cctech Digest, Vol 42, Issue 53

Send cctech mailing list submissions to cctech at classiccmp.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://www.classiccmp.org/mailman/listinfo/cctech or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to cctech-request at classiccmp.org You can reach the person managing the list at cctech-owner at classiccmp.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of cctech digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Pair of 19" rack mount Emulex HD's available.... (Curt - Atari Museum) 2. VCF East 4.0, another update... (Evan Koblentz) 3. Re: New DEC museum entry :D (Jules Richardson) 4. Re: HPIB [was Re: Kennedy to PC interface...] (der Mouse) 5. Looking For DEC TTY Connectors (O. Sharp) 6. Re: NeXT external CDROM drive (Gavin Thomas Nicol) 7. Re: Pair of 19" rack mount Emulex HD's available.... (William Donzelli) 8. Re: Turbodos on a Horizon 8/16 system (Jim Battle) 9. Re: HPIB [was Re: Kennedy to PC interface...] (Chuck Guzis) 10. Re: New DEC museum entry :D (Bob Bradlee) 11. Re: NeXT external CDROM drive (r.stricklin) 12. Re: Turbodos on a Horizon 8/16 system (Chuck Guzis) 13. Re: Looking For DEC TTY Connectors (Brent Hilpert) 14. Re: database of PC software release dates? (Jim Leonard) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 20:42:16 -0500 From: Curt - Atari Museum <curt at atarimuseum.com> Subject: Pair of 19" rack mount Emulex HD's available.... To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <45DBA378.6000807 at atarimuseum.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed I'm cleaning out one of my storage units, I was given a pair of 19" Rack mountable Emulex HD's (SMD) when I purchased some Vax equipment. If anyone in the area (Carmel, NY 10512) wants them, they are yours for free, just come and pick them up. Curt ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 21:11:57 -0500 From: "Evan Koblentz" <evan at snarc.net> Subject: VCF East 4.0, another update... To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <001d01c7555d$aa2aa730$6401a8c0 at DESKTOP> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi all, I'm getting an early start on signing up VCF East exhibitors / vendors / speakers. If you're interested and not already on our local (MARCH) list, then please contact me off-list. - Evan ----------------------------- Prior update: In addition to Chuck Peddle, our panel (in the morning of

9) will feature Bil Herd, Bob Russell, and Dave Haynie .... Along with several of the early models (and even some ultra-rare prototypes) on

.... In case the panelists have a sudden urge to demo anything. ALSO:

WILL be a second day! The official dates are now June 9-10. Location: InfoAge Science Center (www.infoage.org), Wall, N.J. .... Sponsored once again by MARCH (www.midatlanticretro.org). ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 21:25:08 -0600 From: Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> Subject: Re: New DEC museum entry :D To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <45DBBB94.1040205 at yahoo.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15; format=flowed Tony Duell wrote: > My first thougth is that it is a mains filter capacitor that's breaking > down. Some of them are designed to be 'self healing' in that if the > dielectric breaks down, the current will then vapourise the metal in

This is where we find there's a temperature-controlled fan or somesuch in

machine which kicks in after a few minutes and for some reason causes the

to throw a wobbly... Agreed - weird problem. Out of interest, if you power the machine up and then immediately power it down normally (before it's had the chance to do so itself :) does it still upset the house mains? Just asking as maybe that's something you haven't

yet... ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 22:15:39 -0500 (EST) From: der Mouse <mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Subject: Re: HPIB [was Re: Kennedy to PC interface...] To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <200702210331.WAA14994 at Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Then I guess this isn't modern-ish. :-) The suspect hardware is a 98625A; what tracing I've managed to do seems to lead back to four 16-pin DIPs labeled with an HP code (1820-2058, to be specific). This hardware is entirely through-hole DIP. Not a suface-mount part in sight. Fairly low-density through-hole DIP, too - on a board measuring 17x14 cm, there are only 31 chips: one of 48 pins, three of 20 pins, fourteen of 16 pins, and and thirteen of 14 pins (well, thirteen 14-pin DIP packages; I think two are resistor packs rather than logic), plus two ten-pin SIP resistor packs, a two-switch DIP switch bank, a five-switch DIP switch bank, a small pot, four discrete resistors, seventeen discrete capacitors, and a crystal oscillator. Oh, and card-edge fingers on one side and a back panel with an HPIB connector on the other. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 20:17:11 -0800 (PST) From: "O. Sharp" <ohh at drizzle.com> Subject: Looking For DEC TTY Connectors To: cctech at classiccmp.org Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0702202002400.4205-100000 at cascadia.drizzle.com> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hey, all: I'm looking for two pair of the sort-of-Molex-like connectors DEC used for connecting Teletypes to minis in the late '60s/early '70s. A DEC drawing designates them as "Mate-n-Lock" connectors, T04915; my web search for them turned up a lot of connectors, but not this type. Here's a photo of a set, if it helps: http://flyingmoose.org/tty_conn.jpg Are these still manufactured? Does anyone have two sets in spares, or otherwise know where I can find a couple? Thanks in advance for any help! -O.- ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 23:55:13 -0500 From: Gavin Thomas Nicol <gtn at mind-to-mind.com> Subject: Re: NeXT external CDROM drive To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <A58D76CB-D823-4D72-B536-BA31865D6DAA at mind-to-mind.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed On Feb 20, 2007, at 9:53 AM, Jules Richardson wrote: It's essentially a badge-engineered Apple external CD. I have a few of both... mostly because the Apple parts are 100% the same so I use them to repair the NeXT drives. I can dig up the appropriate model numbers if you want. ------------------------------ Message: 7 Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 00:07:30 -0500 From: "William Donzelli" <wdonzelli at gmail.com> Subject: Re: Pair of 19" rack mount Emulex HD's available.... To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <e1d20d630702202107w1cf12a39jfe3834af92963ae6 at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed I need these like a hole in the head - but if available... -- Will ------------------------------ Message: 8 Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 23:23:59 -0600 From: Jim Battle <frustum at pacbell.net> Subject: Re: Turbodos on a Horizon 8/16 system To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <45DBD76F.4040409 at pacbell.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Continuing my story of trying to recover the contents of the hard drive in my Horizon 8/16 system, I took Dave Dunfield's advice and wrote a small program to read each sector from the hard drive and dump it. 30 MB of disk data at 9600 baud, printed as ASCII hex. It took a while. The mystery remains -- what is it? There is no plain-text to be found anywhere ... not even accidental sequences. I thought that perhaps it is a lot of binary data. Some of it must be code. Searching the hex for "CD0500" (which is "CALL 0005", the CP/M call vector) has no hits. I know the disk is good because I can write a sector and read back what I wrote. The non-destructive drive tests (basically read each sector and see if any errors crop up) pass. Even stripping the msb produces blocks of data that look like the following text. "." represents unprintable characters. ........."E..(P @.....'N.:tiS'N. 9rdI.&M.6mZ4hQ"D..#G..:tiS'O.<xp aB... A....,Y3gO.>}ztiS&M.7n]:ti R$I.%J.)R%K.,Y2eJ.)R$H.#F..4hP @ .....1bD..$I.&L.0aC...9reJ.(Q#F. .7n\8p`@.....-[7o_>|ysfM.7n\8qcG ..<xqbE..(P!B...&M.4hQ#G..?~}{w o^={vmZ5jT(Q"D..%K./^<xpaB...%J. (P!C...;vlX0aB...+W.]:thP!C...5k W/^<xqcF..5kW.];vmZ5jU+V,Y3fM.5k W/_>|ysfM.6lX0aC...<yreJ.)S&M.4i S&M.4hP!C...7n];vlY3fL.2dI.$I.$I .%J.+V,X1cF..1bE..*T(P @........ ..9sgO.={wn];wo^=zthP @.......>} {vmZ4iS&L.2eJ.*U*T(P A....9rdH.! B...%J.)S'O.?~}ztiS'O.>|xqbE..(P This is a typical block, one of almost 60K. You prefer hex? OK, here is another block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suppose it might be 8086 binary, as turbodos supported both Z80 and 8086 CPUs in the system, even mixed, but then again, my machine only has Z80s, no 8086s. Unless a genius comes along and recognizes this, I'm going to wipe the drive, install TurboDOS, and not look back. Finally, I have to give kudos to Dave Dunfield for his great NST utilities and his floppy disk archive. It allowed me to mint some new NSDOS and CP/M images for the machine after my only CP/M boot disk got trashed. http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img/ ------------------------------ Message: 9 Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 21:47:56 -0800 From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> Subject: Re: HPIB [was Re: Kennedy to PC interface...] To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <45DB6C8C.26193.21EE3100 at cclist.sydex.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII On 21 Feb 2007 at 2:25, Tony Duell wrote: If you're communicating to a single device, it's possible to use a PC paralell port (particularly a bidirectional one) to do the job. A very long time ago, I needed to draw a color pie chart. I had a copy of Supercalc and a friend loaned me an HP 5-pen (IIRC) plotter that he'd picked up at the going-out-of-business sale of the Control Data retail stores. I had a PC XT at the time. The problem was that the plotter was GPIB only. I hacked the parallel port on the IBM MDA to do bidirectional I/O (easy--just a cut and a jumper). I wrote a TSR that hooked the parallel port BIOS interrupt and translated the codes intended for a parallel-interface plotter to GPIB strings. I told Supercalc that it was driving the parallel-port version of the plotter and bingo--I had my charts. You can probably still find the code in one of the SIMTEL archives, but I can't remember what I called it--something like LPTHPIB, IIRC. Cheers, Chuck ------------------------------ Message: 10 Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 01:11:02 -0500 From: "Bob Bradlee" <caveguy at sbcglobal.net> Subject: Re: New DEC museum entry :D To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <200702210611.l1L6B9w2044544 at keith.ezwind.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 22:47:05 +0000, Adrian Graham wrote: >> THat's an odd fault. It's repeatable, yes? In other words you turn it

>> it runs for 5 minutes, then trips the mains. You cna then power it

>Yep. Every time. I haven't timed it exactly, but it will run for minutes >then give up; last night I had enough time to start playing with DCL and >leave it for a bit while I dug a manual out. Then everything went black

I had a problem like that, where I had a rack that was drawing close to

when I added the last system to the stack the problem began, after a few

would heat up and pop, I swaped the breaker out with a different one of

fine. The circuit I moved the week breaker to, normally only runs 7 or 8

light load. I had a second breaker problem. After an extended power failure, I found

both the normal startup load with the additional of 2 large UPS's at full

during startup. Just about the time everything booted and came back up,

up and poped. I pulled the external battery packs off, and let them charge

then added one external pack at a time, untill I could get a larger

While you are at it, you might want to take a clamp on amp meter and

You may be pulling more power on one phase. If you pull the voltage down

unballanced load, the current load will go up and breakers will be more

I was in a 3 phase box just yesterday that was running 17a, 23a, and 37a

The electric company bills based on the max load on any single phase, by

phase 3 to phase 1, we dropped the billable load the electric company sees from 37a to 27a, close to a third. That should look good on next months electric bill. Just a thought, back under my rock .... The other Bob ------------------------------ Message: 11 Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 22:28:37 -0800 From: "r.stricklin" <bear at typewritten.org> Subject: Re: NeXT external CDROM drive To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <2877027B-F289-42E9-A222-3E9BD7889ACC at typewritten.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed On Feb 20, 2007, at 6:53 AM, Jules Richardson wrote: It's physically identical to the caddy-load 2x Sony OEM unit that made the rounds as (for example) the Apple CD300 and DEC RRD42, except for the black casing, black plastics, and NeXT logo pasted up front. ok bear ------------------------------ Message: 12 Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 22:32:48 -0800 From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> Subject: Re: Turbodos on a Horizon 8/16 system To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <45DB7710.24809.22174537 at cclist.sydex.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII On 20 Feb 2007 at 23:23, Jim Battle wrote: ... My guess is that this might well be a test pattern. One obvious clue is that there are too many '1' bits for code--either 8086 or 8080/Z80.Even complementing the data doesn't produce anything more useful. Cheers, Chuck ------------------------------ Message: 13 Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 22:40:54 -0800 From: Brent Hilpert <hilpert at cs.ubc.ca> Subject: Re: Looking For DEC TTY Connectors To: General at priv-edmwaa06.telusplanet.net, "Discussion at priv-edmwaa06.telusplanet.net":On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <45DBE967.6E5C5DF4 at cs.ubc.ca> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii "O. Sharp" wrote: > I'm looking for two pair of the sort-of-Molex-like connectors DEC used

I have half of what you are looking for: about 2-dozen cables, each cable being 4-conductor with a connector on one end. The connectors are those

the big flat tab, shown on the left in your photo. The pins in use are the same as in your photo (2,3,5 & 7, depending on which end you count from),

presumably these were used for the same purpose. It's just surplus cable to me, so if it's of any help without the other connector, let me know. Location is Vancouver, Canada. ------------------------------ Message: 14 Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 01:10:27 -0600 From: Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> Subject: Re: database of PC software release dates? To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <45DBF063.3000702 at oldskool.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Richard wrote: www.mobygames.com, but that's only for entertainment software. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ End of cctech Digest, Vol 42, Issue 53 **************************************