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

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

Wai-Sun Chia <waisun.chia(a)hp.com> wrote: > p.s. Just curious how many of you still uses good-ole classic analog > modem technology daily? My main computing centre is connected to the outside world by one. Logically it's a very dedicated connection (I have a real full Class C NET routed down my pipe), but physically it's an analog dialup modem. MS

21 years, 6 months

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Completely and totally off-topic and without any meritwhatsoever

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Sep 7 2004, 21:28, William Donzelli wrote: > > I suspect the hazmat team over reacted just a little. > > This is often the case - the hazmat guys I have talked to have been pretty > reasonable, but due to public pressure, they often have to put on a show. > > > Mercury in elemental form is not all that dangerous ( or > > most of us old timers would be dead or vegetables by now ). > > It is most dangerous as salts or as long term exposure > > to vapor. > > Finally someone speaks the truth! Elemental mercury mostly passes thru the > body in one big blob, and very little is absorbed. I think it is rarely > used as an antibiotic, as well. > > The compounds are the nasty things, as they due damage pretty > quickly. Also, mercury vapor is also very dangerous *even in short > periods of exposure*! The poor guys in South America that purify gold thru > amalgamation (and the subsequent vaporizing to get the mercury back) tend > to have very short lives if they are not careful. That's because of *chronic* exposure. The risk from a single small dose is not very high (though obviously it depends on the dose); your body will excrete most of the mercury (but not very fast, and over the last couple of decades, what's regarded as a "safe" level has been reduced quite a lot). The problems come when repeated exposure causes ingestion or absorbtion faster than you can excrete it. That's why spilt mercury is dangerous. It gets into small spaces, and takes a very long time (years) to vapourise (the vapour pressure is very low but so is the toxic level). Various mercury compounds have been used medically (eg mercuric chloride and mercuric iodide were used as antiseptics and fungicides). -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

21 years, 7 months

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Anyone know how to set Aux port speed on Datamedia DT/80

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

Hi Guys, Just acquired a Datamedia DT/80 (nostalgic value - spent many 100s of hours in front of one of these during earlier parts of my career). Don't have docs, however it's a pretty accurate VT-100 clone, and almost everything from the VT-100 manual is exactly right. However, it has an AUX port which the VT-100 doesn't ... I can set set TX and RX speed with SETUP-B '7' and '8', however ASPD shows at 50 and I can't find anything to budge it... Anyone know how to set the Aux port speed on a DT/80 ? Are there any settings for Aux port data bits, parity, flow-control etc.? Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Vintage computing equipment collector. http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html

21 years, 7 months

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test, please ignore

by news＠computercollector.com

test, please ignore

21 years, 7 months

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Tony simulator

by javickers＠solutionengineers.com

At 01:08 11/09/2004, you wrote: >-----Original Message----- >From: Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk> > >'Do you have a scheamtic for a <foo>' ----------- >what's a "scheamtic"? I know what "foo" is... A "scheamtic" is just like a "schematic", with the addition of a small mirror in the middle. HTH! Cheers, Ade.

21 years, 7 months

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Denver Museum of Computer Technology?

by evan947＠yahoo.com

Does anyone know of this museum's existence? The URL (www.museumcomputer.org) does not work.

21 years, 7 months

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ACP Computer Store in Santa Ana up on the auction block!

by vcf＠siconic.com

Very interesting... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=4193&item=3838529913 Either this is a terrific bargain for someone or a big longterm hassle to some unsuspecting sucker. The sale terms are a bit odd (sales tax on a business?) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

21 years, 7 months

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ACP Computer Store in Santa Ana up on the auction block!

by news＠computercollector.com

Given the sudden interest, here's a copy of the autobiographical article by Dave Freeman, published in the June 7 issue of the Computer Collector E-mail Newsletter. (Shameless self-promotion: the intentionally primitive web site is http://news.computercollector.com) -- Evan K. ------------------------------ The Beginning Advanced Computer Products, Inc. (ACP) was founded by me, Dave Freeman, in the summer of 1976. While working at Fairchild and National semiconductor, I experienced first-hand the development of the basic monolithic integrated circuit into a microprocessor chip. In 1975, General Instruments developed an integrated video pong chip that minimized the number of parts required to build a video game. This sparked a massive video game war that included unlikely participants such as Ingersoll, Interstate Electronics, and other companies that got involved in building Pong machines. Before GI started shipping the AY-3-8500 video game chip, I negotiated an order of 25,000 pieces to support the hobbyist market via mail order. I convinced GI that this was a viable market that required extra support, and they agreed to set aside enough chips to support our needs. I developed a video pong kit and started advertising in Popular Electronics and later in Byte. The kit was available for $39.95, and the response was overwhelming. After two months I had over $80,000 in the bank. I still had a job with a semiconductor distributor, but I built and shipped pong kits at night. Then the unimaginable happened: GI reneged on my video pong chip orders! I had thousands of dollars of hobbyists' money and no chips to complete the kits. The demand for the video pong chip was so high that GI took another step placing the chip on allocation and shipping to only five manufacturers worldwide. Many video game manufacturers invested big on getting this chip. Many went out of business or lost substantial cash due to their inability to get the chip. I contacted the manufacturers that were getting parts and came across a contact in the Philippines that was willing to sell me ships via the gray market for cash. The only problem was the parts would have the part number and date code shaved off and the price would be a whopping 20 bucks each! This was four or five times the going price in the market. I arranged to meet this gentleman at Los Angeles Airport and purchased 1,000 chips at a time for $20,000 cash, and the parts were delivered in cigar boxes. He would then fly back to the Philippines. Fortunately for me, the parts were genuine and I was able to deliver the kits to our customers. This was the start of ACP. This was also the last time I would have a good night's sleep. Early Life in a Garage I quickly resigned from my position as vice president of the semiconductor distributor and concentrated full-time on supporting the hobbyist market via mail order. I worked out of a garage that had one light socket that we octopused enough lines to power the equipment required to process and ship orders. My brother Tom joined me at this time and we were in business. We added more integrated circuits to our mail-order ad such as the [Intel] 8080 microprocessor, and our mail-order business continued to grow. Soon we increased the size of our Popular Electronics ad to a full page and added Byte magazine. This was a huge decision at the time as one page in Popular Electronics cost $3,000. We decided to go for it and it worked. Our mail-order business doubled each month for the next six months. ACP Computer Retail Is Born I had a vision that the new personal computers just introduced into the market were going to be purchased from retail stores. I also believed that everyone would have a personal computer in their home -- a vision not shared by many during this time. In November 1976, we opened a retail store with 3,000 sq. ft. of retail and warehousing space. Our original name was Advanced Microcomputer Products. We eventually changed it to Advanced Computer Products due to a cease-and-desist order from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). ACP was one of the first 10 computer stores in the nation and still holds claim being the oldest operating independent computer retail location on the planet. We quickly added computers to our offering and became dealers for Imsai, Apple, Processor Technology, TDL/Xitan, Smoke Signal Broadcasting, and Vector Graphic. In the early days, I recall trying to convince friends and business clients that there would be a personal computer in every home in the USA. They were not convinced and I spent several years talking about how personal computers were going to change the world. In those days, my early competitors in retail were The Computer Store of Santa Monica, owned and operated by Dick Heiser, The Byte Shop of Orange, owned and operated by John French and Hal Lashley (also George Tate of Ashton-Tate fame got his roots here). There was also Byte Shop of Westminster, owned by Marty Rezmer and their top salesman was Vern Raburn, who later held top management positions with Microsoft, Lotus, Vulcan Venture Capital, and who now builds airplanes in New Mexico. My Life with Apple Early in 1977, I got a telephone call from Gene Carter, national sales manager for National Semiconductor, inviting me to come up to Silicon Valley for a visit. Gene proceeded to pick my brain about the personal computer revolution. His main interest was Apple Computer. I told him it was for real and he immediately joined Apple as one of its first managers along with Mike Markkula and Phil Roybal. Phil had joined National as the result of my arranging an interview for him. Mike Scott, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were already at Apple. I then became one of Apple's first dealers. ACP grew its Apple sales to over $5 million per year and actually set up a series of technology centers for the Greater LA Schools to train teachers. Still an independent, we were one of the top Apple resellers in the country. Other Apple dealers in the Southern California area included: Wabash Computer, Priority One and Computique. Apple quickly let their early success go to heir heads and started changing the policies and procedures for resellers. Apple tried to control the entire market and unfortunately forced many resellers to exit the retail computer business. Apple management became more and more concerned about dealers selling their computers via mail order. My good friend, Gene Carter, whom I helped to decide to join Apple and become a mega-millionaire, sent all Apple dealers a new contract. This contract would add the condition that Apple had the right to change the contract with only 10 days notice. Within days a new contact was sent out giving all dealers 10 days to be out of the mail-order business. All Apple sales would require a "face-to-face" meeting with the end customer! ACP had just distributed its new mail order catalog with a 12-page Apple-only color insert. This represented a major capital commitment on the part of ACP. We basically bet our business on future Apple business we would get from the new catalog. Unfair, that is an understatement! ACP joined with five other dealers such as Olympic Sales to sue Apple for its mail-order ban based on the Robinson-Patman fair trade agreement. Unfortunately for us, Ronald Reagan was in power and big business was protected by his administration. We lost in a summary judgment. (About this time we received a call from the White House and they ordered 15 memory upgrade kits via mail order. We gave them open account and received payment in 180 days!). All of the other mail-order companies involved in the Apple lawsuit went bankrupt. ACP survived but lost millions of dollars as a result of the Apple decision. It's fair to say ACP was not the only one to become a victim of the arrogant, self-serving decisions to be made by Apple in the future. Ironically, Apple is now a big player in the mail-order business and at the time of the lawsuit Apple had a small software mail-order business as well. Trying to adhere to Apples policies of prohibiting sales of computers outside our approved ZIP codes and requiring face-to-face meetings, I recollect calling Apple one day to see if we could handle an order for 20 Apple II computers for an education center in Katmandu, Nepal. They approved this transaction and ACP was the first to introduce computers to Nepal. I never understood this decision and never will. In 1986 we ceased to offer Apple products in view of their desire to only sell to major chains such as Businessland, Sears, Computerland, and others. The personal computer had become big business. Operating a Computer Retail Store Operating a computer retail store in the early days from 1976-1980 was a real test for any businessman. Cash flow was generated by selling computers for cash (usually cash in advance.) The problem was in those days that all manufacturers demanded cash in advance for computer purchases. Credit lines were non-existent! Distributors were also not yet founded. Imsai, one of the first personal computer manufacturers, would make us send cash in advance plus order significantly more computers than we needed. Our salesman was Bill Lohse, who went on to be the publisher of PC Magazine and executive for Ziff Davis. The toughest decision we made on a weekly basis was how much cash to send computer manufacturers and will they go out of business before they complete our advance orders. Market Driven by Computer Shows In 1977, ACP participated in the first West Coast Computer Faire, founded by Jim Warren. This became the foremost showcase for new personal computer products and we were part of all of them. Apple introduced its Apple II at this show and wowed the computer hobbyists with a live demo of "Breakout". Mike Scott personally handled the demos! ACP also participated in the world's second computer show held in Trenton, New Jersey (the first was held in Atlantic City a short-time earlier). Computer shows became very popular through 1979 as we traveled to Boston (Wayne Green's Shows), Toronto, Philadelphia, New York, Houston and many other venues to show our products. The key show and the most significant show however, continued to be the West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco. In 1977 the first Comdex show was held in a back room at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. I was there and it consisted of about 50 booths, and who would of imagined that Sheldon Alderson would turn Comdex into the success that it has enjoyed over the years! Let's Build It In 1977 ACP developed one of the first 4K memory boards for the Altair, Imsai, and other S-100 bus computers. Our card solved the instability and quality problems other 4K cards had and our sales took off. We then added other S-100 cards. We then developed the Z-80 Softcard for the Apple and a 256K memory card. We negotiated an OEM agreement with Microsoft and built more than 250,000 of each card sold under the Microsoft name. Our manufacturing business became so big we spun it off under Vista Computer and added more upgrade cards for the Apple and the IBM PC when introduced in 1981. The World's First Computer Superstore In 1981, ACP opened two new stores, one in Tustin the other in San Jose, California. Our San Jose store was named ACP Technology Center, and it was the first "Computer Superstore" in the country. Our objective was to open Computer Superstores in 12 major cities within a two-hour plane ride from Santa Ana. We hired industry executive Tom Anthony to roll out, obtain financing, and secure authorizations for our expansion program. We invested over a million dollars in opening this store. ACP Technology Center was an instant success. We then tried to obtain authorizations from Apple and IBM to sell their computers. The general concept of computer retail at that time was to have a store on every corner a la Computerland. IBM was really focused on getting an IBM medallion placed at every corner of the country. A Computer Superstore did not fit their model and we were too early to market with our concept. Six-months later Businessland convinced IBM that the way to go was computer superstores and IBM bit on it hook, line, and sinker. The rest is history. In fact IBM became so selective and restrictive as far as their computer resellers that the price of an IBM computer store medallion soared to over $150,000 for one location. First Computer TV Show In 1982 we produced the first TV show for personal computers on channel 48 in San Jose. "The Computer Show" was hosted by our store manager, Manny Lucero, and featured special guests and new product introductions for the first 30 minutes and the remainder of the show took call-ins from the viewers. Guests included Steve Wozniak, a real supporter of the show and the store even though his brother had his own computer store in Cupertino, as well as Steve Jobs, Philippe Khan, Paul Terrell, and others. The show continued for two years and we were forced to go off the air as the costs increased dramatically and it was difficult to get marketing funds from manufacturers at that time to support a TV show. Collecting PCs I always knew there was something special about the genesis of the personal computer revolution. I started early collecting PCs and remain an avid collector today. The PC Museum has over 700 computers at the present time and our objective is to someday create a venue where this memorabilia can be displayed to the public. Our website is at www.thepcmuseum.net. Donations If you have anything to donate please let us know as there are still some computers that we do not have. The short list of computers we need includes: Sphere, Ithaca, Byt-8, PolyMorphic Systems, Heathkit H8, Cromemco, TDL/Xitan, Smoke Signal Broadcasting and Apple I. We also need all the memorabilia and photos that we can get related to the history of personal computers. If you have historical information about the systems we have online, we invite you to submit the information to share with our website users. It has been a special 28 years for me. Just surviving the unpredictable changes in the personal computer field, which has been a roller coaster ride, it is simply amazing that we are still here today. The memories we have of the industry and people we met and worked with has made it all worthwhile. Our customers have also given us many rewards from their continued support and the friendship we have enjoyed over the years. I am sleeping a little bit better these days! (David Freeman is founder and CEO of Advanced Computer Products Inc. Dave attended Long Beach State and the University of Southern California. He has a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering.)

21 years, 7 months

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Tony simulator

by melamy＠earthlink.net

what's a "scheamtic"? I know what "foo" is... -----Original Message----- From: Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk> Sent: Sep 10, 2004 6:59 PM To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Tony simulator > > Jules Richardson wrote > > >We need a Tony simulator :-) (Running on classic hardware, of course!) > > When I first read this I read "We need a Tony Stimulator" Certain English phrases work well for that : 'Do you know they are giving away free classic computers?' 'Do you have a scheamtic for a <foo>' 'How do I fix <bar>' :-) -tony

21 years, 7 months

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Tony simulator

by mmcfadden＠cmh.edu

Jules Richardson wrote >We need a Tony simulator :-) (Running on classic hardware, of course!) When I first read this I read "We need a Tony Stimulator" I really wondered for a second. Mike

21 years, 7 months

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Replicas - was Re: *** Ideas needed for developing

by mmcfadden＠cmh.edu

Sellam wrote >Too bad all the museums in the world don't have their own Tony (or at least appreciate him when they do have him). There is a company in Texas offering to clone a favored pet. Maybe they could have them clone Tony. Who shall we get to take a tissue sample >from him? I'll donate $50 towards the cost of a clone. Actually if we were smart we could have them produce a series of clones every few years. Nominations for cloning, in no special order Donald Knuth Richard Feynman Mike

21 years, 7 months

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version of MSDOS 6.22 expand.exe for Linux?

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

Does anyone know if there's a decompression util for Linux that can handle MSDOS 6.22 compressed files? I need a decompressed version of emm386.ex_ ... The only one I've found (so far) is called msexpand - but (helpfully) it supports every version of MSDOS ever apart from 6.22 :-( Unfortunately I'm surrounded by Linux machines right now and nothing with a hard disk onto which I can install DOS - and I don't think I can boot DOS 6.22 from floppies and tell expand to decompress a file into memory, let me change floppies to the one I want the expanded version on, and then write it out... :-) If it comes to it I can dig my old 486 laptop out of storage as I think that wound up with 6.22 on it - just a pain though! ta Jules

21 years, 7 months

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Bitsavers archive mirror

by pat＠computer-refuge.org

I'd like to publically announce yet another mirror Al Kossow's Bitsavers PDF archive, that is now up at: http://computer-refuge.org/bitsavers/ There is also a link to it from the home page of the website. I've got "pretty good" connectivity on that machine - it has a 100MBps connection to a network that has a 10Gbps uplink to the Internet and Internet2. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org

21 years, 7 months

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Printer help?

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "der Mouse" <mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca> > >> I think most of the error messages are listed but sometime it just >> says something like "replace the xxx board under the main board". If >> you know what I mean. > >Yeah - but even if it does, it would be reassuring to know that the >selftest agreed with me about what's at fault here. Or it could say >something like "such-and-such sensor switch is stuck open", in which >case I know I probably need to replace a cover or plug something in or >some such. (There are two sockets with no cables to plug into them as >far as I can tell; I don't _think_ I have any cable ends hiding, >but....) Hi Might be for the duplex or some other option. > >> Look at the board carfully. It sounds like you had a small >> electrical fire. Remove any charred PC board and look to see if >> traces are burnt through. > >It's not clear whether there is any charred PC board. There certainly >is _missing_ PC board, but it's not clear whether the black substance >is charred board or just gunk from the capacitor that I haven't >scrubbed away yet. > >There is at least one via that is damaged; I can see the little copper >cylinder sticking up every so slightly from the damaged board around >it. It's connected to a power wire on the foil side, though, so it's >not clear whether it's essential or whether perhaps the capacitor >lead's hole substitutes acceptably. > >It's not that easy to look very closely at the damaged area; it's >surrounded on three sides by components tall enough to get in the way >of things like cleaning efforts. I may remove the cap I added and see >if that lets me scrub it any cleaner. > >> Missing solder mask is not an issue but missing copper is. > >Obviously - though if there's any copper missing on the top layer, it >appears to be part of a high-area fill, probably ground, and thus >relatively inessential. > >> I'll look for my manual to see what it says( not here so will report >> back tomorrow ). > >That would be appreciated. No hurry, though; I'm about to take off >tomorrow and won't be near the printer for a week or two if I can't get >it fixed pretty early tomorrow morning. > >> This sounds like a PS board. > >It's not. The caps are right next to the only heavy wires that connect >to it; I'm sure they're incomng power (the board they connect to _does_ >look like a power supply board) and the caps are just for local >decoupling. > >Also, with the replaced cap, as I said, there are no more pyrotechnics >and the main power supply does not go into its overload failure mode, >so there doesn't seem to be anything still shoretd out. The flashes of >light, though, indicate _something_ was shorting; the one after I >replaced the cap leads me to fear that there was a short and some >conductor acted as a fuse. I may get out a voltmeter to see if the >various chips are getting power (some of them are stock 7400-series >logic, so finding ground and +5, at least, will be easy). Sounds like a good plan of attack. I'm relatively sure that you have had some electrical fire. The black stuff may be tar. If so, things like lighter fluid or kerosene should dissolve it. Dwight

21 years, 7 months

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version of MSDOS 6.22 expand.exe for Linux?

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

Thanks to both Steve and Fred for sending copies - all working happily now! (Now I'm just waiting for the machine to format the 22 SCSI drives hooked up to it :) cheers! Jules

21 years, 7 months

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survived another one!

by rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com

Second hurricane in three weeks!! Just got power back after hurricane Frances. This one was HUGE!!!! It reached from the FIorida Keys to Atlanta Ga! It started raining here Friday. HEAVY rain and winds all day Saturday and Sunday. More rain Monday (and a curfew in effect). Today (1:30 PM Tuesday) some rain bands are still passing through. Three tornadoes in this area yesterday and another today. The worst of the storm was south of us this time and everything around here that could be blown down was already down due to Charlie so now as much damage this time but HUGE amounts of rain. I set my canoe outside last week and it was FILLED completely full of rain by Friday night. Luckily Florida is flat so rain doesn't concentrate much. NOW it looks like we're in the path of Hurricane Ivan!!! It's scheduled to be in this area about Sunday or Monday. UnF***ING believable! joe

21 years, 7 months

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Completely and totally off-topic and without any merit

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk > >> Actually, that reminds me - I saw a chap in the UK trying to get rid of >> several kilos of the stuff a short while ago. I can't help thinking that >> *something* interesting could be made using it, although I'm not sure >> what. > >My first 3 thoughts, in no particular order : > >Barometer (or other manometer-type pressure gauge) > >Mercury delay line (hey, that's on-topic) > >Developing Dageurrotypes (?spell) (No, I don't intend to try this, I may >hack cameras as well as computers, but I don't intend to start boiling >mercury...) > >-tony > Hi Telescope makers use it to make small "pin holes" in photo graphic plates and film. You smash some and it makes hundreds of tiny specs that are almost perfectly spherical. These cast shadows on the the photo material. The film that is exposed turns dark, leaving the tiny clear spots. One simple mask off the ones that are not used. Dwight

21 years, 7 months

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Weller Soldering Stations...

by bpope＠wordstock.com

Which to buy? I am looking at two different ones - The WTCPT which you have to buy different tips to control temperature or the WES51 which has adjustabel temperatur control and is a little cheaper. I know either one would probably be a good investment but what is the advantage of one over the other? Thanks!, Bryan Pope

21 years, 7 months

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Completely and totally off-topic and without any meritwhatso

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Sep 7 2004, 23:08, William Donzelli wrote: > > Compounds in mercury? Such as? > > Mercury can combine with lots of things. Probably the most common is the > ore, cinnebar. I think it can even be part of some organic compounds. It readily reacts with even dilute nitric acid to form nitrates, or with aqua regia (a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids) to form mercuric chloride, also known as corrosive sublimate. It reacts slowly with sulphur, chlorine, or oxygen (cinnabar is mercury sulphide). Pure mercury sulphide used to be used as vermilion pigment (which may explain something about some artists). It reacts dangerously rapidly with bromine, and reacts with ammonia (don't try this at home!). The oxide reacts with quite a lot of things; it's used to make mercuric sulphate which is (was?) used as for some organic reactions. BTW, the reactions with oxygen and sulphur are very slow, which is why mercury vapour is, well, mercury vapour (rather than mercury oxide); and why the advice that used to be given to use flowers of sulphur (finely powdered sulphur) to mop up mercury spills is not very good (use zinc powder instead, to make a non-volatile amalgam). Some of the compounds are very toxic, and some can react with organic materials to produce organo-mercuric compounds (some list members are old enough to remember the Japanese fishermen who were poisoned by consuming them in fish over a long period). Lots of these are liquids with high toxic vapours. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

21 years, 7 months

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Wrong reply

by Pres＠macro-inc.com

At 12:42 PM 9/9/2004, you wrote: > >>> > >>> We now return you to your regularly-scheduled discussions > >>> of Mercury, Guns, Carburettors, and Sellam's State of Mind. > >>> > >The first three I understand... The final item is totally imponderable Not so hard to ponder; It really reduces quite nicely: As an anarchist Sellam has no State, which is a perfect match for that other thing he lacks. :-) Ed Kelleher

21 years, 7 months

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Having problems with SCSI MO drives

by vcf＠siconic.com

I'm trying to connect up various MO (magneto-optical) drives to a PC via SCSI interface and having consistent problems. The adapter in question is an Adaptec AHA-1542CP. The errors are: Host adapter status: 00h - No host adapter error Target status: 02h - Check condition Sense key: 02h - Not ready Sense code: 0Ah I'm not a total SCSI expert so I'm not figuring this out. Is there a termination issue? As far as I can tell both sides of the chain are terminated. The drive is hooked up externally and I'm using an active terminator. The host adapter should be terminating internally. What generally causes the above errors? I'm getting it on multiple drives across multiple adapters. Thanks! -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

21 years, 7 months

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Facit 4070,Query

by parsh_gndu＠rediffmail.com

? Dear Sir, I am a researcher from India and I read about you from the internet that you have got a wide knowledge and service manuals for Fait 4070. Sir, I have some qureies. Firstly,How to interface Facit 4070 with computer so that it can decode the hole punched directly. Secondly,I am having Facit N4000 ( REader/Puncher), but i am not having service manual for that . Could you please send me that via email or my postal address given in end of this email. Thanking you, With Regards, PARSHOTAM sharma Research Fellow, Department of Electronics Tech., Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar. India.

21 years, 7 months

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tektronx 310a

by jpowell7＠msn.com

I have a goood to great condition 310a scope and seen your message on the web. It is for sale...are you intrested or do you have an idea on where I could sell it? Thanks, Jay _________________________________________________________________ Get ready for school! Find articles, homework help and more in the Back to School Guide! http://special.msn.com/network/04backtoschool.armx

21 years, 7 months

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Printer help?

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

der Mouse <mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca> wrote: > I went to do this, but when I put it all back together and turned it > on, all armed with a voltmeter to check power, when I turned it on one > of the LEDs on the DC controller board came on, something I cannot > recall happening before. One of the LEDs indicates that the main motor has reached its operating speed, the other LED indicates that the scanner motor has reached its operating speed. > However, the selftest button does not work; as far as I can tell it > does nothing at all. I even tried holding it in for some 15-20 seconds > and it still did nothing, despite printing working normally from the > network and printing a selftest page when told to do so using the > front-panel buttons. Now this is weird, I have no explanation for it. It's supposed to continuously print pages of vertical lines for as long as the switch is down. Perhaps one of the damaged PCB traces went to this switch? > I think this was Peter Wallace, pcw(a)mesanet.com. Yes. > If nobody takes it before then, and Peter isn't willing/able to, might > _you_ be willing to extract those and send them to me? I would certainly be willing to do it, if nothing else for the sake of the experiment, since while logic is telling me that the IIISi and 4Si are the same printer except for those boards, I've never actually tried a swap. The problem is that I would only be able to do it after I get Peter's 4SiMX in my hands (that's assuming Peter wants to give it away for free and no one else takes it first), and I don't know when I'll be in the Bay Area. While having a source of spares for mine would certainly be nice, I won't make a trip to the Bay Area just for that. I normally go there twice a year for the Bay Area UFO Expo and for Conspiracy Con, but the Bay Area UFO Expo just passed two weeks ago and Conspiracy Con is in May. I don't think Peter would hold the printer for me for that long. > The former is marked as J005, the latter J014. These are some kind of test/debug connectors and aren't used in the field. MS

21 years, 7 months

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What was I running and can it be emulated?

by aek＠spies.com

I think it had Algol and Fortran and Assembly Language as it's languages. -- It was probably either DOS-M or an early RTE A lot of work has been done recently getting these OSes running in SIMH, so it should be possible. I don't know if Bob has put bootable disc images up for them yet, though. I have all of the manuals scanned, but not on line yet for these two systems.

21 years, 7 months

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DEC Storageworks BA356 questions

by tpeters＠mixcom.com

Hello all, new guy here, first post, help? I saw some info about some DEC SCSI enclosures, probably RAID boxes, holding 7 drives each, with power supply and "personality module." There wasn't enough info in the post I saw to get me going. I wonder if anyone might consider attempting answering a question or two for me, as I have a pair of these myself. They are marked MODEL SHDA2-ZZ on the back, and have 7 empty drive containers each. The fan modules say BA35X-MD 2x which makes me suspect that I have a pair of DEC Storageworks BA356 enclosures. They are gray in color. They each have a personality module, apparently both BA35X-MH. What do the switches do? The personality module with the sticker on it that says SHELF 2 does NOT have the switches set according to the decal on the module-- they are all off, whereas on the decal, one is advised to turn switches 1-3 on and leave 4-7 off. The module from the other unit is marked SHELF 1 and is in fact set the way the decal advises. Are these personality modules in fact RAID controllers? Are they meant to provide logical unit control, so that the enclosure looks like one SCSI ID to the outside world, with logical units on it? Or do the SCSI ID numbers assigned by the enclosure get passed through to the SCSI connector? Is there any software out there to configure these units as to what flavor of RAID to use? E.g. for Windows XP or Red Hat Linux? Many thanks in advance if you can help or point me in the right direction. -Tom

21 years, 7 months

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archive viper rubber roller

by aek＠spies.com

> I think I'd like a 'real' part if those can be had. Advice? -- I have a pile of drives I've been buying for just this reason. Unlike the Wangteks, later rev Archive drives kept the same pinch roller. If you're unable to find any out there, I'll send a known working drive out (assume you want the bare Q36 one..) I assume this is for Q24 media (9 trk) ?

21 years, 7 months

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Printer help?

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > It worked. It still works. Pity I can no longer get toner for it (I am > going to have to work out how to refill those cartridges, and what to > use). Something I've been wondering about too. But what about other parts of the EP cartridge besides the toner, i.e., the photosensitive drum? Doesn't it also have a relatively short life, a little longer than the toner supply but not by much? > Thing about mechanical problems is that you can often observe the unit in > opeeration and see what doesn't move when it should (or does move when it > shouldn't). The problem is that the observed symptoms still don't translate into a fix. Prior to replacing the job offset assembly on my NX, it had the following problem when printing to the main output bin: the paper would feed through perfectly fine, but just as it was beginning to emerge >from the last rollers, it would stop and the front panel would indicate a jam. The paper was not jammed, and if pulled out manually the printout was perfect. Obviously it was simply moving a bit too slow, and the DC controller had very little margin in the number of clock cycles allotted for the sheet to clear each sensor, causing it to barf. This much was clear. The problem is, how does one go about fixing it? There was no component I could directly lay the blame on. Replacing the job offset assy fixed it, and while the practical side of me is happy (the new assy was pretty and shining clean, the old one was dirty and ugly to the sight and to the touch), the purist side of me, the part of me that reads your posts and aspires to be more like you, is still quite unhappy about the whole episode, since I never understood WHY replacing the job offset assy fixed the problem, and what exactly was wrong with the old one. > FWIW, the DEC LN03 (I have one, I think mine is the Postscript model) is not > a Canon engine... I suspected that it was one of the rare exceptions, thanks for the confirmation. BTW, am I correct in that LN03R is a pure PostScript printer, i.e., PS ONLY and cannot work like a plain LN03? This would make the LN03R quite different from the later LNs, and that is why I've long felt that only the original LN03 is the real thing and that the later LNs pale in comparison. And the later LNs are based on a Canon engine, and I seem to recall a low-end cheapo one at that... Don't remember what ?X, but I seem to recall it's the same one as in "Personal" LaserJets and LaserWriters. > Are the scanners the same? Normally the higher resolution scanner needs > to rotate faster (so as to put more lines down in the same time). I know > that on the CX engine there was a 415 (!) dpi version and a crystal on > the sannner motor PCB [1] needs to be changed. I thought the same, and the part swapper guide gives different part #s for the IIISi and 4Si Laser/Scanner assemblies. However, a guy here in San Diego who professionally repairs these printers told me that he had swapped all kinds of parts between IIISi and 4Si that you are not officially supposed to swap and it worked; only the formatter and the DC controller are different he claimed. Maybe the scanner assembly has some kind of switch or jumper inside? MS

21 years, 7 months

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Printer help?

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: msokolov(a)ivan.harhan.org > >ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > >> It worked. It still works. Pity I can no longer get toner for it (I am >> going to have to work out how to refill those cartridges, and what to >> use). > >Something I've been wondering about too. But what about other parts of >the EP cartridge besides the toner, i.e., the photosensitive drum? >Doesn't it also have a relatively short life, a little longer than the >toner supply but not by much? ---snip--- The drums usually last for two or three loads. The drum was what failed on my last toner. It was a recycled one ( who knows how many times ). Dwight

21 years, 7 months

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Teletype war

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "John Lawson" <jpl15(a)panix.com> > > > >On Thu, 9 Sep 2004, Ed Kelleher wrote: > >> Ouch! >> >> Teletype ASR33, apparently without platen roller handle or stand (and reader >> PS?), went for $740. >> > > > This is why a lot of folks (including moi - a long-time eBayer) *HATE* >eBay... I am tempted, but will resist the urge, to write both the morons >that bid the thing up and apprise them of the Average Market Value for a >semi-ratty tabletop ASR33 with a bunch of Stuff missing... > > > Of course had it been *my* 33 that I sold for +5X it's worth, I prolly >would feel... differently. > > > ;} > Hi John You mean that an obviously broken 33 should sell for $150? Dwight

21 years, 7 months

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Teletype war

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "David V. Corbin" <dvcorbin(a)optonline.net> ---snip--- > >Makes me wonder how many participants on this list who post anti-ebay >sentiments are actually sellers [I know of a few] and freely admit to being >an eBay buyer, and seller. > > Hi Knowing the evils of drink doesn't stop me from a little nip every now and then. I treat eBay about the same. Dwight

21 years, 7 months

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simh compiled on Mac.

by ron.hudson＠sbcglobal.net

Cool downloaded Simh, had to change the BIN dir in the make file, compiled - now amongst others I have an HP2100 simulator. I have downloaded the paper tape basic. what do I do now? I know I need an att mumble basic1 after that I don't know. it would be good to be able to punch my basic programs after I write them...

21 years, 7 months

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Printer help?

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

Ethan Dicks <dickset(a)amanda.spole.gov> wrote: > the pre-perfed ones that come with the carts are about the size of > an envelope... > > Working out the raw Postscript to define the bizarre page size was the > hardest part. Isn't the print engine fundamentally limited to its fixed set of paper sizes? This set includes several envelope sizes (3 I believe), but don't you have to choose one of them? And what PS code are you talking about? Can you share it? Is it Level 1 or Level 2? Did you really define a page size that is not in the firmware? How did you do it? If you do << /PageSize [x y] >> setpagedevice where [x y] is a paper size not known to the firmware, won't it just barf on you? (Supposed to throw a configurationerror.) Or was it PS Level 1 and you did it by dinking with some undocumented statusdict stuff? If the latter, my interest is piqued and I'd love to learn more. MS

21 years, 7 months

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Printer help?

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

der Mouse <mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca> wrote: > Does the collective list wisdom include repair hints for an HP LaserJet > IIISi? I have one. I have a 4Si, and as I've learned through 20/20 hindsight, it's exactly the same printer as the IIISi with the exception of two electronics boards (the formatter and the DC controller) which have been redesigned to do 600 DPI. The outside box and every internal part except for those two boards are exactly identical. I wish I had known this at the time I got mine. In July I went on a truck trip with Fred van Kempen to Mountain View, Calif., and as we were walking through town to his house after having left the truck at his office, we stumbled across a LaserJet IIISi left out to pasture by the side of the road. I wanted to pick it up and take it with me on the truck back to Southern Calif., but Fred strongly dissuaded me ("Mike, don't bother with this piece of junk, it's a 3 and you want a 4"). Had I picked it up and taken it, I would have probably saved a bunch of money on replacement parts I had to get for my 4Si after I got it to make it work fully. I got my 4Si from eBay for $60 (plus $99 for shipping), and as one can expect for this price, it came completely stripped of everything optional, i.e., of everything that isn't required for it to come up and print a test page. It came with only the base 2 MB of memory (perfectly reasonable for a little personal laser printer, but an insult for what's supposed to be a high-end print server), and of course my sheepish hopes of getting a PostScript module and/or a duplexer with it were dream, dream. There was one surprise of the pleasant kind, though. It was listed on eBay as having an Ethernet MIO card, but it came with a serial MIO card instead. Not even serial/parallel, just serial. Whoo-hoo! Purrfect! Of course everyone else in the world wants Ethernet and considers serial slow old stuff, I am me. :) One thing I did take from the IIISi in Mountain View was the serial/parallel MIO card, but I ended up not needing it. Just serial is better for me. Besides, unlike the IIISi one, the 4Si formatter board has a built-in bidirectional parallel port (something I very much disgust because it's so non-Classic) and having two parallel ports on the back only one of which is working would just look ugly. The bad news was that it would only print to the rear output slot, and any attempts to print to the main upper output bin resulted in front panel error messages about jams. I've called PrinterWorks (great laser printer gurus, www.printerworks.com) and they advised me to replace the job offset assembly. But I was still stuck at the point of not knowing how to take the sucker apart. OK, it was obvious how to get to the formatter board to add the PostScript ROM and memory SIMMs, but the engine resisted my attempts to figure out how it comes apart. So I went looking for a service manual. Found found on eBay in PDF on CD, bought it, had to wait for the CD to arrive, then go to Kinko's and have the PDFs printed. It was a pretty good deal: in addition to the combined IIISi/4Si service manual from HP (which is what made me realise that they are the exact same printer), there was also a generic laser printer repair book that taught a lot of general principles not specific to any given make or model, and approched things from a rather Tony Duell-like perspective. With the help of the service manual (OK, part swapper guide) I figured out how to take the sucker apart. I got to the job offset assembly and took it out for examination. It was dirty with grease, but not in the paper path, and there wasn't anything obviously wrong with it. I was hesitant at first about just buying a new job offset assy and trying to swap it in and see what happens, having heard Prof. Duell's admonitions against randomly swapping parts. But then I broke down and did it, as there was just nothing wrong I could see, it just didn't work. Familiar feeling, eh? Absolutely nothing wrong, it just doesn't work... Well, after buying a new job offset assy and putting it in, the problem went away and the printer now happily prints to the main output bin. I will never know what was wrong with the old job offset assy as the shop I bought the new one from required a core return. (By the way, even though job offset is a feature I absolutely don't need and have turned off, the job offset assy is a required part of the print engine and must be present and in good order whether you need job offset or not.) Then I needed to fatten it up with options. I needed the PostScript module of course (I consider PostScript to be the one and only printer language, so a laser printer without PostScript is a boat anchor to me), and I got it even before I fixed the main output bin woes. On the 4Si the PostScript module is a ROM SIMM that takes up one of the 4 SIMM slots. It's PostScript Level 2. After I got the main output bin working, I bought the duplexer from PrinterWorks. One of the reasons I needed a high-end printer is to print big specs and other stuff to go into 3-ring binders, so duplex printing is very important. It works, so I'm happy. Of course I needed to get more memory too. It was not happy at all with the duplexer and PS in there and only 2 MB to live in. Fortunately, I found a set of 3 compatible 8 MB SIMMs (maximum with one slot tied up by the PS ROM SIMM) on eBay for dirt cheap and now I have 26 MB total, the maximum with PS. It now works like a charm, configured for PostScript only (I like the pretend that PCL is not there), with an H8571-E MMJ adapter fitted into its stupid female DTE connector and connected to its driving 4.3BSD-Quasijarus host with a DECconnect MMJ serial cable, or The One True Interconnect. I wrote the 4.3BSD-Quasijarus support for it, which will appear in the next release. Since it'll be released, I wrote the code for pure PostScript: it assumes a pure PS printer like the original Apple LaserWriter or DEC LN03R (something I would very much love to have for fun and experimentation, but unfortunately lack) and never allows the HP printer to fall out of PostScript mode into PCL. Plain text given to lpr is converted into PS by txtps, a 4.3BSD-Quasijarus utility, and *not* sent to the printer as-is. I also added functionality to lpd to control options like duplex (so I can do lpr -Php4si -Oduplex mydoc.ps), and it's implemented using PostScript Level 2 standard setpagedevice operator, NOT HP proprietary stuff like PJL commands. (Of course it's open source and modular, though, so if you need to modify it to work with your PostScript Level 1 printer, you can make it do whatever is necessary, provided that you can figure it out: I have no idea myself how to, for example, programmatically turn on duplex on a IIISi with PostScript Level 1.) > Yesterday, I turned it on, same as a zillion times > before, and it didn't come up normally; it was making an odd ticking > noise. I went to see what was up and smelled that unpleasant smell > that usually means the magic smoke has been let out of something. Reading the follow-up posts in this thread, I see that you've already found the failed PSU capacitor, so (hopefully) you should be all set once you find time to replace it. Feel free to ask again if you need more help or a copy of the service manual. After all this tinkering with mine (cleaning it inside out, getting to and replacing that job offset assembly, and fattening it up with options), I feel like an expert on the NX engine. Yes, like just about every laser printer in the world, it's a Canon engine, and this one is NX. The word engine is a bit misleading: I originally thought it meant something internal and did not include the outside appearance of the printer and input/output options like paper trays. As it turns out, NX engine means not just some inside guts like the laser or the motor, but the entire printer from plastic covers outside to the last screw inside is made by Canon. The ONLY HP part in there is the formatter with its associated I/O ports and font cartridge slots on the right side of the printer. This means that other printers based on the same engine will not only have some similar parts inside, but will look exactly identical outside except for a different logo painted on the top plastic cover, and the insides will be identical to the last screw rather than just share some common parts. Whew! I really did not expect that, I thought there was more diversity in the printer world. As some people may remember, prior to deciding on buying this HP 4Si, I was asking on this list a bunch of questions about DEC PrintServer 17 (LPS17), which was another printer I was considering. Well, imagine my amazement when I learned that it is also based on the NX engine and that the two printers I was debating between (LPS17 and HP 4Si) are in fact exactly the same printer with a different formatter board fitted in the pan on the right! Small world... The NX engine has 300 DPI and 600 DPI versions, and the difference is only in the DC controller board. Every other part is the same, as are options like the duplexer. Formatter boards would be different too, not just between HP IIISi and 4Si (which have a bit more significant differences at the formatter/personality level), but other folks like DEC who used the NX engine would have had to redesign the formatter board for the higher resolution when going from NX/300 to NX/600. But still, it's an interesting thought that all paper handling options, i.e., the duplexer, high capacity sheet and envelope feeders, etc., and even the plain paper trays are exactly the same between HP IIISi, HP 4Si, DEC LPS17, probably others... Speaking of paper trays for NX printers, I wonder if anyone here might have one piffling little plastic part they would be willing to part with. Do you know the metal plate/bar that goes across the tray near its back (most protruding) end? That metal plate/bar has two plastic pivots on its side that hold it in the tray. The right pivot in one of my trays is broken, but the tray is perfectly fine otherwise. Since it's just this piffling little plastic part that needs replacement, I really don't want a whole new tray. It's not a matter of cost, I just don't want another tray, I want to fix the one I have. The piffling little plastic part I need has a part number, RB1-1074, it's molded into the plastic and it's a Canon part number, so it's the same whether it came from Canon to you through HP or through DEC or however. But no printer parts store is willing to sell me that piffling little plastic part, they want to sell me another tray that I don't want. So I wonder, would someone here happen to have a spare RB1-1074 that I could have? Perhaps from a broken tray that's broken in another way? TIA, MS

21 years, 7 months

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Printer help?

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: msokolov(a)ivan.harhan.org > >der Mouse <mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca> wrote: > >> I went to do this, but when I put it all back together and turned it >> on, all armed with a voltmeter to check power, when I turned it on one >> of the LEDs on the DC controller board came on, something I cannot >> recall happening before. > >One of the LEDs indicates that the main motor has reached its >operating speed, the other LED indicates that the scanner motor has >reached its operating speed. > >> However, the selftest button does not work; as far as I can tell it >> does nothing at all. I even tried holding it in for some 15-20 seconds >> and it still did nothing, despite printing working normally from the >> network and printing a selftest page when told to do so using the >> front-panel buttons. > >Now this is weird, I have no explanation for it. It's supposed to >continuously print pages of vertical lines for as long as the switch >is down. Perhaps one of the damaged PCB traces went to this switch? > >> I think this was Peter Wallace, pcw(a)mesanet.com. > >Yes. > >> If nobody takes it before then, and Peter isn't willing/able to, might >> _you_ be willing to extract those and send them to me? > >I would certainly be willing to do it, if nothing else for the sake >of the experiment, since while logic is telling me that the IIISi and >4Si are the same printer except for those boards, I've never actually >tried a swap. The problem is that I would only be able to do it after >I get Peter's 4SiMX in my hands (that's assuming Peter wants to give >it away for free and no one else takes it first), and I don't know >when I'll be in the Bay Area. While having a source of spares for mine >would certainly be nice, I won't make a trip to the Bay Area just for >that. I normally go there twice a year for the Bay Area UFO Expo and >for Conspiracy Con, but the Bay Area UFO Expo just passed two weeks ago >and Conspiracy Con is in May. I don't think Peter would hold the printer >for me for that long. > >> The former is marked as J005, the latter J014. > >These are some kind of test/debug connectors and aren't used in the >field. > >MS > Hi Most likely, he'd be better to remove all the boards and electronics >from the 4si and convert to a 4si. The 4si is most likely a mechanical issue with jamming. Of course, if I were to pick the 4si up, I'd convert to a 4si and send him the IIIsi boards from my machine. See how simple that is. Dwight

21 years, 7 months

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Printer help?

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

der Mouse <mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca> wrote: > Duh, I forgot to say: I've more than removed the dead cap. Where was it? I thought it was on one of the PSU boards, but you now seem to imply it's on the DC controller. > Now, the power supply no longer does the tick-tick-tick overload thing; > it comes on and stays on. But it doesn't work; I get the usual walking > lights, then the 05 SELF TEST display, then SWITCHING TO PS; after a > bit, it changes to 55 SERVICE. The control panels lights and LCD are controlled by the formatter board. That's the big one on the right, the one that memory and PostScript options go onto and MIO cards and font cartridges go into, and the only board in the entire printer that makes it an HP LaserJet IIISi as opposed to, say, DEC LPS17. The fact that it walks the lights, enters the self-test and knows about PS indicates that the formatted board is probably OK. The formatter board talks to the DC controller, which is the main print engine controller, which controls the entire Canon-built NX engine. The formatter board throws up a 55 error if it can't talk to the DC controller. If the board you are having woes with, the one damaged by the blown cap, is indeed the DC controller board, then it's probably the culprit. The DC controller board is in the front right area of the printer, below the control panel, directly behind the plastic front cover. If you take a close look at the front cover between the tray openings and the font cartridge slots, you'll see a small hole. This hole provides access to the engine test button on the DC controller board. If you push this button, the DC controller will print an engine test page independently of the formatter, i.e., it'll forcibly override whatever the formatter is directing it to do and will work even if the formatter is missing or dead. Try it. But it looks like your problem is the opposite, good formatter and bad DC controller. > This may be because I still have all > the covers off - there may be sensor switches There are no sensor switches for the plastic covers. There are sensors for fans and it'll halt if any fan is unplugged. The AC input assembly in the PSU area has an interlock switch that cuts off the AC to the fuser and the "B" side of +24V DC that powers the main motor, the laser, and the high voltage supply for the imaging system if the top is lifted. The "A" side of +24V DC that powers all logic is always on. The only other interlock switches are the higher-level "top open" switch that doesn't cut off any power, but tells the thing to stop and complain about the open top on the LCD, and the EP cartridge presence detect switches. > I think one of you said something about having a service manual; does > it happen to say what 55 SERVICE means? -- quoting: -- The "55 Service" error indicates that the printer failed to initialize correctly at power ON. This means that the Formatter cannot communicate with the engine in order to establish the initial condition of the engine. This problem can be caused by a bad Formatter, bad cable, or by problems with the line voltage. Check and reseat connectors J4 and J5 on the DC Power Supply, and J8, J9, and J10 on the DC Controller PCA. Cycle the power several times to clear the error or to get another error that may better indicate the cause of the problem. If this clears the error, run an engine test print. If the error persists, replace the Paper Pickup PCA, the DC Controller PCA, the DC Power Supply PCA, the Formatter PCA. Finally, replace the Paper Input Unit. If these fail to correct the problem, check all associated cables for damage and replace if required. Any 57.1 Main Motor problem can also cause this error. -- end quote -- > Failing that, does anyone happen to have a spare board? It's the > smaller of the two digital logic boards - the one that measures > something like 6 by 8 inches, the one you have to remove the big one to > get at. I think you are talking about the DC controller board. Someone just posted about having a bad HP 4SiMX for free for the taking. He said it jams, so that's probably a mechanical problem and the electronics is probably OK. He is in California (Bay Area), i.e., nowhere near you, but if you can convince him to take out and send you the formatter and the DC controller boards, that might work for you. You'll need both boards and the cable between them since it's a 4Si. Since the two printers are otherwise identical, swapping those two boards will turn your IIISi into a 4Si, i.e., you'll get 600 DPI and PostScript Level 2. You might also need a few other bits like the control panel (I'm not sure if they changed it), but nothing major and certainly nothing heavy. And if you two do work out that arrangement, I could take the rest for spare parts next time I'm in the Bay Area. (I'm in Southern Calif.) MS

21 years, 7 months

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traveling

by mouse＠Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA

Looks as though I'll probably be in Wisconsin for most of next week - Milwaukee and Madison are the principal cities I'll be in. Anyone interested in getting together, anything on-topic to go see/do, anything like that? /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

21 years, 7 months

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Printer help?

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "der Mouse" <mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca> ---snip--- > >Also fortunately, it's a common-as-dirt value (220?F 35V), though since >it appears to be a power decoupling cap, the exact value is probably >not critical. ---snip--- Hi It looks like you found the problem. I wonder if this was one of those caps that were made with the stolen formula for the electrolyte. I would guess that replacing the cap should put it back in working order. Do clean the board of the material that comes out of the cap. It isn't highly corrosive but it will cause damage over time. Even though you don't see a great need for a duplexer, they are quite cheap on ebay. HP wanted soemthing like $450 for these. I payed $15 plus shipping. The envelope feeder was about the same. The local Staples store ( a local office supply company ) was getting rid of old obsolete toners. I bought two HP toner assemblies for $25 each. This is the cheapest I've ever seem them. I've seen other manufactures for around $60 each. Dwight

21 years, 7 months

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OT(ish) - floppy quality

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

Is anyone else finding that new floppy disks these days tend to be total crud? I've just chucked yet another one (Sony) in the bin after it survived reading the data I'd put on it back a total of two times before it began to give read errors... (It's not the drive; I get the same problem regularly using several different drives, and have no trouble reading and writing to media that's several years old) Grrr! Jules

21 years, 7 months

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Printer help?

by mouse＠Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA

Does the collective list wisdom include repair hints for an HP LaserJet IIISi? I have one. Yesterday, I turned it on, same as a zillion times before, and it didn't come up normally; it was making an odd ticking noise. I went to see what was up and smelled that unpleasant smell that usually means the magic smoke has been let out of something. I turned it off immediately and have been spending the last hour or so trying to figure out how to disassemble it to find out what's fried (and try to estimate how user-replaceable it may be). But it's being difficult, and my replacement capabilities tend to operate at a coarser FRU grain than, say, Tony's :-); service doc would help (even if only the kind Tony not entirely unjustly calls just a boardswapping guide - it'd still help with things like mechanical disassembly). Someone with experience with the things would help even more, of course, but I can't really expect to be that lucky. I'm still working on pulling it apart to find out what let out that unpleasant smell.... /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

21 years, 7 months

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What was I running and can it be emulated?

by ron.hudson＠sbcglobal.net

Once upon a time when I was in High School, I used to visit Santa Clara University. I would get there 0-dark:30. I was able to use card punches to create my program decks, There were some sort of pre-punched JCL cards. Cards in Hopper - I think I pushed something - cards read 2100 rumbles Line printer starts printing. So It was some sort of batch system. I think it had Algol and Fortran and Assembly Language as it's languages. Hp 2100 (square white lights) Card Reader Line Printer 1 Cartridge disk drive with a flat disk that slid in horizontally 1 9 track tape drive Highspeed paper tape reader Highspeed punch Boot tape was a bout 2 ft long something special about the octal number 102077 BTW will simh compile on Mac OS X?

21 years, 7 months

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disk drive

by Bob_Plew＠or.mxim.com

I am looking for a Sony floppy drive Model# MP-F52W-00D. Do you have any information on how I could obtain one? Please reply to both e-mail addresses in this message. Thank you, Jason

21 years, 7 months

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Intellec-mds 800

by JMeyer101＠aol.com

Looking for help on an Intellec 4. I need to get a power cord. Does anyone know of a source for cords for the classic computers? Does the Intellec 4 and other Intellec models share the same power cords? Thanks, Jeff

21 years, 7 months

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DECMate II

by rich_bramante＠yahoo.com

I just rescued one of these. No docs/sw. It has 2 RX50 drives, but no hard disk. It powers up to a DECMate II screen with a flashing cursor in the ULH corner. Anything interesting I can do with this to play around without a hard drive? Any floppy images I can snag (will it boot from floppy?) Thanks. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

21 years, 7 months

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Just Call me Crazy...

by evan947＠yahoo.com

A friendly reminder, I keep a list of places to visit nationwide, at the Computer Collector E-mail Newsletter's web site: http://news.computercollector.com (click the "on the road" link) ... so far the directory has more than 50 listings (unfortunately none in Florida yet). - Evan

21 years, 7 months

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Printer help?

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

der Mouse <mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca> wrote: > (There are two sockets with no cables to plug into them as > far as I can tell; I don't _think_ I have any cable ends hiding, > but....) The big cavity clearly visible from the rear with the covers off is for the duplexer. The socket in the corner of this cavity right next to the formatter/PSU area is where the duplexer connects, that socket is wired to the DC controller and is very handy for checking voltages. The other socket is on the front directly above the upper tray cavity, that's for the envelope feeder. It is wired to the Paper Input PCA. The service manual contains a one page main wiring diagram. No schematics for individual boards, but at least all inter-board connections are shown with pinouts. MS

21 years, 7 months

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Weller Soldering Stations...

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Bryan Pope" <bpope(a)wordstock.com> > > > >Which to buy? I am looking at two different ones - The WTCPT which you >have to buy different tips to control temperature or the WES51 which has >adjustabel temperatur control and is a little cheaper. > >I know either one would probably be a good investment but what is the >advantage of one over the other? > >Thanks!, > >Bryan Pope > > Hi I use the WTCPT type but I think these are now days being replaced by the adjustable ones. I've stopped buying the entire station and just buy the handles. The base just contains a 24V transformer and a fuse. A radio shack transformer works fine and is a lot cheaper. A little piece of plywood and coat hanger wire make up the rest. Dwight

21 years, 7 months

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Weller Soldering Stations...

by aek＠spies.com

> Which to buy? A used Metcal.

21 years, 7 months

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Printer help?

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "der Mouse" <mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca> > >>> I would guess that replacing the cap should put it back in working >>> order. >> I've now removed the cap. [...] > >Duh, I forgot to say: I've more than removed the dead cap. > >The bottom of the cap is visibly damaged; it has lost a good deal of >some black material. The baord is also visibly damaged; the >component-side etch under the capacitor has lost its coating, and the >board is significantly pitted, too. > >I replaced it with a 220/35 cap from my parts drawer; when I put the >result in place, turning it on produced another flash of light from >that area. I removed it again and cleaned the area with water and an >old toothbrush and let it dry overnight. > >Now, the power supply no longer does the tick-tick-tick overload thing; >it comes on and stays on. But it doesn't work; I get the usual walking >lights, then the 05 SELF TEST display, then SWITCHING TO PS; after a >bit, it changes to 55 SERVICE. This may be because I still have all >the covers off - there may be sensor switches - or it may be because >the pc board damage has broken a critical etch run or something. I do >note a very faint ticking noise, disturbingly reminiscent of the one I >mentioned before - but far less frequent (maybe every five seconds) and >a great deal softer; I had to listen closely to be sure I wasn't >imagining it. > >I think one of you said something about having a service manual; does >it happen to say what 55 SERVICE means? Hi I think most of the error messages are listed but sometime it just says something like "replace the xxx board under the main board". If you know what I mean. Look at the board carfully. It sounds like you had a small electrical fire. Remove any charred PC board and look to see if traces are burnt through. Missing solder mask is not an issue but missing copper is. I'll look for my manual to see what it says( not here so will report back tomorrow ). This sounds like a PS board. Not having the drawings here, this might be the case. If so, the diode or diode bridge may shorted. This would wipe out the cap and maybe a few more parts. Dwight > >Failing that, does anyone happen to have a spare board? It's the >smaller of the two digital logic boards - the one that measures >something like 6 by 8 inches, the one you have to remove the big one to >get at. (I don't _like_ boardswapping, but absent the tools and doc >I'd need to diagnose this one, I see little alternative.) > >/~\ The ASCII der Mouse >\ / Ribbon Campaign > X Against HTML mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca >/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B >

21 years, 7 months

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Wrong reply

by jpl15＠panix.com

Sorry for the obvious reply to a private message... But I do have Model 35 Doc s if not available on-line... We now return you to your regularly-scheduled discussions of Mercury, Guns, Carburettors, and Sellam's State of Mind. Cheers John

21 years, 7 months

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test-drb