"Single instance" machines

At 19:51 12/09/98 +0000, Tony Duell wrote: I have a feeling you would be the only person within our list and perhaps most other computer collectors who has a PERQ. I never seen one, know very little about them, but nevertheless, over the years (10+ years ago) I had occasionally heard of them. Yep. I got it out of a huge batch of equipment auctioned from the IBM-Endicott plant when it was severely "downsized" around 1984. It apparently controlled some sort of tester for those square metal modules one sees on IBM pc boards (what are they called again William D.?) Never heard of a TEK 31 myself 'till then. When I saw it I figured I had better grab it since I felt it was a rather rare thing even back then. I don't recall finding anything on it in my collection of older TEK catalogs. The machine works. Has a tape cartridge with a program that I printed out. Language was fairly easy to figure out (sorta like HPL found on the HP 9825's, etc.) Has an LED display and a thermal printer, again similar to the 9825. Been at least a dozen years since I looked inside, but I don't recall any LSI-type chips as main brains. I think it's all TTL. IIRC, the chips were dated around mid-70's. I'll look again for you sometime. *Finally*, last year I got a TEK 31 operator's manual. Got it from somebody advertising having it for sale in one of the antique radio groups, of all places, on Usenet. But it's in French!! (Came out of French Canada.) Have to recall the several years of French class I had in high school a lo-o-o-ng time ago:) Probably will *never* find any more tape cartidges for it so I can't write programs and save 'em and otherwise have fun with it :( Was the TEK 21 you mentioned above earlier than the TEK 31 or just different in other ways? Are these plotters similar in concept to the 4331 printers? Used a special thermal paper I think. Such printer could hang off my TEK 4015-1 graphics terminal and print directly from the screen. The 401x series had an X-Y analog plotter output for actual plotting. Evidently in that service manual it mentions the plotter could hang off a TEK 31, true? If so, then this is indeed the connector pinout for my TEK 31? I got a 1 meter long cable with it too. -- snipped pin list for brevity -- Hmmm, I have to check but I *think* there is something about 1210's in the DG Nova printset I have. I know there's schemas for the 1200 and 800 machines. I'll let you know if I run across them while unpacking stuff. Remind me early next year Tony. Regards, Chris -- -- Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian Jamestown, NY USA cfandt(a)netsync.net Member of Antique Wireless Association URL: http://www.ggw.org/freenet/a/awa/