26 Apr
2020
26 Apr
'20
4:33 p.m.
Ok, so this evening I went back to the house to do a quick evacuation of
the most critical stuff and take some better pictures. This time I
brought a massive xeon flashlight which helps to get quicker pictures
with less shake.
I also picked up a pile of Perq boards, and all the DC600 tapes and
floppies I could take out. The car was loaded with them, someone is
going to have to curate these. But since I know that the most important
thing is the software and not the hardware I decided this is what to get
as the top priority.
There appears to be a third Perq in there as well on the other side of
the basement. No big drives (14 inch or 8 inch) but a lot of MFM and
SCSI disks. Couldn't grab those, too heavy.
I'm going to put together a list of people and see if I can figure out a
way to get things out. The garage is blocked by an old car, and this
stuff will not go up the steps. Too narrow.
Never dull. Latest pictures are at https://www.crystel.com/bob (I moved
the old ones to a subfolder). I also took a better set of pictures of
the VME boards, look like Sun boards.
C
26 Apr
26 Apr
5:43 p.m.
s?n 2020-04-26 klockan 19:33 -0400 skrev Chris Zach via cctalk:
Ok, so this evening I went back to the house to do a
quick evacuation
of
the most critical stuff and take some better pictures. This time I
brought a massive xeon flashlight which helps to get quicker
pictures
with less shake.
I also picked up a pile of Perq boards, and all the DC600 tapes and
floppies I could take out. The car was loaded with them, someone is
going to have to curate these. But since I know that the most
important
thing is the software and not the hardware I decided this is what to
get
as the top priority.
There appears to be a third Perq in there as well on the other side
of
the basement. No big drives (14 inch or 8 inch) but a lot of MFM and
SCSI disks. Couldn't grab those, too heavy.
I'm going to put together a list of people and see if I can figure
out a
way to get things out. The garage is blocked by an old car, and this
stuff will not go up the steps. Too narrow.
Never dull. Latest pictures are at https://www.crystel.com/bob (I
moved
the old ones to a subfolder). I also took a better set of pictures
of
the VME boards, look like Sun boards.
C
picture 0269 is ECC memory and depending on version of card for:
Sun-3/260/280 and Sun-4/260/280 (501-1102)
Sun-4/260/280 (501-1254 32 MB , 501-1576 16 MB)
Sun-3/460/470/480 Sun-4/260/280 (501-1451, 501-1576)
https://www.sun3arc.org/FEH/Memory/3200.phtml
The 501 code is visible on the card or plate.
5:47 p.m.
On Mon, Apr 27, 2020 at 12:33 AM Chris Zach via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> There appears to be a third Perq in there
as well on the other side of
> the basement. No big drives (14 inch or 8 inch) but a lot of MFM and
> SCSI disks. Couldn't grab those, too heavy.
A quick guide to the various PERQs.
The PERQ 1 and 1a were the original cabinet, one 8" floppy drive
mounted horizontally. The difference between those 2 machines is the
CPU board. These have a 14" SA4000 series hard disk which _must_ be
locked before moving the machine. To do that you need a special clip
to lock the head positioner and a screw to lock the spindle pulley. If
you are lucky they'll be loose inside the machine.
PERQ2s have the later cabinet with an 8" floppy drive mounted
vertically. There are 3 sub-models :
2T1 with an 8" Micropolis 1203 hard disk. This needs to be locked too.
As far as I know the 2T1 is very rare in the States (much more common
over here) and Bob didn't have one. To lock that drive there's a
slotted plastic thing accessible through a hole on the back of the
machine which you turn with a large screwdriver (there was a special
PERQ-related tool, one end of which was flattened to fit that, the
other was an open-ended spanner to adjust the cabinet feet).
2T2 with PC-style 5.25" hard disks (ST412 interface). Most if not all
are self-parking. A machine can have 1 or 2 hard drives installed.
2T4 which is is a 2T2 with a 24 bit CPU. Very rare, and I am sure Bob
didn't have one.
No classic PERQ (the above models) had SCSI.
The PERQ AGW3300 (which again I am pretty sure Bob didn't have) looks
like a tower PC with a single 5.25" floppy drive mounted vertically.
This machine has a SCSI interface on the CPU board that links to a
bridge board and an ST412-interfaced hard disk inside.
> I'm going to put together a list of
people and see if I can figure out a
> way to get things out. The garage is blocked by an old car, and this
> stuff will not go up the steps. Too narrow.
Old car = 1972 Mercury Montego? That was Bob's I think.
-tony
I also picked up a pile of Perq boards, and all the
DC600 tapes and
floppies I could take out. The car was loaded with them, someone is
going to have to curate these. But since I know that the most important
thing is the software and not the hardware I decided this is what to get
as the top priority.
If they are PERQ tapes then they will most probably be 4 track QIC11
format. The original PERQ tape drive was an Archive Sidewinder (QIC02
interface to the PERQ if it matters). I think Bob did have such a
drive.
6:02 p.m.
s?n 2020-04-26 klockan 19:33 -0400 skrev Chris Zach via cctalk:
Ok, so this evening I went back to the house to do a
quick evacuation
of
the most critical stuff and take some better pictures. This time I
brought a massive xeon flashlight which helps to get quicker
pictures
with less shake.
I also picked up a pile of Perq boards, and all the DC600 tapes and
floppies I could take out. The car was loaded with them, someone is
going to have to curate these. But since I know that the most
important
thing is the software and not the hardware I decided this is what to
get
as the top priority.
There appears to be a third Perq in there as well on the other side
of
the basement. No big drives (14 inch or 8 inch) but a lot of MFM and
SCSI disks. Couldn't grab those, too heavy.
Considering that i see at least one SMD controller in 0273
(xy 7053-105)
Could it be case that somewhere is pedestals and CABLES ?
Original issue Sun SMD cables is unobtanium, a number of people on the
list recently discussed copying the cables, but when you don't have any
originals one to study....
0271:
at least one 3/60 cpu (serial b, ser a, scsi, video)
3/260,3/280: sio a, sio b, ethernet, reset/norm/diag keyboard "walking
leds" video (ecl)
0275:
that card with a flat cable, that is i think a 3/80 cpu
It is enough to stuff to configure a rather beefy 3/80, a big enough
vme-crate...
6:08 p.m.
not junk
https://www.crystel.com/bob/DSC_0262.JPG
On Sun, Apr 26, 2020 at 6:33 PM Chris Zach via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
Ok, so this evening I went back to the house to do a
quick evacuation of
the most critical stuff and take some better pictures. This time I
brought a massive xeon flashlight which helps to get quicker pictures
with less shake.
I also picked up a pile of Perq boards, and all the DC600 tapes and
floppies I could take out. The car was loaded with them, someone is
going to have to curate these. But since I know that the most important
thing is the software and not the hardware I decided this is what to get
as the top priority.
There appears to be a third Perq in there as well on the other side of
the basement. No big drives (14 inch or 8 inch) but a lot of MFM and
SCSI disks. Couldn't grab those, too heavy.
I'm going to put together a list of people and see if I can figure out a
way to get things out. The garage is blocked by an old car, and this
stuff will not go up the steps. Too narrow.
Never dull. Latest pictures are at https://www.crystel.com/bob (I moved
the old ones to a subfolder). I also took a better set of pictures of
the VME boards, look like Sun boards.
C
6:37 p.m.
On 04/26/2020 16:33, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote:
Ok, so this evening I went back to the house to do a
quick evacuation of
the most critical stuff and take some better pictures. This time I
brought a massive xeon flashlight which helps to get quicker pictures
with less shake.
Thank you for doing this and for sharing the photos!
Pics 276 & 277 feature a two-enclosure Dynabyte Business Computers
system. I wasn't sure of the manufacturer but you can just make out the
address zooming in to one of the labels, and the BYTE, and that's enough
for Google to do the rest.
Oh, well 278 has a very readable DYNABYTE label, albeit with a different
address.
Heh, looks like that BA11-VA made it into the... Say, is that a 928?
Nice, this load is traveling in style! And the sharkmouth sticker makes
more sense. (I've made more than one rescue pickup in a 944S or 968 over
the years.)
--S.
6:41 p.m.
Chris,
Is there any Commodore or Amiga equipment in there? I though that I
saw a Commodore 1571 floppy drive!
GOD Bless and Thanks,
rich!
On 4/26/2020 6:33 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote:
Ok, so this evening I went back to the house to do a
quick evacuation
of the most critical stuff and take some better pictures. This time I
brought a massive xeon flashlight which helps to get quicker pictures
with less shake.
I also picked up a pile of Perq boards, and all the DC600 tapes and
floppies I could take out. The car was loaded with them, someone is
going to have to curate these. But since I know that the most
important thing is the software and not the hardware I decided this is
what to get as the top priority.
There appears to be a third Perq in there as well on the other side of
the basement. No big drives (14 inch or 8 inch) but a lot of MFM and
SCSI disks. Couldn't grab those, too heavy.
I'm going to put together a list of people and see if I can figure out
a way to get things out. The garage is blocked by an old car, and this
stuff will not go up the steps. Too narrow.
Never dull. Latest pictures are at https://www.crystel.com/bob (I
moved the old ones to a subfolder). I also took a better set of
pictures of the VME boards, look like Sun boards.
C
7:54 p.m.
Eliminating one of the LEAST important:
Picture 267 is a Corona Data Systems (later Cordata) laser printer. It's
an ordinary Canon CX engine (Same as HP LaserJet and LaserJet-Plus (which
had a large rasterizing board in them), with same toner cartridges,
trays, etc.). It connects via DC37 to an ISA board in the host computer.
Watch for a DC37 cable connected or near it, and a board at the other end of the cable.
The software of the Cordata board is 8088/8086 (PC/XT) only, and refuses
to run on a 80286 (AT). Cordata had their own font format, which was
supported in the POEMS font editor (which could convert some HP PCL
fonts).
However, there were numerous other boards for interfacing it, including
JLaser and Eiconsctipt (which did HP PCL and Postscript emulation).
Follow the cable! If it is to the Cordata full-length ISA card, (see
lower right of #257), then rescue the rest of the garage first.
If you are not familiar with them, then be aware the the 5150/5160 FDC
board from IBM had a DC37 for external floppies, so it would be a SECOND
DC37.
OTOH, if he had managed to interface the Cordata printer to one of his
PERQ's, . . . (check with ARD whether that is possible)
Picture #279 is two Kaypro 4's and a Macintosh SE.
(also visible in left side of #276)
Not bad, but not as special as other machines.
The TRS80 model 3 is at the bottom of the pile in picture #255
[more later]
27 Apr
27 Apr
midnight
On Mon, Apr 27, 2020 at 3:54 AM Fred Cisin via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Eliminating one of the LEAST important:
Picture 267 is a Corona Data Systems (later Cordata) laser printer. It's
an ordinary Canon CX engine (Same as HP LaserJet and LaserJet-Plus (which
had a large rasterizing board in them), with same toner cartridges,
trays, etc.). It connects via DC37 to an ISA board in the host computer.
Watch for a DC37 cable connected or near it, and a board at the other end of the cable.
Almost certainly a PERQ laser printer. There was an optional board for
the PERQ often called 'ether-can' which added a second ethernet port
and a Canon CX direct engine interface. It would not surprise me if
Bob had that board.
OTOH, if he had managed to interface the Cordata
printer to one of his
PERQ's, . . . (check with ARD whether that is possible)
See above. It was a standard-ish option.
A bit of background. The standard PERQ board set is 3 boards :
CPU (either 4K WCS in the PERQ 1 or 16K WCS in the PERQ 1a and all late models)
Memory (also included the video circuitry
I/O (PERQ 1/1a machines have a board called CIO, PERQ 2s have eithe
EIO (Ethernet + Input/Output) or NIO (No Ethernet + Input/Output)
There were 2 option slots in the cardcage too. One for 'CPU option'
that AFAIK was never used. One for 'Optional I/O' which is where the
above board goes.
There was essentially one standard Optional IO (OIO) board which could
be populated in various ways. There were 3 setions on the board :
PERQ-link. A 16 bit parallel interface, roughly the same as a DEC
DR11-C. As far as I know this was always fitted (it as just a few
cheap TTL chips). Note that a PERQ can boot from PERQlink and will try
to do so before reading the disks.
Ethernet. This was the only ethernet interface of a PERQ 1, but it
added a second ethernet interface to a PERQ2 (with an EIO board)
Canon CX Laserprinter. This used the PERQ raster operations hardware
to produce the bitmap for the printer and talked directly to the Canon
printer engine. The printer contains no formatter board.
As an aside, I converted an HP Laserjet 1 to the engine-only model to
use with my PERQ. I also wire-wrapped the prototype QIC02 controller
onto the prototyping area of an OIO board so I have ethernet,
laserprinter and tape in the machine.
I am told there was an official PERQ laser printer, just a rebadged
Canon CX-VDO. I've never seen one,
-tony
12:48 p.m.
> Picture 267 is a Corona Data Systems (later
Cordata) laser printer. It's
> an ordinary Canon CX engine (Same as HP LaserJet and LaserJet-Plus (which
> had a large rasterizing board in them), with same toner cartridges,
> trays, etc.). It connects via DC37 to an ISA board in the host computer.
> Watch for a DC37 cable connected or near it, and a board at the other end of the
cable.
> OTOH, if he had managed to interface the Cordata printer to one of his
> PERQ's, . . . (check with ARD whether that is possible)
On Mon, 27 Apr 2020, Tony Duell wrote:
Almost certainly a PERQ laser printer. There was an
optional board for
the PERQ often called 'ether-can' which added a second ethernet port
and a Canon CX direct engine interface. It would not surprise me if
Bob had that board.
. . .
Canon CX Laserprinter. This used the PERQ raster operations hardware
to produce the bitmap for the printer and talked directly to the Canon
printer engine. The printer contains no formatter board.
. . .
As an aside, I converted an HP Laserjet 1 to the engine-only model to
use with my PERQ. I also wire-wrapped the prototype QIC02 controller
onto the prototyping area of an OIO board so I have ethernet,
laserprinter and tape in the machine.
. . .
I am told there was an official PERQ laser printer, just a rebadged
Canon CX-VDO. I've never seen one,
Thank you
I'm familiar with the Corona Data one; I bought one used for $500 when
Laserjets were >$2K, and used it as my primary printer for years.
I knew that the board that originally came with it is not very useful, but
there are other ways to drive it. I had an ABC DC37 switch for several
such boards, including the Eiconscript with HP-PCL and Postscript
emulation.
But, I didn't know that there was a popular Perq interface.
THAT makes it much more worthwhile!
IIRC, at one time TallTree (JLaser) sold a cheap reverisble modification
for using LaserJet as a CX-VDO, and a similar interface for SX.
Printer-Works used to provide a lot of information about them.
2:58 p.m.
[Canon CX printer]
But, I didn't know that there was a popular Perq interface.
It's hardly 'popular' (or common). Any PERQ OIO card is rare. It's
just that the most common one (in fact AFAIK the only one from 3
Rivers) has the option of the Canon CX printer interface. Note that if
you find a 3 Rivers OIO board with just the ethernet interface then
it's possible to add the Canon printer interface although some of the
ICs were hard to find 20 years ago and are presumably even harder to
find now.
The other OIO boards that I have seen are a bare wire-wrap one which
was often used to make the QIC-02 tape interface (I think Bob had
that), although as I mentioned there's enough space on the
Ethernet/Canon board to add this logic and wire-wrap it together. And
an interface for a Datacopy digital camera, which I am pretty sure Bob
didn't have
THAT makes it much more worthwhile!
IIRC, at one time TallTree (JLaser) sold a cheap reverisble modification
for using LaserJet as a CX-VDO, and a similar interface for SX.
There was an official (Canon) SX-VDO printer (I am not sure if that's
the right name but you know what I mean) which had a simple buffer
board in place of the formatter And there was also a 3rd party board
that went in the option connector of the Laserjet 2 formatter and
which added a CX-VDO interface. I don't know if either works with the
PERQ, but I suspect they both do.
In the case of the CX engine printers, there's a 34 pin cable that
links the formatter board (in the top lid) to the 'DC controller
board' -- the board with a microcontroller on it that controls the
printer motors, laser, etc. The CX-VDO interface is just a straight
through cable conected to that connector on the DC controller board
and a DC37 socket on the other end. There's a 6 pin connector on the
DC controller board that connects to the 5 status LEDs (and a common
+5V line) on the CX-VDO panel.
Of course toner cartridges for these printers are getting almost
impossible to find now. And I don't think any later Laserjets had a
'VDO' interface option.
Printer-Works used to provide a lot of information about them.
Yes. Bob sent me the PrinterWorks CX parts catalogue _after_ I'd
rebuilt my Canon LBP8A1 (with a dead formatter board) as a CX-VDO...
-tony
3:11 p.m.
On Mon, 27 Apr 2020, Tony Duell wrote:
Of course toner cartridges for these printers are
getting almost
impossible to find now. And I don't think any later Laserjets had a
'VDO' interface option.
Does that mean that if I can dig them out, that somebody would like the
used CX cartridges that I had accumulated?
I also probably still have some LaserJet font cartridges.
At the college, we had a LaserJet II (SX) connected to a JLaser board.
There might be some differences between the CX and SX VDO interface, but
they seemed to use the same software.
But, other than that, I agree that I don't think that I have ever seen any
similar interface newer than the SX.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
3:19 p.m.
On Mon, Apr 27, 2020 at 11:11 PM Fred Cisin via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Mon, 27 Apr 2020, Tony Duell wrote:
They are worth keeping as they can be refilled and are the only way
(that I know of) to keep an original-ish PERQ printer going. Refilling
them is 'interesting', one day I must (re)tell the story of the Toner
and the Toilet.
Incidentally, in the UK, ICL offered some standard-ish
RS232-interfaced dot matrix printers for the PERQ. And an
GPIB-interfaced Versatec V80 electrostatic printer. The latter is
another interesting machine (but I am pretty sure Bob didn't have
one).
Of course toner cartridges for these printers are
getting almost
impossible to find now. And I don't think any later Laserjets had a
'VDO' interface option.
Does that mean that if I can dig them out, that somebody would like the
used CX cartridges that I had accumulated? I also probably still have some LaserJet font
cartridges.
Which of course are not used with the CX-VDO model (the font
cartridges connect to the formatter board)
At the college, we had a LaserJet II (SX) connected to a JLaser board.
There might be some differences between the CX and SX VDO interface, but
they seemed to use the same software.
There was a serial command line (host to printer), which the PERQ
didn't use, for things like selecting the single sheet feeder. I think
the SX version added some more commands here, but as I said the PERQ
didn't use that at all.
-tony
26 Apr
26 Apr
9:02 p.m.
On 2020-Apr-26, at 4:33 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote:
Latest pictures are at https://www.crystel.com/bob .
https://www.crystel.com/bob/DSC_0255.JPG
HP 9825 (the ochre keyboard) underneath the PCB.
9:15 p.m.
On Sun, Apr 26, 2020 at 9:02 PM Brent Hilpert via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On 2020-Apr-26, at 4:33 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote:
That large beat up PCB looks like an RA82 Hybrid Board.
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/disc/ra82/MP01427_RA82_Jun86.pdf
Page 82 of the PDF
Latest pictures are at
https://www.crystel.com/bob .
https://www.crystel.com/bob/DSC_0255.JPG
HP 9825 (the ochre keyboard) underneath the PCB.
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days inactive
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days old
14 comments
9 participants
participants (9)
-
ard.p850ug1＠gmail.com -
bhilpert＠shaw.ca -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
classiccmp＠crash.com -
cz＠alembic.crystel.com -
glen.slick＠gmail.com -
mechanic_2＠charter.net -
stefan.skoglund＠agj.net -
tdk.knight＠gmail.com