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101090 discussions

Where the cool stuff is (was: Re: DEC Vaxstation II GPX needs a home)

by xds_sigma7＠hotmail.com

There's no bids on it because its not worth $300... they make no mention of having any software or docs, which would make it damn hard to use.. Not to mention that they don't say what the hell kind of computer it has an interface for on it... could be set up for a lot for a lot of different things.. and it's also a huge beast of a thing to ship. That things been on ebay like 3 or 4 times now Will J ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com

25 years, 10 months

Where the cool stuff is (was: Re: DEC Vaxstation II GPX needs a home)

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> Jason McBrien wrote: > > > How come all the cool stuff is on the west coast? > > Huh? How come all the unused Floating Point Systems stuff is > in the midwest and all the Sequents are in Florida? :-) Speaking of which, I see no one bid on this one: : At any rate, the system is a Floating Point Systems model 164 : vector processor. It is currently for sale on the E-Bay auction site. : : The URL to the item on E-Bay is: : : http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=333251248 : : The page includes photos of the unit, and if you are an E-bay : registered user, you can contact the seller to ask questions. FWIW, it's still in E-Bay's database, and the photos still download. -doug q

25 years, 10 months

VCF Link Contest

by foo＠siconic.com

I'm running a contest on the VCF website right now. If you add a link to your website pointing to the VCF and you garner the most referals between now and VCF 4.0, you'll win $50! Check out http://www.vintage.org/contests/link.html for complete details. Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... Coming soon: VCF 4.0! VCF East: Planning in Progress See http://www.vintage.org for details!

25 years, 10 months

Removing surface-mounted ICs

by mark_k＠iname.com

Hi, This isn't strictly on-topic, but I guess it could be applied to maintaining classic stuff, so... Can anyone recommend a way of removing surface-mounted ICs (specifically SOJ package DRAM chips) from a board? It's not critical to keep the board undamaged, but the chips must be kept intact since I want to solder them into another device. I read of a technique involving turning the board upside-down and heating the board area opposite the ICs in question with a blowtorch. The ICs drop off when the solder melts. I don't have a blowtorch, but do have a gas stove. Heating the board over the stove will probably not be a good idea, since the ICs would need to be lifted off when the solder melts. Since I want to recover several chips, they are likely to get too hot doing it this way. I do have an electric grill. The element is at the top of the oven. What about putting the board component side down in the oven (near the heating element), and heating until the solder melts? It will be important to get the temperature profile right here, I think. Putting the board straight into a hot oven might not be a good idea, but on the other hand having it in the oven as it warms up from cold may be too long. In a way, doing this would be similar to IR reflow soldering. What is a typical melting temperature for solder used on surface-mount components? The oven control goes up to 260 Celsius (from memory), which I hope is high enough. Has anyone else attempted something like this? Do you have any advice? I guess the same technique could also be used for soldering surface-mount components (with board component side up, and solder paste applied to the pads). -- Mark

25 years, 10 months

Tech Rumors/Legends?

by dcoward＠pressstart.com

Hi All, One the nice things about this list is the variety of first hand experience that can be called upon to clear up those nagging second hand rumors that you keep dragging around for years, unable to track down a definitive answer. Up for review: 1. "The person that designed the Mindset PC later designed the Amiga." I realize that computers like the Amiga are not designed by just one person, but does anyone know anything about the people that helped design these computers? 2. About 1982 I started hearing that it was possible to build a camera for your pc by "cooking" an EPROM under UV light for an extended period until the memory cells were still light sensitive but would no long hold a charge. Then by placing a len over the EPROM's window, you had a real time low-res video image mapped right into memory. Again this is one that quite a few people had heard about but no one knew anyone that had ever done it. 3. This has probably been discussed here before, but .... I've heard that the old 8 inch 32 sector hard sector floppy diskettes, the ones with the sector holes around the outside edge of the diskette, and the big notch in one corner, is is an early version of the 8 inch floppy - maybe the first form the 8 inch floppies from IBM took. 4. I've heard somewhere, and the source is lost to age, that - the Altair for the January 1975 article was just a empty case and that no regular orders for the Altair 8800 where filled until April 1, 1975. (Sure, I drooled on the magazine at the time, but it might as well costs a million dollars, I was a single sailor collecting $151.00 every two weeks, saving to get married at the end of April.) Comments welcome, I would like to deallocate the space for the ones that have no real basis in fact. Regards, --Doug ========================================= Doug Coward Press Start Inc. Sunnyvale,CA =========================================

25 years, 10 months

Defining Disk Image Dump Standard

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>> This is a good start. The header should include a byte that contains a >> flag indicating the status of the sector (good, bad, etc). >Other things that are 'missing' from that header are whether the sector >is single or double density, what sort of Data Marker came before it >(some TRS-80 disks use strange data markers, and just about all TRS-80 >M1/M3/M4 OSes use deleted data markers on the directory track). Then there are some *real* oddballs, such as disks with 18 or 12 or 9 bits per byte. It's very, very common for double-density CP/M disks to have the boot sector - and in some cases the first few tracks - in single density. For these odd formats, I just record the waveform from the head for each track for a couple of revolutions, just to make real sure that I'm not missing anything :-). Tim.

25 years, 10 months

New finds: Harris, DEC, HP

by technoid＠cheta.net

I visited the Computer Parts Barn yesterday and found some neat stuff. Much of it was used by the Air Force for Missile testing etcetera. Here is a partial list: 1ea Harris 600 - fully outfitted mini. Model H600-2 Serial # 252 1ea Dec H7204 expansion chassis with several cards 16ea DEC Vax 4000 minis with 40mb ram, hard drives were pulled by Boeing and scrapped but CPB has lots of scsi hard disks. CPU is KA46. Model is V546K-AD Monitors for the DEC 4000 machines are VR-19HA (Sony GDM1961) 1ea DEC RL02 disk unit in rack 1ea DEC TA78-BF R-B1 Rack-mount tape unit in rack 3ea RA-81 disk units in 19" rack 3ea HP7920 hdd 1ea HP1000 mini with 7970 tape unit in rack 1ea hdd7906 (HP disk) in rack You can contact Ed Kirby of CPB at EDCPB(a)email.com Hope you found something you wanted!

25 years, 10 months

Oops

by Glenatacme＠aol.com

Sorry, meant to send that privately. Glen 0/0

25 years, 10 months

Need Software.

by Glenatacme＠aol.com

Hi David! I had offered you some software but didn't have your address and the dog ate my e-mail . . . Please send me your address. Also, I'd appreciate it if you'd send me $3.20 for postage. Most of the programs I can send you have no documentation, not even a readme, so you're going to have to poke and hope . . . Stay in touch, Glen Goodwin ACME Enterprises 5511 W. Colonial Drive Orlando, FL 32808

25 years, 10 months

Need Software.

by netsurfer_x1＠hotmail.com

I am putting out a call once again to anybody who has any DOS software (and I mean anything at all: Word processors, games, scientific programs, etc.) that will work on a Sharp PC-7000 lunchbox portable. I think it has 384K, or so, of memory, but programs that run in 256K should be enough for the job. I also runs DOS Ver. 3.2 I *do not* want to have to sell or scrap this somewhat rare (well, for a PC, anyway) machine because I have no software for it aside from the boot disk. ____________________________________________________________ David Vohs, Digital Archaeologist & Computer Historian. Home page: http://www.geocities.com/netsurfer_x1/ Computer Collection: "Triumph": Commodore 64C, 1802, 1541, FSD-1, GeoRAM 512, Okimate 20. "Leela": Macintosh 128 (Plus upgrade), Nova SCSI HDD, Imagewriter II. "Delorean": TI-99/4A. "Monolith": Apple Macintosh Portable. "Spectrum": Tandy Color Computer 3. "Boombox": Sharp PC-7000. ____________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com

25 years, 10 months

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