19 Jun
2008
19 Jun
'08
9:56 a.m.
Anyone collect and/or need parts to the AT&T Unix PC? I've got a pile
of systems I dismantled over a decade ago, and don't really want or know
how to put back together. I bought them "new" as surplus by the pallet
at the time, and about half of them were defective with only displaying
horizontal lines when turned on. The monitors are perfect, I also have
the 20Mb MFM drives and 5.25" drives, as well as the mainboards,
plastics etc. I'm not sure exactly how many and what I have yet, but
checking for interest here. Please reply if these are of interest at all.
Any suggestions on the line problem?
Mike Lee
19 Jun
19 Jun
11:36 a.m.
On Thu, 19 Jun 2008, Michael Lee wrote:
Anyone collect and/or need parts to the AT&T Unix
PC? I've got a pile
of systems I dismantled over a decade ago, and don't really want or know
how to put back together. I bought them "new" as surplus by the pallet
at the time, and about half of them were defective with only displaying
horizontal lines when turned on. The monitors are perfect, I also have
the 20Mb MFM drives and 5.25" drives, as well as the mainboards,
plastics etc. I'm not sure exactly how many and what I have yet, but
checking for interest here. Please reply if these are of interest at all.
Any suggestions on the line problem?
I might be interested once I get my own 3b1 out of the garage and running.
That should be in a week.
--
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
12:18 p.m.
On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 9:56 AM, Michael Lee <mikelee at tdh.com> wrote:
Anyone collect and/or need parts to the AT&T Unix
PC? I've got a pile of
systems I dismantled over a decade ago, and don't really want or know how to
put back together. I bought them "new" as surplus by the pallet at the
time, and about half of them were defective with only displaying horizontal
lines when turned on. The monitors are perfect, I also have the 20Mb MFM
drives and 5.25" drives, as well as the mainboards, plastics etc. I'm not
sure exactly how many and what I have yet, but checking for interest here.
Please reply if these are of interest at all.
Location Please, I would be interested if close to Oregon or Washington.
I had several of those systems about 1990.
Paxton
--
Paxton Hoag
Astoria, OR
USA
3 Aug
3 Aug
11:15 p.m.
Hi Michael,
Did you figure out what you needed to do here ?? I can use some
of these items
- Thanks, jerry
-------------- Original message from Michael Lee <mikelee at tdh.com>:
--------------
Anyone collect and/or need parts to the AT&T Unix
PC? I've got a pile
of systems I dismantled over a decade ago, and don't really want or know
how to put back together. I bought them "new" as surplus by the pallet
at the time, and about half of them were defective with only displaying
horizontal lines when turned on. The monitors are perfect, I also have
the 20Mb MFM drives and 5.25" drives, as well as the mainboards,
plastics etc. I'm not sure exactly how many and what I have yet, but
checking for interest here. Please reply if these are of interest at all.
Any suggestions on the line problem?
Mike Lee
7 Aug
7 Aug
9:55 a.m.
Hi,
Sorry, been busy as usual. I did pull them out and I have most parts
for a full unit intact. What parts can you use? Also, these are parts
for a Unix PC version of the 3b1 which may have different power supplies
and casing than an actual 3b1.
g-wright at att.net wrote:
Hi Michael,
Did you figure out what you needed to do here ?? I can use some
of these items
- Thanks, jerry
-------------- Original message from Michael Lee <mikelee at tdh.com>:
--------------
> Anyone collect and/or need parts to the AT&T Unix PC? I've got a pile
> of systems I dismantled over a decade ago, and don't really want or know
> how to put back together. I bought them "new" as surplus by the pallet
> at the time, and about half of them were defective with only displaying
> horizontal lines when turned on. The monitors are perfect, I also have
> the 20Mb MFM drives and 5.25" drives, as well as the mainboards,
> plastics etc. I'm not sure exactly how many and what I have yet, but
> checking for interest here. Please reply if these are of interest at all.
>
> Any suggestions on the line problem?
>
> Mike Lee
>
11:23 a.m.
Michael Lee wrote:
Sorry, been busy as usual. I did pull them out and I
have most parts
for a full unit intact. What parts can you use? Also, these are parts
for a Unix PC version of the 3b1 which may have different power supplies
and casing than an actual 3b1.
Both models are a "Unix PC".
The original model is the 7300, and uses a half-height drive. Standard
drives were 10MB or 20MB.
The newer model is the 3B1, and has a "hump" to accommodate a
full-height drive, and a higher-rated power supply. Standard drives
were 40MB or 67MB.
1:50 p.m.
On Thu, Aug 07, 2008 at 11:23:45AM -0700, Eric Smith wrote:
Both models are a "Unix PC".
The original model is the 7300, and uses a half-height drive. Standard
drives were 10MB or 20MB.
The newer model is the 3B1, and has a "hump" to accommodate a
full-height drive, and a higher-rated power supply. Standard drives
were 40MB or 67MB.
Did anyone ever come out with a SCSI interface for these, even a home-brew
one?
Back in the day, I really, really wanted one, but by the time I could
afford it, the max disk size was really cramped. I think my Amiga at
the time had somewhere around 200-450MB, by comparison.
I know lots of guys who were working at the local Bell Labs at the time
that bought these through the employee discount plan. These were the
same guys that later migrated to 386s w/Interactive UNIX then to low-end
SPARC boxes, etc. One of the things I miss from those days is the monthly
UNIX meetings we used to have - I guess it's now so common that we don't
have to meet in secret to swap arcane lore anymore ;-)
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 7-Aug-2008 at 20:40 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -47.2 F (-44.0 C) Windchill -90.7 F (-68.2 C)
APO AP 96598 Wind 27.3 kts Grid 8 Barometer 681.6 mb (10568 ft)
Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
2:05 p.m.
Ethan Dicks wrote:
Did anyone ever come out with a SCSI interface for
these, even a home-brew
one?
I wire-wrapped one, using a 5380 chip. It wouldn't fit in the 3B1, so I
had to put it in the expansion box. I wrote a driver to test the
hardware, which had ioctl() calls to read and write registers of the
5380. I didn't get a real block driver going, though.
The 99-pin connectors for the bus are really hard to find; I wonder
whether AT&T or Convergent were trying to make it difficult for
third-parties to build peripherals. Possibly one could cut down a
120-pin connector. Maybe if the 3 pins at one end aren't necessary, one
could butcher a 96-pin connector.
Eric
2:39 p.m.
On Thu, Aug 07, 2008 at 02:05:40PM -0700, Eric Smith wrote:
Ethan Dicks wrote:
That's certainly encouraging. I know about the 5380 from a variety
of places - including the MacPlus and some early (pre-33C93) Amiga
SCSI cards.
Did anyone ever come out with a SCSI interface for
these, even a home-brew
one?
I wire-wrapped one, using a 5380 chip. It wouldn't fit in the 3B1, so I
had to put it in the expansion box. I wrote a driver to test the
hardware, which had ioctl() calls to read and write registers of the
5380. I didn't get a real block driver going, though. The 99-pin connectors for the bus are really hard to
find; I wonder
whether AT&T or Convergent were trying to make it difficult for
third-parties to build peripherals. Possibly one could cut down a
120-pin connector. Maybe if the 3 pins at one end aren't necessary, one
could butcher a 96-pin connector.
Hmm... I didn't know the 3B1 had an unusual expansion connector. That
complicates things.
Since I don't know about the internals of the box, this might or might
not be feasible, but there were several SCSI and IDE interfaces for the
Amiga (and Atari ST?) that plugged right into a 64-pin CPU socket. The
two issues I see would be a) physical clearance, and b) fitting into a
blank space in the memory map. It might not be feasible to retro-fit a
commerical Amiga interface into an 3B1 for either or both of those reasons,
but perhaps that would be a viable approach for a dedicated 3B1 interface.
Even though 8-bit SCSI and PATA drives are no longer the dominant drive
forms, they are a step or two up the ladder from MFM - easier to find,
smaller, etc... there never was a 3.5" hard disk that was taller than
an ST-225, so there'd be no problem fitting one into even a 7300.
If I had a UNIX PC, I might pursue this, but it was at least interesting
to learn about the odd connector and what sorts of issues have to be
gotten around.
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 7-Aug-2008 at 21:30 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -47.4 F (-44.1 C) Windchill -86.9 F (-66.1 C)
APO AP 96598 Wind 21.0 kts Grid 11 Barometer 682.0 mb (10553 ft)
Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
5750
days inactive
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days old
8 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
-
dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu -
eric＠brouhaha.com -
ethan.dicks＠usap.gov -
g-wright＠att.net -
innfoclassics＠gmail.com -
mikelee＠tdh.com