PARTS OF SAGE and parts of the Honeywell datamatic 1000 but those are parts.... does this count?----- Original Message ----- From: "Bryan Pope" <bpope(a)wordstock.com> To: <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> Sent: Monday, August 02, 2004 11:15 AM Subject: Re: rarest computers

I just thought of a couple of uncommon machines I have... A DataRAM 22-bit Qbus enclosure with a real DEC CPU, and a bunch of 3rd-party boards including RAM, a watchdog card, a Dilog DQ614, and a card that emulates an RXV21, but plugs into a more "normal" Tandon TM848 8" drive. A Perkin-Elmer UNIX System III workstation - it's odd because it uses a pair of MC68000s to do page faulting (rather than some magic wad of TTL or a later processor like the MC68010 that saves enough state to do virtual memory in software). There's nothing horribly rare about a Q22 enclosure, but I don't recall running across too many non-DEC boxes (besides Heath). It's an interesting mix of mini and micro technology from the early 1980s. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 03-Aug-2004 02:50 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -77 F (-60.6 C) Windchill -117.3 F (-83 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 12.4 kts Grid 030 Barometer 668.9 mb (11046. ft) Ethan.Dicks(a)amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html

ed sharpe wrote: It looks like this: http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=884 except that there is a incandecent 7 segment octal display installed in the center of the console, "the middle of the display panel" and a rotary switch for CPU clock select in the lower right.. Jim Davis. I'll post some pictures.

That is too cool! let me know if you find another... I can see a display with it and some of the NRI coursework. We have some ancient NRI stuff going back to the 20's and 30's too.... ( pre computer!) Thanks Ed Sharpe archivist for SMECC Please check our web site at http://www.smecc.org to see other engineering fields, communications and computation stuff we buy, and by all means when in Arizona drop in and see us. address: coury house / smecc 5802 w palmaire ave glendale az 85301 ----- Original Message ----- From: "JimD" &lt;jimmydevice(a)verizon.net&gt; To: <General Discussion :>; "On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" &lt;cctalk(a)classiccmp.org&gt; Sent: Monday, August 02, 2004 11:54 PM Subject: Re: rarest computers we

And thusly Jason McBrien spake: Is this the one that has a small form factor? Wow! I didn't know this.. (that it's analog) .. very cool! :) Cheers, Bryan

On Tue, 3 Aug 2004, Bill Sudbrink wrote: OSI stuff has traditionally been hard to turn up (for me at least). It took several years of collecting before I got my first OSI system. Now I have a few various models, all given to me by various people ironically. Bob Maxwell had the coolest and rarest OSI computer at VCF East: a model 300 (OSI's first kit?) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

On Tue, 2004-08-03 at 17:12, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: Talking of cool PC expansion cards, remember when everyone was talking about fractal compression a few years ago? A chap I picked up a bunch of Torch hardware from a while back had a hardware fractal compression board amongst their piles of parts - turned out they'd designed the thing whilst working for a previous employer. It was totally loaded up with memory and i960 CPUs - quite an oddball bit of kit! cheers Jules

Not built-in, but the Sharp PC1500 pocket computer could take an add-on battery-opperated plotter. The plotter was a craddle that the computer slotted into, and it was _just_ possible to use it handheld. This used the well-known Alps 4-pen mechanism (the narrow version of the one used in the Radio Shack CGP115, Commodore 1520, etc). And of course HP sold a full-size mains-operated plotter (7470 opt 003) for the HP41 calculator (it worked with other HPIL controllers too, but there's a ROM module for the HP41 to drive it). It's not common (yes, I do have both the plotter and the ROM). -tony

Hey Jay! is there any chance of getting this thing on the internet so we can get accounts on it? I have a copy of "what to do after you hit return" (people's computer company) and I -might- key in some of the programs from there.

On Mon, 2 Aug 2004, Jules Richardson wrote: True :) Very common. I recently picked up a Morrow Designs UNIX box that was never sold commercially (according to the guy I got it from). It had the same styling as the MD-2 CP/M desktop computer but was a bit larger. I can't imagine there being very many of those left :) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

On Mon, 2 Aug 2004, Jules Richardson wrote: That's not so rare these days either ;) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Monday 02 August 2004 23:13, William Donzelli wrote: Well I know my Apple IIe is RARE because it said so on E-Bay - -- Collector of vintage computers http://www.ncf.ca/~ba600 Open Source Weekend http://www.osw.ca

On Tue, 2004-08-03 at 03:13, William Donzelli wrote: Do you mean significant as in it might be a really common machine, but that particular one was used for something interesting / significant / important? Personally I like finding stuff like that - particularly machines (or even just stray hard disks, floppies, or paper-based data) which have been in use at old hardware or software manufacturers themselves. It's kinda nice finding 'lost' information, or stuff that gives an insight into the company themselves, or provides a snapshot of what they were doing at such-and-such a time. Typically people seem to collect such things for the hardware itself; i.e. hard disks or floppies get re-formatted and paper documentation gets thrown in the bin. Seems a shame that often no effort is made to preserve the data from the time itself, just the physical hardware. cheers, Jules

On Tue, 2004-08-03 at 12:05, Hans B PUFAL wrote: Yep, I know :( People on this list seem pretty good, but I come across lots of collectors / enthusiasts elsewhere who just want the hardware to play about on, with no thought about preserving associated data. Of course, always make a point of asking about software or documentation when accepting hardware from someone. Over here at least, experience has been that typically the owner assumes this to be unimportant and doesn't even mention anything they might have. Sometimes they dump the docs and software *before* offering the hardware to anyone, which is *really* annoying! It's not just the technical documentation or software that's important, but the user-land stuff that tells the story of how the machines were actually used in daily life. In 50 years time, long after the hardware's stopped functioning and replacements for custom parts aren't available, it's this aspect that I expect people will be interested in. cheers Jules

Bryan Pope wrote: Yes magazine ads provide us with lots of info, like date of availability and pricing. Even the packaging of the computers is valuable. I was most annoyed when I found that an Atari box had been trashed. It was not in great condition but that was no excuse.... -- HansP

Tony Duell wrote: Some times you must do more than that even. Alot of the newer chips are clones of earlyer chips and the doc's are sparce so you must gp to the orginal docs for quirks and bugs. Ben. PS. Years ago in BYTE ( early 1990's? ) they had spoke up of a CPU designed for reliable operation for real time control of things like power plants or subways or aircraft. They claimed it was so simple that programs could be proven to be bug free. I was wondering if they manufactured or sold any the devices.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Tony Duell" &lt;ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk&gt; To: &lt;cctalk(a)classiccmp.org&gt; Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2004 12:19 AM Subject: Re: Hardware/doc preservatoion, was Re: rarest computers. What about the wallcharts , keep those as well - or just cut out the important bits ? :>) Geoff. hardware!

On Wed, 4 Aug 2004, ben franchuk wrote: That would be the British "Viper" CPU. Computational theory suggests (proves, perhaps? - it's been a few years) that use of hardware or software stacks renders behavior indeterminate. So, no subroutine calls or dynamically allocated variables. Has anyone ever seen the program listing for a real system implementation using this beast? Byte mentioned the RAF and UK Defence Ministry as being sponsors for its development, IIRC. Steve Quote of the Year: "The five person voting panel voted 57 to 3.14 in favour of getting rid of the Diebold machines." - 'Downside'

Steven> On Wed, 4 Aug 2004, ben franchuk wrote: Steven> That would be the British "Viper" CPU. Computational theory Steven> suggests (proves, perhaps? - it's been a few years) that use Steven> of hardware or software stacks renders behavior Steven> indeterminate. Paul> Baloney. Anyone who has paid any attention to Dijkstra knows Paul> that such a statement would have to be complete and utter Paul> nonsense. PS. It is certainly true that programs can be proven to match their specification. That's not quite the same as proving them bug free -- it now requires the specification to be bug free. But such proofs in no way require the absence of a stack. That's actually rather obvious, because any program that uses a stack can be rewritten into a program that does not use one. But in fact such a rewrite does not help readability at all. It probably is not a coincidence that the scientist who did much early work on stacks is also the scientist who spent a lifetime working on program correctness (E.W.Dijkstra). paul

On Thu, 5 Aug 2004, Paul Koning wrote: <shrug> I'm only going by what I recall from the Byte article. Let's not start a religous war, please?

On Tue, 2004-08-03 at 05:05, Hans B PUFAL wrote: YES!! Old data, old notes, manuals, tapes, discs, anything anything anything. Software is hard to keep, but worth more than anything else.

COMPLETELY unethical to spend more than a minute reading such personal stuff IMHO. It is a partially the fault of the previous owner, partially the fault of the O/S vendor to not sterilize the machine before getting it out, but I don't think that exonerates you. If we are to be respected in this hobby I think we should step up and give personal data honorable burial. This will someday happen: Someone will do something really unethical with thrown HD information and various localities will have to install shredding equipment for incoming computers. Greenwich seems to already be doing a variant of this. John A. Los Alamos, NM (Now I'm joking)

They looks like the lamps used in a LOT of telephone equipment. The 48VDC rating tends to confirm that that's what they're for. Joe At 10:10 AM 8/3/04 -0400, you wrote:

At 02:20 PM 8/3/2004, you wrote: "T" units were 1/8" diameter, e.g. T2 = .25" Ed

On Tue, 2004-08-03 at 07:10, John Allain wrote: Telephone slide base. They're usually 48V.

On Tue, 3 Aug 2004, John Allain wrote: John, I totally AGREE and DISAGREE at the same time. I don't think it's unethical to read that sort of data AS LONG AS YOU DON'T DIVULGE IT TO ANYONE ELSE OR USE IT TO YOUR ADVANTAGE, in which case that would be unethical. It would be a loss to future generations if we were to wipe that data without considering the value to archaeological and sociological studies. People keep everything in their computers today, and very little elsewhere. In 50-100 years time and beyond, hard drives of today will hold a snapshot of our modern society and help our descendents understand us (believe me, they'll need all the help they can get). I offer people the service of wiping their hard drive when they drop their computers off for recycling. About a third take me up on the offer; a third have already removed the hard drive; the other third don't care or don't deem their personal stuff juicy enough to worry them about whose hands it might fall in to. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

<Can't find the beginning of this thread, so I'm gonna shove my response here.> I've got a few "rare" machines, but they mostly seem to come out of some sort of "scientific instrumentation". A vector-based computer that processed NMR data - an Aspect 3000, some machines made by Nicolet and others, etc. Some of my favorite "rarer" machines are my General Automation SPC-16/40 and /45 (which are neither complete nor functional right now ): It was a machine targeted where the Data General Nova was targeted (a general purpose 16bit machine in the early 70s). Encore Multimax - a massively SMP UNIX box with NS32332s (or 32232's?) that went up to 40 processors and 128MB of memory in the late 80s, and ran a Mach-based Unix. I've not yet gotten that up and running, but I've got install tapes and documentation for it that the SPC-16s don't. Another uncommon machine (in model, not in processor architecture) is my MicroVAX 3520. I'd love to pick up more processor cards for it at some point and see how many I can get it to happily run with. My favorite machines, though definitely not all that rare are my VAX-11/750 (first ...and only for now... UNIBUS machine) and my IBM S/390 Gen3 9672-RC4 (which is only 1.5 years away from being "classic" by the 10 year rule). As soon as I get more unpacked into my new home, I'll have some time to set up my 11/750 and the Multimax to try and play with them. This reminds me I need to get back to updating my website sometime. Pat -- The Computer Refuge -- http://computer-refuge.org Purdue University Research Computing -- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs

On Tuesday 03 August 2004 20:40, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: Unfortunately, one of Purdue's custodial staff decided that the frontpanel for the /45 which I placed between the trashbin and rack was supposed to be thrown out. Argh! At least they're electically (and physically) interchangable between the two models. Fabricating a new one is somewhere on my to-do list, under getting my 11/750 up since I've now got a RM03, checking out the Multimax (and getting pictures up on my website), moving my webserver to a new box, so it can be a bitsavers mirror, and unpacking from my move to a new house (paying rent to a friend for sharing the space) that I finished moving over a week ago. :) Goes well with my(+friends) IBM SP, NCR Worldmark 5100 node (2 separate 32-Way Microchannel-architecture Pentium-PRO boxes in one cabinet), and 16xR4400 and 8xR10k SGI Challenge XLs. None quite old enough to be classic, but all quite interesting (massively MP) machines. :) Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org

On Wednesday 31 December 1969 19:00, Ken Kirkby wrote: I was wondering why I didn't come across them while trying to find info using google... and now have discovered that they don't seem to have a web site. Do you think there's any possibility of getting a (set of) schematic(s) from them, or at least some sort of service manual (preferably not a board-swappers guide)? That's the one thing I don't have that would be useful to get them up and running. Well, that and a replacement frontpanel for the one that got thrown away, but I'm not sure I want to spend what they'll want for it... assuming they even have one. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org

Yes. William Donzelli aw288(a)osfn.org

I have one. I have one of those as well, missing a few trivial bits like the PSU output cable. I do haev the mainboard, PSU, drives, etc. I have a few, including one with a Quinring (5 slot VME expansion slice) on top. And one of those _somewhere_... -tony

Jules Richardson wrote: White prototype machines were available for five months before the first production 380Zs rolled out. The power switch didn't have a key, and the floppy disk interface card wasn't available. I don't know how many were made, but at least one is still in private hands. -- Paul

No I don't... I fact let's start a thread of what items people feel are missing from their collections, Here's mine... (No, I am not asking for any of these...) HP9100A (Yes, OK, I have a pair of -Bs, but I'd like to pull the older version apart too) HP9820 (just for completeness, I have the 9810 and 9830) PDP10 (any model) PDP12 (I have the full set of manuals) PDP11/74 (Yes, I know, not a chance of ever finding one) Apple Lisa (I'd like to see how much worse it was than the classic PERQ) And some micros that are supposed to be quite common but I've not bothered with. Acorn Electron Sinclair ZX80 Apple /// Apple //c Dragon 64 (I have the CoCo family) TRS80 Model 2/12/16 And a lot more. That's how I got the P851 and P854. The owner was actually quite supprised that anyone wanted them (but was clueful enough to realise I'd also want the boot disks, user and service manuals, etc, and had them all ready for me when I went to pick up the machines) Not that I am aware of. I think I do have a bootable hard disk, though. I have at least one, and a couple of slimrings (adds one VME slot). I think i have more machines than keyboards, but it's not like I need to set them all up at once. -tony

My list: HP 9100A: Like Tony, I have a 9100B, but would like a 9100A for completeness. I wouldn't tear it apart like Tony does -- scares me to death just to think about it. PDP 10: As far as I'm concerned, the ultimate minicomputer. Just love 'em. Early DG Nova: Always thought these were way cool. A Unibus PDP-11 w/ a real switch & blinky-light front panel: Would love an 11/70, but not likely. My 11/34A with the programmer's panel is good enough to keep me happy for now, but always loved the front panels of the /45 and /70. HP TSB System: Gotta love it! Probably couldn't afford to keep it running, though. IMSAI 8080: Built one in high school as a class project. Had a lot of fun with the project. Would love to find one. I know, I could buy a new one, but it just wouldn't be the same. Casio 14-A Relay Calculator: Yeah -- right. That'll happen :-) Pre-Omnibus PDP 8: Sure...they're everwhere! Friden Computyper: Hen's teeth. Teletype ASR-33 or ASR-35: Maybe someday. Tektronix 4002A Terminal: A magical DVST beast with the best ^G tone ever implemented. There's certainly more, but these are probably closest to the top of the list. I can always dream :-) -Rick

On 4 Aug 2004 at 5:18, Tony Duell wrote: Indeed, the same thing was done in the HP 64000 workstations. They used a 555 timer for the tone generator, a one-shot for the gate, but then added a transistor and an R-C circuit to provide a fast attack, slow decay envelope, resulting in a characteristic "Bink!" sound. Melodious chimes must have been an HP corporate directive back then. ;-) -- Dave

On 8 Aug 2004 at 21:42, Tony Duell wrote: The chief electrical engineer at our company in the 1980s was a fellow who excelled at making components in his designs do two or three jobs each. It's an artistry that HP displayed, as you indicate. The schematic for the HP 64000 circuit appears on page 8-41 of: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/hp/64000/64100-90910_64100svc_Dec83.pdf ...and it's described on page 8-13. -- Dave

Reminds me of the old Radio Constructor designs where the designer made one transistor do both rf and af amplification. Can't remember his name - or what he called his designs. I'm sure he was knighted or something like that .... anybody ? - Sir Alec Douglas Hall ? was it ? Sounds too much like Alec Douglas Hume ! Geoff. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tony Duell" &lt;ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk&gt; To: &lt;cctalk(a)classiccmp.org&gt; Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2004 11:33 PM Subject: Re: Gaps in the collection (was Re: rarest computers. ) who

Well, machines I'd like to have in my collection are (in no order whatsoever): -Laptops & Portables- Dynalogic Hyperion. GRiDCase 3. Zeos Pocket PC. Acorn A4. Compaq Portable 3. Compaq Portable 4. IBM PC Radio. HP-85. IBM PC Convertible. -Desktops & Workstations- NeXTStation Color Turbo. Macintosh IIfx. Xerox 860. Original Commodore PET. Amiga 4000T. Macintosh Color Classic II. Xerox 820-II Macintosh SE/30. -Miscellaneous- Cromemco System 3. On Wed, 4 Aug 2004 01:33:34 +0000, "Ethan Dicks" &lt;dickset(a)amanda.spole.gov&gt; said:

----- Original Message ----- From: "Keys" &lt;jrkeys(a)concentric.net&gt; To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" &lt;cctalk(a)classiccmp.org&gt; Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2004 11:11 AM Subject: Re: Gaps in the collection (was Re: rarest computers. ) I hope you checked those IIfx machines for ram before you tossed them, they are proprietary (64 pin) and 16mb ones are rare. Heck I could use another set of 4 x 4mb simms if you are just throwing them away.

Oh... Forgot one unusual machine I haven't had the time to fully explore: a TI-980. TTL CPU, serial interface, and switches + blinkylights. Not sure what I could _do_ with it (dunno what it needs in the way of peripherals, etc.) I think it's more of a process control computer than a general purpose / BASIC / FOCAL machine. With the severe lack of docs, I haven't even powered it on yet. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 04-Aug-2004 01:50 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -70.7 F (-57.1 C) Windchill -111.8 F (-79.90 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 14.5 kts Grid 039 Barometer 666.1 mb (11156 ft) Ethan.Dicks(a)amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html

On Wed, 2004-08-04 at 00:29, Antonio Carlini wrote: Heh, could be thousands though for all I know though. They just seem *very* uncommon in the UK at least (mind you, so do the plastic-cased ones for that matter) Yep, that's the critter. Any chance there's still software lurking at the school? Not much RML software seems to have survived which is a shame. :-) Actually I've got a couple too, if you count the one running as the network server. (and 8 480Z's, although only half of them currently work and I've promised a few to people just to cut down on space) By the way, we could do with more 380Z keyboards at Bletchley if you ever find any. We've got seven or eight 380Z's but only two keyboards to go with them all! There's the dual 8" floppy drive unit at Bletchley which I should photograph sometime. There can't be many of those about. I don't know though, probably been thrown out long ago. I'd certainly like to find network OS software for my network server as it's a dead duck once the hard drive blows up... True. :-) They look pretty good in white too though to be honest! cheers Jules

I guess I would say my Tektronix 4051 - with 4907 File Manager (three drives) and 4631 Hard Copy Unit - although, a Commodore Series 2100 with a chicklet keyboard is probably worthy of mention. Also have a 'desktop' single user version and a large cabinet on casters multiuser version of Sierra National's CP/M-80 machines. None are in the Xerox Alto category, however! - don

On Mon, 2 Aug 2004, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: Sorry, I misspoke! It is a Commodore PET Series 2001. Should have written it down. - don

Half of everything I have has something wierd about it, like the MAC with an Apple-II card in it or the uVAX-II GPX that was said to be Stallman's. Alot of stuff that was damn common around 1985 sure isn't now, like HP 2645 terminals. The rarest? Possibly the Intel PC with an LSI Unisys Micro-A embedded in it. John A.

Vintage Computer Festival wrote: Can you imagine Stallman hairs coming out of it for years afterwards? Best to sterilize it in a furnace. - Joe

Re: A ClearPath? I'm looking for one ... but with software :) -- Stan Sieler sieler(a)allegro.com www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html

Actually, there were some other machines between the 6132 and the XD88. These machines were the 4300-series, like the 4319. The 4300-Series machines I believe used 68020's, IIRC. I have a 4319 around here somewhere -- I think it still runs. These also ran UTEK. I worked at Tek during the days of ECS (Engineering Computing Systems). There were a lot of VERY talented people there. Early on, sometime in the late 1970's, Tek developed a very interesting machine called Magnolia. It was never productized to my knowledge, as there were all kinds of problems getting senior management of an oscilloscope and test equipment company to buy into the idea of making a computer. The Magnolia used a custom bit-slice CPU that was very fast for the time. It had an amazing display processor also. The machine was built into a pedastal that a 19" or so raster display sat on top of. It used solid-state main memory, and a Micropolis 8" hard disk mounted in the bottom of the base. It ran Smalltalk, with a completely in-house developed windowing desktop environment, reminiscent of the Xerox PARC implementations. Tek made quite a few of these machines that were used in-house to develop on. The project was eventually cancelled. Don't know what happened to the machines that were in existence at the time. I'd be surprized if any still exist today. Early on at Tek, there was a lot of PDP-8's running OS-8, and PDP-11's running RT11 and RSX as test system controllers, and even one system called the "DPO", which was a digitizer interfaced to a PDP-11 (not user which, probably a /35) that had a Tek DVST terminal hooked up to it. DPO stood for "Digital Processing Oscilloscope". They made a dialect of BASIC that had primitives in it for doing signal processing on acquired signals. It was a BIG piece of equipment, but could do some amazing signal capture and analysis for the time. I think that the DPO ran RT-11, if I remember correctly. Later, Tek developed a microprocessor development system that utilized an LSI-11 core. It was called the 8250. The 8250 used an 8" Micropolis drive, and ran a modified AT&T System III Unix operating system. This was all done under the microprocessor development products group (MDP). These machines provided a basis by which Unix gained a foothold in the company. Then, ECS was formed at the Tek Wilsonville plant. Their idea of what they were building was a workstation-class UNIX machine that'd blow the socks off of everyting out there. However, the politics of the situation was that management expected them to build an instrument controller for automated test environments. The result was the 6130, which was rather weak as a workstation (no display subsystem, only RS-232 serial to a terminal), but worked nicely as an instrument controller with its built-in GPIB (IEEE-488) interface. Attempts were made to develop a display subsystem for the machine...a big daughter board that plugged in on-top of the main CPU board. Prototypes were built, and mods to UTEK were made to support it, and even a primitive window system was developed. However, Tek's instrument mentality wouldn't let the project continue, and it was cancelled. The 4132 follow-on to the 6130 was done mainly because of the proliferation of SCSI. The 6130 used ST-506 disks (though a SCSI add-on board was available), which were starting to become less popular. The 4132 replaced the ST-506 interface with an integrated SCSI controller, and replaced the floppy disc drive with a SCSI 1/4" streaming cartridge tape drive. This made OS loading a LOT faster. To load the OS on the 6130, you had to load a big stack of floppies! The 4132 didn't have a video system, just RS-232 ports for console communications. Then the 43xx workstations came out. These were true Unix workstations, running a new version of Utek, with a full X-Windows implementation and a decent display processor. They were quite capable machines for their time. The 4315 was marketed as an "AI workstation" with a smalltalk environment. The 4319 was a higher-end Unix workstation, inteded for CAD and software development. The last hurrah for ECS was the XD88. There were MASSIVE arguments internally about what CPU to use. There was talk of the Z8000, but eventually the Motorola 88000 won out. The XD88's were really powerful machines, designed chiefly for electrical and mechanical CAD design. Sadly, Tektronix never really figured out that it had the capacity to build nice computers. The instrumentation and terminals mentality of the company kept the thinking limited to these areas. Sales folks had a hard time relating to the concept of a computer workstation. A lot of money and effort was expended to put Tektronix on the map in the computer biz. But, in the end, it was all for naught. ECS was disbanded. Some of the folks left to form other local computer companies, including BIIN among others. All from memory, there may be some errors. -Rick Had Tek developed the Magnolia and started selling it as a real workstation.

Hi Jules, if i remember correct, then Tony Duell mentioned in one of the last Whitechapel threads, that he has the media ... Bernd BTW: mine is still not running too :-( (but i didn't spent much time on it) On Tue, 03 Aug 2004 19:42:43 +0000, Jules Richardson wrote:

Yes, I do, and I can see both from where I am sitting... (I may not be a programmer, or particularly interested in software, but I do realise the importance of installation kits (and for that matter _all_ media -- if I am not interested in it, I pass it on to someone who is). -tony

You missed out the NEC 7220 graphics chip which is halfway to being a processor IMHO. So it's a 2.5 processor machine. I have one, still working... I also have, but have done nothing with it yet, a Whitechapel Hitec 20 and a lot of spare boards (not all from the same source). The mainboard is PC/AT formfactor (in fact it's in a PC tower case), and has 3 ISA slots. The other 5 connectors are DIN41612s, for the CPU board (MIPS R2000 CPU + FPU + MMU chips), RAM and video cards. The mainboard contains things like serial ports (although there are 2 more on the CPU board), SCSI, ST506 and floppy controllers, keyboard controller (an 8042, presumably PC/AT like), and so on. Does anyone have pinouts (or other hardware info) for the R2000 chips (I can get the exact numbers if anyone thinks they can help). All I can seem to find is programming manuals. I am supreised that London University didn't have any sort of computer before the late 1960s (that's when TTL came out IIRC). -tony