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

wtb PC2K1-AA keyboard has blue trim and special WPS markings on the keys.

by couryhouse＠aol.com

wtb PC2K1-AA keyboard has blue trim and special WPS markings on the keys. reply offlist? please ? ed sharpe archivist?for smecc?

7 years, 12 months

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WTB or? HP 150 and HP 125 and hp 120 computers especaly want large scree touchscreen II 150!

by couryhouse＠aol.com

WTB or? HP 150 and HP 125 and hp 120 computers especially?want large screen touchscreen II 150! ? also looking? for? rack? mount? hp 85? ?also looking? for? hp 86? / 87 ? any product and point of sale? display materials? for? there are? ?good to sell us? too.? ?they spice up? a? display. ? drop me? a note off list Ed Sharpe archivist??for SMECC ? ? ? ? ?

7 years, 12 months

1
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HP 3000/37 console

by mloewen＠cpumagic.scol.pa.us

Does anyone know if a non-HP terminal will work as the console for a HP 3000 Series 37? The power-on self-test uses ENQ/ACK to speed sense, but the manual also implies that it will sense speed from a <CR>. On my 37, the TIC self-test passes up to the point where it talks to the terminal, but fails to to speed sense. Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/

7 years, 12 months

5
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Old core memory system.

by mattislind＠gmail.com

Can anyone tell what kind of computer this might have been connected to? https://i.imgur.com/IC3AVCf.jpg I googled MS8192X26-1.9-RT and found one hit: http://www.nsn-now.com/Indexing/ViewDetail.aspx?QString=7025013480747 And then FABRI-TECH (maybe miss-spelled) gave a nice broschure: https://archive.org/details/TNM_Fabri-Tek_Inc_-_Brochure_20170629_0325 The core memory system boxes indeed look similar. But still no clue what kind of system this has been connected to. What kind of system made use of 26 bits? Maybe 24 bits + check bits? It could be flight control related since it is aviation museum that currently have it. But the person I have contact with don't know the actual source. Possibly flight simulation since the same guys do have several old flight simulators.

7 years, 12 months

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HP 3000/37 console

by kevenm＠reeltapetransfer.com

(Retrying post with different email) Another quick thought, Putty ( https://www.putty.org/ ) has serial mode, and an AnswerBack for ENQ (Control-E). You could try using that, although HPterm escape sequences will not work. Keven Miller > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Mike Loewen via cctalk" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Sent: Mon 07 May 2018 09:36 PM > Subject: HP 3000/37 console > > >> >> Does anyone know if a non-HP terminal will work as the console for a >> HP 3000 Series 37? The power-on self-test uses ENQ/ACK to speed sense, >> but the manual also implies that it will sense speed from a <CR>. On my >> 37, the TIC self-test passes up to the point where it talks to the >> terminal, but fails to to speed sense. >> >> >> Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us >> Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/ >> >

7 years, 12 months

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HP 3000/37 console

by kevenm＠reeltapetransfer.com

(Retrying post, with different email.) As Ed mentioned, I believe the CISC machines will need the ENQ/ACK. I thought that speed-sense was only on the CR. But the ENQ/ACK will happen every 80 chars sent. I think you can wait on it because it will timeout, and continue. Or when output pauses, you could type Control-F, as I recall. If you cannot get your hands on Reflection ( https://www.microfocus.com/products/reflection/ ) (took me a moment to find it, now that microfocus controls it) or Minisoft Win92/Secure92 (www.minisoft.com), or an hp terminal, you could try QC-Term. http://www.3kranger.com/Atmar/AICS_qcterm.shtm Keven Miller > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Mike Loewen via cctalk" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Sent: Mon 07 May 2018 09:36 PM > Subject: HP 3000/37 console > > >> >> Does anyone know if a non-HP terminal will work as the console for a >> HP 3000 Series 37? The power-on self-test uses ENQ/ACK to speed sense, >> but the manual also implies that it will sense speed from a <CR>. On my >> 37, the TIC self-test passes up to the point where it talks to the >> terminal, but fails to to speed sense. >> >> >> Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us >> Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/ >> >

7 years, 12 months

1
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Catches and stubs from a Thinkpad optical drive

by dave＠661.org

I have a T420 which came with a DVD/CD burner. I later replaced this with a Bluray drive. To make the swap, I had to remove the side catch and rear stub from the drive. I'd like to swap back to the DVD drive just in case so as to avoid any needless wear on the blueray drive's mechanism. To do this, I'd like to get another catch and stub. The problem though, I don't know what these things are actually called, nor do I know of any sort of part number to look for. Does anyone here know anything useful on tracking down these things? -- 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?

7 years, 12 months

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'90s era PC recommendation.

by cctalk＠gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net

Hi, Does anyone have any recommendations for a '90s era PC that has PCI and ISA slots? Ideally I'd like to have EISA slots too. ? At least I think that's what I want. I'm developing an itch to play with older networking equipment, Token Ring, FDDI, etc. and I suspect that a machine running '98 / NT 4, or a Unix / Linux from the late '90s would be a good candidate to mess with things. Obviously I'll need two devices to communicate. I may end up looking for an older Cisco router that supports the various interface types. Years ago I had a Compaq desktop that had PCI and EISA slots. I'm trying to re-acquire it from the friend that it went to. Does anyone have any Pro Tips on things to look for or avoid? ? One of the worries that I have about the aforementioned Compaq is that it used proprietary components (the keyboard connector looked like a PowerBook SCSI connector) that would be hard to replace if (read: when) a problem develops. I would greatly appreciate any tips / tricks / things to avoid. Thank you in advance. -- Grant. . . . unix || die

7 years, 12 months

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TRS-80s available: Ottawa, ON, Canada

by mouse＠Rodents-Montreal.ORG

A friend and colleage of mine says he has two TRS-80s available, or perhaps very soon to be available, in Ottawa (the capital of Canada). He says he knows very little about them; apparently it's been something like a decade since they were even taken out of the boxes. For further information, I'd suggest contacting him directly - I haven't even so much as seen the boxes they're in. lucasb at gmail.com is the address he gave me to pass along. Mouse

7 years, 12 months

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'90s era PC recommendation.

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Grant Taylor > Does anyone have any recommendations for a '90s era PC that has PCI and > ISA slots? I have a bunch of HP machines, which are still in heavy use (although upgraded to Celerons with the PowerLeap iP3/T thingys). Vectra VL6/S8's and VLi8s. I'm very fond of them - solidly built, well engineered, quite reliable, etc. The VL5/S4-5 and VL6/S6-7, etc are also OK (very similar, same build quality), but I prefer the /S8's as they have the 100MHz memory bus. Noel

7 years, 12 months

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list server maintenance

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

Back up, testing.

7 years, 12 months

3
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Looking for TI 990/12 hardware reference manual ????

by g-wright＠att.net

I have a later TI 990/12 system with a dead power supply. Looking drawings or schematics andI believe there in the hardware reference manual.? The one manual on bitsavers? under 990/10shows a older type of power supply.? Mine is basically? all on 1 board.? The chassis is a 990 A13 Thanks, Jerry

7 years, 12 months

2
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Old core memory system.

by dkelvey＠hotmail.com

Fabri-tek was a common supplier for core memory. Many companies used their memories. Fabri-tek Instruments became Nicolet Instruments in 1971. I'm not sure one could tell what machine it was used for. It was a common memory system. They did make a lot of memories for military use. Dwight ________________________________ From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> on behalf of Bob Smith via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Saturday, May 5, 2018 12:36:07 PM To: Chuck Guzis; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Old core memory system. SDS built a 24 bit system with Parity too, the CDC 924 was 24bit, there were a few others and I believe but can not recall for sure, a navy 24 bit maybe done by ERA. bb On Sat, May 5, 2018 at 2:32 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 05/05/2018 10:23 AM, Pete Lancashire via cctalk wrote: >> Core temp was a big issue even in commercial environments. You didn't see >> it temp but you would see core [driver] current. > > The early IBM 7000 series (7070, 7080, 7090) kept core in a > temperature-regulated oil bath. Later versions used pre-heated air > (e.g. 7094 core). > > On the CDC 7600, hitting the same area of care repeatedly could cause it > to overheat and throw parity errors. Circuitry to detect this would > slow-down repeated accesses. > > That was for CM. I seem to recall someone telling me that there was no > such provision in PP core and a "jump to self" was sufficient to throw > an error--but that may be a shaggy-dog story. > > --Chuck

8 years

1
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Intel 3000 series

by kylevowen＠gmail.com

Does anyone have any software for developing for the Intel 3000 series? I bought some parts on eBay and am contemplating a bit-slice PDP-8 or DG Nova for fun. Bitsavers has some 3000 series manuals, but I can't seem to find any "bits" of software. Looks like CROMIS is the cross microprogram assembler, which looks like it would've run on an MDS-800. Apparently the CROMIS sources are in Fortran IV, and provide both XMAS and XMAP, the cross microassembler and a programming file generator, respectively. Anyways, if anyone has any bits of Intel 3000 development software or simulators, I would be very interested in checking them out. Thanks! Kyle

8 years

5
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DPS 7000 tester?

by aek＠bitsavers.org

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Cii-Honeywell-Bull-MPP-Maintenance-Panel-P… too far out of scope for me I'm guessing it is for a 7000

8 years

1
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SGI stuff in the UK

by sales＠elecplus.com

<http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/sgidepot/kybdsmice.html> http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/sgidepot/kybdsmice.html Hopefully this one is legit? Not affiliated with seller, etc. Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com AOL IM elcpls --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

8 years

4
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old vintage stuff for pretty cheap

by sales＠elecplus.com

https://www.acrosups.top/vintage-computing-c-29/ Don't pay attention to where it says Old Price. Click on the item and see the discounted price. Free shipping over $15. Not affiliated with seller, etc. Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com AOL IM elcpls --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

8 years

10
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Save or throw out - ST1480N HDD edition

by aperry＠snowmoose.com

Actually, for me, this could probably be expanded to "early 90s SCSI HDD edition". As a collector of early 90s Sun systems, I have many Seagate ST1480N (aka Sun 424 drives). Starting two year ago, they all started dying. Out of a dozen, I am now down to one working one. Is anyone repairing/saving these or should I just throw them out when they fail? alan

8 years

1
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Is This A Shill?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Ali > There is a guy with a listing with missing parts which he is > advertising as working. It has been listed for over two years now ... > I offered to buy a part off of it for ~half of what he wanted > for everything and he replied that "the value was in keeping it all together". Well, since he's not an expert (which we can deduce from his calling it 'working' when it's missing bits), perhaps he feared you were trying to grab the 'good bit', and leave him with un-salable dreck. Although given the amount you were willing to pay, maybe he is not thinking hard! Noel

8 years

1
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Is This A Shill?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Alan Perry > They went unsold again and I waited for the next auction run. I offered > the split-the-difference price again and they countered even higher. I > got the message and have stopped bidding. That was a couple months ago > and they still have sold any of those systems. Eventually they may wise up. I had a guy selling a group of 4 DEC drives, asking for somewhat over the going rate. I pointed the guy at a prior 'open bidding' sale for one, demonstrating the 'fair market value', and offered him 4 times that, plus shipping. He comes back with a much higher number. So I waited a year, they were still there, now he was more willing to be reasonable. So I suggest waiting for a couple more months and write him a 'I see it's been X months, my offer of Y is still open' note. Noel

8 years

2
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Is This A Shill?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Rob Jarratt > I got this: > ... > For security, please keep all communication through the eBay message > system. Well, that bit sounds positive. And the feedback sounds good, but 56 items is a bit low - I've heard of scams where people do a number of small items to build up a feedback, then 'cash in'. Overall - I dunno. I'd try asking eBay - 'I've gotten a slightly odd second-chance offer from this person. Is this legit?'. Noel

8 years

20
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Restoring rubber keyboard on a logic analyzer

by paulkoning＠comcast.net

Gentlepeople, I have a Philips logic analyzer (PM3585) which is about 20 years old at this point. It seems to be basically functional except for the keyboard, which unfortunately is a critical part. This is one of those molded rubber type, with a circuit board behind the rubber that has contact areas made of carbon film (at least they are black in color) and on the back of each key a small cylindrical bump also coated with carbon. Some of the buttons work but most don't seem to even if I press hard. I've disassembled the keyboard, which was easy enough. Inspection shows no damage and no signs of corrosion or contamination. I wiped everything with isopropyl alcohol anyway. The result is no change in behavior. Any suggestions for what to do next? paul

8 years

8
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eBay search fail

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Fred Cisin > Adding additional OR'ed terms (eBay does OR with comma delimited list > in parentheses) sometimes results in FEWER hits, when that SHOULD > always give more hits A similar one is that adding more terms (i.e. AND) sometimes turns up things that didn't turn up before. I guess this 'PDP-11 parts' failure is an example of that. > The change of category is reprehensible. Yeah, it was pretty irritating - I just happened to notice it by chance, and then for a long time had to manually re-search. It seems to have gone away (at least on 'pdp-11') in the last few days, though? Oh, and the corollary (which people with brains faster than mine probably already realized :-): if you list something (epecially expensive!), wait a bit and do a search on the obvious terms that people are likely to use - if it doesn't turn up, cancel and try again (maybe with a slightly different title). Noel

8 years

1
0
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Is This A Shill?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Ali > the real winning price. Basically on second chance he is offering you > your highest bid price (the one that lost out to the original bad > bidder). What it should really be is if that guy didn't exist what > would have been the winning bid? Good point. That _is_ a bad sign. The seller might not have thought it through (they do after all only have a feedback of 50, so they don't have that much experience), and maybe they just made a mistake. But it might be a scammer/shill who used a high shill bid to find out your top. (And maybe the 'only use eBait comms' thing was just a double bank shot to take in people like me...'he says that so he must be honest'). Noel

8 years

3
2
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eBay search fail

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: js > I've seen similar behavior before, and other search problems. At one > point in time, eBay's search engine worked just fine. Then, a number of > years ago, they revised their - supposedly making it 'smarter' - and > ever since then, it hasn't worked as well That's troubling. I wonder if there are any heuristics one/we can apply to work around this failure? We can't really add a zillion different words ('parts', etc) to searches in an attempt to work around this bug. I'd previously noticed that searches for 'pdp-11' turned up things with 'pdp11' in the title, so they apparently internally drop the '-'. (Google does a similar thing.) I just tried, and searching for '"pdp-11"' (i.e. exact multi-word match, which I use for '"Digital Equipment"') still turns up 'pdp11' items. Case ('PDP-11' versus 'pdp-11') doesn't seem to matter either. On a whim, I tried searching for '"pdp-11" "pdp-11"' (i.e. just repeated the keyword), and this time it _did_ turn it up! Very odd. I wonder why that made a difference? Well, I guess I'll just have to add that to my list of searches. Until the next one... Interestingly, this does blow up one theory that I had about what caused the failure. I had assumed they have lots of threaded lists, with e.g. all 'foo' items on a list from a 'foo' header, and when given a search for 'foo bar' they'd just go to the 'foo' list and run down it looking for items with 'bar'. So my theory was that there'd been an error, and the item in question never made it onto the 'pdp11' list; the 'pdp-11 parts' search found it via the 'parts' list. But I have no potential explanation at all how '"pdp-11" "pdp-11"' found it! FWIW, 'pdp11 pdp11' worked too. Bizarre. Noel

8 years

2
1
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eBay search fail

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: js > To take a suggestion from your playbook, I'd try asking eBay - 'I'm > getting incorrect search results. Why?' Yeah, that would be something to try, but I was wary of stirring up trouble - eBay might decide to void the sale, etc. Maybe I should. My message to this list was as much a warning, as it was a query if anyone had any idea why this was happening, or if they'd seen similar behaviour before. Noel

8 years

3
2
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Last of the TRS-80's

by trash80＠internode.on.net

Hi folks - hope there's a history buff out there that can help me please. Google has not been my friend or I'm just searching wrong. I am trying to ascertain what the last computer released by Tandy/Radio Shack was that had the TRS-80 name on it (as opposed to later machines that used the name Tandy). I think it was the CoCo 3 in 1986 but I'm trying to nail down the (official) day and month of release (assuming that I'm right and it was the CoCo 3). Thank you!! Kevin Parker

8 years

5
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Is This A Shill?

by cctalk＠ibm51xx.net

How bad do you want the item? If you can live without it message the seller through eBay and offer him the real winning price. Basically on second chance he is offering you your highest bid price (the one that lost out to the original bad bidder). What it should really be is if that guy didn't exist what would have been the winning bid?? So say three of you guys bid as follows:A: 201 (bad bidder)B: 200 (you)C: 102 (some other guy) Seller is offering you 200 as second chance but the real winning bid is 104.50. Of course if you really want/need the item then you are SOL. One note there is one special ahole out there based in Italy but sells with listing listed in Europe and Alaska. Has a number of handles (scroogemcduckbonaparte, dagobertduckbonaparte, paperonebonaparte, amongst others). He is a pure scamming thief and does shill bid.

8 years

1
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eBay search fail

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

Come on people, please i) try doing some actual research to see if theories hold water, don't just quickly post, and ii) read prior posts thoroughly. Searching for "pdp-11" (where the "'s are to indicate what's in the search box, and are _not_ typed into the search box) turns up a host of items - all PDP-11, and none PDP-8, so it's not searching for "PDP -11". And as I have pointed out several times already, searching for "PDP-11 parts" in sold items turns it up, despite there being a "-" in the middle of a search term). Noel

8 years

2
1
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Is This A Shill?

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

I bid on something, 1 hour later I got this: Due to eBay reporting the highest bidder as a spammer this item is now available at your last bid price of xxxxx. If you would like to purchase it please arrange payment and collection. If you're not interested I would appreciate a quick message as there is another person who is interested if the item is still available. For security, please keep all communication through the eBay message system. And then an hour or so later I got: Hi (Again) eBay playing strange games removing item after sending second chance offer!! I've been advised by eBay to re-send this as they removed the item because I didn't cancel the transaction from the original suspicious buyer that they had already cancelled the bids from and sent a MC067 notice. Can you believe it??? So sorry for the duplication, but this is a genuine second chance offer. If you are interested (or not), please let me know either way as I have another person interested, but thought it only fair to give you first refusal. Feedback is 100% on 56 items. I am not good at understanding all the possible scams, and I know others here are. Regards Rob

8 years

1
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eBay search fail

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: W2HX > I filter on category "Computers/tablets & Networking." It might not have > shown up in your search if you searching in "Vintage Computing" > category. Oh, I forgot to mention: I always search in 'All Categories' precisely to avoid misfiled entries (like this one). (For a while it was defaulting to "Vintage Computing" for the "PDP-11" and "DEC Digital" searches, which I had to manually reset to 'All Categories'.) But that's not it: go into the eBait search, enter "PDP-11", and select 'Sold Items", it's not there; add "parts" to the search, and up it pops! WTF?!?!? Noel

8 years

3
2
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Identifying bad RAM on Amiga 1000 WCS board

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

Hi, All, I've been doing component-level diagnosis of a bad Amiga 1000 WCS board and since I was unable to find this information anywhere, I thought I'd post it to the list so that it's in the hands of more than one person. For an Amiga 1000 that starts up with a turquoise screen and never asks for Kickstart, it means that the WCS RAM test has failed. Common causes are one or more bad 4464 DRAM chips on the WCS board or a bad PAL. I don't happen to have the PAL equations but I did spend some time with a sick Amiga 1000, a Fluke 9010A and a cheap digital scope. There are hand-drawn schematics floating around but they don't appear to match the production hardware in either part placement or completeness (the schematics describe 2 PALs, DAUGCAS and DAUGEN, but the production hardware has two additional PALs, DPALCAS and DPALEN, for one specific example). If one has a Fluke 9010A and 68000 pod, one can test the WCS RAM by pressing [RUN UUT] and turning on the Amiga and waiting a second or two for the ROMs to set the right memory map bits to make the WCS writable. One can then do simple [READ] and [WRITE] tests to the Amiga at $FC0000-$FFFFFF and even run a [RAM SHORT] on part or all of that range (a RAM SHORT test on 256Kbytes will take more than a few minutes). The memory itself is a bank of 8 4464/50464 64Kx4 DRAMs at U1B-U1E and U2B-U2E, arranged sensibly in two banks of 128Kbytes. The chips in row 2 are the lower half ($FC0000-$FDFFFF) and the chips in row 1 are the upper half ($FE0000-$FFFFFF). The individual bits are arranged as follows: U1E/U2E $000F D0-D3 U1D/U2D $00F0 D4-D7 U1C/U2C $0F00 D8-D11 U1B/U2B $F000 D12-D15 For those that want to trace individual bits the order on each DRAM is pin-3, pin-2, pin-15, pin-17 which is slightly off the given order on the 4464 datasheet of 2,3,15,17. By way of verification, the WCS board I'm repairing failed the RAM test with bad bits at $F000 when I pulled the defective chip from position U1B. The same chip failed testing in a Ming HT-21 "Handy Tester" DIP logic and DRAM tester (but passed when tested as a 4416, because the fault was not in the first 25% of the memory cells). -ethan

8 years

3
5
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PDP 8i in NJ on Ebay

by billdegnan＠gmail.com

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pdp-8i-Computer-With-Tape-Readers/253588804132 I went to check this out....this is they guy with 10 PDP 8i's in a barn. Looks like he cleaned one up. I have more pictures on my web site, I had posted them here before, but I thought they were overpriced http://vintagecomputer.net/pictures/2016/PDP8i/ b

8 years

1
0
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New cooling cans for 80386 and 80486

by sales＠elecplus.com

We bought these years ago in bulk. Turns out there are 78 left! New 40mm fans on a 50mm base. https://www.elecshopper.com/fans-and-heatsinks/silent-systems-fan-40-01154-4 .html Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com AOL IM elcpls --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

8 years

1
0
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Rick Dickinson, ZX Spectrum designer, RIP

by lproven＠gmail.com

A lengthy interview with the later great Rick Dickinson, product designer of basically every Sinclair computer, who sadly died of cancer on Tuesday. https://medium.com/@ghalfacree/an-interview-with-rick-dickinson-3fea60537338 He not only did the ZX 80, ZX 81, ZX Spectrum and the QL, but also the Z88, the Spectrum Next and others -- along with a lot of other stuff. I know this is a rather USA-centric list, so probably most of you started off with things like the Apple II, the first sub-$1000 home computer. But in Britain and Europe back then, we were a lot poorer, and $1000 was an impossibly large amount of money -- many months of pay in a good job. I think in my early home-computer days, I never saw a single Apple II -- they were exotic, expensive foreign machines. I have only seen them in recent years, as collectible antiques. In the UK, the revolution was the first sub-?100 home computer, the ZX 81. I first used a Commodore PET. Later, a few of my richer friends had Commodore 64s. The super-wealthy might have a BBC Micro. In either case, a working setup with mass storage -- floppy drives -- was nearing ?1000. Nobody owned a _monitor_ -- they were exotica for professionals. Whereas a Spectrum with a Microdrive was a quarter of that and a highly usable system, with tens of thousands of games, plus mutiple programming languages, word processors, databases and more. I think if you ask virtually any British person in their late 30s, 40s or 50s, in anything connected with IT, what their first computer was, the answer would be a ZX 81 or a ZX Spectrum. It was the single range of machines that drove the entire computer revolution over here, and also in the form of a myriad clones in the Communist Bloc. Later, imitators came along -- the Oric (6502) and Dragon (6809) ranges, for instance. And of course there were many machines that aspired to be better: Memotech. Camputers Lynx, Elan Enterprise, etc. All flopped to some degree. The only thing that displaced Sinclair was Amstrad, who made more expensive computers but with much better specifications -- an integrated tape drive, or floppies, even a printer, and a real monitor. They cost more but still less than Commodore or Acorn: you got a lot for your money. Amstrad eventually bought Sinclair's models and name, and later still, it launched the first _cheap_ PC clones and kick-started the IBM-compatible industry over here. But it did it standing on Sinclair's shoulders. Part of the joy of Sinclair machines (like Apple and Commodore) was their very distinctive look -- black, slablike, with tiny discrete bits of colour, unlike the grey or beige boxes of virtually all the competition. And that was down to Rick Dickinson, who only discovered years later how he had inspired whole generations of people. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven ? Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

8 years

16
38
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Identifying bad RAM on Amiga 1000 WCS board

by Richard.Sheppard＠telus.com

> There are hand-drawn schematics floating around but they don't appear > to match the production hardware There is a service manual - "Amiga Computer Model 1000 Preliminary Component Level Repair PN 314038-02" which does show those PALs on page 1-25 "Amiga piggyback PCB assy #327139" Richard Sheppard

8 years

2
1
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SPARCserver 600 PROMs

by dennis.grevenstein＠gmail.com

Hi, I am looking for years now for bootproms for a SPARCserver 600. I have been able to obtain 2.14 prom images and they work. This allows upgrading the CPUs to SuperSPARC I. However, you need 2.14.3 to install faster CPUs and some slightly different 2.14.3H to install HyperSPARC CPUs. There is a set of images going around in archives, this it?s actually 2.14, rather than 2.14.3. Does anyone here have prom images of 2.14.3 or 2.14.3H? thanks, Dennis -- Don't suffer from insanity... Enjoy every minute of it.

8 years

1
0
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TRS-80 Fragmentation

by oltmansg＠gmail.com

It is obvious that the TRS-80 line of computers suffered severe fragmentation with differing architectures: TRS-80 Model I, III, and 4(P) are all obviously of a mostly compatible architecture. TRS-80 Model II and 16, 68k based "business" machines TRS-80 CoCo I, II, III (Dragon) TRS-80 PC-x, various rebadged machines from Sharp, Panasonic, or Casio TRS-80 MC-10 (a Matra Alice) TRS-80 Model 100, 102, 200 (rebadged Kyoceras) So, obviously there were several good sellers in there, and of course for every good seller there's at least one bad seller. The PC line were mostly replacements for calculators that were programmable, and the Model 100 derivatives were mostly used as appliances rather than general purpose machines. Aside from that, it seems like Tandy more than most went off in the weeds with their own wide variety of machines instead of settling on a common architecture. Do you think that if they had, say, revised and extended the Model I system to color/80 column that the rest would have been mostly redundant?

8 years

13
26
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Visiting Boston - Classic computer recommendations (Huw Davies)

by michael.99.thompson＠gmail.com

> > Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2018 19:17:18 +1000 > From: Huw Davies <huw.davies at kerberos.davies.net.au> > Subject: Visiting Boston - Classic computer recommendations > > I?m in Boston MA (technically Canton) for the next three weeks (April 29 > to May 19). Looking for recommendations on classic computer/classic > car/sailing things of interest to do on the weekends. > > Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies at kerberos.davies.net.au > Melbourne | "If soccer was meant to be played in the > Australia | air, the sky would be painted green" > > Please visit us at the Rhode Island Computer Museum. About 60 miles south of boaton. http://www.ricomputermuseum.org/ We will be working in the Learning Lab on Saturdays, and can take you to the warehouse for a tour of the static storage. There are classic car museums not far away in Newport and Middletown, and lots of sail boats in Newport. -- Michael Thompson

8 years

2
2
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Looking for Heath H-29 operation manual and schematic

by fritzm＠fritzm.org

Al, following up on this thread from February, in case you are still looking, I just came across my copies of: - Z-29 Uers's & Technical Guide (1983) - Z-29 ASCII character and escape code chart Despite the claim to be a "Technical" guide, the above is really more of a user manual, containing in-depth description of control codes and operating modes, but not much else (no circuit descriptions nor schematics). I'll be showing at VCF West in August, and happy to bring these along and donate them to the scan queue if you are still looking for them? cheers, --FritzM.

8 years

1
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Amusing IBM test system model

by cctalk＠ibmjunkman.com

I also have a few others listed: ADINTS https://www.ebay.com/itm/132588526929 IBM 1401/707 https://www.ebay.com/itm/132581434367 IBM System/3 https://www.ebay.com/itm/132593475814 Yet to be listed is a 650 and 2 suitcases of System/360 Model 70 models used in the 1964 Worlds Fair.

8 years

3
3
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Restoring rubber keyboard on a logic analyzer

by shadoooo＠gmail.com

Hello, this kind of keyboards was made using small pieces of conductive rubber to close the circuit designed on the PCB. The rubber was an uniform compound, so even with severe usage, i.e. high consumption, the conductivity remained constant. However, in more recent / cheaper products, the rubber is the same for the whole keyboard, i.e. simple insulating silicone rubber. The conductive surface is only painted over the silicone. No doubt it comes away faster... In this case, cleaning with alcohol just removes the remaining paint, referring the keyboard useless. The solution is simple: cover the key contacts with something conductive. I know that conductive paint is sold somewhere, but it's pricey and don't think it would last much... The cheapo solution is to cut small pieces of aluminum foil, and glue it to the rubber. Given that the keyboard is almost always made by silicone, I always use silicone glue to assure the sickness. Be careful to put a very thin layer of it only over the center of the foil, then put it in place and press a bit around with the fingertip to let it take the shape of the contract. Too much silicone would come out when pressed and would cover the graphite on the PCB. This method worked well with several TV remote controls. I could suggest you to try with one key, then let the silicone to dry before remounting the keyboard, then check the result and eventually repeat on other keys. Andrea

8 years

2
1
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Visiting Boston - Classic computer recommendations

by huw.davies＠kerberos.davies.net.au

I?m in Boston MA (technically Canton) for the next three weeks (April 29 to May 19). Looking for recommendations on classic computer/classic car/sailing things of interest to do on the weekends. Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies at kerberos.davies.net.au Melbourne | "If soccer was meant to be played in the Australia | air, the sky would be painted green"

8 years

2
1
0 0

Anyone fancy lending out a Replica I for a few weeks?

by brain＠jbrain.com

I would like to ensure my PS2Encoder project works on the Apple I, but I have no unit to test with. Alternatively, anyone out there with access to an Apple I/Replica I/functional equivalent who can test and reprogram an Atmel ATMEGA88 or ATMEGA168? Jim -- Jim Brain brain at jbrain.com www.jbrain.com

8 years

1
0
0 0

Blog in portuguese - are updates allowed/wanted?

by alexandre.tabajara＠gmail.com

Dear friends I have a blog in portuguese where I write my adventures in repairing and maintaining old computers. Today's post is: http://tabajara-labs.blogspot.com/2018/04/msx-yamaha-yis303yis503-e-seus-ir… Should I post updates to my blog here? Are these wanted/allowed? I believe yes to both Thanks Alexandre (and don't forget to click on the ads and share around :) ) (and check often the blog, there are tons of great info :D) (and google translate is your friend!) (and the groove is in the heart :D )

8 years

2
2
0 0

Intel HEX formats

by dave＠661.org

I'm trying to understand various hex formats so I can add them as output options to minipro[1]. I went looking for existing code to convert binary to Intel hex and found repeated copies and references to "format83.c" by Erik Lindberg. It seems to do what I want, but I'm unclear what "Intel HEX 83 format" is supposed to mean. Based on what I see at http://www.math.purdue.edu/~wilker/misc/DEVEL/0036/A-6804/BIN2INT.C, this program only creates hex files in the I8HEX format, as described in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_HEX. Of course, I'm going to have to support the I16HEX and I32HEX formats too. Based on what I find in format83.c, this shouldn't be too much trouble, but I really want to know what "Intel HEX 83" is supposed to mean. [1] https://github.com/vdudouyt/minipro/ -- 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?

8 years

5
4
0 0

anyone in winnipeg looking for a 11

by tdk.knight＠gmail.com

i know of pdp 11 thats going to get lost to a building demolition in winnipeg if i was in the city i would jump up and down to grab it it my self ive got most of the paper tapes for it and the drawings i managed to rescue a while back.. theres a office on the otherside of the floor just about other side of the wall from the 11 that has more manuals and documents possibly 8" floppy disk software in said room (more like a closet 8x8 room there some vandle damage to the front of the 11 was painted with some spray paint and the spectrimanalizer its atached to was smashed also theres also a room with the big built in desk for a control room dating back to the 60's 70's been striped of some stuff if anyonres looking for that sorta stuff

8 years

1
0
0 0

Picked up stuff from Pete's

by aperry＠snowmoose.com

For those follow the rescue of equipment from Pete Lancashire's place outside of Portland ... I went out there last Friday. Pete was unavailable, so a friend of his let me and showed me where to avoid stepping. The amount of stuff there was impressive/amazing/overwhelming. Aside >from the test equipment and old telecom equipment that was pointed out when I was shown around, it was hard to focus on one thing because I would immediately see something else interesting that grabbed my attention. I picked up seven Sun SPARC systems and three Compaq-branded Alpha systems. The Alpha systems all went to a local (Seattle) person who is talking to Bill Gunshannon about possibly getting one out to him. One of the Alphas was a DS20 deskside and I never figured out what the other two were. They were narrower and longer than the DS20. There were also some loose 72G Ultra3 SCSI HDDs. The Suns were a SS1, SS2, two SS5s (one with a Netra top cover), two SS20s (one with its cover removed and MBus card and memory lying near it) and a SS1+ "prototype". I am keeping the SS1+ and a SS5. I have found a home for a couple more of them and will be looking for a home for the rest. The SS20s are the most problematic. As you would expect from a system with its top cover missing, one of the SS20s does not display any diagnostic output or get to the OBP prompt after being powered on. The "good" one displays a "replace motherboard" message while going through its diagnostics. Also, as you might expect, the one called a prototype was the most interesting to me. I am a long-time Sun employee and, while I wasn't around when the SS1+ was developed, I know people who were. It isn't like any prototype that they knew of. Still trying to figure out exactly what it is. The top cover is metal and slides over the chassis (not plastic and pivots into place like a SS1+. There are no external markings on it. It has a Sun SS1+ motherboard, Sun0424 HDDs, and uses SS1/SS1+/SS2 HDD carriers, but has a Sony (not Sun) labeled power supply. As far as the 029 keypunch, it is still there. There was some confusion and the people who were supposed to come get it didn't. I have described to them where it is and how I would go about removing it. alan

8 years

2
2
0 0

More retro than you might think: the LCD

by lproven＠gmail.com

Science The tech you're reading these words on ? you have two Dundee uni boffins to thank for that Spear and LeComber stumbled on the thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display 40 years ago By Alistair Dabbs 25 Apr 2018 at 09:15 https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/25/dundee_hidden_home_of_tft/ -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven ? Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

8 years

1
0
0 0

GDB front-end for SimH

by kylevowen＠gmail.com

Has anyone made a GDB front-end for SimH? Just curious. Seems like it could be an interesting way to tie an IDE to SimH, if one were inclined. Thanks, Kyle

8 years

3
3
0 0

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