1 Feb
2009
1 Feb
'09
12:24 p.m.
While looking at datasheets of 3.5" floppy drive motor control ICs, the
LB1813 apparently supports four different speeds "out of the box". Pins 15
and 16 are used to select 300, 360, 600 or 720 RPM. So, I know 3.5" drives
with one of the first three speeds, but has anyone ever seen a 720 RPM
drive?
A drive with that IC would be the very common Mitsumi D359.
Christian
1 Feb
1 Feb
6:28 p.m.
On 1 Feb 2009 at 13:24, Christian Corti wrote:
While looking at datasheets of 3.5" floppy drive
motor control ICs, the
LB1813 apparently supports four different speeds "out of the box". Pins 15
and 16 are used to select 300, 360, 600 or 720 RPM. So, I know 3.5" drives
with one of the first three speeds, but has anyone ever seen a 720 RPM
drive? A drive with that IC would be the very common Mitsumi D359.
I've never seen one, but it's logical to suppose that a double-speed
drive that handles 1.3MB media has been made. I'd expect to find it
in Japan moreso than the West, however, since the Japanese used to be
pretty much wedded to the NEC 9801 series archtecture that used 360
RPM drives for everything.
Cheers,
Chuck
6:37 p.m.
would this in any way to be related to the IBM PC 'ED' disks?
the 2.1MB floppies that were out for a while?
I have some floppies of that format, not totally sure if I still have the drive though.
Dan.
From: cclist at sydex.com
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 10:28:11 -0800
Subject: Re: 720RPM 3.5" FDDs?
On 1 Feb 2009 at 13:24, Christian Corti wrote:
_________________________________________________________________
How fun is this? IMing with Windows Live Messenger just got better.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowslive/messenger.aspx
While looking at datasheets of 3.5" floppy
drive motor control ICs, the
LB1813 apparently supports four different speeds "out of the box". Pins 15
and 16 are used to select 300, 360, 600 or 720 RPM. So, I know 3.5" drives
with one of the first three speeds, but has anyone ever seen a 720 RPM
drive? A drive with that IC would be the very common Mitsumi D359.
I've never seen one, but it's logical to suppose that a double-speed
drive that handles 1.3MB media has been made. I'd expect to find it
in Japan moreso than the West, however, since the Japanese used to be
pretty much wedded to the NEC 9801 series archtecture that used 360
RPM drives for everything.
Cheers,
Chuck
6:50 p.m.
On 1 Feb 2009 at 13:37, Dan Gahlinger wrote:
would this in any way to be related to the IBM PC 'ED' disks?
the 2.1MB floppies that were out for a while?
I have some floppies of that format, not totally sure if I still have the drive though.
I thought the EDs (e.g. Teac FD235J) drives were 300 RPM.
Cheers,
Chuck
7:35 p.m.
Dan Gahlinger wrote:
would this in any way to be related to the IBM PC
'ED' disks?
the 2.1MB floppies that were out for a while?
I have some floppies of that format, not totally sure if I still have the drive though.
2.88MB, acording to the label on the eject button of my PS/2 Model 77 :)
I have about 10 of the disks that I got when work where throwing them
out, I grabbed them as I could make use of them.
IIRC there is also a series of floppy controlers for the Sinclair QL
that can format these disks to 3.2MB.
Cheers.
Phill.
--
Phill Harvey-Smith, Programmer, Hardware hacker, and general eccentric !
"You can twist perceptions, but reality won't budge" -- Rush.
7:57 p.m.
On Sun, 1 Feb 2009, Phill Harvey-Smith wrote:
2.88MB, acording to the label on the eject button of
my PS/2 Model 77 :)
Cue: what kind of perverted size for a Megabyte does it take for those
numbers?
(2.8 HONEST Megabytes (2^20) ; 2.88 * 2^10 * 10^3)
IIRC there is also a series of floppy controlers for
the Sinclair QL
that can format these disks to 3.2MB.
How many tracks, sectors per track, bytes per sector?
I have 4 LS120s in front of me. Where did I stash the machine with THAT
drive?
8:09 p.m.
On 1 Feb 2009 at 11:57, Fred Cisin wrote:
I have 4 LS120s in front of me. Where did I stash the
machine with THAT
drive?
Dunno, but I'll tell you right off that the LS120 IDE drives have a
lot of trouble working with newer hardware and software. I've never
got mine to work under Windows XP. Shame, because the LS120 drives
spin the disks much faster, even if they're regular "720K or 1.44M"
floppies.
On the other hand, 20MB SCSI Briar floptical works just fine on XP.
Cheers,
Chuck
7:59 p.m.
On 1 Feb 2009 at 19:35, Phill Harvey-Smith wrote:
IIRC there is also a series of floppy controlers for
the Sinclair QL
that can format these disks to 3.2MB.
Many PCs (particulary those of the P1-P3 era) can handle ED drives,
as the capability is part of the normal Intel controller architecture
used in the "Super I/O" chipsets.
The Sinclair QL sounds less like a special controller (vs. one the
does standard 2.88MB format) than an alternate format (1024 x 20 x 2
x 80 as opposed to 512 x 36 x 2 x 80).
I've got a couple of boxes of NIB 3M DSED floppies--I've never found
them to be particularly reliable, which might be one of the reasons
for the format's demise.
There is also a 2.4MB 5.25" format used in some IBM systems.
Cheers,
Chuck
8:22 p.m.
On Sun, 1 Feb 2009, Dan Gahlinger wrote:
would this in any way to be related to the IBM PC
'ED' disks?
the 2.1MB floppies that were out for a while?
Good thought, but no.
Those were 300 RPM, 1000K bps data transfer rate.
80 tracks, 2 sides, 36 sectors per track, 512 bytes per sector.
divided by [how many bytes in a Megabyte?]
9:50 p.m.
On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 11:05 PM, Jules Richardson
<jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote:
Fred Cisin wrote:
A million. And 8 bits in a byte.
Hello,
I just joined cctalk. While you're on floppy drives, I'd like to ask
something. Wasn't the LS-120 made by Panasonic ? And didn't they make
another version, the LS-240 ?
As far as I can remember, any of them are made to work on the IDE/PATA
interface. Now, would it be possible to adjust it hardware so that it
can be recognized as a real floppy ? This would be the solution to
making it work under Win XP.
Yes, it probably won't be able to record big disks, but as far as I
know Panasonic provided a software program to do that, which
reportedly worked like a CD burning program. That program could
apparently write 32 MB on a regular disk. Assume we also have the
source code of that program.
[how many bytes in a Megabyte?]
As many as your marketing department wants you to have.
10:28 p.m.
actually it's not an even million.
a megabyte is 1024*1024 bytes
(1024 K), a mb is a million bytes, but an MB is 1,048,576 bytes
1K = 1024 bytes, not 1000 bytes.
Dan.
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 23:50:18 +0200
From: thypope at gmail.com
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: 720RPM 3.5" FDDs?
On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 11:05 PM, Jules Richardson
<jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote:
_________________________________________________________________
How fun is this? IMing with Windows Live Messenger just got better.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowslive/messenger.aspx
Fred Cisin wrote:
A million. And 8 bits in a byte.
Hello,
I just joined cctalk. While you're on floppy drives, I'd like to ask
something. Wasn't the LS-120 made by Panasonic ? And didn't they make
another version, the LS-240 ?
As far as I can remember, any of them are made to work on the IDE/PATA
interface. Now, would it be possible to adjust it hardware so that it
can be recognized as a real floppy ? This would be the solution to
making it work under Win XP.
Yes, it probably won't be able to record big disks, but as far as I
know Panasonic provided a software program to do that, which
reportedly worked like a CD burning program. That program could
apparently write 32 MB on a regular disk. Assume we also have the
source code of that program.
[how many bytes in a Megabyte?]
As many as your marketing department wants you to have.
10:32 p.m.
On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 12:28 AM, Dan Gahlinger <dgahling at hotmail.com> wrote:
actually it's not an even million.
a megabyte is 1024*1024 bytes
(1024 K), a mb is a million bytes, but an MB is 1,048,576 bytes
1K = 1024 bytes, not 1000 bytes.
Dan.
Which brings us back to the marketing department's decision ? :)
11:17 p.m.
On Sunday 01 February 2009, Dan Gahlinger wrote:
actually it's not an even million.
a megabyte is 1024*1024 bytes
(1024 K), a mb is a million bytes, but an MB is 1,048,576 bytes
1K = 1024 bytes, not 1000 bytes.
You are wrong, at least if you follow the SI system of measurement. :)
My only complaint is that they decided that MB is 10^6 not 2^20 well
after common usage dictated that MB was 2^20 bytes.
Also, "mb" would technically be milli-bits, ie 10^-3 bits.
Pat
--
Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org
11:32 p.m.
cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote:
My only complaint is that they decided that MB is 10^6
not 2^20 well
after common usage dictated that MB was 2^20 bytes.
Why make an exception for the computer industry? We'll be back to
rods and slugs before you know it?
kilo was 10^3 and mega 10^6 long before computer memory got in on the
act.
You'll notice the networking world didn't decide to rewrite the rules.
Antonio
11:17 p.m.
Dan Gahlinger wrote:
actually it's not an even million.
a megabyte is 1024*1024 bytes
(1024 K), a mb is a million bytes, but an MB is 1,048,576 bytes
1K = 1024 bytes, not 1000 bytes.
Whilst I personally agree with the above, there are those who would
argue that Kilo, Mega, Giga etc are all SI prefixes and therefore are
only ever powers of 10, irrispective of the convention. Which is why
terms like kibibyte, which I personally hate with a passion :)
See : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilobyte
Cheers.
Phill.
--
Phill Harvey-Smith, Programmer, Hardware hacker, and general eccentric !
"You can twist perceptions, but reality won't budge" -- Rush.
2 Feb
2 Feb
3:46 a.m.
Whilst I personally agree with the above, there are
those who would
argue that Kilo, Mega, Giga etc are all SI prefixes and therefore are
only ever powers of 10, irrispective of the convention.
..._if_ you use the SI meanings for them. "Megaphone" does not mean
"one million phones", to pick a really simple example.
The SI does not get to mandate how people use language. The computer
world does not use the SI prefixes with the SI meanings when, to quote
the Jargon File, they are "used with bytes or other things that
naturally come in powers of 2".
Well, except for disk makers. As far as I can tell, the only people in
the computer world that use the SI meanings for those prefixes for
bytes are disk makers' marketing departments, and in recent years
they've taken to adding footnotes saying things which I generally gloss
as "yes, we know we're being misleading, we're doing it deliberately".
I thought being deliberately misleading, even if technically
justifiable on some ground or other, when selling things was normally
called "fraud" (or "misleading advertising" at the very least), but
apparently disk makers get an exemption. I've occasionally wished I
ran a RAM maker, so upon getting an order from, say, Fujitsu, for, say,
1G sticks, I could send them parts with exactly 1000000000 working
bytes in them....
Which is why terms like kibibyte, which I personally
hate with a
passion :)
Hm? What's wrong with it? (Meaning a very short James Parry quote, of
course.)
/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
1:25 p.m.
On Sunday 01 February 2009, der Mouse wrote:
Well, except for disk makers. As far as I can tell,
the only people
in the computer world that use the SI meanings for those prefixes for
bytes are disk makers' marketing departments,
As someone else has noted, networking people have (as far as I can tell)
always taken Mbps and Kbps to mean 10^6 and 10^3, respectively, bits
per second.
Pat
--
Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org
3:30 p.m.
Well, except
for disk makers. As far as I can tell, the only people
in the computer world that use the SI meanings for those prefixes
for bytes are disk makers' marketing departments, [...]
As someone else has
noted, networking people have (as far as I can
tell) always taken Mbps and Kbps to mean 10^6 and 10^3, respectively,
bits per second.
9:05 p.m.
On Mon, 2 Feb 2009, Patrick Finnegan wrote:
As someone else has noted, networking people have (as
far as I can tell)
always taken Mbps and Kbps to mean 10^6 and 10^3, respectively, bits
per second.
and, of course, disk makers.
the 1.4M drive is usually run at 300 RPM (exception: NEC, etc.) at
500 K bits per second. That 500Kbps is 500,000 bits per second.
11:24 p.m.
On 2 Feb 2009 at 13:05, Fred Cisin wrote:
and, of course, disk makers.
the 1.4M drive is usually run at 300 RPM (exception: NEC, etc.) at
500 K bits per second. That 500Kbps is 500,000 bits per second.
Oh, heck, I recall the differences in the 1960's. One manufacturer
would talk about a 65K or 131K memory and another would talk about a
64K or 128K. I don't believe that, when it comes to numerable items,
such as the number of words a memory device has (as opposed to a unit
of measurement) there has ever been any universal agreement.
`When _I_ use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone,
`it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'
`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you CAN make words mean so
many different things.'
`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master - -
that's all.'
Cheers,
Chuck
3 Feb
3 Feb
12:29 a.m.
On Mon, 2 Feb 2009, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Oh, heck, I recall the differences in the 1960's.
One manufacturer
would talk about a 65K or 131K memory and another would talk about a
64K or 128K. I don't believe that, when it comes to numerable items,
such as the number of words a memory device has (as opposed to a unit
of measurement) there has ever been any universal agreement.
"The competition only has 64K, but we have 65.536 K!
They only have 128K, but we have 131 K!"
Haven't heard THAT crap for almost 25 years.
(other than
"they only have 10.16 megabytes, but we have 10.653696 megabytes!")
1:13 a.m.
On 2 Feb 2009 at 16:29, Fred Cisin wrote:
"they only have 10.16 megabytes, but we have
10.653696 megabytes!")
I remember that when we were shipping systems with 10 MB Rodime hard
drives, marketing insisted that the software limit the capacity to 7
MB, because that's what the product brochure said.
Cheers,
Chuck
4:49 a.m.
Fred Cisin wrote:
On Mon, 2 Feb 2009, Chuck Guzis wrote:
But looking back ( binary ) computers all came with 4096 words or 8192 words
standard for the most part. Also a few uS for access too!. Ben.
Oh, heck, I recall the differences in the
1960's. One manufacturer
would talk about a 65K or 131K memory and another would talk about a
64K or 128K. I don't believe that, when it comes to numerable items,
such as the number of words a memory device has (as opposed to a unit
of measurement) there has ever been any universal agreement.
"The competition only has 64K, but we have 65.536 K!
They only have 128K, but we have 131 K!"
Haven't heard THAT crap for almost 25 years.
(other than
"they only have 10.16 megabytes, but we have 10.653696 megabytes!")
9:43 a.m.
New subject: Ex-thread "Re: 720RPM 3.5" FDDs?"
On Mon, 2 Feb 2009, bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca wrote:
Fred Cisin wrote:
Hello?
Is that discussion in any form related to the subject? No? Then please
choose a new subject! I hate thread hijacking.
Christian
On Mon, 2 Feb 2009, Chuck Guzis wrote:
But looking back ( binary ) computers all came with 4096 words or 8192 words
standard for the most part. Also a few uS for access too!. Ben.
Oh, heck, I recall the differences in the
1960's. One manufacturer
would talk about a 65K or 131K memory and another would talk about a
64K or 128K. I don't believe that, when it comes to numerable items,
such as the number of words a memory device has (as opposed to a unit
of measurement) there has ever been any universal agreement.
"The competition only has 64K, but we have 65.536 K!
They only have 128K, but we have 131 K!"
Haven't heard THAT crap for almost 25 years.
(other than
"they only have 10.16 megabytes, but we have 10.653696 megabytes!")
1 Feb
1 Feb
11:29 p.m.
On Sun, 1 Feb 2009, Dan Gahlinger wrote:
actually it's not an even million.
a megabyte is 1024*1024 bytes
(1024 K), a mb is a million bytes, but an MB is 1,048,576 bytes
1K = 1024 bytes, not 1000 bytes.
I agree wholeheartedly with Dan about a megabyte (MB) being 2^20 bytes
(1024 * 1024, 1024K, 1048576).
But, we have to be careful about the abbreviations.
Some would insist that "mb" would have to be "milli-bit"!
Those who "have to" have 1000 * 1000 as their unit, would like us to us
"Mebi-Byte" as the name for 1048576.
And of course, we need a name for the Unscrupulous IBM Marketing unit.
("UIMU"?)
I do not accept that there is ANY possible rationale that would justify
1000 * 1024 as being a valid unit of measure. Particularly when the same
UNSCRUPULOUS MARKETING units use 1024 * 1024 for RAM.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
11:53 p.m.
alright, who the hell is the moron that changed
kilobyte to kibibyte and megabyte to mebibyte?
i mean, come on people, we had a good system for like 2 decades, leave it alone!
oh, IEC, should have known.... ugh.
Dan.
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 15:29:38 -0800
From: cisin at xenosoft.com
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: RE: 720RPM 3.5" FDDs?
On Sun, 1 Feb 2009, Dan Gahlinger wrote:
_________________________________________________________________
So many new options, so little time. Windows Live Messenger.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowslive/messenger.aspx
actually it's not an even million.
a megabyte is 1024*1024 bytes
(1024 K), a mb is a million bytes, but an MB is 1,048,576 bytes
1K = 1024 bytes, not 1000 bytes.
I agree wholeheartedly with Dan about a megabyte (MB) being 2^20 bytes
(1024 * 1024, 1024K, 1048576).
But, we have to be careful about the abbreviations.
Some would insist that "mb" would have to be "milli-bit"!
Those who "have to" have 1000 * 1000 as their unit, would like us to us
"Mebi-Byte" as the name for 1048576.
And of course, we need a name for the Unscrupulous IBM Marketing unit.
("UIMU"?)
I do not accept that there is ANY possible rationale that would justify
1000 * 1024 as being a valid unit of measure. Particularly when the same
UNSCRUPULOUS MARKETING units use 1024 * 1024 for RAM.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
11:51 p.m.
On 1 Feb 2009 at 23:50, Alexandru Lovin wrote:
I just joined cctalk. While you're on floppy
drives, I'd like to ask
something. Wasn't the LS-120 made by Panasonic ? And didn't they make
another version, the LS-240 ?
As far as I can remember, any of them are made to work on the IDE/PATA
interface. Now, would it be possible to adjust it hardware so that it
can be recognized as a real floppy ? This would be the solution to
making it work under Win XP.
The problem appears to be with XP, not with the Matsushita-made LS-
120 IDE drives. (They also were produced for SCSI). Mine worked
just fine in Win2K, but XP hangs (with no hardware changes) during
the boot process. The problem appears to be related to the chipset
and drivers of the host; some have reported success in getting the
LS120 to work on XP, but by no means is this common.
And no one's going to take the time to find out what's wrong with
what's considered to be an obsolete device.
One nice aspect of the LS120 is that it would also read (but not
format) 1.23MB "DOS-V" Japanese-format floppies. Most USB 3.5"
drives can also do this.
Cheers,
Chuck
2 Feb
2 Feb
9:50 a.m.
On Sun, 1 Feb 2009, Chuck Guzis wrote:
I've never seen one, but it's logical to
suppose that a double-speed
drive that handles 1.3MB media has been made. I'd expect to find it
in Japan moreso than the West, however, since the Japanese used to be
pretty much wedded to the NEC 9801 series archtecture that used 360
RPM drives for everything.
Well, that probably makes sense.
It seems that there are quite a few drives which may be used to
replace old 600RPM drives, but I haven't tried it yet.
Christian
11:34 a.m.
New subject: Modules for LINC-8
Hallo all,
I do need your help for the purpose of the restoration of a LINC-8,
Serial# 4. This systems is not my own property but is belonging to the
Museum of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Bavaria.
The system in question is missing a lot of Flip-Chip boards and I would
liket o beg you to have a look at your shelves, if there are some board
which you can spend for this task.
The boards in question are as follows:
B684
R001
R002
R107
R111
R122
R123
R203
R205
R210
R211
R220
R302
R303
R450
R602
R650
S107
S111
S181
S205
S602
S603
W501
W640
Andreas
8:43 p.m.
New subject: Modules for LINC-8
I do need your help for the purpose of the restoration
of a LINC-8, Serial#
4. This systems is not my own property but is belonging to the Museum of the
University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Bavaria.
The system in question is missing a lot of Flip-Chip boards and I would
liket o beg you to have a look at your shelves, if there are some board
which you can spend for this task.
I have a gutted LINC-8 as well, and also need buckets of modules.
Luckily the core stack remains.
Oddly enough, I have the guts for a PDP-12. I can offer these first
generation TTL Flip Chips in trade.
--
Will
3 Feb
3 Feb
6:28 a.m.
New subject: Modules for LINC-8
William Donzelli wrote:
I believe that only 130 (or so) LINC-8's were made. It would be
interesting to track down the ones that still exist. If you would like
to send me your serial number, some background info and perhaps even a
picture, I'd be more than willing to make a register. Unless it has
already been made of course.
With your three machines I know of four survivors :) And have a hunch
were there are at least one more.
Unfortunately I cannot help you with the flip chips.
Kind Regards,
Pontus.
I do need your
help for the purpose of the restoration of a LINC-8, Serial#
4. This systems is not my own property but is belonging to the Museum of the
University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Bavaria.
The system in question is missing a lot of Flip-Chip boards and I would
liket o beg you to have a look at your shelves, if there are some board
which you can spend for this task.
I have a gutted LINC-8 as well, and also need buckets of modules.
Luckily the core stack remains.
Oddly enough, I have the guts for a PDP-12. I can offer these first
generation TTL Flip Chips in trade.
--
Will
6:50 a.m.
New subject: Modules for LINC-8
On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 1:28 AM, Pontus <pontus at update.uu.se> wrote:
William Donzelli wrote:
I believe that only 130 (or so) LINC-8's were made.
Was it really that few? I know that some of the older 12-bit machines
were made in small quantities (like ~1000 -8/Ses), but I had no idea
that one could count LINC-8s in dozens.
I do need
your help for the purpose of the restoration of a LINC-8, Serial#
4. This systems is not my own property but is belonging to the Museum of the
University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Bavaria.
I have a gutted LINC-8 as well, and also need buckets of modules.
Luckily the core stack remains. With your three machines I know of four survivors :)
And have a hunch
were there are at least one more.
Are you including the ones that Charlie Lasner has?
<http://groups.google.com/group/alt.sys.pdp8/browse_thread/thread/7f41af3087b0f15c/f40bf5d37d3f0720?lnk=raot>
I visited him about 15 years ago and saw at least one of them, along
with a whole lot of other stuff I'd never seen anywhere else (and I
own several intact R-series-logic machines - sorry... no pile of
module spares; I wish I did have extras).
-ethan
7:28 a.m.
New subject: Modules for LINC-8
Was it really that few? I know that some of the older
12-bit machines
were made in small quantities (like ~1000 -8/Ses), but I had no idea
that one could count LINC-8s in dozens.
Well, my only source is this:
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/dec-faq/pdp8/section-6.html
Which says 142 sales(!). And given its age and how few I've seen or
heard of it seems plausible.
Are you including the ones that Charlie Lasner has?
<http://groups.google.com/group/alt.sys.pdp8/browse_thread/thread/7f41af3087b0f15c/f40bf5d37d3f0720?lnk=raot>
I visited him about 15 years ago and saw at least one of them, along
with a whole lot of other stuff I'd never seen anywhere else (and I
own several intact R-series-logic machines - sorry... no pile of
module spares; I wish I did have extras).
Maybe. I was thinking of the Retrocomputing society of Rhode Island,
which I believe has one or two, but I have not confirmed that.
But now mr Lasner is on my list as well :)
I did a search for LINC-8 in the cctalk archives, and there are a quite
a few posts about it, so there might be some more around.
Thank you,
Pontus.
2:52 p.m.
New subject: Modules for LINC-8
Maybe. I was thinking of the Retrocomputing society of
Rhode Island,
which I believe has one or two, but I have not confirmed that.
But now mr Lasner is on my list as well :)
Yes. Actually we had two at the beginning (and three PDP-12s), but now
only one. The second one is now mine, and is gutted. The first one
mostly works, but as of a few months ago was giving memory errors.
--
Will
7:44 a.m.
New subject: Modules for LINC-8
I've serial #4 and #85 in front of me.
Andreas
William Donzelli wrote:
I believe that only 130 (or so) LINC-8's were made. It would be
interesting to track down the ones that still exist. If you would like
to send me your serial number, some background info and perhaps even a
picture, I'd be more than willing to make a register. Unless it has
already been made of course.
With your three machines I know of four survivors :) And have a hunch
were there are at least one more.
Unfortunately I cannot help you with the flip chips.
Kind Regards,
Pontus.
I do need
your help for the purpose of the restoration of a LINC-8, Serial#
4. This systems is not my own property but is belonging to the Museum of the
University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Bavaria.
The system in question is missing a lot of Flip-Chip boards and I would
liket o beg you to have a look at your shelves, if there are some board
which you can spend for this task.
I have a gutted LINC-8 as well, and also need buckets of modules.
Luckily the core stack remains.
Oddly enough, I have the guts for a PDP-12. I can offer these first
generation TTL Flip Chips in trade.
--
Will
3 p.m.
New subject: Modules for LINC-8
I believe that only 130 (or so) LINC-8's were
made. It would be
interesting to track down the ones that still exist. If you would like
to send me your serial number, some background info and perhaps even a
picture, I'd be more than willing to make a register. Unless it has
already been made of course.
With your three machines I know of four survivors :) And have a hunch
were there are at least one more.
Watch out with registers of rare items - lots of collectors really do
not like this. Every so often they attract annoying people that ask to
purchase items from the register, and some of these guys can be
persistent. One of my machines landed on a register some time ago, and
from time to time I get bugged about it. I do not think
I ever asked
to be on the register.
Now, with my LINC-8 or the other machine, I really do not care. In
fact, I have posted on this list years ago that I am willing to trade
the LINC-8 off (and almost did at one point), and that offer still
stands. But others, like RCS/RI, will absolutely not.
--
Will
6:49 p.m.
New subject: Modules for LINC-8
Watch out with registers of rare items - lots of
collectors really do
not like this. Every so often they attract annoying people that ask to
purchase items from the register, and some of these guys can be
persistent. One of my machines landed on a register some time ago, and
from time to time I get bugged about it. I do not think I ever asked
to be on the register.
You make a good point. I only meant to satisfy my own curiosity. There
are registers for the PDP-7 and PDP-12 which are helpful for those
seeking help with their own system and for people like me who like to
know where I can see one in person (in museums).
Perhaps I should keep such a register to myself, or at least ask the
owners of permission before going public.
Cheers,
Pontus.
7:03 p.m.
New subject: Computer (museum) registers [was RE: Modules for LINC-8]
From: Pontus
Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 10:49 AM
There are registers for the PDP-7 and PDP-12 which are
helpful for those
seeking help with their own system and for people like me who like to know
where I can see one in person (in museums).
Where is there a register of PDP-7 systems? I know of only two, personally.
Rich Alderson
Server Engineer, PDPplanet Project
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
(206) 342-2239
(206) 465-2916 cell
7:51 p.m.
New subject: Computer (museum) registers [was RE: Modules for LINC-8]
Rich Alderson wrote:
Where is there a register of PDP-7 systems? I know of
only two, personally.
Its been on this list before, here is the link:
http://www.soemtron.org/pdp7.html
Lets hope the two you know about are not on the list :)
Cheers,
Pontus.
10:05 p.m.
New subject: Computer (museum) registers [was RE: Modules for LINC-8]
On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 2:51 PM, Pontus <pontus at update.uu.se> wrote:
Rich Alderson wrote:
Speaking of this list, does anyone know the fate of
PDP7A 102 08/1968 University of Rochester?
I contacted someone at U of R and he said he didn't know anything
about it; not surprising since I doubt many people still work there
who used it.
John Floren
--
"I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS
reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C,
Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba
Where is there a register of PDP-7 systems? I
know of only two, personally.
Its been on this list before, here is the link:
http://www.soemtron.org/pdp7.html
Lets hope the two you know about are not on the list :)
Cheers,
Pontus.
10:48 p.m.
New subject: Computer (museum) registers [was RE: Modules for LINC-8]
On 3. feb.. 2009, at 20.51, Pontus wrote:
Rich Alderson wrote:
That PDP-7 is in Oslo. However, it is not in operable condition.
Long story follows:
The PDP-7 was my first real retrocomputing project. In retrospect, it
was probably a massively bad call for a first project! Before I began,
I didn't even know what a capacitor was. The machine was in the
university library in which I was hanging out. It was a better use of
time than attending class. Although my grades suffered, I never did
really have trouble justifying skipping a school FrontPage class for
deciphering the inner workings of a computer. :-)
Before I touched anything, I took the maintenance and user manuals
with me to a week-long holiday at my family's summerhouse, and I still
remember the deep effect the F-77A service manual had on me. (now
there's a sentence you don't hear every day...) I'd been a computer
geek before this, but I had never quite understood computers past the
level of "I input some mnemonics, and then magic happens inside the
chip".
A few years later, I saw a video of Steve Wozniak explaining how he
"fell in love" with the PDP-8 as he read the manual. He exactly
described my own feelings. Although I had idly programmed computers
since I was 12 (Well, since age 9 if you count BASIC - but one
doesn't, does one...) this was the first computer I felt I could
*understand*, and it made a lasting impression on me and gave me a
lasting fascination with retrocomputing as a way of "understanding"
computers and computer engineering in a way that is simply not
possible with the vastly more capable but yet somehow less interesting
modern systems.
The PDP-7 documentation was "describing a world" which was immensely
fascinating to me.
Anyway, back to the machine itself. Having read up on it, and
consulted with electronics engineers (funny how those seem to be
abundant in a CS/EE building, huh...) and also this mailing list, I
found that the best course of action was to reform the capacitors in
the PSUs, and then test the PSUs under a dummy load. The capacitors
all held a charge marvelously, and were surprisingly close to their
labelled capacitance. The PSUs were all within spec - not bad for a
system that hadn't seen power since 1977!
When initially powered up the CPU was completely dead. I managed to
locate a few problems with individual components and swapping the
boards for working ones. (There was a cache of spare flip-chips - and
I refused to allow a PDP-7 to become my first soldering job!). One of
my first repairs, and the one that really got the system going, was
swapping out a B204 -- IIRC, the faulty board had an off-value
resistor -- in the main timing chain.
By the time I was "done", the CPU was able to fetch, decode, and
execute arithmetic, conditional branch, and OPR instructions - and
those were just the ones I tested. However, when I STARTed the CPU,
the system looped at location 0. I quickly found out why: The physics
department had, to deal with an increase in I/O load, created their
own Automatic Priority Interrupt (The paper I read described it as "a
poor man's API" - I think it was submitted to DECUS).
The professor who used the machine is quite tall, over 2 meters, at
least - and is described by many as "Norway's (largest/greatest)
scientist". One time in the 1970s, he and a colleague of comparable
stature were at a DECUS or DECworld or somesuch meeting. The
conferancier, when receiving them, asked - "Are all Norwegians this
tall!?". Immediately, his colleague replied - "No - we were the only
ones who could fit on the plane.". :-)
The PMAPI was built out of 74-series circuitry. Of course, when the
system was decommissioned only a few years later, 74-series logic was
both bloody expensive and general-purpose, so those boards were
removed. As a result of this, the CPU always loops on an active-low
IRQ from the I/O rack.
The absence of any I/O left me unable to test any of the other
peripheral devices. The paper tape reader would start when asked to by
the CPU (The binary load feature necessitated some direct glue between
the controller and the CPU), The Teletype would transmit correct codes
as read by the I/O rack status lamps. The TTY itself (a KSR33) had a
missing codebar reset bail, and eventually the H-bar broke (wow, it's
been 4 years and I still remember the name of the damned parts. The
Teletype manual was also a fascinating read.)
The core memory could store and recall worst-case noise patterns
entered into the system by a program I wrote which I stepped through
while holding in "CONTINUE".
Considering how inexperienced and unknowledgeable I was, I'm damned
glad I never managed to make anything catch fire, and as a bonus, I
think I really got quite far all things considered.
The wall-like learning curve was very interesting to climb and I'm a
happier person for it.
Regards,
-Tore :)
Where is there a register of PDP-7 systems? I
know of only two,
personally.
Its been on this list before, here is the link:
http://www.soemtron.org/pdp7.html
Lets hope the two you know about are not on the list :)
11:06 p.m.
New subject: Computer (museum) registers [was RE: Modules for LINC-8]
The professor who used the machine is quite tall, over
2 meters, at
least - and is described by many as "Norway's (largest/greatest)
scientist". One time in the 1970s, he and a colleague of comparable
stature were at a DECUS or DECworld or somesuch meeting. The
conferancier, when receiving them, asked - "Are all Norwegians this
tall!?". Immediately, his colleague replied - "No - we were the only
ones who could fit on the plane.". :-)
I spent the second half of 2002 in Tromsoe (at Universitetet); one of
the people there was, I think, two metres three. He told me of one
winter when the snow accumulation reached something like 247cm - not
quite the nice round two and a half metres people were sort of hoping
for.... The line I remember from him was something like "I'm not used
to walking through snow above my head". :)
/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
5 Feb
5 Feb
9:53 a.m.
New subject: [personal] Re: Computer (museum) registers [was RE: Modules for LINC-8]
Tore, hi..
A great story, mirrors to an extent my experience with the UK goverments
PDP-7 #41, as a young engineer given the manuals and told "work it out",
fell in love with computers especially the 7. We built an interface between
the 7 and a PDP-11, a bit like Max Burnett's hybrid.
It's a pity your 7 is not working better, but at least it still "lives", and
has not been sent to the dump, don't do that please.
Best regards,
Mike Hatch
Web - www.soemtron.org
Email - mike at soemtron.org
Looking for a PDP-7 (some hope!)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tore Sinding Bekkedal" <toresbe at ifi.uio.no>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 10:48 PM
Subject: [personal] Re: Computer (museum) registers [was RE: Modules for
LINC-8]
On 3. feb.. 2009, at 20.51, Pontus wrote:
Rich Alderson wrote:
That PDP-7 is in Oslo. However, it is not in operable condition.
Long story follows:
The PDP-7 was my first real retrocomputing project. In retrospect, it was
probably a massively bad call for a first project! Before I began, I
didn't even know what a capacitor was. The machine was in the university
library in which I was hanging out. It was a better use of time than
attending class. Although my grades suffered, I never did really have
trouble justifying skipping a school FrontPage class for deciphering the
inner workings of a computer. :-)
Before I touched anything, I took the maintenance and user manuals with
me to a week-long holiday at my family's summerhouse, and I still
remember the deep effect the F-77A service manual had on me. (now there's
a sentence you don't hear every day...) I'd been a computer geek before
this, but I had never quite understood computers past the level of "I
input some mnemonics, and then magic happens inside the chip".
A few years later, I saw a video of Steve Wozniak explaining how he "fell
in love" with the PDP-8 as he read the manual. He exactly described my
own feelings. Although I had idly programmed computers since I was 12
(Well, since age 9 if you count BASIC - but one doesn't, does one...)
this was the first computer I felt I could *understand*, and it made a
lasting impression on me and gave me a lasting fascination with
retrocomputing as a way of "understanding" computers and computer
engineering in a way that is simply not possible with the vastly more
capable but yet somehow less interesting modern systems.
The PDP-7 documentation was "describing a world" which was immensely
fascinating to me.
Anyway, back to the machine itself. Having read up on it, and consulted
with electronics engineers (funny how those seem to be abundant in a
CS/EE building, huh...) and also this mailing list, I found that the best
course of action was to reform the capacitors in the PSUs, and then test
the PSUs under a dummy load. The capacitors all held a charge
marvelously, and were surprisingly close to their labelled capacitance.
The PSUs were all within spec - not bad for a system that hadn't seen
power since 1977!
When initially powered up the CPU was completely dead. I managed to
locate a few problems with individual components and swapping the boards
for working ones. (There was a cache of spare flip-chips - and I refused
to allow a PDP-7 to become my first soldering job!). One of my first
repairs, and the one that really got the system going, was swapping out a
B204 -- IIRC, the faulty board had an off-value resistor -- in the main
timing chain.
By the time I was "done", the CPU was able to fetch, decode, and execute
arithmetic, conditional branch, and OPR instructions - and those were
just the ones I tested. However, when I STARTed the CPU, the system
looped at location 0. I quickly found out why: The physics department
had, to deal with an increase in I/O load, created their own Automatic
Priority Interrupt (The paper I read described it as "a poor man's API" -
I think it was submitted to DECUS).
The professor who used the machine is quite tall, over 2 meters, at
least - and is described by many as "Norway's (largest/greatest)
scientist". One time in the 1970s, he and a colleague of comparable
stature were at a DECUS or DECworld or somesuch meeting. The
conferancier, when receiving them, asked - "Are all Norwegians this
tall!?". Immediately, his colleague replied - "No - we were the only ones
who could fit on the plane.". :-)
The PMAPI was built out of 74-series circuitry. Of course, when the
system was decommissioned only a few years later, 74-series logic was
both bloody expensive and general-purpose, so those boards were removed.
As a result of this, the CPU always loops on an active-low IRQ from the
I/O rack.
The absence of any I/O left me unable to test any of the other peripheral
devices. The paper tape reader would start when asked to by the CPU (The
binary load feature necessitated some direct glue between the controller
and the CPU), The Teletype would transmit correct codes as read by the
I/O rack status lamps. The TTY itself (a KSR33) had a missing codebar
reset bail, and eventually the H-bar broke (wow, it's been 4 years and I
still remember the name of the damned parts. The Teletype manual was also
a fascinating read.)
The core memory could store and recall worst-case noise patterns entered
into the system by a program I wrote which I stepped through while
holding in "CONTINUE".
Considering how inexperienced and unknowledgeable I was, I'm damned glad
I never managed to make anything catch fire, and as a bonus, I think I
really got quite far all things considered.
The wall-like learning curve was very interesting to climb and I'm a
happier person for it.
Regards,
-Tore :)
Where is there a register of PDP-7 systems? I
know of only two,
personally.
Its been on this list before, here is the link:
http://www.soemtron.org/pdp7.html
Lets hope the two you know about are not on the list :)
4 Feb
4 Feb
12:16 a.m.
New subject: Computer (museum) registers [was RE: Modules for LINC-8]
From: Pontus
Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 11:52 AM
Rich Alderson wrote:
> Where is there a register of PDP-7 systems? I
know of only two,
> personally.
Its been on this list before, here is the link:
Lets hope the two you know about are not on the list :)
Nope, Tore's and ours are on the list.
When we disassembled the system in the High Energy Physics Lab at the
University of Oregon in June, 2006, it was still in running condition.
Rich Alderson
Server Engineer, PDPplanet Project
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
(206) 342-2239
(206) 465-2916 cell
4:39 p.m.
New subject: Computer (museum) registers [was RE: Modules for LINC-8]
On 4. feb.. 2009, at 01.16, Rich Alderson wrote:
Nope, Tore's and ours are on the list.
When we disassembled the system in the High Energy Physics Lab at the
University of Oregon in June, 2006, it was still in running condition.
I seem to recall that there was one in Australia as part of some
historical collection there?
-Tore :)
From: Pontus
Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 11:52 AM
Rich Alderson wrote:
Where is
there a register of PDP-7 systems? I know of only two,
personally.
Lets hope the two you know about are not on the list :)
5 Feb
5 Feb
9:54 a.m.
New subject: [personal] **JUNK** RE: Computer (museum) registers [was RE: Modules for LINC-8]
Is the PDP-7 from U of Oregon still operational ?.
Best regards,
Mike Hatch
Web - www.soemtron.org
Email - mike at soemtron.org
Looking for a PDP-7 (some hope!)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rich Alderson" <RichA at vulcan.com>
To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 12:16 AM
Subject: [personal] **JUNK** RE: Computer (museum) registers [was RE:
Modules for LINC-8]
From: Pontus
Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 11:52 AM
Rich Alderson wrote:
> Where is there a register of PDP-7 systems?
I know of only two,
> personally.
Its been on this list before, here is the link:
Lets hope the two you know about are not on the
list :)
Nope, Tore's and ours are on the list.
When we disassembled the system in the High Energy Physics Lab at the
University of Oregon in June, 2006, it was still in running condition.
Rich Alderson
Server Engineer, PDPplanet Project
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
(206) 342-2239
(206) 465-2916 cell
6 Feb
6 Feb
9:07 a.m.
New subject: Australian PDP-7
Max Burnet has confirmed the existence of PDP-7 #60 in his storage
collection along with a couple of photos. This machine was at Lucas Heights
Atomic Energy Establishment but does not appear on the service list (#47
does, also at Lucas Heights), so it appears to be one of the "missing" 21
machines.
Any info on the PDP-7 range of machines gratefully appreciated.
Many thanks,
Best regards,
Mike Hatch
Web - www.soemtron.org
Email - mike at soemtron.org
Looking for a PDP-7 (some hope!)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Hatch" <mike at brickfieldspark.org>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2009 9:54 AM
Subject: Re: [personal] **JUNK** RE: Computer (museum) registers [was
RE:Modules for LINC-8]
Is the PDP-7 from U of Oregon still operational ?.
Best regards,
Mike Hatch
Web - www.soemtron.org
Email - mike at soemtron.org
Looking for a PDP-7 (some hope!)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rich Alderson" <RichA at vulcan.com>
To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 12:16 AM
Subject: [personal] **JUNK** RE: Computer (museum) registers [was RE:
Modules for LINC-8]
From:
Pontus
Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 11:52 AM
Rich Alderson wrote:
> Where is there a register of PDP-7 systems?
I know of only two,
> personally.
Its been on this list before, here is the link:
Lets hope the two you know about are not on the
list :)
Nope, Tore's and ours are on the list.
When we disassembled the system in the High Energy Physics Lab at the
University of Oregon in June, 2006, it was still in running condition.
Rich Alderson
Server Engineer, PDPplanet Project
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
(206) 342-2239
(206) 465-2916 cell
10:48 p.m.
New subject: [personal] RE: Computer (museum) registers [was RE: Modules for LINC-8]
From: Mike Hatch
Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2009 1:55 AM
Is the PDP-7 from U of Oregon still operational ?.
At present, it is disassembled and awaiting reassembly. That is on the
schedule for this spring. We'll announce when it's ready for visitors.
Rich Alderson
Server Engineer, PDPplanet Project
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
(206) 342-2239
(206) 465-2916 cell
9 Feb
9 Feb
10:03 a.m.
New subject: [personal] RE: Computer (museum) registers [was RE: Modules for LINC-8]
Rich, thanks for the info.
Please let us (me) know of progress and any photos if there are any, I'd
like to add the info to the PDP-7 page (www.soemtron.org/pdp7.html).
To bring a PDP-7 back on-line will be great.
Best regards,
Mike Hatch
Web - www.soemtron.org
PDP-7 - www.soemtron.org/pdp7.html
Email - mike at soemtron.org
Looking for a PDP-7 (some hope!) and an ASR33
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rich Alderson" <RichA at vulcan.com>
To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, February 06, 2009 10:48 PM
Subject: RE: [personal] RE: Computer (museum) registers [was RE: Modules for
LINC-8]
From: Mike
Hatch
Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2009 1:55 AM
Is the PDP-7 from U of Oregon still operational
?.
At present, it is disassembled and awaiting reassembly. That is on the
schedule for this spring. We'll announce when it's ready for visitors.
Rich Alderson
Server Engineer, PDPplanet Project
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
(206) 342-2239
(206) 465-2916 cell
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