still supper clean id love to have that even

yes... the I/O for a tty is on a separate mounting outside the cpu I recall for some reason... I need to pull out or S and another classic 8 from storage. as I recall there is a spare cLassic 8 front panel... snd it can find a new home. The S I want to.put in museum display next to our classic in there and the spare one will display off site... it is in a blue Dec 8 rack... one in museum has plexiglass card surrounds. Ed# Sent from AOL Mobile Mail On Friday, November 2, 2018 Lyle Bickley via cctalk <lbickley at bickleywest.com; cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: On Sat, 03 Nov 2018 15:13:16 +1100 Guy Dunphy via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: I have a restored and running PDP-8/S. It looks to me that you're not missing modules - the open slots are for the I/O cables. The P/S is a standard DEC linear P/S and can be easily substituted until you come across the real thing. You need to get the schematics for the version of the PDP-8/S you have and check the modules in your system against the module chart. When you say the front panel PCB is missing - do you mean that there is not a large circuit board with incandescent lamps in the system? That would seem unusual to me - given that all the switches are on the front panel. There is NO I/O on a PDP-8/S. The I/O cables connected to any I/O that existed. Please get a PDP-8/S service manual and schematics... I may not be as you think... Lyle -- 73 NM6Y Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

On 11/3/18 1:00 AM, Guy Dunphy via cctalk wrote: The loss of a non-profit collecting institution is nothing to "grin" about. I hope you start thinking about who it will go to when you die.

At 04:34 AM 3/11/2018 -0700, Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote: Al, a few points: 1. This and several other items from their collection were passed specificaly to me BY THE ACMS last week, on their initiative, since their storage situation has deteriorated further. The executive of ACMS have visited my workshop, and know my capabilities and intentions. 2. I'm not grinning about the tragic lack of support for tech museums in this country (Australia.) If you knew me at all, you'd know my opinions of why that is, and what a disaster it is. I'm grinning about having a chance to preserve such a nice machine, myself. This should be obvious to anyone who wasn't predisposed to a hostile attitude, for some reason. 3. I'm currently only evaluating options for restoring it. And will discuss with ACMS before doing anything, apart from making a screw-on protection for the wire-wrap backplane asap. (Next week, need to buy some aluminum sections.) It will be a *long time* before I can seriously begin on it, due to the length of my work queue. Which doesn't mean I can't start trying to locate information and parts now. 3. It seems you have time to go out of your way to criticise in a situation you know little about, but you don't have time to find that Documation TM200 physical manual you recalled seeing at bitsavers, and repeatedly ignore me when I ask you about where it is now, what are your plans for it, can I borrow or buy it from you, etc. Since I'm restoring a TM200, and so far yours is the only sighted copy of a manual anywhere, that's disappointing. 4. 'When I die' - this is a known issue. Though thankfully not an urgent one. Australia is very different to the USA. Guy

On Saturday, November 3, 2018 7:14 AM, Adrian Stoness via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: get some thick plexi glass to cover it and sit it up for display to look in but not touch ;) On Sat, Nov 3, 2018 at 9:08 AM Guy Dunphy via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: My PDP-8s had an external DEC power supply. Just a simple constant voltage transformer, diodes and caps.DEC original. Looks like all of the cards are there, I/O was done externally to the 8s. The missing light boardlooks to be the only problem and it would not be too hard to make. No parts except the lamps. Bob

One thought - it is possible that light panels from some other model of computer, possibly not even PDP-8 related, might be the same base PC board as the 8/S panel. DEC made a LOT of light panels for all the CPUs and control units on larger machines. At least some of them were made from the same basic PCB. Not sure if the 8/S light panel had any active circuitry on it, I'm thinking it might just be bulbs and connectors. Jon

On Sat, Nov 3, 2018 at 1:12 AM Lyle Bickley via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: Yes. Start by looking at http://www.ricomputermuseum.org/Home/equipment/pdp-8s At a quick glance, I see you _might_ have 2-3 cards in wrong slots near some intentional gaps. Check that. The open slots at the back are for the I/O cables. The open slots near the memory stack are supposed to be empty with the one possible exception where I see in your photo you have a single-height amber card and the RICM PDP-8/S appears to have a dual-height amber card. I don't have the printset up so I can't tell exactly what's going on there. Could be normal variation as they made changes across the run. Yes. You just need enough amps at +10V and -15V to fire it up. What I don't know off the top of my head is the difference between a table-top and rack-mounted system. RICM has pictures of a rack-mounted system. Mine is table-top. It's entirely possible that yours was pulled from a rack and the PSU stayed behind. Yours might never have had covers like the desktop unit. Yes. "for the version you have" is important. I don't think there's exactly one way they built it across multiple years. There can easily be a module or two different between different manufacturing dates if there was a large ECO. Unlike every other machine I've worked on, the -8/S has *two* front panel boards. One is very short and has just the switches and sits in slot 1. The other is full-sized and has only the lamps, no switches and sits in slot 2. I see from your photos, that board is missing. Given that it's fairly simple, you might be able to find a Unibus hex-height protoboard and fabricate a replacement. The lamps might be interesting to source - ISTR they have 28V filaments, underdriven to give them a long lifetime. I can't recommend the original lamps anyway - they are not the bi-pin bulbs used in later models (PDP-8/L and newer). They have these brittle leads coming out of the glass and no plastic base. I have several in mine that had the leads break off right at the glass. Even if the filaments are intact, these bulbs are essentially dead. I do not presently have any replacement bulbs of any type for mine. Yep. All the I/O was external on the Negibus, even the console TTY (there's a PT08 in the base of an ASR-33 that was standard for this model). I didn't get the TTY with mine (it was long gone, to a Ham club, I was told) so I don't have a console SLU either. Once I get the CPU working, I'll have to fabricate a PT08 replacement. There just wasn't room in the box for any I/O. The backplane on this model is close to half the size of the backplane on a Straight-8. Definitely. -ethan

the? ?SMECC? 8s? ?I? seem to? remember a? case? around it? looking at? google? this? looks? just? like that? case around it? ?ok? look? below? this? photo? ?for? the link? or photo? of the? 8i that looked? like a? decwritter? case... sadly? over? 30 years had? anough? parts? to? put? one of these? back? together.....? ?alas? ?I? do no? have now... ? ? ? ? ? In a message dated 11/3/2018 11:31:03 AM US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at classiccmp.org writes: ? On 11/02/2018 11:13 PM, Guy Dunphy via cctalk wrote: Well, the most serious thing is the front panel board. The switches appear to be there, which would be the hardest thing to replace. You could make a display board by hand, there really aren't that many LEDs t (or bulbs, if you are a purist) to it. The I/O was all external on the early 8's, except for maybe the console serial port. Power supplies should be easy to whip up. I'm not sure the 8S actually HAD a case top and bottom, all the ones I've seen were bare like yours. Jon

On 2018-11-03 7:24 p.m., Guy Dunphy via cctalk wrote: RGB, shimmering and cycling, of course. /me runs

On Sat, Nov 3, 2018 at 8:18 PM Steve Malikoff via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: Fantastic little piece showing off one. Nope. That's now how these worked. The bulbs had "flying leads" coming out of the glass, no bases, and the light barrier was a bit of MDF with holes in it (the MDF is visible in at least one of Guy's photos). The bulbs just hovered over the PCB and just hung loose in the holes in the MDF. Later PDP-8 models used "bi-pin base" bulbs that had a factory-molded-on base and a pair of sturdy pins. There were plastic mounts by the early 1970s when DEC switched to LEDs. I've seen them in the PDP-8/M and the PDP-11/70, among other machines. There's a single and a triple shape. -ethan

On 11/03/2018 09:48 PM, Steve Malikoff via cctalk wrote: Well, sort of the same idea, but not that close. The 360 had metal cases with the pins in a plastic rear piece, and a loose wired bulb inside, and a plastic front that could be colored. The later PDP bulbs had a bare bulb with a molded plastic fitting at the back. I don't remember whether the bulb had the big pins embedded in the glass, or the pins were attached to thin wires and then the joint was embedded in the plastic. There were a lot of commercial bi-pin base bulbs made back in the 1970's. Jon