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

Fujitsi 2444AC 9-track tape drive/PDP-11

by w2hx＠w2hx.com

Hello friends, I recently acquired a NIB 9-track for use in my (someday to be operational) PDP-11/23+ or PDP-11/73 (I've lost track of the details). I got it on ebay for $150 but the shipping from CA to NY was not insubstantial :). The ebay ad showed a well-used unit but when it arrived it was clearly new in box! Nice when that happens :) Some pix: http://w2hx.com/x/VintageComp/Fujitsu-2444AC/ It is VERY heavy! Took me and my 17 year old (and a lot of sweat and swearing) to get it up to the attic where my burgeoning little vintage computing lab is shaping up. I should mention, I'd like this tape drive to be able to work in either the various DEC OS's available (RT-11/RSX/others?) and also Unix/BSD which I plan (hope) to get up and running. Now for some questions. 1. I've been told the QT13 is a very good card to interface here. I've been looking for a while on ebay without luck. I do see a QT14 on ebay right now at a good price, but I am not familiar with the "S" card business and what that means for use in a PDP-11 backplane. 2. Anyone have a QT13 for sale? Or based on my dec and unix interests, is there a better/recommended card? 3. Anyone have the 50 pin cables/connectors available? If not I feel confident I could make these up. But I thought I'd ask in case someone has a set getting in their way 4. Anyone ever make a pertec to USB project? Might be interesting to get access to old tapes on more modern computers? Thanks all! 73 Eugene W2HX

6 years, 11 months

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Service for converting CD-ROMs into ISO files?

by pdp11＠saccade.com

Hi, I have a stack of a few dozen CD-ROM disks with various files (old software, backup files, photos). I'm willing to pay a reasonable rate to have somebody read each of these in, convert them to .ISO files or some other reasonable format, and either make them downloadable or put them on a thumb drive. Does anybody know of such a service? I can find lots of services for converting audio CD's into MP3 files, but nothing that specifically handles data CD-ROMs. Any leads most appreciated. Please reply directly, as I don't often check this list. Thanks, jp

6 years, 11 months

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Hayes Transet Manual and Software

by silent700＠gmail.com

One of my few remaining Holy Grail items, I got a Hayes Transet 1000 this week. My three-part Hayes stack is now complete. I've scanned the manual and quick-ref card. The scan is not up to the quality of my usual work, as I tried a new technique using a DSLR instead of a scanner so I wouldn't have to take the manual apart. The results are good enough to read, but that's about it. I'll re-do it again someday with the proper tools. Here's the link: http://chiclassiccomp.org/docs/index.php?dir=%2Fcomputing/Hayes I have two manuals for the config software (alas only the Mac version of the software itself), which I'll try to do soon. I'll image the Mac disk as well. If anyone has the PC version of the software, I'd love it have it. -j

6 years, 11 months

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Looking for Silent 700 printhead

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

I have two Silent 700 terminals (model 745) that I bought quite a few years ago (nonworking). Couldn't find a schematic. Last week I just happened to search for one - and found a complete service manual with theory of operation and full schematics! So I got them on the workbench. The more worn one wouldn't print anything on the paper but was otherwise working. I found that the nylon printhead pressure adjustment wheel had split and fallen off the solenoid shaft into the case, along with the pressure spring. Then it would print, but I promptly discovered that the printhead has several "dots" missing in a pattern that could not be accounted for by the driver circuitry. I confirmed it by swapping the printhead from the other one, and now it prints perfectly. So at least I have one working now :) The second one in half-duplex mode will only beep (Ctrl-G), CR and LF in half-duplex mode, so I know the keyboard is alive and there is power. But it otherwise won't move the carriage forwards (including space), or print any characters at all. Before I go to the trouble of diagnosis and repair, does anyone have a good printhead, or know where I can find one? No point in fixing it if the characters won't be printing properly when I'm done... thanks Charles

6 years, 11 months

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Old CE manuals

by cctalk＠emailtoilet.com

Still cleaning out for Nevada move. http://www.myimagecollection.com/cemanuals/ Last 2 are interesting. 2075 Processing Unit and some Russian machine EC4001. Number sounds familiar from my eBay sojourns. Available for cost of Media Mail shipping. These buggers are heavy. As last time, all or nothing. Donald

6 years, 11 months

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RS2030 MIPS workstation

by pete＠dunnington.plus.com

Anyone know much about early MIPS workstations? I'm trying to get a MIPS RS2030 to boot, without much luck so far. It goes through the selftest but stops with the internal LED display at "5" accompanied by a continuous beep. Known problems: - The Dallas DS1287 battery is flat; I can hack a 3V lithium onto that. I assume it should still work to some extent even if the contents are lost? - The RAM is highly suspect. I think it needs a minimum of 8MB to start up. It has a good complement of SIPPs, but some of them are definitely non-original and are actually 30-pin SIMMs that somebody has done a rubbish job of soldering short stiff wires onto. So I'd like to know what the RAM spec really is, whether I need to reprogram the Dallas chip (and if so what goes where), and what the diagnostic numbers on the internal LED mean. Anyone? -- Pete Pete Turnbull

6 years, 11 months

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I need some education (PDP)

by sales＠elecplus.com

So I called my buddy of 20+ years. Got old PDP junk left? Like what kinda junk? PDP 8 or 11? Hmm, got PDP 8 boards and BA11 boxes. PDP11 makes no sense, it is a series, 11/70 or what? I know NOTHING about this stuff. I told him slide in boxes with flippy switches. He laughed and said he will send me over a list of all the OLD DEC stuff left in the warehouse. Shipping will be from Calif. Pickup avail, or shipping, for rack stuff. Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

6 years, 11 months

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found in the shelf - Case study of control data corporation 1958-1967 by Steven Arnold Estrin B.S.B

by couryhouse＠aol.com

Found in the shelf in smecc library - Case study of control data corporation 1958-1967 by Steven Arnold Estrin B.S.B ?a master's? thesis -? anyone know? him or this? Ed# at SMECC

6 years, 11 months

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Decrepit old HDD

by sales＠elecplus.com

I have the opportunity to purchase some old 50-pin SCSI, ESDI, MFM, RLL etc. drives. There is no way to test them, and there are no refunds. There are no dents or obvious signs of damage, but that means noting. Is there any way to resurrect these if they are dead/defective? Any interest? Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

6 years, 11 months

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Dallas drive

by sales＠elecplus.com

I plan to go to Dallas next week for a quick run. Things I know are there: IBM XT and AT computers with kbds, no monitors. (3 pallets last I checked) CASES of NIB 360K internal floppy drives (not diskettes) for the original IBM PC Some hdd for the original PCs, new and used Defective IBM monitors (flybacks are no longer made) Parts for 5140 computers, some NIB (no kbds) Original DEC things that have orange flippy switches-WARNING! Smells like dead rats and rat poop. Nasty condition! Looks something like this https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11 Lots of NIB off brand old computers, PCs, like Apex by Compaq Most of the stuff is PC or laptop related Let me know what u want and what u want to pay, I will bring it home and ship. Car will only hold so much. Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

6 years, 11 months

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Q Bus front panel

by aek＠bitsavers.org

I thought about it.. but.. https://www.ebay.com/itm/133019966845

6 years, 11 months

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Honeywell Terminals?

by healyzh＠avanthar.com

Out of curiosity, how common are Honeywell terminals like would have been used on a DPS-8? Zane

6 years, 11 months

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Keyboards added today

by sales＠elecplus.com

Some you might want, since they go to Link terminals. http://www.elecshopper.com/nmb-rt8255c-at-keyboard.html http://www.elecshopper.com/fujitsu-fkb-4700-series-keyboard.html http://www.elecshopper.com/nmb-rt-101-keyboard-complete.html http://www.elecshopper.com/link-t27-keyboard.html http://www.elecshopper.com/macro-mc-27-keyboard.html Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

6 years, 11 months

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Procedure to convert a vax into a stand alone workstation in a LAN

by ce.murillosanchez＠gmail.com

Hello; In my quest to try to see what the problem is with my vs/60, I want to convert it into a networked stand-alone machine, i.e. not use clustering at all.? What is the easiest way to do this? I still want it to do DECnet and TCPIP. Carlos.

6 years, 11 months

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Looking for DEC M8017-AA jumper settings

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Mister PDP > reading through the "DLV11-E and DLV11-F asynchronous line interface > user's manual", the diagrams of the DLV11-E and F do not line up my > module. Oh, must be a later board rev, one that's not covered in EK-DLV11-OP-001. (I should have compared your pic with the manual illustration, sorry.) {Checks} Yes, there is a D rev etch; see page 22-3 of the "Microcomputer Products Handbook" (perhaps the single most useful book for early QBUS stuff - anyone who's working with that stuff should get one - they're not too hard to find on eBait). The layout corresponds with the image of yours. Noel

6 years, 11 months

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Looking for DEC M8017-AA jumper settings

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Mister PDP > I have this DEC M8017-AA / DLV11 module that I am trying to configure > ... the only manuals or resources I can seem to scrounge up are for the > DLV11-E, DLV11-F, and DLV11-J. > If anybody knows what the jumper settings are, or where I can find > them Huh? According to EK-DLV11-OP-001, an M8017 _is_ a DLV11-E? If you need config info for a DLV11 (M7940), it's available in the "LSI-11, PDP-11/03 User's Manual" (EK-LSI11-TM-003), available in BitSavers. Noel

6 years, 11 months

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Looking for DEC M8017-AA jumper settings

by vintagecomputersmn＠gmail.com

Hello, I have this DEC M8017-AA / DLV11 module that I am trying to configure to act as a console. I have been trying to find a manual to tell me what jumpers go where, but the only manuals or resources I can seem to scrounge up are for the DLV11-E, DLV11-F, and DLV11-J. If anybody knows what the jumper settings are, or where I can find them, I would really appreciate it. Here is a image of the board I am trying to configure: https://ibb.co/MS3hphz Thank You, Gavin

6 years, 11 months

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Modern Rack Rails in Classic Racks?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Zane Healy > How safe is it to put modern rack rails (HP) in a classic DEC Rack? May I ask why you're doing that? Are you trying to mount modern units in an old rack? If you're trying to mount old units (RK05's, BA11's, etc) in an old rack, I've been working on finding old slide-mounts; e.g. I know the thing to order for RK05's. Noel

6 years, 11 months

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Q Bus front panel

by couryhouse＠aol.com

THAT IS? NEAT? AL NEVER? SAW THIS? BEFORE....THERE? WAS ALSO A? ?CHASSIS? THAT? DEC MADE? SORT? OF A LAB? COMPUTER TYPE OF THING THAT HAD? A? SWITCH AND LIGHT? FRONT PANEL AT ONE? TIME? FOR Q BUS??? I SEEM TO REMEMBER A? BROCHURE? ?ON IT ... AND IT IS? HERE.... SOMEWHERE. ED# In a message dated 4/29/2019 6:27:23 PM US Mountain Standard Time, aek at bitsavers.orgwrites: I thought about it.. but..https://www.ebay.com/itm/133019966845

6 years, 11 months

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Tek 4010 emulator

by aek＠bitsavers.org

for people not following alt.sys.pdp11 https://alt.sys.pdp11.narkive.com/k2ZKIuuw/pdp-11-programs-for-tektronix-40… https://github.com/rricharz/Tek4010

6 years, 11 months

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Raspberry Pi for vaxen turbochannel

by john＠ziaspace.com

> It occurs to me that the turbochannel slots have 4A each. It would be > entirely possible to print a whole open source board like the raspberry > Pi (or banana Pi, etc) on a turbochannel card and kill two birds with > one stone. I'n not quite sure why people are so interested in killing birds with stones, but perhaps that's a discussion for another time :) I've thought about doing something similar. I use my Raspberry Pis / small computers to do more than just MOP boot, serve NFS, and perhaps NAT or route to the Internet: https://hackaday.io/project/218-speed-up-pkgsrc-on-retrocomputers (it does need to be updated a little) It's not entirely clear whether you're talking about making a board that a Pi (whether Raspberry, Banana, or other compatible) can just plug in, or if you're talking about making a full TURBOchannel board that has a Pi on the board itself ("print a whole open source board"). If the full board, then it would make a lot more sense if it was interfaced directly to TURBOchannel and could present itself as various devices such as mass storage, ethernet and GPIO. Otherwise, why bother with the complexity? My VAXstation 4000/90 has a TURBOchannel adapter. It was not easy to find, nor was it cheap. I'm currently using it for a TC-USB card: https://web.archive.org/web/20170831062121/http://www.flxd.de/tc-usb/ So a Pi on a TURBOchannel card wouldn't be useful for any of my other VAXstation 4000/60 machines (nor VLC). Otherwise, it would make a lot more sense to instead mount a Pi in a 3.5" drive's space and use a Molex drive power connector to power it. One can even get fancy and get a 12 volt to 5 volt regulator to power the Pi. I looked in to the idea of using an ESP8266 in place of the AUI to give older machines wireless, but it seems this is hardly trivial: https://hackaday.com/2015/06/12/retro-edition-the-lan-before-time/ That also dissuaded me from imagining something that could plug in to the AUI port and interface with a Pi or other SBC. The same goes for a modern, inexpenive, small way to interface an SBC with the 10BASE2 ports on older machines. So I can't picture any better way to get ethernet from the back of the machine to a Pi / SBC, internal or otherwise, without an AUI and ethernet cable. How were you thinking of doing that? John

6 years, 11 months

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Excessive amount of time in interrupt stack mode

by john＠ziaspace.com

> The system is mostly idle, RAM is mostly free (there's 32mb), > there is almost no paging, but the CPU is spending upwards of 70% of the > time in the interrupt stack mode. If I had to guess, I'd say the most likely culprit is ethernet. Try disconnecting ethernet, perhaps the AUI, too, and see if it's any different. John

6 years, 11 months

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Greetings

by petermallan＠gmail.com

On 4/28/19 3:55 PM, Ray Jewhurst via cctalk wrote: > I am new to the list and would like to introduce myself. I > am a computer history buff who especially likes DEC machines. > I unfortunately don't own any hardware but I use Simh on a daily > basis. I would like to start off with a question. I see that Bitsavers > has a copy of VMS 1.5 and wanted to know if anyone got it working > with the Vax 780 simulator? > I hope to learn a lot from this group. Hi Ray, about 18 months ago, I did indeed install VMS 1.5 on a simulated (with simh) VAX-11/780. It was not particularly difficult, but it did take a bit more effort than I expected. Here is what I did and the problems that I came across. I am typing this from memory, so I might have mis-remembered the odd fact. The instructions tell you to create a bootable disk from tape using the DSC utility. However, DSC was something that ran in PDP-11 emulation mode on a VAX and was discontinued early enough in the evolution of VMS that it was not present on any of my simulated systems (VMS 4.x, 5.x and 7.3). I needed to build a VMS 3.0 system in order to complete copying the VMS 1.5 tape to disk. If you have a simulated PDP-11 system, you might be able to use that instead. Building the VMS 3.0 system gave me another problem in that I tried using a simulated TE16 (Massbus) tape drive to read the VMS 3.0 installation tape. This should have been fine, but actually I uncovered a bug in simh. Bob Supnik fixed the bug, but you do need to use an up to date version of simh to get the bug fix. If you need to use an old version of simh for some reason, then use a TS (Unibus) tape drive and all should be well. VMS 1.5 is primitive compared with later versions, but does have historical interest. Do let me know if you want any further information about my adventures with VMS 1.5. Cheers Peter Allan

6 years, 11 months

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Unknown 1970 Tapedrive

by jos.dreesen＠greenmail.ch

Was given a tapedrive in rather bad condition, but it has no manufacturers name on it. Pics on ftp://ftp.dreesen.ch/Tapedrive Anyone recognizes this ? The paddle PCB says "paddle board, 7/9 level tape handler." Not even sure if it is a computer tape drive or an instrument / data logger... Yours if you pick it up ( and be prepared to spend quit some time to clean this one up. Unit has seen more this its share of water over the years) Location : CH Jos

6 years, 11 months

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Newest Batch of Items from Sellam's VWoCW Just Posted

by sellam.ismail＠gmail.com

Good Monday Evening (or Tuesday Morning if you are beyond the International Dateline)! Here is the latest batch of computers and boards and peripherals and things that I've carefully curated for your consideration and consumption from my collection: Homebrew Small Form Factor S-100 System Indus GT 5.25" Floppy Drive (Atari) ADPI Easi-Disk 5.25" External Serial Disk Drive Camwil Printwheel - Pica 10 Camwil Printwheel - Elite 12 Diablo Black Cloth Ribbon Diablo HiType-I FIlm Ribbon (6 pack) GP Technologies Printwheel - Titan Legal 10 Xerox Metal Printwheel - Titan Legal 10 Xerox Metal Printwheel - Vintage 12 Toshiba T1950CT Laptop Toshiba T4900CT Laptop Commodore 1311 Joystick (boxed) Microsoft InPort Mouse w/Mouse Interface Articulate Systems Voice Impact Pro Dysan 100 MD2HD 5.25" Floppy Diskettes (10-pack) Curtis Electro Devices PR5200B 32x8 Memory Programmer Asante FriendlyNet Adapter Perkin-Elmer PC AT Single T4 4 Meg Transputer CompuPro CPU 8085/88 CompuPro CPU 8085/88 (incomplete) CompuPro RAM16 CompuPro RAM21 Comrex The S100 TimePiece JVB Electronics Spool-Z-Q 100 MATCO Data Products EPROM Emulator/Programmer Morrow Designs MM256K CompuPro/Viasyn SPUZ 64K Viasyn Interfacer 3A (bare board) Viasyn Interfacer 4 (bare board) Atari XG-1 Light Gun Atari XE Keyboard IBM PCjr Internal Modem IBM PCjr RF Modulator MOS Technology KIM-1 (Rev. A) Commodore KIM-1 (Rev. G) Radio Shack TRS-80 64K Color Computer DEC Celebris FP 590 PC Links to information on these items and more can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1I53wxarLHlNmlPVf_HJ5oMKuab4zrApI_hi… Photos are linked in the descriptions. I will be going back and adding photos for the last couple batches in the near future and will post an update when they are up. As ever, please contact me directly by e-mail via <sellam.ismail at gmail.com> to inquire or make an offer on a particular item. Thank you! Sellam

6 years, 11 months

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Anyone ever attempt repairs on CTI boards for DEC Professionals?

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

Hi, All, In preparing for my VCF-East exhibit, I went through my stack of DEC Pro gear. The good news is I had enough working hardware to get a Pro350 running Venix fully operational. The bad news is that I don't have enough working hardware to have even a second functional Pro. One of my RX50 controllers has a mechanically bunged up CTI ZIF socket. It doesn't look repairable so I'm probably going to have to replace it with a transplant from another board. One of my standard (mono) video cards displays bit garbage on power-up. I haven't found schematics for it yet (bitsavers has schematics for the Pro380 CPU, the RX50 controller, the RX50, the RD50). I could probably pull the RAM and test it outside the board, but beyond that, I'm stabbing at things. I did a lot of googling around and I haven't seen a lot of repair details on these. Not really surprised about that, but I figure it was worth asking if anyone has attempted component-level repair on DEC Professionals. I'm sure there's lots of experience with board swapping - that will definitely solve my problems. Oh... and I happen to be one video controller short anyway. I suppose a partial machine made its way to me at some point. I know my Pro380 used to be a console for our 8530. I was able to rescue the console at least. I probably got the Pro350s sometime in the mid-1990s when people were dumping them. I'm still a bit puzzled why I have *5* 256K memory cards. There's only 6 slots and once you put in the RX50 controller, the RD controller, the video card, and possibly the color bitplane extension card, you've got 2 slots left. One fun bit - I was able to break into the Venix box using the 'guest' account (I guessed there was one) and run John the Ripper on an i7 Linux laptop to crack all the hashes. 10/12 took literally seconds. One password was '82', another was 'Bob'. The root password took a few hours because it was two dictionary words. In the end, though, they all fell. The default root password for Venix is in the manuals ('gnomes'). They at least changed it on this box, but 1984 crypto is no match for 21st Century cracking. I don't see DEC Pro systems talked about much - they were kinda slow and definitely limited in their expansion. For a time, they were a cute packaged PDP-11 system but that CTI bus connector is a royal PITA. I am not shocked there weren't that many peripherals for it, but for a "desktop computer", how many different kinds of interfaces does the average office user need? If anyone happens to be coming to VCF East this weekend and has dead Pro gear, I could use a card to pull a CTI connector from. At least I should be able to get the one RX50 controller going. -ethan

6 years, 11 months

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What do to with an Internet-connected PDP-11?

by rich.cini＠verizon.net

All ? ??????????????? Over the last few months, I?ve built myself a nice little PDP-11/23 with a SCSI interface/drive, extra SLUs and Ethernet. With the help of a few people, I was able to get an Ethernet configuration running, which is kind of cool. It?s been a great learning process getting this up and running. It?s a Q18 system, so memory is limited and I don?t think able to run BSD (I?m running RT-11 right now). So, for playing around, what can I practically do with this? Is it even possible to access any Web sites (unconventional browsing for sure; I?ve read about telnetting to port 80)? I?m sure email is possible, as is FTP/Telnet (I?ve used that inside my lab setup), but I don?t really know where to start with that. ??????????????? If anyone has any pointers/suggestions, I?d appreciate it. ??????????????? Thanks! Rich -- Rich Cini http://www.classiccmp.org/cini http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32

6 years, 11 months

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What do to with an Internet-connected PDP-11?

by rich.cini＠gmail.com

Thanks. That?s how I was able to get on-line (with lots of help from JerryW). Great resource and highly recommended. Get Outlook for iOS<https://aka.ms/o0ukef> ________________________________ From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> on behalf of Brian Roth via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2019 9:51 AM To: Paul Koning via cctalk; Grant Taylor; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: What do to with an Internet-connected PDP-11? I apologize if this has been mentioned. http://shop-pdp.net/rthtml/tcpip.php Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android On Tue, Apr 30, 2019 at 9:25 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On Apr 29, 2019, at 9:05 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > > On 4/29/19 6:47 PM, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: >> I want to say that the OSU webserver for VMS supports running over DECnet, but my memory could be faulty. I?ve only used WASD on VMS. > > I think this sounds like a neat ~> fun thing to do. > > But how does a web server run over DECnet? > > I guess conceptually you can serve web pages across any protocol that can carry HTTP. > > But I guess you could also have a client that ran over DECnet or need a gateway to TCP/IP. Yes. What I meant is that one could take an existing HTTP client and server, or create one, substituting DECnet sockets for the TCP sockets. The protocol would work just fine that way. You'd need to decide how to deal with DECnet packet boundaries, something TCP doesn't have (a major omission). The simplest is to pay no attention to them, which is what I understand Ultrix "streaming DECnet" sockets to do. An alternative would be to make use of them, for example by saying that the entire HTTP header is in one packet and the payload (if any) follows in separate packets. paul

6 years, 11 months

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Excessive amount of time in interrupt stack mode

by ce.murillosanchez＠gmail.com

Dear ccmp'ers: For a while now, I noticed that my vaxstation 4000/60 with OpenVMS 7.2 had become sluggish, but I had not had the time to investigate the problem.?? The system is mostly idle, RAM is mostly free (there's 32mb), there is almost no paging, but the CPU is spending upwards of 70% of the time in the interrupt stack mode.? Currently, I am running it headless because I have not had the time to fix the monitor (it still has the framebuffer inside, but this sluggishness issue was present before with the monitor attached).? I have read that this can be caused by "faulty i/o devices that interrupt the cpu continuously".? What else can be done to locate the source of the problem? Regards, Carlos.

6 years, 11 months

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Nat Semi 16032 info discovered

by elson＠pico-systems.com

Back in 1984 I had cloned a Logical Microcomputer Co. Genix system based on the Nat. Semi. 16032 chip set. I had a dd dump of the distribution on floppies, but that was unreadable. I just found a binder with about an inch of fanfold printouts of all the device drivers, low-level system routines, boot loaders, etc in c source format. These were printed on my Honeywell "big iron" drum printer with a funny character set, so many of the ASCII 96 characters are printed using overprints. Like, { shows as a < overprinted with (. So, it might be tricky to scan and OCR it without training the OCR. Not sure anybody would be interested in it, anyway. Jon

6 years, 11 months

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Sun SS2 SBus memory expansion parts

by cmhanson＠eschatologist.net

I have the 32MB memory expansion card for my SPARCstation 2 (P/N 501-1823) but not the accompanying cable (501-1814) or 32MB mezzanine card (501-1824). Does anyone have either the cable or mezzanine card that they?d be willing to part with for a reasonable price? I?ve only found sellers carrying them for hundreds of dollars recently; I managed to snag the ?1823 from someone who was selling it far more reasonably, probably because they didn?t know what they could get for it. -- Chris

6 years, 11 months

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Greetings

by raywjewhurst＠gmail.com

I am new to the list and would like to introduce myself. I am a computer history buff who especially likes DEC machines. I unfortunately don't own any hardware but I use Simh on a daily basis. I would like to start off with a question. I see that Bitsavers has a copy of VMS 1.5 and wanted to know if anyone got it working with the Vax 780 simulator? I hope to learn a lot from this group. Thanks Ray

6 years, 11 months

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Tandem 6526 information?

by cmhanson＠eschatologist.net

A friend not on the list obtained a Tandem 6526 terminal. In the process of trying to refurbish it, the first 80 bytes of its ROM got trashed. Does anyone happen to have one so she could recover from this? Also, she has no keyboard, and no information about Tandem?s block mode or other protocols (much less the keyboard interface), does anyone know where to find such details or have a manual handy? ? Chris Sent from my iPad

6 years, 11 months

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Modern Rack Rails in Classic Racks?

by healyzh＠avanthar.com

How safe is it to put modern rack rails (HP) in a classic DEC Rack? The DEC racks have small holes, while the new HP racks, IIRC, have big square holes. It looks like the rails will work, they just won?t clip flush. Zane

6 years, 11 months

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Ultrix 3.0 VAX

by dennis.grevenstein＠gmail.com

Hi John, thank you for the idea. I finally managed to boot and install Ultrix 3.0. I prepared a new harddisk image under Ultrix 4.0. I could find /usr/sys/SAS.net/vmunix in the Ultrix 3.0 distribution tapes. This is a standalone kernel that will start the installation process. It can be booted like a normal kernel and can use the 3.0 tape images available from bitsavers. Dennis

6 years, 11 months

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H960 rack on eBay

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

H960 (rack only, really, although it looks like there are two NA11-N/S sheaths as well): https://www.ebay.com/itm/123729450695 Not a bad price; pick-up only though (just as well, considering how much it costs to ship the blasted things). Noel

6 years, 11 months

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NOS HP 7906 disk heads

by aek＠bitsavers.org

If someone needs top heads, this seems to be a decent price https://www.ebay.com/itm/303136246855

6 years, 11 months

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No subject

by couryhouse＠aol.com

Tom -? ?Thanks much for? ?filling in? some of the blanks on the history!? ?Ed# In a message dated 4/23/2019 2:36:37 PM US Mountain Standard Time, t.gardner at computer.org writes: ISS was an independent company in the era (late 60s) of the 714 (IBM 2314 compatible).? It was later acquired by Itel (a leasing company) and then by Univac and sort of disappeared in the 80s. Depending upon your application almost any plug compatible 2314 might work or could be made to work.? The interfaces were very much 2314 like except the PCMs and OEMs didn't use IBMs +/- 1.5v signaling levels on the interface but instead used DTL driver/receiver signaling.? There was also some weirdness in the power sequencing all of which can be worked around if u are up to it. Tom -----Original Message----- From: ED SHARPE [mailto:couryhouse at aol.com] Sent: Monday, April 22, 2019 11:37 AM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org; aek at bitsavers.org Subject: Re: Telex 20 Meg 10 platter very heavy monster drive needed drop line off list..r Thanks? Al? yes, that? is? the? one. and? as? I? recall? ISS? was a? offshoot? on? univac Do? you? have? any? Thanks Ed# In a message dated 4/22/2019 11:34:58 AM US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at classiccmp.org writes: Thanks? Al? yes, that? is? the? one. and? as? I? recall? ISS? was a? offshoot? on? univac?In a message dated 4/22/2019 11:21:50 AM US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at classiccmp.org writes: On 4/22/19 11:05 AM, ED SHARPE wrote:> Al,? the? drive? you mention at? its? largest? was? 7.5 meg? and? 6? platters... not? ? the? one Telex bought their drives from ISS.You're looking for a ISS 714 (ca. 1970) 2314 compat.https://ia800608.us.archive.org/15/items/TNM_Information_Storage_Sys… aek at bitsavers.org;cctalk

6 years, 11 months

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Elliott 5-level code: just in case you have some oddball 5-level paper tapes

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

Immensely happy this morning to have finally tracked this down. This is a 5-level code by Elliott used on many of their computers. It seems to have used standard looking 5-level teletype I/O devices but with custom typewheel and keyboard/function bar encoding. It has 3 things in common with other 5-level codes: 1: Letter shift and Number/Figure shift 2: Null is all zeroes 3: Letter shift is all ones and also works as delete just like the other codes But some interesting properties, different than other 5 level codes: 1: Letter shift has the letters in alphabetic A-Z sequence. 2: In number shift, the lower 4 bits are the digit 0-9, and the upper bit is a parity 3: Figure shift, space, carriage return, and line feed are at the extreme top end of the code space right under letter shift. The code is documented in Figure B.2 of this wonderful document: http://rabbit.eng.miami.edu/oldcomputers/Elliott-400-series.pdf I'm a little surprised that my standard character code references don't mention this. This is a super elegant layout that any of the 1960's character code standard guys must've known about, but somehow it never made it into any of my usual reference books. Maybe MacKenzie was just too dismissive of all 5-bit codes. He mentions ITA2 for a couple pages and then never talks about 5-level codes again, but he never stops talking about BCDIC and he goes on and on about hypothetical 12-row punchcard ASCII. Tim N3QE

6 years, 11 months

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Televideo 925 character rom dump

by guykd＠optusnet.com.au

When I saw this thread I thought 'Oh, I have a 925!' Which was working last time (years ago.) But wouldn't you know. When I checked, it's a Televideo 924. Off by one. But perhaps the character ROM content is the same? Anyway I will see if it still works, and secure all the ROM images. Today. I have the user manuals, but does anyone have schematics for the 925 & 924? Guy At 09:38 AM 23/04/2019 -0700, you wrote: >On Tue, Apr 23, 2019 at 8:25 AM Patrick Finnegan <pat at vax11.net> wrote: > >> On Tue, Apr 23, 2019 at 11:02 AM Jon Elson via cctalk < >> cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: >> >>> Is the ROM totally bad, or just losing a few bits here and >>> there? If the latter, you could probably read it out, figure >>> out how the rows, columns and characters are mapped, and fix it. >>> >> >> Considering that 925s are really common, and a replacement EPROM should be >> easy to source and program, this sounds like an overly difficult approach >> that will yield something different than what he wants. >> > >The thought had crossed my mind, but only as a last resort. I'm not >entirely sure what the internal fault is, but the end result is two rows of >every character have all bits stuck "on." I've verified that the ROM >addressing is correct and that there's nothing on the output side causing >this behavior. Patrick, thanks very much for offering to read the ROM! > >- Josh > > > >> Pat >> >

6 years, 11 months

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TSX-Plus help needed!

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

OK, I have figured out how to modify TSGEN.MAC, use PUTR to make a disk image, load it in SIMH, reassemble, relink, and *finally* send it to an RL02 pack via vtserver! TIme-consuming but doable. I've been wrestling with this all day. BUT - TSX+ 6.50 just will not run. At all. Using RT-11SJ (5.01), after typing "R TSX" I can hear the disc access for a few seconds, a pause, a few more accesses... then nothing. It just hangs. Nothing on the console either., no response to <CR>. When starting it in SIMH (the same disk image), I get the error message ?TSX-F-Computer line clock is not working. Figured that was just a SIMH thing. But the address/vector is correct in TSGEN.MAC... and when checking TIME in RT-11, the seconds advance in real-time like it should. On the real hardware, the error message doesn't display, and the clock is running... My old version of TSX+ is 6.16 and it runs fine on console and SLU 2, just needs rebuilt to use different serial cards than the original system. So where should I start looking first? RT-11 version incompatibility? Any TSX+ experts online? Thanks for any help. This is driving me nuts!

6 years, 11 months

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VTserver problem (bug?)

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

And even more bizarrely... it crawled its way up to the 7400K block, and now it's going at normal speed again! 10MB should be done soon. I have no idea what could be causing this major slowdown from 6.6-7.4 MB. It's not the drive because two different ones do the same thing (and they work perfectly otherwise)... Hopefully I won't have to go through the (edit, reassemble, relink, PUTR transfer to an image, vtserver to the disk) loop too many times, attempting to get my DHV11/16D to function with TSX+ 6.50... I had somehow inserted a couple of characters that didn't belong there while editing (bumped the keyboard maybe?) so I'm on the second pass. Also I found what looks like a typo in the TSGEN.MAC file if anyone's interested.

6 years, 11 months

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VTserver problem (bug?)

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

-----Original Message----- >But there is some kind of bug that always appears at the same point, in the >middle of the next 100K block after "6600K written". >The data transfer stops (no more head motion/ready light flicker on the >RL02), and the character that vtserver uses to indicate a write operation >just repeats endlessly and rapidly until I kill it. More information and a correction: I let it run on, and it is still reading and writing, but at a much slower and intermittent rate than the first 6.6 MB. The filler character is just a time marker of some kind, since I can still see the "r" indicating a read from the .dsk image, and the light on the RL02 flickers after a few of those. So it's slowed way down, but not stopped! Even more mysterious. Anyway, this disk has 13800 blocks out of 20800 used. If RT-11 stores data (including the directory structure) starting from block 0, I may be able to kill the writes after 7 MB. (Unfortunately I think I neglected to squeeze the image before sending it to the RL - and naturally the important TSX files are near the end - which means I have to wait for most of it). If I have to do it again, I'll squeeze and then kill it after 7 MB and see what I got!

6 years, 11 months

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(no subject)

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

>But there is some kind of bug that always appears at the same point, in the >middle of the next 100K block after "6600K written". >The data transfer stops (no more head motion/ready light flicker on the >RL02), and the character that vtserver uses to indicate a write operation >just repeats endlessly and rapidly until I kill it. More information and a correction: I let it run on, and it is still reading and writing, but at a much slower and intermittent rate than the first 6.6 MB. The filler character is just a time marker of some kind, since I can still see the "r" indicating a read from the .dsk image, and the light on the RL02 flickers after a few of those. So it's slowed way down, but not stopped! Even more mysterious. Anyway, this disk has 13800 blocks out of 20800 used. If RT-11 stores data (including the directory structure) starting from block 0, I may be able to kill the writes after 7 MB. (Unfortunately I think I neglected to squeeze the image before sending it to the RL - and naturally the important TSX files are near the end - which means I have to wait for most of it). If I have to do it again, I'll squeeze and then kill it after 7 MB and see what I got!

6 years, 11 months

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VTserver problem (bug?)

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

I sometimes use vtserver to download disk images to the RL02's on my PDP-11/23+. Takes quite a while at 9600 baud, too :) But there is some kind of bug that always appears at the same point, in the middle of the next 100K block after "6600K written". The data transfer stops (no more head motion/ready light flicker on the RL02), and the character that vtserver uses to indicate a write operation just repeats endlessly and rapidly until I kill it. Does anyone else encounter this limitation, and if so, how did you fix it? Fortunately I haven't wanted to image a disk that's more than 2/3 full so far... I make sure to squeeze the disk in SIMH before transferring the image. But it'd be nice to be able to image a full (10 MB) RL02 and not have to worry about it failing. Any ideas? thanks Charles

6 years, 11 months

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Ultrix 3.0 VAX

by johnforecast＠comcast.net

Dennis, It sounds like you are looking for an Ultrix 3.0 standalone boot tape. While I found a number of people who claim to have a physical tape, with some claiming to have imaged the tape, I was unable to find an image on-line. That being said, it?s possible to use the Ultrix 2.0 standalone bootable tape (AQ-JU00C, available from bitsavers.org) with a couple of edits at the end - I did this to get 2.2 up and running. Since Ultrix 2.0 only supports a limited number VAX processors, the first stage has to be run on one of those processors, I always use microvax2. Subsequent stages may be run on any processor supported by Ultrix 3.0. Stage 1: I use the following .ini file: # Boot from standalone tape. This MUST be performed on a microvax2 instance. set rl dis set ts dis set rq0 ra81 att rq0 system.dsk att tq0 AQ-JU00C-BE_ULTRIX-32_2.0_SA_87.tap set tti 7b set tto 7b boo Attach the Ultrix 3.0 supported tape to tq0 when it asks. This stage will create the root partition and restore from the tape. No special handling at this point, just answer the questions as for a normal install. Stage 2: Use the VAX simulator for the target system (I used vax780) and boot rq0. After answering some questions it will fail trying to create a file system on /dev/rra0 which doesn?t exist - you need to edit /.minidevice as follows: # ed .minidevice 22 1 RA81 ra 0 TK50 tms 0 s/0/0g RA81 ra 0g TK50 tms 0 w 23 q Reboot the system and it will create a file system on /dev/ra0g, copy the base packages along with any you have selected and build a custom kernel. After all this reboot again and it will drop you into single user mode after complaining about "Can't stat /dev/ra0ga?. Edit /etc/fstab: # ed /etc/fstab 54 1 /dev/ra0ga:/:rw:1:1:ufs:: s/0g/0 /dev/ra0a:/:rw:1:1:ufs:: w 53 q Reboot again and you should have a functioning system. John.

6 years, 11 months

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SIMH question

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

This may be a silly question... but how can I transfer a text file from my PC into SIMH for PDP-11? Is it even possible to create a disk or tape image from source code? Attaching files requires them to be images... I have significant changes to make to TSGEN.MAC (TSX-Plus definitions file) and it will be MUCH easier to edit it on my laptop with a screen editor, than in SIMH (or on the real hardware) using the line editors! The only method that comes to mind is to start the actual 11/23+, open the text editor for input, then use a terminal program like Teraterm to "play" the file as though I were typing it in. But I don't have the rest of the TSX-Plus source files, linker, etc. so I would have to transfer them using VTserver anyway... thoughts? thanks Charles

6 years, 11 months

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SIMH question

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Glen Slick > when I wanted to assemble some code with the RT-11 assembler but wanted > to edit the source code elsewhere and then transfer the code into a > SIMH disk image. Someone should write the SIMH equivalent of Ersatz-11's 'DOS device' (which allows the -11 access to the file system on the host - and also the ability to send arbitrary commands to the emulator). I find it mind-bogglingly useful for going round the edit-compile loop, while using a good editor (Epsilon for me) on the host OS. Having written a Unix driver for the device, I have a sack of Unix commands that use it, e.g. to retrieve the file foo.c from the host, I just say 'hrd foo.c' to the PDP-11 Unix's shell, and it's there. Super-painless, and does't add any noticeable amount of time/work to going around the loop. I don't need to give the full file name since there's also 'hcd <dir>'. To change the switch register contents, 'sc <value>'. Etc, etc. How all you SIMH users manage without it is beyond me. Luckily I only need -11 emulation, so I don't have to put up with life without it - and would refuse to. If anyone is seriously interested in adding it to SIMH, there's an -11 device spec available; I strongly suggest using the same spec; then for Unix, at least, all the -11 code (driver, user commands) is already done. Noel

6 years, 11 months

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RK611 Technical Manual needed

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

Anyone have a copy of the RK611 Technical Manual (EK-RK611-TM-001 is the version that's attested)? It's not online. (I have a copy in my fiche set, but my fiche reader died - no, it's not the bulb, already changed that! :-) Noel

6 years, 11 months

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Infocom mystery binary

by dave＠661.org

In one of the repositories of Infocom game source code recently uploaded to Github, there's an executable that appears to have come from an m68k Unix machine of some sort. It's at https://github.com/historicalsource/zork-german/blob/master/zap. Over at intfiction.org[1], it was initially claimed to be from a Macintosh. Then I suggested it was from a pre-Sparc Sun machine. Then someone else suggested it was from A/UX. Does anyone know anything more conclusive? I based my idea on what I got from running strings(1) on the file. Copyright (c) 1987 Apple Computer, Inc., 1985 Adobe Systems Incorporated, 1983-87 AT&T-IS, 1985-87 Motorola Inc., 1980-87 Sun Microsystems Inc., 1980-87 The Regents of the University of California, 1985-87 Unisoft Corporation, All Rights Reserved. [1] https://intfiction.org/t/infocom-source-code-posted/41156/23 -- David Griffith dave at 661.org 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?

6 years, 11 months

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test-drb