Doug Jackson wrote: That's not right either. There are interesting Intel-based boxes out there. IBM PC Server 720? Sequent DYNIX boxes? Tandy 4000MC? Peace... Sridhar

Not even PS/2 and the microchannel boards? :oO They are so interesting and unique :)

geoffrey oltmans wrote: Indeed, because that criterion tends to discount supercomputers and mainframes. Peace... Sridhar

...which is precisely why this discussion comes up about once a year, and always ends unresolved. -Dave On Nov 24, 2009, at 10:13 AM, geoffrey oltmans wrote: -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

I seem to rememeber we couldn't even agree on an exact definition for 'computer' There are far to many orderline cases... If you find a person, aged over 10, who operates a calculating machine, can he or she be discussed here? -tony

A good point. Is it just me - I have been noticing less list traffic over the years? Are people migrating to VCF? -- Will

On Tuesday, November 24, 2009 8:11 AM Dave McGuire Wrote: ...can VCF be presented as email, or is it only usable in annoying "web forum" format? Sorry, Dave, but it's web-only at the moment. I might consider a hack to do email someday but every hybrid I've ever seen simply sucks. ----- Erik Klein www.vintage-computer.com www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum - The Vintage Computer Forums marketplace.vintage-computer.com - The Vintage Computer and Gaming Marketplace

On Tuesday, November 24, 2009 7:50 PM Vincent Slyngstad wrote: Your wish is my command: http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/external.php Talk about an RTFM moment! I didn't even know I could do RSS with the forums. What a turkey. . . and what a bad day to be a turkey! ;) ----- Erik Klein www.vintage-computer.com www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum - The Vintage Computer Forums marketplace.vintage-computer.com - The Vintage Computer and Gaming Marketplace

On 11/25/09, Vincent Slyngstad <vrs at msn.com> wrote: Nice! Thanks, Vince. I will probably bookmark that so I can check it I should probably make a post there about my new-to-me VT78. It checks out so far, but I don't have a copy of OS/78 to do anything "fun" on it yet. I was hoping someone here would respond to my query about what's out there for the MR78 external ROM peripheral (semiconductor-simulated high-speed papertape reader), but from the silence, apparently not much. -ethan

I hope not. I dislike web fora and only use them for certain niches. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- I don't care who you are, stop walking on the water when I'm fishing! <>< --

On Nov 24, 2009, at 11:29 AM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: I dislike them too...and don't even use them for niches. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

Can I read that with PINE on a unix shell account?

Cameron Kaiser wrote: Heh :-) Given the reliability and the way that when they fix one thing something else breaks in a new and interesting way, it spends most of its time dead to me even with a modern system/OS/browser... I've never known any piece of code to be quite so bloated and buggy :-(

Most of the newer / younger collectors are automatically going to Erik's forum and will probably never even know about cctalk. When you Google for "vintage" or "retro" or "antique" computers, the site www.classiccmp.org doesn't even come up in the first few pages of results. Even when you Google for "classic" computers, this list is only the seventh result. Many people, like me, use both options. However sometimes I do get frustrated on Erik's forum because, as expected, there are many posts about things that I consider "too new" to be collectible (see that YATYR thread!)

.... And some cctalkers are so stuck in their text-email rut that they've never heard of Google! ;) http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum But whatever you do, please don't call it VCF. There is only one VCF: http://www.vintage.org

On Tue, 24 Nov 2009, Evan Koblentz wrote: I've heard of it. I use it a lot. But, must I have access to it on every machine at home?

Well, without the newbs the community will slowly die away. I like to see young people getting interested in what I'm interested in. Let them talk about their "vintage" Pentium and hope they discover the cool stuff in the "Minis and Mainframes" section. It is really not a problem, it is easy to filter. I don't read half of what is posted to cctech and cctalk anyway. You put the head on the nail there, for me it is the people not the technology that makes me communicate in the rigid and one dimensional style of mailing lists and endure blinking smileys and spam in phpBB forums. (phpBB is a _very_ common package for running internet forums) I'm in both and I also visit http://forums.nekochan.net/ for my daily dose of SGI. Kind regards, Pontus.

My word, I leave for work, and look what I come back to! "Welcome Jim, you have a bazillion cc-talk messages!" So, since you all have wasted the better part of a day without coming to a conclusion, here's another coal for the fire: When is it appropriate to talk about a system that emulates a vintage machine, but contains additional functionality beyond the original emulated artifact? C64DTV is a trivial example. Is it in scope (due to the C64 heritage), out of scope (due to being newish) or must we only talk about certain parts until 2015 or so? PDP-11 on an FPGA + extras would be another example. /me is evil Jim

Jim Brain wrote: Whatever happened to a metric buttload? And is there a Giga-buttload? All the time, I think.

Dave McGuire wrote: ...But it's funny - for me at last :-)

And OS X is vintage? :-p Don't try to take the out that it's based on U*ix - Windows NT started out as VMS/386. It's just like obscenity: I know vintage when I see it, and so do you. There is only a passing chance that the scope perceived by each of us is identical - but similar enough to have a discussion list like this one. -- Ian

Mega bytes??!? rofl

On Nov 24, 2009, at 9:50 AM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: Sun 386i! What's a PC Server 720? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

On Nov 24, 2009, at 10:19 AM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: Wow...bizarre! I'd love to get my hands on one of those. Are there many out there? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

Hi I see that there is another Canon Cat on eBay. The fellows starting price might be a little high but that depends on one point of view. They've gone for more and for less. From the pictures, it is a little beat up but seems to be in working condition. If someone on this group gets it and want to correspond to others with them, let me know. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Windows 7: It works the way you want. Learn more. http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/windows-7/default.aspx?ocid=PID24727::T:WL…

Rick Bensene wrote: Can modern processors be single-stepped? Peace... Sridhar

On Nov 24, 2009, at 10:03 AM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: Most modern designs use what amount to dynamic memory for registers and other internal state stuff, which means that there's usually a minimum clock speed...I don't see how true single-stepping would be possible in such a situation. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

Can even an 8088 be single stepped? -- Will

Dave McGuire wrote: Why not just pad out the wait times with nops? Peace... Sridhar

Yup... best to use the JTAG/debug interface. There's silicon in the current PC CPUs dedicated to off chip debugging, and best of all, requires only a handful of signals connected (a dozen maybe) instead of tying off of each address/data/control signal from the processor (which you may or may not have access to). Best of all, you can leave a processor halted for days if you wish. ________________________________ From: Guy Sotomayor <ggs at shiresoft.com> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Tue, November 24, 2009 11:07:18 AM Subject: Re: Switches & Blinky Light Front Panel for PC? On Nov 24, 2009, at 8:38 AM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: Because the processor is still driving the bus. The /WAIT pin isn't the right way to do it either. There's a DMA request pin (forgot the name at the moment) that will cause the processor to relinquish control of the bus. That will allow you to "halt" it and read/write memory from the front panel (hey look a DMA front panel!). This is what I did (mumble) years ago. I'd have to go back and dig out the designs (I still have them some place). As I recall, to start at a particular address, it jammed a jump instruction (and address) on to the bus. Single stepping *was* done with the /WAIT pin. Doing this with anything much later than 486 is nigh impossible (and even that is problematic) without *a lot* of seriously designed HW. The buses are fast and have special signaling requirements (GTL, GTL+, etc). Don't even think about modern (last 5 or so years) x86 CPUs. In some of our labs we have bus analyzers that plug into the bus (can't do it with the new Nehalem CPUs). Those are $500K+ each (and are only good for that type of CPU) and each time I look at them, I'm amazed they work as well as they do. TTFN - Guy

On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 06:59:28AM -0800, Rick Bensene wrote: Sort of: http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showthread.php?t=17451 It is a PCjr and it looks really neat, there is a link to a youtube clip there as well. /P

I seem to rememebr it's easier to do this on a PCjr than on a PC (ISA bus). The reason is that the PCjr doesn't have a DMA controller, but had the signals brought out to the expansion connector to allow one to be added. And those signals, of course, include the bus request and grant lines so the DMA cotnroller can take over the bus from the CPU. Which is exactly what you need to add a hardware frontpanel (at least to access memory and I/O devices). I think most 16 bit ISA ssytems have a signal on the bus slots which lets you do that, but I will have to check the 5170 techref... -tony

On 24 Nov 2009 at 23:45, Doug Jackson wrote: I'd take that back perhaps another 10 years to 1973. It's a little boring seeing systems with fixed power-of-two word lengths, 8-bit characters and predictable instruction sets, all implemented with MOS transistors. Go back to the 1950's and 60's and there were some really interesting systems. One of the VC Foruum posters picked up a batch of old PC boards--I noted that he had a card from a Packard Bell 250 in the collection. An interesting machine, if there ever was one. --Chuck

Tony Duell wrote: Heh, you remind me of the computer I had on my back driveway for several months quite a few years ago with a 23 bit word length. I doubt it was complete, and it was part of an ill advised joint venture so the other guy eventually took most of it away. (My wife was quite happy to see it all go.) I did keep the programmer's quick reference card, though I don't know where it is at the moment. I recall a fair amount of the wiring was miniature coax, and it was a core machine. I suspect very few were ever built. Wish now I'd kept the core stack at least. I think I do still have the Selectric typewriter with a solenoid and contacts kludge on the bottom that served as the console device - it was not an I/O Selectric. Later, Charlie C.

AMD made some very interesting bit-slice chips that I am sure were used in machines after 1982. Surely those count as 'classics'. Even if you meant (as I suspect) 80x86 family processors, I would argue that what I call 'IBM incompatibles' should remain on topic here. Those are machines with an 80x86 processr running MS-DOS or CP/M 86 but which are not hardware (and often not BIOS-level) compatible with the IBM 5150. Things like the HP110, HP150, DEC Rainbow, FTS 88, Sirius (Victo 9000) and so on. -tony

Philipp Hachtmann wrote: Interesting - never tried that with computers (it's generally been my rule with vehicles though, and has served me well). I find a lot of the early 80s stuff too interesting, I suppose (and the stuff that's older than me too expensive since ebay came along) cheers Jules

Well, I agree with your logic. I would consider PC hardware up to about Windows 95-capable to classic enough for discussion. On 2009-11-24, Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at update.uu.se> wrote:

I'd argue they already are, and I'm generally considered a Windows detractor. You can definitely make a case for DOS and Windows 3.1, and even Windows 95 and NT 3.x and 4.x are IMHO appropriate. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Faith is to be sure of what you hope for. -- The Kry, "Take My Hand" -------

On Nov 24, 2009, at 11:35 AM, Bob Bradlee wrote: Wow...Does 3.5 have decent multiprocessor support? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

Geoffrey Reed wrote: I have a Tek 2465 I got a few years back off eBay. It's a 300MHz 4 channel scope, and it's been a great help for debugging. 300MHz is a bit high, but I think I only paid $300 or so for it, which I thought was a great deal. Here's a 2465A for about the same price: 160380373748 Here's my model: 160380657710, and 280394276739 I've considered one of those USB digital scopes, as there are times when I am at a show and someone needs a scope, but I'm still leery of them. Anyone have one and can speak to them? 2 channels is a must, and I think 20-50MHz is probably good (I run mine in 20MHz Bandwidth limit mode all the time). If you are going to debug digital, though, I recommend a logic analyzer. I picked up a 48 channel Tek 1225 for $50.00 or so a few years back, and it's been extremely helpful. Jim -- Jim Brain, Brain Innovations (X) brain at jbrain.com Dabbling in WWW, Embedded Systems, Old CBM computers, and Good Times! Home: http://www.jbrain.com

Personally, I'd rather have a second-hand Tektronix than a new no-name (and the price could well be comparable). A reasoanble rule of thunb is that you need a bandwidth of 3 times the fastest (clock) signal you want to observe. So if yoy're working one a machine with an 8MHz master clock, then a 25MHz 'scope is OK. If you want to work on a PDP11/45 (33MHz clock), then you really need a 100MHz 'scope But you can often get by with a lot less... -tony

On Wed, 25 Nov 2009, Tony Duell wrote: I am not a hardware person. At all. 40 years ago, I bought a used Tektronix scope. Model 512? 412? 510? Later, somebody said to me that it was their first production model. It was a lot of fun. It would not have been adequate for aligning floppy drives. I have been told that that calls for dual-trace and 20MHz or higher. Is that correct? Eventually, I gave it to somebody who needed it more than I did, and I got myself a used NLS 215. Still not enough for floppy drive alignment. But lots of fun for other miscellaneous stuff. Eventually, I sold it at VCF. Even I miss having a scope. Can you imagine what the world would be like if NLS had gotten into making computers? :-) They'd probably grow faster than they could manage, and end up trying to expand into tents in the parking lot! . . . and not even know their inventory well enough to know if something went missing! -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

On Nov 25, 2009, at 11:02 PM, William Donzelli wrote: Umm...remember Kaypro? ;) But I have to ask; do you have any of those voltmeters still kicking around? I've been looking for one for a very long time. The one that sold on eBay about a year ago went for far more than I could afford at the time. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

I forgot Kaypro was the NLS brand. They always do well - often well over $100 - so I tend to grab them when I can. The ones out of the test set I described sold a few years ago. -- Will

Only because that's about the loswst spec you'll find in a modern 'scope. I sucessfully aligned a 3.5" dirve using a very cheap handheld digital 'scope (IIRC 500k samples/second, it did an aliasing trick to look at _repetitive_ wwaveforms up to 5MHz). ANd just one trace). Did you actually try to align a floppy drive with it? Actually, if you want to align floppy drives (and nothing else), I would try to find a thing called a 'Microtest'. It's a box containing an ADC and a microcontorller that links to a PC serial port (_Any_ PC with a floppy controller and a serial port, I think you need 256k RAM and any display adapter, even MDA). You link up the drive under test as drive B on the PC, and run the software that comes with the microtest. Then select the drive from the menu (and there's every one that _I've_ ever wanted to work on), it drwas a picture of the drive PCB (using IBM line-drawing characters) and tells you where to conenct 5 clip-leads from the ADC box. Then put in a standard analogue alingment disk and it will tell you how far off-track you are, if the track 0 sensor is correctly positioned, and so on. Of course I need a 'scope for lots of other things, but this little toy really is fun... I assume that is very much tongue-in-cheek... -tony

Hmmm.. I think last time I had to diagnose an alternator fault, I desoldered the 3 stator leads from the diode array (9 diodes making a 3-phase bride rectifier with 2 positive outputs, one to the battery and one to the regulator/field circuit) and then tested the diodes with an ohmmeter. Removing the stator windings elimnated sneak paths through those (and indicentally let me use a 'megger' on the stator to check the insulation, somethinbg I wouldn't risk with the diodes connected). Of course if a diode had been shorted, it would have probably caused incorrect tests on the some of the otehrs, but if a diode was shorted I'd have to tear the recifier pack apaart anyway. Incidentally, (and this is more off-topic than usual), the Land Rover series 3 workshop manual has a good _component level_ description of the regulator circuit. When new, it was very expensive. I was lucky enough to be given one 'since you're the last person alive who actually repairs floppy drives'. I then modified an Amstrad PPC640 laptop by removing the non-original second drive and replacing it with a DC37 connector on a blanking plate so I could cable up my drive-under-test to the Amstrad. As I said the Microtest software runs on _any_ IBM compatbile, even a 5150. I've not seen a Microtest on E-bay ever, but then I've not looked for one. If one did turn up it would be small enough to ship, and doesn't depend on amins voltage or frequency (the microcontroller box draws power That's one good thing about the Microtest, it uses an analogue alignment disk. I did juust that. Of course it had nothing to do with my course, but I found invenstigating the Philips P850 back in my room to be a lot more interesting that quantum mechnaics. Probably explains why I nearly failed my degree... Learning about valves (or at least bipolar trasnsitors and FETs) first is proabably not a bad idea. Valves and FETs behave remaarkably similarly, BTW. Hmmm.. For analouge (radio) use there was at least one such course in Practical Wireless magazine in the 1950s (I mention this because I have the issues somewhere). But I don't recomemnf it. The valve heater supply came from a transformer, the HT (B+) came by half-wave rectifyuing the mains. Which meant the metal chassis (uncased, this was an experimental course after all) was connected to one sides of the mains. I would hope neutral, but... And some of the simpler radios used headphones connected in the anode circuit of a valve. Having a pair of headphones efectively connected to the live side of the mains is too close to being an electric chair for my liking. But seriously, the best way to learn about valves is to p[ay with them. Small valves are remarkaly forgiving of wiring errors (provided you don't connect the B supply to the heaters!). There's a series of modern books called the 'Impoverished Radio Experimentor' which covers making various valve radios (including a superhet) using easy-to-dind components. -tony

On 26 Nov 2009 at 19:02, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: My vote goes for the old RCA "Radiotron Designer's Handbook" aka "the big thick red book". More about real-world engineering using tubes than you'll find in any ARRL Handbook. Considerably over 1000 pages and can be found in various editions and forms all over the net. --Chuck

On 27 Nov 2009 at 20:32, Tony Duell wrote: My problem with the ARRL RAH is that it's exclusively radio-oriented. There's a copy of the 1959 "Radio Handbook" published by "Editors and Engineers" here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/8554942/The-Radio- Handbook-1959 I have the 1939 edition. A bit heavier on theory, but still "radio oriented", as is the very good "Radio Handbook" by William Orr. Still, if you want to start simple, there's the Alfred Powell Morgan 1941 "First Radio Book for Boys". Extermely popular way back when, so there are still used copies available. --Chuck

On Nov 27, 2009, at 7:02 PM, Ben wrote: Air variable capacitors are available in lots of different places. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

On Nov 27, 2009, at 7:37 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: You don't even have to look a bit. A quick eBay search on any given day will turn up *dozens*. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

On Nov 27, 2009, at 9:44 PM, Ben wrote: Any particular reason? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

On Nov 27, 2009, at 10:27 PM, Ben wrote: Me neither...hasn't been a problem. The slower page loading thing I'll agree with; they seem to have hired a bunch of web developers that want to use every "whiz bang" feature of the latest not-quite-ratified HTML standard that they read about in "Windoze Newbie Magazine". I still find it pretty easy to use, though, honestly. That said, though...you want air variables, just bite the bullet and do it. I buy everything short of food and clothing on eBay and have saved a fortune that way. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

On Nov 28, 2009, at 12:00 AM, Ben wrote: Indeed, the problem there is using the categories. Ignore them...because most of the sellers seem to! I do searches almost exclusively, heavily wildcarded and with "-" modifiers...like "pdp* - plasma -sony -pioneer -lure -pacific -toner". That gives me lots of DEC PDP-related hits, while filtering out most of the Pioner KX- PDPmumble plasma TV units and parts, the fishing lures and Panasonic laser printer toner cartridges whose model numbers contain "pdp", and the Pacific Percussion drum equipment (although I'm interested in that too if the mood is right) whose model numbers also contain "pdp". Now that'd be fun! -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

Ok , I'll cheat, I plan to some RAM and EEPROM and leds. Thinking about it, make that 74LS14's and 74LS13's and a lot of Flip/Chip size PCB's. While lots of parts, the modules would be easy to test at home. Ben.

Chuck Guzis wrote: Switch debouncing is needed for the front panel. If I do get back to a computer design next spring, it most likely will be 2901 bit slice with EEPROM microcode loaded from Switch Register. Fewer PCB's the better.

Chuck Guzis wrote: The joke here, is I only use ONE part. I suspect that however many classic computers only used a handfull of different type chips. Ben.

On 28 Nov 2009 at 16:51, dwight elvey wrote: Or 7412s... Or maybe 82S129 (program your own truth tables) --Chuck

On 28 Nov 2009 at 22:09, dwight elvey wrote: The '12 is an OC 3-input NAND. I like 3-input gates better because they lower the part count in circuits like J-K flip flops. If you admit diodes to the mix, there's no reason that 38s or even 06s wouldn't work just as well. RTL and DTL were great when it came to wired-ORing. That 903 wasn't a bad choice for the AGC. --Chuck

dwight elvey wrote: .. although there is the speed or power tradeoff to be made with resistive pullups. A number of early Japanese calcs were made from a logic combination of SSI IC NOR gates and discrete-diode AND gates to make AND-NOR logic. Quite flexible in that the AND gates could have as many inputs as needed, canonical state machines were easy. The calcs are packed with hundreds of diodes and a few ICs. Some other early IC calcs used only half-a-dozen-or-so IC types; 2,3,4-in gates and dual-FF for example. The HP2116 machines used only around a dozen IC types. Could be interesting to look at the first IC-based PDP-8 for how many IC types were used.

I think a great example of a computer using a small number of active circuit elements was the Packard Bell 250. According to Ed Thelen's site, implemented with 400 transistors and 2500 diodes. It's a bit- serial design using delay line memory, but still very impressive. --Chuck

If power is not much of an issue, ECL would be a good choice as you get the wire-OR capability, plus true complementary outputs on the gates. 10105 might be quite useful. -- Will

On Nov 29, 2009, at 6:14 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: Only for Busicom. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

Tony Duell wrote: outputs. 74LS605, 74LS607

Tony Duell wrote: I wrote: Chuck Guzis wrote: I thought they were. If they were latches, they would work fine as muxes by holding the clock in the active state. latch as output). That's the problem. Contrary to the title of the data sheet, they aren't latches, but rather registers. Oh well.

On 28 Nov 2009 at 23:31, allison wrote: After the proliferation of SSI types in the late 60s and early 70s, the wheel turned again. I recall that Neil Lincoln at CDC was working on a supercomputer design using CMOS parts that he referred to as "Chiclets" (after the chewing gum) in that the ICs for the system were about the same size as a Chiclet and only 13 types were used; i.e. a complete replacement set could be contained in a Chiclet box. I seem to recall that a test vehicle was a version of the CDC 6400 that would fit on a tabletop, more or less. This was about 1976 or so. --Chuck

Eric Smith wrote: That brings up a good question, where do you find them to repair core memory boards? I have no core memory, but suspect a important question?

Hi All I've been looking for an early LED. It is a visible red light with a gold base. I've seen many IR ones with gold bases but not the visible red ones. I believe the base was standard in the older early ones. If anyone has a scrap board with these on it, I'd love to have one. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141665/direct/01/

dwight elvey wrote: Like these?: http://www3.telus.net/~bhilpert/tmp/earlyLED.jpg Clear lens, lights up as just a little red dot. Stamped around the base is "842","M" & "701". Scavenged a few of them from an IBM service exerciser of some sort. (The control panel labeling was so obsure (to me at least) that I couldn't even figure out what it exercised.)

Dave McGuire wrote: (Minor correction to my own msg: "1842" instead of "842". Probably the IBM part number.) Are they so unique to id them as MV2s?, I think HP was using a similar package. Yes, they are very pretty, as a device. The die is clearly visible looking through the lens and it looks so perfect when lit up. As an indicator lamp, though, they are pretty subtle, the photo exposure makes it looks brighter and more visible than it is. The funny thing about the exerciser is that, IIRC, it was manufactured a few years after much better indicator LEDs were available.

Dave McGuire wrote: This page suggests they were from HP, the 1842 part of the number matches. http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/tubepage.php?item=39&user=0 http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/articleview.php?item=525 The top contact on the ones I have is the star as shown there, rather than the simple circle of the MV2. Something similar also shows up in the 1976 HP Optoelectronics databook. The MV2 is further down the page; looks the MV2 is more significant historically. Also for the MV2: http://ledmuseum.home.att.net/1960.htm

Brent Hilpert wrote: Demons :)

At least one core sense amplifier was listed in the TI interface databook until relatively recently (10 years ago or so). Which suggests it had other uses and may not be that hard to find. I suppose they can fail, but it's not a part I've ever had problems with. -tony

I think if I had to build a copmputer using only one type of chip, I'd pick an FPGA :-). OK, that's cheating... The VAX 11/730 was _largely_ built with PALs. There are some 2901s in there as well, and the 8085 stuff for the cosole processor and the microcdoe RAMs, of course, but almost all the logic is in 20 pin PALs, I always thought that was a nice hack. If I had use just one type of chip from the TTL range, it'd be a toss-up betwee nthe 74150 and 74151. Both are multiplexers, the former is a 16 input mux with 4 select inputs, the latter is an 8 input mux with 3 select inputs. Using them you can make any 4 or 3 input logic gate (combinatorial function) and by adding a feedback connection you can make SR and D-type latches. Making D-type flip-flops (pulse rather than level triggered) is a little harder, but it can be done. Although the '150 would let me make a more complicated function, it's a 24 pin package (0.6" wide, at least all the ones I've seen) as against the 16 pin (0.3" wide) pacakge for the '151. And I think the 151 exists in logic fanilies (e.g. 74F151) where the 150 doesn't. Of coruse if you let me have inverters as well, I can make any 4 input function using the '151 and a single inverter (NOT gate). But then again a '150 and an inverter would let me make any 5 input fuction. Perhaps I should really cheat and get a custom 28 pin chip made containing the functionality of a '150 and a couple of NOT gates. Or a '150 and a 2 (or 3) input NAND gate. -tony

On 27 Nov 2009 at 19:44, Ben wrote: Google much? http://www.surplussales.com/Variables/AirVariables/AirVar1.html About the third hit on the list. There are more. Plug in coil forms? First hit: http://www.nationalrf.com/plugin_coil.htm --Chuck

On 27 Nov 2009 at 20:33, Ben wrote: There's coil-winding data on the web, or you can use an old favorite for pre-fab coils: http://www.bwantennas.com/coils/mini.htm But there's plenty of help and like-minded folks at the Antique Radio Forum: http://www.antiqueradios.com/forums/index.php Check out the "homebrew" section. --Chuck

On 28 Nov 2009 at 18:29, Tony Duell wrote: I'll admit that finding SLF, SLC or SLW air variables nowadays can be very difficult. But they were never that common even in the heydey of tube radios. I recall making a "crystal set" using nothing more than a razor blade, safety pin, and pencil "lead" and a tuning coil (and of course, a set of high-impedance headphones). You can build a small capacitor using nothing more than waxed paper and aluminum foil. The web contains lots of sites dedicated to the resurrection of some old practice or the other. There are instructions on how to build electrolytic rectifiers (used as "B" battery substitutes for early transmitters), all manner of "crystal" sets, including sources for minerals, even early solid state negative resistance devices (long before the junction transistor). There's even a Yahoo group dedicated to construction of regenerative radio receivers. It's noteworthy that much hobbyist radio work came into flower during the darker days of the Great Depression, when money was very scarce. Information on tube construction is perhaps more readily available today thanks to the internet than at any other time. --Chuck

Well here's something that the last time it was made was around 1993. It's about as classic as you can get. I had an idea to get my old Rainbow based FidoBBs (circa 1986) running again by hooking it up to the net via DECServer200/MC and reverse Telneting into it. I looked round for a copy of FIDO_DEC, found one but NUSQ would not unsqeeze it. Finally I found my way to Tom Jennings (The guy who wrote Fido) website. Total shock and horror!! All of the sources and backups had been trashed in a computer crash around 1993. So most of what he had done from 1983 to 1993 was a heap of smoldering ruins. The sources (or what's left of them) are freely available on his web site. Rebuilding hardware is one thing but software, well that's another! Regards Rod Smallwood -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tony Duell Sent: 24 November 2009 20:45 To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Ten Year Rule I have a similar problem looking on E-bay. Eay (at least the UK one) has a category of #vintage computing'. I really have diffuclty classing 72 pin SIMMs and Pentium motherboards as 'vintage'... I would really hate it if this list became a mostly old PC (or Mac) list. IMHO there are better places to discuss such machines (no, I don't know hwere said places are). Another random thought... Some years ago I was a memer of a computer clu which has a 'hardware and old systems SIG'. THose two interests were grouped togther not just because there was one member who hacked hardware and also ran old systems (I wonder who that was ;-)), but also because it was successfully argued that if you wanted to run an old system you pretty much has to know enough about hardware to fix it yourself, and conversely an old system (even then) was something that you _could_ fix properly (you know, with a soldering iron and 'scope...) Perhaps the criterion for classicness should be that the machine is treated at a much lower level than 'The DVD-ROM goes in here and then you click here' sort of thing. 12 (octal) = 10 (decimal) (Sorry couldn't resist, I spand far too much time working in octal, and no I am not missing 2 fingers) -tony

On 11/25/09 7:17 AM, "Gene Buckle" <geneb at deltasoft.com> wrote: I ran a 'point' system using opus for several years on a rainbow. 1:343/3.1 'StarShip Inconnu' the creator of the Rainbow FOSSIL driver was the same gent that wrote binkleyterm IIRC. Loved that old beast.... (my rainbow)

Are they still charging fees to join and monthly fees to be a member? I used to run a fido system, but it got stupid. Dan. _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live: Keep your friends up to date with what you do online. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9691815

here in canada, toronto, they charged fees to join fidonet. about $50/month was being asked. I'll see if I can dig up my old node #s... Dan. _________________________________________________________________ Eligible CDN College & University students can upgrade to Windows 7 before Jan 3 for only $39.99. Upgrade now! http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9691819

On Nov 28, 2009, at 9:30 AM, Gene Buckle wrote: In my experience, into the back pockets of the person running the local Network and/or particular well-connected Nodes. My experience with FidoNet left me with the impression that while the IFNA was very well run, individual Networks were often rife with corruption and politics. And while IFNA may not have been "officially" aware of some of this, they chose to take a blind eye to most of it. FidoNet was the "good ol' boys" network of the BBS era, an attitude that pervaded every aspect of its operation and made it hostile to outsiders trying to get in. A case study could be made exclusively around WWIV boards trying to get access to FidoNet once it was figured out how to get it to work (on the WWIV side). I personally know of multiple Networks that made it much harder on WWIV-based boards solely because.. they were WWIV-based boards. Part of the explosion of WWIVnet and WWIVlink in the late 80's and early 90's is directly attributable to this: if FidoNet wasn't hostile to WWIV sysops, it's likely that WWIVnet would have ever achieved the level of traction that it did.

That's too bad. Net 138 wasn't like that at all. Everyone pitched in to cover the cost of the net's mail & echomail processor ("Ginger" was the machine's name). Now that's really interesting. It's almost 180 degrees from what I experienced back then. Many alternate WWIV networks (ICENet, etc) were formed because WWIVNet people were being thrown off the net because they were also members of Fidonet. I do know that WWIV was seen (rightly or not) as the software of choice for "pirate" boards. That was often used as an excuse to prevent WWIV boards from getting Fidonet numbers - this never happened in Net 138 that I knew of however. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!

On Sun, 29 Nov 2009, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote: There's a chapter in the Pro350 technical manual that covers the keyboard protocol. See Chapter 9 in http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/pro3xx/EK-PC300-V1-001_pro300tecV1.p… -- roger ivie rivie at ridgenet.net

PERFECT!!! Thank you! Curt Jochen Kunz wrote:

On Mon, 30 Nov 2009, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: Hm, BTW, does anyone happen to have floppy images of the system software for the 3002GPX and 32GPX plugin? I have such a beast complete with manuals and pods, and the system software loaded onto the harddisk (the system works OK so far), but I am missing the distribution disks, just for the sake of completeness. Christian

Anyone know of programs (Windows, Linux or Mac based) to take existing PCB films, scan them in and turn them into Gerbers so that long since discontinued PCB's can be reproduced? Curt

With **milimetric precision**??? If yes, that is my dream! :oD Circad came closer, but it distorts the image

Does it matter? If the PCB layout app displays a grid, just scale the scan until so pins match. Place components, trace the, uh, traces, and back-annotation should net you a schematic, to boot. That would come in handy for redesigning around replacements for discontinued parts. .tsooJ

2009/12/2 Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org>: I don't know, I don't actually use back-annotation, apart from maybe the occasional pin or gate swap. But isn't what I described pretty much what back annotation proclaims to do? If not, al the more reason to off a few marketing pinheads here and there. .tsooJ

There were a couple of programs around a few years ago, I'll dig around on sourceforge, but they allowed you to take original PCB films, scan them in and convert them into gerbers. I'd use a commercial service, but I have so many films, that it will be too cost prohibitive. Curt Dave McGuire wrote:

I don't think it is a hard problem to solve, but need someone with balls of steel to taking the problem with own hands :)

On Dec 18, 2009, at 10:20 PM, Grant Stockly wrote: Hi Grant, glad to see you back! -Mardy

On Nov 27, 2009, at 9:49 AM, Gene Buckle wrote: I distinctly remember the Net in North Orange County (CA, memory serves it was Net 103) expecting some kind of monthly contribution circa 1992-ish. IIRC, that was one of the reasons I said "screw these clowns" because for a similar monthly cost I could get a UUCP feed from this Chinese guy in Garden Grove (that's a story in and of itself).

On Nov 25, 2009, at 3:38 AM, Rod Smallwood wrote: Oh no, how much of it was lost? Is enough left to reconstruct it? Fido was a "really big deal" back in those days, and a highly innovative system. It'd really suck if it were lost. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 2:58 PM, Evan Koblentz <evan at snarc.net> wrote: I want to discuss 386s. :-) But I agree on the windows sentiment, unless it's doing something simultaneously cool and useless, like getting windows 95 to somehow run on a 68k machine. brian

Evan Koblentz wrote: windows (duck) :-)