15 Oct
2007
15 Oct
'07
2:18 p.m.
I 'rescued' a unique piece of computer equipment...
Here is the data:
Raytheon
RDS-201E (on badge on front/top)
P/N G246101-3010 (from badge on rear)
Model VT302 (from badge on rear)
This has 2 5.25" full height floppy drives (like the original IBM PC)
likely Tandon mechs ?
Has a 'built in' (more like 'built on') screen.
Has switches for 10 pitch/12 pitch
1/1.5/2 spacing and another I forget
(they are on the monitor piece).
I don't have a floppy. Ports on the back look like possibly a printer port
and the other likes similar like a short printer end centronics interface.
So... internet searches have turned up nada....
So.... what the heck is it ?
Is it a computer ? Is it some sort of terminal ?
I have no media for it... so if it is a computer, I'm doubtful I'll turn
up anything for it. Same goes for the keyboard.
It is a unique looking enclosure though... very very retro
Help me identify what this is, and what I should do with it
(if a computer and I can get media, will probably at least play
with it, then if no interest find a new owner for it... if some sort
of wacked out terminal... if there is no interest, I'm going to
yank the drives and anything else useful and scrap it, or if
feasable... maybe use it as a 'case mod' for a PC (I usually
loath this... but got to admit, this would make a highly unique
PC :-) ).
-- Curt
15 Oct
15 Oct
2:26 p.m.
Has switches for 10 pitch/12 pitch
1/1.5/2 spacing and another I forget
These sound like typewriter settings (10/12 pitch controlling spacing
horizontally, 1/1.5/2 vertically).
What typewriter settings would be doing on a device such as you descrie
is, of course, a completely separate question. :-) Perhaps it's some
kind of rudimentary digital (or at least electronic) typesetter?
/~\ 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
2:35 p.m.
I wonder if its a rebadged Compugraphic typesetting system, sounds very
similar.
Curt
Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote:
I 'rescued' a unique piece of computer equipment...
Here is the data:
Raytheon
RDS-201E (on badge on front/top)
P/N G246101-3010 (from badge on rear)
Model VT302 (from badge on rear)
This has 2 5.25" full height floppy drives (like the original IBM PC)
likely Tandon mechs ?
Has a 'built in' (more like 'built on') screen.
Has switches for 10 pitch/12 pitch
1/1.5/2 spacing and another I forget
(they are on the monitor piece).
I don't have a floppy. Ports on the back look like possibly a printer
port
and the other likes similar like a short printer end centronics
interface.
So... internet searches have turned up nada....
So.... what the heck is it ?
Is it a computer ? Is it some sort of terminal ?
I have no media for it... so if it is a computer, I'm doubtful I'll turn
up anything for it. Same goes for the keyboard.
It is a unique looking enclosure though... very very retro
Help me identify what this is, and what I should do with it
(if a computer and I can get media, will probably at least play
with it, then if no interest find a new owner for it... if some sort
of wacked out terminal... if there is no interest, I'm going to
yank the drives and anything else useful and scrap it, or if
feasable... maybe use it as a 'case mod' for a PC (I usually
loath this... but got to admit, this would make a highly unique
PC :-) ).
-- Curt
3:38 p.m.
I 'rescued' a unique piece of computer equipment...
Here is the data:
Raytheon
RDS-201E (on badge on front/top)
P/N G246101-3010 (from badge on rear)
Model VT302 (from badge on rear)
This has 2 5.25" full height floppy drives (like the original IBM PC)
likely Tandon mechs ?
Has a 'built in' (more like 'built on') screen.
Has switches for 10 pitch/12 pitch
Those sound like common pitches (in characters/inch) back in the days of
monospaced fonts
1/1.5/2 spacing and another I forget
And that could be line spacing
(they are on the monitor piece).
I don't have a floppy. Ports on the back look like possibly a printer port
and the other likes similar like a short printer end centronics interface.
Err, what does that mean?
So... internet searches have turned up nada....
So.... what the heck is it ?
Is it a computer ? Is it some sort of terminal ?
My guess is some kind of printer controller, or printing terminal.
I have no media for it... so if it is a computer, I'm doubtful I'll turn
up anything for it. Same goes for the keyboard.
Does it have a keyboard connector?
HAve you looked inside? What are the main chips?
-tony
4:43 p.m.
Search the web for "Lexitron" and I think you'll find something very
similar. It's a word processor--the keyboard is probably lost.
After 1977, Raytheon owned Lexitron. All of their WaPro equipment
(even the printers) started off with VT...
Here's a photo of a VT1303--note the switches on the front panel:
http://www.computermuseum.li/Testpage/Lexitron-VT1303.jpg
Cheers,
Chuck
17 Nov
17 Nov
11:41 a.m.
OK... so I took it apart...
There are 3 boards... all made by TEC
CPU Board:
CPU.KEY.RAMI/F
HEIID 028930
ASSY NO.HE82D054701
Display Interface Board:
DISPLAY I/F
HEIID 029340
ASSY NO.HE82D054801
FDC Board:
FDC CNT
HEIID 029040
ASSY NO.HE82D054901
The edge connectors have 59 pins on each side. There is a slit (key)
between
pins 6 and 7 .... not sure if this matches any 'standard' bus.
This is probably all custom stuff... but hoping (probably in vain), that
maybe this
thing is simply built from 'standard' parts... and can run something
else (CPM ? etc)
I have some pictures... but I haven't gotten them uploaded anywhere yet.
The 2 floppy drives are 5.25" FH (like IBM PC/XT) Qume Qumetrak 542 drives
(belt drive of course). So looks like 300RPM 360K drives. Not sure of belt
health (the look OK... but not sure how much tension they should have).
These
floppy drives good models ? Suppose you could use them in a PC/XT
restoration
(minus the fact they wouldn't be Tandons or have IBM P/Ns).
-- Curt
Chuck Guzis wrote:
Search the web for "Lexitron" and I think
you'll find something very
similar. It's a word processor--the keyboard is probably lost.
After 1977, Raytheon owned Lexitron. All of their WaPro equipment
(even the printers) started off with VT...
Here's a photo of a VT1303--note the switches on the front panel:
http://www.computermuseum.li/Testpage/Lexitron-VT1303.jpg
Cheers,
Chuck
12:40 p.m.
From: rescue at hawkmountain.net
OK... so I took it apart...
There are 3 boards... all made by TEC
CPU Board:
CPU.KEY.RAMI/F
HEIID 028930
ASSY NO.HE82D054701
It doesn't sound like anything I recognize. Still, look at the RAM.
If it has at least 32K, CP/M is possible.
See what type of keyboard interface it has on it. If parallel,
it should be relatively easy to get it going. Serial would
be more difficult.
Display Interface Board:
DISPLAY I/F
HEIID 029340
ASSY NO.HE82D054801
FDC Board:
FDC CNT
HEIID 029040
ASSY NO.HE82D054901
The edge connectors have 59 pins on each side. There is a slit (key)
between
pins 6 and 7 .... not sure if this matches any 'standard' bus.
This is probably all custom stuff... but hoping (probably in vain), that
maybe this
thing is simply built from 'standard' parts... and can run something
else (CPM ? etc)
I have some pictures... but I haven't gotten them uploaded anywhere yet.
The 2 floppy drives are 5.25" FH (like IBM PC/XT) Qume Qumetrak 542 drives
(belt drive of course). So looks like 300RPM 360K drives. Not sure of belt
health (the look OK... but not sure how much tension they should have).
These
floppy drives good models ? Suppose you could use them in a PC/XT
restoration
(minus the fact they wouldn't be Tandons or have IBM P/Ns).
Even if you don't get something to just plug into it, it would still
be a fun project to get something running on it. Look at the components
used on the various boards, it will give you clues on how things
work. I wouldn't split it up if not needed.
For the belts, try holding the hub of flywheel and turn the motor shaft.
If it turns easily without transfering torque to the hub, then it will
need to be tightened. Usually the motor has some play in the mount
but if needed one can use a small rat tail file to elongate the mounting
holes.
More important is to make sure there is no gunk or lumpy oxide
on the flywheel. If so, smooth this down or it will cause erratic
disk writes and reads. The motor pully should be smooth as well
but I've found it not as critical as the flywheel surface.
Dwight
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1:25 p.m.
On 17 Nov 2007 at 14:41, Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote:
The edge connectors have 59 pins on each side. There
is a slit (key)
between pins 6 and 7 .... not sure if this matches any 'standard' bus.
Nothing that I've ever seen.
This is probably all custom stuff... but hoping
(probably in vain), that
maybe this thing is simply built from 'standard' parts... and can run something
else (CPM ? etc)
I have some pictures... but I haven't gotten them uploaded anywhere yet.
The 2 floppy drives are 5.25" FH (like IBM PC/XT) Qume Qumetrak 542 drives
(belt drive of course). So looks like 300RPM 360K drives. Not sure of belt
health (the look OK... but not sure how much tension they should have).
These floppy drives good models ? Suppose you could use them in a PC/XT
restoration (minus the fact they wouldn't be Tandons or have IBM P/Ns).
Not bad, not wonderful on the broad spectrum of 5.25" DD FH drives.
As far as the belts go, if they seem to turn the disk okay without
slipping or noise, then you're fine. It all depends on the ozone
situation in your area.
Perhaps this could be adapted to run CP/M, but I wonder if you won't
run into any ROM mapping that would prevent it. Remember that the
Wapo makers had full control over their hardware configuration. I
suspect the daisywheel that inevitably comes with these things is
probably a Diablo or a Qume model.
Do you see some familiar part numbers on the larger chips?
Cheers,
Chuck
5:17 p.m.
Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote:
I 'rescued' a unique piece of computer equipment...
Here is the data:
Raytheon
I would look at the components to see what era they are. If it is
70's
or 80's Raytheon made a lot of airline res terminal type equipment.
I know that Univac / Unisys had the TWA concession and had something
called UTS40 (I think) that had a z80 in it and with a huge over
engineered subsystem could run CP/M But they had usually horrible com
gear type hardware to do all the crap that the Reservation systems could do.
Sometimes they had local data needs which had to be update, hence the
floppies. Data such as flight numbers or network configuration data
would be loaded locally, to save network time.
This sort of fits with the 10 / 12 pitch info too, in that there would
have been report / ticket generation capability by adding a printer.
I found a google hit that Raytheon Data Systems was formed in 1971 by
merging information processing and terminal manufacturing divisions,
which I think is where the RDS comes from (obviously)
Jim
6:34 p.m.
jim s wrote:
Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote:
Not finding any clear indication of dates from the boards. Some of the
chips
if I'm reading them correct look date coded in 1982.
CPU board has 8085 cpu, a D3242 ? HM4864P-2 (16 of them)
who is TEC ? (maker of the boards... nothing anywhere stamped raytheon data
systems, etc on the boards)
I 'rescued' a unique piece of computer equipment...
Here is the data:
Raytheon
I would look at the components to see what era they are. If it is
70's or 80's Raytheon made a lot of airline res terminal type equipment.
I know that Univac / Unisys had the TWA concession and had something
called UTS40 (I think) that had a z80 in it and with a huge over
engineered subsystem could run CP/M But they had usually horrible com
gear type hardware to do all the crap that the Reservation systems
could do.
Sometimes they had local data needs which had to be update, hence the
floppies. Data such as flight numbers or network configuration data
would be loaded locally, to save network time.
This sort of fits with the 10 / 12 pitch info too, in that there would
have been report / ticket generation capability by adding a printer.
I found a google hit that Raytheon Data Systems was formed in 1971 by
merging information processing and terminal manufacturing divisions,
which I think is where the RDS comes from (obviously)
Jim
Well, I doubt anyone would be interested in this (especially since it is
missing the
keyboard, it is in unknown operational condition, and I'd assume needed
to boot
from diskette (as there is only one 2716 EPROM).
Gutted it would make a spiffy PC conversion.... (just to put something
'runnable' in
a really cool retro case). This isn't something I like... as I've seen
ppl wreck nice
gear to do that.... but this is pretty useless, doubtful has much
interest, and is missing
stuff that would even allow it to be toyed with).
Was hoping the boards would be some std boards globbed together for the
function
(since everything wasn't smeared with Raytheon/RDS inside).
-- Curt
7:03 p.m.
Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote:
jim s wrote:
TEC was a manufacture of CRT terminals. I have two TEC rack-mount model
400 terminals,
1975 vintage I think.
Bob
Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote:
Not finding any clear indication of dates from the boards. Some of
the chips
if I'm reading them correct look date coded in 1982.
CPU board has 8085 cpu, a D3242 ? HM4864P-2 (16 of them)
who is TEC ? (maker of the boards... nothing anywhere stamped raytheon
data
systems, etc on the boards)
I 'rescued' a unique piece of computer equipment...
Here is the data:
Raytheon
I would look at the components to see what era they are. If it is
70's or 80's Raytheon made a lot of airline res terminal type equipment.
7:10 p.m.
Bob Rosenbloom wrote:
Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote:
hopefully correct snippage.
TEC is Tokyo Electric Company if you want an alternate google search
(also less ambiguity). Any other acronyms on large boards might be
interesting.
It's interesting that Raytheon would have packaged TEC parts into a
product in 1982, since TEC was a big vendor of such devices are Cash
registers, and the like on their own. But they did a lot of terminal
and standalone things like Cash registers as products. I don't know if
they still exist as TEC or not as a maker ot terminal equipment today.
If they do, hits on that crap in Google will mess up your search.
Jim
<snip>
who is TEC ? (maker of the boards... nothing anywhere stamped
raytheon data
systems, etc on the boards)
TEC was a manufacture of CRT terminals. I have two TEC rack-mount
model 400 terminals,
1975 vintage I think.
Bob 
7:19 p.m.
New subject: TEC (was Re: what the heck is it)
--- jim s <jwstephens at msm.umr.edu> wrote:
TEC is Tokyo Electric Company if you want an
alternate google search
The terminal maker was a different TEC, namely
the Transistor Electronics Company. Besides
terminals, they made switches and indicators.
I recall seeing early advertisements for their
keyswitches, which is possibly how they got into
the terminal business.
http://www.computerhistory.org/brochures/companies.php?alpha=t-z&compan…
Computer History Museum - Transistor Electronics
Corporation (TEC) - New TEC Lite Data Panel
7:43 p.m.
New subject: TEC (was Re: what the heck is it)
On 17 Nov 2007 at 19:19, William Maddox wrote:
The terminal maker was a different TEC, namely
the Transistor Electronics Company. Besides
terminals, they made switches and indicators.
I recall seeing early advertisements for their
keyswitches, which is possibly how they got into
the terminal business.
Might "TEC" also stand for "Texas Engineering Center", a Dallas
division of Raytheon? I know that internally, it's referred to as
"TEC". It could be that the board layout and design was done there.
Just guessin'...
Cheers,
Chuck
18 Nov
18 Nov
7:58 a.m.
New subject: TEC (was Re: what the heck is it)
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 17 Nov 2007 at 19:19, William Maddox wrote:
I'd think not as all the boards also say "MADE IN JAPAN".
-- Curt
The terminal maker was a different TEC, namely
the Transistor Electronics Company. Besides
terminals, they made switches and indicators.
I recall seeing early advertisements for their
keyswitches, which is possibly how they got into
the terminal business.
Might "TEC" also stand for "Texas Engineering Center", a Dallas
division of Raytheon? I know that internally, it's referred to as
"TEC". It could be that the board layout and design was done there.
Just guessin'...
Cheers,
Chuck
3:34 a.m.
In article <473FAB8B.1050009 at sbcglobal.net>,
Bob Rosenbloom <bobalan at sbcglobal.net> writes:
TEC was a manufacture of CRT terminals. I have two TEC
rack-mount model
400 terminals,
1975 vintage I think.
Did someone say terminals? :-)
Got any pictures of these, Bob?
--
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8:47 a.m.
New subject: what the heck is it - TEC Terminal
Richard wrote:
In article <473FAB8B.1050009 at sbcglobal.net>,
Bob Rosenbloom <bobalan at sbcglobal.net> writes:
Yes, there's some on my web site at:
http://www.dvq.com/oldcomp/misc.htm
About 3/4 the way down. These were used with a Litton inertial
navigation test system
I have. The display section is rack-mount and the keyboard was in a rack
drawer.
Bob
TEC was a manufacture of CRT terminals. I have
two TEC rack-mount model
400 terminals,
1975 vintage I think.
Did someone say terminals? :-)
Got any pictures of these, Bob?
17 Nov
17 Nov
9:06 p.m.
On 17 Nov 2007 at 21:34, Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote:
Not finding any clear indication of dates from the
boards. Some of the
chips if I'm reading them correct look date coded in 1982.
CPU board has 8085 cpu, a D3242 ? HM4864P-2 (16 of them)
Sort of a yawn so far. the D3242 part is an Intel address
mux/refresh counter and the 4864's are 64x1 DRAMs (128K system).
What does the unit use for a CRTC and FDC?
Cheers,
Chuck
18 Nov
18 Nov
8 a.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 17 Nov 2007 at 21:34, Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote:
3 large chips on the FDC board...
N8X305I
N8X330N
N8X320N
The display i/f board... looks like all TTL, some RAM, and one EPROM
The connection to the monitor is an internal DB25 (for power and signals).
-- Curt
Not finding any clear indication of dates from
the boards. Some of the
chips if I'm reading them correct look date coded in 1982.
CPU board has 8085 cpu, a D3242 ? HM4864P-2 (16 of them)
Sort of a yawn so far. the D3242 part is an Intel address
mux/refresh counter and the 4864's are 64x1 DRAMs (128K system).
What does the unit use for a CRTC and FDC?
Cheers,
Chuck
10:39 a.m.
On 18 Nov 2007 at 11:00, Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote:
3 large chips on the FDC board...
N8X305I
N8X330N
N8X320N
Signetics bipolar microcontroller stuff. Very interesting in that the
8x330 is used--it's the floppy controller of the series; you don't
run across them very much. It's designed to interface with the 8x300
series and nothing else.
The 8x320 is the register array usually used to interface the 8x300
to external systems. You should probably find some bipolar RAM and
ROM there also as well as some I/O ports (8T32/8T36).
What makes this unusual is that it's found on an 8085 system with
5.25" floppies rather than a traditional MOS FDC. Were this only for
floppies, this definitely would have been a ridiculously expensive
implementation for the time (and power-hungry). However, I wonder if
that board doesn't also have a hard disk interface connector (e.g.
SA4000) which would have been right for the time--and made sense.
Is there an EPROM for the 8085 on the main board? If so, have you
dumped it? It might clinch the identification.
Cheers,
Chuck
7:44 p.m.
From: cclist at sydex.com
On 18 Nov 2007 at 11:00, Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote:
It sure would be overkill unless it was to be used with some
non-standard format. If there are some WD chips on the
board, it might be a combination board as you suggest.
Still I suspect a special format.
Dwight
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3 large chips on the FDC board...
N8X305I
N8X330N
N8X320N
Signetics bipolar microcontroller stuff. Very interesting in that the
8x330 is used--it's the floppy controller of the series; you don't
run across them very much. It's designed to interface with the 8x300
series and nothing else.
The 8x320 is the register array usually used to interface the 8x300
to external systems. You should probably find some bipolar RAM and
ROM there also as well as some I/O ports (8T32/8T36).
What makes this unusual is that it's found on an 8085 system with
5.25" floppies rather than a traditional MOS FDC. Were this only for
floppies, this definitely would have been a ridiculously expensive
implementation for the time (and power-hungry). However, I wonder if
that board doesn't also have a hard disk interface connector (e.g.
SA4000) which would have been right for the time--and made sense.
Is there an EPROM for the 8085 on the main board? If so, have you
dumped it? It might clinch the identification.
8:47 p.m.
dwight elvey wrote:
The FDC board has two 34 pin connectors... labelled 0 and 1. One
connector for each of the two floppy drives. I thought that a perculiar
arrangement, as one connector should be able to support 2 to 4 drives.
Both floppy drives are configured as drive 0.
No other (HD) connectors on the floppy interface board.
As for the boot rom, my EPROM programmer hasn't been hooked up in
some time, so I don't have a quick and easy means to dump it at the moment.
It has a label "BOOT V1.1" on it... but not like that is particularly
'descriptive'
I'm sure if enough internal information was available, this could be
made into
a small general purpose computer... it has enough guts... a type of
display, an
FDC interface, 128K of memory, a CPU, etc... but w/o the keyboard, and
w/o those docs... pretty much I'd imagine it would be a difficult
proposition
(one that even with those docs I'd imagine would not really be worth the
effort).
Too bad it wasn't a computer that ran an OS like CP/M or something... when I
get the pics up somewhere I'll post a URL.... I really admire it's funky
'old' look.
-- Curt
From: cclist
at sydex.com
On 18 Nov 2007 at 11:00, Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote:
It sure would be overkill unless it was to be used with some
non-standard format. If there are some WD chips on the
board, it might be a combination board as you suggest.
Still I suspect a special format.
Dwight
3 large chips on the FDC board...
N8X305I
N8X330N
N8X320N
Signetics bipolar microcontroller stuff. Very interesting in that the
8x330 is used--it's the floppy controller of the series; you don't
run across them very much. It's designed to interface with the 8x300
series and nothing else.
The 8x320 is the register array usually used to interface the 8x300
to external systems. You should probably find some bipolar RAM and
ROM there also as well as some I/O ports (8T32/8T36).
What makes this unusual is that it's found on an 8085 system with
5.25" floppies rather than a traditional MOS FDC. Were this only for
floppies, this definitely would have been a ridiculously expensive
implementation for the time (and power-hungry). However, I wonder if
that board doesn't also have a hard disk interface connector (e.g.
SA4000) which would have been right for the time--and made sense.
Is there an EPROM for the 8085 on the main board? If so, have you
dumped it? It might clinch the identification.
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19 Nov
19 Nov
7:07 a.m.
Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2007 23:47:32 -0500
From: rescue at hawkmountain.net
To:
Subject: Re: what the heck is it
dwight elvey wrote:
The FDC board has two 34 pin connectors... labelled 0 and 1. One
connector for each of the two floppy drives. I thought that a perculiar
arrangement, as one connector should be able to support 2 to 4 drives.
Both floppy drives are configured as drive 0.
No other (HD) connectors on the floppy interface board.
Hi
It is most likely was an unusual disk format. Chuck mentioned
M2FM. This is quite likely. Many of these special purpose machines
had their original software developed on MDS800's. At the
time, double density disk formats hadn't been tied down and M2FM was as
likely as any of them. They most likely had some previous
machine with this format and wanted to keep this format
for compatability.
I'd think it would still be worth bringing up CP/M on it.
There are a few people that have M2FM on their MDS800's
that could help.
The keyboard is most likely a parallel type as well.
It would be a chalanging project but the amount learned
would make it worth the time.
Dwight
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From:
cclist at sydex.com
On 18 Nov 2007 at 11:00, Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote:
It sure would be overkill unless it was to be used with some
non-standard format. If there are some WD chips on the
board, it might be a combination board as you suggest.
Still I suspect a special format.
Dwight
3 large chips on the FDC board...
N8X305I
N8X330N
N8X320N
Signetics bipolar microcontroller stuff. Very interesting in that the
8x330 is used--it's the floppy controller of the series; you don't
run across them very much. It's designed to interface with the 8x300
series and nothing else.
The 8x320 is the register array usually used to interface the 8x300
to external systems. You should probably find some bipolar RAM and
ROM there also as well as some I/O ports (8T32/8T36).
What makes this unusual is that it's found on an 8085 system with
5.25" floppies rather than a traditional MOS FDC. Were this only for
floppies, this definitely would have been a ridiculously expensive
implementation for the time (and power-hungry). However, I wonder if
that board doesn't also have a hard disk interface connector (e.g.
SA4000) which would have been right for the time--and made sense.
Is there an EPROM for the 8085 on the main board? If so, have you
dumped it? It might clinch the identification.
7:34 a.m.
New subject: unusual on ebay
Hi
I've just seen the first actual 1702 ( not 1702A ) on
ebay. These are quite rare.
I'll keep an eye on it to see if anyone notices it in
the sea of other rare and vintage items.
Dwight
_________________________________________________________________
Put your friends on the big screen with Windows Vista? + Windows Live?.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/shop/specialoffers.mspx?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_CPC…
9:40 a.m.
Regardless, if you do decide to gut the innards of the machine, I'd
like to get the FDC board from you--I don't have an 8x330 in my FDC
rogue's gallery and it'd be nice to have one just for completeness.
Unlike other FDCs, this is one that must be linked with an 8x300
series microcontroller and firmware supplied by the customer.
There's nothing "smart" about the 8x330. Even a 1771 looks like a
savant compared to it.
Cheers,
Chuck
18 Nov
18 Nov
11:24 p.m.
On 18 Nov 2007 at 19:44, dwight elvey wrote:
Probably so, considering that there's no hard disk interface there.
The 8x330 was one of the very few LSI controllers to do M2FM--that's
likely the reason it was used here.
Cheers,
Chuck
It sure would
be overkill unless it was to be used with some
non-standard format. If there are
some WD chips on the
board, it might be a combination board as you suggest.
Still I suspect a special format. 
1:35 p.m.
On Saturday 17 November 2007 21:34, Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote:
who is TEC ? (maker of the boards... nothing anywhere
stamped raytheon data
systems, etc on the boards)
TTBOMK that stands for "Tokyo Electric Corp.". I've run into that brand
name
before, cash registers and such...
--
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
17 Nov
17 Nov
6:41 p.m.
On 17 Nov 2007 at 17:17, jim s wrote:
This sort of fits with the 10 / 12 pitch info too, in
that there would
have been report / ticket generation capability by adding a printer.
Google on "Lexitron Raytheon" or consult "Raytheon; The first 60
years" by Earls and Edwards. After 1978, Lexitron was a divisoin of
RDS in OA (word processing). The acquisition of Lexitron in 1977
was a huge blunder on Raytheon's part and the operation was pretty
much gone by the mid-80's.
A shame really that the history of OA from the 1960's onward is
pretty much forgotten. Lexitron was the product of "boy genius"
Stephen Kurtin back in 1970 and went public in 1972. A floppy
version of the Lexitron WP equipment didn't appear until 1978; prior
to that time, document storage was on tape; around 1980, the Lexitron
name was dropped, IIRC. AFAIK, Lexitron gear used its own operationg
system.
Talk about history vanishing...I found only two mentions of Artec
International on Google--and only just in passing. But in 1977, we
were using their WP gear and it was pretty nice--basically rebadged
Diablo Hyterms with a small (1 or 2 line) LCD display and a floor-
standing unit with the CPU and 8" floppy drives. If you went one
step up, you could get a video display for one. IIRC, in 1977
dollars, one would set you back about $10K+.
Shame that no one collects this stuff. It created a revolution in
the corporate office. Before the advent of WP and OA in general, it
was typewriters and steno pads (does anyone still know Gregg
shorthand?)
Cheers,
Chuck
7:18 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 17 Nov 2007 at 17:17, jim s wrote:
<snip>
Shame that no one collects this stuff. It created a revolution in
the corporate office. Before the advent of WP and OA in general, it
was typewriters and steno pads (does anyone still know Gregg
shorthand?)
Cheers,
Chuck
I agree it's a shame, but I always ran from this stuff in surplus
because I figured I'd never find the software and manuals, which I
require to get involved in collecting something. Word processors are
just to far down on the food chain to store for 10 years hoping to find
some software from a bunch of aholes who made a career of making weird
floppy formats for no reason other than to keep people from making cheap
media for their over priced hardware. (sort of a rant, sorry).
I have very proprietary stuff, but only if I had extraordinary access to
the goods to make it worthwhile to get the stuff, and for machines which
were more general purpose than just word processing.
There was a "museum of office automation" or such in Kansas City
maintained by the OA manufacturers association for many years. The
group eventually shrank down to where they liquidated their collection
and sold the headquarters building about 5 or 10 years ago.
A friend who repaired printers maintained a membership for years and
clued me in to some of the stuff that was sold off, and John Bohner
hauled off 3 Addressograph machines, as an example of the stuff that was
there.
But I don't know of any other collections of the like. They actually
may not have had that much electronic gear, as much as the older stuff.
Jim
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