On Fri, 19 Nov 1999, Kevin McQuiggin wrote: Just for eveyrones information; I have a set of 11/760 boards lying around, since I scrapped an 11/60 a few years ago. If anyone wants them, I'll be happy to send them. Might want the shipment payed for, though. This is from Sweden... Johnny Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt(a)update.uu.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

It was an option. The folks at Reuters supposedly used the WCS to make the 11/60 the worlds fastest PDP8. (Wonder if the SIM PDP8 or the PDP8 emulator Doug Jones would be faster on a Pentium class pc). Bill --- bpechter@shell.monmouth.com|pechter@pechter.dyndns.org Three things never anger: First, the one who runs your DEC, The one who does Field Service and the one who signs your check.

Tony wrote: In fact, the 11/60 was the ONLY non-microprocessor-based PDP-11 that had a writable control store option. (The VAX-11/7xx machines aren't really PDP-11s, though they do have a compatability mode.) There was an aftermarket WCS option for the 11/45. However, this was a very hairy device, because the standard 11/45 hardware did not have enough leftover microcode address space to be useful, nor did it have any data paths beyond what were necessary for the standard microcode. They had to add a whole lot of stuff.

Actually the 11/780 is a memory storage unit for the console 11/03. Use the maintenance return routine to store stuff in the 11/780 WCS for expanded memory. 8-) -Bill --- bpechter@shell.monmouth.com|pechter@pechter.dyndns.org Three things never anger: First, the one who runs your DEC, The one who does Field Service and the one who signs your check.

Vancouver BC. Oh, and get with the program, PDP's are cool, HP's aren't :^) Zane | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator | | healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast | | healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

I think I'll drop a 9845 on Zane the next time I go to Portland! Joe

I think anyone who has been hooked by HP gear would say the same thing. Even before anything with the HP logo on it could grab my undivided attention, I was always amazed at the kind of ingenuity and engineering brilliance that went into the physical design of the systems. Aaron On Sun, 21 Nov 1999, Jay West wrote:

I have to at least partially disagree with you on this. Their consummer PCs may be of mixed quality, but their workstations are still the best you can get. We run a mixed shop with Sun, SGI, HP, IBM workstations and some old DEC alphas. The HPs are by far the most reliable. We have a high end SGI (a multi-pipe IR) that has a hardware/software problem in it that remains unfixed even though the problem was reported over a year ago. This same problem exists in several other similarly configured machines, so we aren't the only ones complaining. Last week we got a 3 pipe HP J5000. Worked right out of the box, completely as advertized. We are one of the first off-site groups with this configuration and its runs perfectly.

The HP's are the most reliable?!?!?! Guess you don't have many do you? I'm so thankful that I don't have to deal with the HP's at work it isn't funny! HP always seems to have people on site for repairs. I worked with HP Workstations several years ago, and really liked them. Although I found their habit of totally changing the way devices are handled in HP-UX between different versions, more than just a little irritating! All the Sun's I've had to deal with are very reliable, and the IBM's are pretty good two, but considering the vintage of the one on my desk at work, I can't say much either way on IBM's since I've not worked on a modern system (it was old 3 years ago when I started working there, but I won't give it up becuase it would be replaced with an NT box). Zane | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator | | healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast | | healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

In the last couple years we've gotten about 200+ I think at our site alone, don't know the exact number. I touched one about twice, and that's about all I've done :^) Hmmm, the only problems I've ever seen is a hard drive dying on a *old* system, or problems with RAM on that same system, the rest just seem to run. We've got everything from Sparc 2's to Ultra 2's, though these days we're mainly Ultra's for what Sun's we still have. We prefer Sun's, but have a *very* hard time getting them. HP's are a piece of cake for us to get. Zane | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator | | healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast | | healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1327 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/19991121/cbe1a80a/at…

A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 930 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/19991121/2dc1c6ab/at…

AFAIK, the Apple II always supported color - in part, that is what made it so popular. I'm sure you can pick one up for $10 or so if you are feeling nostalgic. Sorry, I don't have the software. Bob Stek bobstek(a)ix.netcom.com Saver of Lost SOLs -----Original Message----- From: CLASSICCMP-owner(a)u.washington.edu [mailto:CLASSICCMP-owner@u.washington.edu]On Behalf Of Jay West Sent: Sunday, November 21, 1999 6:18 PM To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers Subject: Apple ][+ find and info/sw request... My dad was cleaning out part of the garage and came across the Programmer Reference Card for the S-C Assembler II Disk version 4.0 for the pple ][ and Apple ][ Plus. Gawd does it bring back memorys of leaning assembler on my Apple ][+! Now that I have the reference card and all the refreshed memories, is there any chance anyone has the software itself laying around on a floppy? Additional question - when I had my apple ][+ at around age 15 or so, I always used a monochrome monitor. I never had color before I got rid of it around age 20. I was wondering - does a stock apple ][+ support a color monitor or is it monochrome via the RCA jack unless you get an add-in card? Thanks in advance for any replies! Jay West

ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: Probably just an urban legend, like the ones about how all your memory chips need to be from the same vendor, and how they must all be the same speed, and how you shouldn't use 120 ns DRAMs in a computer designed for 150 ns DRAMs, and similar BS.

"Jay West" <west(a)tseinc.com> wrote: The Apple ][ supported color from day 1, although the earliest revisions of the logic board (before the ][+) only supported four colors [*] in high-resolution mode, vs. six colors [*] on later boards. The color support, combined with the open architecture and not-too-ridiculous price are largely credited with Apple's amazing success in the early days. Eric [*] In this context, black and white are considered to be colors.

Date sent: Fri, 3 Dec 1999 15:56:27 -0800 (PST) Send reply to: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu From: "Charles P. Hobbs" <transit(a)primenet.com> To: "Discussion re-collecting of classic computers" <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Subject: Amiga 500, 2000 serial ports: The same? Originally to: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> To the best of my knowledge, they are compatible. Midi away. Paul Paul Braun Cygnus Productions nerdware_nospam(a)laidbak.com

Hello Charles On 04-Dec-99, you wrote: The Amiga 500 and 2000 shares the same design of the seriel and parallel ports so your midi interface will run nicely on the a2000. Regards Jacob Dahl Pind --

A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1257 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/19991122/357ee09a/at…

A great book... but wrong on this one. The hp stuff had one over the edge interconnect cable of less than 10 inches. The DEC 11/40 (45,50,55,70, etc) in the BA11-F cabinet (the worst offender) had about 1/3 to 3/4 of an inch of ribbon cables (thickness) running through the cable trough an often popping off the Berg connector at the top of the Hex, Quad or Dual board (most had no locking ears on the connector. Yup, the backplane is more reliable as over the top connectors, but between board cables (RH11, RH70, Cache, etc) were my biggest pain in the @#$%^ at DEC). The 11/780 was a lot better with the exception of the lousy SBI cables that were failure prone and a bitch to troubleshoot. The only thing worse was the annoying cables on the back of the 11/750 that were not enclosed at all... I remember the failures of an Emulex Pertec 9 track tape controller which had it's data connector to the backpanel work loose on about 4 bits and happily wrote garbage to the tape while the control lines worked merrily along. And the Unix system didn't know the difference for 6 months until a drive died (read after write at the head is NOT data verification folks). DEC made great CPU's, decent busses and I/O boards but LOUSY CABLE layouts (including the 11/730). Bill --- bpechter@shell.monmouth.com|pechter@pechter.dyndns.org Three things never anger: First, the one who runs your DEC, The one who does Field Service and the one who signs your check.

Eric wrote... and interested today. As a matter of fact, HP did virtually the same thing as you mention above as a matter of course on the 21MX line. Take a look at the memory extender units and the I/O extender units. Each was a separate rackmount card cage to extend either the memory or I/O backplane and they ran at exactly the same speed as the main bus (ex: memory access time was identical in either main memory cage or extender cage). I believe the cable length limit was 15 feet. I doubt this was problematic because it was introduced sometime around the early 70's and followed through to the end of the F series at least which was approximately the mid 80's. And if the memory or I/O extender isn't quite the situation you're talking about, then the memory section of any HP 21MX M,E, or F certainly is. What about that daisy chain cable in the memory section that connects all the memory cards (and if you're using FCS you have up to 3 ribbon cables, not just one). HP 21MX's a DEC me-too copy? That's just ridiculous. I have yet to see a DEC that split the backplane the way HP did on the MX line. Without that fundamental change you would be stuck in the "gee I've got to remove some memory cards to fit in my extra I/O cards" scenario. Not to mention the optimizations you can do by having a separate bus for memory vs. I/O. Also, I'm not familiar with mid-time period PDP's (read: Unibus, but hey, we're talking 8's anyway), but I don't recall seeing one that had several loader roms that you could choose from via the front panel, and the loaders would be patched for I/O addresses via the switch register at the press of a single button. Sure, on an 8 you could put in a hard wired rom board, but there goes a precious slot and a hefty amount of current draw. The 21MX's also have an interesting technique of varying the microinstruction cycle time to speed up certain control section operations. HP made it clear that users were encouraged to microprogram the system due to the wealth of documentation and software they provided for doing so. Does the PDP-8 support remote IPL? And these are just a few trivial issues, not fundamental design ones (of which there are many). Then talk about flexibility, look at the 21MX K series - basically built to customer spec! And by the way on a different thread, WCS and UCS was a very common option on HP 21MX's, and on at least one model it was built in. I'm not going to pursue the discussion about HP's being "cool" or not any further - I feel very strongly about the subject and might lose a few friends if I took up the argument seriously :). Dont get me wrong - I love my DECs too. They have their own things I like better than HP. But don't say the old HP line is just a PDP-8 wannabe/knockoff. Jay West

Eric wrote... which earth Yes, you do have to remove memory cards from a PDP-8 to add I/O cards, *IF* your backplane is full. So in many architectures there was always a decision to be made about having too many io cards for the memory amount you wanted or vice versa. Of course, with the -8 you can always add another internal backplane, but that's hardly an elegant solution. I know both instruction sets well (albeit HP's much better). I don't find the 21MX instructions to be any more or less like the -8 than most any other machine out there. I suspect that the 21MX set is similar not because of the -8 being a "forefather", but because most instruction sets have a large number of similarities on any set of machines (except Pick virtual assembler, that is truely a unique animal). I just can't agree that the 21MX instruction set was derived from the 12 bit DEC stuff. There's nothing unique about the DEC set that is in the HP set. Ok, I have to challenge you here. Other than basic instruction set similarity, do you have any historical evidence that the 21xx instruction set was derived from the DEC machines? I'd love to hear it....I'm always willing to change my position in the face of facts. But just based on instruction set similarities? Hum.... Ok, so I'm touchy about my treasured HP's <grin>. But only because it seemed you said they were directly derived from 12 bit decs, and I have not now or ever seen any evidence of that. I really didn't intend to start a HP vs. DEC war. I think they're both great machines. But don't say my machine is only great because yours is! :) Jay West

I'd say everyone should look at the TX0/1/2 and other earlyb solid state (or mostly so) computers to see where some ideas come from. The rest of the machines represent ideas that were adopted, CDC160 (or was it cray?) was the first truely little machine, the PDP-8 embodied that. The idea of a monolithic backplane is not uniquely DEC and so on. Allison

A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1089 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/19991123/f688882d/at…

The answer is get the machine down to 6 boards in less than a foot of length with one aproximately 50 pin cable. Worked fine. They built a nice clean maintainable box. The PDP6 was a transistorized machine with much more cables needed than the HP mini. We're talking an early to mid 70's design vs. a late 70's to early 80's design. Apples and oranges. The hp looked a lot cleaner than the 11/44 or 11/70 and seemed much smaller in number of boards and simpler in layout of signals. Bill --- bpechter@shell.monmouth.com|pechter@pechter.dyndns.org Three things never anger: First, the one who runs your DEC, The one who does Field Service and the one who signs your check.

"Jay West" &lt;west(a)tseinc.com&gt; wrote: Not even particularly more elegant. In a general sense, the architecture is the SAME. Aside from changing the word size to 16 bits (which is either two fewer or four more bits than comparable DEC machines), the only big enhancement is the provision of a second accumulator. Even the memory addressing works the same way: one bit of memory reference instructions selects page zero vs. current page, and one bit enables indirection. The non-memory-reference instructions are "microcoded" in the same manner as the DEC 12-bit and 18-bit computer families. All of HP's clever and original architectural design went into the HP 9100 programmable calculator and the HP 3000 stack-based computer. The HP 21xx were just a me-too design; Either HP was trying to build a wider PDP-5 or PDP-8, or a narrower PDP-9.

At 11:40 AM 11/21/99 -0800, Zane muttered: It's a BIG calculator. The CPU looks like a huge Commie 64 and weighs about 80 pounds. The monitor adds about 50 pounds more. Then add in a couple of 8" disk drives at 35 pounds each and a HP-IB plotter that weighs 100 pounds and is the size of a kitchen table. Well you get the idea! Of course since it's HP-IB, there's all kinds of interesting peripherals and instruments you can hang on it. Joe

Zane wrote... I must agree with Zane. HP's aren't cool at all. I wouldn't recommend anyone collect them. They're just not interesting. I agree with Zane so much, that I would be willing to help out those who have gone astray and obtained any HP 21MX M/E/F or 2100 items. I will take them away so they can't be an influence on you, and help re-educated you so that you only seek non-HP items for your collection. My patented process includes hours of forcing you to watch alternating light patterns of light brown/dark brown and light purple/dark purple. My hope is that all who have fallen down into admiring HP gear will soon get to the point where anytime they see any HP gear they'll call me to get it out of their sight before they become tempted by Demon HP. Don't worry HP'ers, I'm here to save your soul - Really! <grin> Jay West HP Evangelist