8 Jun
2006
8 Jun
'06
12:50 p.m.
I've received the following from Dave McGuire, who is a fellow DEC
collector (some of you know him):
Hey folks. I just had a disturbing conversation
with an eBay seller
up in Canada. One of his auctions was for DRAM chips "for gold scrap"
that he claimed to have "removed from some old DEC computer". I sent
him a question asking him what happened to the rest of it, and
reminding him that "some old DEC computer" was likely worth orders of
magnitude more than the trivial amount of gold that one might glean
from recycling DRAM chips.
He replied with this:
--
Eric Dittman
dittman at dittman.net
Not anymore. In case you haven't noticed,
the market for DEC PDP
stuff is gone. All of the collectors have as much as they want and
nobody is actually using Qbus anymore. The same happened about a year
ago with IBM MCA stuff. You can't even get $10 a card anymore. I've
shipped out hundreds of pounds of DEC Qbus and IBM MCA for scrap
metals. You should do the same.
This is, of course, COMPLETELY incorrect, aside from being
disturbing. The DEC collector market is booming like never before,
and growing like crazy. 
8 Jun
8 Jun
1:13 p.m.
At 11:50 AM 6/8/2006, Eric Dittman wrote:
> This is, of course, COMPLETELY incorrect, aside
from being
> disturbing. The DEC collector market is booming like never before,
> and growing like crazy.
You could both be right. Price is set between buyer and seller,
and price can vary widely depending on the marketing and the market.
You may be misperceiving the volume of old DEC equipment that
he sees available for scrapping. He may not see the value in
expending the extra effort to market items to collectors.
But it is a shame to imagine it all being ground up for scrap.
- John
2:44 p.m.
Depends on what the card is - People don't need a cabinet full of DZ11s
anymore, and there are some other now-worthless heaps of cards out there
like synchronous serial - this could be hurting the perceived value of the
machines.
Overall though, I'd say you were right and that salvage sales is generally
out of touch with the fairly new collector market for this stuff.
There is sort of a stipulation to this though - it depends on what's being
offered. I don't know many people who desire an 11/03.
Is the market saturated yet? Absolutely not. Is it getting there? Yes, and
at a steady pace.
Qbus stuff is becoming less and less in demand, especially since these
machines are continuing to get decomissioned and pop up on ebay or in
collector markets.
My regular salvage dealer recently sold an 11/05 on ebay for $1500 with no
peripherals or rack - so, anyone that tells you there isn't a market for
UNIBUS gear is totally mistaken. Even a mostly-complete CPU box will fetch
at least $200 on ebay.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of John Foust
Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2006 12:13 PM
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: [Fwd: raising awareness re: classic hardware]
At 11:50 AM 6/8/2006, Eric Dittman wrote:
> This is, of course, COMPLETELY incorrect,
aside from being
> disturbing. The DEC collector market is booming like
never before,
> and growing like crazy.
You could both be right. Price is set between buyer and
seller, and price can vary widely depending on the marketing
and the market.
You may be misperceiving the volume of old DEC equipment that
he sees available for scrapping. He may not see the value in
expending the extra effort to market items to collectors.
But it is a shame to imagine it all being ground up for scrap.
- John
3:33 p.m.
Depends on what the card is - People don't need a cabinet full of DZ11s
anymore, and there are some other now-worthless heaps of cards out there
like synchronous serial - this could be hurting the perceived value of the
machines.
Speak for yourself :-). I find a lot of serial ports to be _very_ useful
on a computer (I have many devices with RS232 interfaces), I think I have
about 4 DZs and as many DJs (each of the latter being a 4-lsot system
unit backplane) to go into my 11/45 sometime.
As regards synchronous serial cards, comms processors (DMCs, DMRs, etc),
and the like, I find them interesting. But then as I mentioned last week,
I am very much a hardware person.
Yes, I know I am not going to determine the market for these things, but
there _are_ people around who like the weird stuff...
-tony
5:22 p.m.
New subject: sync serial cards
Tony wrote....
As regards synchronous serial cards, comms processors
(DMCs, DMRs, etc),
and the like, I find them interesting. But then as I mentioned last week,
I am very much a hardware person.
Speaking of which....
I have one machine that talks sync serial out 4 wires that are designed to
go to a dedicated 56k leased line. I'd like to hook this up to an intel x86
PCI based machine via some card... and write code on the PC that talks to
the card (ie. so the PC is talking to the host). I was thinking a PCI sync
serial card would do, but that wouldn't take care of the 56k leased line
signal. I'm guessing I'd need a sync modem that supports 56K dedicated line,
and then run that to a PCI sync serial card in the PC? Unless there is such
a thing as a PCI sync modem card that supports dedicated 56k connection?
Anyone have this type of hardware around for trade?
Jay West
7:19 p.m.
New subject: sync serial cards
"Jay West" wrote:
I have one machine that talks sync serial out 4 wires that are designed to
go to a dedicated 56k leased line. I'd like to hook this up to an intel x86
PCI based machine via some card... and write code on the PC that talks to
the card (ie. so the PC is talking to the host). I was thinking a PCI sync
serial card would do, but that wouldn't take care of the 56k leased line
signal. I'm guessing I'd need a sync modem that supports 56K dedicated line,
and then run that to a PCI sync serial card in the PC? Unless there is such
a thing as a PCI sync modem card that supports dedicated 56k connection?
Anyone have this type of hardware around for trade?
mmm. been a while since i done that :-)
I think you could use a 56k CSU/DSU and something as simple a ISA bus
card with an SCC on it. There used to be a linux driver for the 8530
that could keep up at 56k. There are other higher performance cards of
course.
The CSU/DSU might have a giant v.35 connector or if you are lucky just a
DB-25. I think some even had both (it's all dim now).
You'll laugh, but I ran a 56k internet connection for a few years out of
my house using a sparc station 1 running sun os. I ran the sparc serial
port (8530 based) directly into a CSU/DSU. It worked fine. I think I
hacked a sync driver I got from someone else (Phil Budne? does that sound
right Phil?)
the phone man thought I was nuts, however. I had a 56k and isdn and a
few too many pots lines. shortly after that I moved it all to
commercial space and became an isp :-)
-brad
7:35 p.m.
New subject: sync serial cards
It was thus said that the Great Brad Parker once stated:
You'll laugh, but I ran a 56k internet connection for a few years out of
my house using a sparc station 1 running sun os. I ran the sparc serial
port (8530 based) directly into a CSU/DSU. It worked fine. I think I
hacked a sync driver I got from someone else (Phil Budne? does that sound
right Phil?)
The first ISP I worked for, in late 1993, had a 56k leased line to the
Internet.
And the first webhosting company I worked for (late 1994, maybe 1995?) was
in my friend's dining room with a 28.8kbps modem to the Internet [1].
-spc (And even though we started out at the same time as Hiway
Technologies, under similar circumstances, we didn't get bought out
$150million 8-(
[1] Okay, so the actual server was co-located at an ISP 8-)
9 Jun
9 Jun
1:18 a.m.
New subject: sync serial cards
On 6/9/06, Brad Parker <brad at heeltoe.com> wrote:
I think you could use a 56k CSU/DSU and something as
simple a ISA bus
card with an SCC on it. There used to be a linux driver for the 8530
that could keep up at 56k. There are other higher performance cards of
course.
The "problem" is that semi-modern machines have no ISA slots - my
primary knock-around-and-game machine at home has a motherboard from
early 2000, and it's 5 PCI and 0 ISA.
The CSU/DSU might have a giant v.35 connector or if
you are lucky just a
DB-25. I think some even had both (it's all dim now).
There are also DB-25 (EIA) to V.35 converters out there - we used to
sell a few by Gandalf when we'd sell a COMBOARD to V.35-equipped
customers (our cable was similar to a DEC serial cable - 40-pin BERG
on one end, DB-25 on the other, with 1488s and 1489s for EIA level
conversion).
You'll laugh, but I ran a 56k internet connection
for a few years out of
my house using a sparc station 1 running sun os. I ran the sparc serial
port (8530 based) directly into a CSU/DSU.
Pretty wild for the home. The Qbus and VAXBI COMBOARDs used the Z8530
(the COMBOARD-I and COMBOARD-II for Unibus used a COM5025 since that's
what DEC boards in the late-1970s used for sync serial (DUP-11?)). We
had either an 8Mhz 68000 or a 10MHz 68010, running a monolithic app
(one in C, several simpler protocols in 68K assembler) driving one
Z8530 serial channel at up to 64Kbps all day long (with a pair of
boards in the back room we'd hooked up to a tweaked modem eliminator
at 128Kbps). If your modernish PC can't keep up with a 56Kbps sync
data stream, your operating system is probably stepping on your
interrupts - it's not a CPU-load thing.
I am unaware of a PCI-based sync serial card. I think by the time
that PCI was becoming dominant, most folks who wanted a 56K line to
the outer world wanted it to speak ATM or ppp (not Bisync or SNA),
thus it was reasonable to offload that task to a TCP/IP router. There
are *plenty* of models of Cisco router that you can hang a CSU/DSU off
of, but I don't recall ever seeing that done with a PCI-based machine.
-ethan
1:28 a.m.
New subject: Commodore SX64 Problem
I have a problem I'm hoping someone here can help with.
Picked up an SX-64 (luggable C64) this past weekend. Worked fine when I
first tested it, cleaned it down (was pretty grimy) and let it sit for 2
days.
Went to power it up today, I get the normal startup screen and ready
prompt but oddly the cursor is stuck at the upper left corner of the
screen instead of down by the ready prompt. Can't type a thing, though
I know the keyboard is still working (cartridge games are able to read the
keyboard just fine).
Anyone have any idea what happened?
Marty
13 Jun
13 Jun
7:44 p.m.
New subject: Commodore SX64 Problem
On Friday 09 June 2006 01:28 am, Martin Scott Goldberg wrote:
I have a problem I'm hoping someone here can help
with.
Picked up an SX-64 (luggable C64) this past weekend. Worked fine when I
first tested it, cleaned it down (was pretty grimy) and let it sit for 2
days.
Went to power it up today, I get the normal startup screen and ready
prompt but oddly the cursor is stuck at the upper left corner of the
screen instead of down by the ready prompt. Can't type a thing, though
I know the keyboard is still working (cartridge games are able to read the
keyboard just fine).
Anyone have any idea what happened?
Sounds to me like it thinks the home key is stuck, maybe? It'll take a 6526
to fix that, let me know offlist if you need one, as I have plenty of them
(and other c= parts as well).
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
14 Jun
14 Jun
6:39 a.m.
New subject: Commodore SX64 Problem
On 6/14/06, Roy J. Tellason <rtellason at verizon.net> wrote:
On Friday 09 June 2006 01:28 am, Martin Scott Goldberg
wrote:
Check the keyboard and cable as well... does it do this when you power
it up with the keyboard disconnected? If so, then it very well may be
a 6526. If it does not, you might have a defective cable or a short
in the keyboard pads somewhere.
If you are lucky, it's a 6526 - there are lots more of them than SX keyboards.
-ethan
Picked up an SX-64 (luggable C64) this past
weekend...
Went to power it up today, I get the normal startup screen and ready
prompt but oddly the cursor is stuck at the upper left corner of the
screen instead of down by the ready prompt. Can't type a thing, though
I know the keyboard is still working (cartridge games are able to read the
keyboard just fine).
Anyone have any idea what happened?
Sounds to me like it thinks the home key is stuck, maybe? It'll take a 6526
to fix that, let me know offlist if you need one, as I have plenty of them
(and other c= parts as well).
7 a.m.
New subject: Commodore SX64 Problem
On Wednesday 14 June 2006 06:39 am, Ethan Dicks wrote:
On 6/14/06, Roy J. Tellason <rtellason at
verizon.net> wrote:
Good point, there.
I've also done a few keyboard repairs on c64s, mostly to deal with broken
keys, which usually involved a pretty complete disassembly and replacing the
broken part, but I don't recall ever taking apart an sx64 keyboard...
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
On Friday 09 June 2006 01:28 am, Martin Scott
Goldberg wrote:
Check the keyboard and cable as well... does it do this when you power
it up with the keyboard disconnected? If so, then it very well may be
a 6526. If it does not, you might have a defective cable or a short
in the keyboard pads somewhere.
If you are lucky, it's a 6526 - there are lots more of them than SX
keyboards. Picked up an SX-64 (luggable C64) this past
weekend...
Went to power it up today, I get the normal startup screen and ready
prompt but oddly the cursor is stuck at the upper left corner of the
screen instead of down by the ready prompt. Can't type a thing, though
I know the keyboard is still working (cartridge games are able to read
the keyboard just fine).
Anyone have any idea what happened?
Sounds to me like it thinks the home key is stuck, maybe? It'll take a
6526 to fix that, let me know offlist if you need one, as I have plenty
of them (and other c= parts as well).
7:11 a.m.
New subject: Commodore SX64 Problem
On 6/14/06, Roy J. Tellason <rtellason at verizon.net> wrote:
I've also done a few keyboard repairs on c64s,
mostly to deal with broken
keys, which usually involved a pretty complete disassembly and replacing the
broken part, but I don't recall ever taking apart an sx64 keyboard...
I have - unsuccessfully. I have a keyboard with some bad traces
(someone before me tried ti "fix" it and made a mess - I think they
used silver modelling paint on the traces. :-P )
-ethan
8:20 a.m.
New subject: Commodore SX64 Problem
On Wednesday 14 June 2006 07:11 am, Ethan Dicks wrote:
On 6/14/06, Roy J. Tellason <rtellason at
verizon.net> wrote:
I've had some keyboards that were _bought_ that way! :-)
Or actually they used some kind of conductive paint, on clear mylar (?)
plastic. I'd bought two of these at one time, and used the heck out of one,
left the other sitting in the box in the closet, but they both deteriorated
at about the same rate it seemed.
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
I've also done a few keyboard repairs on
c64s, mostly to deal with
broken keys, which usually involved a pretty complete disassembly and
replacing the broken part, but I don't recall ever taking apart an sx64
keyboard...
I have - unsuccessfully. I have a keyboard with some bad traces
(someone before me tried ti "fix" it and made a mess - I think they
used silver modelling paint on the traces. :-P ) 
9 Jun
9 Jun
1:54 a.m.
New subject: sync serial cards
On 6/9/06, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
I am unaware of a PCI-based sync serial card. I think
by the time
that PCI was becoming dominant, most folks who wanted a 56K line to
the outer world wanted it to speak ATM or ppp (not Bisync or SNA),
thus it was reasonable to offload that task to a TCP/IP router. There
are *plenty* of models of Cisco router that you can hang a CSU/DSU off
of, but I don't recall ever seeing that done with a PCI-based machine.
One word: Sangoma
http://www.sangoma.com/main/products/wanpipe
Supports Linux out-of-the-box.
Sangoma also has a special low-profile card for the Soekris. So that
you can hang off a T1/E1 off something about the same size of a VHS
tape. Presumably supports Linux, *BSD.
http://www.soekris.com/bundles.htm
6:53 a.m.
New subject: sync serial cards
"Wai-Sun Chia" wrote:
One
word: Sangoma
http://www.sangoma.com/main/products/wanpipe
oh yea. forgot about them. one of my customres once bought the rights
to their isa card and glued it onto a PPC850. I did the integration.
It uses a Z180 as i recall, which has an ESCC.
-brad
12:50 p.m.
New subject: sync serial cards
On 6/9/2006 at 5:18 PM Ethan Dicks wrote:
I am unaware of a PCI-based sync serial card. I think
by the time
that PCI was becoming dominant, most folks who wanted a 56K line to
the outer world wanted it to speak ATM or ppp (not Bisync or SNA),
thus it was reasonable to offload that task to a TCP/IP router. There
are *plenty* of models of Cisco router that you can hang a CSU/DSU off
of, but I don't recall ever seeing that done with a PCI-based machine.
They''re out there! Here's one from Quatech:
http://www.quatech.com/catalog/rs232s_pci.php
Cheers,
Chuck
4:45 p.m.
New subject: sync serial cards
I am unaware of a PCI-based sync serial card. I think
by the time
I forget who produced it (probably Emulex) but the DEC PBXDD-Ax were
(iirc)
a PCI synch card. The DSYT1 was TC, the DNSES was EISA, the PBXDP-Ax
were
ISA. There was another set that were PCI too, but I never did much
development
on the PCI WAN drivers, so it's all a bit murky now.
Antonio
9:27 p.m.
New subject: sync serial cards
Ethan wrote...
I am unaware of a PCI-based sync serial card.
I've seen a fair number, but they are all expensive as heck. I hoping for an
old used thing... aka. cheap :) So I guess I need a 56k CSU/DSU, and then
some way to get the sync output of that to code running on the PC.
Jay
9:22 p.m.
New subject: sync serial cards
Brad wrote....
I think you could use a 56k CSU/DSU and something as
simple a ISA bus
card with an SCC on it. There used to be a linux driver for the 8530
that could keep up at 56k. There are other higher performance cards of
course.
Ixney the SAIAY!
No ISA slots available. This is for a vintage setup where one machine is
vintage and one isn't. The machine that isn't has only PCI slots.
Jay
8 Jun
8 Jun
1:19 p.m.
Well, the company died in 1997, and, I believe I've seen the death of the
reseller market _off of eBay_, around 2002. _On eBay_, there is a
reseller market, via *buy-it-now*s, but they haven't got their prices down
and they may collapse on low sales. Looks like however the eBay BIN
market is of so low an overhead that it may last 5 years more,
But(emphasis),
people still have overhead for _storage costs_.
If my hunch is right, there is a possibility that flea markets will rebound
as
the holders sell out. Nothing as big as the 1980's, I hear. Wish I was
around them then.
> This is, of course, COMPLETELY incorrect, aside
from being
> disturbing. The DEC collector market is booming like never before,
> and growing like crazy.
Proof. Need proof.
just my 0.02K$
John A.
still strictly a buyer
8:44 p.m.
Some comments...
> Hey folks. I just had a disturbing
conversation with an eBay seller
> up in Canada. One of his auctions was for DRAM chips "for gold scrap"
> that he claimed to have "removed from some old DEC computer". I sent
> him a question asking him what happened to the rest of it, and
> reminding him that "some old DEC computer" was likely worth orders of
> magnitude more than the trivial amount of gold that one might glean
> from recycling DRAM chips.
Quite a few DRAMs, even in plastic DIPs, can have a large amount of gold
inside.
>> Not anymore. In case you haven't
noticed, the market for DEC PDP
>> stuff is gone. All of the collectors have as much as they want and
>> nobody is actually using Qbus anymore. The same happened about a year
>> ago with IBM MCA stuff. You can't even get $10 a card anymore. I've
>> shipped out hundreds of pounds of DEC Qbus and IBM MCA for scrap
>> metals. You should do the same.
>
> This is, of course, COMPLETELY incorrect, aside from being
> disturbing. The DEC collector market is booming like never before,
> and growing like crazy.
While I think the scrapper is shooting himself in the foot by lumping all
DEC PDP-11 stuff together, he does have a point. Many DEC cards are
extremely common. Everybody seems to have a pile. Put one up on Ebay, and
you might only get a couple or three bucks.
The competition is the scrap market. In case you folks have not noticed,
scrap is ASTOUNDING high right now - gold, silver, and especially
copper. A scrapper can make lots of money just chucking the boards in a
container headed to the refinery. OK, so he will not make the same money -
maybe one or two dollars instead of two or three or maybe five (on a good
day), but he will expend about 20 seconds of his time as compared to ten
minutes of Ebay time per board.
The scrapper is hurting himself by not knowing what to pull for Ebay, and
what to chuck. Rather than yell at the scrapper for high crimes - he will
probably just laugh and then throw the boards into the container with a
little extra gusto - inform him of the real value of the gems. Offer to
buy them AT MARKET VALUE with cash on the spot. The payoff can be great.
William Donzelli
aw288 at osfn.org
10:06 p.m.
While I think the scrapper is shooting himself in
the foot by lumping all
DEC PDP-11 stuff together, he does have a point.
Many DEC cards are
extremely common. Everybody seems to have a pile.
Put one up on Ebay, and
you might only get a couple or three bucks.
The thing that ticks me off about eBay is that people
tend to junk a machine and just sell the boards on
eBay - and me, wanting to get a PDP-11 or a Vax, runs
into the problem where I see lots of boards, but no
computers. No chassis. It seems that I can find all
the parts for the computer except for the
chassis/backplane. I have an 11/73, but I don't have
anything Unibus, I don't have a spare chassis, I'd
love to have another system to work with, and I would
love to find an ethernet card for my 11/73 but I guess
I look on eBay at the wrong times or something. A
quick search now reveals a bunch of boards, none
ethernet, and a couple 8's - that I'm sure will go way
out of my price range, and one 11. I guess it's out
there, but it does seem to be much, much harder to get
a computer than the parts thereof.
Just what I've noticed.
Ian Primus
ian_primus at yahoo.com
6638
days inactive
6644
days old
22 comments
16 participants
participants (16)
-
allain＠panix.com -
arcarlini＠iee.org -
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
aw288＠osfn.org -
brad＠heeltoe.com -
cclist＠sydex.com -
dittman＠dittman.net -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
fireflyst＠earthlink.net -
ian_primus＠yahoo.com -
jfoust＠threedee.com -
jwest＠classiccmp.org -
rtellason＠verizon.net -
spc＠conman.org -
waisun.chia＠gmail.com -
wgungfu＠csd.uwm.edu