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

Ultimate FDC? (Was: IBM 6360 - Filesystem(ish) info?

by cctalk＠ibm51xx.net

Fred, Are we being a little sarcastic or serious? :)Honestly, a sw implementation would be interesting but would it work on vintage hw? Or are you suggesting for use only with a modern system??For example here is my dilemma: my stinkers, whom you have met, are getting old enough to want to mess with my stuff. *shudder* i mean cool! but I really don't want them ruining my one actual original disk for any programs I own. So what I do is make backup copies just like in the old days. And before someone suggests emulators, it is just not the same. I mean if we wanted to emulate everything why bother even preserving hardware?Problem is when we have copy protection, as many games or old SW do, then you need a Copy II PC board. I have one and they are fairly common but ridiculously expensive now a days. So it would be nice if the functions could be duplicated in an easy to use manner. Kyro Flux is powerful but not for everyone. I want an FDC that would cover 90% of the vintage hobby (i.e. Apple II, Mac, and IBM). An FDC that combines a CompatiCard IV with a copy ii pc deluxe and a Match Point card would cover all of the above plus then some.Just a thought.... ;D

7 years, 1 month

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PDP-11/45 RSTS/E boot problem

by technoid6502＠gmail.com

I got a laugh out of this anecdote. Of course, folks heard me chuckle and I tried to share the joke but.... Way too geeky for public consumption. Back in 2000-ish, I was upgrading my DG MV4000/dc to 8mb so as to be able to run the snazzy AOS/VS II tapes I'd got along with the 9 track drive I hacked onto the machine... The install would start and then bomb at a certain point every time. I decided to work the machine hard and then pull the board and give a good SNIFF. This is a 15x15 inch board populated with 256kx1 drams. The time in the machine got the board cooking nicely, and when I smelled a certain charred smell in the vicinity of a 74ls04, I knew it was that magic black smoke. I pulled a 74HCT04 from a known-good isa card, socketed the spot and viola! Working 8mb board. It isn't ALLWAYS the most expensive chip, thank God, and sometimes even us not- as-bright guys come off with a win. I really enjoy reading this list even though I don't contribute all that often or anything of much value. It is a pleasure to watch you guys work. Jeff On Thu, 2019-02-14 at 12:00 -0600, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > Re: PDP-11/45 RSTS/E boot problem > When our 11/45 failed in the MMU in 1975, my classmate Josh Rosen traced the failing path on the schematics. When Jim Newport the field service engineer showed up, Josh described the diagnostics result that pointed at the failed path, and added "This is the failed chip" (pointing to one particular chip. Jim asked "Why that one?" Josh answered "because that is the most expensive chip". It turned out he was right. paul

7 years, 1 month

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Ultimate FDC? (Was: IBM 6360 - Filesystem(ish) info?

by cctalk＠ibm51xx.net

Fred,> Are we being a little sarcastic or serious? >:)>>A lot of BOTHJust making sure. ;)>I would like to see software for flux >transition hardware that would >extract sectors.>THEN, I would like to see that software as >a >subroutine, with an interface similar to >INT13h.>THEN, I would like to see that ROMable, >either on a physical ROM, or >loaded into RAM, with the INT13h vestor >repointed to it.That would make for a very powerful tool but as you pointed out yourself how many users would learn to use it? Unless it is a simple driver that gets loaded and the user has to simply put in a couple of generic parameters, e.g. "device=c:\drives\emudsk.sys APPLE", and it is up and running most users won't be able to make use of it.>My preference would be REAL MODE (DOS).As would mine but would a 286 be able to do it? And if you have a machine that runs real mode DOS why not make use of the HW that is there?>Match Point could be implemented in >software on the Central Point board.Great. Then if the DOB HW is duplicated then that part can be SW and no need to have Match Point HW duplicated. I am surprised the Copy II PC DOB card did not handle Apple II disks along with Mac disks.?>CompatiCard was just an ordinary FDC, >without the crippling corners cut.True, but if you are building the ultimate FDC then you don't want crippling corners cut. So something functionally equivalent.>SO, you are asking for FDC plus flux >transition, but better integrated, >rather than flux transition hardware >interrupting the drive cable.Yes! All on one card. Throw in FDADAP functionality to properly write 8" disks and you have a controller that handles most if not all IBM, Apple II, and Mac disks. As I understand it, in my limited way, having both FM and MFM should allow for many CP/M formats including SD. Will some formats be left out? Sure. Will it be as powerful as a Kyro Flux for archiving? Heck no. But will it let me pop in my original 123 disk and copy it for use with out too much hassle and work? Of course.?>There are a few exceptions, such as Pro-lock.Well then you had the ENHANCED Deluxe Board. :)>But, in quite a few cases, people have >disassembled (now illegal under >DMCA!), found the vulnerabilities and >simply disabled the copy protection.?Yes but that is harder and harder to find. They were never public but each city had multiple BBSes offering such altered programs. And of course the other problems w/ this method is you are confined to the one altered version? (even if you own a later version). Also there is no guarantee the alterations will not cause a bug that will crop up later due to a lack of total testing.-Ali

7 years, 1 month

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OT: Phone museum seeks new owner

by couryhouse＠aol.com

go? to? garage? sales? ?' thy? turn up there. In a message dated 2/19/2019 1:57:35 PM US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at classiccmp.org writes: On Tue, Feb 19, 2019 at 09:58:00AM -0600, John Foust via cctalk wrote: > Old tech, but not computers: I have a fondness for old rotary dial phones, especially ones like they used in movies and TV shows set in the '40s and '50s.? I've never managed to acquire one.? I'd love to have a few of them, but not that many.? :-) -- Kevin http://www.RawFedDogs.net http://www.Lassie.xyz http://www.WacoAgilityGroup.org Bruceville, TX What's the definition of a legacy system? One that works! Errare humanum est, ignoscere caninum.

7 years, 1 month

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tracometer model 6a

by tdk.knight＠gmail.com

anyone ever herd of one? mines searial number 002 says national research councle of canada made by eda electronics https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/5723/Bnz2VF.jpg https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img924/6783/nHesKB.jpg https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img922/5776/wimiv2.jpg

7 years, 1 month

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A History of Engineering & Science in the Bell System TRANSMISSION TECHNOLOGY and ELECTRONICS TECHNOLOGY

by couryhouse＠aol.com

A History of Engineering & Science in the Bell System TRANSMISSION TECHNOLOGY and ELECTRONICS TECHNOLOGY A History of Engineering & Science in the Bell System TRANSMISSION TECHNOLOGY and A History of Engineering & Science in the Bell System ELECTRONICS TECHNOLOGY? ( the? transistor? and devices? etc...) 60 for the? Pair? plus? 16.95? priority? mailing? insured? tracked and? signature? confirmation? payment to be? made? via? pay? pal? friends and? family...only? after? we? ok? who? gets them . both? ?tight? beauty? copies? with? ?great? jackets on them! Let me? ?know? asap? ?if? you? want. extra? copies? help re-roof museum buildings!Thanks? Ed#

7 years, 1 month

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OT: Phone museum seeks new owner

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Grant Taylor > I do know that there are a lot of companies here in the US that are > filtering their website like this. It does go both ways; a while back, a vintage rail site I read regularly ('Weekend Rails') moved to a new hosting service, and that service filtered out and refused attempts from the US to read any of the sites they hosted (it wasn't at the site owner's request; I asked). So I had to use a European-based proxy for a while to get to it. Noel

7 years, 1 month

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Free: 2x DEC Alpha workstations - 164LX and XP1000

by karbak＠gmail.com

Hello, I have a couple of Alpha workstations that were last used 5-6 years ago with some version of Tru64 on them. They haven't been turned on since, and may need some work to get running again. They're free to anyone who thinks they can use them, and can pick them up from the 78722 zip code (near UT Austin). Please contact me off-list to co-ordinate pickup. Thanks, Arun

7 years, 1 month

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RS/6000 7043-140 boot floppies

by aperry＠snowmoose.com

Is there some trick to making boot floppies for the RS/6000 7043-140 (a mid-90s PReP architecture machine)? I initially tried to install Solaris 2.5.1 on it and created the boot floppy by dd'ing the image using a SPARCstation (running NetBSD). I dd'ed the image over, dd'ed it back and verified the SPARCstation could read back what it had written to the floppy. The RS/6000 loads what is on the floppy, but hangs transferring control to what it loaded. The 7043-140 does not appear on the list of supported systems in the Solaris 2.5.1 release notes, so, even though 2.5.1 supports PReP and the 7043-140 is a PReP machine, maybe they aren't compatible, so I tried NetBSD. The 7043-140 is listed as a supported system. The NetBSD boot floppy images are confusing to me. The files are too large to fit on a 1.44M floppy. I didn't see instructions on how to make boot floppies out of the .fs files one can download in the install instructions. I went ahead and tried to dd the part that fits onto a 1.44M floppy and try to boot that and of course that failed. I have e-mailed the NetBSD prep mailing list and no response from that. The system does boot the AIX install on one of its hard disks, but this is a recycled system and I don't have usernames/passwords for that install. Does anyone here have a suggestion on how to proceed? alan

7 years, 1 month

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IBM 6360 - Filesystem(ish) info?

by anders.k.nelson＠gmail.com

Ah, cool thanks! I'm interested in storing arbitrary files in the manner close to the original as possible. Sounds like the extent list and allocation map would be useful for this; not so much the document content format. -- Anders Nelson +1 (517) 775-6129 www.erogear.com On Tue, Feb 19, 2019 at 2:44 PM Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote: > On 2/19/19 11:12 AM, Anders Nelson wrote: > > Hi again, > > > > Is there a description of the DW filesystem somewhere I can look at? > > Hi Anders, > > Not that I'm aware of, unless Al has some document squirreled away that > we don't know about. > > What I know is from a lot of examining DW floppies and trying to > reverse-engineer it--and what little I could find on the web. > > The DW filesystem is basically a linked-list sort of structure. There's > a volume header block that contains an extent list and allocation map, > from which documents are treed from. Each document, in turn, links to > other entries that describe various properties of each document. For > example, the dates of the document, its name, the list of positions of > lines within the document, the document text, the formatting information > for the text, and so on. It's pretty complicated. > > One aside is that even though the DW is an 8086 system, numeric > quantities are big-endian. > > --Chuck > >

7 years, 1 month

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CDC modules

by peter＠vanpeborgh.eu

Guys, I am wanting to determine which CDC (or possibly other) computer some of my modules came from. If you were a CDC employee around the time of CDC 6xxx computers, let me know where I could send my photos for identification of these items. Many thanks, peter || | | | | | | | | Peter Van Peborgh 62 St Mary's Rise Writhlington Radstock Somerset BA3 3PD UK 01761 439 234 || | | | | | | | |

7 years, 1 month

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IBM 6360 - Filesystem(ish) info?

by anders.k.nelson＠gmail.com

Hi friends, Now that I have my glorious disk toaster (2D model I think, says "2D" on the drive levers), I want to build a controller for it. I found pinouts and some description of the media organization here: http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/ibm/6580_Displaywriter/S241-6248-3_D… I'd like to actually store data to these disks in the same manner the original systems did, and I'm proficient in hardware/firmware. Has anyone made a controller for this already? How about emulating the filesystem? Any help is appreciated, and I'd open-source whatever I make (PCBs, firmware, etc.). Thanks! -- Anders Nelson +1 (517) 775-6129 www.erogear.com

7 years, 1 month

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OT: Phone museum seeks new owner

by couryhouse＠aol.com

this guy? ?is? amazing....? ? In a message dated 2/19/2019 10:03:23 AM US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at classiccmp.org writes: > Old tech, but not computers: > > https://madison.com/business/galesville-antique-phone-dealers-looking-to-of… >

7 years, 1 month

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Kemners Surplus - Real time walkthrough

by anders.k.nelson＠gmail.com

Hi everyone, I heard Kemners Surplus in Pottstown, PA was going away so I decided to pay them a visit. I'm taking pictures of as much vintage computing gear as I can as we speak. I'll be here until they close today at 5pm EST, so if you see something you like feel free to give them a call and I'll help them navigate. Photos updated as I walk through, here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/4Q8Jx7n36fmVczLN8 If you see something you like it'd be great if you could check if I'm interested first until I'm finished today. ;] Hope this helps someone, they shut down soon!

7 years, 1 month

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Q: Plotter bed repair with MonoKote?

by cruff＠ruffspot.net

> On Feb 18, 2019, at 11:00 AM, dwight wrote: > > There were a couple hp XY plotters that had the mylar plate delaminating. I've reworked these with model airplane mono coat. Are you referring to MonoKote (www.monokote.com <http://www.monokote.com/>)? That looks perfect for repairing the gouged bed of one of my 9872C plotters. Is a hot air supply suitable for applying the film, or did you use their heating iron? I'm guessing a bit of pressure to adhere the film is necessary?

7 years, 1 month

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corvus mirror

by bandit1921＠conbuilder.com

Anybody know where I can find a working Corvus Mirror? I have several h89/90 and 2 h8's, most still work.

7 years, 1 month

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Kemners Surplus - Real time walkthrough

by guykd＠optusnet.com.au

Oops, this was meant to go to the list _and_ William. Sorry for duplicate Will. At 09:10 AM 18/02/2019 -0500, Will wrote: >> I see 4 Boxes of punch cards. All blank? >> >> https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipN-btB2yizsHBmabHb7xtHr_zUWZlS6QENHMHb… >> >> Too bad he wants $25 a box. > >25 dollars for a full box of blank cards is actually a really good >price - but those cards are probably too far gone. Jam city. Maybe, maybe not. And there they are, as opposed to being mythical, somewhere else. Anyway, if someone was to go to Kemners and offer $10 a box for all 4, arguing that "they are pretty far gone, jam city, dusty, in a mess, maybe some blocks are OK, etc." Then I'd pay for them and pack & postage to my US reshipper in CA. At this address: Guy Dunphy 3503 Jack Northrop Ave Ste J8637 Hawthorne, CA 90250 USA And then be facing the postage to Australia too. Hence my low offer. Reason: As part of the Australian Computer Museum Society equipment dispersal, I have an IBM 028 and three IBM 026 card punches to restore. Eventually. Plus that Documation TM200 card reader. Which I'm still seeking a manual for btw. Guy

7 years, 1 month

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Kemners Surplus - Real time walkthrough

by john.h.blake＠gmail.com

Any idea what that blue Data General machine was?? Some kind of terminal server?

7 years, 1 month

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Kemners Surplus - Real time walkthrough

by guykd＠optusnet.com.au

At 01:51 PM 16/02/2019 -0500, you wrote: >Hi everyone, > >I heard Kemners Surplus in Pottstown, PA was going away so I decided to pay >them a visit. I'm taking pictures of as much vintage computing gear as I >can as we speak. I'll be here until they close today at 5pm EST, so if you >see something you like feel free to give them a call and I'll help them >navigate. > >Photos updated as I walk through, here: > >https://photos.app.goo.gl/4Q8Jx7n36fmVczLN8 That's a lot of visual fun, thanks for the photos. There is NO SUCH THING in Australia. There were still a small number when I was a child (1960-70s), all long gone now. >If you see something you like it'd be great if you could check if I'm >interested first until I'm finished today. ;] > >Hope this helps someone, they shut down soon! I see 4 Boxes of punch cards. All blank? https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipN-btB2yizsHBmabHb7xtHr_zUWZlS6QENHMHb… Too bad he wants $25 a box. And it's on the East coast, not West coast near my LA reshipper (to Australia.) And I'm near broke again, after this: http://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/hp-8594e-spectrum-analyzer-at-last-i-… http://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/hp-8594e-spectrum-analyzer-repair-%28i-… Guy

7 years, 1 month

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Speaking of sounds made by machines

by technoid6502＠gmail.com

Of all machines I've used, the beloved Atari 8-bit is most vocal. It has the feature of 'i/o noise' by default. It can be disabled with a Poke, but every kind of io has distinctive sounds and actually represents the data being sent/received. If you disable it and crank the volume on your TV, you can STILL hear it, but very muted. I think this feature was created to conceal this fact... It isn't just the Atari8 that has this 'feature' in its muted version, all of the RF-TV-type machines from the 80's produce it. In theory, I think you could snoop the actual data, Tempest-like, using some radio gear. One gets very attuned to the noise and can tell the type of data being sent, (Text, vs Binary, for example) by ear. Of course, tracking noises from floppies and hard disks are also very useful indicators. In the 90's I got the hpfs386 driver out of a warp server pack and hung it on my warp 4 client. I LOVED hearing it hit the drive at boot. Boy howdy what a performance increase that gave. Best regards, Jeff On Fri, 2019-02-15 at 12:00 -0600, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > Speaking of sounds made by machines

7 years, 1 month

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3B2 Simulator Ethernet - Looking for Testers

by web＠loomcom.com

Hi folks, I think the NI Ethernet device is ready for some real world beta testing. I have put up a page here with details about how to build SIMH and how to install the "NI" ethernet drivers and TCP/IP software here: https://loomcom.com/3b2/networking.html If you're interested in helping out, you can build the current "3b2-ni" feature branch from GitHub and give it a test. If you run into any problems, I'll walk you through how to do some debugging and get logs for me to look at. If you have any questions or need any additional help, please don't hesitate to email me! Best Wishes, -Seth -- Seth Morabito Poulsbo, WA, USA web at loomcom.com

7 years, 1 month

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Dumping contents from MC68701

by kylevowen＠gmail.com

Has anyone been successful in dumping the EPROM contents from an MC68701? As I understand it, this MCU requires executing a particular program from external memory to access the internal EPROM, both for programming and reading. I will write a utility to dump the contents if necessary, but I am happy to refrain from reinventing the wheel if a solution already exists. Thanks! Kyle

7 years, 1 month

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8-Update

by pbirkel＠gmail.com

>I have an .slt for the PDP-8/e lever >Rod Please publish/share? paul

7 years, 2 months

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Shock and vibration are legitimate diagnostic tools.

by technoid6502＠gmail.com

> > On Fri, 2019-02-15 at 12:00 -0600, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote:> > as These hardware wizard stories remind me of a legendary repair wizard, > non-computer industrial devices I think. He was called in to fix a > tricky problem at the customer site. Studied it for a while, took > out a small hammer, whacked the device at some spot, and reported > "fixed". He then sent in a bill for $500 That has been my line any time I've needed to know if a machine had a 'flaky'. Sometimes, on the phone, ask a customer to give the machine a kick. They always balk, but I tell them "Shock and vibration are legitimate diagnostic tools", and that usually convinces them. In situations I suspect the problem is a flaky, it often results in a 'working' system and the customer says "oh wow! you Fixed it!". To which I say NO NO NO. It is not Fixed, only the problem is now revealed. I'll be over shortly to actually bolt down what needs bolting or otherwise make the machine immune to shock and vibration..... Best, Jeff

7 years, 2 months

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Intel Universal Prom Programmer UPP 103 documentation

by andrewsofbg＠gmail.com

Hello, I need to do some work on my intel UPP-833 personality card in my UPP and am looking for documentation This document: 9800133F_Universal_PROM_Programmer_Reference_Manual_1977 has schematics for personality cards available in ?77 but does not include the UPP-833 I am having trouble with my UPP-833 and could use some documentation. Documentation on the UPP-832 would probably be helpful if nothing on the 833 There may be a newer version of 102448-001 I do not know about. There are two Documents that should have the information are: 102448-001. Printed Wiring Assembly UPP-833 Personality (drawings and schematics), L1002488, 123832, 2000966 123832-001. Printed Wiring Assembly UPP-833 Personality (drawings and schematics), L1002488, 123832, 2000966 Can anyone help? Regards Craig

7 years, 2 months

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Fwd: Latest Batch of Items from Sellam's VWoCW

by ljw-cctech＠ljw.me.uk

Sorry, moderation fail. Forwarding to cctalk: -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: Latest Batch of Items from Sellam's VWoCW Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2019 20:27:12 -0800 From: Sellam Ismail via cctech <cctech at classiccmp.org> Reply-To: Sellam Ismail <sellam.ismail at gmail.com>, General Discussion: On-Topic Posts <cctech at classiccmp.org> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Hello Folks! I've put together another batch of items as I continue to wade through my warehouse and winnow out the wonders: HP 2116C System Manual #1 HP 2116C System Manual #2 HP 2116C System Manual #3 HP 2116C Power Cord Using the HP 3000: An Introduction to Interactive Programming Tandy WP-2 Portable Word Processor M7859 KY11-LB Console Interface Kraft 3-button PC Mouse Mouse Systems 3-button PC Mouse Zenith Z-Box External ISA Expansion Chassis Novell IBM NIC ShareNet Board Epson External 5.25" Floppy Drive SuperMac Technology DataFrame DF20 20MB external hard disk ClubMac C104 External SCSI CD-ROM Drive Midiman Mini MacMan Macintosh MIDI Interface Passport MIDI Interface for Macintosh Neutronics Hexadigit S-100 Bus Monitor Gimix Ghost 32K RAM Compaq SLT/286 portable VTech The Equalizer Laptop IBM Model M Keyboard IBM Model M Keyboard IBM Model M Keyboard IBM Model M Keyboard The main index for these and other fine items is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1I53wxarLHlNmlPVf_HJ5oMKuab4zrApI_hi… I've put some work into the index and improved it so that links keep properly updated as new items are added or sold items are removed (whereas before the index links in the New Arrivals Niche would get hopelessly out of sync). However, I believe there might have been some problems with the links before so if you saw an item you liked and the link did not lead to it and you assumed it was sold, please check again. From this point going forward, all links (above the notice in the sheet) should stay in sync. I've been preoccupied for the last few months with personal business and haven't been able to put a lot of time into curating the collection for sales but I am trying to catch up. There are a couple people that are waiting on me and I haven't forgotten about you. I will get caught up shortly and I thank you for your patience. As always, please contact me directly by e-mail via <sellam.ismail at gmail.com> to make an order or an offer. Thanks! Sellam

7 years, 2 months

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Zenith Z-90 startup

by andrewsofbg＠gmail.com

Hello, I am reading through message archives and came across your post. Did you get your h90 sorted out? Craig

7 years, 2 months

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Intel PC-BUBBLE Card documentation?

by cmhanson＠eschatologist.net

Does anyone have documentation stashed away for the Intel PC-BUBBLE Card? The PC-BUBBLE is an 8-bit ISA card that Intel produced for prototyping bubble memory applications in the mid-1980s, the ROM on mine is v3.0 and says it?s copyright 1986. I don?t want to insert this into a system until I?m sure all the (many) jumpers are configured reasonably, and I?m sure that the empty 40-pin socket at U5 isn?t something that?s critical to its operation? -- Chris

7 years, 2 months

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a timer for the PC - screen tme for the kids

by jfoust＠threedee.com

At 01:17 AM 2/15/2019, Randy Dawson via cctalk wrote: >What we have, is the screen time problem with the kids. If we are not there hounding and policing them, they will be on for hours. There are also consumer firewall/routers that have time-based limits. When I've had clients ask about this, or also ask for content filtering, it's such a difficult world these days. The kids don't have tablets or phones or iPods that do WiFi and can get the Internets from cellular connections or the neighbor's WiFi? Kids rapidly figure out solutions to bypass limits. High schools have WiFi, block social media, the kids install VPNs on their phones. - John

7 years, 2 months

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a timer for the PC - screen tme for the kids

by rdawson16＠hotmail.com

Before I develop this, I thought it may already exist, and the classiccmp mail list might be the place to ask. What we have, is the screen time problem with the kids. If we are not there hounding and policing them, they will be on for hours. All the medical community says, we need to limit their screen time, as it contributes to their AD disorder and schoolwork, homework failures. My idea was initially do this in hardware, with a timer, and a solid state relay to gate the AC to the PC. On further thought, I should be able to do this in software, with a timer that lets the PC run for an hour, and then shuts the PC down until the next 24 hour cycle. (Installs itself on windows startup) Has anybody seen this, before I re-invent the wheel? Randy

7 years, 2 months

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PDP-11/45 RSTS/E boot problem

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Paul Koning > Studied it for a while, took out a small hammer, whacked the device at > some spot, and reported "fixed". That reminds me of an amusing story from the first time I went to see 'Star Wars; I went with a group of people from Tech Sq. It has that scene where they're about to make the jump to hyperspace in the 'Falcon', and it won't go; so one of them (I think Solo) jumps up and whacks a particular spot on the bulkhead with his fist, and away she goes. We all found this terribly amusing, since one of the DEC time-sharing systems on the 9th floor had a sticky relay in the power controller, and when you'd try to power it on or off from the front panel, the relay would stick, and nothing would happen. So the procedure was to go around the back, open a particular door, reach in, and whack the power controller behind it in a particular spot with the side of your fist, and away it went! Noel

7 years, 2 months

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PDP-11/45 RSTS/E boot problem

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Paul Koning > or a backup team of subsystem experts at the home office to call on. Actually, the actual hardware problem wasn't too hard for Fritz to find, I gather, once we knew exactly was failing (the RK11), and how (at 0170000, the XM incremented). It's not like it was a comes-and-goes kind of problem (it was quite solid and repeatable), or anything like that, so I'm not sure a 'team of experts' would really have helped. And the exact details on the failure were also pretty easy to find, once we got past a lot of other distractions! Once it became clear that the pure text was getting trashed, it was pretty easy (modulo some confusion caused by the differing OS images in the 'Ritchie' and 'Wellsch' distros :-) to stop the machine once it had a) assembled the pure text in main memory, and b) swapped it out. Looking at the copy in main memory verified it was good _before_ it was swapped, looking at the arguments on the stack gave us the disk block it was written to, and looking at the actual contents of the RK (which PDP11GUI has a mode to do) showed us the first 02400 bytes were good, and then it was trash. Bingo! Then, looking at the RK registers after the transfer had completed showed something had gone wrong in the hardware - the address left showing afterward was not the start_address+size - the XM had incremented inappropriately! And since the start address for the transfer in physical memory was 0165400, and 0165400+2400 = 0170000, that sounded pretty suspicious! So, that all happened pretty quickly. Really, the part that took the longest was getting past all the confusing noise: my confusion about R5, the malfunctioning front panel, the different versions of the OS, etc, etc. Noel

7 years, 2 months

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PDP-11/45 RSTS/E boot problem

by pechter＠gmail.com

> Message: 2 > Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2019 15:03:41 -0500 > From: Paul Koning <paulkoning at comcast.net> > To: Jay Jaeger <cube1 at charter.net>, "General Discussion: On-Topic and > ??? Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Subject: Re: PDP-11/45 RSTS/E boot problem > Message-ID: <C07861A6-BFD8-4AD0-AAB9-F4715904BB60 at comcast.net> > Content-Type: text/plain;??? charset=us-ascii > > > > On Feb 13, 2019, at 1:20 PM, Jay Jaeger via cctalk > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > > ... > > Maybe that story about FE's using Unix as a test to confirm operation > > even when diagnostics said the machine was OK was not so much just a > > legend? > > It still fels like a legend.? My experience with DEC field service > engineers is that they used the diagnostics.? In the PDP-11 era, Unix > knowledge around DEC was pretty sparse, especially early on when it > could be found only in the Telephone Products Group (Armando > Stettner).? RSTS would be more plausible, but I never saw that in the > hads of FS engineers either. > By and large diagnostics would find problems. I've seen a number in > the 1970s, including a messy data path failure in the 11/45 MMU where > we (college students) did the initial diagnosis while the FS engineer > was on his way. My suspicion is that things not solved by diagnostics > would be escalated to the "wizard from Maynard". And they'd probably > start replacing whole subsystems. I've seen that once, when our > college RSTS-11 system (11/20, 16 DL-11 lines) was crashing on average > once a day for months. DEC brought in several of those "wizards". The > "fix" was to replace the 11/20 by a "spare part" -- an 11/45 with more > memory, a DH11, and RSTS/E. Decades later I was told that the wizards > actually pinned the blame on the college FM broadcast transmitter, > about 200 feet down the hall from the computer center. That may well > be, though I didn't heard that at the time. RSTS did get used in > manufacturing, at Final Assembly & Test sites like Westminster MA and > Salem NH, where PDP-11 systems large enough to run RSTS/E were > subjected to a load test of exerciser programs running under that OS. > The way it was explained to us is that a system that would be happy > with such a test would also be happy with any customer application. > It's not clear if that was because RSTS would load things more than > most, or was more finicky about hardware glitches than most, but it > certainly was the practice for quite some time. Of course, not all > PDP-11 configurations could be tested that way. paul I guess the experience in NJ was a bit different since AT&T had two dedicated Field Service offices who handled their sites including Bell Labs. I was on the Commercial/Government side from 81-86 and we didn't get to play with RSTS on customer sites at all (but sometimes we got to play in the in-house machines in Princeton or on our own hardware). It was a bit different in the Vax side since many diags were run under VAX/VMS and as a brand new hire I was doing Vax installs -- including installing the VMS 2.x and 3.x on 11/780's and 11/750's at install time. If they had paid for software installation -- the software guys would wipe and reinstall. If not we left the pack and prayed the customer wouldn't wipe the diags that we installed on the disk when we build the VMS pack.? Realistically the only thing the customer needed to do after we got done was tweak the systen parameters, check the swap etc. and lay on the layered products like languages. Things got much more interesting when the VMS3.x and 4.x got CI780's and HSC50's.? That was more involved than the easy VMS 2.x-3.x install. As far as the 11/70's -- I'm building a pidp1170... My last 11/70 install was around 84 or so when I put in a late DECDatasystem 570 blue 11/70 with the FCC Cabinets at AT&T in Freehold. As far as the Wizard from Maynard -- one story from my branch support guy (rumored to be about his brother on the 11/70 line in (I think in Westminster MA... not Salem or other NH plants) had an intermittant 11/70 that would crash every couple of days and they could run all the diags and DEC X11 with no issues.? They called over their in-house wizard who ran toggle-in programs from the front panel -- playing the switches like piano keys with both hands.?? After about a half hour his comment was "Clean the terminator fingers." Machine ran like a SOB once the gold fingers were cleaned. Weirdest 11/70 mess I had was after I left DEC to work for a third party maintenance group.? Their regional support was in Dallas.? I was in NJ.? They couldn't find their support guy so they rushed me on a plane to Chicago to work with two techs who were babysitting a mess they had no clue on. The site was WW Granger in Skokie and I arrived at 3AM...? They had a 5 or 6 story warehouse which was a totally robotic automated site picking water heaters and other industrial equipment from what looked like an over-sized 6 floor tape library.? Two 11/34's running RSX11 ran the picker.? One was down for weeks.? Their 11/70 was half disassembled with two techs working on it.? They were VAX trained at a third party school but they weren't PDP11 techs.? An RM03 on the 11/34's was down as well. The 11/70 was a RSTS/E box doing all the billing and inventory for Granger at the site. I walked in at 3AM with my Digital truckers cap on and found they couldn't boot XXDP+ from tape. The OS wouldn't come up either. The customer gave me a pile of error logs dating back over six months -- (I think Sept through March) and they all showed memory management error aborts and retries. The techs who thought they were changing memory never found the MOS memory box... they were swapping cache boards thinking they were memory. Went to 10000 and deposited 014747 and ran it... It either failed on addresses ending in 0 or 4 or 2 or 6. The MOS on the 11/70 had two controllers and interleaved the memory.? Pulled one of the interleave controllers -- ran the toggle in and it worked.? Aha... bad memory controller. Booted diags and sent for the board spare. Decided the RM03 would be a bitch to work on without the tester or tools and the management found a spare locally at a used DEC joint in the area.? Swapped the drive once we carried the new one up the stairs. The 11/34 had a problem... the machine wouldn't boot and the run light (IIRC) was on all the time. The machine had two full unibus dd11-dk boxes even though it didn't need them all. Terminated at the CPU backplane and did toggle-ins.? OK.? Worked... jumpered out the next UNUSED segment of the Unibus backplane with a Unibus ribbon cable and the problem was gone. The guys had been there over two weeks digging themselves a hole.? Third party service on DEC stuff varied with the person.? Some were ex-DEC genius types who were consultant level experts on the hardware.? Some just knew to swap the board with the Red Led lit. Another time I ran into an engineer who told me (chip info here faked -- don't pull the prints...too many years to have kept TE16/TM03 prints). A call comes in to dispatch with the following information: "The TE16 at Naval Air Propulsion, Trenton is down.? It doesn't come on line.? The light is lit but the system doesn't see it.? I put the board on an They supposedly changed memory on the 11/70 -- but wextender and U34 pin 12 is low and doesn't go high. I need someone to come out and change the chip." I call the site back.? I'm in Princeton 15-20 minutes away.? I get the customer on line and tell him I'll be there in 3 weeks or so.? DECservice 2 hour response won't cover the call since he wants a chip changed in 1985 and we don't stock them -- so it will be a special source issue for logistics and we'll get back to him.? Or... I can swap the M8916 Logic And Write board in about15 minutes.? Does he want it fixed or does he want to prove he called the correct chip... Bill

7 years, 2 months

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Sun dealer in CA

by sales＠elecplus.com

Ken Bush - IT Solutions Specialist Parallel Technology, LLC 23510 Telo Ave #7 Torrance, CA 90505 310-320-8477 x1 Trillian "kenbush4sun" Lots of old Sun gear, will configure as requested. Please contact him directly. 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

7 years, 2 months

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Sun stuff in Canada

by sales＠elecplus.com

WTS sun T5220, USED, qty 10, CALL, We have a huge qty of sun available interested let me know sun equip available now: 1X STORAGETEK 3510 FC 1X x4100 m2 1X sparc t520 3 x enterprise 250 1X SUN SPARC 220r 2 X SUNFIRE V210 4 X ENTERPRISE T5120 1X ENTERPRISE M4000 1X SUNFIRE V4440 1X sunfire V880 3X X SUNFIRE 240 2X SUNFIRE V245 5 X SUNFIRE V490 1X SUNFIRE 280R 3 X SUNFIRE 440 1X SUNFIRE 4200 1X SUNFIRE 4100 1X SUNFIRE X4100 M2 5X SUNFIRE V120 25 X BLADE T6340 1X BLADE T6240 10 X BLADE CHASSIS 6000 2 X BLADE X6220 1X BLADE T6320 10 X BLADE T6300 Daniel Fecteau 6025 Arthur sauv? Mirabel, Quebec J7N 2W4 TEL: 450-969-1616 ext 101 Mail: save at savesysteme.com Does not have to be sold as a lot, you can pick and choose. Please contact Daniel directly if interested. 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

7 years, 2 months

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Sun T5440 servers, configured

by sales＠elecplus.com

Hello Cindy. I did have some of the Sun T5440's in stock. I can cover at least 4 units that would be configured. The config and cost is listed below. Let me know if you need the config adjusted in any way. Thank you. (qty-4) T5440/4x1.4ghz/128gb/2x300gbhd/DVD: $525 each BEN WILLIAMS SUN - ORACLE BROKER REP P: 315-732-1420 EXT.304 F: 315-732-1502 SKYPE: BEN at ADIRONDACKNETWORKS.NET TRILLIAN: BENANET Please contact him directly to purchase. 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

7 years, 2 months

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mainframes and other stuff

by sales＠elecplus.com

Mainframes and other stuff Recycle center in NC is willing to save out "stuff" for people. No, no one can go in the back and scrounge. No, he does not want a lot of emails from people. Yes, he gets big blue and orange and beige 6 foot tall OLD mainframes in all the time. They squash them at the moment. Yes, he will package small orders, and will properly palletize larger orders. Local pick up will be available after the new year. So, if u can send me a picture with description and some part numbers, along with what you want to pay, I will consolidate things and make arrangements. Please don't ask for specific boards from DEC; they don't want to go into that much detail. QBUS will mean nothing to him. Big orange cabinet that says xxxxx is much more likely to get saved. They are moving to new warehouse 1st of the month, so all this will start happening after the 1st of the year. Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-792-3400 phone 830-792-3404 fax sales at elecplus.com AOL IM elcpls

7 years, 2 months

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Vendor turned into recycler

by sales＠elecplus.com

Just outside Dallas is a very large warehouse. I have been there before, and have posted about it before. It has been acquired by a recycling company, sort of. The old man who owns the stuff thinks of the equip as his children. A week from Sat I will be going to the warehouse with 2 or 3 guys from San Antonio. We will arrive about noon, and hire a truck to bring stuff home before it turns into mincemeat. He will not sell to the public, but I have a license. If you want to attend, I can buy stuff for you. The address is 9525 Skillman St, Dallas, TX 75243 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

7 years, 2 months

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PDP-11/45 RSTS/E boot problem

by frisbie＠flying-disk.com

Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote: > I have had an RK11-C for a long time that I've never tried to > power up (I got an RKV11-D and used that on Qbus machines > instead). Wow, someone else with an RKV11-D! I thought I was the only person who had one. I modified mine (using the dead bug technique) to add 18-bit addressing instead of just 16, and ran it successfully with RT-11 and RSX-11M on my 11/73 system. I have had DEC people visit my place, look at the RKV11-D, and say "DEC never made anything like that!". :-) Alan "and I don't exist either" Frisbie

7 years, 2 months

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IBM terminals with keyboards, 3174 controllers, 4700 controllers

by sales＠elecplus.com

Previously I have posted some vendors who have old hardware they are willing to sell. Earlier this week I was in San Antonio, and I stopped by an old friend to say hello. He has several 3174 controllers, and every imaginable add-on available for them. Pallets of them! Also IBM 4700 banking controllers, and 1 monitor. No keyboards. 8" floppy drives. IBM terminals, most models available, $85 tested and working with matching keyboard, no severe screen burn. Contact bfloyd at southtexasproducts dot com. 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

7 years, 2 months

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Another dealer going under

by cctalk＠ibm51xx.net

> Calabasas, CA Well for a change it is someone just next door so I can definitely take a look. I wonder if they have anything available. Do you have contact info/address? -Ali > > -----Original Message----- > From: Ali [mailto:cctalk at ibm51xx.net] > Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2019 2:57 PM > To: 'Electronics Plus'; 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic > Posts' > Subject: RE: Another dealer going under > > > > I don't get replies from here yet, so I have seen no replies to my > > posts, > > nor the posts themselves. > > > > There is a shop that has been in biz for over 25 years that is > closing > > in > > California. > > > > Cindy, > > Where in CA? It's a big state :) > > -Ali

7 years, 2 months

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PDP-11/45 RSTS/E boot problem

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Jerry Weiss > I am trying to understand how the diagnostics didn't reveal this defect. Vondada #12: "Diagnostics are highly efficient in finding solved problems." :-) Noel

7 years, 2 months

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PDP-11/45 RSTS/E boot problem

by fritzm＠fritzm.org

[oops, accidentally replied directly instead of to the list] On 2/13/19 12:54 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > It's interesting that it was a bad 7430 in [your RK11-C]. I find that for equipment of that vintage, my usual suspects are failed 7474s and failed 7440s, probably 80% of the total. Behind that, it goes 7420s and then maybe 7430s. Looking back over my repair log, my totals just within the RK11-C were: 2x 7430 (M119, M795) 1x 7420 (M141) 1x 7401 (M149) 1x 7400 (M203)

7 years, 2 months

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PDP-11/45 RSTS/E boot problem

by frisbie＠flying-disk.com

> > > Likely some disk controllers did NOT SUPPORT crossing 64K boundaries! > > > > No; the RK11 spec says "[the two extended memory bits] make up a two-bit > > counter that increments each time the RKBA overflows". > > > > The actual error turns out to be slightly different to my guess; there's > > a spurious overflow from the low 16-bit register to these bits at 0170000. > > Maybe a problem with E29 or E34 on the M795 module? I am finding this entire discussion extremely fascinating! Every day I look forward to reading the latest twists in the plot. The ideas, hunches, tests, dead ends, and results are an excellent example of the debugging process. I am awaiting the exciting Perry Mason style conclusion, where the guilty chip stands up and confesses on the stand. :-) Alan "Where were you on the night of the crime?" Frisbie

7 years, 2 months

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PDP-11/45 RSTS/E boot problem

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Alan Frisbie > I am finding this entire discussion extremely fascinating! Every day I > look forward to reading the latest twists in the plot. I forgot to mention the most amazing part of the whole story: he first acquired the machine while he was a student (I think?) at CMU, decades ago, and has been dragging it around the country with him ever since! He's also had to do a tremendous amount of work on it to get it running, starting with building an entire new power harness. He's also had to find and fix a long list of failures, all over the machine; there were bad chips on almost every board in it. Fritz has written most of the whole adventure up: http://fritzm.github.io/category/pdp-11.html it's an incredible story. Noel

7 years, 2 months

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JPL Auction

by cclist＠sydex.com

Those of you in So. Cal. may be interested. Lots of Sun stuff: https://gsaauctions.gov/ATTACHMENT/REGN9/91QSCI19501806/806ListingofAvailab… -- --Chuck Sent from my digital computer

7 years, 2 months

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PDP-11/45 RSTS/E boot problem

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Alan Frisbie > I am finding this entire discussion extremely fascinating! Every day I > look forward to reading the latest twists in the plot. :-) > The ideas, hunches, tests, dead ends, and results are an excellent > example of the debugging process. Yeah, and it was a Duesie of a problem, too. Although once we got clear of the bad data from the console and my confusion about R5, and it became clear that in the Unix failure, the pure text was being damaged, from that point it was pretty straightforward to track it down (albeit one that needed detailed understanding of how V6 handled pure texts - and luckily I'd come to understand that part of the system a bit while getting the QSIC running). Fritz's lucky discovery, early on, that it was location dependent was also a big help. Noel

7 years, 2 months

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Looking for: 68000 C compilers

by classiccmp＠philpem.me.uk

Hi, I'm (still) trying to reverse-engineer a ton of M68K ROM code which was apparently compiled with a circa-1990 C compiler. Does anyone have copies of any of the following -- or any other C compilers for the 68K which were around at that time? * Sierra Systems 68000 C compiler (was part of some Sega Genesis developer kits) * HP 68000 C compiler (either the HP 64000 or MSDOS versions) (I believe this was sold as the "HP B3640 Motorola 68000 Family C Cross Compiler) * Lattice C * Anything not on this list ;) My game plan is to take the compiled standard libraries from these compilers and build up some patterns/"fingerprints" to try and make a better guess at what the code is up to. I figure if I can at least pin down the stdlib and floating-point code, I have a better chance at figuring out what the main code does. I've seen the HP cross compiler manual on Bitsavers, but the compiler itself doesn't seem to be on bitsavers/bits. Thanks. -- Phil. philpem at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/

7 years, 2 months

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Wirewrap DIP sockets - any interest?

by wdonzelli＠gmail.com

Does anyone here still actively wire wrap circuits? I am thinking about dumping my inventory of nice machine pin wirewrap sockets. Lately they have been selling like lead balloons. Contact me off list. -- Will, in the Hudson Valley

7 years, 2 months

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Mounting HP7970e 9-Trk 1/2" Tape Drive

by frisbie＠flying-disk.com

jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) wrote: > > From: Alan Frisbie > > > Harbor Freight sells a nice hydraulic lift table for under $200 that I > > have found very useful for that sort of thing. It doesn't go up very high > > (like for the top of a rack), but I used it with some wood blocks > > Thanks for the tip! I got one on sale for about US$140; it's _very_ sturdy. > And the top is just large enough to hold two milk crates (available at > Home Depot, BTW), so it's guite easy to build up a stack as high as one > needs to reach the top of a 6' rack. Thank you very much for the feedback -- it makes me happy when I know that someone finds my suggestions useful. I've used the milk crate technique myself, with a piece of sheet metal on top to make it easier to slide the load off. I hope you secure such a stack tightly. :-) I used some of the inexpensive 1" wide Harbor Freight cargo straps. Alan "You can't have too many clamps or straps" Frisbie

7 years, 2 months

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