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

Query as to Frieden calculator value

by jkjamestown＠verizon.net

I don't have any information on the value of the SBT10. However, I am interested on buying one. John Hornung

16 years, 8 months

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cctalk Digest, Vol 75, Issue 8

by feldman.r＠comcast.net

Message: 2 Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 20:10:34 +0000 (GMT) From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Subject: Re: A few classic computer photos To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Message-ID: <m1N5mBh-000J3lC at p850ug1> Content-Type: text/plain > > > > > > I haev quite a collection of sub-miniature Minoltas already :-). And I > > have one Minox, which is a beautiful piece of engineering. Alas a ? > > Tessina > > is way out of my price range... > > Pentax 110's and Exakta's are my favorites. I wouldnm't call the former a 'favourite', although I have 3 or 4 of them with an assortment of lenses, flash, motordrive, etc. It's certainly an interesting camera, although too much electronics (and no manual override) for my taste. But Exaktas I love. I generally describe them as the 'Citroen DS of 35mm cameras' (if I ever learn to drive, a DS is top of my list of desirable vehicles...). The Exakta is totally unconentional. Every control is where you don't expect it. But then it has shutter speeds from 1/500 (or 1/1000 on later models) to 12 _seconds_. A film cutting knife (and you can run cassette-to-cassette) so you can cut off an process part of the film. Interchangeable viewfinders (I must repair the metering prism I have for mine -- alas the meter coil itself is open-circuit). And so on. Among the 35mm Exactas around me at the moment is a VP exacta taking 127 roll film (6*4,5 cm frame). Yes, I like them... -tony ------------------------------ Tony, You might like looking at? http://captjack.exaktaphile.com/ ?. My second camera was an Exakta VXIIa, and I have owned and used several Exaktas. I now have a very early Olympus OM1 (made shortly after Leitz forced Olympus to change the name from M1 to OM1). ----------------------------- Message: 4 Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 20:32:05 +0000 (GMT) From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Subject: Re: A few classic computer photos To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Message-ID: <m1N5mWW-000J3rC at p850ug1> Content-Type: text/plain <snip> > >> Too true. There are a lot of Olympus OM4s that are starting to suffer > >> from ciruitry failure (read: metering and shutter times go badly out of > > > > I seem to remeebr you should stick to odd-numbered OM's ?as they're > > mechanical. > > So that'll be the OM-1 series then, but they weren't pure-mechanical.The OM1 and OM3 IIRC. > aperture priority metering still needs 2x SR44 coin cells to run. > Also, the motor drive (if you have one) needs 4x AAs. True. But those functions aren't _essential_ to take photographs (unlike shutter timing). > > Full-mechanical? A Minox maybe? Or probably a Stereo Realist (which has > been mentioned elsethread). <snip> well not include any active devices). -tony ----------------------------- ?As I wrote to Zane off-list, the OM1 takes one?PX625. You can't get these now, but you can use a Zinc-Air 675. You just need to put a fat o-ring around it to get the correct diameter to fit the battery compartment. Bob

16 years, 8 months

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Origins of Internet, old Physics Today article

by mtapley＠swri.edu

All, Catching up on my old magazine stack yesterday, I came across what looked like a good article in Physics Today (Nov. 1998, Vol. 51 No. 11) entitled "The World Wide Web and High-Energy Physics". It described the steps leading to the evolution of HTTP, HTML, and the adoption of those protocols at CERN and elsewhere. Nice photos of Tim Berners-Lee sitting in front of a NeXTStep screen, and *the* Cube that ran the original server. The article appears to be on-line at: http://www.physicstoday.org/archive.html (click on 1998, select the Nov. issue with the icebreaker on the cover, look in "articles". I have to admit though, my Safari 4.0.3 and Firefox 3.5.1, both on Mac OS 10.4.11, fail to display the article .pdf they think they are serving. Did anyone else note this article, and can comment on its accuracy? Does anyone want/need more info? -- - Mark 210-379-4635 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Large Asteroids headed toward planets inhabited by beings that don't have technology adequate to stop them: Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward.

16 years, 8 months

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Junkyard Cray

by wdonzelli＠gmail.com

I saw some Cray debris in my latest electronics junkyard - the three section power supply seat for an X-MP/24. Yes, X-MP. They came in with a load from Canada, and the odd thing was they clearly had been junked recently, as the conductive schmutz on the busbars was still sticky, yet not full of an accumulation of crap from being exposed for year. I am sicking the owner on the rest of the machine, but it is very likely to have been cut up by now. Still, any Cray owners need a few spare power units? -- Will

16 years, 8 months

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VT420 Needs Home - Boston, MA area

by jtp＠chinalake.com

Just found an amber VT420 in my storage. Powers up fine, excellent condition, MMJ cable. Needs a home. Metro west Boston, happy to hold for a while. -Jim, jtp at chinalake.com

16 years, 8 months

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Looking for LED display of a HP33E or HP34 or similar

by joachim.thiemann＠gmail.com

Hello, due to my playing around with the LED display from a busted HP34C (see my projects page, from my .sig) I got contacted by someone with a HP33E that needed a new LED display - his was faulty, so I agreed to send him my display - in fact I sent him the entire HP34C, given that there might be more bits useful to his restoration efforts. Long story short, due to my naivet?, the calculator got lost in the mail, so it appears. I _never_ lost anything in the mail, it wasn't a get-there-or-else kind of package, so I figured I save a few bucks and send it as regular small parcel - no tracking number. Well, live and learn, as they say. I guess with international shipments, bad things can still happen. So, is there anyone on the list who has a display for that type of HP calculator (I think they got used in several of the 3x series)? It should look like this: http://www.ece.mcgill.ca/~jthiem/project-files/HPLED/HP%20LED%20display%20u… I'm hoping _someone_ has one hidden away somewhere that wont power up due to failure other than the display... Joe. -- Joachim Thiemann :: http://www.tsp.ece.mcgill.ca/~jthiem

16 years, 8 months

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Origins of Internet, old Physics Today article

by mtapley＠swri.edu

At 18:04 -0600 11/3/09, Keith M wrote: > >How about here? > >http://www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/slacpubs/7750/slac-pub-7815.pdf > >This looks to be the same one. > >Forget the $23. > >Keith > That is essentially the same article. Minor editorial/wording changes and the final page was split off into a "box" in the magazine, but same content and same illustrations. Yeah, for $23, Physics Today can keep the editorial modifications :-). Thanks, Kevin! Now that I know everyone has access to it, I can recycle my paper copy. At 18:04 -0600 11/3/09, Rich Alderson wrote: >So not the origins of the Internet, most likely, but rather of the World >Wide Waste^H^H^H^Heb? Rich is right, I misphrased the subject line. -- - Mark 210-379-4635 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Large Asteroids headed toward planets inhabited by beings that don't have technology adequate to stop them: Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward.

16 years, 8 months

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Speaking of VAX memory... MSV11PK->MSV11PL?

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

Hi, All, Today's threads about maxing out VAX4000s reminds me that I've been meaning to ask if anyone has fully stuffed a 512KB MSV11-PK and turned it into a 1MB MSV11-PL? I have the requisite handbooks and know how to strap the cards and such, but having in the past upgraded DEC memory cards, I remember the "joy" of sucking out hundreds of holes and looking for cold joints when the card didn't work the first time I tried it (eventually, I did get it to work). I just haven't done it with a card that's more than a dumb block of RAM (the MSV11-P series has a CSR for querying parity status, among other things). Abstractly, I expect it's a matter of cleaning the solder out of the pins, installing a lot of 4164s (the card supports 4116s or 4164s), then changing a strap or two for the extra fields. I'm just wondering if anyone has done this and found and surprises. I'd love to just have a pile of 4MB Qbus memory lying around so I didn't have to fuss with things (for those that don't know DEC equipment, 4MB fills the memory space on a 22-bit Qbus (no PMI) machine), but I think I have exactly one card that large and it lives in a MicroVAX I. Thanks for any tips or warnings, -ethan P.S. - someday, I may try the same with an M8417 to turn an MSC8AA (16K) into an MSC8DJ (128K) by removing the 4K DRAMs and fully-populating the card with 4116s. The sheer number of solder joints to get right has held me back on that one.

16 years, 8 months

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Talking to a VAX4000/300

by jplist2008＠kiwigeek.com

Greetings all; I picked up a VAX4000 last week and have been trying to get talking with it. I found a general VAX4000 series guide which says the terminal settings should be 8N1 and I've got the speed right between the dial on the front of the VAX module and the VT240 I'm using. I get partial data, with ?s scattered all over the place. Frequently it loses carriage returns and things get stuck scrolling off the side of the screen. What am I missing here? Is it not 8N1? I've tried flipping it around to 7N1, 7E1, etc, but usually that just results in absolute gibberish, the 8N1 provides the best signal-to-noise ratio. I'd appreciate any thoughts given. Elsewise, I'm pretty pumped. I have another 4000/300, but it has a bad PSU. I figured I'd put the two together to get the nicest working machine, store the spare PCBs and dump the chassis (anyone want an empty 4000/300?). The unit is complaining about some memory errors (came with four memory boards), but with all the crap coming up on the screen, I'm not entirely positive what it's complaining about since I can only read a partial output... Thanks again; - JP

16 years, 8 months

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Panasonic JA751 8" drive question

by snhirsch＠gmail.com

I just purchased one of these on ebay, but am unable to find even a shred of documentation on the web. It's equipped with a "PC" style 4-pin Molex connector for power, unlike the more usual 6-pin square connector used by all my other 8" drives. What I'd like to confirm is whether this unit can actually run on 12VDC. It does not seem to work correctly with 12V applied, which could suggest either that it requires 24V or is defective. Before I let the magic smoke out of it, does anyone know the proper voltages for this drive? Steve --

16 years, 8 months

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386 upgrade boards for IBM 5160s

by brianlanning＠gmail.com

I have a chance to buy an IBM 5160 (pc-xt) with I believe an original CGA (iirc) monitor. The interesting thing is that he seller claims it has a 386-16 upgrade board. What do we know about these? How much would that upgrade board be worth? I'm trying to figure out if his price is fair. brian

16 years, 8 months

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some computing nostalgia

by hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca

If you like your computing nostalgia with a little sardonic humour: http://www.lileks.com/institute/compupromo/index.html (If you are of the right age and disposition you can waste a good portion of your life on the rest of the site: http://www.lileks.com/institute/ )

16 years, 8 months

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Why I never saw my own posts!

by snhirsch＠gmail.com

Thanks to help from the list admin, I have figured out why I stopped seeing my own posts to the list! Seems that gmail, in the their infinite wisdom, decided that it would be best for me if my own messages were shunted directly to 'archive' and never appear in the incoming folder. There is no control or option that I can find to turn this "feature" off. Subsequently, I've had to change my list subscription to use my ISP's mail service and all is well again. Talk about obnoxious! I'm starting to wonder if gmail isn't more trouble than it's worth. On the good side: It's free and their spam filtering is very effective. On the bad side: They silently drop most binary attachments, both coming and going, with no consistent policy involved that I've been able to determine. And now, this. Steve --

16 years, 8 months

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Early WD Controller and/or chip specs

by thomas.gardner＠sbcglobal.net

Any one have copies of the WD controller specifications for the PC/AT?? It would be a WD1003 model probably the ?WAH version but any version would be appreciated. The following is a list of some known versions WD1002A-WX1: Half-slot PC XT, PC AT compatible Winchester controller (MFM). WD1002-27X: RLL 2,7 half-slot PC XT, PC AT compatible Winchester controller. WD1002A-27X: Half-slot PC XT compatible Winchester controller. RLL, SMT, no jumper selection required. WD1003-WAH: Winchester controller with PC AT compatible interface. RLL 2,7 version available (-RAH). WD1003S-WAH: Surface mount technology version of WD1003-WAH. RLL 2,7 version available (-RAH). WD1003-WA2: Winchester and floppy controller board with PC AT interface. RLL 2,7 version available (-RA2). WD1003A-WA2: PC XT form factor version of WD1003-WA2. RLL 2,7 version available (-RA2). The corresponding WD AT interface chips are probably the WD11C00C-22 and the WD12C00A-22 -? copies of their specs would also be appreciated.? I happen to have the WD11C00C-17 spec, which is the XT version. Tom

16 years, 8 months

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Early WD Controller and/or chip specs

by thomas.gardner＠sbcglobal.net

On Mon, 02 Nov 2009 at 16:18:22 Chuck Guzis wrote: > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Subject: Re: Early WD Controller and/or chip specs > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Message-ID: <4AEF064E.17548.1A2E6A5 at cclist.sydex.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > On 2 Nov 2009 at 14:48, Tom Gardner wrote: > > > Any one have copies of the WD controller specifications for the > > PC/AT?? It would be a WD1003 model probably the -WAH version but any > > version would be appreciated. The following is a list of some known > > versions > > Tom, I'm not certain what you're looking for, but I've got the 25-30 > page booklets for both the WD1003V-SR1/SR2 and the WD1003V-SM1/SM2, > if that's what you're looking for. The chip lineup is: > > WD42C22 > WD1017 > WD10C22 > WD37C65 (for the floppy versions) > > Also have the databooks for the WD1007 ESDI and a few other > controllers. I have product description sheets for more. > > --Chuck Hi Chuck: I would very much like to get copies of both the SR and SM booklets. If u are willing, can we work out details off line? My email address: t.gardner-AT-computer.org FWIW, the WD1003V is the 1986 version of this line. I'm not sure exactly which model shipped in the first PC/AT other than I am pretty sure it was of the WD1003 family. Tom

16 years, 8 months

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Apple IIgs computers for sale

by billdb＠mac.com

Hi, would you have an Apple A2M6014 Color RGB monitor for sale. Used on the Apple II GS. Have a nice day, Bill B

16 years, 8 months

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Stockholm PDP-10s (was: Kiel PDP-10)

by bqt＠softjar.se

Rich Alderson <RichA at vulcan.com> wrote: >> From: Johnny Billquist >> Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 12:00 PM > >> Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at Update.UU.SE> wrote: > >>> Ps. > >>> Checking the archives, both you and Peter posted the link :D > >>> http://www.classiccmp.org/mailman/htdig/cctalk/2003-July/025598.html >>> http://www.classiccmp.org/mailman/htdig/cctalk/2009-January/267600.html > >> Ah. That first link was really good. There people can see what Peter >> have in storage. Most of it very much possible to get running. So he >> have actually four KI10 systems, as well as two KA10, and a bunch of KL >> and KS. It was more than I thought. > >> Looks like a pretty good collection of all 36-bit machines with PDP-10 >> like architecture. Missing is a PDP-6, as well as a few clones. > > No one has a PDP-6. No one. :-((( Afraid you might be right on that one, Rich. :-( >> The SC30 is actually online on HECnet. :-) > >> .ncp tell sol sho exec > >> Node summary as of 28-OCT-09 19:53:09 > >> Executor node = 59.10 (SOL) > >> Identification = Systems Concepts SF CA USA - SC30M - DN-20 4.0 >> State = On, Active links = 0 > >> I think his TOAD-1 is also running, but it don't seem to be online on >> HECnet right now. > > If I understand it correctly, HECNET is a DECnet network, right? Correct. > In that case, unless Peter or someone else has done the work to make the > Toad-1 speak DECnet, no one's Toad-1, Peter's or any other, will ever be > on HECNET. The management at XKL absolutely forbade the software people > to work on DECnet, for reasons obvious to anyone knowing the company history. Hmm. What would prevent it? After all DECnet already exists for TOPS-20. Did XKL make such big, incompatible changes to T20 after they got it >from DEC? I would definitely not hold it above Peter to fix it if it didn't work for some reason. He has done things like that in the past. The Toad-1 do have a node number allocated on HECnet anyway. .ncp sho nod toad1 Node summary as of 30-OCT-09 18:29:13 Remote Active Next Node State Links Delay Circuit Node 59.30 (TOAD1) 0 30 60.664 (PDXVAX) Johnny

16 years, 8 months

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Kiel PDP 10 and RP02/03 disk drives

by thomas.gardner＠sbcglobal.net

I sort of missed most of the discussion on the Kiel PDP10 but in going thru some of the dialog I came across this quote from one postings: > The Kiel museum/collectors society who were tracking the University's > computing department's "output" for many years saved a complete system > consisting of two KI10 (not sure, but older than KL10) processors, > memory, drum memory, peripheral controllers, and some peripherals. About > 25 racks. And a row of RP02/03 disk drives. And tons of cables and > documentation. That roughly describes what has been kept in basements > over the last years. > ... > They are in touch with the guy who maintained the machine (the guy with > the lamps). He selected about five cabinets and one RP02 disk drive for > the exhibition. The exact minimum of stuff that can be called "pdp10 > system, complete". The rest has been given away to collectors. I > personally saved some stuff (RP drives, RS04 drives, CR10 card reader), > the biggest part went to collectors who have in mind to get the stuff > working again. I worked on the Memorex 660-1 which is the RP02. The RP02 (Memorex) and RP03 (ISS) are really significant early hard disk drives and I would hope the Computer History Museum would be interested in samples of both. Can someone give me some status - where have they gone and are any still available for collecting? If any are available, I can then work with the museum to arrange for collecting them. If they are not available, it would still be great to know where they are for reference and possible future collection. Tom Gardner Los Altos CA USA

16 years, 8 months

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ebay: Q-Bus SCSI adapter

by legalize＠xmission.com

There's a Q-bus SCSI adapter on ebay right now starting at $10. Seems like a good price and these are handy for a VAX system so you can use a CD-ROM. item # 360200821918 -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/> Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>

16 years, 8 months

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Philips LDB 4401 cassette tapes

by ron_becker＠cox.net

Hello, Did you sell all of the LDB 4401 cassettes? If not then please respond with available quanity and price. Ron Becker United States Wichita, KS 67216

16 years, 8 months

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DEC Digital Equipment PDP-11/R20 "Rugged"

by billdeg＠degnanco.com

On Ebay there is a DEC Digital Equipment PDP-11/R20...I may have missed a thread about this, but any info on this? I assume it's just a custom 11/20? Bill

16 years, 8 months

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Options for Installing a TF85 Drive

by arcarlini＠iee.org

Rob Jarratt [robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com] wrote: > I am basing this on a reply I once got on a newsgroup. See > the replies from Ian Miller here: > >http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.vms/browse_thread/thread/3a8893f 7f6c6 >4aab/adb777d3f37ebed?q=jarratt+tk50+tf That's certainly news to me - I've never heard that before. Doesn't mean it's Not got a grain of truth behind it though. The reason given (internally to DEC, by the group responsible for these drives) for not being able to proceed past an inadvertent write (or physical damage) is that the drive is kept constantly synchronised by the stream of data that it reads. Once it loses that synch it no longer knows where it is and cannot recover. The stream of data is then just so much noise. The only recovery possible is at the beginning of a new data stream. Assuming that all of that was true (and, indeed, correctly remembered ...) then once you hit physical damage, the way the drive works will not let you recover data past that point. It's a feature. There may or may not be special firmware, but I've never heard of any. So I'd be willing to believe that a TF drive might handle some issues better than a TZ drive (although I'd prefer to see some corroborating evidence before repeating this meme myself), if you've got a damaged tape I'd be very surprised if either drive makes any difference at all. That's not a reason to avoid a TF85 or TZ85: you never know when you'll need one for some other tape you do want to read. Just don't sped too much! Antonio

16 years, 8 months

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Options for Installing a TF85 Drive

by arcarlini＠iee.org

Rob Jarratt [robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com] wrote: > > If there is anyone near Manchester in the UK with a TF drive > then let me know. The TF drive itself is not that expensive > so I may just get it anyway on the off-chance that a cheaper > FKQSA or DSSI machine turns up. Is it not the case that the TZ85 (SCSI) and TF85 (DSSI) are the same drive, jus twith a different interface? So a TZ85 may be as useful to you in solving your problem. As for solving your problem, a perennial complaint within DEC was "I've somehow started scribbling half-way along a DLT tape but I stopped quickly and I need to get to the half of the data beyond the scribbling". I never saw anyone admit to having one of these problems solved: even when there was a paying customer at the end of a cheque book. The existence of special recovery firmware was firmly denied - and I never saw even a hint that it might exist. So I don't have any reason for believing that a TZ85/TF85 might be any better or worse at reading your data than anything else that can handle your DLT. BTW iirc the TZ86 and TZ87 are (iirc) can read tapes from a TZ85. The TZ87N lost some of the backwards compatibility (to lower costs). Antonio

16 years, 8 months

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Options for Installing a TF85 Drive

by glen.slick＠gmail.com

On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 4:38 PM, Rob Jarratt <robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com> wrote: > I was led to believe that a TF series drive might be able to read past a > problematic part of a tape I have, and a TF85 has come up on eBay. The > problem is that I do not have any DSSI-capable machine and I am not familiar > with DSSI. I have a MicroVAX II and it seems I could use a KFQSA, but they > seem quite expensive. I also have some VAXstation 3100s and MicroVAX 3100s, > which are SCSI. Do I have any other options for installing the TF85? > A KFQSA M7769 isn't very expensive, at least in the US, if you find one at the right time. For example this one went for $25 with bulkhead and terminators: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350264750147 No idea though if that's the best path to start going down in your ultimate goal of reading a problematic tape.

16 years, 8 months

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VAX-11/750 w/o POWER OK indication

by oldcpu＠rogerwilco.org

After a very long time[1], I have gotten very close to having a functioning power supply. I'm still not quite there by the looks of it. With a dummy load of two automobile headlamps (four filaments wired in parallel) for each of the 2.5V and 5V supplies, I now have pretty decent voltages: 2.54v (2.5V supply main output) 5.21v (5V supply main output) 15.31v -15.18v 5.08v (+5VB) -4.98v (-5VB) 12.09v (+12VB) As far as I can tell, after going through the "H7104 Power System Tech Desc" doc, these voltages are good. Even the slightly high 5V line is within the spec'd range of +/- 5% or 4.75v - 5.25v. Still, I don't see a green POWER OK indication on either the power controller or the cabinet's front panel. What I do see on the front panel is a red FAULT and a green (slightly dimmer) RUN indication, but this is probably because no boards are yet in the backplane. There are no lit fault indicators on the power controller itself, which suggests that the voltages are okay. Another list member who saw similar symptoms on his 11/750 apparently found that it was loose contact in the Power Control ribbon cable, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. To test this further, I toggled the 5V supply's test switch to LO and saw the voltage drop to 4.97V, but the POWER OK lamp still didn't light up, so I don't think the problem has to do with the 5V output being too high. I should put my 'scope on it to see if the output is stable. I'll do that, but I'm guessing that it's going to be good, and I don't know if the power controller is sensitive to that anyway. I haven't checked the POWER OK lamps themselves, and I'm guessing that since there are two lamps, one in the power controller and one in the cabinet front panel (and that they are not simply wired in parallel or serially) it's something else. Maybe the bulbs are ganged together, I'd better check the FMPS again. Before I dig into that aspect further, I wanted to check in with the group and see if anything stands out that I've overlooked, or if you guys think I should check something else before the bulbs. Just want to make sure the PS is in order before loading the boards into the backplane. Many thanks. - Jared [1] Rescued this unit two years ago this month. Turned out to have an empty card cage, and a fault in the PS. I finally traced the PS trouble to two of the four power output diodes in the 5V supply (shorted out, replaced all four), and a poorly contacting connector in the 2.5V supply. Over time I have scrounged up a complete boardset so I should have a functioning system Real Soon Now.

16 years, 8 months

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Options for Installing a TF85 Drive

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

I was led to believe that a TF series drive might be able to read past a problematic part of a tape I have, and a TF85 has come up on eBay. The problem is that I do not have any DSSI-capable machine and I am not familiar with DSSI. I have a MicroVAX II and it seems I could use a KFQSA, but they seem quite expensive. I also have some VAXstation 3100s and MicroVAX 3100s, which are SCSI. Do I have any other options for installing the TF85? Thanks Rob

16 years, 8 months

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Stockholm PDP-10s (was: Kiel PDP-10)

by bqt＠softjar.se

Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at Update.UU.SE> wrote: >> > Stacken have had to get rid of most of their stuff, I think, but >> > Peter still has his, and maybe more. > > Did that stuff get thrown out or did it end up with other stacken > members? (Expect for the stuff that went to uppsala this year) I'm afraid most of Stackens stuff is lost forever. :-( There was a little stuff saved in a warehouse somewhere still, if you remember... But we did manage to save a KS-10, and they kept one at KTH. Both should be functional. That's always something. >> > I think I've written about this before, but it seems that either is >> > noone seeing my mails, or noone remembers them, or possible noone >> > wants to believe them. >> > Don't know which... > > Posting a link to his gallery makes it more believable, but I'm sure > that the link has been posted before: > > http://www.stupi.se/Bilder/pdp-10/index.html True. > Ps. > > Checking the archives, both you and Peter posted the link :D > > http://www.classiccmp.org/mailman/htdig/cctalk/2003-July/025598.html > http://www.classiccmp.org/mailman/htdig/cctalk/2009-January/267600.html Ah. That first link was really good. There people can see what Peter have in storage. Most of it very much possible to get running. So he have actually four KI10 systems, as well as two KA10, and a bunch of KL and KS. It was more than I thought. Looks like a pretty good collection of all 36-bit machines with PDP-10 like architecture. Missing is a PDP-6, as well as a few clones. The SC30 is actually online on HECnet. :-) .ncp tell sol sho exec Node summary as of 28-OCT-09 19:53:09 Executor node = 59.10 (SOL) Identification = Systems Concepts SF CA USA - SC30M - DN-20 4.0 State = On, Active links = 0 I think his TOAD-1 is also running, but it don't seem to be online on HECnet right now. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

16 years, 8 months

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Internal company classic computer event

by james＠machineroom.info

Hi all, enough lurking and time to ask a question.... The software company I work for is planning an internal classic computer show as a little light relief near Christmas. We expect a turnout of around 100 people and so far have the following planned: 1) Show as many vinatage systems as possible, ideally working. "vintage" in this context means anything pre-90 as best I can tell but modern rare machine may be shown too. Think ZX81, C64, etc - mostly home machines. I'm personally plannig to show my Transputer collection, though I expect very limited interest :) 2) Have a collection of classic software & games running on emulators "3) retro" music 4) beer and snacks (not vintage) 5) Competitions for high score on classic games and best retro dress! 6) Possibly invite a well known talker or two, depending on how much interest we expect to generate and/or finance. Has anyone helped organise something like this before? is there anything that worked particularly well/failed miserably? This is a small scale fun event and not on the scale of VCF! Many thanks for any advice James

16 years, 8 months

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Stockholm PDP-10s

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

Dwight asks: > Is there more? I don't see why that would have put them off doing DECnet. Decnet has some support in some 80's and early 90's era Cisco products... but it was comparatively poor and incomplete compared to what the competition (especially 3Com) was doing. In my opinion (entirely subjective, no real proof), Cisco support for DECNET and related DEC protocols (e.g. LAT) was purposefully made incomplete or done poorly, so that you'd struggle against it a lot with the glimmer of hope that you might figure it out, but you always feel defeated and sore in the end. 3Com's LAT and DECNET terminal servers were really kick-ass, way better than the overpriced DEC equivalent. LAT really is a pretty spiffy protocol for terminal servers. In the end DECNET Phase V (OSI compatibility) was what killed DECNET. Man, what a mess. I feel sorry for the DEC programmers who labored for what must've been man-millenia putting in every possible OSI bell and whistle when in the end nobody ever wanted any of those bells and whistles! Tim.

16 years, 8 months

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hp laserjet 3 and jetlan interface

by brianlanning＠gmail.com

Does anyone know how to get this working? Much googling has produced a reference to a utility called psadmin that's needed to set the initial ip address for a jetlan card. Vista can't see the printer while snooping the network. Any ideas? brian

16 years, 8 months

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Fwd: sgi

by wdonzelli＠gmail.com

> Aquired an Onyx w/RE2 for the *** already, and have the guts > of an Origin-2000 coming, for me. > > I was offered the stripped cardcage of the graphics part of > a rack Onyx2 - IR I guess? I don't want it. Would you like it? > It's free anyways. Any interest? I can forward stuff to the owner. Located in Providence. -- Will

16 years, 8 months

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Arpanet article on CNN

by evan＠snarc.net

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/29/kleinrock.internet/index.html

16 years, 8 months

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vax - odd thing regarding lego mindstorms.

by cvisors＠gmail.com

Hi All, Just something I noticed the other day. A school that I help with radio stuff (yeah I'm a ham) just got a set of the new lego mindstorm bits and pieces. And I noticed their little serial leads seem to use the same almost RJ-12 style connector with the offset clip. I haven't double checked but it seems that someone else is using the connector that I have a battered version. Take Care and 7 3 ~Ivy -- VK3IVY http://radio.carnagevisors.net

16 years, 8 months

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vax - odd thing regarding lego mindstorms.

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

> Just something I noticed the other day. A school that I help with radio > stuff (yeah I'm a ham) just got a set of the new lego mindstorm bits and > pieces. And I noticed their little serial leads seem to use the same almost > RJ-12 style connector with the offset clip. > I haven't double checked but it seems that someone else is using the > connector that I have a battered version. I think that the Lego plug has the clip offset to the opposite side compared to the DEC MMJ. So similar...yet even more incompatible! Tim.

16 years, 8 months

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Odd list behavior!

by snhirsch＠gmail.com

Is anyone else chronically failing to see their own messages show up on the list? For several months now, I've only been seeing other folks' responses to my messages and never the messages themselves. Sent several notes to Jay West, but never saw a response. If this is expected behavior, can someone advise? Steve --

16 years, 8 months

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Classilla 9.0.4

by spectre＠floodgap.com

For those who are playing with it, Classilla 9.0.4 (a Mozilla-based browser for classic Mac OS systems) is now available. Marginally on topic. www.classilla.org -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- FORTUNE: The moon is in Venus' house. This will make no difference. --------

16 years, 8 months

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TU56 lamp replacement

by djg＠pdp8.net

> I also found this: http://www.pdp8.net/tu56/tu56.shtml > in which Dave G. describes a successful use of the CM2182 (14V, > 80ma) bulb in this application. > I just replaced one of them again last week so I had taken a picture of the indicator disassembled. It is now up at http://www.pdp8online.com/tu56/pics/p1000839.shtml?small If your TU56 -15V input is high you may run this bulb above its rated voltage shortening its life.

16 years, 8 months

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Rescued documentation issues

by hachti＠hachti.de

Hello Al, hello everybody! I assume that physical storage capacity limitations are a well known problem to lots of people on this list. I further assume that many of you know situations where they "take everything", "find everything", "buy everything", "rescue everything", or alike. It starts with some information about <anything interesting> sitting <somewhere> at the cost of <price>. The variables differ greatly. In many cases you will cry out "Cool! Don't throw anything away! I'll take all of it!". Of course, all available bits and pieces are at least worth a look. But... This posting is about the "unwanted documentation" you often get with stuff you acquire. I would like to start a discussion on this as I don't always know what to do with it. A clean concept could probably help me and others to maximize preservation of valuable historic information with respect to use of individual storage capacities. The following are three example cases from my "collection career": 1. Honeywell H316 I bought the H316 from someone in Switzerland, on eBay. It came quite complete, with all docs. And some vague oral information about the former application. And a lot of binders documenting the original system the machine was used in. Everything specially made for the application (controlling flight monitor displays in an airport). Everything in Italian. And no actual piece of it left. Still have them. 2. pdp8/l rescue, a few years ago I found my three pdp8/l computers rusting in a garage, not far from here. They were part of an "Olympia Multiplex-80" system used in a bank (someone added one of my pictures of one of the machines to the wikipedia article about pdp8). There were two Ampex 7 track tape drives. And some interfaces to the rest of the Multiplex-80 system. And documentation for much of it. The tape drives were gone too far, so I threw them away (no, there was no realistic chance to restore them: It would have been a complete rebuild! They consisted of rust, rust, and rust). The controllers were also gone very far. So I kept only some pieces of those. Documentation for the tape drive and the whole system is still there. 3. Some Honeywell This last example is not finished yet. And it is the reason for writing this posting. Yesterday I drove up to Denmark. There I met a guy who had sitting around some Honeywell and associated gear that he did not want anymore. What I got were two Level 6 computers and an Ampex Megastore solid state disk for the H316. One megabyte of core memory... That alone was enough to take the trip. And there are two large boxes with paper. I looked throug them, most of them seems to be Accuray (the guy and stuff came from there) documentation for some kind of industrial control system (paper mill, I've been told). Tons of Accuray X16 software listings. Some original Honeywell stuff. Accuray documentation for Accuray software. And docs for a hard disk (fixed head?) disk drive that doesn't exist anymore. All in all, the paper directly related to the stuff that dropped in is less than 25% of the lot. I currently have all of it. Some sitting here upstairs, some in the car, and some in the staircase (the house door is open, it's getting cold). Documentation belonging to collected hardware or software will always be kept. This doesn't need to be discussed. But the rest.... I call it the "other papers". What the hell should one do with this kind of stuff? The "other papers" fall into one of at least three categories: a) Documents generated in equipment's lifetime, closely related to the actual object they come with. Like Service logs, communication with the manufacturer (offers, invoices etc.), personal notes, memory dumps of something that has been used with the system. b) Documentation for stuff and devices (i.e. products) I don't have (anymore/not yet) c) Documentation for individual applications like a paper mill or the airport information system that don't exist anymore. d) Category a stuff that belongs to stuff that did not came with it and which can safely be assumed to have been scrapped long time ago My current practice is to keep category a documents for historic value. They usually don't take much space and are fun to read. Sometimes useful as well. Category b documents are kept if they belong to something I want to have or where I can imagine that I could get it in the future (examples: pdp8/i, straight-8, Honeywell DDP-516). I don't see a reason to keep category c and d documents. I already threw away some of those when they were simply photocopies of (assumed to be) available or completely boring manuals. And I already feel bad about that... So I am drowning in stuff that I don't really want to keep but something holds me from just discarding it. At one point I thought about bulk-scanning those before discarding. That would save the information - and my space. But I currently cannot afford a scanner that can do the job in hours/days instead of months. Al Kossow is doing a great job with bitsavers. I appreciate the approach to share vintage documentation and software in the way he does. I also added a few bits and docs I rescued and scanned. Most stuff on bitsavers is copyrighted in some way. For much of it, the copyright owner can be assumed as not being interested in enforcing the copyright because the information has lost its market value long time ago - or the company simply doesn't exist anymore. But what about stuff marked as confidential? I've got some Honeywell Level 6 manuals (some of them seem to be on bitsavers already), most of them are marked as confidential. Some of them have written "confidential" on every single page... Is it ok to simply publish that stuff? And what about category c documents? Shouldn't they be silently discarded? That would be the "correct" handling as one cannot be sure if parts of the described system are still somewhere in production use. The circumstances under which those docs go their way to collectors' hands are usually of a more or less obscure and inofficial nature... I like to read your opinions on that. Or proposals. I'd very much appreciate a vital discussion. Best wishes, Philipp

16 years, 8 months

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rackmount furniture

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

Has anyone here tried to disguise a 19-inch rack as some sort of unobtrusive piece of furniture? I'm pondering making a bench or sideboard-like thing to compactly conceal computer equipment. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu

16 years, 8 months

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Good references for ANSI terminal emulation?

by mbbrutman-cctalk＠brutman.com

I'm struggling trying to create an accurate telnet client with ANSI emulation. The basic codes are easy enough and well documented, but there are a lot of obscure codes to do things like 'set terminal mode' to 'vertical editing mode' which I can't find good descriptions for. I can't even figure out if a pure ANSI terminal supports wrapping to the next line when you hit the edge of the screen, or if that is controlled by an escape sequence. To further confuse things, a lot of people lump the DEC terminals in with discussions of ANSI terminals, and although they are close they are not the same. DEC extended a lot of things. I've been googling, reading source code, and experimenting. It's slow and painful. Does anybody have a good reference they would recommend? Thanks, Mike

16 years, 8 months

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Ampex Megastore

by hachti＠hachti.de

Another topic.... I got that Ampex "Megastore 316". It's a ramdisk for the Honeywell H316. Connects via IO but and optionally DMC (kind of data break). Is from the early 80s and contains to times half a megabyte of core memory. Quite a mass... I have some schematics, but not all I would need. Currently it's working a bit - reading only every second word - but that looks good so far. I had to make my own cables. Perhaps I did something wrong...? Played a bit with the controller's microcode. Found no reason why it skis addresses. There must be something wrong with the bus. I have two controllers and two core modules - swapping doesn't change anything.. Does anyone on the list have experience, docs or other information to share? Kind Regards, Philipp :-)

16 years, 8 months

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Kiel PDP-10 [was RE: pdp8/e frontpanel lamps]

by bqt＠softjar.se

Jochen Kunz <jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> wrote: > > On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:55:30 -0000 > "Rod Smallwood" <rodsmallwood at btconnect.com> wrote: > > >> > Are there any DEC 10's running elsewhere? >> > At least a vew years ago the Lule? Academic Computer Society (Computer > Society at Lule? University of Technology) used to have a runable > DECsystem 2065. There was a nice galery featuring many interresting > machines (VAX 8850, Norsk Data, ...). But the website has been WiKified > (puke) and now the galery is gone. > Hmm. As far as I know, LUDD only have/had a DEC-2020. No -2065 around there. But the largest collection of PDP-10 machines in the world for a long time used to be at Stacken, at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden. That, in combination with Peter Lothbergs collection. Stacken have had to get rid of most of their stuff, I think, but Peter still has his, and maybe more. Lots of machines from the US were "exported" to Stacken... I know that Peter still have atleast one KI-10 SMP machine (with alteast two cpus) in storage. And that one is runnable. He have KLs as well, and other stuff. Stacken used to have a KA-10 running, and several KL and KS machines as well. I think I've written about this before, but it seems that either is noone seeing my mails, or noone remembers them, or possible noone wants to believe them. Don't know which... Anyway, not that I think you could get Peter to work on restoring a KI-10 unless you have lots of money, but I bet he'd be able to to it in close to no time, without much help. Heck, I know he modified his KI-10 machines to have some extra instruction needed for his modified version of TOPS-10 back in the 80s. If there is anyone in the world who knows PDP-10 machines, it is Peter. It's just that if you haven't been around for a long time, you probably might not know about him. Johnny

16 years, 8 months

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Model M parts

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

Does anyone here have any spare Model M keys? I'm looking for the right-hand shift key. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

16 years, 8 months

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Menu builder script for MS-DOS?

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

Hi, All, I'm trying to help a friend out with a role-playing game prop, and I have a memory of some tool from a number of years back that can accept a set of scripted menu items and responses and build an MS-DOS BAT script that will "implement" the menu structure. For example - you'd start off with a top level menu with, say, 4 items. Typing 1-4 would take you to one of four sub-menus, etc., until the end "nodes" are reached. The end-nodes could be a launching point for a DOS program (optional), or just a page of informational text. Does this sort of menu generator script ring any bells with anyone? I've googled for three days and have found all sorts of tutorials for how to craft scripted menus (for DOS and UNIX), and I could easily write my own set of menus from scratch in any number of system script languages; the end user in this particular case is not a programmer, so I'm trying to find something that will let him write the informational text for the end-nodes and the menu items to lead to them, but have a tool auto-generate the structure around it. Thanks for any pointers, suggestions or keywords to help my search. -ethan

16 years, 8 months

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Fwd: [merton freegle] Offered: various old XT dev kits sm4

by lproven＠gmail.com

This might be of interest to some folk? Don't mail me, contact the originator directly... I think he's expecting for the stuff to be collected, too... - LP ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: doug at dougneale.co.uk <doug at dougneale.co.uk> Date: Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 10:25 AM Subject: [merton freegle] Offered: various old XT dev kits sm4 To: mertonfreegle at yahoogroups.com Definitely an item for the computer whizz/hacker/museum These PC cards fit into the old XT slots, not the newer PCI ones. They are all cards for experimenting with non-pc chips: TMS 34010 TMS 320C30 Novix 4000 ARM chip 68302 (OS9 for windows kit) Inmos 4008 Transputer Inmos Quadputer (with software) Some manuals, but no other software. Regards, Doug Neale ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: ? ?http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mertonfreegle/ <*> Your email settings: ? ?Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: ? ?http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mertonfreegle/join ? ?(Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: ? ?mailto:mertonfreegle-digest at yahoogroups.com ? ?mailto:mertonfreegle-fullfeatured at yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: ? ?mertonfreegle-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: ? ?http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508

16 years, 8 months

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TU56 lamp replacement

by hachti＠hachti.de

Hi folks, I'm currently checking out some TU56 DECTape drives. Stuck motors, burnt electronics, dirt, and other issues usually come my way. And broken indicator lights. Does anybody have experience replacing those bulbs? Originally there are those white plastic blocks that should be replaced as one piece. Nice idea - I have ONE complete replacement and at least 6 to repair. Those blocks are easily opened, fiddling a new lamp inside is easy and no problem. So what I ask you is only for ideas about the right lamps to use. It should look similar to the original lamps (or could be a bit brighter). Some blasphemy to add: If I don't find a quick solution, I'll fit one of the TU56s with crazy colored LEDs. That might be considered a sacrilege by some people, but it's quite reversible and non-destructive. I have LEDs in two RK05 drives, too (They're soldered to their series resistors and plugged in like the original lamps, so everything can be reverted instantly). The read and write indicators are quite more interesting that way (with incandescent lamps you don't even see many accesses!). But at the moment the question is for incandescent lamps. So please share your ideas/experience with me! Best wishes, Philipp :-)

16 years, 8 months

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the FORCE ... :)

by bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca

>> Has anyone here tried to disguise a 19-inch rack as some sort of >> unobtrusive piece of furniture? I'm pondering making a bench or >> sideboard-like thing to compactly conceal computer equipment. >> > > The high-end home theater crowd do things like this. You might want to look > there. Otherwise, I'd just build a piece of furniture around it. Sofa's are a great place to mount things that move. That is not the drive shaking, it is the FORCE from the latest Star Wars movie. > brian > The Dark side of course. :)

16 years, 8 months

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annoying ebay behavior

by brianlanning＠gmail.com

I had a bid on a laser 128 computer, working complete with power supply. It had been listed in the past for too high a price. This time, the pirce was reasonable though so I bid. There was a second one with a matching external floppy also. I was hoping to make an offer on all of it at the end of the auction. Yesterday, the items disappeared. I guess the seller pulled the items. I wish there were a more sane place to trade this stuff. I guess I have just have to wait for somoene to give up another storage facility. lol thanks for putting up with my venting.

16 years, 8 months

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Canon BJC-250 printer problems

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

Hi, I acquired a 2nd-hand Canon BJC-250 printer back in January. It seemed to work fine, as the test page printed* and Windows 2K SP4 auto-detected the printer when it was switched on (which is good because I got a "data error (cyclic redundancy check)" when trying to copy the drivers from floppy disk to my laptop). On closer inspection though, all doesn't appear to be fine. I thought I had a black only cartridge installed (which came with the printer), but it turns out to be a colour one. Now the problem occurs when I print a page with black text. The text is printed with alternating black and green lines, instead of just black. Now I never saw this problem at work when we used the same printer model, but that may have been a black only cartridge. Is this problem a side effect of having a colour cartridge, bubble jet printers, or indicative of a problem with the read head / cartridge? I have very little experience with printers and would appreciate any pointers anyone can offer. I hope it fits withing the 10 year rule... not sure how old the printer model is. *The test page requires no input from the computer, so I ruled out a possible driver issue. Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

16 years, 8 months

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No subject

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

Dan writes: > In the end, having it in a universally available format (PDF for example) > and available on the web would be best. > Can someone explain why "hording" documentation and keeping it private on > a "degradable" media like paper is a better idea? I certainly agree that the extreme of hoarding everything in one place is the worst possible scenario. I don't even think that hoard is necessarily the word most would use; think of Don Maslin's careful archive of every CP/M boot floppy ever, that was by no means a hoard because he shared it, one piece at a time with whoever needed it, but because it was all concentrated in one place it's now gone. Don and I had talked about hosting disk images etc. but we never got it done in general. But I don't think anyone so far has said that they would hoard it that way. Everyone agrees that PDF's for electronic distribution are a real win. Those who are seriously into it also know: 1. Scanning books without lopping off the spine can make for some pretty crappy scans. 2. After you're done, you gotta do something with the remaining paper. 3. In many (most!) cases the paper is already decaying. 4. There's just such a huge quantity of books, and manuals, and printsets, and they've already decayed some, and they're all gonna decay more. Tim.

16 years, 8 months

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