4 Jun
2007
4 Jun
'07
3:12 p.m.
Had a Symbolics 3640 dropped off on Sunday evening along with a Symbolics
model OP36-DISP display. Missing are the keyboard, FD, and all the needed
cables (power cord also). I opened the front door and saw two hard drives
mounted inside. Will also be looking for manuals and some software. Anyone
would information please email me.
Thanks John
4 Jun
4 Jun
3:39 p.m.
Keys wrote:
Had a Symbolics 3640 dropped off on Sunday evening
along with a
Symbolics model OP36-DISP display. Missing are the keyboard, FD, and all
the needed cables (power cord also). I opened the front door and saw two
hard drives mounted inside. Will also be looking for manuals and some
software. Anyone would information please email me.
Is the power cord that non-standard? I would understand that they might
need something beefier than an IEC C13/C14 for how much power something
like that pulls. Is it a C19/C20, maybe? That's what my DEC GIGAswitch
uses.
Peace... Sridhar
4:36 p.m.
Looks like a L21-30 plug mount in rear of computer.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sridhar Ayengar" <ploopster at gmail.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 2:39 PM
Subject: Re: Got a LISP Machine on Sunday
Keys wrote:
Had a Symbolics 3640 dropped off on Sunday
evening along with a Symbolics
model OP36-DISP display. Missing are the keyboard, FD, and all the needed
cables (power cord also). I opened the front door and saw two hard drives
mounted inside. Will also be looking for manuals and some software.
Anyone would information please email me.
Is the power cord that non-standard? I would understand that they might
need something beefier than an IEC C13/C14 for how much power something
like that pulls. Is it a C19/C20, maybe? That's what my DEC GIGAswitch
uses.
Peace... Sridhar 
7:55 p.m.
On Jun 4, 2007, at 3:39 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
The connector on my 3645 is a twist-lok, L5-30 I think.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Had a
Symbolics 3640 dropped off on Sunday evening along with a
Symbolics model OP36-DISP display. Missing are the keyboard, FD,
and all the needed cables (power cord also). I opened the front
door and saw two hard drives mounted inside. Will also be looking
for manuals and some software. Anyone would information please
email me.
Is the power cord that non-standard? I would understand that they
might need something beefier than an IEC C13/C14 for how much power
something like that pulls. Is it a C19/C20, maybe? That's what my
DEC GIGAswitch uses. 
7:07 p.m.
"Keys" wrote:
Had a Symbolics 3640 dropped off on Sunday evening
along with a Symbolics
model OP36-DISP display. Missing are the keyboard, FD, and all the needed
cables (power cord also). I opened the front door and saw two hard drives
mounted inside. Will also be looking for manuals and some software. Anyone
would information please email me.
I'm not sure abot power on a 3640. My 3630 has stock power cord. The
"refrigerator" 3600's are another matter - those are circular but you
can make an adapter easily.
(if I remember right the 3640 is just an "L" machine - i.e. stock TTL;
the 3630 is a G machine, which has FPGA's)
You're going to need a keyboard. And more important, a cable from the
monitor to the machine.
If you are luck it will just boot. Does it have a cart tape drive? if
so, assume the roller is goo. I would not use it unless you replace the
rubber parts.
I would get in touch with David Schmidt in VA. He can get a keyboard
for you and a monitor cable.
-brad
10:22 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brad Parker" <brad at heeltoe.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 6:07 PM
Subject: Re: Got a LISP Machine on Sunday
"Keys" wrote:
The drive is missing just a open bay with a cable hanging there.
Had a Symbolics 3640 dropped off on Sunday evening
along with a Symbolics
model OP36-DISP display. Missing are the keyboard, FD, and all the needed
cables (power cord also). I opened the front door and saw two hard drives
mounted inside. Will also be looking for manuals and some software. Anyone
would information please email me.
I'm not sure abot power on a 3640. My 3630 has stock power cord. The
"refrigerator" 3600's are another matter - those are circular but you
can make an adapter easily.
(if I remember right the 3640 is just an "L" machine - i.e. stock TTL;
the 3630 is a G machine, which has FPGA's)
You're going to need a keyboard. And more important, a cable from the
monitor to the machine.
If you are luck it will just boot. Does it have a cart tape drive? if
so, assume the roller is goo. I would not use it unless you replace the
rubber parts.
I would get in touch with David Schmidt in VA. He can get a keyboard
for you and a monitor cable.
-brad
5 Jun
5 Jun
12:40 a.m.
One other thing to note: As far as I know (and please, please correct
me if I'm wrong -- I'd love to be wrong in this case :)) if you find
yourself in the unfortunate situation of having wiped/unbootable drives
in your 3640, your only real option to get Genera reloaded on the drives
is to send them out to Dave Schmidt and have him do the install for
you. (It cost me $300 for a Genera license for my 3630 and to have it
installed on the drive I sent to him.)
To the best of my knowledge the software necessary to format the drive
and write out the bad block map, etc, is still Symbolics-proprietary and
has not been released publicly. (I believe Dave referred to this as the
"Chatsworth" Genera distribution when I asked.) If anyone knows
different or has a copy of software that will do this, I'd love to get a
copy -- I'm out of space on my 3630 and I have several compatible ESDI
drives, but no means to make them usable to the machine. Almost ready
to send them out to Dave, but not quite yet :).
- Josh
Brad Parker wrote:
"Keys" wrote:
Had a Symbolics 3640 dropped off on Sunday
evening along with a Symbolics
model OP36-DISP display. Missing are the keyboard, FD, and all the needed
cables (power cord also). I opened the front door and saw two hard drives
mounted inside. Will also be looking for manuals and some software. Anyone
would information please email me.
I'm not sure abot power on a 3640. My 3630 has stock power cord. The
"refrigerator" 3600's are another matter - those are circular but you
can make an adapter easily.
(if I remember right the 3640 is just an "L" machine - i.e. stock TTL;
the 3630 is a G machine, which has FPGA's)
You're going to need a keyboard. And more important, a cable from the
monitor to the machine.
If you are luck it will just boot. Does it have a cart tape drive? if
so, assume the roller is goo. I would not use it unless you replace the
rubber parts.
I would get in touch with David Schmidt in VA. He can get a keyboard
for you and a monitor cable.
-brad
3:54 a.m.
On Jun 4, 2007, at 9:40 PM, Josh Dersch wrote:
If anyone knows different or has a copy of software
that will do
this, I'd love to get a copy -- I'm out of space on my 3630 and I
have several compatible ESDI drives, but no means to make them
usable to the machine. Almost ready to send them out to Dave, but
not quite yet :).
Josh;
The special software is only for bringing up Genera from the FEP
(bare metal); it's called the Breath Of Life tape. Once you have LISP
running, Genera includes all the tools you need to initialize another
disk and bring it up. In fact you can bypass the need for a BOL tape
entirely, if you have access to a second system.
I used to have the procedure, but by now it'll take me a while to
find it again.
ok
bear
12:42 p.m.
I'd definitely be interested to know the procedure. I've initialized
and duplicated disks several times with SCSI disks on my XL1201, but
I've had no luck with ESDI drives on my 3630. The "Disk Format" FEP
command on the 3600 seems only to format the disk -- it does not create
a bad block map; attempting to create a FEP Filesystem on the disk fails
afterwards.
If you can dig up the procedure when you have the time, I'd appreciate
it :).
Thanks,
Josh
r.stricklin wrote:
On Jun 4, 2007, at 9:40 PM, Josh Dersch wrote:
If anyone knows different or has a copy of
software that will do
this, I'd love to get a copy -- I'm out of space on my 3630 and I
have several compatible ESDI drives, but no means to make them usable
to the machine. Almost ready to send them out to Dave, but not quite
yet :).
Josh;
The special software is only for bringing up Genera from the FEP (bare
metal); it's called the Breath Of Life tape. Once you have LISP
running, Genera includes all the tools you need to initialize another
disk and bring it up. In fact you can bypass the need for a BOL tape
entirely, if you have access to a second system.
I used to have the procedure, but by now it'll take me a while to find
it again.
ok
bear
9:57 p.m.
On Jun 5, 2007, at 9:42 AM, Josh Dersch wrote:
I'd definitely be interested to know the
procedure. I've
initialized and duplicated disks several times with SCSI disks on
my XL1201, but I've had no luck with ESDI drives on my 3630. The
"Disk Format" FEP command on the 3600 seems only to format the disk
-- it does not create a bad block map; attempting to create a FEP
Filesystem on the disk fails afterwards.
According to Dave Schmidt, the "Disk Format" command you get after
scanning disk.flod in the FEP: "I have never used this command and
have been told that its performance cannot be guaranteed." It creates
an empty bad block file. You add blocks to it one at a time with this
command:
(si:fix-fep-block unit cylinder head sector &key :force-write-test).
This must be done from LISP, which obviously must be running.
Cylinder, head and sector must be entered in octal.
After you finish, you can also fill the disk with test files and run
(si:fix-fep-file "path") to try to pick up any additional bad blocks.
I don't know if you knew this; the FEP cannot allocate new files in
the FEP filesystem, but it can overwrite existing files. The IFS
(initial filesystem) tape restores to FEP files which have already
been allocated by the BOL procedure. LISP can allocate new files in
the FEP filesystem, but if you don't have LISP running, there's a
chicken-and-egg problem.
If you can dig up the procedure when you have the
time, I'd
appreciate it :).
I'll put it on my list. Remind me if you don't hear anything after a
while.
ok
bear
4 Jun
4 Jun
9:52 p.m.
On Jun 4, 2007, at 12:12 PM, Keys wrote:
Had a Symbolics 3640 dropped off on Sunday evening
along with a
Symbolics model OP36-DISP display. Missing are the keyboard, FD,
and all the needed cables (power cord also). I opened the front
door and saw two hard drives mounted inside. Will also be looking
for manuals and some software. Anyone would information please
email me.
The drives are probably MFM (Maxtor XT4190s were available) but could
be ESDI depending on how your I/O processor is set up.
There's nothing special about the power cord apart from the connector
involved. My 3650 has a NEMA L21-30 twist-lock connector out the back
like your 3640 does; its power cord terminates in a standard NEMA
5-15 plug just like every other piece of equipment in the world. It
runs off a normal 15A household circuit just fine, even with a full
complement of memory and an 8" SMD hard drive.
I have spare 3640 boards once you get that far. Other spare parts are
still available from what's left of Symbolics. Contact Dave Schmidt
(sales at symbolics.com), but it might be spendy depending on what you
need.
ok
bear
6234
days inactive
6236
days old
11 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
-
bear＠typewritten.org -
brad＠heeltoe.com -
derschjo＠msu.edu -
jrkeys＠concentric.net -
mcguire＠neurotica.com -
ploopster＠gmail.com