The BIIN Computer was not a workstation. It was a fault tolerant transaction
processing machine of the late 1980s. It was to compete against Tandon and
IBM. The plans were to build 100 machines and put them out for trial and then
ramp up for production.
It used a variant of the i860 with multiple processors and 64 or 128 Megs of
ram, a 300 Meg HD for SW and mirrored IPI drives for data. Nice computer with
the entire chassis made to very high German standards in Germany and
airfreighted to here (Portland, OR).
Unfortunately we had a contract to dismantle and destroy all the machines
returned to intel after they closed down. Intel pulled all of the processor
chips before they even got to us. A very interesting machine, the chassis
took four hours to strip by our most experienced person.
For intel, Siemens was impossible to deal with, talk about a culture clash.
They were happy to see the project end. Intel had 5 or 10% with Siemens the
rest. When it became apparent that it was going to cost a huge amount of
money to compete, the BIIN Company was offered for sale and then shut down
and liquidated.
I have the original nail board for the BIIN Processor Card with all of it's
original documentation. If anyone out there is interested please contact me
off line at whoagiii(a)aol.com. I got the nail bed in another sale that was not
covered under the contract.
Paxton
I will also be inflicting myself on VCFE; I will be arriving in
Munchen Thurs morning and returning Monday; it will be a Big Fun to
meet anyone from the List who will be there.
Cheers
John
PS: a 'picture' of me is on the VCF 3.0 website... I exhibited the
Heathkit Large Analogue Computer, and was unfortunately too close to
it when Sellam took the photo. :( So you can figure out who I
am without having to decode eine NamenTag.
Ok, can someone explain why flip-chips keep selling for serious cash on
Ebay? I thought one thing people liked about flip-chips was how easy
they are to repair, ie, they are typicaly either transistor/resistor/diode
circuits, or possibly even simpler circuits implemented with very basic
IC's...
If someone is looking for a particular flip chip, and is willing to trade
some PDP8/E interface board for it, or something else PDP8 related, just
let me know. I picked up a bunch of flip chips reciently, i was planning
to use them in a display someday (ie, rows of flip chips plugged into
wire-wrapped backplanes).
-Lawrence LeMay
lemay(a)cs.umn.edu
At 12:39 PM 4/21/2000 -0700, you wrote:
>On Fri, 21 Apr 2000, Sellam Ismail wrote:
>> VCF 1.0e is about a week away and plans are rolling right along. It
>
>Better take along a LOT of visual aids (slides, overhead foils, etc.) If
>that's the extent of your German, then 45 minutes is going to call for a
>LOT of beer drinking, toilet visiting, and vomiting!
>Maybe you should have Hans translate, or rely on their knowing some
>English.
>
>> I'm also giving a talk at Oxford (that would be in England :) at the
>
>So you're going to have to learn British, also. Remember that we are two
>peoples divided by a common language.
>
>--
>Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com
>
You know what Professor Higgens said, "In America they haven't spoken it
in years!"
Maybe Sam could get Tony to translate.
Cheers
Charlie Fox
Charles E. Fox
Chas E. Fox Video Productions
793 Argyle Rd. Windsor N8Y 3J8 Ont. Canada
email foxvideo(a)wincom.net Homepage http://www.wincom.net/foxvideo
Check out "The Old Walkerville Virtual Museum" at
http://www.skyboom.com/foxvideo --works best with I.E.5
I just picked up three of the Intel EV80960SX evaluation boards. They're
evaluation boards for the Intel 80960 processors. There's a picture of one
at "www.intellistar.net/~rigdonj/misc/int80960.jpg". Does anyone have the
specs or any docs for them?
Joe
--- ks <ks(a)coastalnet.com> wrote:
> Cameron Kaiser wrote:
> >
> > Well, for those of you following HyperLink 2.5, the web browser I'm working
> > on for the C64, as of this morning I was able to surf Yahoo at 26.4 kbps
> > with a PC 28.8 modem and an ACIA cartridge.
>
>
> Cameron what is an ACIA cartridge?
I know what one is but not where to get one. The ACIA is a particular
variety of UART. IIRC, it stands for Advanced Communications Interface
Adapter or something similar. Should be a variant of 6550 chip in there.
Since I have a small drawer of 6550s (stripped from some 1970s 6502-based
dumb terminals), I'm wondering if there are plans on the net (ftp.funet.fi?)
to build one.
I happen to already have an IDE interface for the C-64 (and a 1.3" KittyHawk
drive to go with it); I'd love to stick a browser on there and go. If
possible, I'd probably try to retrofit an ACIA to a recycled C-64 game cart
with some creative wiring. Presumably at low speeds, DMA is not required.
As they say, it's not how well the bear dances, but that the bear can dance
at all.
Great Job, Cameron! Let me know if it's possible to homebrew a serial
interface that's compatible with what you are working on.
-ethan
=====
Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to
vanish, please note my new public address: erd(a)iname.com
The original webpage address is still going away. The
permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/
See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send online invitations with Yahoo! Invites.
http://invites.yahoo.com
Well, for those of you following HyperLink 2.5, the web browser I'm working
on for the C64, as of this morning I was able to surf Yahoo at 26.4 kbps
with a PC 28.8 modem and an ACIA cartridge. And a few other sites too, which
reminds me that Sam Ismail needs to put some ALT tags on those images on the
VCF site. ;-)
--
----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)ptloma.edu
-- Really???? WOW!!!!! I'm shallow TOO!!!!! -----------------------------------
I know this has been discussed before, but I can't find the info. I just
aquired a Maxtor 2190 disk drive that I want to convert into a DEC RD54. I
know about formatting it under XXDP, but I remember that a jumper had to be
changed on the drive. Can anyone help me out here?
Thanks,
Bill King
In a press release dated April 18, 2000, SCO has announced that they
have dropped the $100 processing fee for an "Ancient" Unix License:
http://www.sco.com/press/releases/2000/6927.html
They say that it will be possible to download code directly from their
site. As far as I can tell, they haven't yet made it available.
Once one has an Ancient Unix License, one can also get other Unix code
derived from Unix editions through 7th Edition, and 32V, from
PUPS, the PDP Unix Preservation Society:
http://minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au/PUPS/
And Marshall Kirk McKusick's CSRG Archive CD-ROM set (four discs, $99.00),
which contains all of the BSD releases:
http://www.mckusick.com/csrg/index.html
Hi All,
A couple of years ago I picked up a second Altair. It was missing all the
cards except for a Godbout active terminator card and is missing the top
case. While working on it a couple of weeks ago I found a previous owner's
name in it. It recognized the name, it was a guy that I worked with for
many years at Martin Marietta. After some searching, I finally tracked him
down and asked him about the Altair. Here's his reply:
>
>My EXwife 'disposed' of a fair amount of my equipment a few years back.
(She didn't pay the payments on the storage locked so the stuff was
trashed. ed)
> The
>Altair was in perfect shape, worked, had all of the cards and was attached
>to a Hazeltine1500 CRT. It had a couple of 8 inch floppy drives and a CDC
>Hawk 5x5 hard disk drive that fit a 19E rack. If I remember correctly, the
>Altair was serial 28. It wasn't a kit but was a production (one of the
>first off the line) model.
>
>Interesting how things happen??? BTW, I still live in Orlando. The number
>you gave was my work phone number when I was still working for Lockheed up
>in Ocala. I commuted each day from Orlando...got old and just about wore my
>car out.
>
>Nice hearing from you after all this time.
>
>Richard
>
Somehow a scrapper ended up with it. He evidently pulled the cards for
their scrap value. Then he sold the chassis at a hamfest. Another ex-Martin
employee bought it and years later I bought it from him. Does anyone have a
top case that they'll part with? My first Altair is nearly complete but I
still need the MITs floppy drive controller cards. Does anyone have a set
that they'll sell or trade? I have an original MITs floppy drive and
original MITs disks so I only need the controller cards to make it
operational.
Joe
