1. I have a need for a DE9 female connector without the metal
housing, something like
(http://www.robotshop.ca/Images/small/en/parallax-basic-stamp-1-serial-adapt…).
I need quite a few of them, so I'd rather not buy DE-9s and rip
off the shielded housing manually. Anyone have ideas?
2. Anyone on list have any experience with MAX 7032A Altera CPLDs?
I'm working on a VIC-20 MIDI interface for a friend in Toronto,
and I'd love to use a small CPLD to make it more cost effective to
produce the MIDI cart. I've found TQFP 7032A units for
$.31/piece, but I've never done CPLD. I want to learn, and
thought if I at least knew someone could help me though the first
few bits (and help with the programming cable, etc., it'd be much
easier.
3. I'm making the journey to Toronto for the World of Commodore 2009
show Dec 5. I'd love to meet list members in the area, and
there'll be some vintage CBM stuff present, if you're into that
sort of machine.
4. Anyone have a source for 28AWG 2 conductor twisted wire?
5. If so, do they make it in 3 conductor?
Those who care about the CBM machines on-list have no doubt heard all of
this, and I don't want to be accused of spamming, but I thought I'd
point out I ran a batch of MOS 6540 adapter PCBs, and I have created a
small FLASH replacement for the 2364 and 23128/23256 DIP ROMs. Some of
those might be of use on other 80's era machines.
Jim
--
Jim Brain, Brain Innovations (X)
brain at jbrain.com
Dabbling in WWW, Embedded Systems, Old CBM computers, and Good Times!
Home: http://www.jbrain.com
I have a 500 series card (don't remember which, I'd have to pull it out and look) with a manual. No cable or software. It was a pull from a batch of 7200's we won at auction years ago.
?
If anyone would like it, make me an offer off-list.
?
Also, I have a couple of 7200's that are available for free, if someone lives in the Philadelphia area and wants to pick one/both up. I also have a 7200 logic board that is a pull from one of the units I upgraded with a 7300 board, if someone wants a spare. I might even have more than one.
?
I also have a Mac 512k Shell with tube and logic board, but nothing else if someone wants that to make a Macquarium out of, or to complete into a working unit.
?
I'm moving in two months, and I'd like to get rid of some excess stuff. But, not to a landfill.
?
Al
>
> Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:44:57 +0000 (GMT)
> From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
> I would really hate it if this list became a mostly old PC (or Mac) list.
> IMHO there are better places to discuss such machines (no, I don't know
> hwere said places are).
The two best places for discussion of old Macs are probably the Low End
Mac (lowendmac.com) lists (includes "Vintage Macs" (68K) and
"1st-PowerMacs" (NuBus PPC)) which are now hosted on Google, and the 68K
Macintosh Liberation Army Forum at 68kmla.net. Applefritter.com is also
nice but does not get as much traffic as 68kmla.net.
This list is probably as good as anywhere these days for Apple Network
Server information, because Cameron K. is here, unless he knows of an
active forum for them. The last one I knew about is long gone.
Not so many years ago the best place for Mac stuff was the comp.sys.mac.*
hierarchy. Sigh. And you could buy and sell stuff in comp.sys.mac.wanted
without paying Ebay fees...
Jeff Walther
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:02:57 -0600
From: "Michael B. Brutman" <mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com>
Subject: Re: Ten Year Rule
Pontus Pihlgren wrote:
>> Well, without the newbs the community will slowly die away. I like to
>> see young people getting interested in what I'm interested in. Let them
>> talk about their "vintage" Pentium and hope they discover the cool stuff
>> in the "Minis and Mainframes" section.
<snip>
>> I'm in both and I also visit http://forums.nekochan.net/ for my daily
>> dose of SGI.
>>
>> Kind regards,
>> Pontus.
>Hi Pontus,
>We need the newbs, and we need to be gentle to them. But newbs can get
>annoying when they just babble endlessly and refuse to do basic
>research. The good news is that we can try to moderate or filter a lot
>of that out.
<snip>
>Regards,
>Mike
---------------------
...and moderators can be annoying when they're patronizing and condescending
and think that people who think P1s are antiques are a "problem" on a forum like
Erik's which is mostly about exactly that, folks helping each other restoring and
modifying their old Intel boxes (but also more esoteric stuff, in case I'm giving the
wrong impression).
Meanwhile, here we can spend a week discussing and reading about arcane
camera stuff, but woe to anyone who might mention Windows 3.1...
And now of course we have to have the tedious "what is vintage" discussion yet
once again... has this been a problem? Have we been overwhelmed with Vista
questions?
Did someone use the word 'anal'...?
m
I have a HM (Hotel Microsystems) Server with an eight slot backplane and
can choose from a
selection of '386' and '486' computer-on-a-board cards that I have. I
also have one 'IBM Blue
Lighting' card. Six of the other slots are filled with Sundance ISA
transputer cards (5 are 20MHz, 8Mb,
1 is 20MHz, 4Mb - I'm still half-looking (not in any real hurry) for 32
1Mbit memory chips to fully populate
the final card).
In their day, they were the system of choice at Cardiff University for a
few years, and they came as
a very small desktop with a three (or was it four?) slot backplane, or as
the server.
The server I have was the 'demonstration' model sent for evaluation. The
side panels are
perspex. It looks really nice with all those full length transputer cards
in there, blinking away.
Doug.
------------------------------
Message: 20
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:50:31 +0000
From: Pete Turnbull <pete at dunnington.plus.com>
Subject: DEC VT100 character generator
To: ClassicCmp <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: <4B0B11B7.4020304 at dunnington.plus.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Several months ago, someone was looking for an image of the 23-018E2
character generator ROM for a VT100. A generous reader has given me an
image, which I've uploaded to my website at
http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/DECROMs/
Better late than never, I hope!
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
------------------------------
Pete,
That matches the rom I typed from the vt100 tech manual datasheet for
MESS. Are you sure someone dumped it from a real chip and didn't just
submit the rom I typed up (which is now floating around the 'net)? The
rom is marked as a 'bad dump' in MESS, because I was almost sure the
typed one is very slightly wrong due to the fact that the sum16 of the
one I typed does not end with "00", which seems to have been standard
DEC practice for roms at the time. Hence I was hoping someone with a
working or scrap vt1xx series board would dump the real thing.
The trouble with most people dumping the original chip seems to be that:
A. it is soldered to the vt1xx board
B. it has uninverted CE (I think...) and a few other pinout oddities
(see schematic on bitsavers)
P.S. the second optional character rom (only selectable if you have an
AVO board installed, or a VT102/VT131 which has AVO builtin), labeled
23-094e2 is also not dumped. This one, fortunately, is socketed on
systems which have it, and I believe has a normal pinout. I think it
contains european characters and formatting/word processing characters.
It might also contain some or all of the technical font used on the
later vt3xx+ systems as shown here: http://vt100.net/charsets/technical.html
P.P.S. the main cpu roms from a vt1xx with the word processing romset
installed are also not dumped. I have no idea what the numbering on
these is though. Two of the CE pins alternate in binary form for the
chips to allow them to be 'self decoding' and inserted in the four
sockets in any order! cute, but makes dumping them a bit harder.
--
Jonathan Gevaryahu
jgevaryahu(@t)hotmail(d0t)com
jzg22(@t)drexel(d0t)edu
>My expeirience is that if you have a drive with a correctly-aligned
>positioner/head assemly, you can remove it as an assembly, and put it
>back in _the same drive_ and it will still be alighed. But if you move
>positioenrs between drives you have to do a realignment.
In my case unfortunately that would not be the case as the best I can find
are two other units in unknown condition from a completely different set of
drives.
>The alignment procedure is not hard if oyu have the alignment pack. You
>also need a 'scope (but just aout any 'scope will do) and a way of moving
>the heads to a particular cylinder and selecting head 0 or head 1. I had
>no prolems using a PDP11 + the appropriate controller for this, just
>togging values int oteh controller registers from the PDP11's font panel.
>If you use a PDP9/e, I think you have to write a trivial program for this.
I can easily get hold of a scope but a calibration pack is a different
story.
>THe disk packs are different between the PDP8 and PDP11 systems. They're
>hard-sectored (by notches in a metal ring on the disk hub), PDP11 packs
>are 12-sectory, PDP8 packs are 16 sector. The former are _much_ easier to
>find.
I think if I could find the rest of the system I might also find the packs
as well. Since this was a local and very little known recycling job only a
few businesses in town and university staff drop stuff off. I really wish I
knew dropped this off but alas, no records are kept on who drops off what.
My best bet is either the hospital or it came from someplace in the
university. Where exactly I have no idea.
On 11/24/09, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 24 Nov 2009, Kirn Gill wrote:
>> I was thinking recently, and I know that the general threshold for
>> discussion on this list is ten years, but is that enough?
Guideline, not threshold. There are countless exceptions on both sides.
>> As it stands, given the rule of a minimum of ten years, most early
>> Pentium III PeeCees are listworthy for discussion.
Guideline, not threshold.
>> In just two more years time, the world's most popular computer operating
>> system (as of the time of this email's writing) would be perfectly valid
>> to discuss, even as "on-topic". 2001 to 2011 is ten years, isn't it?
>
> NEVER!
> There are better places for THAT discussion.
Indeed.
The results of one of the many recurrent discussions of "The 10 Year
Rule" is that it really comes down to "interesting machines are in,
mainstream machines are out". The list of what falls in and what is
still out, changes from year to year, but a rule of thumb is that
there are plenty of places to go to ask for help fixing your Windows
PC, and this is not the place for it.
At one time, when MS-DOS was still in common use all over the planet,
this was not the place to talk about those sorts of machines. I would
suggest that now, DOS knowledge has become esoteric (the slide
starting with the release of Windows 95, one could argue), and that
discussion of boxes running MS-DOS could be on-topic. I would still
suggest that Windows 98 and newer are quite off-topic and will be for
a large number of years into the future (meaning
greater-than-the-quantity-10). Windows 95 is kinda on the fence to me
since there's a disconnect with Win98-and-later. Practically
speaking, if you are fiddling with Windows 95 at this point, it's
because you want to experience how things were 14 years ago. Windows
98, though, I would argue, is new enough that it's still a "modern"
experience.
If you wanted to discuss the Pentium FDIV bug and which chips were
affected, I'd think that was on-topic. If you wanted to discuss what
Windows drivers are needed for that very same machine, I'd say that's
off-topic. Same hardware, different sides of the line. "Ten Years"
isn't (and hasn't been for a while) the be-all-end-all criterion.
-ethan
Hi folks,
there are some Siemens items in Kiel. Free for pickup. Will go to scrap if nobody wants them.
The first two pictures:
http://pdp8.hachti.de/gallery/endangered_stuff
There's also a big printer (one TON!!) in another room. That unit's future will be the scrapyard as
well if nobody is interested in it.
Best wishes,
Philipp
--
http://www.hachti.de
>Maybe someone with a spare drive that could be dismantled and someone
>who could create the specific hardware to write analogically the pack,
>could create a machine for creating alignment packs?! :o)
>
> It was done before with 5 1/4 disk drives... :oD
Hmm, I was under the impression that the alignment packs had everything
hard-coded as to ensure the alignment went okay.
John.
Hi Everyone. I have no idea what these things are called. They show up on
ebay all the time and look like entire 486 machines on a full-length 16-bit
isa card. I'm assuming these are designed to be plugged into a passive back
plane.
I've always wanted to tinker with a computer of this design, but I haven't
had any exposure to them. Is there anything I should look for or avoid
before trying to buy one of these boards? Thanks.
brian
Hi all,
First post here. Long story short, I recently rescued a friend of mine's
Commodore equipment after he'd suffered a fire in his apartment. None of
it caught on fire but some copped a direct hit from a fire hose and was
sitting there for 4 days while I went through the bureaucracy of gaining
access to the place (he's in hospital at the moment but will recover, for
the record).
While this gear isn't particularly uncommon (although the Amiga stuff
might be quite expensive to replace), I'd like to rescue it for him even
if it's just for morale purposes.
Anyway, rusty RF shields have leaked rusty water all over the PCBs and I
really don't know how to deal with it. So far, I've used dry cotton
buds/q-tips to clean off anything visible, but I'd like to know what
people recommend for cleaning the boards properly.
I was thinking isopropyl alcohol - I've previously used it for leaked
caps, but I'm all out right now. Is methylated spirits a bad
substitution?
Speaking of leaked caps, it looks like the water has caused a lot of caps
to leak as well - I've never seen leaking caps in the act, it's always
been dry "after the event" type damage. If there's anything worth noting
about this, that'd be great to know too.
Thanks for any advice!
Cheers,
Dave.
>If the head/voice coil assemblies have been removed you'll have to go
>through the entire alignment procedure which requires a special
>alignment pack. You'll also want to make sure that all of the dreaded
>"DEC foam" has been removed and replaced or you're heads and packs
>won't last long. You'll also want to look at the filters and make
>sure they're in good shape and replace them (if you can find them).
>However, bad filters will also kill the heads and packs.
>
>If the head/voice coil assemblies have been removed how do you know
>that the drives are working?
I noticed that foam almost immediately, I cleaned up the majority but I'll
probably go over the thing with a scraper and the air compressor. I got the
same nasty foam in my SGI Crimson.
Well at the very least the drive powers up with no nasty smells or noises or
the fault lamp and I can get the spindle motor to spin up
>They're one of the standard DEC lamps. I don't recall off the top of
>my head what the equivalent lamp # is but they (or a reasonable
>facsimile) are readily available.
Awesome, that might be a bit better as well.
>For an omnibus PDP-8 you need an RK-8E controller that goes in the
>omnibus chassis. The "hard" part is finding the cable that goes from
>the RK-8E and the drive. For a PDP-11 (unibus) you need an RK-11D
>controller. It is actually a 4 board set in it's own backplane that
>goes in the CPU chassis. There is also an RK-11C for unibus but that
>controller is of the "old style" that has 40 or so flip chips in a
>rack width backplane and is mounted outside of the CPU chassis in a
>rack (requires a separate power supply) that connects to the CPU with
>unibus cables.
Hmm, that might be a bit of a problem as I never see spare flip chips or
anything unless they are on ebay for funky prices.
>If you're not looking for a "blinken" lights machine, you're best bet
>would probably be an 11/34 system. I have several that are "spares"
>but right now I'm swamped and haven't been able to spend any time on
>classic computer stuff.
>
>TTFN - Guy
Well right now I'll go for pretty much anything. I guess a 34 or similar is
a good starter system and on some distant day I'll switch to say an 8/e.
John
Hi guys,
Before I start writing a data decoder of my own (for the disc
analyser), I'd rather like to at least make sure the hardware is
spitting out sane data. Does anyone know of a tool along the lines of
cw2dmk that can accept timing-data input from a file instead of using
(e.g.) a Catweasel?
I was going to do the hardware tests with cw2dmk, but I don't fancy
my chances at figuring out how the ~2500 lines of code fits together,
and how to patch in read-from-file support...
(Apologies if cw2dmk actually /can/ do this; the manpage explains how
to change the output file name, Catweasel port and such, but not how to
make cw2dmk read transition timing data from a file)
Thanks,
--
Phil.
classiccmp at philpem.me.uk
http://www.philpem.me.uk/
Hi at all,
it past much time during i collected all useful info on this my old board
putting all on my website http://elazzerini.interfree.it
<http://elazzerini.interfree.it/>
I hope to can make my board alive soon. A friend given to me all its 32 x
4116 DRAM chips after to have checked all of them.
I buyed on ebay the SWP Double side double density adapter
http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Foto560.jpg and i here to ask: is there
anyone who could indicate where or how to gain the firmware for the bigboard
1 to can make this adapter working or just to gain its 27 original manual?
Thanks for any kind of useful suggestion and please sorry for my not perfect
English.
Enrico Lazzerini - Pisa - Italy
I managed to locate two nicely working RK05J drives (though the voice
coil/head assemblies were removed but I'm trying to get two more from
another guy but damn, those things apparently weigh 80 pounds alone! Think
of the shipping costs! D:) and now I'm really intent on finding either a
PDP-8 or PDP-11 Omnibus system I can run them with. I have been trying my
local Craigslist (as well as others but the listings kept on getting
flagged) but it's a ghost town and I got leads at a place called FreeGeek in
Vancouver but they have never seen a PDP come in through their doors, ever.
I'm running out of places to search and ideas on how to bring my searching
for a PDP to the attention of people who have systems they no longer need or
are willing to part with theirs. I saw alt.sys.pdp8 and alt.sys.pdp11 but
they are both rather empty so I don't know if a yell for help would be heard
there. Any help or offers would be appreciated very much.
Also, most of the bulbs on the front panels of the drives have burnt out.
Are these just regular 12v bulbs? I saw someone replaced the lights in their
drives with LEDs and that would be a bit nicer as LEDs would never have to
be replaced again.
Also, I received only the drives. I saw several flip chips in the thing and
a single empty slot. I'm assuming that the flip chips are the controller and
the empty slot contained a board which gave you a ribbon cable connection to
the omnibus backplane in the PDP or are the chips in the drives "fridge
logic" and I'm missing the controllers?
Thanks.
Hi guys,
I'm just putting the finishing touches on my disc reader hardware. At
this point the disc stepping works (under the control of the FPGA -- you
set the step rate and tell it how many steps to move and in which
direction), and I can access the acquisition RAM on the PC (both read
and write).
So the next step before adding the acquisition module is to make the
thing detect start and stop events. Frankly if you're reading formats
that are index-synchronised (read: IBM PC), then it makes more sense to
read index-to-index than it does to read from $HEAD_POSITION to some
other random place on the disc.
Most folks who have been following this project will know that it has
three ways of starting or stopping an acquisition:
- Index Synchronised. Waits for one or more index pulses.
- MFM Synchronised. Waits for a given MFM sync word to pass under
the head.
- HSTMD. Hard Sector Track Mark Detector. Looks for an index pulse
halfway between two other index pulses, then triggers on the index pulse
after that. For example...
I I I I I I ...
| |
X +--trigger here
(X = the track index mark, + = the trigger point)
Each of these trigger modes can be used in conjunction with a
"delayed capture" mode -- basically, it waits for N events before
triggering. That is to say, you can program it to trigger on index
pulses, with a count of (say) 3, and it'll wait for 3 index pulses
before triggering.
This could be useful for any number of things -- reading
hard-sectored discs, waiting for a few rotations before trying to read
the disc, and probably a few other things I haven't thought of yet.
I'll probably have the HSTMD detector wait for a track-mark, then
count index pulses, which would allow single sectors on hard-sectored
discs to be read with very little effort. This seems more useful to me
than just counting track-marks.
The thing is, I have a limited number of bits available in the
registers (and an equally, if not more limited number of registers). So
what I want to know is... how high does the event counter need to go?
Specifically, how many sectors can you actually get on a
hard-sectored disc? I know 10- and 16-sector discs were (are?)
available, but were any larger sizes (e.g. 20 or 30 sectors) ever made?
Thanks,
--
Phil.
classiccmp at philpem.me.uk
http://www.philpem.me.uk/
Today I became the proud owner of:
- Northstar Horizon w/ 2x 5.25" built-in drives + mucho software
Haven't had a chance to pop the cover and inventory the boards.
- Sony SMC-70 w/ 3 boxes of binders and software
A nice little CP/M system with built-in 3.5" diskette drives
- Morrow 8" external hard drive
This looks to be an MFM interface, or at least it has a 34-pin + 20-pin
header on the rear panel. Anyone familiar with it?
And the strangest one of all:
- OSM "Zeus"
I'm told this was a multi-user business computer from the early 80s, but
the person who gave it to me had no documentation or other information on
it.
Oh, and about 40 boxes of 8" SS/SD NOS diskettes still sealed in plastic
and about 10-20 boxes of 8" SS/SD hard-sectored diskettes, most still
sealed. I'm not sure I really need all the diskettes and may offer them
for the price of shipping - stay tuned.
Also, 4-5 large shelf bins full of 8" application master diskettes and the
entire CPM-UG collection.
This will all take a while to go through.
Steve
--
I need to clear some room and would like to give away this system to
anyone who wants to drive to Burlington, VT and pick it up:
- VT-180 main unit in reasonably clean condition (has DEC logo dust cover
and has been covered while in storage.
- Keyboard also with DEC logo cover in pristine physical condition
- (2) Dual 5.25" external floppy drives
- Large box full of system masters, application software and all docs.
- All cables for connection of drives to system unit.
Caveat: I was given this unit about 8 years ago as what was claimed to be
a working system and have never powered it up. Nor am I planning to now.
If not claimed by the end of the year, it's going (with a heavy heart) to
the local electronics recycler.
Steve
--
Quick status update before I go to bed...
The analyser is now reading discs. All the buffer data seems valid, and
the nifty "so simple I can't believe I didn't think of it first"
counter-rollover algorithm proposed by Peter Coghlan seems to work
really nicely too.
I've dumped track zero from a DOS 1.4MB floppy and (after a quick bit of
histogram analysis) it looks like valid MFM data. I'm seeing a big spike
at ~2us, a second, smaller, spike at ~3us, and a third, even smaller
spike at ~4us. The last spike is only just noticeable on a linear graph
scale -- probably due to the large number of 2us "hits" (39,000 in a
90,000 sample acquisition). On a log scale it's a lot more visible.
I haven't tried decoding the data yet, but that's next on the list.
Writing isn't implemented yet (I need to do a partial-rewrite and
redesign of the disc writer state machine) but I'm quite happy with how
this has turned out thus far.
I'd post screenshots, but console apps don't tend to make very
interesting screenshots...
(I'd also cross-post this to VCforum, but I'm too tired to remember my
password)
Cheers,
--
Phil.
classiccmp at philpem.me.uk
http://www.philpem.me.uk/
Quick status update before I go to bed...
The analyser is now reading discs. All the buffer data seems valid, and
the nifty "so simple I can't believe I didn't think of it first"
counter-rollover algorithm proposed by Peter Coghlan seems to work
really nicely too.
I've dumped track zero from a DOS 1.4MB floppy and (after a quick bit of
histogram analysis) it looks like valid MFM data. I'm seeing a big spike
at ~2us, a second, smaller, spike at ~3us, and a third, even smaller
spike at ~4us. The last spike is only just noticeable on a linear graph
scale -- probably due to the large number of 2us "hits" (39,000 in a
90,000 sample acquisition). On a log scale it's a lot more visible.
I haven't tried decoding the data yet, but that's next on the list.
Writing isn't implemented yet (I need to do a partial-rewrite and
redesign of the disc writer state machine) but I'm quite happy with how
this has turned out thus far.
I'd post screenshots, but console apps don't tend to make very
interesting screenshots...
(I'd also cross-post this to VCforum, but I'm too tired to remember my
password)
Cheers,
--
Phil.
philpem at philpem.me.uk
http://www.philpem.me.uk/
On 11/20/09, Brian Lanning <brianlanning at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 10:16 AM, Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote:
>
>> Chuck Peddle told me a couple of months ago that the 6502 was never
>> intended to be a general-purpose microprocessor, it was designed to
>> be a replacement for hard-wired logic.
Well it certainly exceeded those expectations!
>> They had a die size target to hit to get to the price point they wanted
>> and pulled out things they thought were unnecessary for its use in that
>> market.
Interesting way to build it - start with a processor... discard things
until it fits in a few mm^2... profit!
>> In particular, the length of the registers. I had always wondered why they
>> built a microprocessor with an 8 bit stack pointer, when the previous 6800
>> design had 16.
The first two processors I worked with were the 1802 and the 6502. I
do remember the wee stack size was occasionally a problem. It would
have been nice to have been able to at least put it somewhere other
than $0100, but they probably didn't have enough room for spare
transistors to even do that.
As a little-brother to the 6800, it still does a pretty good job. I
remember wishing for 16-bit registers, but in effect, zero-page is a
wad of slow 16-bit registers.
> lol Who needs multiply and divide operations anyway?
When I used to write commercial games, we used to go to great lengths
to calculate screen addresses, etc., with tables and hard-coded
multiple routines (times3, times9, done with shifts and adds) since
brute-force multiple wasn't an option.
> Great info, I never knew that.
Interesting to hear the history on it.
-ethan
Hi folks,
I don't know if it's a fact of certain interest...
I found a DEC M841 Omnibus printer interface with a Fairchild "F 7429DC"
additionally stamped "DEC8881". As I think the DEC8881 is considered one
of the harder to find chips, this could be interesting. I know that many
of the DECxxx ICs are pin compatible to standard 74 TTL or Signetics 82
TTL devices so this could be found out by reading the TI data book as
well. But I've heard of signal quality, speed and other selection issues
making those a DECxxx IC. Perhaps that's a legend? Or at least partially?
Best wishes,
Philipp :-)
p.S.: Here's a picture: http://pdp8.hachti.de?gallery/misc
Hi to all across the pond.
Are there any places/stores of interest to our hobby in
Indianapolis, or is it a bit of a black hole?
I am on a business trip there next week from the UK anything worth
seeing??
Roger
A old issue of Datamation (Nov 1977, I think - its out in the van
right now) had a very short blurb about some upcoming S/360s I have
never heard about - models 58 and 7. The 7 intrigues me, being
described as a machine smaller than the model 20, which would make it
fit somewhere in the minicomputer realm.
I doubt these machines ever saw the light of day - likely never even
left the back of the napkin at the diner in Poughkeepsie.
--
Will
I just bought a 286 bridge board for the amiga. Much fun awaits...
Does anyone know of a stash of 286 to 386 processor upgrades anywhere? I
seem to remember a few companies marketing these.
Also, iirc, there's a daughter card on the bridge board that covers the 286
socket. Any idea what I can use to widen the gap between the daughter
(sandwich) card and the bridge board so that the processor upgrade would
fit? Some short ribbon cables might be all it takes.
I have an ide caching controller, scsi controller, sound blaster board, and
network board ready to plug in. Still need a vga board. I have a 5.25"
floppy floating around somewhere, but i'd like to find one of those 5.25"
and 3.5" floppy combo drives. Imagine the possibilities :-) What I'd
really like to find is one of those isa bus extenders that plug into a
passive back plane in another case. With the external scsi tower, that
would go a long way toward turning my 2000 into amigazilla. :-)
brian
> Message: 3
> Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:19:34 -0500
> From: Bryan Pope <bryan.pope at comcast.net>
> Subject: Re: Cromemco Z-2 and IMSAI 8080 at Purdue
>>
>>
>>> Can we just call Erik's web board the VC Forum?
>>>
>>>
>> <smartass>
>>
>> But then you'll annoy venture capitalists -grin-
>>
>> </smartass>
>>
> Tag dutifully taken! :p
>
> I was hoping the crowd here would automatically know that "VC" mean
> "Vintage Computer" and not venture capitalists or umm..., anything
> else. Outside of here, VC would of course be fair game.
Irrespective of their interests, I think if you mention VC to anyone in the British Commonwealth you'll find they automatically think the abbreviation means Victoria Cross, the highest award for military gallantry. So high that most are awarded posthumously,. Someone with VC after their name gets a lot of respect here.
Roger Holmes.
If anyone here has bought/is going to buy any of the ICT computer tapes from eBay (current item number 380177625923), then I probably have the only machine in the world that can read them. As I already have about 300 of these, I'm not willing to shell out 20 pounds each for them, and they may be blank anyway. However I might be missing out on data that is on them, so if either you would like to know what's on them or don't mind giving me the chance to read them then I would be vary happy to do so.
You might be thinking they are standard 7 track of 9 track tapes. They aren't. They fit the Ampex TM4 drives fitted to the ICT 1300/1301/1302 (and also to the Leo 3 I think) and are ten track devices with (for the computer industry), non standard hubs. The hubs are the audio/video standard hubs, and I suspect some buyers think they are 1/4 inch audio tapes as the vendor does not spell out that they are 1/2 inch (though I questioned this and they are 1/2 inch). I suppose they will make interesting ornaments for the wall. As they've no labels they're probably blank, but who knows, they might contain the holy grail of a copy of the 1302 Executive.
Roger Holmes
Owner of 'Flossie' the worlds last working ICT 1301, delivered to the University of London 1962 for administration, like grading exam results and printing certificates.
Hi, All,
After years of looking, thanks to a tip from this list, I finally have
a VT-78 to play with. I got a complete WPS-78 system except for the
cart - CPU, RX78 floppy enclosure, and DEC-badged Diablo Hytype? II
daisywheel printer and all the cables. So far, everything checks out.
The CPU came with an MR-78 ROM pack on it. For those that might not
know, it's an optional bolt-on firmware box that attaches to a DB25
plug and simulates a high-speed papertape reader. From reviewing the
MR-78 printset (at the end of some of the electronic copies of the
VT-78 printset), it appears that DEC sold it with several sets of
firmware - there's at least a WPS78 load and a diagnostic firmware
load, and possibly one or two more.
Are there any ROM dumps of the MR-78 anywhere? In all my years of
collecting PDP-8 parts and software and docs, I've never seen any, but
I might as well ask. The circuit is utterly trivial to reproduce,
and, of course, the size of modern ROMs would make it a no-brainer to
make an uber-MR-78 with all known versions of the firmware on it, or
with user-definable content as well (the code is stored as 8-bit bytes
simulating a papertape stream (either BIN or RIM (have to check the
"panel ROM code" to see which one) with some functionality removed (no
RUBOUT, no pauses, and such)). Obviously I can dump the one I have,
but it would be interesting to review the contents of the others.
Thanks for any pointers on the MR-78 and its contents.
-ethan
Hi,
I?ve found this thread when googled the web. I?ve got a TEK 4225 also, but
there isn?t any docs anywhere. The graphics functions work fine over serial
line with my MicroVAX. But no more information about the AUI interface and
its setup exists in web. Have you got something else in the meantime?
cheers
Andreas
Hi, All,
I was helping someone in town with some motor issues on their
circa-1980 Bridgeport CNC mill for which they fortunately have many
original docs. I was tremendously surprised to find that there's an
LSI-11 in the heart of the CNC cabinet. The docs have schematics,
register maps, etc., and even instructions for how to use the
Bridgeport punched-tape-loadable diagnostics. Fortunately, this unit
has the optional punched-tape reader. Unfortunately, it has no tapes.
I've done some cursory looking around and little is leaping out at me
(except frequent mentions of folks who have upgraded away from the
original CNC package). I'm wondering if anyone on the list knows
where to pick up images of the diagnostic software for this thing.
Thanks for any tips or hints.
-ethan
A tidbit about Fred Cohen and the First Ever Computer Virus on the
Beeb:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8366703.stm
Except that I'm thinking that "first ever" is an exaggeration.
Perhaps "first ever published for review". Even the name wasn't new
in 1983.
Around 1973, ten years earlier, I recall a CDC Sunnyvale ops emplyee
got into some mischief on the Development Center 6400 running SCOPE
3.4 by writing a rather simple program that made use of two PP calls--
RSJ, to reschedule a job and RPV the "reprieve" service, used to
recover from a job-terminating error, including a normal EOJ.
The net result was that the job filled up the input queue with copies
of itself and any attempt by the operator to kill it would simply
spawn more copies. I seem to remember that the message displayed by
the job was "You have caught a virus" or something similar.
The only way out of the mess was to initiate a non-recovery deadstart
of the system and then sort through jobs submitted for running before
resubmitting them to find the culprit.
I don't recall the name of the employee or what division he worked
for; only that the COMSOURCE people wanted his head on a pike. This
was about the time of one of many layoffs, so the guy may have been a
short-timer anyway and just wanted to fire a parting shot.
Does anyone else have a similar (earlier) story?
--Chuck
The Processor Technology SOL-20 with a semi-working Helios Disk System whose
listing I am start this evening (Thurs, 11/19, at about 10pm EST) on E-Bay
uses 8" 32-sector hard sector diskettes (and comes with two boxes of them).
Wang systems also used these same diskettes, but, oddly, what we call the
"back" of the diskettes was the "front" on Wang systems; they inserted them
into the drive backwards by normal standards. The drive in the Helios is a
Persci drive, just jumpered differently than for soft-sector use.
There is (or was) also a very rare and unusual 32-sector 8" hard sector
diskette where the sector holes were at the outer edge of the diskette
circumference. Not sure who used this, but I know it existed.
I believe that there was also a 16-sector 8" diskette, but I'm not sure.
The number of sectors is related to sector size (Duh !!). In fact, the
Helios, which had hardware variable sector sizes, defaults to using only
every other sector hole and double-size sectors (in other words, I believe
that it effectively has 16 sectors of 256 bytes per track, even though the
diskette has 32 sector holes). By having fewer larger sectors, you
effectively convert the otherwise lost inter-sector gaps into data space and
increase the capacity of the media (this is true for soft sector as well).
In the 5.25" size, I know that there was both 10-sector and 16-sector media.
Heathkit/Zenith and NorthStar both used the 10-sector media.
Subject: Re: Hard-sector discs -- how many sectors?
On Thu, 19 Nov 2009, Philip Pemberton wrote:
>> Specifically, how many sectors can you actually get on a
>> hard-sectored disc? I know 10- and 16-sector discs were (are?)
>> available, but were any larger sizes (e.g. 20 or 30 sectors) ever made?
> Wang sometimes used 32 SPT hard-sectored
> I would NOT dare to claim that any list is exhaustive.
------------------------------
Item # 190348608036
The seller claims this is a vintage computer from 1968.
It's all been de-racked and is shown spread out on a table,
local pickup only in Hudson, MA. There is a console that
appears to have been part of medical instrumentation of
some kind. I don't recognize the manufacturer's label
that is shown, but there is a set of drawings, and the
card cage appears to contain a core stack or two.
Someone local might want to check it out.
Item # 120492284400
These look like raw ceramic substrates similar to those used
for IBM's SLT logic, but they appear to be set up with pads
for larger die. Perhaps MST logic? Anway, the seller claims
they are IBM material from the 1970's. There's a whole tray
of them, as would be used in manufacturing. Could be interesting
for the IBM mainframe collectors.
I would like to build a RGB-VGA converter but I don't know how to design one. If you have a circuit diagram, I would like to obtain it.
I have an old RS6000 320H computer which has RGB 3 BNC with sync on green. It also says "separate". It also says that 1280 * 1048(something like that). The original monitor (IBM 6091-19)has H freq =63.35kHz (something like that), V = 60 Hz.
Could you help me with the circuit?
Thanks
Chungduck Ko
It has been over 10 years since I used VMS, but I seem to remember
that there was a feature available called Symbolic Name List which
is a superset to (and MUCH superior to) the PATH name in DOS.
I no longer have access to the Grey Wall, so I attempted to look in
bitsavers. No luck at all.
Can anyone provide a link to a PDF of the VMS manual which
contains to documentation for SNL in VMS. Also, is this feature
to same in both the VAX and Alpha at this point? If there is a
difference? Which seems to be better? Is there a separate PDF
for the documentation in each case?
Jerome Fine
I have a 3 M data cartridge drive and i can't use it so looking for someone needing one...? Probably from 1980 or so and I have some pictures I can send if interested...
I'm working on a Tomy Tutor tape decoder because, well, no one else is. To
that end, this weekend I managed to crack the encoding and now have a
primitive tape decoder that reads an AIFF audio file and spits out bits for
a higher-level decoder to process. To date I can now see the bit pattern for
the GRAPHIC paintbox, and can even do rudimentary decoding of BASIC programs.
So far so good.
However, playing back that exact uncompressed 44.1kHz 16-bit mono AIFF into
the Tutor doesn't work (before you ask, the Tutor's tape inputs are mono).
The Tutor doesn't see the sync mark, and never loads the "tape." I recorded
this a few times, making sure that all the output got on the audio file,
and no dice. I also played with line levels and varied the output volume
level through all the fine steps the Mac would let me step, and the Tutor
just sits there.
Have people discovered any gotchas in general about using PC audio files
to load and save from tape, besides the obvious ones like don't compress,
etc.? Any suggestions about how to make the Mac's output more acceptable
to the Tutor?
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- Adore, v.: To venerate expectantly. -- Ambrose Bierce ----------------------
Hi! Does anyone know what hardware Motorola originally used to demonstrate
the 6809? I am referring to the hardware Motorola references in the 6809
programming manual. It is the hardware that Motorola wrote their ASSIST09
debug monitor to run on. The reason I am asking is to understand how they
are connecting the output of timer #1 of the MC6840 PTM to the CPU /NMI
line. Specifically, is it directly connected or inverted? Is other logic
involved or further qualifications? Does anyone have schematics available
of the original Motorola 6809 hardware?
The ASSIST09 source code implies a direct connection but that is counter
intuitive to me since the /NMI line is active low and the PTM timer #1 is
active high. The ASSIST09 monitor uses the PTM connected to the /NMI line
for hardware assisted tracing. According to the datasheet for the 6809 and
6840, the /NMI is activated on the negative transition which would be on the
falling edge of the pulse from the PTM timer output if directly connected.
If inverted, it would be on the leading edge of the pulse.
The reason I need this information is I am building an IO mezzanine board
(ACIA, PTM, dual VIAs) for the N8VEM 6809 host processor. The good news is
that I've seen the hardware assisted tracing work using the inverted output
of the timer. However, the IO mezzanine is connected to the 6809 host
processor by ribbon cables which are notorious for causing signal delays and
other problems. As a result, the tracing is unreliable and I would like to
fault isolate. The rest of ASSIST09 seems to be working reliably on my
prototype hardware.
Originally, I presumed Motorola designed the ASSIST09 monitor for the
EXORset system since it was their first 6809 based computer and released
about the same time as the 6809's introduction.
If anyone has familiarity with the original Motorola hardware for the
ASSIST09 debug monitor I would appreciate your help. Thanks in advance and
have a nice day!
Andrew Lynch
I refer to these two functions in the ASSIST09 source code:
**************************************************
* [SWI FUNCTION 8]
* MONITOR ENTRY
* FIREUP THE ASSIST09 MONITOR.
* THE STACK WITH ITS VALUES FOR THE DIRECT PAGE
* REGISTER AND CONDITION CODE FLAGS ARE USED AS IS.
* 1) INITIALIZE CONSOLE I/O
* 2) OPTIONALLY PRINT SIGNON
* 3) INITIALIZE PTM FOR SINGLE STEPPING
* 4) ENTER COMMAND PROCESSOR
* INPUT: A=0 INIT CONSOLE AND PRINT STARTUP MESSAGE
* A#0 OMIT CONSOLE INIT AND STARTUP MESSAGE
*************************************************
SPC 1
SIGNON FCC /ASSIST09/ SIGNON EYE-CATCHER
FCB EOT
SPC 1
ZMONTR STS <RSTACK SAVE FOR BAD STACK RECOVERY
TST 1,S ? INIT CONSOLE AND SEND MSG
BNE ZMONT2 BRANCH IF NOT
JSR [VECTAB+.CION,PCR] READY CONSOLE INPUT
JSR [VECTAB+.COON,PCR] READY CONSOLE OUTPUT
LEAX SIGNON,PCR READY SIGNON EYE-CATCHER
SWI PERFORM
FCB PDATA PRINT STRING
ZMONT2 LDX <VECTAB+.PTM LOAD PTM ADDRESS
BEQ CMD BRANCH IF NOT TO USE A PTM
CLR PTMTM1-PTM,X SET LATCH TO CLEAR RESET
CLR PTMTM1+1-PTM,X AND SET GATE HIGH
LDD #$01A6 SETUP TIMER 1 MODE
STA PTMC2-PTM,X SETUP FOR CONTROL REGISTER1
STB PTMC13-PTM,X SET OUTPUT ENABLED/
* SINGLE SHOT/ DUAL 8 BIT/INTERNAL MODE/OPERATE
CLR PTMC2-PTM,X SET CR2 BACK TO RESET FORM
* FALL INTO COMMAND PROCESSOR
SPC 3
*******************TRACE - TRACE INSTRUCTIONS
******************* . - SINGLE STEP TRACE
CTRACE BSR CDNUM OBTAIN TRACE COUNT
STD <TRACEC STORE COUNT
CDOT LEAS 2,S RID COMMAND RETURN FROM STACK
CTRCE3 LDU [10,S] LOAD OPCODE TO EXECUTE
STU <LASTOP STORE FOR TRACE INTERRUPT
LDU <VECTAB+.PTM LOAD PTM ADDRESS
LDD #$0701 7,1 CYCLES DOWN+CYCLES UP
STD PTMTM1-PTM,U START NMI TIMEOUT
RTI RETURN FOR ONE INSTRUCTION
SPC 3
Can you guys please change the subject of your posts to "Rare minerals" or something.
?
When I see a header that purports to talk about "Non-fake Apple 1 on ebay", I'm kinda hoping the message body actually contains text that the subject refers to...
?
Thanks!
Hi all!
I'm somewhat swamped in old computer gear and thought I should see if
anyone wants to take care of my Norsk Data ND-110/CX. It is a rather
large machine, as can be seen on toresbe's site:
http://folk.uio.no/toresbe/nd/history_files/nd-100.jpg
It comes with a matching terminal with keyboard, just as on the picture.
I have gotten it boot, but it probably needs a bit of love.
So, free for pickup in Uppsala Sweden. If you want it shipped I will
need some "motivation".
If nobody wants it, it will go into longtime storage, this is not a
rescue call.
Cheers,
Pontus.
Hello Eric:
I have been looking for RGB (BNC) to VGA converter. I also found Magenta Research is selling one at $695. I have an old IBM RS6000 computer which used a fixed frequency monitor with BNC RGB input. I would like to connect a modern PC monitor.
Would you think your circuit works for my case? If so, could you send me the circuit?
Thank you
Chungduck Ko
http://classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2009-November/278609.html
Motorola EXORset
Henk Gooijen henk.gooijen at hotmail.com
<mailto:cctalk%40classiccmp.org?Subject=Re%3A%20Motorola%20EXORset&In-Reply-
To=%3CBAY128-DS3AEB02DB68B6D8DA8B2BB86A50%40phx.gbl%3E>
Mon Nov 16 10:04:35 CST 2009
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<http://classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2009-November/278599.html> EXORset
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_____
From: "Andrew Lynch" <lynchaj at yahoo.com
<http://www.classiccmp.org/mailman/listinfo/cctalk> >
Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2009 10:40 PM
To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org
<http://www.classiccmp.org/mailman/listinfo/cctalk> >
Subject: Motorola EXORset
> Hi! Does anyone have the schematics for the Motorola EXORset? If so,
> would
> you please either make a scan or look something up for me?
>
> I would like to know how the MC6840 PTM interfaces with the MC6809 CPU.
>
> Thanks and have a nice day!
>
> Andrew Lynch
It is fairly straight forward, as with all 68xx chips.
The databus goes to ... the databus.
The E clock input connects to the E (sometimes called phi2) of the 6809.
The RSx pins go to address lines, depending on your decoding scheme.
The normal method is RS0 to A0, RS1 to A1 and RS2 to A2.
R/W* goes directly to the R/W* pin of the CPU.
CS0* and CS1 go to address decode logic. The chip is selected when
CS0* = "0" and CS1 = "1".
If you want to use interrupts you must tie the IRQ output of the PTM to
the IRQ input of the CPU. As several peripheral devices can be connected
to the IRQ pin of the CPU, they are all open collector. So somewhere the
IRQ line must have a pull-up resistor.
- Henk.
----- REPLY FOLLOWS -----
Hi Henk! Thanks for the help! What I am trying to do is build an IO
mezzanine board for the N8VEM 6809 host processor board.
I currently have a 6809 host processor board with a 6809 CPU, RAM, ROM, and
a 6821 PIA to 8255 PPI "bus bridge" to the ECB. The device appears on the
ECB as a peripheral to the Z80 "bus controller".
What I am building is an IO mezzanine board for the 6809 host processor
which will plug in on top of the 6809 host processor and provide some IO
devices. Currently, it supports the 6551 ACIA (working), 6840 PTM
(working), and a pair of 6522 VIAs (not installed yet). The ACIA is working
since I can communicate with the 6809 host processor and IO mezzanine board
using my crude monitor (minibug). I've written a small program to make the
output of timer #3 make a square wave so I am pretty sure the PTM is working
as well.
My major goal of the IO mezzanine board project is to be able to run the
Motorola ASSIST09 debug monitor to include the hardware single step mode.
The PTM is interfaced to the CPU in the usual way however, the output of
timer #1 is also connected to the /NMI line of the CPU. I am since the CPU
/NMI is active low and the output of PTM timer #1 is active high (I think),
I am running the signal through an inverter.
That's why I am asking about the Motorola EXORset because I believe the
ASSIST09 was released to support that hardware and I would like to check my
design with it. If you or anyone else has any information on the hardware
ASSIST09 was originally written to run on please let me know.
Thanks in advance and have a nice day!
Andrew Lynch
PS, I just got the ACIA code (sort of) working in the ASSIST09 monitor.
There is still some sort of bug as the input handling is rather screwy but I
can get some things to work.