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

by wim＠hackbox.be

I've followed Tony's advice and went step by step, one board no chips, chips loaded, second board no chips, measuring at each step. Finally all seemed fine, I fired it up and now I've got RAM from 0000 all the way to 7FFF :) Next essential thing is the Load routine (from audio) that doesn't seem to work. I wrote a routine to read bytes from the ACIA just like the JBUG load routine does and simply quits when the first byte is read. It loops until I start to play the audio file, so it actually detects that. However when I make it loop until it finds a non zero data byte, it never stops. So I thought all the analog stuff is working up to the ACIA and the latter must be broken. Tried replacing it with no success so far. Anyway, the kit is so well documented that I should have no excuse of not being able to pinpoint the problem, learning a lot along the way... Also, what are the best tools to encode/decode KCS audio ? From the ones mentioned on the wikipedia KCS page I had success only with the perl script, but that's only one direction. Wim.

15 years, 7 months

2
1
0 0

Making Magnetic tape

by pontus＠Update.UU.SE

Hi Speakin of making punch cards and paper tape. What would it take to make DECtape? A roll of adhesive tape and rust? /P

15 years, 7 months

7
7
0 0

HUGE old computer lot, maybe some gems

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

> Same guy posted to the VCF Forum about this. He wont ebay, craigslist is > full of "scummy people" and "advertising costs money" so in other words he > will pay to junk it. Could be wrong but somewhere in there he stated it was > purchased for $4500 or something? Why do people blow that kind of money > without a plan to profit? Sure there are some units in there worth selling, > but that is if they are complete, cleaned up, and working otherwise they > will go for nothing to somebody looking for parts or a project. "Plan to profit"? More typically it's a passion that simply has gone sour or has just faded away. After it fades away the time, money, storage costs seem different than when the passion was strong and the acquisition was the main thing - but then real life intervened and he wants something back. That something might be identified as money and I will agree that something's missing, but it is not actually money. Tim.

15 years, 7 months

2
1
0 0

1103/A trivia question

by mark.kahrs＠gmail.com

Sorry Tony, I "misspoke" --- the Alto memory Refresh task must run otherwise the memory will wilt. The precharge is generated via chip select and a carefully chosen inverter delay line.

15 years, 7 months

1
0
0 0

trying to save a GPS

by oldcpu3＠rogerwilco.org

Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. said: > I know this isn't old... but I'm trying to rescue an Omnitech 16878-US > GPS from the recycling bin..... > > [snip] > > Anybody have one of these ? I have one. As is my usual habit when I get a gadget with accessible storage, I imaged the SD card immediately right out of the box. Restoring that image (about 978MB) should get things back to factory condition, software-wise. Contact me off-line. -- Jared

15 years, 7 months

10
14
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Terak page updates

by jfoust＠threedee.com

It's been a decade, and with a recent request for scans from Al, and hearing of others who've found Teraks, I thought I'd refresh my page. Notable additions include: - Pictures from inside the Terak building circa 1980 - Terak user group newsletters - Terak user group software lists I think I have a few items up there that Bitsavers doesn't have, so feel free to grab a copy. - John

15 years, 7 months

2
1
0 0

looking for dump of Tektronix 4023 chargen ROMs

by jonnosan＠gmail.com

Howdy, I'm currently putting together a simulation of the "SacState 8008 machine" (the machine described at http://www.digibarn.com/stories/bill-pentz-story/ ) This computer was a series of custom cards that plugged into a Tektronix 4023 terminal, and used the 4023 for I/O. Therefore in order to simulate the SacState 8008, I need to start by emulating the 4023 terminal. Having a copy of the character generator ROMs would help a lot with making that emulation authentic. According to the 4023 service manual, the chargen ROMs are: Upper Case ROM A - part number 156-0147-00 Lower Case ROM A - part number 156-0401-00 Optional Ruling ROM B - part number 156-0401-00 Would anyone have a dump of any/all of these chargens? Regards Jonno

15 years, 7 months

1
0
0 0

Installing Ultrix 4.4 on a DECstation 5000 Model 240

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

I am trying to install Ultrix on to this machine and it is failing very early in the process. It is failing at the stage of detecting the disks with an "invalid block size" error. I am using a CR-506 CD-ROM drive and the disks I have are RZ56 and RZ57. The disks already have NetBSD installed and I intend to replace NetBSD on one of the disks. I am not sure if the error is referring to the CD-ROM (despite the fact that it has already booted off the CD-ROM) or if perhaps it does not like something about the way the hard disks are formatted. Or is it some other problem? The system runs NetBSD just fine, so I don't think the disks are faulty. Any suggestions? Thanks Rob

15 years, 7 months

7
13
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1103/A trivia question

by mark.kahrs＠gmail.com

To Tony: The non-A needed precharge. That's what the Alto memory refresh task does. What do I win?

15 years, 7 months

2
1
0 0

1103s

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

> Sometimes the data sheets for an SARM (or whatever) indicate the > row/column structure. Not that it matters, I've not come across an SRAM > that has, say, faster access time from a change in row address than a > change in column address When I once asked why there were so many different PDP-11 memory diagnostics, (beyond just unmapped vs mapped vs whatever processor diffs) I was told that it was because each was structured to hit the row/column drivers and induce known pattern-sensitive failure modes particular to the core stack or chips in use. Tim.

15 years, 7 months

3
2
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(DiscFerret): First prototype built, photos available!

by classiccmp＠philpem.me.uk

Hi guys, The parts for my soldering iron finally arrived this morning, thus I spent the day playing with solder paste and SMD stencils. I've got one working DiscFerret built on a 0J28 board, using the same 2C8 FPGA and Cypress RAM chip I used on the previous two prototypes. The key difference here is that this unit is RoHS-compliant, built entirely with lead-free parts, and was assembled using a modified Argos mini-oven. The extent of the modifications? I installed an eCAL E6C PID controller and a Crydom EZ480F18 solid state relay. After a few hours spent reading the "concise operator's manual" for the PID controller, I finally got the Kester Pb-free and SnPb profiles loaded, and the thing is as happy as a pig in muck! (Oh, it turns out Multicore RA15 and 318LF work fine with the Kester profiles... for anyone who cares). Here's the Hardware Overview I've just written: http://www.discferret.com/hardware/ And, for the impatient, here's the 1280x712 photo of the very first DiscFerret: http://www.discferret.com/hardware/discferret_pcb.jpg This board has been allocated the serial number "GB0K1801", which decodes as: GB: "Great Britain", i.e. "Made in England," of course :) 0: 0 years after 2010 K: 11th month, i.e. November 18: 18th day of the month 01: First unit built on that day The plan is to clear out my stocks of 2C8 FPGAs, which should (in theory!) leave me with six saleable units in total, based on the stock of parts I have available. Tomorrow should be fun. It took me four hours to make this one board. If I can scrape together enough table space, I should be able to paste-and-place three or four boards at the same time, then oven-bake them in turn (which takes 5-10 minutes a piece). The fun part is, as always, clearing up all the solder bridges :( -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/

15 years, 7 months

1
0
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MEK6800D2 restoration

by wim＠hackbox.be

I'm in the process of restoring a Motorola MEK-6800-D2 evaluation kit. The kit was adapted and has its RAM on a separate board through an EXORciser backplane. After putting everything together and verifying that all looks good, I've applied +5V from an ATX power supply. The '-' prompt appeared, the JBUG monitor program is working and I even dumped the ROM and some EPROMs over the cassette port and decoded them on a PC :) So far so good, but to do anything cool I need the RAM board going. The problem is that this (custom wire-wrapped board) is using 16 MCM4116 chips. They need also -5V and +12V. Ok, these are available on the ATX power supply but I'm affraid of doing anything stupid that might blow up something. What would you check before applying these additional power levels ? I've been verifying a bit with an ohm meter that the -5V and +12V leads are not by accident connected to anything they shouldn't but not sure if that's a good way. I also read in the datasheet that you need to apply -5V before the others and removing it after the others. How would you do that ? I was thinking on having the -5V and GND permanently connected. So after switching on the power supply it will have -5V right away. Then manually connect a additional cable having GND, +5V and +12V. On power off do the reverse. Is that a good idea ? Not very handy but if it works I'll live with it. Thanks for any advice, Wim. -- hackbox dot be slash museum

15 years, 7 months

3
3
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1103s

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

> They had non-multiplexed addresses I think. Later DRAMs had multiplexed > address inputs. of course. Was there a good reason for this other than to > save package pins? I wouldn't call it a necessity but the RAS/CAS/refresh coordination works out very nicely when address inputs are multiplexed in this way. So much so that I can't think of a DRAM since the 4116 that hasn't used this scheme. SRAM's almost always have the concepts of "row" and "column" select internally but rarely is it obvious from the outside. Tim.

15 years, 7 months

4
3
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OT: Bluetooth

by evan＠snarc.net

Totally off-topic .... it's 3:20am EST here and I need to test something on my new headset .... anyone awake so I have someone to call for the test? (Please reply off-list. evan at snarc.net) Thanks.

15 years, 7 months

3
5
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RF31s available

by binarydinosaurs＠gmail.com

Folks, Before I send a DEC R400X expansion box to the recyclers does anyone want the RF31s contained within? There's 5 plus a single DSSI variant of the RZ26. All are in the later pluggable backplane type enclosure and I need to know by next tues (23rd). Shipping isn't a problem as long as you pay for it :) Cheers -- adrian/witchy Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection? www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk

15 years, 7 months

3
3
0 0

Ebay Sperry Unisys Boards (leaknoil)

by jonas＠otter.se

Some kind of US Military Standard Electronic Module, see http://www.tpub.com/content/MIL-SPEC/MIL-M/ (the marking M28787 is the MIL-M number) Referred to here: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.129.4343&rep=rep1&… No idea what they are/were used in. If you Google for M28787 there are dozens of surplus supply outfits selling these. /Jonas

15 years, 7 months

1
0
0 0

1103s

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

Tony writes: > Tim writes: >> Having worked with 1103's I would argue that by modern standards >> Even the "cream of the crop" were little above floor sweepings. > Was it that a lot of new 1103s were DOA, oe what there a problem with > them fialing in use, or what? > The reason I ask is that I have several old HP calculators full of 1103s, > and AFAIK all are original (and gettign on for 40 years old). So far, > otuch wood, I've not had any problems with the RAM in these machines. How many hundreds of 1103's are in each HP calculator? :-) In the early minicomputer 1103-based memories (say 16Kbytes, so 128 1103 chips) it was, um, optimistic to expect a lot of stability. In the bigger "supermini" systems (say 128 Kbytes, so over a thousand 1103 chips) ECC was a necessity and continual scrubbing helped a lot with stability - but that was a lot of work and power consumption just to brag that you had semiconductor memory, and the advantages over core were not all that obvious. I'd expect that smaller systems probably didn't have ECC or scrubbing but also didn't have high expected uptime. Were 1103's in the HP 9830? I had a couple but they usually worked fine enough that I never had to go rummaging through the insides. My feeling is that in the 1103 era (which preceded my direct involvement but I inherited several 1103-based systems), DRAM chips were not quite ready for prime time. By the time the 4116 came along things had settled down and a lot had been learned from the 1103 and DRAM really was ready for prime time. Tim.

15 years, 7 months

5
5
0 0

Legacy Binary File Editor

by Hollandia＠ccountry.net

Will someone direct me to a good binary file editor that will function on legacy machines? Thanks, Kurt

15 years, 7 months

7
9
0 0

Looking for a Depraz mouse.

by h.marien＠telenet.be

Hi, I don't know if this tread is still valid, but I have such a mouse with a blue cover and white buttons. The mouse was especially made in this color combination for our long gone firm. It's a quadrature mouse but I have a special developed serial interface card for it too. It served to couple the mouse to a Digital PRO350/380 (personal PDP11) computer. Regards, Hugo

15 years, 7 months

1
0
0 0

Legacy Binary File Editor

by Hollandia＠ccountry.net

My request was apparently a little hazy. The machine I refer to is a Packard-Bell 486SX running DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.1 By "legacy machine" I meant a machine that was "slightly behind the times". 8D Thanks, Kurt

15 years, 7 months

16
23
0 0

printer ribbons and print wheels - free for shipping

by jack.rubin＠ameritech.net

DEC - DECwriter L180 Reorder Spool #152 LQP01-KA LA75R (qty 2) Diablo - 8R2986 (black multistrike) - qty 8 printwheel 9R87019 pica 10 Teletex - qty 2 printwheel 9R87097 elite 12 Scientific - qty 2 Please let me know if you're interested ASAP. In the trash on 11/30 if unclaimed. Jack

15 years, 7 months

2
1
0 0

trying to save a GPS

by rescue＠hawkmountain.net

I know this isn't old... but I'm trying to rescue an Omnitech 16878-US GPS from the recycling bin..... It boots, gives the Go!, Maps, and Setting icons, you can touch any of them, get a click sound, and then... locked up solid. I applied a 'quick fix' from them, but that didn't fix anything. I believe that it is more likely the software on the SD card has gotten damaged somehow. Anybody have one of these ? Would like to get it working. It is a WinCE 5.0 based PDA basically (restricted to run the software provided of course). -- Curt

15 years, 7 months

3
2
0 0

Punched cards - which paper/cardboard?

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

> From: Philipp Hachtmann <hachti at hachti.de> > > I'm thinking about making punched cards. I could need some information about the material used for > them. Precise information about tolerances, specifications, references to more information, and so > on would be quite helpful. I have read the follow up e-mails too and wonder why you want to do this. If you want cards for storing data why do you need to print on the cards first? I have a loads (110,000) of cards of the right shape which I use for my mainframe. They are already printed up with every two columns marked out as one column of mark sense boxes but of course the mainframe doesn't see the markings. I have probably more than I will ever need in my lifetime. I even use them for keeping hand written notes and my ex-ICT engineer friend folds them in two, pushes the pins of a PCB through them and marks the bay number, carrier level and card position the card came from on them. If you want, I can sell you some at less than the commercial suppliers rate and I think less than they would cost to tool up to make them. Carriage is of course another question. I have been buying up local supplies of 11" by 14.5" fan fold paper for less than the carriage costs from say 50 miles away. I see your suffix is .de, I guess that's Denmark or is it Germany? At least there'd be no customs issues but I would think carriage would still be quite expensive. I'm not sure my card equipment would be happy without rounded corners. I know there were hardware modifications listed for dealing with cards with and without diagonally cut corners at leading/trailing edges. There's also the possibility of paper cuts for the operators. I think my IBM 029 keypunch uses the rounded corner to push the card guide down when it registers the card at the punching station. I think a square cut card would jam up.

15 years, 7 months

1
0
0 0

Ugh, I think I am going to be sick...

by lynchaj＠yahoo.com

http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2010-November/294055.html [Alexandre Souza] > Andrew, Am I wrong, or the 68000 IC is a **very common** microprocessor? >:oO I wouldn't call them common but certainly not rare either. It is the thought of really nice and still useful ceramic 68Ks being reduced to toxic sludge for a tiny bit of gold that bothers me. They could easily be sold for much more than the value of the metal recovery. eBay has them going for $8 to $50 or more each. Also amateur gold scrappers have a nasty habit of making a mess with their chemical waste. Andrew Lynch

15 years, 7 months

15
28
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Ebay Sperry Unisys Boards

by leaknoil＠gmail.com

Anyone know what these are from ? The only card I find labeled microprocessor is facing the wrong way of course. Something military I'm guessing. http://shop.ebay.com/cieinternational/m.html?_nkw=vintage+computer&_sacat=0…

15 years, 7 months

1
0
0 0

Tektronix 4023 documentation?

by jonnosan＠gmail.com

I am continuing my exploration of the SacState 8008 boot PROM code (using James Markevitch's listing), and have a little more understanding of the escape codes I was asking about previously (in the thread 'identifying terminal by escape codes') It looks like the SacState machine was built as a card that plugged into a 4023 terminal motherboard. My current assumption is the data going out of the 8008 card (i.e. where the code on the PROM is running) is interacting with the other cards on the 4023 bus directly. My further assumption is that there must have been some kind of block device (tape or disk?) that was also on that same bus, and that some of the escape codes must be doing some sort of device selection (i.e. signalling that the next chunk of data is intended to be read from, or written to, a specific device, not read from keyboard or displayed on screen). I am not clear as to whether the other devices are interfacing via - a commercial 'dedicated' I/O card, e.g. a drive controller (if any existed?) - a commercial 'generic' I/O card, e.g. a serial I/O and an 'intelligent' device is being controlled - a custom made I/O card that plugged directly into the 4023 bus The only 4023 documentation I can find online is the User Manual, which has: - a list of bus signals, which confirm there are enough signals available to construct complex device I/O - a list of accessory cards, including a serial 'Data Communications Interface', a 'hard copy unit', and 'audio recorder card' (tape controller ). - a reference to a 4023 service manual, which has a 'theory of operation' which may describe enough of the bus protocol to work out how the 8008 PROM could be interacting with other devices on that BUS. So my questions are - - were any commercial accessory cards available for the 4023 other than the ones listed in the back of the user manual? If so, does any documentation for them exist? - is the 4023 "service manual" available through any means? Cheers Jonno

15 years, 7 months

1
1
0 0

Ugh, I think I am going to be sick...

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

>>> Check out ebay auction 190467284114 and you can clearly see there are >>> DIP64 >>> MC68000 CPUs going to the scrapper bin. >>> This is painful to see especially knowing the S-100 68K CPU board is >>> entering build and test. I know builders will be looking for these parts >>> soon. >>> The DIP64 68000 CPUs are still available though this seems like such a >>> waste >>> to scrap classic ICs. I think it is tragic. >> Andrew, Am I wrong, or the 68000 IC is a **very common** microprocessor? >> :oO > They could easily be sold for much more than the value of the metal > recovery. eBay has them going for $8 to $50 or more each. Also amateur > gold scrappers have a nasty habit of making a mess with their chemical > waste. E-bay pricing can be bizarre and I would argue is not always representative of the "real world". Jameco lists Ceramic DIP64 68000 (pulls almost certainly) for $9.95 and I would expect them to work. Jameco used to have early dynamic DRAM's and shift registers By the metric buttload (e.g. 1103's, 2504's) presumably pulls but In other cases maybe a little closer to "floor sweepings for hobbyists". Having worked with 1103's I would argue that by modern standards Even the "cream of the crop" were little above floor sweepings. Tim.

15 years, 7 months

5
4
0 0

Looking for a Franklin high speed digital printer.

by wlsilva＠sbcglobal.net

Hello. Looking for a Franklin high speed digital printer, these were made in the 1960's and early 1970's. The printer is a rack mount unit, and prints on adding machine width paper. If you know of one, or even any information or manuals I would be extremely grateful for the help! I have more information on the unit if anyone can help. Best regards :) Walter

15 years, 7 months

1
0
0 0

Epoxy potting removal ?

by scanning.cc＠gmail.com

I have a critical ( late 80's microprocessor controlled ) piece of test gear no longer supported. The power supply is dead and after sawing through it's exoskeleton I was meet with a large epoxy block the size of the original box. I don't intend to fix said power supply but rather to figure out what voltages it provided and use a modern switcher. I know I need +12 and +5 as there is a generic floppy drive and the logic / processor uses +5. Any ideas how to strip the epoxy other than digging through it with implements of mass destruction ? Any and all help is appreciated. Best regards, Steven

15 years, 7 months

6
13
0 0

Ugh, I think I am going to be sick...

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

> I was once buying some 2114s from Jameco and got a bad > batch. I contacted them and they told me how they work. > First, if it is known to be pulls, they state that up front. > Most of the older chips are from stock rooms of companies > that are clearing older stock or have gone out of business. > As such, the parts are untested. They could have been bad > parts from a production line that someone was collecting > or just some NOS. They have no way to test them. Just my two cents: I would generally rather have pulls, than new or old stock of unknown origin. The pull was likely taken from a working system. The old stock of unknown origin..., well, who knows? After the electrolyte debacle of a few years back I am much more picky about electrolytics (known brand, known lot and manufacture date, and especially traceable lineage back to manufacturer as a result of counterfeiting) than with semiconductors! I generally expect a "usual distributor" (e.g. not Jameco) to be selling me new good stuff with paperwork and packaging traceable back to the manufacturer. Jameco... well they're many steps up from Poly Paks in quality and customer service but still I order a couple of spares :-). Tim.

15 years, 7 months

4
3
0 0

scsi? port question

by brianlanning＠gmail.com

I picked up one of these cases not too long ago: http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Magna-External-Drive-Case-and-Power-Supply-/150… Could someone give me the scoop on the ports on the back? One looks like a typical db-25 scsi. What's the other one, the one with three rows of pins? Is this another type of scsi port? brian

15 years, 7 months

21
76
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ANN: DiscFerret: Final pricelist, orders OPEN!

by classiccmp＠philpem.me.uk

Hi guys, (If you previously emailed me about the DiscFerret, you'll already have received a copy of this message... in which case, apologies for the duplication...) I now have a final price list for the DiscFerret, after having spent the week arguing with suppliers over leadtimes, MOQs and prices. I've given up on this process, and have instead adopted the highly scientific method of "order the blasted things from DigiKey." This leaves me with the following price list: Bare board: ?22.50 With TPS75003 mounted: ?27.50 PCB + tested PSU + PIC soldered/programmed: ?49 Fully assembled and tested PCB: ?129 Power supply (*) ?27.50 Postage to the USA for a single unit will be ?7.50 for normal airmail, or ?12.50 for an insured and tracked service. (*) The power supply is a PowerPax 12V 3.8A "soap on a rope" type switch-mode PSU. It can power the DiscFerret, and a disc drive with a power requirement of 5V 1.5A and 12V 1.5A. The fairly high price is due to its weight: a 36W PSU is not a light beast, even in switch-mode form! You will need to supply a suitable mains input lead (figure-eight tape-player power lead; available from most electrical retailers). Cables ====== By default, the DiscFerret includes a 40-to-34-pin IDC cable for a 3.5in disc drive, and a power cable terminated in a Berg connector (the type used for 3.5in disc drives). If you need a different cable (e.g. for a 5.25in drive or both 3.5 and 5.25), ask me for a quote. I'm quite happy about getting the price down to ?129. It's taken days of futzing through the Farnell catalogue to find suitable parts at decent price points (curiously some of the name-brand parts are cheaper than Farnell's Multicomp own-brand parts), but I finally got there in the end. So what now? ============ Well, you guys let me know what your final orders are. I have four Revision 0I06 (September 2010) boards and the six 0J28 (October 2010) boards from Gold Phoenix. There are a few rules as to allocation: - If you're ordering a bare board or a board with some (but not all) parts pre-mounted, you'll get a Rev 0J28 because these are easier to solder (immersion silver plated finish). - If you order a ready-built unit, you'll get a random choice between 0I06 and 0J28. There is no software-detectable difference between 0I06 and 0J28. The main difference is that 0J28 adds pads for a USB current limiting resistor, which is added via an ECO modification ("greenwire fix") on 0I06. 0J28 needs a greenwire due to a mistake in power routing, but does not require any track cuts (unlike 0I06). If you order a built-and-tested unit, rest assured that you will receive a board which has been updated to the latest ECO level at the time of manufacture. How to order ============ 1) Send me an email with a list of what you want to order, including quantities. 2) I'll send you a PayPal invoice for the total. If you're in the UK or Europe and would prefer to pay by BACS or SWIFT transfer, please let me know and I'll send you the relevant details. The payment must be in British Pounds Sterling, *NOT* Euros (my bank doesn't allow incoming transfers in anything other than GBP). Other payment methods may be a possibility -- ask me, I don't bite :) 3) When you pay the invoice, select "Include shipping address", and enter your desired address. This will need to be a Confirmed address. If you're paying by BACS or SWIFT, email me your name and address. I'm going to be assembling a couple of boards tomorrow as a time-trial. Assuming all goes to plan, the first units should be shipping towards the end of next week. I'd like to thank everyone on Classiccmp, VCForums, and so on for their assistance, comments, criticisms, sharing of expertise, support and so on. Seriously, you guys rock. Thanks, -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/

15 years, 7 months

3
5
0 0

Punched cards - which paper/cardboard?

by hachti＠hachti.de

Hi everyone, I'm thinking about making punched cards. I could need some information about the material used for them. Precise information about tolerances, specifications, references to more information, and so on would be quite helpful. Best wishes, Philipp -- http://www.hachti.de

15 years, 7 months

9
20
0 0

Tangential to Topic: Old Chip Programmers Work w/ || Port in Docking Station?

by trag＠io.com

I have a Needham EMP-30 chip programmer. I've been keeping an old Pentium (mumble) computer around to drive it (vaguely on-topic since it's definitely more than 10 years old). It has a parallel port interface. I would like to replace the ancient behemoth computer with a notebook to save space. I would also like to buy a modernish laptop to run things like FPGA and Microcontroller development/interface systems. I'd like them to be the same laptop, so right there I'm looking at USB and parallel port on the same notebook. Looking around, that does not appear to be available in new products. Ordinarily, I don't shy away from used equipment (who does, on this list?), but for notebooks, with their breakage issues and such, I would prefer to buy new. Further shopping revealed that Dell sells a Legacy Port Expander which works with some of their current notebooks and provides serial and parallel ports. And I think I've read somewhere while searching that the Needham software will work with Windows XP (could be mistaken, need to search again). Do any of you know if chip programmers (the EMP-30 specifically) work okay with the parallel ports in port expanders? How about the Cardbus (or whatever is replacing it) parallel port cards? Alternatively, anyone go through this exercise already and pick out what seemed like the ideal notebook model with USB and parallel ports. I might consider a used model if someone has a strong recommendation. Thank you for any discussion, Jeff Walther

15 years, 7 months

4
4
0 0

DiscFerret PCBs for sale

by classiccmp＠philpem.me.uk

Hi guys, I've got a batch of DiscFerret PCBs for sale. These are the first-cut boards, and work fine but for one requirement: you need to cut a track and install a 160k to 220k resistor over the break. C6 is missing the "+" polarity marker, though this is on the printed component layout (somehow it got missed off the silkscreen print). I'm happy that the design works, and any parts you need should be available from Farnell or DigiKey (or Mouser, but you'll need to get the FPGA from DigiKey). Soldering can be done with nothing more complex than a decent soldering iron, solder, desolder wick and a good magnifier. A PCB holder or Panavise and some paste flux would be very useful, but not essential. These boards are RoHS-compliant, two copper layers on a 1.6mm FR4 substrate. All vias and holes are fully plated-through, with a green solder mask and a white component layout print on the top side. They were manufactured by EuroCircuits BVBA (www.eurocircuits.com), and have been checked visually for damage or manufacturing issues. Cost is ?45 per board, plus shipping (which is likely to be very little). This does not include any parts, just the bare board, a printed component layout, a copy of the Bill of Materials and a copy of the Service Note which covers the track cut and . There are some extra options available: - TPS75003 chip pre-mounted. Add ?5 to the total. This includes a full electrical test (shorts and opens). - PIC microcontroller soldered down and pre-programmed. Add ?5. This includes programming the bootloader into the PIC, and means you won't need a PIC programmer to bootstrap the DiscFerret. - Both of the above -- add ?9. - Fully assembled and tested power supply section -- add ?25 - Fully assembled and tested PSU, with PIC pre-soldered and programmed: add ?29. Any parts I install will be soldered down with Multicore RP15 solder paste. This is a 96SC-alloy (95.5% tin, 3.8% silver, 0.7% copper) RoHS-compliant lead-free solder paste with a No-Clean flux. If you decide to remove a component and replace it with 60:40 SnPb solder, then desolder the existing part, remove all solder with desolder wick (Chemtronics Soder-Wick works nicely for this), then re-tin the pads with 60:40 solder, remove that solder, then install the part. If you'd like any other components supplying or pre-mounting, please email and ask for a quote. I'm not going to start doing fully-assembled boards until I get the next batch of boards in stock (hopefully this Friday). Basically, the production boards will be from the "0J28" batch, which has a number of part placement differences. These differences render the solder paste stencil for the 0J28 useless for the 0I06... No paste mask, no mass production. Making a DiscFerret using hand soldering techniques takes nearly a day -- with solder paste and a reflow oven, a couple of hours at most. There is no firmware difference between 0I06 and 0J28 boards: you can use the same FPGA microcode and PIC firmware; the only differences are in component placement (0J28 was redesigned to meet the Gold Phoenix 7mil design rules) and that 0J28 includes pads for the 160k resistor. To order, send me an email (this address is fine, or change the user-part from 'classiccmp' to 'philpem' to get my main mailbox) with: - Your name and address (I'll assume the From and Reply-To are set correctly in your mail client!) - What exactly you want to order I'll send a PayPal invoice for the total amount, and will send the boards out when the invoice has been paid. I usually assemble boards during the week, and post them out on Saturdays. For UK customers I'd advise going with Special Delivery due to the cost, and "Airsure" for international orders. If, however, you'd prefer I send them First Class or Airmail, I'll do that as long as you agree not to come after me for a refund if they get lost in the post...! (First Class and Airmail are uninsured) Thanks, -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/

15 years, 7 months

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Ugh, I think I am going to be sick...

by lynchaj＠yahoo.com

Check out ebay auction 190467284114 and you can clearly see there are DIP64 MC68000 CPUs going to the scrapper bin. This is painful to see especially knowing the S-100 68K CPU board is entering build and test. I know builders will be looking for these parts soon. The DIP64 68000 CPUs are still available though this seems like such a waste to scrap classic ICs. I think it is tragic. Andrew Lynch

15 years, 7 months

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Christies of london to auction apple 1 for £150 ,000

by jfoust＠threedee.com

At 04:54 PM 11/12/2010, William Donzelli wrote: >You have no clue about the people you are dealing with. I'm sure they're regular folks who have their pants put on two legs at a time, just like the rest of us. - John

15 years, 7 months

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Offering Digital paper tape punch and reader - PC04

by hachti＠hachti.de

Hi, see the following pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/iraeus/DECPC04 There you see a modestly rare and completely working DEC PC04 paper tape reader and punch. The unit is complete with cables. Needs 110V power supply. The frame that goes into the rack *might* be there ass well. I checked and used the machine for a while. Did not find any problems. Could be cleaner - that job is left for the next owner. It's not my unit. But I can let it go for reasonable money. Shipping anywhere. If you're interested, email me your offer. If I don't get reasonable offers the machine will end up on eBay. Kind regards, Philipp -- http://www.hachti.de

15 years, 8 months

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Computer Machinery Corporation?

by jm191270＠yahoo.fr

What would you like to know ? JaM jm191270 at yahoo.fr

15 years, 8 months

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Reaching Sharon on OSI system...

by bdamer＠digitalspace.com

Oh and to reach Sharon her email address is: SharonMaul at aol.com bruce

15 years, 8 months

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Collection transport costs (was Re: Would You Pay $200,000 for an Original Apple Computer?)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 4:47 PM, Teo Zenios <teoz at neo.rr.com> wrote: >> Over a period of 10 years, its not hard to sink $20K into shipping >> fees alone when you collect stuff that needs to be shipped freight. > > Sure if you collect large machines and have them shipped cross country. Most > of the heavy items I have are local pickups... Nearly all of my heavy DEC stuff came from The Ohio State University or businesses around Columbus. I did drive to Dayton once for an 11/750, but I've gotten no item larger than an RL01 or PDP-8/a or VT-52 from out of state. There was the time I ordered an LA-180, but I used a "free shipping on your next order" from Newman Computer Exchange to order that - it came strapped down to a pallet via van freight from MI, right to my front door. I did use it for consulting work later (on a locally-sourced 11/23), but at the time, I picked the heaviest thing for my PDP-8/a that I thought I'd be likely to want. So I've spent a few hundred on renting lift-gate trucks and such over the past thirty years, but even a double-H960 PDP-11/34 setup w/drives and software and docs fit in the back of my 1976 Microbus with room up front for a passenger/loadie. I'm sure someone who collects IBM iron has an entirely different story to tell. -ethan

15 years, 8 months

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Paper tape fan-folder Was: Re: Punched cards - which paper/cardboard?

by chd＠chdickman.com

On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 5:35 PM, Philipp Hachtmann <hachti at hachti.de> wrote: >> what about fan-fold paper tape? > > I made a "machine" that is able to fanfold paper tape. Yes, but.... > currently only something like a > proof of concept. It worked too unprecisely by far. It needs to be > reconstructed using precision components instead of a mixture of pneumatics, > a stepper motor, and handcrafted wooden parts :-) I was thinking about trying to make one myself. I have a case of rolled paper tape. Any chance you could share a picture or two? The other thought I had was to shear fan-fold printer paper into narrow strips, but the paper shear I have access to is not sufficiently precise to get a consistent tape width. -chuck

15 years, 8 months

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need teco suggestions

by bqt＠softjar.se

On 11/11/10 15:22, Richard<legalize at xmission.com> wrote: > I need a TECO command suggestion that will fit in 3 lines of 18 chars > each. > > It would be nice if I could have 5 chars leftover to have "TECO:" or > "TECO " in there:-) What should it do? One thing that I occasionally do is having a list of files in a buffer, I want to add some cruft before and after each file name, to create something useful to run as a command file. Something like this then (without testing, off the top of my head): <xaiPIP $l-2ci/re=LB:[KAKA]$ga-2dl.-z;> I can probably come up with more complex versions of that as needed, as well... :-) Johnny

15 years, 8 months

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Meant OSI!

by bdamer＠digitalspace.com

Sorry folks I meant an Ohio Scientific!

15 years, 8 months

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Old cromemco C3 in a rack...

by bdamer＠digitalspace.com

If anyone is interested in this, feel free to contact Sharon directly.... HI Bruce, Thanks for the quick reply. I'm attaching a couple of photos. One of the pictures shows the Hazeltine monitor (also available) that was used with the computer. I believe the unit is an Ohio Scientific C3. Here is a link to an eBay item for an Ohio Scientific ad for a similar machine. Ours came with a hard disk, but we no longer have it. http://cgi.ebay.com/1979-Ohio-Scientific-C3-C-Computer-29MB-Hardrive-Ad-/19… What you see in the pics is all we have for the machine. I'd like your opinion and the opionion of any of your contacts whether I should continue to try to find this a home, or just pitch it. I don't want any money for it, but don't really want to pay shipping, either. Also, FYI, I have some sales literature from the period for OSI (including some of the Bill Cosby brochures) and a few others, if anyone is interested. Thanks again, Sharon Maule (309) 231-9237

15 years, 8 months

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Christies Auction is more than just the Apple I

by christian_liendo＠yahoo.com

They are selling more than just the Apple 1 A collection of Alan Turing?s Writings Alan Turing?s Off Prints Lot 60 Sale 7882 The First Published ENIAC Patents ENIAC Patents Lot 63 Sale 7882 An ENIGMA Cypher Machine: ENIAC Patents Lot 59 Sale 7882 A book by Charles Babbage ENIAC Patents Lot 57 Sale 7882 http://8bitaficionado.com/2010/11/12/christies-of-london-is-auctioning-off-…

15 years, 8 months

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Would You Pay $200,000 for an Original Apple Computer?

by marvin＠west.net

I saw this article about a Christie's auction and found it "funny" in a way. It will be interesting to find out what it actually brings. http://mashable.com/2010/11/12/apple-1-auction/

15 years, 8 months

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Virtual memory

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

> From: Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> > > Gah. I have no idea what PPU mean, nor PP. You're probably just not old enough. In the 50s the main processor was called the CPU (Central Processing Unit) to differentiate it from the various PPUs, (Peripheral Processing Units). The first machine I programmed, the IBM 7094 had a CPU and two PPUs, one to read cards and write the images to tape transports, which would then be switched over to the CPU to read, compile and execute the job and write the results back to another tape transport which then got switched to the other PPU which then transferred the tape image to a line printer. Somehow now (when most peripherals have embedded processors which could be called PPUs) we seem to have stopped using the term.

15 years, 8 months

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surplus source for MRA connectors?

by shoppa＠trailing-edge.com

> In particular, the MRA42P solder cup 42 pin "winchester" plug for > Diablo 31 disk drives. Manufacturer's webpage lists Powell and CDM as stocking distributors. http://dilp.netcomponents.com/winchesterelectronics.html Does the CHM or someone local to you have a RK03? Some mid-late-70's early DEC and DG 3rd-party sellers (AED? DSD? General Robotics?) sold Diablo drives with their own homegrown Unibus and Omnibus interfaces but that stuff was kinda crufty when it brand new, never mind 30+ years later. Wasn't the Diablo 30 the same as the RK03? Tim.

15 years, 8 months

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CDC 6000/7000 operation, was: Virtual memory

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2010 09:58:23 -0800 From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> Subject: Re: CDC 6000/7000 operation, was: Virtual memory On 9 Nov 2010 at 23:53, Richard wrote: > What you're calling the display controller I was lumping into the PPU. > > The project ends up being the same scope -- you need to drive the > display and there's not much in the display itself. Yup, the 6612 display controller occupied an entire chassis (chassis 12) in the 6600. It basically provided character generation and positioning control for the DD60. At first blush, the DD60 interface looks to be the same as that of your unit. I couldn't find a logic diagram for the 6612 (or 6602) on bitsavers, but I did find the programming reference manual, which might provide some hints: */pdf/cdc/cyber/peripheralCtlr/60333900B_6602_6612_Console_Display_Sep 74.pdf * = insert your favorite bitsavers mirror. --Chuck ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I scrapped a CDC display controller many years ago and probably still have some cards out of it (made a nice solid desk as well); doesn't quite look like the picture although the keyboard sure looks familiar. Had a large diode matrix 'PROM' PCB IIRC. I'll check the model number when I'm back home again in case there's anything useful. mike

15 years, 8 months

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