12 Jul
2011
12 Jul
'11
11:15 a.m.
Just a reminder - this Saturday, just a few days away, RCS will be
doing triage on our big pile of VT100s and VT100oids. We need the
space! Incoming Cray!
Failed VTs will be available for pickup at our open house in
Providence, RI (see rcsri.org for directions). I may be able to move a
few to the MIT Flea on Sunday.
And of course, cash donations are very much appreciated, but not
required. But appreciated. Really appreciated...
--
Will
1:29 p.m.
On 07/12/2011 04:20 PM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote:
They are much maligned, but I love them as well. I got my first one
(VT125, VT100 with the graphics option board installed) back in the
mid-1980s. I had a lot of fun hacking with ReGIS graphics!
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Just a
reminder - this Saturday, just a few days away, RCS will be
doing triage on our big pile of VT100s and VT100oids. We need the
space! Incoming Cray!
This is something I always wanted to have, It is just me, or the VT100
is the most beautiful of all terminals? 
2:50 p.m.
On 2011 Jul 12, at 1:33 PM, Dave McGuire wrote:
On 07/12/2011 04:29 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
Ok. What terminal(s) do YOU like
I wasn't overly fond of VT-100s either, but then, one could do worse.
Ann Arbor terminals were nice. Sat in front of an Ann Arbor Ambassador
for many years, the major benefit 48 or 60 lines on screen. Using a
typical 24-line terminal for programming felt like being crippled in
comparison.
This
is something I always wanted to have, It is just me, or the
VT100 is
the most beautiful of all terminals?
I hope it is just you. 
2:58 p.m.
New subject: Terminal Styling (was VT fixums)
Ann Arbor terminals were nice. Sat in front of an Ann Arbor Ambassador
for many years, the major benefit 48 or 60 lines on screen. Using a
typical 24-line terminal for programming felt like being crippled in
comparison.
Yeah, they were good (albeit somewhat unreliable) terminals, but from a
styling standpoint, the Ann Arbor Ambassadors were...well, fugly, IMHO.
I too spent many hours behind these terminals (Tektronix bought tons of
them..which was strange, since Tek made its own terminals), and I did
like the crisp display, and the wide mode. Made it great for viewing
FORTRAN complier listing outputs from the CDC Cyber 73.
-Rick
3:36 p.m.
New subject: Terminal Styling (was VT fixums)
On 12 Jul 2011 at 14:58, Rick Bensene wrote:
Yeah, they were good (albeit somewhat unreliable)
terminals, but from
a styling standpoint, the Ann Arbor Ambassadors were...well, fugly,
IMHO. I too spent many hours behind these terminals (Tektronix bought
tons of them..which was strange, since Tek made its own terminals),
and I did like the crisp display, and the wide mode. Made it great
for viewing FORTRAN complier listing outputs from the CDC Cyber 73.
My favorite was an early 80s Tandberg terminal. Controlled-contrast
keyboard, beautiful display, very solid. I had a TDV-2000-series
terminal on loan in my office. I was very sad when it left and was
replaced by a Beehive VT220 clone.
--Chuck
13 Jul
13 Jul
4:03 a.m.
New subject: Terminal Styling (was VT fixums)
On Wed, Jul 13, 2011 at 12:36 AM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 12 Jul 2011 at 14:58, Rick Bensene wrote:
I still have a ND 320 terminal (aka Tandberg TDV 2200/9 S) it is
connected as console to the ND Satellite/9 minicomputer I have.
The keyboard on the Tandberg terminals is one of the best keyboards I have used.
I would like to have a Tandberg TDV 1200 terminal, the follow-up to
the 2000-series. It had better VT-220 compatability and all models had
the black-on-white screen. Nice.
--
Regards,
Torfinn Ingolfsen,
Norway
Yeah, they were good (albeit somewhat unreliable)
terminals, ?but from
a styling standpoint, the Ann Arbor Ambassadors were...well, fugly,
IMHO. I too spent many hours behind these terminals (Tektronix bought
tons of them..which was strange, since Tek made its own terminals),
and I did like the crisp display, and the wide mode. ?Made it great
for viewing FORTRAN complier listing outputs from the CDC Cyber 73.
My favorite was an early 80s Tandberg terminal. ?Controlled-contrast
keyboard, beautiful display, very solid. ? I had a TDV-2000-series
terminal on loan in my office. ?I was very sad when it left and was
replaced by a Beehive VT220 clone. 
12 Jul
12 Jul
3:04 p.m.
On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 5:50 PM, Brent Hilpert <hilpert at cs.ubc.ca> wrote:
I wasn't overly fond of VT-100s either, but then,
one could do worse.
I never liked the screen appearance or the keyboard feel of Wyse
terminals, for example.
Ann Arbor terminals were nice. Sat in front of an Ann
Arbor Ambassador for
many years, the major benefit 48 or 60 lines on screen. Using a typical
24-line terminal for programming felt like being crippled in comparison.
That might have been neat to experience. I did feel the pain of 24
lines and C-code, but since all of our terminals were
middle-of-the-road DEC and DEC-clones, we never had anything as exotic
as 48 or 60 lines. We had to resort to line printer output when the
code just couldn't be seen on one screen. OTOH, it enforced 1TBS
because nobody wanted to waste an entire line on one opening curly
brace.
-ethan
3:29 p.m.
Wow, what a bunch of typical computer geeks...
Alexandre comments on the aesthetics of a piece of equipment, and
everything quickly changes into a discussion about functionality.
--
Will
3:36 p.m.
On 07/12/2011 06:29 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
Wow, what a bunch of typical computer geeks...
Alexandre comments on the aesthetics of a piece of equipment, and
everything quickly changes into a discussion about functionality.
I'm not sure why this would be a surprise, given this forum.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
13 Jul
13 Jul
11:51 a.m.
Wow, what a bunch of typical computer geeks...
You called?
Alexandre comments on the aesthetics of a piece of equipment, and
everything quickly changes into a discussion about functionality.
To me, the 'beauty' of a piece of machinery, electronics, etc is not what
it looks like, but how it's designed. So yes, I do find the line-drawing
state machine in the HP2623 terminal to be 'beautiful' for all it looks
like a handle of DIL pacakges o na PCB.
-tony
12 Jul
12 Jul
7:05 p.m.
Brent Hilpert wrote:
I wasn't overly fond of VT-100s either, but then,
one could do worse.
Ann Arbor terminals were nice. Sat in front of an Ann Arbor Ambassador
for many years, the major benefit 48 or 60 lines on screen. Using a
typical 24-line terminal for programming felt like being crippled in
comparison.
I am considering expanding KED / KEX under RT-11 to handle
up to 60 lines. Would anyone be interested?
Under the DOS versions of Ersatz-11 in FULL SCREEN mode,
some video controllers support up to 50 lines by 80 columns and
a few support 44 lines by 132 columns.
Under the Win32 versions of Ersatz-11, a switch can be used:
"/CONSIZE:WxH"
to select any arbitrary screen size.
I don't think that anyone else uses RT-11 any more except to
run the hardware. I certainly don't hear of any software
being written.
Jerome Fine
9:18 p.m.
On 12 Jul 2011 at 22:05, Jerome H. Fine wrote:
I don't think that anyone else uses RT-11 any more
except to
run the hardware. I certainly don't hear of any software
being written.
The operating system, no, but the file system is still used in some
older versions of VxWorks--and bastardized versions of it as well,
with longer file names, etc. down to modified Rad50 encodings.
Bad ideas never die, it seems.
--Chuck
1:45 p.m.
Just a reminder - this Saturday, just a few days
away, RCS will be
doing triage on our big pile of VT100s and VT100oids. We need the
space! Incoming Cray!
This is something I always wanted to have, It is just me, or the VT100
is the most beautiful of all terminals? 
10:52 p.m.
From the day I saw the first complete VT100 prototype
sitting on the bench
at the Digital Terminals Product Line offices in Marlboro Mass.
I have
always considered the VT100 to be the classic terminal. It led the way for
many years and VT100 compatibility was universal.
No other terminal had the impact VT100 did. I can't remember how many
thousand I sold in the UK whilst at DEC but it was lots.
You cannot get a more classic icon in computing than the DEC VT100.
Regards
?
Rod Smallwood
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Tony Duell
Sent: 12 July 2011 21:46
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: VT fixums
Just a reminder - this Saturday, just a few days
away, RCS will be
doing triage on our big pile of VT100s and VT100oids. We need the
space! Incoming Cray!
This is something I always wanted to have, It is just me, or the VT100 is the most beautiful of all terminals?
It's probably just you :-). While I like the VT100 series (the real
ones), I cna think of other terminals that interest me more. The HP2623
for example.
-tony
13 Jul
13 Jul
4:05 a.m.
Am 13.07.2011 07:52, schrieb Rod Smallwood:
You cannot get a more classic icon in computing than
the DEC VT100.
What about the VT05? Its quite cool. And has the most space age
influenced design I've seen...
And it made me very happy because it's so much more quiet and faster
than an ASR33... :-)
Philipp
6:30 a.m.
What about the VT05? Its quite cool. And has the most
space age influenced
design I've seen...
Yes, and the original Data General Dasher D2 as well.
The VT100 was clearly entirely designed by engineers (as was the
VT-50/52), but it looks like they actually hired an industrial design
consultant for the VT05. Past the VT100, all terminals get really
boring looking. Perhaps there are a few exceptions, like the chiseled
look of Wyse tubes.
--
Will
11:26 a.m.
William Donzelli wrote:
Past the VT100, all terminals get really boring
looking. Perhaps there
are a few exceptions, like the chiseled look of Wyse tubes.
I always liked the VT220; while the keyboard was quite enormous, the
terminal itself lent itself nicely to being tucked into a corner, rather
than taking up lots of desk space. I did rather like the styling, too,
which was far less boxy than a lot of terminals out there. I still regret
giving mine away, and will hopefully find another one sometime! :-)
cheers
Jules
11:37 a.m.
On Wed, Jul 13, 2011 at 2:26 PM, Jules Richardson
<jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote:
I always liked the VT220; while the keyboard was quite
enormous, the
terminal itself lent itself nicely to being tucked into a corner, rather
than taking up lots of desk space. I did rather like the styling, too, which
was far less boxy than a lot of terminals out there.
I liked the VT100 styling much more than the VT220 - easier to stack.
Really. (at one place, we had an office with six VT100s - two levels
of three terminals - very handy for watching multiple stderr streams
at once - quite extravagant, though, as even the clones were costing
us $1600 each at the time).
I still regret giving
mine away, and will hopefully find another one sometime! :-)
A year or two back, I had several VT220s available in
dirty-but-confirmed-working shape from an auto dealer's parts counter,
and I couldn't generate any interest. These were at FreeGeek
Columbus, so when they didn't sell intact, they were scrapped out.
They aren't easy to ship, and they certainly aren't light, but it
seems unless they are purchased in person, there's not so much demand.
-ethan
7:07 p.m.
A year or two back, I had several VT220s available in
dirty-but-confirmed-working shape from an auto dealer's parts counter,
and I couldn't generate any interest. ?These were at FreeGeek
Columbus, so when they didn't sell intact, they were scrapped out.
They aren't easy to ship, and they certainly aren't light, but it
seems unless they are purchased in person, there's not so much demand.
I have a few VT220s I could part with, with the original shipping
boxes. The annoying thing is that the keyboards apparently were
shipped separately.
--
Will
7:34 p.m.
On 13 Jul 2011 at 22:07, William Donzelli wrote:
Anyone know who made the VT220 clone for TAB (sold under their own
name)? I had to do some firmware mods for it and never did figure
out who made the thing. It was very well constructed.
--Chuck
14 Jul
14 Jul
12:08 a.m.
You can use almost any LK series keyboard.
Regards
?
Rod Smallwood
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of William Donzelli
Sent: 14 July 2011 03:08
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: VT fixums
A year or two back, I had several VT220s available in
dirty-but-confirmed-working shape from an auto dealer's parts counter,
and I couldn't generate any interest. ?These were at FreeGeek
Columbus, so when they didn't sell intact, they were scrapped out.
They aren't easy to ship, and they certainly aren't light, but it
seems unless they are purchased in person, there's not so much demand.
I have a few VT220s I could part with, with the original shipping
boxes. The annoying thing is that the keyboards apparently were
shipped separately.
--
Will
4:33 a.m.
Ethan Dicks wrote:
I liked the VT100 styling much more than the VT220 -
easier to stack.
Really. (at one place, we had an office with six VT100s - two levels
of three terminals - very handy for watching multiple stderr streams
at once - quite extravagant, though, as even the clones were costing
us $1600 each at the time).
I still use that same solution for my PDP-11/83 system
except that I mix the VT100 and VT220 terminals
with the added requirement that all of the bottom
layer must be VT100 terminals. The only real
problem was where to place the second keyboard.
When a VT100 was the top layer, it could go on
top. When a VT220 was the second layer, there
was enough room on top of the bottom VT100.
In my case, I use the additional VT100 / VT220
terminals under a multi-terminal version of RT-11
as the terminal for a KEX job to display the LST
file from MACRO-11. Four system jobs allows
a reasonable portion of the file to be displayed
which has the code that was just written and is
being debugged under SDX.SYS using a Mapped
RT-11 monitor. Alternatively, while new code
was being written, the other four KEX jobs were
able to search the current version of the LST file
for whatever was needed to be checked while the
new code was being written - as opposed to having
a hard copy listing. Having four additional KEX
jobs to show the current version of the listing finally
allowed a shift to a paperless mode of adding code
to current programs. I remember printing out LST
files of a THOUSAND pages or more for an RT-11
monitor. That part I no longer miss. Of course, it does
not hurt that the current disk drives on the PDP-11/83
are 600 MB as opposed to the 10 MB RL02 drives I
used even in 1989 on one project.
The solution was not even near to being extravagant
in my case since all of the terminals were acquired
at a very reasonable cost when they were disposed
of by the original owners.
As for running on the Ersatz-11 emulator, the six
VT100s are no longer needed. Ersatz-11 is able
to switch from one "terminal" to another by using
the <ALT/Fn> keys. The shift is just as fast as
when I used to turn my head to look from one
physical VT100 to the other when all six VT100s
were on the same desk. PLUS, there is some
hope that KEX can be enhanced to support
50 lines instead of just 24. That should make
a big difference. Is anyone interested in running
a 50 line KEX under Ersatz-11 to help with a
test drive?
Jerome Fine
7:56 a.m.
Ethan Dicks wrote:
I think that's the problem; a person would have to be *really* enthusiastic
about them to justify the shipping costs, when they could spend that same
amount in shipping something far more interesting.
Local pick-ups are a lot easier to justify, but I've not heard of there
ever being any DEC equipment in use in this area (local government around
here seems to have been on AS/400 in the past, and we're so
sparsely-populated up here that prior to that it wouldn't surprise me if
they weren't on dial-up to remote sites for their number-crunching needs)
cheers
Jules
I still regret
giving
mine away, and will hopefully find another one sometime! :-)
A year or two back, I had several VT220s available in
dirty-but-confirmed-working shape from an auto dealer's parts counter,
and I couldn't generate any interest. These were at FreeGeek
Columbus, so when they didn't sell intact, they were scrapped out.
They aren't easy to ship, and they certainly aren't light, but it
seems unless they are purchased in person, there's not so much demand.
8:38 p.m.
If there are any unwanted DEC Terminals in the UK working or not I'd be
happy to haul them away
Regards
?
Rod Smallwood
?
?
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Jules Richardson
Sent: 14 July 2011 15:56
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: VT fixums
Ethan Dicks wrote:
I think that's the problem; a person would have to be *really* enthusiastic
about them to justify the shipping costs, when they could spend that same
amount in shipping something far more interesting.
Local pick-ups are a lot easier to justify, but I've not heard of there
ever being any DEC equipment in use in this area (local government around
here seems to have been on AS/400 in the past, and we're so
sparsely-populated up here that prior to that it wouldn't surprise me if
they weren't on dial-up to remote sites for their number-crunching needs)
cheers
Jules
I still regret
giving
mine away, and will hopefully find another one sometime! :-)
A year or two back, I had several VT220s available in
dirty-but-confirmed-working shape from an auto dealer's parts counter,
and I couldn't generate any interest. These were at FreeGeek
Columbus, so when they didn't sell intact, they were scrapped out.
They aren't easy to ship, and they certainly aren't light, but it
seems unless they are purchased in person, there's not so much demand. 
15 Jul
15 Jul
10:11 a.m.
Similarly, if anyone in the UK has a VT100 or VT125 (or an ASR-33) which is
surplus to requirements I would love to get hold of it as I don't have any
of these.
Regards
Rob
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-
bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Rod Smallwood
Sent: 15 July 2011 04:38
To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only'
Subject: RE: VT fixums
If there are any unwanted DEC Terminals in the UK working or not I'd be
happy to haul them away
Regards
Rod Smallwood
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-
bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Jules Richardson
Sent: 14 July 2011 15:56
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: VT fixums
Ethan Dicks wrote:
I think that's the problem; a person would have to be *really*
enthusiastic
I still
regret giving
mine away, and will hopefully find another one sometime! :-)
A year or two back, I had several VT220s available in
dirty-but-confirmed-working shape from an auto dealer's parts counter,
and I couldn't generate any interest. These were at FreeGeek
Columbus, so when they didn't sell intact, they were scrapped out.
They aren't easy to ship, and they certainly aren't light, but it
seems unless they are purchased in person, there's not so much demand. about them to justify the shipping costs, when they
could spend that same
amount in shipping something far more interesting.
Local pick-ups are a lot easier to justify, but I've not heard of there
ever
being
any DEC equipment in use in this area (local
government around here seems
to have been on AS/400 in the past, and we're so sparsely-populated up
here
that prior to that it wouldn't surprise me if they
weren't on dial-up to
remote
sites for their number-crunching needs)
cheers
Jules
16 Jul
16 Jul
7:49 p.m.
In article <CAALmim=d4WgWEraLww9ZBSkOsq+mhgfR1TEeDKJXGqpcsWDw+Q at mail.gmail.com>,
Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> writes:
A year or two back, I had several VT220s available in
dirty-but-confirmed-working shape from an auto dealer's parts counter,
and I couldn't generate any interest. These were at FreeGeek
Columbus, so when they didn't sell intact, they were scrapped out.
They aren't easy to ship, and they certainly aren't light, but it
seems unless they are purchased in person, there's not so much demand.
Aren't easy to ship? The VT220 is not that heavy and easily fits
inside a reasonably sized cardboard box. The cumbersome bit is the
keyboard.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
13 Jul
13 Jul
12:21 p.m.
On 2011 Jul 13, at 6:30 AM, William Donzelli wrote:
re VT05: it certainly was a style of the times (radios, stereos, etc.
got the same treatment), but I almost wonder if these were done by the
same designer:
http://hummingbirdsales.com/VT05.html
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/eec/calcs/Monroe610.html
(http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/eec/calcpics/Monroe610/viewLg.jpg)
What about the
VT05? Its quite cool. And has the most space age
influenced
design I've seen...
Yes, and the original Data General Dasher D2 as well.
The VT100 was clearly entirely designed by engineers (as was the
VT-50/52), but it looks like they actually hired an industrial design
consultant for the VT05. Past the VT100, all terminals get really
boring looking. Perhaps there are a few exceptions, like the chiseled
look of Wyse tubes.
1:45 p.m.
On 13 Jul 2011 at 12:21, Brent Hilpert wrote:
re VT05: it certainly was a style of the times
(radios, stereos, etc.
got the same treatment), but I almost wonder if these were done by the
same designer:
http://hummingbirdsales.com/VT05.html
"One of the first CRT terminals ever made."
I guess any claim, no matter how fallacious will do to sell things.
Does anyone collect old TRW or Bunker-Ramo terminals?
--Chuck
3:48 p.m.
On 13 Jul 2011 at 18:28, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote:
WOW! Beautiful! :oD
Yes, but the ergonomics suck.
--Chuck
3:21 p.m.
Am 13.07.2011 23:28, schrieb Alexandre Souza - Listas:
WOW! Beautiful! :oD
Uh, does a VT05 go for USD 3600? That's incredible!
10:10 p.m.
In article <4E265449.7090005 at bluewin.ch>,
Jos Dreesen <jdr_use at bluewin.ch> writes:
On 07/20/2011 12:21 AM, Philipp Hachtmann wrote:
Also note that the page says "Asking $3600. Reasonable offers
considered." and "SOLD", but does not say that it sold for the
asking price.
I was offered one for $950 that looked to be in comparable shape, but
I passed. I'm glad I did because lately I've been getting *much* more
bang for my buck, both graphics and terminally speaking :).
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
Uh, does a VT05 go for USD 3600? That's incredible!
Those are US prices. As always in Classiccmp, Europe prices are lower.
But yes, VT05's are very rare beasts indeed......
13 Jul
13 Jul
6:57 p.m.
"One of the first CRT terminals ever made."
I guess any claim, no matter how fallacious will do to sell things.
In the grand scheme of things, is that claim really all that false?
Out of the tens of thousands of different species of terminals in the
past 50-odd years, VT05 is pretty damn early in the game.
--
Will
7:32 p.m.
On 13 Jul 2011 at 21:57, William Donzelli wrote:
CRT terminals extend well back into the mid 60s. Bunker-Ramo, in
particular had some very advanced units; e.g., the 213. While
looking for some photos of the 213 and the 203, I ran across this
document from 1967 that describes an online data retrieval system
using what looks like a 213:
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19670030754_19670
30754.pdf
Si Ramo is still with us, the last I heard (he'd be 98).
The VT05 was a newcomer. I believe that the Datapoint 3300 even beat
it by a year or so, even if DEC called it the VT06.
--Chuck
"One of
the first CRT terminals ever made."
I guess any claim, no matter how fallacious will do to sell things.
In the grand scheme of things, is that claim really all that false?
Out of the tens of thousands of different species of terminals in the
past 50-odd years, VT05 is pretty damn early in the game.
14 Jul
14 Jul
7:05 a.m.
CRT terminals extend well back into the mid 60s. Bunker-Ramo, in
particular had some very advanced units; e.g., the 213. While
looking for some photos of the 213 and the 203, I ran across this
document from 1967 that describes an online data retrieval system
using what looks like a 213:
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19670030754_1967030
754.pdf
8:23 a.m.
--- On Thu, 7/14/11, Rick Bensene <rickb at bensene.com> wrote:
I knew Bunker Ramo made terminals, but had no idea how
early some of
them were made.
I have a Bunker Ramo terminal. The picture it produces is very fuzzy though:
http://imgur.com/LkYNz.jpg
-Ian
10:06 a.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-
bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Mr Ian Primus
Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2011 8:24 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only
Subject: RE: VT fixums
--- On Thu, 7/14/11, Rick Bensene <rickb at bensene.com> wrote:
Hm, who last serviced this terminal? They seem to have replaced your CRT with a CAT. Oh
well, given the poor quality of some of the old documentation, I can see someone reading
'A' instead of 'R' - an honest mistake, I suppose. -- Ian (we're
everywhere!)
I knew Bunker Ramo made terminals, but had no idea how
early some of
them were made.
I have a Bunker Ramo terminal. The picture it produces is very fuzzy though:
http://imgur.com/LkYNz.jpg
-Ian
10:10 a.m.
On Thu, Jul 14, 2011 at 11:23 AM, Mr Ian Primus <ian_primus at yahoo.com> wrote:
I have a Bunker Ramo terminal. The picture it produces
is very fuzzy though:
http://imgur.com/LkYNz.jpg
Your CAT scan is done.
-ethan
10:17 a.m.
> I have a Bunker Ramo terminal. The picture it
produces is very fuzzy
> though:
> http://imgur.com/LkYNz.jpg
This is the first time I see a 3D image produced by a terminal... Is it
a VThreeD100?
15 Jul
15 Jul
1:55 p.m.
I have a Bunker Ramo terminal. The picture it produces
is very fuzzy though:
http://imgur.com/LkYNz.jpg
I've tried 'cat myfile > /dev/tty1' but I didn't get that result :-)
You know, I';ve got plenty of terminals that don't have mice. This must
be the only one that actualyl elimnates mice.
-tony
20 Jul
20 Jul
2:43 p.m.
Am 15.07.2011 22:55, schrieb Tony Duell:
That didn't work either. And nor did 'cat muon > /dev/tty1'.
[ Muon is the name of the cat who currently lives with me. You cna choose
one of the following explanations for the name :
He's a ginger cat, so hr's amber in colour
The ancient Greek word for 'amber' is 'Elektron'
This suggests the particle
But hte cat is rather heavy, and a heavy electron is a muon
or
He mews. On and on an on.]
-tony
I've tried 'cat myfile>
/dev/tty1' but I didn't get that result :-)
Of course, you did it wrong:
'cat cat > /dev/tty1' will do the job!
14 Jul
14 Jul
10:29 a.m.
On 14 Jul 2011 at 7:05, Rick Bensene wrote:
According to the text, the system used Bunker-Ramo
Teleregister Model
203 display stations with a "full alphanumeric keyboard, a bank of
function keys, and a CRT screen on which twelve lines of 32 characters
each may be presented". Was the photo of a 203?
There's not a lot about early BR stuff out there, but I thought the
terminal was a 213; I think the display on the 203 was larger.
Were the characters on these terminals stroke
generated, or raster? It
seems that a lot of early character displays were either stroke
generated, or used charactron(sp?) tubes (electron beam first directed
through a mask with character stencils, then deflected to the correct
position on the screen), with raster coming later.
A mix of both technologies, I think. The CDC 200 UT from 1968 or so
used a 5x7 dot matrix, but the console display was pure vector. I
don't know about the BR 200 series, however.
It's a shame that BR doesn't get much mention (Bitsavers has the BR
documents in the TRW folder for some reason). They had some
remarkable gear, including an industrial process control computer in
1959, not to mention the jewel in the crown--the NASDAQ trading
system.
--Chuck
12:05 p.m.
On 14 Jul 2011 at 11:16, Al Kossow wrote:
On 7/14/11 10:29 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
I understand your viewpointt, but BR was an independent entity for
many years after that. I owned stock in BR (ticker symbol BUNR)
before their acqusition of Amphenol in 67, so there must have been an
IPO sometime around 1965 (I still own that stock, but with the Allied
name on it. Call me sentimental).
I can see how mergers, spinoffs and aquisitions can create a filing
nightmare, but some sort of linkup would be useful, even if it's only
a text note that says "see: ...". One need only consider the case
of Amphenol, one time independent, then part of Borg, then part of
Bunker Ramo, then part of Allied Chemical, then the target of
various arbitrage operations.
--Chuck
(Bitsavers has the BR
documents in the TRW folder for some reason).
Bunker-Ramo was a spinoff of TRW (see the '64 newsletter)
2:34 p.m.
On 14 Jul 2011 at 16:39, William Donzelli wrote:
Didn't matter--by that time, my BR stock bore the Allied name.
They still pay dividends.
--Chuck
They had some
remarkable gear, including an industrial process control computer in
1959, not to mention the jewel in the crown--the NASDAQ trading
system.
The jewel fell out of the crown. By mid-1980, NASDAQ was a DEC
shop(s).
1:53 p.m.
It
seems that a lot of early character displays were either stroke
generated, or used charactron(sp?) tubes (electron beam first directed
through a mask with character stencils, then deflected to the correct
position on the screen), with raster coming later.
There were competing raster based terminal systems in the 1960s.
The IBM approach was to have one big box do all the thinking for all
the terminals, with the terminals being not much more than TVs with
keyboards (2848/2260) - I suppose with one brain doing all the work,
you could save a bunch of expensive circuitry.
The other approach was to use a tiny monoscope, with the target having
an array of characters that could be raster scanned by a jumping beam.
This is not as kludgey as it sounds.
--
Will
2:14 p.m.
The other approach was to use a tiny monoscope, with
the target having
an array of characters that could be raster scanned by a jumping beam.
This is not as kludgey as it sounds.
CK1414 is a typical tube:
http://www.radiomuseum.org/tubes/tube_ck1414.html
--
Will
4:15 p.m.
On 07/14/2011 05:14 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
Ooooh, sure would like to play with one of those.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
The other
approach was to use a tiny monoscope, with the target having
an array of characters that could be raster scanned by a jumping beam.
This is not as kludgey as it sounds.
CK1414 is a typical tube:
http://www.radiomuseum.org/tubes/tube_ck1414.html
5:20 p.m.
New subject: Decmate I / VT278 questions
Speaking of VT-100s:
Received a Decmate I / VT278 recently (PDP8 micro in VT100 cabinet),
sans keyboard and disk drives. I don't really expect to hang on to it,
but I'm a little curious to assess it some.
Major chips on the processor board:
6120 40-pin socketed PDP8 micro
2* 6121 40-pin socketed PIO
2* 6402 40-pin soldered UART
SND 5027 D 40-pin socketed ? (disk controller?)
6* 4-chip RAM modules
23-014G2-00 / M3-6322-9 18-pin socketed ROM presumed
23-015G2-00 / M3-6322-9 18-pin socketed ROM presumed
23-016G2-00 / M3-6322-9 18-pin socketed ROM presumed
23-228E2 / P8316E-37122 24-pin socketed ROM presumed
23088E2 / C68026 DEC 24-pin soldered ROM presumed (character
gen?)
Board production date: May 19 1983
I suppose a keyboard may not be too difficult for someone to obtain,
the disk drives I expect will be less likely; or can anyone comment on
what it will take to make this a half-way-useable PDP8 system?
I suppose one of the 6402s drives the printer port, what does the other
do? The COMM-ports board that sits beside the processor board is
missing. Any problem with blowing ROMs to turn the printer port into a
boot/download port?
When powered on the PWR-OK & CPU-OK LEDs light up and the CRT filament
lights up, but there is no sign of any raster. Kind of looks more like
the monitor is dead (no trace of beam when powered down for example). I
take it (due to absence of physical controls) brightness and contrast
are software controlled (I didn't remember VT100 class stuff being like
that). Anybody happen to know whether a bare Decmate like this (no
keyboard, no disk drives) should display anything on-screen upon
power-up?
6:19 p.m.
New subject: Decmate I / VT278 questions
From: "Brent Hilpert": Thursday, July 14, 2011 5:20 PM
Speaking of VT-100s:
Received a Decmate I / VT278 recently (PDP8 micro in VT100 cabinet),
sans keyboard and disk drives. I don't really expect to hang on to it,
but I'm a little curious to assess it some.
I suppose a keyboard may not be too difficult for
someone to obtain,
the disk drives I expect will be less likely; or can anyone comment on
what it will take to make this a half-way-useable PDP8 system?
I think you are looking basically for a VT-100 style keyboard, though
the authentic one would have the "Gold" key in the upper left of the
keypad.
As for "disk drives", the standard thing is a pair of RX01 floppy
drives, interfaced with a slightly different cable. To be completely
authentic they should be in a tower that is holding the VT278 up
at desk height :-).
I expect that RX02 with the internal switch set for RX01-only mode
should also work fine. RX02 were used on a lot of PDP-11 systems,
and so aren't too difficult to find.
I suppose one of the 6402s drives the printer port,
what does the other
do? The COMM-ports board that sits beside the processor board is
missing. Any problem with blowing ROMs to turn the printer port into a
boot/download port?
Have a look at the drawings at
pdf/dec/pdp8/cmos8/
on your favorite bitsavers.org mirror.
From what I can see on MP00900_VT278_may81.pdf 40/74,
it looks like
E46 is the COMM-port and E45 is dedicated to a serial intefrace to
the
keyboard.
When powered on the PWR-OK & CPU-OK LEDs light up
and the CRT filament
lights up, but there is no sign of any raster. Kind of looks more like
the monitor is dead (no trace of beam when powered down for example). I
take it (due to absence of physical controls) brightness and contrast
are software controlled (I didn't remember VT100 class stuff being like
that). Anybody happen to know whether a bare Decmate like this (no
keyboard, no disk drives) should display anything on-screen upon
power-up?
I'd have to look into that. The DM II and DM III display an error code
on the screen, but I don't know offhand about the older VT-278.
Vince
9:18 p.m.
New subject: Decmate I / VT278 questions
On Thu, Jul 14, 2011 at 8:19 PM, Vincent Slyngstad <vrs at msn.com> wrote:
Without checking the printset, I was going to say one 6402 UART drives
the printer, the other drives the console terminal.
I don't recall either, and my DM-I is in another place, so I can't check.
-ethan
From: "Brent Hilpert": Thursday, July 14,
2011 5:20 PM
Yep. No electrical or logical difference, but using WPS with a WPS
keyboard is easier than using a keymap on paper.
Received a Decmate I / VT278 recently (PDP8 micro
in VT100 cabinet), sans
keyboard and disk drives...
I suppose a keyboard may not be too difficult for
someone to obtain, the
disk drives I expect will be less likely; or can anyone comment on what it
will take to make this a half-way-useable PDP8 system?
I think you are looking basically for a VT-100 style keyboard, though the
authentic one would have the "Gold" key in the upper left of the keypad.
As for "disk drives", the standard thing is
a pair of RX01 floppy
drives, interfaced with a slightly different cable.
The VT78 came with RX01s. The VT278 came with RX02s. Same cable for
all "desktop" 8" drives... DC37-to-DB25 for one drive pair,
DC37-Y-to-two-DB25 for two pairs. Inside the pedestal is a small
board that has a DB25 facing the outside world, and a "normal" Berg
40-pin cable to go to the drive controller. It's the same board
that's in the skinned MINC floppy case, too (same DB25 external
pinout).
?To be completely
authentic they should be in a tower that is holding the VT278 up at desk
height :-).
I have a pedestal - it has one RX02 set (same guts as a rack-mount
RX02, but mounted differently) and room for another.
I expect that RX02 with the internal switch set for
RX01-only mode should
also work fine.
Yes.
?RX02 were used on a lot of PDP-11 systems, and so
aren't
too difficult to find.
They did make a lot of them.
I suppose one
of the 6402s drives the printer port, what does the other
do? The COMM-ports board that sits beside the processor board is missing.
Any problem with blowing ROMs to turn the printer port into a boot/download
port?
Have a look at the drawings at ? ?pdf/dec/pdp8/cmos8/
on your favorite bitsavers.org mirror.
From what I can see on MP00900_VT278_may81.pdf
40/74, it looks like
E46 is the COMM-port and E45 is dedicated to a serial intefrace to the
keyboard. When powered
on the PWR-OK & CPU-OK LEDs light up and the CRT filament
lights up, but there is no sign of any raster. Kind of looks more like the
monitor is dead...
I'd have to look into that. ?The DM II and DM III display an error code on
the screen, but I don't know offhand about the older VT-278.
11 p.m.
New subject: Decmate I / VT278 questions
Thanks for the responses, the schematic from bitsavers is great.
Looks like some of the ROMs are special or proprietary devices, might
be a hassle to substitute.
I think I remember seeing the disk drive cabinet go out some years ago.
Still, looks like someone enthused about it could hack it into a
functioning PDP-8.
Is there enough of a ROM monitor to modify memory? If so, one might
fake the keyboard with a hacked serial connection from another computer
and download through the faked keyboard.
I think I'll put it on the bench to check out the monitor.
On 2011 Jul 14, at 6:19 PM, Vincent Slyngstad wrote:
From: "Brent Hilpert": Thursday, July 14,
2011 5:20 PM
Speaking of VT-100s:
Received a Decmate I / VT278 recently (PDP8 micro in VT100 cabinet),
sans keyboard and disk drives. I don't really expect to hang on to
it, but I'm a little curious to assess it some.
I suppose a keyboard may not be too difficult for
someone to obtain,
the disk drives I expect will be less likely; or can anyone comment
on what it will take to make this a half-way-useable PDP8 system?
I think you are looking basically for a VT-100 style keyboard, though
the authentic one would have the "Gold" key in the upper left of the
keypad.
As for "disk drives", the standard thing is a pair of RX01 floppy
drives, interfaced with a slightly different cable. To be completely
authentic they should be in a tower that is holding the VT278 up at
desk height :-).
I expect that RX02 with the internal switch set for RX01-only mode
should also work fine. RX02 were used on a lot of PDP-11 systems, and
so aren't too difficult to find.
I suppose one of the 6402s drives the printer
port, what does the
other do? The COMM-ports board that sits beside the processor board
is missing. Any problem with blowing ROMs to turn the printer port
into a boot/download port?
Have a look at the drawings at pdf/dec/pdp8/cmos8/
on your favorite bitsavers.org mirror.
From what I can see on MP00900_VT278_may81.pdf
40/74, it looks like
E46 is the COMM-port and E45 is dedicated to a serial
intefrace to the
keyboard.
When powered on the PWR-OK & CPU-OK LEDs
light up and the CRT
filament lights up, but there is no sign of any raster. Kind of looks
more like the monitor is dead (no trace of beam when powered down for
example). I take it (due to absence of physical controls) brightness
and contrast are software controlled (I didn't remember VT100 class
stuff being like that). Anybody happen to know whether a bare Decmate
like this (no keyboard, no disk drives) should display anything
on-screen upon power-up?
I'd have to look into that. The DM II and DM III display an error
code on the screen, but I don't know offhand about the older VT-278.
Vince
16 Jul
16 Jul
12:59 p.m.
New subject: Decmate I / VT278 questions
On 2011 Jul 14, at 6:19 PM, Vincent Slyngstad wrote:
> From: "Brent Hilpert": Thursday, July 14, 2011 5:20 PM
>> When powered on the PWR-OK & CPU-OK LEDs light up and the CRT
>> filament lights up, but there is no sign of any raster. Kind of
>> looks more like the monitor is dead (no trace of beam when powered
>> down for example). I take it (due to absence of physical controls)
>> brightness and contrast are software controlled (I didn't remember
>> VT100 class stuff being like that). Anybody happen to know whether a
>> bare Decmate like this (no keyboard, no disk drives) should display
>> anything on-screen upon power-up?
>
> I'd have to look into that. The DM II and DM III display an error
> code on the screen, but I don't know offhand about the older VT-278.
For the record, checked it out with the scope, no activity on the sync
or video lines going to the monitor board, and no sync signals coming
out of the 5027 CRT controller. While it could be a hardware problem on
the processor board, it looks likely the boot process is hanging up
before it gets to initialising the CRT controller.
15 Jul
15 Jul
1:59 p.m.
The IBM approach was to have one big box do all the
thinking for all
the terminals, with the terminals being not much more than TVs with
keyboards (2848/2260) - I suppose with one brain doing all the work,
you could save a bunch of expensive circuitry.
I think ICL did something like this (possibly a little later, 1970s?).
I've seen ICL 'terminals' where the interface was the keyboard signals
(parallel TTL levels I think) and composite video. The 'terminal' case
jsut cotnained a composite video monitor.
-tony
16 Jul
16 Jul
7:46 p.m.
In article <CANij+dcHik1ZTN5FVu5BzBb81+R6eoH2Z21AhUjARVHRyOdG1w at mail.gmail.com>,
William Donzelli <wdonzelli at gmail.com> writes:
There were competing raster based terminal systems in
the 1960s.
[...]
The other approach was to use a tiny monoscope, with the target having
an array of characters that could be raster scanned by a jumping beam.
This is not as kludgey as it sounds.
The charactron tube? It was used for the message displays in the SAGE
console.
You can see the beam shaping mask here:
<http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/accession/X1592.99>
And the tube here:
<http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/accession/102669865>
<http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/accession/102688883>
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
7:29 p.m.
In article <4E1DA193.16884.13198BA at cclist.sydex.com>,
"Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> writes:
Does anyone collect old TRW or Bunker-Ramo terminals?
Its hard to find anything made before the mid 1970s.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
13 Jul
13 Jul
6:53 a.m.
On Wednesday (07/13/2011 at 01:05PM +0200), Philipp Hachtmann wrote:
Am 13.07.2011 07:52, schrieb Rod Smallwood:
Yes... but noone can afford them now that they are going for $250,000.
--
Chris Elmquist
You cannot get a more classic icon in computing
than the DEC VT100.
What about the VT05? Its quite cool. And has the most space age
influenced design I've seen...
And it made me very happy because it's so much more quiet and faster
than an ASR33... :-)
8:35 a.m.
Yes it was very nice and I'd love one but it did not have the impact that
that the VT100 did. How many VT05 compatible terminals do you know of? The
VT50 and VT52 also had limited success.
Regards
?
Rod Smallwood
?
?
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Philipp Hachtmann
Sent: 13 July 2011 12:05
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: VT fixums
Am 13.07.2011 07:52, schrieb Rod Smallwood:
You cannot get a more classic icon in computing than
the DEC VT100.
What about the VT05? Its quite cool. And has the most space age
influenced design I've seen...
And it made me very happy because it's so much more quiet and faster
than an ASR33... :-)
Philipp
19 Jul
19 Jul
3:29 p.m.
Am 13.07.2011 17:35, schrieb Rod Smallwood:
Yes it was very nice and I'd love one but it did
not have the impact that
that the VT100 did. How many VT05 compatible terminals do you know of?
Only my VT05
an another unit I've worked with.
The
VT50 and VT52 also had limited success.
Because they were ugly? No, the VT100 is
ugly as well... So I have no idea.
Ph
20 Jul
20 Jul
2:46 a.m.
The VT50 and the VT52 were a lot different to the VT100. The VT50 I seem to
remember was 12 x 80 and the VT52 was 24 x 80.
They were large and heavy and really intended to be used on a stand. They
would fill a desktop with no trouble.
Inside the 50 and 52 were very much television technology. The boards were
large, single sided, full of wire links and made from a cheap paper based
PCB. (Phenolic?)
They had limited functions and were really glass teletypes.
Not so the VT100. A really well engineered micro processor based terminal
with more functionality than a programmer knew what to do with.
That said I would love to get a VT50 or VT52 as I have neither.
Regards
?
Rod Smallwood
?
?????
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Philipp Hachtmann
Sent: 19 July 2011 23:30
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: VT fixums
Am 13.07.2011 17:35, schrieb Rod Smallwood:
Yes it was very nice and I'd love one but it did
not have the impact that
that the VT100 did. How many VT05 compatible terminals do you know of?
Only my VT05
an another unit I've worked with.
The
VT50 and VT52 also had limited success.
Because they were ugly? No, the VT100 is
ugly as well... So I have no idea.
Ph
3:39 a.m.
Rod Smallwood wrote:
The VT50 and the VT52 were a lot different to the
VT100. The VT50 I seem to
remember was 12 x 80 and the VT52 was 24 x 80.
They were large and heavy and really intended to be used on a stand. They
would fill a desktop with no trouble.
Inside the 50 and 52 were very much television technology. The boards were
large, single sided, full of wire links and made from a cheap paper based
PCB. (Phenolic?)
They had limited functions and were really glass teletypes.
Not so the VT100. A really well engineered micro processor based terminal
with more functionality than a programmer knew what to do with.
That said I would love to get a VT50 or VT52 as I have neither.
If you are ever going to be in Toronto, please come and see me.
Is it possible to ship a VT52? Any idea how much it would cost?
Jerome Fine
9:40 a.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-
bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jerome H. Fine
Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2011 3:39 AM
To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: VT fixums
I shipped one a few years ago (and I'm still kicking myself). It was about $70 USD
from one coast to the other and it got there in one piece! -- Ian
Rod Smallwood wrote:
That said I would love to get a VT50 or VT52 as I have neither.
If you are ever going to be in Toronto, please come and see me.
Is it possible to ship a VT52? Any idea how much it would cost?
Jerome Fine
10:28 a.m.
In article <FF6AB92D97A23A409701CDBF66F03FCD03E0F75A9F at 505fuji>,
Ian King <IanK at vulcan.com> writes:
I shipped [a VT5x] a few years ago (and I'm still
kicking myself).
It was about $70 USD from one coast to the other and it got there
in one piece! -- Ian
For the size and weight of a VT52 and current fuel costs, $70 sounds
cheap. I ship CRT terminals fairly frequently and typical costs have
ranged from $75 (cheap) to $150, with 100-150 being more typical for
the larger heavier terminals and $50-100 being more typical for
smaller lighter terminals (like a Silent700).
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
29 Aug
29 Aug
12:09 p.m.
On Wednesday 20 July 2011 12:40:14 pm Ian King wrote:
What did you have to do as far as packing is concerned to manage that?
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
-----Original
Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-
bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jerome H. Fine
Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2011 3:39 AM
To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: VT fixums
I shipped one a few years ago (and I'm still kicking myself). It was about $70 USD
from one coast to the other and it got there in one piece! -- Ian Rod Smallwood wrote:
That said I would love to get a VT50 or VT52 as I have neither.
If you are ever going to be in Toronto, please come and see me.
Is it possible to ship a VT52? Any idea how much it would cost?
Jerome Fine 
12:49 p.m.
New subject: Train shipping ( was Re: VT fixums )
At 02:09 PM 8/29/2011, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
What did you have to do as far as packing is concerned
to manage that?
Speaking of shipping, after spending some recent vacation time on the
(national USA) Amtrak train system, I noticed in the fine print of
the schedule that they accept palletized items up to 500 pounds
and can ship between about 100 stations. Is anyone familiar with
the rates and gotchas of this method?
http://goo.gl/rg0Ki
For that matter, if you travelled with your packages, Amtrak allows
per-person two 50-pound (max 28" x 22" x 14") carry-ons, three 50-pound
(max 36"-cube) checked boxes, and three additional 50-pound boxes for $10 each.
Today's one-way fare for Emeryville (San Francisco) to Chicago is $234.
I found one web reference that said it cost about as much ($250) to
send a 500 pound pallet on a similar trip (Milwaukee to Seattle.)
On my recent trip, I saw a fellow carrying a desktop computer and
LCD monitor as carry-ons - with no box.
- John
1:23 p.m.
New subject: Train shipping ( was Re: VT fixums )
On 29 Aug 2011 at 14:49, John Foust wrote:
Speaking of shipping, after spending some recent
vacation time on the
(national USA) Amtrak train system, I noticed in the fine print of the
schedule that they accept palletized items up to 500 pounds and can
ship between about 100 stations. Is anyone familiar with the rates
and gotchas of this method?
I've shipped large items (tubas and sousaphones) via Amtrak Express
for a long time and find their rates very competitive. But freight
handling varies from depot to depot--and Amtrak HQ often doesn't have
a clue. Many depots may accept freight, but not heavy items over 70
lbs.
Call the stationmaster at the depots concerned before you ship and
double-check.
--Chuck
1:40 p.m.
New subject: Train shipping ( was Re: VT fixums )
John Foust wrote:
For that matter, if you travelled with your packages,
Amtrak allows
per-person two 50-pound (max 28" x 22" x 14") carry-ons, three 50-pound
(max 36"-cube) checked boxes, and three additional 50-pound boxes for $10 each.
Interesting. I wonder if there's a restriction on strapping extra items
about your person and counting it as body fat? :-)
On my recent trip, I saw a fellow carrying a desktop
computer and
LCD monitor as carry-ons - with no box.
I don't think I even get a rail service up here. Certainly not passenger,
but I don't think there's even a freight service any more :-(
cheers
Jules
4:50 p.m.
New subject: Train shipping ( was Re: VT fixums )
In article <201108291951.p7TJplHm073788 at billy.ezwind.net>,
John Foust <jfoust at threedee.com> writes:
At 02:09 PM 8/29/2011, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
Check the archives; I know its been mentioned on this list before.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
What did you have to do as far as packing is
concerned to manage that?
Speaking of shipping, after spending some recent vacation time on the
(national USA) Amtrak train system, I noticed in the fine print of
the schedule that they accept palletized items up to 500 pounds
and can ship between about 100 stations. Is anyone familiar with
the rates and gotchas of this method?
http://goo.gl/rg0Ki 
5:10 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
Hi everyone,
I have an Apple II mainboard I'm trying fix. I really enjoy gettting these
particular machines going, for some reason. Maybe it's that emphatic BEEP
when they finally run up... anyway...
This one has a pretty obvious fault, it sinks too much current on a
yet-to-be-determined power supply line. Starting it up, the PSU goes into a
startup/shutdown loop. The seller said he'd tested the PS in another
machine and found it worked fine. I gave it a quick test and it did seem
good, so I fitted another known-good PSU to the machine just to verify -
same symptom with the new PSU. Just as a guess, I'm suspecting caps and RAM
in that order, but it could be anything.
I 've had very little time to play with it so far, but I'm pondering my
next step. I've been considering something like this:
http://damon4.com/Default.aspx?blogentryid=112
but my bench power supply is a bit basic (i.e. crap), voltage only goes
down to 3V or so, and no adjustable max current. Not really any good for
this approach. Also, I'm not sure if the Apple II (US DM Plus, in this
case, 4116 RAM) needs the PS rails to come up in a certain order to avoid
damage. Overall, perhaps a bit too violent for this situation.
My ideas so far:
1. First thing I'll do when I get back to it is discover which PS output is
being overloaded. That might eliminate a few suspects.
2. If I'm desperate and step 1 suggests it, remove all the RAM ICs. Doesn't
take long, and I could also inspect the legs on the things, which seem to
fail with surprising regularity.
3. Panic. Hopefully this doesn't involve removing every IC on the board,
but I'd be willing if that's the safest bet.
I'm sure this has been discussed before, but at the moment Google isn't
being helpful with discussions on this list. Can anyone refresh my
memory/point me at resources/make a sensible suggestion or two? Admittedly
I'm at a really early stage without a great deal of info to put forward,
but sometimes just discussing these things helps clarify the approach
before I really dive into it.
Cheers,
Mike
5:34 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
--- On Mon, 8/29/11, Mike van Bokhoven <mike at fenz.net> wrote:
This one has a pretty obvious fault, it sinks too
much
current on a
yet-to-be-determined power supply line. Starting it up, the
PSU goes into a
startup/shutdown loop.
You can just use a multimeter to check the resistance of the power inputs to ground, to
isolate which rail is shorted out.
I'd definitely start by yanking out the RAM. RAM chips are common failures, and
they're easy to plug in backwards too. Also, check to make sure nobody plugged in the
CPU backwards or something.
In most cases of shorted boards, it's definitely possible to find the problem without
having to power up the board, by simply checking the resistance between power and ground.
Fortunately, all the chips on the motherboard are socketed...
-Ian
5:45 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
On Mon, 29 Aug 2011 17:34:59 -0700 (PDT), Mr Ian Primus
<ian_primus at yahoo.com> wrote:
You can just use a multimeter to check the resistance
of the power inputs
to ground, to isolate which rail is shorted out.
Yes, true. Though I don't know if it's a true short, or only low enough
resistance that it trips the PS's protection. Of course, knowing the output
currents of the PS, the voltage of the PS output in question, and the plain
resistance of the input on the mainboard, I could probably take a pretty
good guess.
I'd definitely start by yanking out the RAM. RAM
chips are common
failures,
and they're easy to plug in backwards too. Also,
check to make sure
nobody
plugged in the CPU backwards or something.
Right, I can give that a go. I doubt the machine's been physically confused
in that way, as the seller says that it was working when last powered up,
then failed on the next power up (a few years later). I do trust the
seller, but I'm also open to possibilities of that sort. Will have a close
inspect, reversed chips especially would be easy to spot. To be honest, I
do expect a number of failed 4116s as well. They seem to die randomly and
regularly. I should really try to buy a bunch of spares, but I've given up
on buying NOS and pulls from China. They seem to arrive jammed into chunks
of polystyrene with no anti-static protection, and very dead.
In most cases of shorted boards, it's definitely
possible to find the
problem without having to power up the board, by simply checking the
resistance between power and ground. Fortunately, all the chips on the
motherboard are socketed...
Yes - I think there might be one un-socketed IC on this board, but what are
the chances it'd be that one that was faulty? I think there are popular
laws that say the chances are about 100%, but I'm going to ignore them for
now.
Cheers,
Mike
5:37 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
I used to sell apple ]['s and repaired them, but
seldom down to the component level. Except for
the 74LS125 on the floppy drive. Users were
always frying that by plugging the ribbon cable
backwards, something you really had to work hard to do.
Anyhow, I like the idea of checking all the caps.
At 07:10 PM 8/29/2011, you wrote:
Hi everyone,
I have an Apple II mainboard I'm trying fix. I really enjoy gettting these
particular machines going, for some reason. Maybe it's that emphatic BEEP
when they finally run up... anyway...
This one has a pretty obvious fault, it sinks too much current on a
yet-to-be-determined power supply line. Starting it up, the PSU goes into a
startup/shutdown loop. The seller said he'd tested the PS in another
machine and found it worked fine. I gave it a quick test and it did seem
good, so I fitted another known-good PSU to the machine just to verify -
same symptom with the new PSU. Just as a guess, I'm suspecting caps and RAM
in that order, but it could be anything.
I 've had very little time to play with it so far, but I'm pondering my
next step. I've been considering something like this:
http://damon4.com/Default.aspx?blogentryid=112
but my bench power supply is a bit basic (i.e. crap), voltage only goes
down to 3V or so, and no adjustable max current. Not really any good for
this approach. Also, I'm not sure if the Apple II (US DM Plus, in this
case, 4116 RAM) needs the PS rails to come up in a certain order to avoid
damage. Overall, perhaps a bit too violent for this situation.
My ideas so far:
1. First thing I'll do when I get back to it is discover which PS output is
being overloaded. That might eliminate a few suspects.
2. If I'm desperate and step 1 suggests it, remove all the RAM ICs. Doesn't
take long, and I could also inspect the legs on the things, which seem to
fail with surprising regularity.
3. Panic. Hopefully this doesn't involve removing every IC on the board,
but I'd be willing if that's the safest bet.
I'm sure this has been discussed before, but at the moment Google isn't
being helpful with discussions on this list. Can anyone refresh my
memory/point me at resources/make a sensible suggestion or two? Admittedly
I'm at a really early stage without a great deal of info to put forward,
but sometimes just discussing these things helps clarify the approach
before I really dive into it.
Cheers,
Mike
360 . [Commentary] There is no idea so stupid
that you can't find a professor who believes it. --H.L. Mencken
NEW: a50mhzham at gmail.com ? N9QQB (amateur radio)
"HEY YOU" (loud shouting) ? Second Tops (Set Dancing) ? FIND ME ON FACEBOOK
43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W ? Elevation 815' ? Grid Square
EN53wc
LAN/Telecom Analyst ? Open-source Dude ? Musician
? Registered Linux User 385531
6:04 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
On Mon, 29 Aug 2011 19:37:56 -0500, Tom <a50mhzham at gmail.com> wrote:
I used to sell apple ]['s and repaired them, but
seldom down to the component level. Except for
the 74LS125 on the floppy drive. Users were
always frying that by plugging the ribbon cable
backwards, something you really had to work hard to do.
Anyhow, I like the idea of checking all the caps.
True - though there are a couple of problems. I would suspect the HF
smoothing caps, situated near current sinks (rows of RAM etc). However, 1.
I've never seen one fail on an original Apple II MB, and 2. there's a bunch
of them in parallel so I can't test them individually without lifting one
leg on each, which would be annoying to have to do. Note that my memory of
how those caps are laid out on this board is very hazy, and in fact this is
the very first II Plus board I've worked on, all the others being Europlus
(virtually the same, but still). Anyway, I may end up having to do that, of
my RAM investigations are unhelpful. And I should also be able to tell
which PS rail I have to concentrate on too, which should help.
Historically speaking - I used to do the same as you in the late 80s/early
90s. I'd buy up faulty Apple IIs and clones, repair them, and sell them at
a profit to fund my bad habits when I was at school. At the time I didn't
have a very good idea of what I was doing, but it was a good learning
experience. I'd love to track down some clones again, I only have a couple
of very conventional ones at the moment. There were some great ones, like
the clone MB in an PC/XT style case (looked identical to an XT), with an
XT-lookalike keyboard as well. And the MedFly, which I think was
Australian. And there was one made by the company that eventually became
Acer too I seem to recall (what was their name back then... damn), which
was a nice-looking thing, but not 100% Apple-compatible.
Cheers,
Mike
6:11 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
Yep, been there, done that!
http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/2009-03-23-teac-apple-disk-drive-r…
Tez
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom" <a50mhzham at gmail.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2011 12:37 PM
Subject: Re: Apple II over-current issue
I used to sell apple ]['s and repaired them, but
seldom down to the component level. Except for
the 74LS125 on the floppy drive. Users were
always frying that by plugging the ribbon cable
backwards, something you really had to work hard to do.
Anyhow, I like the idea of checking all the caps.
At 07:10 PM 8/29/2011, you wrote:
Hi everyone,
I have an Apple II mainboard I'm trying fix. I really enjoy gettting these
particular machines going, for some reason. Maybe it's that emphatic BEEP
when they finally run up... anyway...
This one has a pretty obvious fault, it sinks too much current on a
yet-to-be-determined power supply line. Starting it up, the PSU goes into a
startup/shutdown loop. The seller said he'd tested the PS in another
machine and found it worked fine. I gave it a quick test and it did seem
good, so I fitted another known-good PSU to the machine just to verify -
same symptom with the new PSU. Just as a guess, I'm suspecting caps and RAM
in that order, but it could be anything.
I 've had very little time to play with it so far, but I'm pondering my
next step. I've been considering something like this:
http://damon4.com/Default.aspx?blogentryid=112
but my bench power supply is a bit basic (i.e. crap), voltage only goes
down to 3V or so, and no adjustable max current. Not really any good for
this approach. Also, I'm not sure if the Apple II (US DM Plus, in this
case, 4116 RAM) needs the PS rails to come up in a certain order to avoid
damage. Overall, perhaps a bit too violent for this situation.
My ideas so far:
1. First thing I'll do when I get back to it is discover which PS output is
being overloaded. That might eliminate a few suspects.
2. If I'm desperate and step 1 suggests it, remove all the RAM ICs. Doesn't
take long, and I could also inspect the legs on the things, which seem to
fail with surprising regularity.
3. Panic. Hopefully this doesn't involve removing every IC on the board,
but I'd be willing if that's the safest bet.
I'm sure this has been discussed before, but at the moment Google isn't
being helpful with discussions on this list. Can anyone refresh my
memory/point me at resources/make a sensible suggestion or two? Admittedly
I'm at a really early stage without a great deal of info to put forward,
but sometimes just discussing these things helps clarify the approach
before I really dive into it.
Cheers,
Mike
360 . [Commentary] There is no idea so stupid
that you can't find a professor who believes it. --H.L. Mencken
NEW: a50mhzham at gmail.com . N9QQB (amateur radio)
"HEY YOU" (loud shouting) . Second Tops (Set Dancing) . FIND ME ON FACEBOOK
43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W . Elevation 815' . Grid Square
EN53wc
LAN/Telecom Analyst . Open-source Dude . Musician
. Registered Linux User 385531
11:22 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
Curses... all memory out, problem persists. Noted that one of the 4116s
is missing a leg, and another has had a prosthetic leg added at some
point. Next step: turns out +5V is shorted to ground. Looks a lot like
one of the (presumably tantalum?) +5V HF noise capacitors has shorted.
Anyone know any tricks that could save me from having to unsolder and
test them one by one? There are a lot of the things, >30 at a glance.
Will persevere...
Cheers,
Mike
30 Aug
30 Aug
12:26 a.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
At this stage you need a good dvm (many digits) with good low
resistance measurement facilities.
pick some 0v place make a good connection to the dvm and them go
around the 5v line looking for the smallest resistance to 0v, You are
actually measuring the track resistance and minimizing the amount of
track to the short eventually one finds an area, now do the inverse
use that as the connection point and measure the 0v resistance to that
point you should arrive at the other side of the faulty part or very
near.
One can use this method to find pcb solder shorts during manufacture
and etching fault shorts too.
Dave Caroline
On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 7:22 AM, Mike van Bokhoven <mike at fenz.net> wrote:
Curses... all memory out, problem persists. Noted that
one of the 4116s is
missing a leg, and another has had a prosthetic leg added at some point.
Next step: turns out +5V is shorted to ground. Looks a lot like one of the
(presumably tantalum?) +5V HF noise capacitors has shorted. Anyone know any
tricks that could save me from having to unsolder and test them one by one?
There are a lot of the things, >30 at a glance. Will persevere...
Cheers,
Mike
1:12 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
At this stage you need a good dvm (many digits) with good low
resistance measurement facilities.
pick some 0v place make a good connection to the dvm and them go
around the 5v line looking for the smallest resistance to 0v, You are
actually measuring the track resistance and minimizing the amount of
track to the short eventually one finds an area, now do the inverse
use that as the connection point and measure the 0v resistance to that
point you should arrive at the other side of the faulty part or very
near.
This is very difficult to do on a board with power and ground planes
since the reisstance is very low and you can't 'slide along' tje track.
With some many effective parallel paths in the power/ground planes, you
can't really 'home in' on the problem anyway/
You _might_ be able to do it uins a 4-wire technique. Apply a current
source (voltage limited to 5V!) between the power inptu conenctions and
measure the voltage across each dfecoupling capacitor in turn. The faulty
one will be the lowest (or even 0 if it's a dead short). But you need a
good millivoltmeter.
-tony
7:35 a.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
On 30 Aug 2011 at 18:22, Mike van Bokhoven wrote:
Curses... all memory out, problem persists. Noted that
one of the
4116s is missing a leg, and another has had a prosthetic leg added at
some point. Next step: turns out +5V is shorted to ground. Looks a lot
like one of the (presumably tantalum?) +5V HF noise capacitors has
shorted. Anyone know any tricks that could save me from having to
unsolder and test them one by one? There are a lot of the things, >30
at a glance. Will persevere...
Put a nice husky supply on the +5 until the tantalum to go BOOM--or
at least until it feels warm?
Maybe not so silly--I can't begin to count the times that a bad cap
has given itself away in just that manner.
--Chuck
7:38 a.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
On Tue, 30 Aug 2011, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 30 Aug 2011 at 18:22, Mike van Bokhoven wrote:
...and don't forget your eye protection (seriously).
Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us
Old Technology http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/
Curses... all memory out, problem persists. Noted
that one of the
4116s is missing a leg, and another has had a prosthetic leg added at
some point. Next step: turns out +5V is shorted to ground. Looks a lot
like one of the (presumably tantalum?) +5V HF noise capacitors has
shorted. Anyone know any tricks that could save me from having to
unsolder and test them one by one? There are a lot of the things, >30
at a glance. Will persevere...
Put a nice husky supply on the +5 until the tantalum to go BOOM--or
at least until it feels warm?
Maybe not so silly--I can't begin to count the times that a bad cap
has given itself away in just that manner.
7:55 a.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
--- On Tue, 8/30/11, Mike Loewen <mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us> wrote:
Except that there aren't any tantalum capacitors in a II+.
-Ian
Put a nice
husky supply on the +5 until the tantalum
to go BOOM--or
at least until it feels warm?
Maybe not so silly--I can't begin to count the times
that a bad cap
has given itself away in just that manner.
? ? ...and don't forget your eye protection
(seriously).
2:54 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
On Tue, 30 Aug 2011 07:35:06 -0700, "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>
wrote:
Put a nice husky supply on the +5 until the tantalum
to go BOOM--or
at least until it feels warm?
Maybe not so silly--I can't begin to count the times that a bad cap
has given itself away in just that manner.
To be honest, I did consider it. My concern was that I'd blow tracks off
the board instead! I'm just glad it didn't turn out to be necessary.
Cheers,
Mike
1:01 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
Curses... all memory out, problem persists. Noted that
one of the 4116s
is missing a leg, and another has had a prosthetic leg added at some
point. Next step: turns out +5V is shorted to ground. Looks a lot like
one of the (presumably tantalum?) +5V HF noise capacitors has shorted.
Anyone know any tricks that could save me from having to unsolder and
test them one by one? There are a lot of the things, >30 at a glance.
Will persevere...
30 is not 'a lot'. It shouldn't take more than a minute to desoder one
end of one, check if it's shorted/leaky with a multimeter, and solder it
back. That's only half an hour...
-tony
29 Aug
29 Aug
5:47 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
I'm not sure if it's the same on the Apple II as it is the Apple IIe, but a
shorted cap on the mainboard near the PSU connector caused one of my IIe's
to appear dead (apart from ticking noises in the PSU).
Terry (Tez)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike van Bokhoven" <mike at fenz.net>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2011 12:10 PM
Subject: Apple II over-current issue
Hi everyone,
I have an Apple II mainboard I'm trying fix. I really enjoy gettting these
particular machines going, for some reason. Maybe it's that emphatic BEEP
when they finally run up... anyway...
This one has a pretty obvious fault, it sinks too much current on a
yet-to-be-determined power supply line. Starting it up, the PSU goes into
a
startup/shutdown loop. The seller said he'd tested the PS in another
machine and found it worked fine. I gave it a quick test and it did seem
good, so I fitted another known-good PSU to the machine just to verify -
same symptom with the new PSU. Just as a guess, I'm suspecting caps and
RAM
in that order, but it could be anything.
I 've had very little time to play with it so far, but I'm pondering my
next step. I've been considering something like this:
http://damon4.com/Default.aspx?blogentryid=112
but my bench power supply is a bit basic (i.e. crap), voltage only goes
down to 3V or so, and no adjustable max current. Not really any good for
this approach. Also, I'm not sure if the Apple II (US DM Plus, in this
case, 4116 RAM) needs the PS rails to come up in a certain order to avoid
damage. Overall, perhaps a bit too violent for this situation.
My ideas so far:
1. First thing I'll do when I get back to it is discover which PS output
is
being overloaded. That might eliminate a few suspects.
2. If I'm desperate and step 1 suggests it, remove all the RAM ICs.
Doesn't
take long, and I could also inspect the legs on the things, which seem to
fail with surprising regularity.
3. Panic. Hopefully this doesn't involve removing every IC on the board,
but I'd be willing if that's the safest bet.
I'm sure this has been discussed before, but at the moment Google isn't
being helpful with discussions on this list. Can anyone refresh my
memory/point me at resources/make a sensible suggestion or two? Admittedly
I'm at a really early stage without a great deal of info to put forward,
but sometimes just discussing these things helps clarify the approach
before I really dive into it.
Cheers,
Mike
6:04 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
--- On Mon, 8/29/11, Terry Stewart <terry at webweavers.co.nz> wrote:
I'm not sure if it's the same on the
Apple II as it is the Apple IIe, but a shorted cap on the
mainboard near the PSU connector caused one of my IIe's to
appear dead (apart from ticking noises in the PSU).
Probably not. The II/II+ does not have the tantalum capacitors that the IIe does. My money
is on a chip that's plugged in backwards, or a shorted RAM chip.
-Ian
6:24 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
On Mon, 29 Aug 2011 18:04:54 -0700 (PDT), Mr Ian Primus
IIe
I'm not
sure if it's the same on the
Apple II as it is the Apple IIe, but a shorted cap on the
mainboard near the PSU connector caused one of my IIe's to
appear dead (apart from ticking noises in the PSU).
Probably not. The II/II+ does
not have the tantalum capacitors that the does. My money is on a chip that's plugged in
backwards, or a shorted RAM
chip.
I'm becoming more hopeful that yanking all the RAM will resolve the short.
From that point on, it's not a tricky process,
I'm quite experienced at
identifying bad 4116s. Step #1, tonight I hope!
I'll leave the first 16k
bank in place and pull banks 2 and 3. It should start fine with just 16k.
If it still does the same, will pull bank 1 as well and see if the PSU
starts up at least. If so, I'll put the contents of old bank 1 aside and
populate it with ICs from 2 and 3 (or perhaps known-good ICs from another
//+ - more sensible, I don't know if the memory in banks 2 and 3 is any
good either).
Cheers,
Mike
30 Aug
30 Aug
5:29 a.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
On 30/08/2011 1:04 p.m., Mr Ian Primus wrote:
Probably not. The II/II+ does not have the tantalum
capacitors that
the IIe does. My money is on a chip that's plugged in backwards, or a
shorted RAM chip. -Ian
Well, as it turns out, it's a bit more puzzling than that. After finding
that removing the RAM didn't help, I decided to take a closer look at
the board. First step - remove the top shell of the case. I'm always
careful about this, because it's pretty easy to damage the keyboard
cable if you just pull everything off. So, I was surprised to find that
the keyboard cable wasn't plugged in at all, just floating loose. Also a
bit concerned, because obviously the machine couldn't have been working
like that, though the seller said it was working before being put into
storage. Oh well. On the upside, the short to ground had now
mysteriously vanished, allowing the PSU to start up fine. Don't we all
love faults that disappear on their own... well, no, we don't.
Anyway, I now had a board that takes power, so I refitted one row of RAM
to give it 16k, and powered it up again, hoping for a happy beep and
video display. Optimistic. As it turns out, it now goes -click- from the
speaker, and I saw a fixed but apparently random (and different each
time i switch the machine on) pattern of dots and dashes on the monitor.
And, for some reason, three of the four 74S161Ns (at D11, 13, 14, I
think they drive the video output) get far hotter than I'd expect. I
pulled the RAM again just to see what'd happen, the behaviour stayed
exactly the same. So I figured I'd just replace the 161s with known good
ones; the pins on all four looked a bit corroded anyway, so probably a
reasonable idea. Having done that, I got a recognisable video display,
though it's still not running properly - just a bunch of ? characters,
even after fitting RAM. As it turned out, it was the cold 161 that was
faulty, the ones that became worryingly hot appeared fine (checked by
fitting them to another II+ board, just to make sure).
So, I guess that's progress. Next thing I'll do is test some RAM for the
machine, make sure I give it a good set of 4116s to work with, and go
from there.
Cheers,
Mike
29 Aug
29 Aug
6:08 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
On Tue, 30 Aug 2011 12:47:00 +1200, "Terry Stewart"
<terry at webweavers.co.nz>
wrote:
I'm not sure if it's the same on the Apple II
as it is the Apple IIe, but
a
shorted cap on the mainboard near the PSU connector
caused one of my
IIe's
to appear dead (apart from ticking noises in the PSU).
Yes, absolutely possible. Was that an electrolytic? I have a few //e MBs
with this same symptom, but I have such a gigantic pile of good //e MBs
that I haven't tried troubleshooting many faulty ones yet. My real interest
is the II+ and earlier.
On a related note, sorry about sniping this machine out from under you! I
just noticed the auction when I had a moment's downtime at work, very very
lucky timing, I think it was only 5 or 10 minutes before it ended. The
spare KB that I got with it (OK, $60...) was absolutely beautiful, it
really looks like NOS. Worth every cent, even if it didn't have the encoder
board with it. If I can find a really nice //+ case, maybe I'll build a
spotless display II+.
Cheers,
Mike
30 Aug
30 Aug
1:32 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
On a related note, sorry about sniping this machine
out from under you! I
just noticed the auction when I had a moment's downtime at work, very very
lucky timing, I think it was only 5 or 10 minutes before it ended. ....
Hi Mike,
Are you referring to the $60 Apple II+ on New Zealand's Trade Me a week or
so ago? If so, I didn't realise it was you that clinched it.
No worries though. I already have a nice Apple II+ and my bid was just so I
would have a spare board for parts. With shipping costs between islands, I
was lukewarm on it anyway, which it why my bid was no higher than the
initial listing price.
Cheers
Terry (Tez)
3:08 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
On Wed, 31 Aug 2011 08:32:28 +1200, "Terry Stewart"
<terry at webweavers.co.nz>
wrote:
Are you referring to the $60 Apple II+ on New
Zealand's Trade Me a week
or
so ago? If so, I didn't realise it was you that
clinched it.
No worries though. I already have a nice Apple II+ and my bid was just
so
I
would have a spare board for parts. With shipping costs between islands,
I
was lukewarm on it anyway, which it why my bid was no
higher than the
initial listing price.
Yes, that's the one. It was fairly expensive, but I've never worked on a
US-market II+ before, so I was very keen to have a look, see how different
it is to the Europlus. As it turns out (and as I already knew second-hand),
there are very few differences indeed. One difference appears to be that
the original US market PSU is shorter than the Europlus one that was fitted
when I got it. Whoever changed it just pulled the speaker from where it was
glued to the base in order to give enough room for the new PC, leaving the
speaker floating around loose inside the case... during shipping...
grumble. For all I know, impact damage from this has caused any number of
extra faults! It broke one of the legs off the clock crystal, for a start.
Cheers,
Mike
31 Aug
31 Aug
12:12 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
Yes, that's the one. It was fairly expensive, but
I've never worked on a
US-market II+ before, so I was very keen to have a look, see how different
it is to the Europlus. As it turns out (and as I already knew second-hand),
there are very few differences indeed. One difference appears to be that
the original US market PSU is shorter than the Europlus one that was fitted
From what I rememberm the PSUs are actually Astec
units. The scheamtic
shown in the reference manual doesn't match the PSU in my
Europluses, but
then again it's very psosibl that several versions of the PSU were used
over the years.
when I got it. Whoever changed it just pulled the
speaker from where it was
glued to the base in order to give enough room for the new PC, leaving the
speaker floating around loose inside the case... during shipping...
grumble. For all I know, impact damage from this has caused any number of
extra faults! It broke one of the legs off the clock crystal, for a start.
ARGH!.
When I wsa sortign out my (totally dead) HP9820, one of the first checks
I did after ensuring all the PSU rails were correct was the clock
circuit. This starts with an 8MHz crystal oscillator. Checkign the output
of this circuit (a couple of TTL gates, some R's and Cs, and the
(socketed) crystal) showed a very distoete waveform at aobut 20MHz. This
remained the smae when the crystal was unplugged, and was acutlaly just
the natural osciallation frequencyt of one of the gates with a resistor
linking output to input. Fitting a good crystal got it back at 8Mhz.
Intrigued, I carfully cut the can off the defective crystal to see that
the quartz (?) plate inside was acutally broken in half (there's a
picture of it in mu flickr account). I asuem this must have happend when
the machine was dropped or something.
-tony
4:10 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
On Wed, 31 Aug 2011 20:12:48 +0100 (BST), ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony
Duell) wrote:
From what I rememberm the PSUs are actually Astec
units. The scheamtic
shown in the reference manual doesn't match the PSU in my Europluses, but
then again it's very psosibl that several versions
of the PSU were used
over the years.
Yes, most if not all are from Astec, as far as I can remember. I've never
had much trouble with them, other than caps going bad. It's very cheap to
buy a new set of caps thouugh, I did that with the last Europlus I worked
on.
When I wsa sortign out my (totally dead) HP9820, one
of the first checks
I did after ensuring all the PSU rails were correct was the clock
circuit. This starts with an 8MHz crystal oscillator. Checkign the output
of this circuit (a couple of TTL gates, some R's
and Cs, and the
(socketed) crystal) showed a very distoete waveform at aobut 20MHz. This
remained the smae when the crystal was unplugged, and was acutlaly just
the natural osciallation frequencyt of one of the gates with a resistor
linking output to input. Fitting a good crystal got it back at 8Mhz.
Intrigued, I carfully cut the can off the defective crystal to see that
the quartz (?) plate inside was acutally broken in half (there's a
picture of it in mu flickr account). I asuem this must have happend when
the machine was dropped or something.
In a way I'm lucky then. The crystal is on very long legs, hovering above
the board, and it was completely obvious that it wasn't attached as it
should be. Easier than an invisible fault.
Cheers,
Mike
1 Sep
1 Sep
1:28 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
In a way I'm lucky then. The crystal is on very
long legs, hovering above
the board, and it was completely obvious that it wasn't attached as it
should be. Easier than an invisible fault.
That doesn't sound original to me. Every Apple ][ I've seen, and every
picture I've seen, has the crystal mounted close ot the board.
Had this been a Europlus, I would assme it had been converted from a US
version at some point (the mod, as I am sure you know, involves vuting
and sumpering some sodler pads and chaning the master clock crystal). I
assume you've checked the crystal is the right one, and that the jumper
pads are in the right states.
-tony
5:30 a.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
Well, another step forward. Thanks to Tony's advice, I continued
investigating the video output, and found another dead IC (74LS51 this
time). I'm beginning to wonder how a machine could end up with so many
faulty ICs; that's two in just the video circuitry. Maybe the original
PSU short to ground did something horrible. I now get a clean video
display (which rolls on the Monitor ///, but that's not a big surprise).
At this point though, I really need to replace the crystal. Holding it
so the broken leg makes contact with one hand while powering the machine
up with the other really isn't a good way of going about things; this is
why the picture's still rolling, I can't adjust the hold on the monitor
and keep the crystal steady enough with the other hand!
Silly question of the day: I'm guessing no-one would have any idea where
I'd find a 14.25045MHz crystal in New Zealand...
On 1/09/2011 7:12 a.m., Tony Duell wrote:
> ARGH!.
>
> When I wsa sortign out my (totally dead) HP9820, one of the first checks
> I did after ensuring all the PSU rails were correct was the clock
> circuit. This starts with an 8MHz crystal oscillator. Checkign the output
> of this circuit (a couple of TTL gates, some R's and Cs, and the
> (socketed) crystal) showed a very distoete waveform at aobut 20MHz. This
> remained the smae when the crystal was unplugged, and was acutlaly just
> the natural osciallation frequencyt of one of the gates with a resistor
> linking output to input. Fitting a good crystal got it back at 8Mhz.
>
> Intrigued, I carfully cut the can off the defective crystal to see that
> the quartz (?) plate inside was acutally broken in half (there's a
> picture of it in mu flickr account). I asuem this must have happend when
> the machine was dropped or something.
>
I'm actually wondering if I could do something like this to get the
machine going in the short term, while I wait for a new crystal to be
shipped. Reckon it might be possible to trim the bottom off the
crystal's can and remove it, so that I have access to the crystal
itself, and then solder a lead to the crystal side of the base? As it
stands, the original lead is broken off flush with the base, so trying
to re-attach anything to that is virtually impossible. I obviously still
have a lot of work I need to do on this machine (now that I can see the
video output, it's the typical dead-Apple mess of characters), I don't
want to put it aside for a couple of weeks while I wait for parts.
Cheers,
Mike
11:23 a.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
On 01/09/2011 13:30, Mike van Bokhoven wrote:
Well, another step forward. Thanks to Tony's
advice, I continued
investigating the video output, and found another dead IC (74LS51 this
time). I'm beginning to wonder how a machine could end up with so many
faulty ICs; that's two in just the video circuitry. Maybe the original
PSU short to ground did something horrible.
I doubt this is the cause, but I once had a similar effect with a BBC
Micro and a Torch disk pack PSU. The Torch processor, mounted upside
down inside the lid of the BBC Micro, fell off and shorted something on
the main PCB below. The PSU apparently shut down, but had a serious
voltage overshoot when it started up again, and put about 8V or more
onto the 5V rail. That took out quite a few LSTTL chips. Oh, and the
way we found out which ones was to put a big bench 5V PSU on the machine
and see what got hot because it was drawing too much current...
Silly question of the day: I'm guessing no-one
would have any idea where
I'd find a 14.25045MHz crystal in New Zealand...
No, but the standard crystal in an Apple ][ is a 14.318MHz crystal, and
that's a standard so should be very easy to find. I wonder if yours is
a special value for a non-US market? But AFAIR even the Apple Europlus
used 14.318MHz.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
2:31 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
On Thu, 01 Sep 2011 19:23:18 +0100, Pete Turnbull
<pete at dunnington.plus.com>
wrote:
This is the value I remember from many years ago when I used to mess about
with these machines. It would explain why the crystal was floating in the
air rather than glued to the board as it normally is. Looking carefully, it
looks like someone has had a fiddle with a few of the frequency settings.
The 50/60Hz pads have been changed from default, too. I expect this machine
was imported into NZ (probably from the US) when it was relatively new, and
someone's converted it to the local frame rate. Seems strange when most
monitors would have worked with it as it was.
Pondering... if this machine has 50/60Hz pads to switch it over, why would
anyone need to replace the crystal? It seems a bit odd.
Anyway, I'm strongly tempted to return it to its default configuration,
though I'm sure it'll work fine set up the way it is. At least I have a
choice; if I can't find a 14.25045MHz crystal, 14.318 would probably work
fine.
Cheers,
Mike
I doubt this is the cause, but I once had a similar
effect with a BBC
Micro and a Torch disk pack PSU. The Torch processor, mounted upside
down inside the lid of the BBC Micro, fell off and shorted something on
the main PCB below. The PSU apparently shut down, but had a serious
voltage overshoot when it started up again, and put about 8V or more
onto the 5V rail. That took out quite a few LSTTL chips. Oh, and the
way we found out which ones was to put a big bench 5V PSU on the machine
and see what got hot because it was drawing too much current...
It is possible I guess. I might have to work on the assumption that a good
number of the ICs on this board are dead. Fortunately, most of them still
seem to be easily available. And besides, I like working on these things,
right? I should be happy that my enjoyment will be stretched out a
little...
I should try to figure out exactly how the video encoder works in these
things. I hear the design is a bit... creative. Maybe there's a decent
description on the web somewhere.
> Silly question of the day: I'm guessing no-one
would have any idea where
I'd find a
14.25045MHz crystal in New Zealand...
No, but the standard crystal in an Apple ][
is a 14.318MHz crystal, and
that's a standard so should be very easy to find. I wonder if yours is
a special value for a non-US market? But AFAIR even the Apple Europlus
used 14.318MHz.
3:01 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
I should try to figure out exactly how the video
encoder works in these
things. I hear the design is a bit... creative. Maybe there's a decent
description on the web somewhere.
Actually, the video timing chain looks quite conventional.
> Silly question of the day: I'm guessing
no-one would have any idea where
I'd
find a 14.25045MHz crystal in New Zealand...
No, but the standard crystal in an
Apple ][ is a 14.318MHz crystal, and
that's a standard so should be very easy to find. I wonder if yours is
a special value for a non-US market? But AFAIR even the Apple Europlus
used 14.318MHz.
4:08 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
On Thu, 1 Sep 2011 23:01:08 +0100 (BST), ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony
Duell) wrote:
Right - thinking back, it was only the colour encoding side of things that
was a bit strange. I don't know much about NTSC or the way the Apple II
does it. Might do some research there in that case, though I think that
side of things is all fine now.
I should try
to figure out exactly how the video encoder works in these
things. I hear the design is a bit... creative. Maybe there's a decent
description on the web somewhere.
Actually, the video timing chain looks quite
conventional. The cut/jumperpads appear to change the numebr of
lines per frame only.
In other words, in the '60Hz' position, you get 525
line 60Hz video. If you changthe padsettings, you'll get something
_close_ to 625 line 50Hz video, but with the US horizotnal frequency
(15750 Hz) not the European one ((15625 Hz). Most monitors will hve no
problem wit htat at all, of course, but some things might.
Right, that explains quite a lot.
What is the current setting of the pads?
The pads have all been changed over to 50Hz, and the crystal's been
replaced. Sounds like the complete conversion's been done. I'll try running
it on a the 14.318MHz crystal; from what you say above, I doubt I'll have
an issue with that.
Cheers,
Mike
2:47 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
Silly question
of the day: I'm guessing no-one would have any idea where
I'd find a 14.25045MHz crystal in New Zealand...
No, but the standard crystal in an Apple ][ is a 14.318MHz crystal, and
that's a standard so should be very easy to find. I wonder if yours is
a special value for a non-US market? But AFAIR even the Apple Europlus
used 14.318MHz.
5:28 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
On 01/09/2011 22:47, Tony Duell wrote:
I remember the warning, I just didn't remember there being different
crystals. So I dug out my Europlus, and sure enough, I misremembered.
The crystal is 14.25045MHz instead of 14.31818MHz.
Oops, sorry!
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
>> Silly question of the day: I'm guessing
no-one would have any idea where
>> I'd find a 14.25045MHz crystal in New Zealand...
No, but the
standard crystal in an Apple ][ is a 14.318MHz crystal, and
that's a standard so should be very easy to find. I wonder if yours is
a special value for a non-US market? But AFAIR even the Apple Europlus
used 14.318MHz.
I've not batteld throught the timing circuitry, but the Apple ][
Reference Manual includes a section entitled 'Eurapple (50Hz)
Modification' which describes the cut-n-jumper pads on the mainboard. It
ends with 'Warning : This modification will void the warranty on your
Apple and requires the installation of a different main crystal. This
modification is not for beginners'. So it appears the crystal is
different for US and European models.
5:52 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
On Fri, 02 Sep 2011 01:28:33 +0100, Pete Turnbull
<pete at dunnington.plus.com>
wrote:
I remember the warning, I just didn't remember
there being different
crystals. So I dug out my Europlus, and sure enough, I misremembered.
The crystal is 14.25045MHz instead of 14.31818MHz.
Thanks for going to the trouble of checking, it's always good to have a bit
of verification.
On the annoying side, it looks like Farnell Australia doesn't stock
14.25045MHz crystals. Actually, looks like they don't exist at all, having
turned into something called Element14, though their range of crystals does
still seem pretty good.
Cheers,
Mike
8:50 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
Mike, lemme check on a couple of my Apple II+ clones junk boards. They
might have an appropriate crystal.
Terry (Tez)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike van Bokhoven" <mike at fenz.net>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, September 02, 2011 12:52 PM
Subject: Re: Apple II over-current issue
On Fri, 02 Sep 2011 01:28:33 +0100, Pete Turnbull
<pete at dunnington.plus.com>
wrote:
I remember the warning, I just didn't
remember there being different
crystals. So I dug out my Europlus, and sure enough, I misremembered.
The crystal is 14.25045MHz instead of 14.31818MHz.
Thanks for going to the trouble of checking, it's always good to have a
bit
of verification.
On the annoying side, it looks like Farnell Australia doesn't stock
14.25045MHz crystals. Actually, looks like they don't exist at all, having
turned into something called Element14, though their range of crystals
does
still seem pretty good.
Cheers,
Mike
2 Sep
2 Sep
3:01 a.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
> crystals. So I dug out my Europlus, and sure
enough, I misremembered.
> The crystal is 14.25045MHz instead of 14.31818MHz.
Mike, lemme check on a couple of my Apple II+ clones
junk boards. They
might have an appropriate crystal.
Nope, I checked and both boards have the common 14.31818MHz crystal.
Terry (Tez)
5:05 a.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
On 2/09/2011 10:01 p.m., terry stewart wrote:
Mike, lemme check on a couple of my Apple II+ clones
junk boards.
They might have an appropriate crystal.
Nope, I checked and both boards have the common 14.31818MHz crystal.
Thanks for looking anyway, Terry. I've bought and fitted a 14.31818MHz
crystal, which runs the machine fine for now. I'll just have to keep an
eye out for sources for the 14.25045MHz one.
Cheers,
Mike
12:08 a.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
On 02/09/2011 01:52, Mike van Bokhoven wrote:
On the annoying side, it looks like Farnell Australia
doesn't stock
14.25045MHz crystals. Actually, looks like they don't exist at all, having
turned into something called Element14, though their range of crystals does
still seem pretty good.
Nor do Farnell UK or Newark, and CPC and RS Components (nee Radiospares)
don't either. Common ones are 14.31818MHz (common for NTSC standards)
and 14.7456MHz (common for high baud rates).
The Element14 name amuses some of us. Farnell announced the rebranding
a couple of years ago but it doesn't seem to have taken off here,
perhaps because Acorn Computers (of BBC Micro, Archimedes and ARM fame)
owned and used the name Element14 for a decade.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
11:41 a.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
The Element14 name amuses some of us. Farnell
announced the rebranding
a couple of years ago but it doesn't seem to have taken off here,
Well, they still send out parcels (and invoices) with 'Farnell' on them,
so I, for one, am not using the new name...
To my shame, when I first heard 'Element 14', it took me a few minutes to
realise what it was refering to. Yes, I did get it in the end, withuut
having to look at a periodic table.
-tony
11:35 a.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
I remember the warning, I just didn't remember
there being different
crystals. So I dug out my Europlus, and sure enough, I misremembered.
The crystal is 14.25045MHz instead of 14.31818MHz.
Annoyingly the crystal frequency -- not even for the NTSC model -- is not
given anywhere tht I can obviosuly see in the manual. It's not in the
'Eurapple' seticon, and it's not on the schematic (neither the scheamtic
pages in the main part of the book or the fold-out one. I will add this
information to my manual.
-tony
1 Sep
1 Sep
1:55 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
Well, another step forward. Thanks to Tony's advice, I continued
investigating the video output, and found another dead IC (74LS51 this
time). I'm beginning to wonder how a machine could end up with so many
faulty ICs; that's two in just the video circuitry. Maybe the original
ICs do fail, but I wonder if this board has been mistreated in some way.
PSU short to ground did something horrible. I now get
a clean video
display (which rolls on the Monitor ///, but that's not a big surprise).
At this point though, I really need to replace the crystal. Holding it
so the broken leg makes contact with one hand while powering the machine
up with the other really isn't a good way of going about things; this is
why the picture's still rolling, I can't adjust the hold on the monitor
and keep the crystal steady enough with the other hand!
Can you not solder the wire back to the crystal, at least as a temporary fix?
Silly question of the day: I'm guessing no-one would have any idea where
I'd find a 14.25045MHz crystal in New Zealand...
At one times there were companeis who would make any crystal you wanted
(within reason), the cost went up spectacularly if you wanted it very
accurate, or wanted it quickly. But if you could wait a few months for
the part, it was affordable. Radio amateurs used ot get odd crystals made
ot put ex-PMR radios on the amateur bands, for example, but I guess
that's not done much any more.
Anyhow, there may still be such compaines around,worth a look anyway.
-tony
4:04 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
On Thu, 1 Sep 2011 21:55:49 +0100 (BST), ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony
Duell) wrote:
That's my guess. Physically it looks spotless - not even any dust, it looks
near-new. Another nice thing is that at some stage, someone has replacd the
ROM sockets with nice turned-pin ones, so I probably don't need to worry
about bad sockets there.
One thing that is odd is that there's a white dust on the other sockets,
around the legs of the ICs. I was highly suspicious of this initially, but
on close inspection with a magnifying glass, the sockets seem OK (if a bit
cheap), and measuring them indicates they're making good contact. I'm still
a bit nervous about this though. Many of the legs of the ICs have
discolouration, often ending up black. Cleaning them seems to sort that
out. I'm wondering if some of the machine's issues are due to it being
stored in a mildly corrosive environment. But, there's no trace of
corrosion on any other surfaces, only the IC legs. Further issues in this
machine could be from ICs with dirty legs, I suppose.
The broken leg came off almost perfectly flush with the bottom of the
crystal can. Believe me, I've tried to solder something to the stub, but
there's just not enough there to make a connection with acceptable
strength. I do want a crystal of the original frequency; this mod looks
like it was a period thing (quite a standard procedure though, from your
earlier post), so I'd like to keep it as part of this machine. I wouldn't
really feel bad about returning it to NTSC-ish behaviour though. I'll drop
in to RS on the way home from work today and grab a 14.318MHz crystal. That
should allow me to work on the thing this weekend.
Well, another
step forward. Thanks to Tony's advice, I continued
investigating the video output, and found another dead IC (74LS51 this
time). I'm beginning to wonder how a machine could end up with so many
faulty ICs; that's two in just the video circuitry. Maybe the original
ICs do
fail, but I wonder if this board has been mistreated in some way. > PSU short to ground did something horrible. I now
get a clean video
> display (which rolls on the Monitor ///, but that's not a big surprise).
> At this point though, I really need to replace the
crystal. Holding it
> so the broken leg makes contact with one hand while powering the machine
> up with the other really isn't a good way of
going about things; this is
why the
picture's still rolling, I can't adjust the hold on the monitor
and keep the crystal steady enough with the other hand!
Can you not solder the
wire back to the crystal, at least as a temporary
fix? > Silly question of the day: I'm guessing no-one
would have any idea where
I'd find a
14.25045MHz crystal in New Zealand...
At one times there were companeis who would
make any crystal you wanted
(within reason), the cost went up spectacularly if you wanted it very
accurate, or wanted it quickly. But if you could wait a few months for
the part, it was affordable. Radio amateurs used ot get odd crystals made ot put ex-PMR radios on the amateur bands, for
example, but I guess
that's not done much any more.
Anyhow, there may still be such compaines around,worth a look anyway.
It may be the only way to get hold of a crystal like that. On the other
hand, Rakon (fairly large crystal manufacturer) is just one suburb over
from where I live. Maybe they'd be helpful. Will
see what happens.
Cheers,
Mike
2 Sep
2 Sep
11:26 a.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
That's my guess. Physically it looks spotless -
not even any dust, it looks
near-new. Another nice thing is that at some stage, someone has replacd the
ROM sockets with nice turned-pin ones, so I probably don't need to worry
about bad sockets there.
But you've got plenty of other 'cheap' sockets to give problems :-)...
This reminds me of my Whitechapel MG1, an English 32016-based
workstation. The small chips are soldered to the PCB, the 'big stuff'
(CPU, FPU, peripheral controller, etc) are all in turned-pin sockets. But
the EPROMs (2 for the main processor, one for the peripehral controller)
are in cheap sockets. I had plenty of problems before I replaced those
sockets with turned-pin ones.
The broken leg came off almost perfectly flush with
the bottom of the
crystal can. Believe me, I've tried to solder something to the stub, but
Ah, OK...
there's just not enough there to make a connection
with acceptable
strength. I do want a crystal of the original frequency; this mod looks
like it was a period thing (quite a standard procedure though, from your
earlier post), so I'd like to keep it as part of this machine. I wouldn't
really feel bad about returning it to NTSC-ish behaviour though. I'll drop
in to RS on the way home from work today and grab a 14.318MHz crystal. That
should allow me to work on the thing this weekend.
I thought you said you wanted an Apple ][ +, not a Europlus? If so,
youwant to revers the cut/jumper pad modifications (remove the solder
from the circlar pads so they are open-circuit again
and solder a jumper
across the X-shaped ones), and fit the 14.318MHz crystal. That
will give
you NTSC video.
I suspect that was the origianl conmfiguration of the machine, as it left
the factory. So going back to that is 'correct', as would be keepign it
asa 50Hz machine. I beleive you said you had other 50Hz machines, though,
and if I was in that psotion, I'd make this one a 60Hz'er just to have
both versions around.
-tony
11:52 a.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes:
Radio amateurs used ot get odd crystals made ot put
ex-PMR radios on
the amateur bands, for example, but I guess that's not done much any
more.
Not for PMR conversions, but custom-frequency oscillators are still
useful for beacons, SDR receivers, and so on. A common approach these
days is to use a programmable clock synthesiser chip, rather than a
custom crystal; for example, SiLabs do a range of chips, some of which
are factory-programmed to a single frequency (or pair/quad of
frequencies with a selection input), and some of which can be adjusted
at runtime using I2C:
http://www.silabs.com/products/clocksoscillators/xo/
You could, for example, order a CMOS Si510 programmed to the frequency
you're after. SiLabs apparently do free samples of some of the
fixed-frequency chips...
Alternatively, if you can find a cheap crystal for a frequency a bit
higher than the one you want, you could try "penning" it down:
http://www.hanssummers.com/penning.html
--
Adam Sampson <ats at offog.org> <http://offog.org/>
1:27 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
You could, for example, order a CMOS Si510 programmed
to the frequency
you're after. SiLabs apparently do free samples of some of the
fixed-frequency chips...
Hmm.. I feel that the aim of a computer restoration (as here) is to keep
the design as origianl as possible, and not to use devices that clearly
were not available (or anything like them) when the machine was made.
I would not want to replace th clock oscilaltor in an Apple ][ with one
of these chips, therefore. Particualrly since a crystal that 'will work'
is avaialbe.
Alternatively, if you can find a cheap crystal for a
frequency a bit
higher than the one you want, you could try "penning" it down:
http://www.hanssummers.com/penning.html
I believe you can also increase the frequency by careful griding or
etching/ The etchants are darn nasty (HF is one of them...) and I suspect
it's tricky to do anyway on a sealed-can crystal. Some of the older (50
year old) crystals were in screwed-together cases and could be taken
apart for hacks like this.
But as I said in a nearlier message, since the OP doesn't have a US model
(IIRC), but has several Europlusses, I'd be inclined to revers the
Eurapple mod and fit the 14.31818 MHz crystal (which you can get),
converting to to the US model.
-tony
30 Aug
30 Aug
12:53 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
Hi everyone,
I have an Apple II mainboard I'm trying fix. I really enjoy gettting these
particular machines going, for some reason. Maybe it's that emphatic BEEP
when they finally run up... anyway...
Each to his pwn :-)
This one has a pretty obvious fault, it sinks too much current on a
yet-to-be-determined power supply line. Starting it up, the PSU goes into a
startup/shutdown loop. The seller said he'd tested the PS in another
OK, I assume you know it's the mainboard (you've remvoed all expansion
boards and unplugged the kebyaord cable).
machine and found it worked fine. I gave it a quick
test and it did seem
good, so I fitted another known-good PSU to the machine just to verify -
same symptom with the new PSU. Just as a guess, I'm suspecting caps and RAM
in that order, but it could be anything.
I 've had very little time to play with it so far, but I'm pondering my
next step. I've been considering something like this:
http://damon4.com/Default.aspx?blogentryid=112
but my bench power supply is a bit basic (i.e. crap), voltage only goes
down to 3V or so, and no adjustable max current. Not really any good for
this approach. Also, I'm not sure if the Apple II (US DM Plus, in this
case, 4116 RAM) needs the PS rails to come up in a certain order to avoid
damage. Overall, perhaps a bit too violent for this situation.
My ideas so far:
1. First thing I'll do when I get back to it is discover which PS output is
being overloaded. That might eliminate a few suspects.
Sometimes an analogue voltmeter will 'kick' on all PSU outputs except
one, that one is the one that's shorted.
Alternatively, pull the RAMs (the only thing that cares about multiple
supply rails IIRC) disconenct one PSU output at a time at the 6 pin
connecotr and apply a suitable dummy load to it. If you find an output
that, when disconnected, allows the PSU to come up, you know that's the
one that's overcurrenting.
2. If I'm desperate and step 1 suggests it, remove
all the RAM ICs. Doesn't
take long, and I could also inspect the legs on the things, which seem to
fail with surprising regularity.
3. Panic. Hopefully this doesn't involve removing every IC on the board,
but I'd be willing if that's the safest bet.
IIRC the ICs on an Apple ][ mainboard are all socketed. It doesn't take
that long to pull the lot.
-tony
3:03 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
On Tue, 30 Aug 2011 20:53:12 +0100 (BST), ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony
Duell) wrote:
Yeah, I know, I know... it's just a nostalgia thing I think! Either that or
I have a perverse appreciation of hacky solutions (to be honest, this is
actually true).
Yes. As it turned out, someone else did the KB cable for me... bah.
In the end, I found +5V was shorted directly to ground. I think that
someone has been fiddling with the machine trying to fix another fault, and
when they reassembled it, shoved the aluminium spacer that runs along the
back of the MB as far forward as it would go, causing it to touch Bad
Things. When I took the case off, I removed the spacer as well (had to to
free the rear RF shield), and... no more short. But it did leave me feeling
a bit suspicious about this machine.
> I have an Apple II mainboard I'm trying fix. I
really enjoy gettting
> these
> particular machines going, for some reason. Maybe it's that emphatic
BEEP
when they
finally run up... anyway...
Each to his pwn :-) > This one has a pretty obvious fault, it sinks too
much current on a
> yet-to-be-determined power supply line. Starting it up, the PSU goes
into
a
startup/shutdown loop. The seller said he'd tested the PS in another
OK, I
assume you know it's the mainboard (you've remvoed all expansion
boards and unplugged the kebyaord cable). My ideas so
far:
1. First thing I'll do when I get back to it is discover which PS output
is
being overloaded. That might eliminate a few suspects.
Sometimes an analogue
voltmeter will 'kick' on all PSU outputs except
one, that one is the one that's shorted.
Alternatively, pull the RAMs (the only thing that cares about multiple
supply rails IIRC) disconenct one PSU output at a time at the 6 pin
connecotr and apply a suitable dummy load to it. If you find an output
that, when disconnected, allows the PSU to come up, you know that's the
one that's overcurrenting. IIRC the ICs on an Apple ][ mainboard are all
socketed. It doesn't take
that long to pull the lot.
Yes, true. I wouldn't really mind doing this, but I really have to little
time to play with the thing, I'm hoping to avoid doing anything I don't
absolutely have to. Oh well, progress has been good.
One thing I am wondering about. The monitor I'm testing this with is a
Monitor ///. It gives a perfect picture from a Europlus (50fps), but on
this one, it looks like it can't sync to the NTSCoid output of the II+.
Might have to find something that is more 60Hz-happy. Or maybe there's
still something wrong with the video output. Will check when I next get a
moment.
Cheers,
Mike
31 Aug
31 Aug
12:06 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
One thing I am wondering about. The monitor I'm
testing this with is a
Monitor ///. It gives a perfect picture from a Europlus (50fps), but on
this one, it looks like it can't sync to the NTSCoid output of the II+.
Might have to find something that is more 60Hz-happy. Or maybe there's
still something wrong with the video output. Will check when I next get a
moment.
The horizontal frequencies (15625Hz .vs. 15750 Hz IIRC) are sufficiently
close that just about any monitor that will sync to one will sync to the
other. So if you have a problem other than vertical syuc (picture rolling
vertically), I would suspect a fault. In gneral most monitors will sync
toi 50 or 60Hz verticla if you tweak the vertical hold control (may be an
internal preset, though).
-tony
4:06 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
On Wed, 31 Aug 2011 20:06:46 +0100 (BST), ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony
Duell) wrote:
> One thing I am wondering about. The monitor
I'm testing this with is a
> Monitor ///. It gives a perfect picture from a Europlus (50fps), but on
> this one, it looks like it can't sync to the NTSCoid output of the II+.
> Might have to find something that is more 60Hz-happy. Or maybe there's
> still something wrong with the video output. Will check when I next get
a
moment.
The horizontal frequencies (15625Hz .vs. 15750 Hz IIRC) are sufficiently
close that just about any monitor that will sync to one will sync to the
other. So if you have a problem other than vertical syuc (picture rolling vertically), I would suspect a fault. In gneral most
monitors will sync
toi 50 or 60Hz verticla if you tweak the vertical hold control (may be an
internal preset, though).
Right - this monitor is doing more than just rolling, the text only appears
on the right side of the screen, and it's not stable in X or Y. I might
look at it on an NTSC monitor just to make sure the rates are right, but I
suspect that there are nasty things going on with the output. More work
required.
Cheers,
Mike
1 Sep
1 Sep
1:23 p.m.
New subject: Apple II over-current issue
Right - this monitor is doing more than just rolling,
the text only appears
on the right side of the screen, and it's not stable in X or Y. I might
look at it on an NTSC monitor just to make sure the rates are right, but I
suspect that there are nasty things going on with the output. More work
required.
A small mono monitor that you _know_ can sync to US and European TV_rate
video is a very handy thing on the test bench :-)
But I think you're right, there would appear to be other faults here. At
least all the video circuitry is plain TTL so it shouldn't be hard to get
spares, and all the timing sigals (derrived from the counter chain) are
(or at least should be) repetitive, so you can sort things out iwth a
normal 'scope, you don't need storage facilities.
-tony
3 Sep
3 Sep
4:14 p.m.
New subject: WTB/Trade Tadpole/Sparc parts
I'm looking to buy or trade the following parts:
- Tadpole 3000XT drive sled and drive
- Sun Compact 1 Keyboard (320-1194) and mouse
I have a very good selection of NeXT parts for trade.
30 Aug
30 Aug
12:36 p.m.
New subject: Train shipping ( was Re: VT fixums )
On my recent trip, I saw a fellow carrying a desktop
computer and
LCD monitor as carry-ons - with no box.
I havre no idea waht the official restrictuions are, but I've carried the
following on British trains (on serparate occasions) :
An IBM PC/AT (got the comment from a fellow traveller 'That's some
laptop' ;-))
A DEC RS02 + 2 large bags of UNibus boards and printsets
A complete GT40
An AR88 (RCA communcations receiver)
A complete EEC rainbow with keyboard and mono monitor
A complete Torch XXX system and spares
A Philips P850
An HP9100 and HP9815
Doubtless many other medium-sized computer systems...
-tony
11:02 p.m.
New subject: Train shipping ( was Re: VT fixums )
I once saw two guys push a fully populated six foot equipment rack onto a
local (rail car type) train using the wheelchair ramp. They put it in the
lobby area where the doors are and retracted the wheels. It turned out (from
their conversation) it was signaling equipment for a station further down
the line.
Regards
?
Rod Smallwood
?
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Tony Duell
Sent: 30 August 2011 20:37
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Train shipping ( was Re: VT fixums )
On my recent trip, I saw a fellow carrying a desktop
computer and
LCD monitor as carry-ons - with no box.
I havre no idea waht the official restrictuions are, but I've carried the
following on British trains (on serparate occasions) :
An IBM PC/AT (got the comment from a fellow traveller 'That's some
laptop' ;-))
A DEC RS02 + 2 large bags of UNibus boards and printsets
A complete GT40
An AR88 (RCA communcations receiver)
A complete EEC rainbow with keyboard and mono monitor
A complete Torch XXX system and spares
A Philips P850
An HP9100 and HP9815
Doubtless many other medium-sized computer systems...
-tony
4 Sep
4 Sep
2:03 p.m.
New subject: Train shipping ( was Re: VT fixums )
On 30/08/11 20:36, Tony Duell wrote:
I havre no idea waht the official restrictuions are,
but I've carried the
following on British trains (on serparate occasions) :
My current records:
One large box, sized to take a large microwave oven, containing a
photographic print drier (RC drier -- basically a fan-heater and a metal
box) and a ton of developing and printing gear (tanks, reels and so forth).
This particular box spent the entire 40min journey in the vestibule
area by the doors... thankfully Class 333s have bloody huge doors.
Turning the box on its side got it through the door and onto the local
train. While the conductor's back was turned, of course :)
Most recently:
A HP 7570A plotter in one carrier bag,
An Advantest R3361A spectrum analyser on a wheeled shopping trolley
(sans bag, but with a lot of bubble-wrap and nylon rope)
A carrier bag full of parts, cables and manuals for the plotter and SA.
Yes, my arms ached when I got home... That didn't stop me lifting it up
onto the testbench and playing with it, though! :)
--
Phil.
classiccmp at philpem.me.uk
http://www.philpem.me.uk/
7:17 p.m.
New subject: Train shipping ( was Re: VT fixums )
On 30/08/11 20:36, Tony Duell wrote:
I have a second hand
story. Bill (I think) Scripps who was well known
(and may still be) at the TRW swap meet was telling of his experience of
having no transportatation one time, and needing to go to an auction of
Rocketdyne stuff. He purchased two Atlas rocket verniers, and still had
not ride, and had to figure out what to do, as the purchases had to be
off property that day (a saturday). He took them out of their shipping
containers and proceeded to go back from the north end of the San
Fernando valley to I think Santa Monica.
He had one on the floor, and one in his lap. As he was riding the
driver was giving him the eye, and he figured he'd get booted or
arrested before arriving home.
After the bus emptied out, the driver came back to him and told him he
had been on the design team for those engines before being laid off by
Rocketdyne.
I'd really like to see his stash, he had some really rare hardware of
similar nature.
I havre no idea waht the official restrictuions
are, but I've carried
the
following on British trains (on serparate occasions) :
20 Jul
20 Jul
9:49 a.m.
In article <4E26B047.8000206 at compsys.to>,
"Jerome H. Fine" <jhfinedp3k at compsys.to> writes:
Is it possible to ship a VT52? Any idea how much it
would cost?
Yes, and I'd guess $100 minimum. If its not packed properly, it
doesn't matter how much you spent on shipping it because it will
arrive smashed.
The most important thing is to provide shock absorbing packing, orient
the unit in its normal orientation (i.e. not sideways, upside down or
some such) and to use a sturdy double-walled cardboard box, preferably
a new one and not a used one.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
8:42 a.m.
On 20 Jul 2011 at 10:46, Rod Smallwood wrote:
They had limited functions and were really glass
teletypes.
Not so the VT100. A really well engineered micro processor based
terminal with more functionality than a programmer knew what to do
with.
For their time, the VT52 terminals were quite a bit more than glass
TTYs. I've used terminals that really were glass TTYs; at most, you
could erase a screen or (hopefully) a line. There were terminals
that did not implement any sort of scrolling.
The VT-52 is pretty much full-featured with cursor positioning, erase
to end of screen/line, primitive graphics, XON/XOFF flow control and
a cursor keypad.
For its time, not bad and certainly useful--and certainly enough for
most editors and applications. One could have wished for a way to
display characters wtih attributes (reverse, bold, underlined, etc.),
but that's a minor quibble. Software-controllable scroll-lock would
have been nice...
But there were far less-capable terminals at the time. The VT52 was
one of the terminals that moved the interactive mindset away from the
teletype meme.
--Chuck
9:52 a.m.
In article <4E26950B.335.4A7DB3 at cclist.sydex.com>,
"Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> writes:
For their time, the VT52 terminals were quite a bit
more than glass
TTYs. I've used terminals that really were glass TTYs; at most, you
could erase a screen or (hopefully) a line. There were terminals
that did not implement any sort of scrolling.
Interesting! I'd have thought scrolling was a bare minimum for a CRT
terminal. So did it wrap around to the top or what?
Do you remember brand names?
For its time, not bad and certainly useful--and
certainly enough for
most editors and applications.
IIRC, one of the first "visual editor" software was a set of macros
for TECO on a VT52. The predecessor of emacs.
But there were far less-capable terminals at the time.
The VT52 was
one of the terminals that moved the interactive mindset away from the
teletype meme.
Nice summary!
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
10:23 a.m.
On 07/20/2011 12:52 PM, Richard wrote:
IIRC, one of the first "visual editor"
software was a set of macros
for TECO on a VT52. The predecessor of emacs.
Not really the predecessor of emacs, but the first implementation of
it. Editor MACroS, as a set of macros for TECO, was where the whole
emacs world began in the mid-1970s.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
10:24 a.m.
On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 12:52 PM, Richard <legalize at xmission.com> wrote:
Yep. I used that a lot under OS/8. It's why I bought a VT52 in the
first place (the VT52 emulation on the VT220 didn't quite work right -
I was originally using a VT220 because of the built-in 20mA
current-loop, and for glass-tty apps, it worked just fine). ISTR
paying around $50 for a VT52 in 1986, plus shipping, probably bought
Interesting! ?I'd have thought scrolling was a
bare minimum for a CRT
terminal. ?So did it wrap around to the top or what?
I think I've seen some non-ANSI dumb terminals that could clear the
screen (^L perhaps?) and fill the screen, but then, the text piled up
on the bottom line if your code didn't re-clear the screen.
Do you remember brand names?
I do not. Take my memories as just that - and possible inaccurate or
at least incomplete.
For its time,
not bad and certainly useful--and certainly enough for
most editors and applications.
IIRC, one of the first "visual editor" software was a set of macros
for TECO on a VT52. ?The predecessor of emacs. from Newman Computer Exchange in MI.
-ethan
11:29 a.m.
From:Chuck Guzis
Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2011 8:43 AM
On 20 Jul 2011 at 10:46, Rod Smallwood wrote:
> They had limited functions and were really glass
teletypes.
> Not so the VT100. A really well engineered micro processor based
> terminal with more functionality than a programmer knew what to do
> with.
For their time, the VT52 terminals were quite a bit
more than glass
TTYs. I've used terminals that really were glass TTYs; at most, you
could erase a screen or (hopefully) a line. There were terminals
that did not implement any sort of scrolling.
The VT-52 is pretty much full-featured with cursor
positioning, erase
to end of screen/line, primitive graphics, XON/XOFF flow control and
a cursor keypad.
For its time, not bad and certainly useful--and
certainly enough for
most editors and applications. One could have wished for a way to
display characters wtih attributes (reverse, bold, underlined, etc.),
but that's a minor quibble. Software-controllable scroll-lock would
have been nice...
As a matter of fact, I created a "3-D" version of the Star Trek game
for the VT52 (actually a clone, I think a Teleray, but code compatible
with the VT52). Even did all the spherical trig to get torpedo tracks
right.
If you remember, the BASIC version of the game would type out an 8x8
sector map, showing stars, Klingons, and the Romulan. I was exposed
to this game under VSBASIC on a 370/168 under Wylbur at the University
of Chicago Comp Center; I read the entire source, thought "I can do
better than this," and wrote a version in PL/I that would clear the
screen of a VT52, type 8 8x8 sector maps, with a ship's status display
in the center of the screen.
It ran interactively under TSO. <hrrkkk!>
Not long after, I was introduced to Adventure on the DEC-20, and a love
affair began that has not ended to this day.
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
11:59 a.m.
In article <CC28F43ED4708D489ABCF68D06D7F55604243E449B at 505DENALI.corp.vnw.com>,
Rich Alderson <RichA at vulcan.com> writes:
As a matter of fact, I created a "3-D"
version of the Star Trek game
for the VT52 (actually a clone, I think a Teleray, but code compatible
with the VT52). Even did all the spherical trig to get torpedo tracks
right.
If you remember, the BASIC version of the game would type out an 8x8
sector map, showing stars, Klingons, and the Romulan. I was exposed
to this game under VSBASIC on a 370/168 under Wylbur at the University
of Chicago Comp Center; I read the entire source, thought "I can do
better than this," and wrote a version in PL/I that would clear the
screen of a VT52, type 8 8x8 sector maps, with a ship's status display
in the center of the screen.
It ran interactively under TSO. <hrrkkk!>
Not long after, I was introduced to Adventure on the DEC-20, and a love
affair began that has not ended to this day.
Please, please, please tell me you kept the source code? :-)
I played the same game with the 8x8 sector map, but ours was compiled
on the HP-2000, so I couldn't read the source :-(.
Also, I've been told that the original TETRIS was coded with ASCII
graphics for a VT52.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
12:24 p.m.
On Wed, 20 Jul 2011, Richard wrote:
In article
<CC28F43ED4708D489ABCF68D06D7F55604243E449B at 505DENALI.corp.vnw.com>,
Rich Alderson <RichA at vulcan.com> writes:
It's not clear what sort of terminal was used, but it is known that the
original Tetris was written for the Elektronika 60 (an lsi-11 pdp11
clone).
--
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?
As a matter of fact, I created a "3-D"
version of the Star Trek game
for the VT52 (actually a clone, I think a Teleray, but code compatible
with the VT52). Even did all the spherical trig to get torpedo tracks
right.
If you remember, the BASIC version of the game would type out an 8x8
sector map, showing stars, Klingons, and the Romulan. I was exposed
to this game under VSBASIC on a 370/168 under Wylbur at the University
of Chicago Comp Center; I read the entire source, thought "I can do
better than this," and wrote a version in PL/I that would clear the
screen of a VT52, type 8 8x8 sector maps, with a ship's status display
in the center of the screen.
It ran interactively under TSO. <hrrkkk!>
Not long after, I was introduced to Adventure on the DEC-20, and a love
affair began that has not ended to this day.
Please, please, please tell me you kept the source code? :-)
I played the same game with the 8x8 sector map, but ours was compiled
on the HP-2000, so I couldn't read the source :-(.
Also, I've been told that the original TETRIS was coded with ASCII
graphics for a VT52.
2:22 p.m.
In article <alpine.DEB.2.00.1107201218450.12354 at sleipnir.cs.csubak.edu>,
David Griffith <dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu> writes:
On Wed, 20 Jul 2011, Richard wrote:
I think this is the video I watched that made me think VT-52:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0gAgQQHFcQ>
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
Also, I've been told that the original TETRIS
was coded with ASCII
graphics for a VT52.
It's not clear what sort of terminal was used, but it is known that the
original Tetris was written for the Elektronika 60 (an lsi-11 pdp11
clone).
1:19 p.m.
On 20/07/2011 19:59, Richard wrote:
Rich Alderson <RichA at vulcan.com> writes:
> As a matter of fact, I created a "3-D" version of the Star Trek game
> for the VT52 (actually a clone, I think a Teleray, but code compatible
> with the VT52). Even did all the spherical trig to get torpedo tracks
> right.
Please, please, please tell me you kept the source
code? :-)
That's what I was going to say :-) It would be a very worthy addition
to my Star Trek page http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/startrek/
It needs a bit of updating, though (my webpage, not Rich's program ;-))
I played the same game with the 8x8 sector map, but
ours was compiled
on the HP-2000, so I couldn't read the source :-(.
Mike Mayfield's HP2000 version is on my page (the one online is from a
tape. Originally I had a copy from a listing, and there are still some
copies of that floating around t'internet, mostly with free typos). The
compiled version is probably the same or very similar.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
4:30 p.m.
From: Pete Turnbull
Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2011 1:19 PM
On 20/07/2011 19:59, Richard wrote:
> Rich Alderson <RichA at vulcan.com> writes:
>> As a matter of fact, I created a
"3-D" version of the Star Trek
>> game for the VT52 (actually a clone, I think a Teleray, but code
>> compatible with the VT52). Even did all the spherical trig to get
>> torpedo tracks right.
> Please, please, please tell me you kept the source
code? :-)
That's what I was going to say :-) It would be a
very worthy addition
to my Star Trek page http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/startrek/
It needs a bit of updating, though (my webpage, not Rich's program ;-))
I'm sure that I have the source code on a tape in my storage locker.
(After all, I still have card decks from my undergraduate days about four
years earlier. :-)
I just have to find a spherical dual neuter pronoun first.[1]
Rich
[1] Little linguist humour, there. Very little, probably.
12:23 p.m.
I have a friend whose research group was transferred from Cornell to
the U of I. He brought with him a copy of Star Trek written for the
VT11, with a lot of options on it. I have a VT11, but only a VR12, and
not a VR14 or VR17. I should have the program on a RK05 pack
somewhere. Brings back some great memories. I also fell for adventure,
and kept a PDP-150 at my parents home so I could play during visits.
Paul
On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 1:29 PM, Rich Alderson <RichA at vulcan.com> wrote:
From:Chuck Guzis
Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2011 8:43 AM
On 20 Jul 2011 at 10:46, Rod Smallwood wrote:
> They had limited functions and were really
glass teletypes.
> Not so the VT100. A really well engineered micro processor based
> terminal with more functionality than a programmer knew what to do
> with.
For their time, the VT52 terminals were quite a
bit more than glass
TTYs. ?I've used terminals that really were glass TTYs; at most, you
could erase a screen or (hopefully) a line. ?There were terminals
that did not implement any sort of scrolling.
The VT-52 is pretty much full-featured with
cursor positioning, erase
to end of screen/line, primitive graphics, XON/XOFF flow control and
a cursor keypad.
For its time, not bad and certainly useful--and
certainly enough for
most editors and applications. ?One could have wished for a way to
display characters wtih attributes (reverse, bold, underlined, etc.),
but that's a minor quibble. ?Software-controllable scroll-lock would
have been nice...
As a matter of fact, I created a "3-D" version of the Star Trek game
for the VT52 (actually a clone, I think a Teleray, but code compatible
with the VT52). ?Even did all the spherical trig to get torpedo tracks
right.
If you remember, the BASIC version of the game would type out an 8x8
sector map, showing stars, Klingons, and the Romulan. ?I was exposed
to this game under VSBASIC on a 370/168 under Wylbur at the University
of Chicago Comp Center; I read the entire source, thought "I can do
better than this," and wrote a version in PL/I that would clear the
screen of a VT52, type 8 8x8 sector maps, with a ship's status display
in the center of the screen.
It ran interactively under TSO. <hrrkkk!>
Not long after, I was introduced to Adventure on the DEC-20, and a love
affair began that has not ended to this day.
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
21 Jul
21 Jul
12:06 a.m.
The 50/52 where originally considered to be a component in a DEC system. The
VT100 was designed to be sold to and did sell to a wider marketplace.
Regards
?
Rod Smallwood
?
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Chuck Guzis
Sent: 20 July 2011 16:43
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: RE: VT fixums
On 20 Jul 2011 at 10:46, Rod Smallwood wrote:
They had limited functions and were really glass
teletypes.
Not so the VT100. A really well engineered micro processor based
terminal with more functionality than a programmer knew what to do
with.
For their time, the VT52 terminals were quite a bit more than glass
TTYs. I've used terminals that really were glass TTYs; at most, you
could erase a screen or (hopefully) a line. There were terminals
that did not implement any sort of scrolling.
The VT-52 is pretty much full-featured with cursor positioning, erase
to end of screen/line, primitive graphics, XON/XOFF flow control and
a cursor keypad.
For its time, not bad and certainly useful--and certainly enough for
most editors and applications. One could have wished for a way to
display characters wtih attributes (reverse, bold, underlined, etc.),
but that's a minor quibble. Software-controllable scroll-lock would
have been nice...
But there were far less-capable terminals at the time. The VT52 was
one of the terminals that moved the interactive mindset away from the
teletype meme.
--Chuck
20 Jul
20 Jul
9:48 a.m.
In article <ACE7C45567754D868D043CD186471993 at RODSDEVSYSTEM>,
"Rod Smallwood" <rodsmallwood at btconnect.com> writes:
Inside the 50 and 52 were very much television
technology. The boards were
large, single sided, full of wire links and made from a cheap paper based
PCB. (Phenolic?)
Did the VT5x have a microprocessor or was it discrete logic?
I know the VT05 has discrete logic.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
2:59 p.m.
> Inside the 50 and 52 were very much television
technology. The boards were
> large, single sided, full of wire links and made from a cheap paper based
I often wondered why they did that. DEC had been making double-sided PCBs
for years before the VT50 seires, and I can't believe fitting all those
links was cost-effective.
Incidentally, the graphics board i na VT55 is a fibreglass PCB. At least
double sided, may well have internal power and groudn planes.
PCB.
(Phenolic?)
Did the VT5x have a microprocessor or was it discrete logic?
12 Jul
12 Jul
3 p.m.
On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 4:20 PM, Alexandre Souza - Listas
<pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com> wrote:
> Just a reminder - this Saturday, just a few days
away, RCS will be
> doing triage on our big pile of VT100s and VT100oids.
I wish I could be there for it.
> We need the space! Incoming Cray!
That sounds like fun!
? This is something I always wanted to have, It is
just me, or the VT100 is
the most beautiful of all terminals?
The first terminal I used on a regular basis was the VT220 (when it
was mere months old), but I spent much more time on VT100s.
Occasionally, I preferred a feature or two of the VT220 over its older
brother, but for solid ASCII game play and just banging away at 80x24
C code, I really did like the VT100 family. The VT102 was easier to
deal with than a true VT100 (AVO and such), but the aesthetic was the
same.
I used a VT52 much later - it was painful.
-ethan
13 Jul
13 Jul
9:06 a.m.
I must be very lucky ...
I own a VT55-FB (similar to VT-52), one VT05 *and* the Dasher D2.
I might sell the Dasher D2 for a good bid (but you would have to take the
printer and the DG NOVA 3 as well, so shipping is no option).
The VT05 is very dear to me, but for 250K I'd sell in a wink of an eye
(but still with pain in my heart, it *is* a beauty!).
Of course I have some other "VT" terminals too: 100, 220, 240, 320, 420,
510 and the VT525. The latter is not really a terminal like the rest. It is
a
base unit to which you connect a VGA screen.
I just wished I had the space to set them all up neatly, and connected!
- Henk.
--------------------------------------------------
From: "William Donzelli" <wdonzelli at gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2011 3:30 PM
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: VT fixums
What about the
VT05? Its quite cool. And has the most space age
influenced
design I've seen...
Yes, and the original Data General Dasher D2 as well.
The VT100 was clearly entirely designed by engineers (as was the
VT-50/52), but it looks like they actually hired an industrial design
consultant for the VT05. Past the VT100, all terminals get really
boring looking. Perhaps there are a few exceptions, like the chiseled
look of Wyse tubes.
--
Will
10:22 a.m.
In article <BAY155-ds1774643C24D8794484A01F86470 at phx.gbl>,
"Henk Gooijen" <henk.gooijen at hotmail.com> writes:
I must be very lucky ...
I own a VT55-FB (similar to VT-52), one VT05 *and* the Dasher D2.
Yes, you are very lucky. You're the only person I know of that has
the VT55: VT52 + graphics.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
12:11 p.m.
I must be very
lucky ...
I own a VT55-FB (similar to VT-52), one VT05 *and* the Dasher D2.
Yes, you are very lucky. You're the only person I know of that has
the VT55: VT52 + graphics.
10:43 p.m.
Nasty thing that printer - It had a sharp serrated tear off bar and loads of
people got cut by it. If I remember rightly it had a helically wound wire on
a cylinder running against a bar on the other side of the paper. It was said
it worked in the same way as the WWII German Hellschreiber fax system.
Regards
?
Rod Smallwood
?
?
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Tony Duell
Sent: 13 July 2011 20:11
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: VT fixums
Now you know 2 such people. I have a (working) VT55 with the 'copier'
(electrolytic printer) installed. I've never managed to get that to work
9maybe jsut old paper, etc) but the rest of the terminal works perfectiy.
One odd thing abotu the VT52 is that the PCBs are all single-sided with
hundreds of wire links., Was that really cheaper/more relaible than a
double-sided PCB? The VT55 graphics board is actually the same form
factor as a DEC Hex-height board, but the edge conenctors don't plug into
anything (I forget if the fingersare conencted to anytraces o nthe PCB),
there are some cables soldered to the board that plug into the VTv2
logic boards.
-tony
I must be very
lucky ...
I own a VT55-FB (similar to VT-52), one VT05 *and* the Dasher D2.
Yes, you are very lucky. You're the only person I know of that has
the VT55: VT52 + graphics.
15 Jul
15 Jul
1:43 p.m.
Nasty thing that printer - It had a sharp serrated tear off bar and =
loads of
people got cut by it. If I remember rightly it had a helically wound =
wire on
a cylinder running against a bar on the other side of the paper. It was =
said
it worked in the same way as the WWII German Hellschreiber fax system.
IT's certianly similar in concept to Hell. It's an electrolytic process,
and one of the electrodes is replacable (you get a new one with each roll
of paper). I am not sure if it's metla deposited on the paper or a
chemical change in something that the paper is soaked in that causes the
image to appear.
The spinning helix (one of the electrodes) and the moving paper
effectively give you a scanning spot ove the paper and my applying a
high-ish voltage (I think around 70-V) betwen the elctrodes you get a dot
at that point. Or at least that's what's supposed to happen. Mine gous
throug hte motions and feds out the paper, but it's totally blank. The HV
ispresent, I'e tried another paper roll, etc. And yes, I did mosten the
pad inside the printer.
-tony
14 Jul
14 Jul
1:54 a.m.
On Wed, 13 Jul 2011, Richard wrote:
Google for "DEC VT55", first result: apparently, we have one, too ;-)
Christian
I must be very
lucky ...
I own a VT55-FB (similar to VT-52), one VT05 *and* the Dasher D2.
Yes, you are very lucky. You're the only person I know of that has
the VT55: VT52 + graphics.
18 Jul
18 Jul
7:15 p.m.
Am 13.07.2011 18:06, schrieb Henk Gooijen:
I must be very lucky ...
I own a VT55-FB (similar to VT-52), one VT05 *and* the Dasher D2.
I must be even
more lucky... I had the choice to get a few of these VT52
beasts. But didn't take one because I don't like them :-) Or do I have
one sitting somewhere on the shelf?
An I have a VT05. And I had a Dasher D2. It looked nice. But I gave it
to someone who is more DG affiliated... Don't remember the price. Was
for free or something less than EUR 25.
I also have a VT06....
Regards,
Philipp
19 Jul
19 Jul
9:29 a.m.
In article <4E24E8D1.9030709 at hachti.de>,
Philipp Hachtmann <hachti at hachti.de> writes:
I also have a VT06....
That might be the only one in existence at this point.
Please don't scrap it without making it available to others :)
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
9:34 a.m.
On 07/19/2011 12:29 PM, Richard wrote:
In article<4E24E8D1.9030709 at hachti.de>,
Philipp Hachtmann<hachti at hachti.de> writes:
Look who you're talking to. I don't think there's any risk of that.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
I also have a VT06....
That might be the only one in existence at this point.
Please don't scrap it without making it available to others :)
10:08 a.m.
On 19 Jul 2011 at 12:34, Dave McGuire wrote:
On 07/19/2011 12:29 PM, Richard wrote:
Isn't that just a rebadged Datapoint 3300? It's not a real DEC
product.
--Chuck
In article<4E24E8D1.9030709 at hachti.de>,
Philipp Hachtmann<hachti at hachti.de> writes:
Look who you're talking to. I don't think there's any risk of
that. I also have a VT06....
That might be the only one in existence at this point.
Please don't scrap it without making it available to others :)
3:18 p.m.
Am 19.07.2011 18:29, schrieb Richard:
In article<4E24E8D1.9030709 at hachti.de>,
Philipp Hachtmann<hachti at hachti.de> writes:
I've been told that I
have two - forgot the other one.
The other is a Data Point 3300 without VT05 and DEC on it...
I also have a VT06....
That might be the only one in existence at this point. Please don't scrap it without making it available
to others :)
Currently not :-)
13 Jul
13 Jul
10:05 a.m.
In article <84F8810A88C044B09E8490CA8C175046 at portajara>,
"Alexandre Souza - Listas" <pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com> writes:
This is something I always wanted to have, It is
just me, or the VT100
is the most beautiful of all terminals?
Beautiful? Its just you.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
1:41 p.m.
This is
something I always wanted to have, It is just me, or the VT100
is the most beautiful of all terminals?
Beautiful? Its just you.
11:34 a.m.
William Donzelli wrote:
And not to forget ... IIRC, the VT220 was the only DEC terminal that
supported both RS-232 and 20 mA current loop. Not at the same time,
but it was as simple as going through "Setup", et voil?!
VT100's could do the same, although not through Setup. You could
install the 20 mA current loop option at the back side (behind the big
vertical panel), but that automatically rendered the RS-232 connection
dead. I have done that installation once, and was surprised that the
RS-232 was dead. I kinda hoped that both would work in parallel, and
I'd simply just connect one of the two (25-pin DSUB or 8-pin MOLEX).
- Henk.
Past the VT100, all terminals get really boring
looking. Perhaps there
are a few exceptions, like the chiseled look of Wyse tubes.
I always liked the VT220; while the keyboard was quite enormous, the
terminal itself lent itself nicely to being tucked into a corner, rather
than taking up lots of desk space. I did rather like the styling, too,
which was far less boxy than a lot of terminals out there. I still regret
giving mine away, and will hopefully find another one sometime! :-)
cheers
Jules
11:40 a.m.
On Wed, Jul 13, 2011 at 2:34 PM, Henk Gooijen <henk.gooijen at hotmail.com> wrote:
And not to forget ... IIRC, the VT220 was the only DEC
terminal that
supported both RS-232 and 20 mA current loop. Not at the same time,
but it was as simple as going through "Setup", et voil?!
I did use that feature to hang a VT220 off of a PDP-8/L. The VT220
was my only current-loop terminal
At the time I did this, the terminal was worth several times the price
of the PDP-8. Now, I'd say this relationship has inverted.
-ethan
18 Jul
18 Jul
7:11 p.m.
Am 13.07.2011 20:34, schrieb Henk Gooijen:
And not to forget ... IIRC, the VT220 was the only DEC
terminal that
supported both RS-232 and 20 mA current loop.
Really? What is the mate-n lock
connector on the back of the VT05 for? I
never used it but silently assumed that it was a 20mA interface...
19 Jul
19 Jul
9:28 a.m.
In article <4E24E7E1.6070504 at hachti.de>,
Philipp Hachtmann <hachti at hachti.de> writes:
Am 13.07.2011 20:34, schrieb Henk Gooijen:
GIGI also has support for RS-232 and 20mA current loop.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
And not to forget ... IIRC, the VT220 was the
only DEC terminal that
supported both RS-232 and 20 mA current loop.
Really? What is the mate-n lock
connector on the back of the VT05 for? I
never used it but silently assumed that it was a 20mA interface...
20 Jul
20 Jul
1:38 p.m.
From: "Pete Turnbull" <pete at dunnington.plus.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2011 10:19 PM
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: VT fixums
On 20/07/2011 19:59, Richard wrote:
Ditto! I'd love to get that source code too, but if it appears on Pete's
page,
that would be great. BTW Pete, that StarTrek page is already a lot bigger
than the last time I had a look at it. Sure need to read it again!
I seem to remember to have a StarTrek game with the famous 8x8 plot
written in 6800 (or was it 6809?) assembler. I have the original manual
with the source code listing, but I did scan that while I worked at Oc? :-)
Should I start looking for it on my (off-line) backup disk?
greetz,
- Henk.
Rich Alderson <RichA at vulcan.com>
writes:
> As a matter of fact, I created a "3-D" version of the Star Trek game
> for the VT52 (actually a clone, I think a Teleray, but code compatible
> with the VT52). Even did all the spherical trig to get torpedo tracks
> right.
Please, please, please tell me you kept the
source code? :-)
That's what I was going to say :-) It would be a very worthy addition to
my Star Trek page http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/startrek/
It needs a bit of updating, though (my webpage, not Rich's program ;-))
I played the same game with the 8x8 sector map,
but ours was compiled
on the HP-2000, so I couldn't read the source :-(.
Mike Mayfield's HP2000 version is on my page (the one online is from a
tape. Originally I had a copy from a listing, and there are still some
copies of that floating around t'internet, mostly with free typos). The
compiled version is probably the same or very similar.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
2:22 p.m.
On 20/07/2011 21:38, Henk Gooijen wrote:
Ditto! I'd love to get that source code too, but
if it appears on Pete's
page,
that would be great. BTW Pete, that StarTrek page is already a lot bigger
than the last time I had a look at it.
I haven't updated it in over five years!
I seem to remember to have a StarTrek game with the
famous 8x8 plot
written in 6800 (or was it 6809?) assembler. I have the original manual
with the source code listing, but I did scan that while I worked at Oc? :-)
Should I start looking for it on my (off-line) backup disk?
Yes please :-)
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
4856
days inactive
4911
days old
166 comments
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