re: HP drives]

by thomas.gardner＠sbcglobal.net

> Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2011 20:13:16 +0000 (GMT) > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Subject: Re: HP drives > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Message-ID: <m1PbfA8-000J3yC at p850ug1> > Content-Type: text/plain > > > > Alas they don't :-(. I've heard the term 'track' used for hard drives > > > when they meant 'cylinders'. ARGH!!! > > > -tony > > > > I thought you could only read/write to the top layer of the harddrive > > platter, or do some drives allow writing to both sides? > > Except for a ferw very odd ones (e.g. hard drives which record analagoue > singals such as analogue video [1]) every hard disk I've worked on has > used both sides of all platters for something. Maybe not user data > storage (for excample, it may contain servo information only), but there > will be a head on it. <snip> > -tony FWIW, there was a period about the turn of this century when most of Maxtor's production was a single disk drive with only one side used. In addition to saving the head assembly there were enuf other cost savings to make it worthwhile. One example is that it is relatively easy to load/unload a bottom head on the ID, thereby making the higher capacity OD real estate available. Tom

15 years, 6 months

2
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HP-HIL (Human Interface Link) specification?

by legalize＠xmission.com

Does anyone have a working URL for the HIL specification? The one on wikipedia doesn't work anymore. I didn't find anything on bitsavers or in manx. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/> Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>

15 years, 6 months

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Amiga 500/1000 bus expander project

by brianlanning＠gmail.com

I picked up an interesting bit of hardware on ebay. It's one of these without components: http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=1360 Does anyone have a way of getting at a component list for this? brian

15 years, 6 months

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HP Firesale (Jay West memorabilia)

by frebird2＠swbell.net

Yes, you can own a piece of computing history. Jay West - the man, the myth, the legend - has spent a few cycles using THIS equipment. What we have here folks is a working, rack mounted, HP 9000 K class box. At least it was working when we shut it down 5 years ago. My memory is a bit fuzzy, but I believe that all of the processor slots were filled and it may have been maxed out on ram as well. Peripherals include: (2) HP 6000 SCSI SX-W rackmount enclosures each with 4 gig scsi drives. There is a 3rd drive bay - but I forgot to write the model down. It is larger (8u) than the SX-W boxes. A second HP rack contains (2) Surestore E disk array 12H (also known as AutoRAID) -- each with 12 drives. They appear to be a mix of 4, 9 and 18 gig drives. At least that is what is marked on the drive caddies. Completing the lot is a Citoh 800Q printer, and a Printronix MVP printer. If you act fast, I'll even throw in not one, not two but (3) DTC 72MX's AND all the cabling! I also may have all of the original, printed documentation to go along with this treasure. With a deal like this, how can you refuse? All offers, reaonable and unreasonable accepted. Location: St. Louis. If someone doesn't want this, e-recycling is the next stop.

15 years, 6 months

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Anyone doing a shipping run soon???

by curt＠atarimuseum.com

Hi, I am purchasing a piece of manufacturing equipment from Wisconsin and I'm located in New York. Unit is a cabinet styled device, roughly the same as a Vax 11/750 unit, about 300 lbs. Anyone doing any runs in the Midwest<-->North East anytime soon, otherwise I'll have to call a freight carrier, but I prefer someone on the list who knows how to properly handle larger size electronic devices. Thanks, Curt

15 years, 6 months

1
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Looking for CMD CQD-220A /223A EPROM images

by Bernhard.Wulf＠shell.com

I would love to get EPROM images for a CMD CQD-220A/223A with the Tape AND Disk function in my inbox. Currently only having the Tape OR Disk function and really keen to do the brain surgery. The results Glen found recently are promising and I'm quite positive to successfully modify my controller as well. Does anyone have a CMD CQD-220A/TM or CQD-223A/TM and an EPROM programmer or other means of reading the EPROM images that could send me a copy? Your help is highly appreciated Thanks & Regards. Bernhard

15 years, 6 months

2
1
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Discferret questions

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

I'm looking at my aging desktop machine and realize that its replacement probably won't have a native floppy interface, so I started thinking about the super-powered USB-floppy interface previously discussed here. I forgot what it was called, so I stumbled across this page: http://www.deviceside.com/. I quickly figured out what I wanted was the Discferret. Does anyone know anything about this anemic alternative? This led me to some more questions: 1) Can the Discferret handle flippies? 2) Can I daisychain two drives to a single Discferret? 3) How much more work would it be to make a Discferret talk to an 8-inch drive? I'd buy one or two now, but finances aren't that great right now. -- 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?

15 years, 6 months

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PSU for MicroVAX 3400 Not Faulty But Not Working

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] > On Behalf Of Shoppa, Tim > Sent: 06 January 2011 19:53 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: > > > A while back I mentioned that I have a MicroVAX 3400 with one of the > > H7868 PSUs not wanting to work (green light fails to come on). I have > > just tried the "faulty" PSU in a MicroVAX 3500 and it works just fine. > > I took a PSU from the 3500 and put it in the 3400 and it does not work > > in the 3400 either, only in the 3500. So clearly there is something > > else that is causing the problem and I am looking for suggestions, > > especially as the machine is in an awkward location and hard to > > dismantle speculatively. As a reminder this machine was working fine > > and I had not done anything at all to it prior to its failure, I had > > not moved it, changed any components or anything > > Without sufficient DC load the H7868 will fail to start up. > > One supply goes to half the slots. There's a Q-bus card That is nothing but a > bunch of power resistors for this situation, although I Usually preferred to put in > a KDA50 set 'cuz I had a bunch of those :-). > > Tim. (adding subject line back) In this case I think the load should be there because it is the right hand PSU that won't start, this powers the 6 slots on the right and these contain the memory and CPU, so there should be enough load for the PSU to work. There is indeed a resistor card in the leftmost slot, but the left hand PSU lights up fine. Regards Rob

15 years, 6 months

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No subject

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

> A while back I mentioned that I have a MicroVAX 3400 with one of the H7868 > PSUs not wanting to work (green light fails to come on). I have just tried > the "faulty" PSU in a MicroVAX 3500 and it works just fine. I took a PSU > from the 3500 and put it in the 3400 and it does not work in the 3400 > either, only in the 3500. So clearly there is something else that is causing > the problem and I am looking for suggestions, especially as the machine is > in an awkward location and hard to dismantle speculatively. As a reminder > this machine was working fine and I had not done anything at all to it prior > to its failure, I had not moved it, changed any components or anything Without sufficient DC load the H7868 will fail to start up. One supply goes to half the slots. There's a Q-bus card That is nothing but a bunch of power resistors for this situation, although I Usually preferred to put in a KDA50 set 'cuz I had a bunch of those :-). Tim.

15 years, 6 months

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Wanted - 44 Pin expansion cards for Cosmac Elf

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

Nick writes: > Or even some blank prototype style boards would be helpful. 44-pin edge prototype boards are still readily available: http://www.vectorelect.com/Product/Plugbord/PB44C.htm Many in stock at Digikey, Mouser, etc. Probably hanging with The other vector stuff at any surviving local electronics shop(s) Near you.

15 years, 6 months

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Bringing tapes to Room Temp?

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

Zane writes: > I'm getting ready to test out my 9-Track tape drive before hauling it > into work for some data recovery. I have a box of brand new tapes, > which unfortunately haven't been stored under ideal conditions for > most of their life (they're probably about 20 years old). Currently > they're in the garage, which at the moment is close to freezing. How > should I go about bringing the tapes to room temp? If they've been stored under poor conditions for 20 years, I'm not sure exactly how they're treated in the next few days is gonna matter. If they had data on them and had seen temperature swings, you might want to retension them before using. But if they're blank and gonna be used for testing the transport anyway, hard to see how this can matter. I would be hesitant to retension a tape with valuable data on a drive that had the head in contact with the tape. (Stiction). Retensioning is far from a cure-all. Why does the concept of retensioning exist at all? If a tape is stored under adverse temperature or humidity conditions, the different rate of thermal expansion of the reel and tape, or between the inner tape and outer tape, can cause "bumps" to form in the winding and require an uneven rate of rotation of the hub to spool off the tape at 25 IPS or 75 IPS or whatever the drive runs at. Tim.

15 years, 6 months

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DSD-80 debugger...

by geneb＠deltasoft.com

I've been asked to re-instate the download for the DSD-80 full screen debugger that I had up here: http://www.retroarchive.org/cpm/lang/lang.htm Since TCJ is essentially dead and buried, does anyone know who I can contact in order to get some kind of permission to put that back up for download? Thanks! g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

15 years, 6 months

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11/23 and 11/73 compatibility

by pontus＠update.uu.se

Hi all. In order to make room for an 11/44 I'm giving away a PDP-11/23 with two RL01 drives. I have a bunch of spare Q-BUS cards for the 11/23 and I wonder if any of them are compatible with the 11/73. You see, I just got an 11/73 which is quite empty (a CPU and some memory) and I don't want to give away something that's useful in the 11/73. So, here is what I got for the 11/23: Memory: M7506, M8043, M8044, M8047, M8059, M8067 Peripherals: M7513 RQDXE RQDX extender for RQDX2/3 M7941 DRV11 16-bit parallel line unit M7954 IBV11 IEC general purpose M7957 DZV11-M 4-line double-buffered async EAI MUX M8013 RLV11 RL01/RL02 disk control 18-bit M8014 RLV11 M8027 LPV11 Printer interface module M8061 RLV12 RL01/RL02 disk control Other: M9401 Bus extender? M9400-YB Terminator (11/03) M7942 MRV11-AA Space for 4K 16-bit PROM M7952 KWV11 Programmable realtime clock If I've understood the matter correctly the 11/73 can utilize 22 bits of the Q-BUS but the 11/23 only 18 bits and that means that some cards are 18 bit only and others 22 bit only. I think I will hang on to the RLV12 and RQDXE, anything else? It would be great if the memory was compatible. Thanks in advance, Pontus.

15 years, 6 months

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Bringing tapes to Room Temp?

by healyzh＠aracnet.com

I'm getting ready to test out my 9-Track tape drive before hauling it into work for some data recovery. I have a box of brand new tapes, which unfortunately haven't been stored under ideal conditions for most of their life (they're probably about 20 years old). Currently they're in the garage, which at the moment is close to freezing. How should I go about bringing the tapes to room temp? The main 4 tapes to be read have been stored under proper conditions for most of their life. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Photographer | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | My flickr Photostream | | http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ |

15 years, 6 months

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Happy New Decade

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

Happy new decade to all members of this list and their families. [Yes, I do start counting from 0 normally. But the calendar doesn't :-(, and thus I think that new centrieies, decades, etc start with years ending in '1'.] -tony

15 years, 6 months

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Wanted - 44 Pin expansion cards for Cosmac Elf

by nick.allen＠comcast.net

Hey everyone, does anyone have any of the 44-pin expansion cards for the Cosmac Elf? I am looking for a video board, disk controller, or keyboard interface specifically. Or even some blank prototype style boards would be helpful. Thanks! Nick

15 years, 6 months

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Anybody ever notice this website for old computer advertisements?

by teoz＠neo.rr.com

http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads-1980s/15 I was googling for and old computer and stumbled onto this place.

15 years, 6 months

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8-BIT OPL2 Sound board community project

by lynchaj＠yahoo.com

Hi! There is a community project to make an 8-bit OPL2 sound board. http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showthread.php?23271-8-BIT-OPL2-Soun d-board http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/w/browse/#view=ViewFolder <http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/w/browse/#view=ViewFolder&param=OPL2> &param=OPL2 The board is designed already and ready to go to prototype board build and test. The board supports the YM3812 and YM2151 synth chips and the YM3012 and related DACs. There are some interested builders working on the design at vintage-computer.com forums. To order prototype PCBs I need 5 builders to order prototype boards at $30 so we can get some initial hardware for build and test. There will be software for this board to allow OPL2 programming. The board *may* provide some compatibility for legacy PC gaming. If you are interested in participating please contact me by email LYNCHAJ at YAHOO.COM with OPL2 in the subject. Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch

15 years, 6 months

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VCF East 7.0

by evan＠snarc.net

Hi all -- Now that it's 2011, I just wanted to remind everyone about VCF East 7.0. It's scheduled for May 14-15 at our usual location -- the InfoAge Science Center, in Wall, New Jersey. Typically most of our exhibitors are from the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast parts of the USA. However last year some exhibitors arrived from farther away -- Mike Lee (Chicago), Vince Briel (Cleveland), and even Robert Bernardo (northern California) -- so the rest of you are running out of excuses distance-wise. :) At some of the past VCF East shows we also had visitors from Missouri, Texas, and California, and from Canada, Germany, Italy, and New Zealand. We're still in the beginning stages of getting keynote speakers and such, so no big announcements yet. But .... a little binary birdie says Forrest Mims may give a talk, and there's a chance (slim, but not out of the realm of possibility) that someone may accept my invitation whose famous three-letter nickname once spelled the first letters of the words in a company called "Wheels Of Zeus". ;) So: right now we're waiting for Sellam to finish the registration page. In the meantime, please start thinking about attending our event. The previous VCF East was our biggest one ever, and we intend to out-do ourselves this year. - Evan

15 years, 6 months

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Happy New Decade (Tony Duell)

by jonas＠otter.se

Arguing about this is about as daft as arguing about whether array indices should be zero-based or one-based. It is a fact that some languages use 0 as the index origin, others 1. It is also a fact that a century or decade starts on the year ending with the digit 1, not 0, since there never was a year 0. Possibly not logical, but nonetheless a fact. Claiming anything else is plain wrong, just as claiming that the sun rotates around the earth is wrong, even though it looks that way from the earth. And arguing about it is completely pointless. The concept may be hard to grasp for mathematically challenged persons who think that celebrating the start of a new millennium in 2000 is a good marketing move, but they are still wrong. All the problems with non-year-2000-capable software confuse the issue but the facts still stand. So happy new decade to all! /Jonas

15 years, 6 months

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C64/C128 CP/M Cartridge Interest?

by brain＠jbrain.com

Would anyone on the list with CP/M or Z80 experience be interested in helping design a CP/M cart for the C64 and C128? I'd like to learn more about CP/M and the Z80, and I thought a revamped cartridge might be a nice way of learning and tying back to my CBM bias. Jim

15 years, 6 months

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Source for OKI clock chip?

by snhirsch＠gmail.com

I'm trying to find a source for an OKI MSM6242 RTC chip (18-pin DIP package). As usual, all my Google searches turn up dozens and dozens of sleazy-looking "we can get you anything, submit an RFQ.." sites. This is the chip used in Amiga 2000s. I'm not sure if there are any workable cross-references. Steve --

15 years, 6 months

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FS: Texas Instruments POS terminal

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

No, not that kind of POS, but "Point Of Sale"! http://i1181.photobucket.com/albums/x426/DrCharlesMorris/P2150003.jpg http://i1181.photobucket.com/albums/x426/DrCharlesMorris/P2150005.jpg http://i1181.photobucket.com/albums/x426/DrCharlesMorris/P2150004.jpg It has an 8080A processor, a vacuum fluorescent display, keypad, 20 LED's, and line-operated (120 ac) power supply. I bought it from Jameco many, many (25+) years ago and am tired of tripping over it. I hate to strip it just for the 8080A and EPROMs since it looks like a good foundation for... something. Would someone like it for the bargain price of $7.00 plus the actual shipping from US zip 65775? thanks Charles

15 years, 6 months

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Cleaning out: VIC-20, TI-99/4a & misc. parts

by wedge1020＠gmail.com

Good day, I've been scanning the message archives off-and-on and finally took the plunge and subscribed. Please let me know if my posting is out of place. I have been a computing enthusiast for several years, starting with the 8-bit game console genre and migrating through some of the 90s RISC "big iron", and finally arriving at a point where I realize I have a storage locker filled with stuff that hasn't been used in quite some time. Not wanting to be selfish and keep it all to myself, I'm attempting to finally clean out my inventory and disperse to good homes. Perhaps a similar story and I'm late to this parade, but it's worth a shot. My intent is to chip away at it slowly (the pile is large, and there's no way I can haul it out to my living room to do a complete inventory). Preference is: Make an offer. I'd prefer to have some shipping costs covered at the very least. I'm in upstate NY (14830), and have easy access to either the USPS or UPS for shipping. The first batch includes: - 1x Commodore VIC-20 unit (no cables or adapters in this box). Should work, cosmetically decent (slight yellowing, with what looks like a small warped area in the plastic from some former owner setting a cigarette on it) - 1x Commodore C2N CASSETTE drive (attached cable). Should also work, I used to use it to load various BASIC games (in another box). - 1x TI-99/4a computer (silver with black trim). Includes a TI Extended BASIC command module cartridge. No other cables or adapters. - 1x The User's Guide to Texas Instruments: TI-99/4A Computer, Software, and Peripherals spiral bound manual. - 1x slightly beat up (but empty) box to the Atari 400/800 Computing Language Assembler Editor. Includes unmarked Atari registration mailer and warranty card (both good condition). -Matthew

15 years, 6 months

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Happy New Decade

by nospam212-cctalk＠yahoo.com

Off by one errors are so much fun to debug... Celebrate whatever you want, whenever you want. Just keep in mind that in the US, the official timekeepers, NIST have said that the third millennium, 21st century and the first decade of the 21st century all official started with 2001. Of course we could just hold all our new year celebrations until Feb 3rd for Chinese New Year... Or better yet, just celebrate all over again. After all it is just an excuse to party mostly anyway right? ;)

15 years, 6 months

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MakeDataExecutable and PowerPC

by spectre＠floodgap.com

I know we have some old(er) Apple developers out there, so I wanted to ask: does MakeDataExecutable have a particular penalty? I'm working on a PowerPC nanojit for Firefox so that Firefox's JavaScript tracer can emit PPC instructions. It works, but it takes a huge initial penalty, more than I would have expected. The pure-C++ JavaScript interpreter beats it on many tasks. I'm sure that part of that is trying to beat gcc's very good PPC optimizer, but I want to eliminate other variables. It also seemed that PPC mulli is still slow compared to unrolled naked adds and bitshifts, and naturally the Firefox bytecodes do not have support for fused multiply-add or other things that POWER does well. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- "In God We Trust (All Others We Monitor)" ----------------------------------

15 years, 6 months

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DOS FTP server testing needed

by mbbrutman-cctalk＠brutman.com

Greetings ... I am still working on my TCP/IP for DOS. It has been over five years now. :-) For the past few days I've been testing an FTP server. The server is running on a PCjr with DOS 3.3, a SCSI Zip 100 for mass storage, and a Western Digital WD8003 Ethernet card. (The Zip is attached using a parallel-to-SCSI adapter and the WD8003 is on an ISA bus adapter.) The FTP server supports most of the standard commands. If you use anonymous FTP you will be limited to a 'sandbox' on the Zip drive that is 30MB in size. You can leave files in the '/incoming' directory - everything else is read only Six people can be connected at a time, but the machine can only transfer data at about 25KB/second so if multiple people start data transfers it will get painful really fast. That's just a limitation of the machine - a faster machine would do a much better job. (A TCP/IP socket with this machine can transfer at data rates up to 100KB/sec. The Zip drive can so sequential reads at around 50KB/sec. So I figure that 25KB/sec isn't that unreasonable.) If you'd like to try out some of your favorite FTP clients I'd appreciate the extra testing. You can get to it at 96.42.228.74 on port 2021. Browser users can use ftp://96.42.228.74:2021/ for a URL. If you are curious as to how the machine is performing or who is on the machine try the 'SITE STATS' or 'SITE WHO' commands. Chuck(G) has already broken it once by using DOS reserved names that I forgot to filter. That bug, and an obscure timing window related to passive data connections have been fixed. If I can keep it running for another day or two with reasonable traffic I'll consider it a success. Thanks! Mike

15 years, 6 months

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TRS-80 Model II/12/16

by fjkraan＠xs4all.nl

>> Yeah... I've been steadily working towards getting a working TRS-80 >> Xenix machine. At the moment, I have enough parts (I believe) to make a >> working Model II, and a line on the 68000 board. Unfortunately, the >> difficult part to find is a hard disk. I have the Model II host adapter >> for the early TRS-80 Eight Meg drive (which is, of course, completely >> incompatible with anything else), but no drive. I can't even cobble it >> to a regular MFM drive, since the actual disk controller is in the drive >> cabinet (I have only the host adapter). Unfortunately, you can't really >> run Xenix without a hard drive. > I wonder... > > The Model 1/3/4 hard disk system consisted of a WD1001 controller board, > a disk drive and a very simple host adapter (just an address decoder > really). I would not be suprised if the M2 one was similar in concept. > > Radio Shack were also very good about supplying technical/service manuals > (one reason I liked their machines, yes even back then I knew the value > of a schematic!), so I suspect some information on the M2 hard disk > system exists. > > I wonder how hard itwould be to make up a devie to plug into the host > adapter, appear to have the smae M2-accessible registers, but using some > mode modern storage device. Probsbly a lot easier than replacing an ST412 > hard disk, for example. I have the 8 meg disk system: http://www.xs4all.nl/~fjkraan/comp/trs80m2/8megDisk.html, but still haven't found time and space to properly test it. Replaced some blown capacitors, but that is all sofar. The authorative source for most things TRS-80 is Frank Durda's site: http://nemesis.lonestar.org/computers/tandy/hardware/storage/mfm.html. The original 8 Meg controller emulated the WD1000 chipset even before it was on the market. So it should look like something familiar :-). Fred Jan

15 years, 6 months

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HP Portable+ disks

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

Although the HP Portable+ Technical Reference doesn't contain anything on the physical disk formats, there's a table in the usner manual for the FORMAT comamnd (I've changed the headings a bit, but the data is the same) : Specifier #sides Secotr size Capacity Files in root dir /w 1 256 264192 128 /x 2 256 618496 304 /y 2 512 700416 176 /z 2 1024 780288 96 none 2 512 700416 176 The default seems to be the same as other HP MS-DOS double-sided disks. I wonder if Chuck (I think) got a disk formatted wit hthe /z option from a Portable+ and sassumed it was the defualt? -tony

15 years, 6 months

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Apple/Corvus Whatsit

by dm561＠torfree.net

--------------Original Message: Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2010 22:12:34 -0600 From: Jason T <silent700 at gmail.com> Subject: Re: Apple/Corvus Whatsit On Thu, Dec 30, 2010 at 9:03 PM, Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote: > > shielded twisted pair Ahh, so. Here is a pic of the back of a Corvus Omnidrive. This is the same DIP/pins combo my little box has: http://www.1000bit.it/lista/c/corvus/omninet/Corvus06.JPG -- jht --------------Reply: Anybody want the controller board out of an Omnidrive? The case & PS are in use for one of my Cromemco external hard disk drives, but I do also still have the controller card; PS connector, LEDs and the DIP sw were removed, but otherwise it looks complete. mike

15 years, 6 months

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Looking for a 26 PIN Female to a 25 PIN DB25 Ribbon Cable

by trebor77＠execpc.com

Message: 3 > Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2010 11:16:32 -0800 > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Subject: Re: Looking for a 26 PIN Female to a 25 PIN DB25 Ribbon Cable >> I am Looking for a 26 PIN Female to a 25 PIN DB25 Ribbon Cable. I am >> going to try to test a HSIO 4 Port Serial Card Meant for a N* Horizon. >> I checked Jameco but they don't have any of the 26 Pin Female Ribbon >> Connectors thats fits over the Dual Row of PINs on the HSIO card TIA >> Bob in Wisconsin >> Jameco P/N 525413 >> (see catalog page >> http://www.jameco.com/Jameco/catalogs/c103/P79.pdf ) >> Is this what you need? >> --Chuck >> Sure looks like it will do the Trick Thanks to Chuck Bob

15 years, 6 months

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S: SNA.PS/Mac (Classic) and/or AppleTalk PTF for OS/400

by poc＠pocnet.net

Hello, I recently saved an old AS/400 box from being dumped to learn a bit of the system and OS. Since I'm also a long standing Mac user, I'd like to experiment with sna.ps on old boxes of mine. I have a IIfx with a Apple Token Ring 4.16 board and also the AS/400 has Token Ring up and running. The ring itself works ok for TCP/IP and IPX with some devices attached. I'm searching for the original Apple sna.ps software in any version for getting the two worlds together. Anyone has it? Unfortunately, the code has been sold multiple times to different companies. Copyright is now held by MochaSoft. There has been no response to my inquiry there. So I think thy just don't care for old stuff. I'm also searching for the AppleTalk PTF for OS/400 V4R4M0 to enable the AS/400 speaking AppleTalk natively. Anyone can provide a SAVF of that? IBM doesn't support V4 in no way anymore. Thanks for any hints or help! :wq! PoC

15 years, 6 months

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